As a mother you may be expending a lot of energy on your
kids to the extent that you don’t seem to be having enough
time for your husband.

Have you taken your time to study the situation around you
in recent time?

Is your husband satisfied with you even as you don’t seem
to be having enough time for him unlike you were doing before
the arrival of the kids?

Check your marital life occasionally to seem that nothing you are
doing to the kids is affecting your relationship with your husband.

I have experienced a situation that a father began to be jealous of
his own kids simply because their mother concentrated more of her
time to the nursing of the kids than the time she had for him.

I must warn you that you need to balance your time between the your
husband and your kids. If you can’t do this simple time management
then you better prepare yourself for the inevitable consequences at
the end of the day.

Your marriage should not suffer because your time is devoted much
more to your kid.

You must remember that your man was always there with you before
the coming of your kids and he would always be there with you when
the kids have grown and are ready to leave home to establish their
own families elsewhere.

Your future with your husband is only guaranteed now if you maintain
a loving relationship with him as you do with your kids.

The truth is that you can maintain that balance, if you really want to.
But not everybody can do so.

Give this a deep thought and see if you could work it out pretty good.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.
Sikaz.

Most kids prefer to eat sweets and biscuits anytime they have to put something in the mouth and this usually causesa ‘battle ‘between them and their parents.

As a parent you should try to understand the underlining factors that your kid  reject fruits which are certain to give the kid more nutritional value than the biscuits or sweets they prefer to eat instead.

Kids that eat sweets and biscuits are already hooked on the sweetness of the products and care less about  the so-called nutritional values that you bother yourself about.

Here are five ways to help your kid eat the fruits instead of the  sweets and biscuits that may later have negative consequences
health- wise:

1.Set a good example .You have to fall in love with fruits yourself to be able to convince your kid to stick to fruits and forget about sweets and biscuits that they seem to be in love with already.

2.Allow Your Kid to choose the exact fruits he want to eat instead of forcing the ones you like on him simply because of what you’ve read about such fruits in a magazine , heard on radio or watched on television.

3. Pack your freezer and refrigerator full of fruits so that it will be easy for the kid to get one to eat whenever he is feeling like taking a snack.

4. Don’t keep sweets or biscuits at home as you used to and warn everybody that will come in contact with your kid to desist from offering the kid any sweets or biscuits.They should give the kid fruits instead.

5. Be artistic and humorous as well. Dress your melon, carrots or plantain with faces that are funny. This will certainly attract the kid and he will want to play with the fruit before eating it.

There you are .Do the above and send a reply to me soonest.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

Children, like other human beings, create their own mental images
although some children don’t seem to have a deep understanding
of how this could be  done successfully.

It is your duty as a parent to help your child to learn how to
visualize and create their own mental images perfectly
to their own advantage in all circumstances in order to become
highly creative.

The following are some of the ways by which you can help your
child to begin learning to visualize and create mental images
easily:

 1. Read to Your Child: You have to begin to read to your child, if you’ve not already formed the habit of doing so.Remember that what you want to do is to make the child begin to visualize and form mental images in his mind, therefore, you don’t need any picture book for this exercise.  
  
2. Use lots of expression as you read: Whenever you read you should use many expressions anytime a character in the story speaks. Better still, make sure that you give each character their own distinct voices. This will make the child have a picture of the character created in their mind.

3. Read aloud: You have to read the story aloud whenever you wan to  read to the child. This helps bring the story to life and make child  volunteer participant in the exercise.
  
 4. Make up a story: When you make up a story, you are encouraging the child to try and do their own story too. This is because the story  you may be making up could be about something that happened to you in the past.

 5. Read poetry: Poetry is known as the king of narration. Very short, precise and image-filled. It tends to have fewer pictures and a lot of  descriptive words, making it great for visualizing.

 6. Listen to books on CD or cassettes (audio books) with your child.You can tag such book as “mind movies.”

If all these are done, the child will without doubts become an image thinker and a highly motivated visualizer and creative person.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

