She doesn't like Santa :(

In response to my email this week asking you to send me your questions. I have picked this very topical question to answer, however it does tie in with some of the other questions that were related to children being unhappy with new and different situations, which means you can relate it to your own child’s situation.

Here is one parent’s question;

“My 3 1/2 year old daughter seems to be scared of everything, she doesn’t like

Santa, she was chosen to be Mary in the nativity but is doing nothing because she's

scared of being on stage. a boy at nursery was wearing a spiderman mask for fancy

dress n even thou she knew who it was I struggled to get her there the next day

in case he wore it again. I really have tried to be reassuring and have empathised

with her but its sooo frustrating to see her miss out on so much because of this. So

do I carry on letting her have so much fear in hope it’s a phase she'll grow out

of? Or is there something I can do to change the way she reacts to such events?

Hope to hear from u soon, as Santa is coming to nursery next week n would love

her to enjoy the experience.”

I can really understand your frustration of not wanting your daughter to miss out on these activities and be frightened of things.

I have seen this sort of anxiety in a lot with young children, however there are things that you can do to help her to change the way that she reacts to these situations. Here are a few tips that can be used as a general guideline for you to adapt to your daughters needs and circumstance.  As Santa comes to nursery this week I do hope that they help a little, even if it means you are going in the right direction and she grows in confidence.

Let’s look at what can make the situation worse or prolong it.

·         Accidentally rewarding the behaviour, by giving it too much attention, too much fuss, hugs and cuddles can mean that it is a good thing to make a fuss.

·         Reacting too much to her insecurity, for example if you try too hard to talk her out of it or to get her to do something, it can make things worse by making her feel more self conscious.

·         Making her feel bad or humiliated, by using or saying negative things like “Don’t be silly” or “Look at Tommy he will do it”, or making negative remarks after the event such as “You should have smiled you looked miserable”.

Things that you can do to change the way she reacts to the situation.

·         Stay calm and try not to react in a nervous way yourself, if you stay calm she is far more likely to stay calm herself.

·         Use empathy, making sure it is not too much, just make a comment such as “Do you feel nervous, that’s OK it’s normal to feel a little nervous”.

·         Reassure her and again don’t overdo it and rather than say you will be alright if you do it, if possible, say it’s ok if you don’t want to do it this time , this way you are giving her the option and she will feel more in control.

·         Trust that she will join in, because once you send out the signals that you trust her and you are at ease, she will feel calmer which will help her to join in.  Children are very sensitive to their parent’s anxiety so try hard to focus on feeling positive yourself and not so much on her anxiety, and then she will pick up on that and relax more.  You can do this by having a positive mindset, and changing any negative thoughts that you have into positive ones such as, ‘I think she will enjoy this and join in a little today’.

·         Praise her attempts no matter how small even if she just stands on the stage as Mary, tell her how great she was at.

·         Reward her efforts and remember that children will do more of what they get attention for, so it is vital that you reward the behaviour that you want for example, offer to do something that she likes because she tried really hard.

·         Take things a baby step at a time by looking at the bigger picture and working towards her really enjoying Christmas nativities and Santa more next year perhaps.

Here’s an example;

While working in a nursery of 20 children 3 and 4 year olds I would see lots of children anxious at trying new things.  For example, we would have PE (physical education) in the hall all together which was great fun but it could be quiet daunting for some children.  There would always be a few new ones that would cry and not want to join in at the start of the new term.  I found that the best thing to do was to let them sit on the bench and watch for a while. 

While a few children would join in if they had a little encouragement, if I saw that they were getting anxious I would reassure them that it is fine if they want to sit and watch the others for a while and that they could come and join in when you are ready. If they got off the bench I would ask them to sit down and wait until we has finished PE, this way they were not accidentally rewarding with doing something else they would prefer.

Periodically I would give them smile put my hand out and ask you like to join now?  When they were ready whether it was in a few minutes or after a few sessions, they would get up and join in. 

The situations that you mentioned have happened at nursery, so make sure you talk to the staff about them, let them know about spiderman and his mask as they may ask him to take it off, it was always my policy not to allow masks as they can upset lots of children.  I know you can’t make the rules at nursery but keep them informed it should help. 

