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!

How to stay a Positive Parent

How to Stay a Positive Parent!

How to stay a Positive Parent and why it is vital if you want to improve your child's behaviour.! 

In today’s uncertain world you can find yourself in a very negative state and even though you know that it is not helpful, we just don’t know what to do about it. If you have watched ‘The secret’, ‘Beyond the Secret’ or are familiar with the law...s of Attraction and Bob Proctor you will know that you MUST stay positive in order to attract positive things to you and live the life you wish for. Never the less this can often seem very hard to do, especially when you are having a difficult time and it can feel like your mind is spinning out of control with negative thoughts. It is important not to allow yourself to indulge in these negative thoughts as they can be addictive and your mind can become like a bed off weeds if left unattended and open to these negative influences and thoughts.

Realising that negative thoughts are contributing to the problem and will never bring you success, you will hopefully be committed to staying in a positive mindset to help you live a happier life. If however like me, you find it difficult to always stay in a positive, you may like some tips on how on how to do this. The answer to staying positive is easier than you think, although it will take practice and persistence to do, just like most things. You have to build up your ability and get emotionally stronger at it. You have to plant good thoughts and turn your mind onto good things.

You can do this by appreciating the things around you, being grateful for what you already have will attract more good things to you. Appreciate things you may take for granted like, your health, your children, your car, your family, your food, pets, job, clothes, anything that makes you feel good. Take time out to go and look at the wonderful world of nature, admire the flowers, grass, birds and sky. Feel the peace in nature that is always there around you to see when ever you want to. This will move your mind onto more positive things.

Saying ‘thank you’, is a good thought and is simple to do. As you can only think one thought at a time, by looking for positive things and the good in as much as you can, you will override negative thoughts and attract more good into your life. As mentioned in the Secret, You can use any object to trigger your thoughts onto positive things such as a “gratitude rock”, which you place in your pocket and each time that you put your hands in your pocket and feel it, you will be reminded to think of something that you are grateful for.

This really helps you to steer your mind onto good things and keep you focussed on the positive. These ideas will help you when you need to get back into a positive mindset. You will see improvements if you train yourself to make positive thinking a habit in your daily life. The more good thoughts you can plant today, the faster your life will be changed for the better. So look for the positive in your child's behaviour if you want to see positive changes.

For daily help in staying positive Bob is the master http://tinyurl.com/kowo4t you might like to check him out:)