There is a good reason why all moms encourage their toddlers to play as much as possible. The reason is grounded in scientific research. Studies show strong links between play and development of social and cognitive skills among toddlers. Such skills are vital for toddlers to be able to learn complex concepts when they are older. For instance, there is a link between play and growth/development in memory, oral language, self-regulations and symbol recognition. Play is also linked to improved literacy skills and social development as a whole. To get a more in-depth understanding on why it is important for toddlers to play, below are 10 ways toddlers prosper from play.

1. Play stretches a toddler’s imagination: Playtime for toddlers is a viewed as a chance to experiment and stretch imagination. During play, a toddler can fly, ride a unicorn, save the planet and be a ballet or a football star without any interruptions or restrictions. This stretches a toddler’s imagination which is very important for developing cognitive and social skills.

 2. Play promotes learning: Play also presents toddlers a perfect opportunity to learn by doing. As much as kids learn from seeing, it is equally important for them to learn by doing. Kids discover very many things about their surroundings during playful explorations. This helps in proper social development as well as self regulation. For instance, through play, a kid can learn to avoid high grounds because they might fall and injure themselves.

 3. Play helps in talent discovery and development: Playtime offers parents an excellent opportunity to discover and develop their kid’s talents. Kids love different games/activities. Without play, it would be very hard for parents to identify and develop their kid’s talents. Playtime also helps kids discover what they like doing on their own. In the process, kids can build confidence and self esteem.

 4. Play prepares toddlers for socialization: Playtime is an excellent opportunity for toddlers to interact with each other. Playtime also offers opportunities for sharing and taking turns. Such opportunities are perfect for making sure your kid is properly socialized for the future.

 5. Playtime helps toddlers work on their emotions: Toddlers have to learn from scratch how to deal with emotions such as sadness, anger and frustration otherwise such emotions may affect them negatively in the future. Playtime offers a perfect opportunity for a toddler to learn how to constructively deal with negative emotions.

 6. Play promotes language development: Playtime offers numerous opportunities for toddlers to talk to other friends, their toys i.e. dolls e.t.c. These are perfect opportunities for language development. As long as your kid is trying to talk or talking, they are definitely in the right language development path.

 7. Play empowers kids: Toddlers are usually brought up with numerous restrictions which are necessary for their own safety. For instance, a toddler will grow up knowing it’s not good to touch things. Although these restrictions are there for safety purposes, they can be very limiting, hindering experimentation which is very important for kids to develop properly. Play empowers kids to do whatever they want without restrictions.

 8. Play encourages creativity and problem solving: Kids are most creative when they are playing because they are free and empowered. Popular playtime activities like building forts, painting murals, dressing dolls, cooking imaginary foods e.t.c. are perfect for sparking creativity. These activities also help kids develop problem solving skills.

 9. Play develops fine motor and eye-hand coordination skills: Constructive play activities for kids i.e. using blocks, solving puzzles, buttoning doll clothes e.t.c. helps to develop fine motor and eye-hand coordination skills which is very important for developing more complex skills in the future.

 10. Play promotes fitness: Kid’s fitness is as important as adult fitness. In fact kid’s fitness is more important because it is capable of laying a solid foundation for a lifetime of fitness. For instance, most kid games are actually exercises disguised as fun. If your kid loves a certain physically engaging game i.e. football from a young age, the game is capable of laying a solid foundation for lifetime fitness which attracts a ton of health benefits.

In summary, the above information is adequate to help any parent understand why it is important for toddlers to play. Although there may be other benefits derived by toddlers during play, the above 10 benefits summarize the importance of playtime among toddlers perfectly.

 

In case you ever loved reading books as a youngster, you must know that the literary world has completely changed for this age group. The adolescent category of books didn’t even exist around 30 years ago. Currently, there are many different choices among readers who don’t want to focus on traditional books for older children, while avoiding completely adult books.

Inspite of so many choices, there’s been a crisis among readers. Children tend to lose their reading habit when they enter high school. This should not be ignored. There are some effective strategies to make sure this habit does not become permanent.

Basics of Reading

When a kid is in elementary school, reading is all about fun. Parents and schools focus on building some sense of excitement regarding books. Reading aloud in the class and organizing book fairs are some good ways to encourage a child and give him an opportunity to explore the literary world. However, something changes when a child enters middle school.

 Anne Reeves, Professor at Susquehanna University, has been doing some research in adolescent literature. She has covered many case studies and authored books on this issue. According to her, most of her students were avid readers when they were young, but stopped reading as they grew older. Most of the kids didn’t enjoy reading anymore. According to Reeves, when students enter middle schools, they don’t have the freedom to read something they choose. Most of their reading is related to subjects in which they may not have much interest. Therefore, they choose other options to spend their time. Hanging out with friends, video games, sports and clubbing becomes a priority, and books just take a backstep.

