Jun 09, 2009

7 Ways To Build Your Child's Confidence

Here's one of the best bits of parenting advice you'll ever find: "a confident child is more likely to be a success in life, more likely to be liked in life, and more likely to be happy in life".Isn't that what you want?

Here are 7 parenting tips to build up confidence in your child:

1 - Always praise your child for the things she does right. Even if they are little things, make them important and let her know that she did well.

2 - Let your child do things. Even if she is not quite ready to do certain tasks, help her make a start and don't worry if it doesn't turn out right.

3 - Believe in your child and let her know it! Don't pressurize her to be something she can't be. Just let her know that you believe in her ability to (occasionally) do great things.

4 - Only critisise a behaviour - not the child. Always avoid too much criticism of her when she does things wrong. It's much better to criticise the behaviour - that way she can distance what she does from what she is.

5 - Show an interest in your child's interests. They will probably be boring to you, and you may not understand them. But they are important to her, so show a respect and interest in the things she does.

6 - Accept your child's fears and insecurities. Never belittle them or brush them aside. Remember the time when you were young and the things that made you afraid and try to understand.

7 - They say laughter is the best medicine, and it is. That's why you should always laugh with your child and never at her. Healthy laughter is a wonderful way to bond tightly. It is also something you will both thoroughly enjoy. Remember, a confident child is a happy one, more likely to be liked in life, and more likely to succeed in life. Confidence is a wonderful parenting style to apply to your little one today.

by: John Coutts

Developing Your Baby's Brain

Have you ever wondered why toys for babies tend to have so many bells, whistlesand lights? Or why they have so many different textures, and materials and colors? It's almost as if we want to provide young babies with a whole world of stimulation and we can't quite get it to them fast enough.

Play gyms or activity gyms as they are sometimes called tend to be a firm favorite with babies from newborn up to about 12 months. These play gyms and activity nests mostly comein the form of comfortable, quilted or softly padded playmats, sometimes raised at the edges with a space in the middle for baby (like a ring doughnut). And these play gyms can be either brightly colored or in soft, pastel shades. But don't be fooled by thinking they are just snug and comfy resting places forbabies to fall asleep in! These activity gyms can provide a plethora of visual, audio and tactile stimulationfor fast developing young inquisitive minds. Often decorated with well known and lovable characters, Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger, Eyore, or farm and zoo animals as well, they can consist of detachable, hanging parts for small babies to try to grasp. They tend to have parts that are crinkly, soft, scrunchy textures for baby to touch, squeeze and stroke. Some come with bright twinklinglights and bells and others make funny sounds, or musical sounds, and some even do both. You will often find mirrors attached to these activity gyms, so that your baby gets to find and see its own reflection, often providing hours of fun for babies and carers alike. All of this is extremely important for developing young minds.

Babies are like a sponge, they are ready to absorb whatever information they can - and boy - they can't grasp it fast enough! A lot of new research points to the first three years of life as being critical to a baby's developing brain. It is a known fact that during this period, not only does the brain triple in weight but it also establishes thousands of billions of nerve connections.

Astonishingly, at the age of three, a young child has twice as many nerve connections as many adults. Therefore,in your role as a parent, or primary care giver, it is of paramount importance that you recognize this and understand just how much development is taking place inside your young baby's brain from birth until the age of three.

At birth, children have most of the neurons (brain cells) they need for a lifetime however, these brain cells are not yet linked (or "wired") together to form the complex networks that are required for mature thought processes to take place.

And what happens is that in the early years, young children's brain cells form these connections, or synapses as they are commonly called, very very rapidly. One of the crucial ingredients to aiding these connections to form, is experience, and repetition. In a word, the more times you repeat something new, like showing a baby how to scrunch up a ball, the quicker these connections are formed. Therefore, it naturally follows that the more positive interaction you give an infant or toddler, the more you are helping to stimulate young brains. This stimulation causes new connections to form neural pathways and strengthens existing ones.

Playing with activity gyms, with all the bells and whistles that they offer or reading to a child, anything which allows a child to have positive, interactive processes, will aid your child's brain development.

So, as you lovingly sit and watch your young baby laughing and gurgling on the play mat or under the activity gym - do not under estimate the power of the changes taking place in the brain, all enriching an inquisitive mind and arming it with a plethora of knowledge and understanding for years to come.

by: Ishi Bansal
About the author: I Bansal is a mother of two and webmaster of http://www.1st-toys-online.com