The joys of parenting
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If you’re a parent with a child between the ages of one and three, then you’re probably experiencing what many parents are experiencing — toddler tantrums and difficult child behavior. The American Academy of Pediatricians perfectly describes this phase in your child’s life.

Strong emotions are hard for a young child to hold inside. When children feel frustrated, angry, or disappointed, they often express themselves by crying, screaming, or stomping up and down. As a parent, you may feel angry, helpless, or embarrassed. Temper tantrums are a normal part of your child’s development as he learns self-control. In fact, almost all children have tantrums between the ages of 1 and 3. You’ve heard them called “the terrible twos.”

As every parent knows, this behavior is very stressful and it can affect your relationship with your child and your spouse. Fortunately, there are solutions. Much of the difficulty we experience with our children is related to how we communicate with them. Often times, we are frustrated with their non-compliance, and much of what we say in response to our children may make sense to us at the time, but is totally ineffective.

One of the best parenting tools I’ve found for dealing with terrible twos is Talking to Toddlers. These tools help you get your kids to listen as soon as they are old enough to speak, and they remain valuable as your child grows up. Personally, I like the Talking to Toddlers approach, because it helps you stay in control as a parent and teaches your children long-lasting behavior skills.

You can learn more about his innovative program at http://talkingtotoddlers.com/.

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Parent Friendly Entertainment Reviews by Common Sense Media

Activities

Every week new movies, games, websites, TV shows, books and music are released into the wild. As parents, we want our kids to see some of these shows and read some of these books, but it’s difficult to know if they’re age appropriate.
Common Sense Media was created to solve the problem of knowing what’s appropriate [...]

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John Schnatter of Papa John’s Pizza Suggests You Eat Less Pizza

Health

Ever wonder what Papa John’s founder, John Schnatter, thinks about how much pizza you should actually eat? In an interview with a UK radio host, he said the following in response to a question about anti-obesity.
“No. Pizza’s actually healthy for you if you don’t eat too much of it,” Schnatter replied, adding, “You can’t eat [...]

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How to Opt Out of Credit Card Offers (aka Junk Mail)

Finance

photo credit: Larsz
If you’re like most people, there’s hardly a day that goes by without getting a credit card offer in the mail. This is irritating for many reasons, not only do you not need these offers, it’s also horrible for the environment.
Fortunately, there’s a way to curtail the onslaught of credit card offers. [...]

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How to Get Your Baby to Sleep Through the Night

Tips

Having children is hard work, especially when you’re a new parent and you desperately need your baby to sleep at night. As most parents know, if a baby doesn’t sleep through the night, neither do the parents!
There are several baby books that each contain their own idea about how to get a baby to sleep [...]

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How to Deal with the Terrible Twos and Beyond

Tips

Two-year-olds can be quite a handful. It’s a major time of adjustment for children and parent share the brunt of it. It’s common for most parents to have to deal with toddler tantrums and difficult behavior.
Some of the most common behaviors include:

children who won’t stay in their bed
children who refuse to take a bath
difficulty getting [...]

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How to Parent Children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD)

Discipline

One of the most difficult circumstances for parents is when their child has Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). ODD is defined as:
a psychiatric category listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders where it is described as an ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile, and defiant behavior toward authority figures which goes beyond the bounds [...]

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Researchers Found That Background TV Could Hinder Learning

Education

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Researchers are encouraging parents to turn off the television when toddlers are in the room, particularly when it’s only being used as background noise.
Researchers observed 50 kids aged 1 to 3 at play in a room for an hour: half the time was television-free, and half the time the TV show “Jeopardy” [...]

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Boys vs. Girls: Who’s Harder to Raise

Discipline

Parenting.com had an interesting article on which gender is harder to raise, boys or girls. Highlights included:

Boys may not listen as well as girls because their hearing isn’t as good from birth
Girls are rigged to be people-oriented, while boys are more action-oriented
Girls tend to grow up less confident and more insecure than boys
Boys are harder [...]

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Safety Tips for Keeping Children Safe During Summertime

Activities

Summer is upon us! For parents with kids that are now out of school, their kids are now going to have 3 months of free time – plenty of time to get into trouble and also get hurt. Safe Parenting has a helpful list from the American Academy of Pediatrics that offers some excellent tips [...]

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Leaving Your Children Home Alone

Safety

An interesting and important question that all parents will have to face one day (if they haven’t already). Safety for Children has an interesting article on when it’s okay to leave your children home alone. I’m curious to know how other parents have approached this and when they think it’s okay to start leaving your [...]

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