Steve Alten, Young-Adult author, also agrees with Reeves. He believes that when children get closer to high school, they are required to read classic novels or other subject books which may not be interesting or relevant to them. A teenager does not usually want to read 100 year old novels. Thus, reading does not seem like fun any longer.

Reeves believes that there should be a separate focus on curriculum for subject books and classic novels. They should not be a part of the mainstream reading curriculum. Teachers should be clear about the basic purpose of reading. They need to understand that reading helps young adults experience different lives, and understand different characters. When children have to read something in which they’re not interested, literature seems boring to them.

While reading needs to be enjoyable entertaining, the act of reading offers more benefits than just entertainment. In order to create lifelong readers, schools need to focus on teaching literature as projects that young minds appreciate. According to Steve Alten, the act of reading can be used to familiarize a child with the way words are spelled and grouped. It can also increase vocabulary. The act of reading is an ongoing process. It matures with the child’s age. Most educators don’t realize it, but reading can also be beneficial during state exams. Most of them require exceptional reading skills.

How to Make Reading a Lifelong Hobby for Your Child?

Parents can’t do a lot of things about the curriculum in schools. Schools are not willing to make any changes to their curriculum. However, there are some things parents can do to make sure their children like reading and makes it a lifelong hobby.  It is very important to focus on what children like to read. You should encourage them to explore more books, genres and authors. When Steve Alten’s first book was a hit among teenage readers, he received numerous emails from fans who told him they were excited to reach his book.

Alten also founded Adopt an Author, which aims to generate interest among teenagers about reading books. Adopt an Author also allows kids to directly contact their favorite authors. Even teachers can find resources on the site to build curriculum’s while taking into account the best selling young-adult books today.

The International Reading Association can also be a good source to get teenagers interested in reading books. Since 1989, the International Reading Association uses feedback from teenage readers every year to develop the Young Adults Choices Booklist. This is what most teenagers like, and it is likely that your child will like it too.

Most importantly, it is extremely important to continuously evaluate a child’ s reading level. You need to gather more information and knowledge about literature catering to their age and abilities. Cathy Denman, Chairperson of the Young Adult Choices Committee, believes that a young child may be an advanced reader to choose a book for teenagers. However, this may not be a good choice for your child’s overall social development.

For such kids, she believes classic literature aimed at teenagers of the past can be a good choice. Such books usually focus on more mature themes with challenging vocabulary. According to Cathy, the choice of a book depends on the child and his/her needs. However, most young-adult books are suitable for 7-12 grades.

Every parent, even when meaning the best, can make a mistake. However, some of these mistakes can badly impact the future of your child. This post contains seven mistakes that you should avoid at all costs if you want your child to grow up into an upright citizen.

The list, originally posted on Forbes, is from Dr. Tim Elmore, an expert on leadership. Dr. Elmore believes that when a child is pampered too much, it may prevent them from thriving and also from fulfilling their full potential as leaders of tomorrow .

He goes on to say that both fear and lack of understanding play a role here, but it leads to the fact that each generation of parents is usually compensating for something the previous generation did. The primary adults in kids’ lives today have focused on now rather than later. It’s about their happiness today not their readiness tomorrow.

Many parents of today had parents who were very serious regarding readying themselves for tomorrow. They saved more money and did not spend it unnecessarily. Also, they were more concerned about preparing themselves for retirement. This led to many of the current parents to respond with a totally different message which was a clarion call to live life to the fullest by embracing the moment.

Many people heeded the call. This is what has resulted in credit card debts as well as their powerlessness to delay gratification. However, this may not necessarily be our main challenge. But there is one inescapable reality: parents who are longsighted and therefore focused on the future produce better results compared to those who are focused on the moment.

Unknowingly, we could be:

1. Shielding our kids from risk
Although it is only fair that we protect our children, kids who grow into adults without going through pain or normal failures like skinned knees or breakups are predisposed to developing phobias, becoming highly arrogant and also suffering from low self-esteem.

2. Not allowing kids to solve problems by themselves
Parents think that they are helping their kids by rescuing them too quickly. Nothing can be farther from the truth. This deprives them of the opportunity to solve problems by themselves. They are likely to grow into adults who cannot solve problems on their own.

3. Praising them too much
Praising children too much may work where a child suffers from low self-esteem. However, adopting the mentality of “everyone gets a trophy” and consequently turning a blind eye to bad behaviour can cause the children to cheat and lie while being unable to deal with difficulties. Ensure that your praises are specific and not necessarily about ability but effort.

4. Spoiling them
The common practice by most parents is to give children what they ask for when rewarding them. This is especially so with multiple kids. If one child performs well in something, some parents think that it would be unfair to reward that child and leave out the rest. This way, the parents miss the chance to enforce the notion that success depends on one’s own actions as well as good deeds.