If you like this tip and would like more why not download my book; http://bit.ly/CBDBOOK 

All the best Ruth

Child Behaviour Tips

Ask for what you want (all ages)

There are definitely ways of saying things to children that can encourage them to do as you ask.  For example, saying ‘”will you” or “would you” can encourage teamwork by giving children a feeling that they are being invited to participate and that you trust them to do what you ask.

On the other hand by saying ‘”can you” or “could you”, children may think to themselves, “Well yes I can do it, but why should I?” or say “Yes I could do it if I wanted but I don’t want to”.

Sometimes it is not so much what we say to children but how we say it. You will need to ask in a positive way while being respectful and using a pleasant tone. If you were talking to other adults such as our work colleagues, you would be respectful and speak politely. Yet sometimes when we are talking to children we seem to talk to them in a more negative, bossy way and even aggressively sometimes.  For example, you may say to your child “can you hurry up and put those things away” yet to a colleague or other adult you may say “please would you put those things away”.  By adopting the same respect that you would give to adults, children will feel validated and happier to oblige.

What you say to your children has one of the biggest impacts on your children’s behaviour.

 It is a simple thing to do, it has instant results and the children don’t even know you are doing it. As I have mentioned our brains are like a computer and will reach for answers to the questions that you put into it.  Therefore it is important to ask for the behaviours that you want, not what you don’t want.

Asking for what you want, try some ideas out for yourself;

Tell children what you want in a positive way	What they hear	Tell children what you want in a negative way	What they hear
Would you Sit on the sofa, please	Sofa sit	‘For goodness sake can you to stop jumping on the sofa.’	Jump sofa
Will you Sit still on your chair please	Chair sit	Stop getting down from the table you naughty girl	Down table
Would you keep your hands to yourself	Hands yourself	Could you stop hitting your brother	Hit brother
Would you please walk by the pushchair	Walk pushchair
Put in your own examples below

You might think what’s wrong with saying “stop jumping”?  Well it doesn’t matter if you say “stop jumping” or “jump”, your children will hear “jump” and so they will tend to do that.  Children don’t necessarily know what you want them to do instead of jump, so you are more likely to get what you want if you are specific.

You may find that you use a negative and a positive request in the same sentence such as;

“Stay by the pushchair and stop running off”. This is confusing and far less effective than a clear positive request of “Would you please walk by the pushchair?” Therefore cut out the negative part on the end, no matter how tempting it is to say it.

You will need to gain your child’s attention and make eye contact with them before asking them to do something. Do it face to face without shouting from a distance. Ask children twice for what you want, once to ask them directly for what you want and the second time to give them a chance to do as they are asked or in case they did not understand the first time. If you ask, more often than that, children just realise that you don’t mean business until you reach the third or fourth time or however many times you ask and this will just escalate the problem. By nipping unwanted behaviour in the bud you will catch children before they get really angry and frustrated. If they do not do as they are asked after the second time, take them to the next stage which may be a fitting consequence.

For example;

• ‘Would you please pick up the bricks and put them in the box?

Pause for around 10 seconds for a response, if no response. Repeat it

• ‘Would you please pick up the bricks and put them in the box?’

No response

• Ok I am going to turn off the TV until you have picked up the bricks

If your child responds, then you can say, ‘Thank you for picking up the bricks’.

If they do not respond, go to the next step which is to give a fitting consequence.

This tip is taken from my Parent’s Guide to Children’s Behaviour online course, for all my tips and suggestions and the complete guide to children’s behaviour sign up now ……… http://biy.ly/CBDCOURSE

All the Best

Ruth

1 common parenting mistake

Rewarding negative behaviour!

We all want the best for our children and most of us would not knowingly do things that would make them feel bad or their behaviour worse. While working with children for over 30 years I have noticed very common, universal things that parent’s do that are simply making their children’s behaviour worse. Rewarding Negative behaviour is one of the most common and it is done accidentally or unconsciously most of the time just to get some instant relief from the children’s bad behaviour. Of cause if you just stop to think about it you will see that rewarding negative behaviour is just going to make it more likely to happen again.

What sorts of negative behaviours are getting rewarded?