5. Failing to share your own struggle stories
Do not feel embarrassed to talk about your past mistakes and frustrations. In fact, opening up can help your kids become tough.

6. Mistaking talent and intelligence for maturity
Kids who are smart might seem older. However, this does not imply that they are ready emotionally or otherwise to deal with various aspects of their lives. Just because they seem bright does not mean you should start heaping responsibilities on their young shoulders.

7. Not shaping how we want our children to be
For instance, we fail to instill the notion of “do as I say, not as I do”

While most of the tips above are essentially common-sense parenting tips, many parents easily fall into the short-term parenting trap rather than thinking of the future. The goal is to coach your child and not to coddle him. You want a child who can stand up for themselves even if left alone. Avoid the actions above and you will raise a child who is better prepared to meet life’s uncertainties.

An underweight toddler is one of the biggest worries amongst many mothers today. It may be depressing and stressful at the same time, but finding an appropriate way of dealing with it is quite necessary.

The first step is to actually find out if the toddler really is underweight. This is the work of the doctor, precisely a pediatrician; they take the measurements of the toddler’s weight and height. Both of which are used to determine whether the child is underweight or not.

The doctor also takes into account the readings of the toddler’s earlier measurements and determines whether the measurements have changed positively or not. An acute drop in the weight over a short period of time will more often than not prove that the toddler is indeed underweight.

There are a couple of reasons why toddlers may be underweight.

• A child may be naturally slim because the genes inherited from his parents influence the weight. If parents are skinny, then the child is most likely to be the same; this should not be perceived as an underweight case.

• Illness; if a toddler undergoes a certain disease or sickness, he may lose weight and become very skinny. Putting on weight after he has recovered is appropriate, as it will help him regain his lost weight over a certain period of time.

• Worm infections; presence of worms in a toddler’s alimentary canal may also be a great factor contributing to a child being underweight. This is because the worms consume almost all the food, which the child has taken in. De-worming, on a doctor’s prescription, is a good solution to this.

• Digestive problems; your toddler might be undergoing some serious underlying problems in his igestive system, this needs to be checked as soon as possible so that the toddler does not entirely lose appetite, which could be fatal to the child’s development and health.

Giving your toddler a healthy and balanced diet is the most important thing when addressing the toddler’s weight.

What is a healthy and balanced diet?

• High starch content and carbohydrate foods

• Lean protein such as soft meat

• A dose of calcium at least three times a day, which can be obtained from milk, cheese and even beans

• Six portions of juicy fruits and fresh vegetables a day

• Water or healthy fruit juice

Increasing the content of calories in the diet of an underweight child is also very essential. Here are a few ways to achieve this:

• Add margarine and oil to the toddler’s food

• Apply mayonnaise in the toddler’s vegetables

• Make sure that the dairy products that you give to your toddler are full-fat rather than the low-fat usually consumed

• Add grated cheese to most of the toddler’s foods.

Studying your toddler’s eating habits or patterns is also quite helpful when trying to ensure that your child eats a lot more.

Find out when the toddler wants to eat most and maximize this period. Most toddlers are hungry after being very active such as moving around and playing. It is at this time that a mother should incorporate as much fat content as possible in the toddler’s meal as he will eat comfortably.

Most of the times, toddlers are not comfortable with the places where they eat such as the dining table or kitchen. It is, therefore, mandatory for you to find out where the toddler is comfortable with eating. Be it outside or in front of the television, knowing this will definitely increase the amount of food that the toddler consumes. When at work or unavailable, do not leave your child unattended to; having a well informed house cleaner or baby-sitter is highly recommended.

As much as an underweight toddler may be depressing, do not put too much pressure on the child to eat. This may have even worse effects than you probably imagined. The toddler might be even more repulsed when it comes to eating.

Do not give your toddler a bottle of milk every time. If they get used to this, they may get addicted and find solid foods less fulfilling. In addition, giving toddlers high fiber foods such as bread and rice is highly discouraged. This fills the toddler’s tummies, which are quite small as compared to those of adults. It therefore leaves little space for the rest of the nutritious food.

Having extra vitamins, which are necessary for the toddler’s age bracket, is also very essential. There should be high content of vitamins A, D and C. Vitamins tend to increase the amount of iron in a toddler’s body. High content of iron largely increases the toddler’s appetite for other foods. Do not supplement your toddler with iron directly though, as it may have dire consequences. Excess iron in the system may bring about constipation.

It is advisable to consult a dietician on what is perfect for an underweight child. Before listening to other mothers, it is important to consult a doctor because what worked for their children may not necessarily work for your toddler. Specialized doctors give accurate advice on how to improve the state of your underweight child and hardly do their recommendations ever fail, if followed with the utmost dedication.