Crying

Tantrums

Moaning

Whining

Screaming

Interrupting

Making a noise

Showing off

Being demanding

Being cheeky or rude

Arguments

These are common behaviours and pretty much all children have done them to some degree at one time or another. If children receive some kind of reward or payoff when they do this they will quickly learn that it gets them what they want.

Why do children act this way?

They get the toy they want

They get the attention they want

They get the reaction they want

They don’t have to do something they didn’t want to do

They get the sweets, money or game they wanted

Although children end up getting what they wanted in the short term, in the long run this is very destructive for them because they need to learn better ways to handle themselves. If they learn to ask for what they want in a positive way, it will help them to feel good about themselves and be more confident in their own abilities.

Some things parents are doing to reward negative behaviour?

Smiling at behaviour to pretend it was just a joke,

Giving them affection such as sitting them on your knee and trying to cuddle them out of a tantrum

Talking or trying to reason with them while they are screaming

Trying to placate them while they are crying for something

Giving into them

Not having consequences for disobedient behaviour

Because children will do more of what they get attention for, it is vital that you stop rewarding negative behaviour. Instead you need to use positive methods to encourage good behaviour such as using rules and boundaries and age appropriate consequences. Just by watching out for the times that you do it will help you to stop it, so next time your child’s starts their screaming or arguing, walk away, don’t get drawn into confrontation and stay calm and remember!

Children can’t fight with someone who won’t fight, it’s not worth screaming at someone who won’t listen and what’s the point of having a tantrum if no one is their to see it!!!

Herbs and Spices: Familiar Flavors Help Your Child Like New Foods

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

Herbs and Spices -- High in Antioxidants

Herbs and spices are very healthy.  They are extremely high in antioxidants -- after all, many of them were originally used to preserve food.  Some spices have useful phytochemicals that help us fight viruses, bacteria, and even prevent cancer or heart disease.

Using Herbs and Spices to Make Unfamiliar Food That Tastes Familiar

As healthy as herbs and spices are, they are also an extremely helpful tool in helping children learn to like healthy food.  In almost every culture, a time-honored way of getting children to like a new food is to flavor it with a familiar taste.  Greek children will happily eat a new food if it tastes like oregano and lemon.  Indian children will love any new food that tastes like curry.  Your child may eat anything as long as it has ketchup dumped all over it!

While your child is still young -- even a baby -- introduce him to a wide variety of herbs and spices.  Sprinkle cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg on your child's apple slices.  Add some fresh chopped garlic to your child's spaghetti.  Put a little turmeric in your child's macaroni and cheese. 

Once your child learns to love these flavors, you can introduce another food by sprinkling the same familiar herbs on it.  Feeding your child pomegranate for the first time?  Sprinkle the same cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg on this new fruit. It will seem familiar and comforting.

Herbs and spices are not only healthy, they're also a great tool for introducing new foods!

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

Related Links

Cure Your Junk Food Kid in 6 Weeks

Let Your Child Smell Flavorful Foods 

See the Latest Article...

Quiet Time!!

This week I had an article published, which is directed at Early Years Practitioners. But it is also very applicable to parent's, so hopefully you will find it useful, would love your comments!!

As Early Years Practitioners you have the opportunity to make a huge difference in a child’s life in many ways. Think about how you can shape a child’s whole future if they come into nursery disruptive and misbehaving but leave to go to school eager to learn and well behaved. It is possible to transform any child’s behaviour with the right approach and by remembering that a child’s behaviour is shaped by their thoughts, which means that if you want positive behaviour you have to encourage children to have positive thoughts and feel good about their selves.

This leaves you with a daily challenge of using only positive techniques that really work and are proven to bring out the best in all children. Here is one very effective positive way to promote good behaviour in your childcare setting which will have a long lasting positive effect on every child.

‘QUIET TIME’.

Quiet time, is a perfect time for children to just sit quietly and calm down and it helps you to simply get on with your work with minimum disruption. A child can be taken to quiet time without the whole class knowing and it is most effective when you simply, quietly and calmly walk up to a child and ask them to come to quiet time.

Quiet time is not to be confused with the naughty spot or naughty chair. There is a different negative feeling to being on the naughty spot, than there is to having quiet time. The naughty chair implies that the child is naughty, which is of course negative and unhelpful. Quiet time is not about making a child feel bad but an opportunity for a child to be taken out of a disruptive situation and as a consequence for unwanted behaviour. This way you are far more likely to end unwanted behaviour rather than temporarily distracted a child from it.

• Rules of quiet time
Let the children know the rules before you need to use quiet time for the first time. Pick a good time to introduce it and let the children know that there is no more naughty spot (if you use it) but that they will have quiet time if they are misbehaving. Here are some rules that you can tell the children about quiet time.

Children’s rules of quiet time; 3-9 year olds
1. You will have to go to quiet time if you misbehave
2. You will stay in quiet time for 4 minutes (one minute per year old)
3. Quiet time means that you will have to sit in a chair by the teacher or standing or sitting by them when we are outside
4. Quiet time starts when you are sitting quietly
5. If you start to make a fuss, talk, or leave quiet time, the time starts again when you are sitting still again
6. You can leave quiet time when the teachers say it is time You are not to talk to anyone when you are in quiet time

Quiet time for 18 month -3 year olds

Very young child can benefit from quiet time although they will not remember or understand rules so will need to use it where appropriate and will not be able to have explained the rules as such beforehand. You will only need to use it as a last resort and sparingly to help a child calm down by sitting by you for a short time.

Practitioners rules for quiet time

1. Use quiet time when children will not comply with the nursery rules and you have used a fitting consequences but the behaviour is persisting.
2. Quiet time is on a chair or on the floor next to you
3. Quiet time is for 1 minute for every year of their lives and it starts from when they are sitting still and quiet. (be accurate on this and make sure you time it, if you want it to be effective)
4. When in quiet time don’t give the child attention
5. Quiet time needs to be used consistently for unwanted behaviour. You may find you are using it several times a day at first, but this will become less frequent as the children begin to adjust to your new rules and positive actions.
6. If a child tries to leave quiet time or gets upset, take their hand and put them back into quiet time, for the first time you can say, you need to sit in quiet time, but anytime after that don’t speak to them, just take them back to quiet time.
7. When quiet time is over you can tell the child that quiet time has finished and add, “thank you for sitting nicely”. Then direct them to what you want them to do, which may be to do what you asked them before they went into quiet time.

So remember that quiet time is all about keeping a positive relationship with the children because this way you will bring out a child’s natural desire to please you. It gives you a chance to promote good behaviour and show children by example how you want them to behave.


Please contact me for details of staff training days and parent courses at childbehaviour@aol.com and go to the Child Behaviour website for more details; http://bit.ly/CBD1DAY

Don't Force Kids to Eat, But Don't Let Them Complain

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

In order to teach children to like healthy food, you'll need to feed them foods that are new, and foods that require many exposures to like.  As a result, your children will probably not like all the meals you cook.  They may not like a meal because the food is new.  Or they won't like it because it's a food that requires many exposures to like, like vegetables.

It's ok for your child not to like a food.  It's ok for your child to not eat a food.  But don't let your child complain about a food.  Complaining is not ok for several reasons.  First of all, it saps your morale.  As a parent dedicated to teaching your child to like healthy food, you put in time and effort cooking healthy, home-cooked meals, made with real ingredients.  It's demoralizing to have your child complain when you've worked so hard.  Second, if one child complains, it influences the other children.  It's difficult for even an adult to enjoy a dish when someone is saying how yucky it tastes.

So, implement these rules.  First, your children can eat or not eat a dish.  Don't make them eat something they don't like (although you can suggest that they try it).  Second, your children cannot complain about a dish.  If they don't want to eat it, they can eat the other dishes on the plate.

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

Happier Kids Now expo for free!

The happier kids now expo is full of helpful tips for parent's and teachers on how to help children to grow up happier. Join in now for free, I really think you willbe glad you did :)

Let me know Ruth

Tips on motivating young children to be active listeners

Here are some really useful ideas from a friend of mine of how to motivate young children to be active listeners, thanks Kakie for the great tips.

Kakie is co-creator and author for the popular Bur Bur and Friends children's book series. Bur Bur and Friends uses a cast of multicultural characters who educate kids about sports, outdoor exploration and active play through first time experiences.