Lastly, having underweight children is not unusual. Therefore, you do not need to be worried or get stressed about it because it can be dealt with by necessary action after good and suitable consultation process.

Every baby cries at one point in time or another. This behaviour is quite normal. Most toddlers cry for around one to three hours every day. It is important to understand that a baby completely depends on your for warmth, comfort and food. Crying is your baby’s most common way of communicating her needs, and ensuring a clear response from you. Sometimes, it can be quite hard to figure out what your baby’s trying to tell you. However, as time passes by, you will learn to recognise exactly what your baby needs.

When your baby grows, she will learn many other ways to communicating with her parents. Her eye contact will be much better, smiles would be more prominent, and noises would be loud. Thus, the need for crying to grab your attention will be reduced. In the meantime, you need to learn some common reasons why your baby’s crying. In this post, we’ve discussed 7 such reasons to help you take necessary steps.

Hunger

This is one of the most common reasons for your baby is crying. When your baby is young, she’s more likely to be hungry. Since a small baby’s stomach is unable to hold a lot of food, you should offer her milk when she starts crying.

Even if you fed her just a while ago, she could still be hungry. When you’re breastfeeding your baby, she may be hungry on a frequent basis. However, if you’re formula feeding, she won’t be hungry if she’s been fed within the last couple of hours.

Nappy Change 

In case your baby’s clothes are too tight or she’s being bothered by a soiled or wet nappy, she may protest. Some babies don’t mind a full nappy. In fact, they enjoy the warm feeling. However, if your baby has tender skin, she may get irritated and start crying.

Too Hot or Cold

Most of the babies hate being bathed or getting their nappy changed. A baby may not be quite used to the feeling of cool air on the skin. She would rather want to be warmed up and bundled. However, it won’t take long before learning to change your baby’s nappy quickly. Here are some excellent tips to make sure your baby is neither too hot nor cold :

● You should not overdress your baby. However, she will still need one more layer of clothing to feel comfortable.

● You need to use cellular blankets and sheets as your baby’s bedding. If you want to check your baby’s temperature, you should feel her tummy. In case it feels too hot, you should remove the blanket. Similarly, if it feels cold, you should add one.

● Since your baby’s hands and feet would mostly feel cool, you should not be guided by them. The temperature of your baby’s room should range between 22-25 degrees Celsius.

● In case your baby is sleeping with you, you need to keep her in contact with you. This will raise her body temperature and keep her warm.

● If your baby is sleeping on a cot, you should let her sleep on her back. Her feet should be at the end of her cot. This way, she won’t get entangled in the blankets or feel too hot.

Physical Contact or Reassurance 

This is another common reason why your baby may be crying. Babies need a lot of physical contact, reassurance and cuddling. Your baby may just want to be held. You should keep her close to you, and sing to her. It may calm her down.

Many parents are worried about spoiling their babies because of holding them too much. However, it’s not possible during the first few weeks of her life. Babies need a lot of physical contact to feel safe and secure. In fact, your baby may even be calmed by listening to your heartbeat.

Proper Rest 

Most of the time, babies are unable to sleep because they’re very tired. It won’t take long before you learn the baby’s sleep cues. Crying and whining over menial things, going quiet, staring blankly into space are some common indications that your baby wants rest.

In case your baby received a lot of cuddles and attention from visitors, she may have been over stimulated. Therefore, when it comes to taking rest and sleeping, she won’t be able to just settle down. You should carry your baby to some place quiet, calm and cosy. You should try to establish some good sleeping habits.

Feeling Sick 

It is important to be aware of certain changes in your baby’s psyche and physiology. If your baby is unwell or sick, she’ll cry in a different tone. Her crying may seem more urgent, weaker, high pitched or continuous. Similarly, if your baby cries a lot, but suddenly went unusually quiet, it may be a sign of sickness.

As a parent, there’s no one else who would know and understand your baby better than yourself. If you think there’s something wrong, you should consult a doctor and talk about your concerns. If your baby shows difficulty breathing or the crying is accompanied by vomiting, constipation, fever or diarrhoea, you should immediately call a doctor.

Need Something, But Not Sure What

At times, you may be unable to figure out what’s making your baby cry. There are many newborns who go through some rough patches. It is very hard to comfort these babies. Their unhappiness may be caused by a lot of different factors. They may cry for several hours at a stretch. This constant state of crying is called colic. Colic is a common state in which a baby cries for at least 3 hours per day, minimum 3 days in a week.

Most of the parents find it very hard to deal with this condition. In fact, it can put the whole family under stress. It is worth mentioning that Colic does not have a magic cure. However, in most cases, it does not last for over 3 months. You need to accept this condition and understand that it will be resolved in some time. You can look for some valuable information to cope up with Colic. There are many strategies which can help you accept and manage this condition in your baby.