As a mom it is really hard sometimes to pick your battles. (“How many times do I have to ask you to put your shoes on before you actually do it?”). Here are some strategies that seem have been successful for me. Hopefully they will work for you too.
1. I went to a local craft store,bought some brightly colored tag board and created a chart. Every time my son listens or helps, we put a sticker on the board. When the board gets full he gets a treat or toy. What is important here is that kids tie the good behavior to a reward that makes them feel good with positive reinforcement.
2. I also picked up a notebook and said to my son, “I think you are really creative. What would you think if we created a list of family rules in our house? Wouldn’t that be a great idea?” He responds with a yes and then I say, ” I need your help. What do you think they should be?” This gets buy in (with a little coaching).
Once we finished I said, “Wow – you are really good at this! So now, we both agree that these are our family rules? Remember, you created them, so do we agree moving ahead we will stick to them? Can we shake hands on that, Great! Lets sign it together! “(you may need to repeat this 4-5 times).
I took everything he said and turned it into a positive statement, had him sign the paper and explained what the signing meant (a promise or a contract). So for example, if he said, “Don’t complain”, I changed it to “We always help family without being asked.”
When he began acting up by not listening, I would point to the refrigerator where the rules were posted and calmly say, “Hmmmm, do you think that one is part of the family rules? Remember what it meant when we signed it? Don’t forget, you made those family rules all by yourself.”
It is also important to brag about the rules list in front of family and friends in front of him ‘Johnny made up a list of rules for our house, isn’t that terrific?’ Then say ‘What do you think we need to do to make sure we are following the rules?” Can we pretend this never happened and try to do it again using the rules? What would that look like?…
It’s brilliant – they come up with the answers and you look like a shining star. I believe our kids want to please us. This is especially true when we are giving them positive reinforcement.
Don’t forget to keep those rules up on the refrigerator!!
Here is the rules list for our family:
a. We say nice words and are kind
b. We listen and pay attention
c. We cooperate and work together like a friend
d. We always do what is right
e. We respect what we have
f. We express our feelings
g. We encourage each other
h. We laugh, make funny jokes and always give hugs and kisses
i. We talk in a respectful tone
j. We use our words, ask for what we need
k. Always tell the truth and be honest
l. Be thankful
m. We help family without being asked
n. We use constructive criticism
o. We separate the person from the behavior (he is too young to get this now, but as he grows he will come to understand what that means).

By Kakie Fitzsimmons, Vice President and founding partner, Farmer’s Hat Productions co-author Bur Bur and Friends book series, catch up with Kakie at http://burburandfriends.com/

Take care Ruth

How do you want your children to behave?

Do you find that the more your child misbehaves the more you think about it and the more you think about it the worse it gets?  Then it's time to take a step back and think about how you really want your child to behave.

By taking the time to regularly think about how you would like your child to behave you will find yourself focusing more on their good behaviour and encouraging more of that. 

It is vital that you pay more attention to how you would like your children to behave because children will do more of what they get attention for and by thinking about how you would like your child to behave you will start to ask yourself the right questions about how you can get your child to behave in that way. 

For example, if you feel that your child is unco-operative and never helps you out and you would like your child to be more co-operative and helpful, stop saying to yourself my child is unco-operative and never helps me out and start to ask yourself,

"How can I get my child to be more co-operative and helpful?"

This way you will start to come up with the answers you need.

You can start to think about how you want your child to behave by making a list of 5 behaviours you don't like and making them into a positive statement instead like the one above.

For example,

I hate my child moaning and crying to get what they want

Change it into a positive...

I want my child to ask nicely for what they want

Now think of ways that you can encourage this behaviour

• Only let them have what they want if they ask nicely
• Don't give into their crying and tantrums
• Praise them when they ask nicely
• ............add more ideas

By focusing on the behaviour that you want from your child, your mind will look for the answers of how to get it.  Give it a try and let me know how you get on..

If you like this idea and would like more, you can find a comprehensive guide to your child's behaviour in my book;
'A Parent's Guide to Children's Behaviour', which you can download instantly at http://tinyurl.com/yds3gqq

Best wishes Ruth

6 Massive reasons not to criticise your children

‘Don’t expect troubles as they have a tendency not to disappoint’

Napoleon Hill

6 massive reasons not to criticise your children!

Have you ever been critical of your children in the hope that you will get them to behave the way you want them to? I saw this in action the other day when a mother was in the shops with her children and she shouted at her son saying, ‘What did you do that for? Can’t you see everyone looking at you thinking how horrible you are’?

Being critical just seems to be universally accepted within our society and yes we all must have done it and certainly been on the receiving end of it, yet if people gave some thought to just how damaging criticism is, I am sure more people would think twice about doing it. At least I hope so.

6 reasons not to criticise your children;

1 Being critical of children can lead to long term emotional damage, and can be the cause of phobias, compulsive behaviours, inferiority complexes, nervousness and amongst other things, cause children to be self conscious.

2 Children who are perpetually criticised are likely to grow up afraid to use their initiative, be self critical, lack ambition and have little confidence in their own abilities and self worth.

3 Being critical is negative and all negative thoughts and actions attract negative thoughts and actions back

4 Criticism will not bring out the best in our children, or encourage a loving affectionate relationship, but it will make them feel resentful

5 They are likely to grow up very critical of others particularly behind their back and blame others for their mistakes, making them reluctant to learn from their own mistakes.

6 Children may grow up to be over extravagant, over spending to try to feel as good or better than other people.

You can see that children growing up with these sorts of emotions and hangups are going to find true happiness very hard to find, Children are also likely to misbehave as a reaction to the negativity that they feel.

You may find yourself justifying your criticism by saying things such as ‘Yes but he was behaving really badly’. Yet if we remember it is always destructive to be critical and that it blocks us from getting what we want we may think better of it.

So what can you do instead? go to http://tinyurl.com/yds3gqq

Ruth xxxxx

10 essential tools to improve your child's behaviour!

If you really want to change your child’s behaviour it’s easy with the right approach. The following 10 essential tools are sure to help you to get from where you are to where you want to be with your child.

1. Have a big enough reason to change

Do you know that if your child had behaviour problems, they are more likely to be unhappy, underachieve and not reach their full potential? Not only that, they are going to be more prone to depression and have troubled relationships in life. Is that a big enough reason to do something about your child’s unwanted behaviour right now! If not then think about the stress that your child’s behaviour causes in your household and how fantastic it would be to end that stress and live the life you want with your family!

2. Focus on the solution

Do you feel like your child’s unwanted behaviour is all you can see in them? Do you feel like you talk and complain about it a lot? The best way to improve your child’s behaviour is to stop focussing on the problem and focus on the solution. You can do this by following rule 3.

3. Use the right parenting strategies

Parenting success is not rocket science you just need to follow tried and tested methods that really work. If you use well intentioned advice from relatives and friends or professionals that improves the situation in the short term but you find it is not curing your child’s unwanted behaviour in the long term and making it worse you need some better parenting strategies.

4. Learn all you can

Why is it, that in today’s society, it is more accepted and easier to join a foreign language course than to it is to take a parenting course? Start helping yourself and other parents by taking a step to making seeking parenting help the norm After all what’s the harm in saying yes I took a parenting course or read a great parenting book and now my children behave really well!

5. Make a plan

By taking steps to learn all you can about your child’s behaviour and proven parenting strategies you can make a plan of action about how you are going to turn things around. If you are going to commit to improving your child’s behaviour you need to have a solid plan so that you know what you are gong to do when your child objects to your new ideas and tries to convince you that you don’t know what you are talking about!

6. Get support

You can make the whole process of improving your child’s behaviour so much easier if you have support around you of like minded people. Just think how great it would be to be able to contact someone who is going to be supportive, positive and helpful in your hour of need.

7. Stay on track

How many times have you started a project, been determined to see it through and found that you get side tracked distracted and never really put the effort in that that you needed to? Yes we have all don it, but by always keeping in mind your reasons to change you can help yourself to stay on track and see the results that you want.

8. Stay positive

By staying positive you can feel happier and more able to cope with your child’s behaviour. If you are taking the advice of these tools you can be sure you are doing the right thing which should help you to feel and stay positive.

9. Be consistent

It stands to reason that consistency is key to improving children’s behaviour. Children who do not know the boundaries rules and consequences of their behaviour will get confused, push their luck and test you constantly to see how far they can go.

10. Know that you have the most influence on your child’s behaviour.

As their parent you have the most influence in your child’s behaviour. This is great because it means that you have the power to improve your child’s behaviour all you have to do is to make a few changes to what you are doing and bingo you will have them eating out of your hand, so to speak!

To make your plan of action and change your child's behaviour for the better go to; http://tinyurl.com/yds3gqq

Take care Ruth
please leave your comments below it's great to talk with you!

Snacks Can Be Good for Kids

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

Snacking, Not Snack Foods

 Snacking has a bad connotation.  This is partly because the word "snack" can either mean food between meals OR junk food.  "Snack food" means food like cookies, candy, chips, and other low nutrition, processed food.

Children Need Frequent Meals

Snack food is bad, but snacking is good.  Children, especially small children should get one or two snacks between meals. Snacking helps prevent children from getting too hungry between meals.  If a child gets too hungry, they tend to crave high calorie foods.  If they have a more moderate influx of food, they are more accepting of healthy foods with lower calorie density.  You want to prevent your child from getting stuffed or extremely hungry.

Vegetables for Snacks

Snacks are a great time to give your child healthy foods like vegetables.  At mealtimes, your child will have a variety of foods to eat -- it's easy for her to skip the vegetables.  Snacks usually contain one or two foods, so she can't avoid the vegetables by satisfying her hunger with something else.  Vegetables also satisfy hunger without "spoiling" your child's appetite.

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

Don't Give Your Child Chocolate Milk

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

If you give your child chocolate milk for no particular reason, you probably won't be the type who reads this blog!  But some very conscientious parents give their children chocolate milk because their children have refused to drink unflavored milk.  These parents figure that milk with chocolate added is better than no milk at all.

One of the problems with chocolate milk is that children who drink chocolate milk don't adjust their total number of calories to compensate for the additional sugar.  They eat the same number of calories from other foods than if they had drunk regular milk. 

Chocolate milk has about 75 more calories per cup than regular milk.  So, if your child drinks two cups of chocolate milk per day, he will consume 150 more calories per day than he would otherwise!  This alone will cause your child to become overweight!

Another reason not to give your child chocolate milk, which is in line with the purpose of my blog, is that giving your child unnaturally sweet tastes, like chocolate milk, will teach him to crave the taste of sweetness.  Children naturally like sweet tastes (even newborn babies), but if you feed your child something sweet each day, it will teach him to expect sweet tastes every day.  When he is a teenager or adult, he will be more likely to feel like meals have to include something sweet. 

There are other ways to turn a milk-hater into a milk-lover.  Stay tuned, and I'll post more on how to accomplish this later.

Related Links
When Sugar Becomes Love
Carbonated, Sweetened Soda Linked to Violence
Junk Food Diet May Cause Autism Through Insulin Resistance

Vegetable of the Week: Chard

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

Each week, start teaching your child to like a new vegetable. Follow these 4 rules:

1. Feed each vegetable to your child twice a week.

2. Give your child the vegetable two times a week for six weeks. That’s a total of 12 times. After 12 presentations, your child will probably like the vegetable. If she doesn’t, wait for a few months and start the whole process again.

3. Don’t feed the same vegetable to your child two days in a row. Wait a day or two before giving her the vegetable again.

4. If your child tastes the vegetable, count it as a success. She may spit it out, but her brain is still registering the taste.

Six weeks from today your child will probably be an chard lover!

About Chard

Many people have never tasted a cooked green except spinach. Chard, like many other lesser known cooking greens, is much more nutritious than spinach.

Chard has a "green" and slightly bitter taste. The bitter taste is excellent taste training for your child. The more bitter tastes a child experiences when she is very young, the more she will like vegetables and other bitter tasting foods later on.

If your child is younger than 6 months, wait until she is over 6 months old before feeding her chard and any other leafy green. Leafy greens contain chemicals which are harmless to older babies, but may, in rare cases be dangerous for young babies.

Vary the chard dishes so your child doesn't get bored. Here are some quick and easy dishes:

1. Chop and boil the chard until it is soft. Make olive oil béchamel (here's a recipe from the New York Times). Mix and serve.

2. Chop and boil the chard until it is soft. Add a large spoonful of sour cream and a few squeezes of fresh lemon juice. Mix and serve.

Post a comment and tell me how it went!