Parents of teenagers must be conversant with the troublesome tens probems in order to live peacefully with their teenage childtren and make them grow into adults they would be able to be proud of in the future.The pity of it is that most parents who have teens around them seem not to be aware of these problems that their teens are facing every day of their lives.Here are five problems of teens every parent must know about to become successsful parents:1. Teens Won’t Take Responsibility -  By their tender nature,most teens won’t take responsibility for anything.Though they strongly believe that they have past the age whereby their parents should treat them like little children,the fact is that they hardly voluntarily subject themselves to taking respponsibility for  anything done or that should be done by them.2.They go around being bored all the time – Have you noticed this in your teenage child?This is just natural with every teen.They are always very bored and they usually want to get themselves engaged in something to ‘kill’ the time. Anytime you observe this ,just get your child out to meet other teens in the neighbourhood where he or she can get engaged in  whatever will excite him or her.3.Teens Lie – Teens are all the same no matter where they are from.They seem to like telling lies to everyone around them.Perhaps your teen doesn’t do that,then you should see him or her as an exception. Because teenagers don’t usually owned up anytime they are  caught on the wrong side of things.4.Teens Are Usually Full of Anger – Yes, teens are very sensitive.They are easily  provoked.Anger mangement in teens is at the zero level most of the time.They walk about like a time-bomb that is  ready to explode at anytime.Check this out in your teens and be ready at all times to samguard him or her from exploding at the wrong time or in the wrong place.5.Your teen may be into drugs with a bad crowd well.Your dear little ‘angel’may actually be dealing in drugs – You read that without your knowledge. And this is why you need to maintain a friendly and cordial relationship with your teen to get through to him or her anytime there ois a problem.You have to be very close to understand what is going on in your  child’s life.If you are not frindly with eachother, the child will not disclose anything to you even if he is dealing in drug.You will only get to know if he leaves behind the telltales or signs of drugs anywhere in the house, and then it may be too late to control him because he might have become a real addict.These are five of  the problems you may be having with your teenage child.Therefore you have to look out for them at all times in order to be able to curb them before they get excalated.Enjoy your parenting efforts.Sikaz

Being a good mother goes beyond giving birth to your own baby biologically.

There are many mothers out there who are not worthy of the name “mother” in the real sense of the word.

Mothers come in different shapes and manners across race,ethnicity or religious leaning. But being a good mother is universally acceptable as the best thing to being called a mother indeed.

It is therefore very essential that a person who is aspiring to give birth to her own babies  should learn to be a good mother to such a baby.

The following are tips that will make you a good mother, provided you do them.

* Be there for your children by providing there physical, emotional and financial needs at all  times.

* Provide avenue for your children to tell you whatever is bothering them.

* Be supportive to your children and inculcate good values in them.

* Encourage the things that give your children  joy as long as such things are not harmful to them.

* Support those things that will make them fulfill their dreams in life.

* Be approachable, you will never regret being so.

* Give your children reason to be confident that their mother will treat them well.

* Create a way to make your children express themselves irrespective of what it is they have to talk about.

* Love your children unconditionally.

* Be there for your children and never allow your devotion to your work be detrimental to the care of your children.

* Discipline your children where there is the need for it. But you must discipline in love.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

Are you a parent of an only child?

Do you feel that you must be very careful, or perhaps extremely careful and caring about your only child to the extent that you must care for the child as if you’re caring for four other children you’ve not had.

Do you shower your only child with so much care that you’re even bothered about what others think of you and the way and manner you care for your only child?

Well, there is no harm in that.

I don’t hold anything against you for what you’re doing.After all it’s your life and that of your child.

However, l want to point your attention to the sins you may be committing unwittingly in your parenting activities while caring for your only child.

These are sins that you can avoid if only you are a little careful about your actions towards your only child.

The sins are so important in your child’s life that they should be of concern to you as a parent who truly loves his or her child to the extent of wanting to make whatever sacrifice there is to be made even at your own expense and possible negative effects on the child.

These are the sins of parenting an only child that you must try to avoid if you must make a success of  your parenting efforts:

1.Overindulging and overcompensating: You’re probably
overindulging your child without knowing it simply because he or child is the only child you have now.The consequences of this is that your child will not see life the real way it is. You’ve not allowed him or her to go through  the necessary hardships that will perhaps toughen him or her to become a person that could fit into whatever situation he or she may find himself or herself in life.

2.Treating your child like an adult: It’s a sin to go about treating your only child like an adult when he or she isn’t. This is a child and that’s the simple truth about the situation on ground.

Your child should be allowed to pass through the normal stages of human growth and nothing short of that would be tolerated. You can’t create a vacuum because nature will not allow that. Your child can’t jump over what he or she should naturally go through.

3.Over praising your child: Don’t be tempted to over praise your child no matter how impressed you’re with whatever activity he or she has performed to your satisfaction.

Don’t get me wrong! I’m trying to very careful here because l don’t want to be misunderstood completely.

You should praise your child if you’re impressed by what he or she has done. But you’ll be making a mistake if you over do it. Praise is a human need because we all thrive on praises shower on us by those who appreciate
what we’re doing or what we’ve done.

4. Overprotecting your child: Let your child know that you’re there for him or her at all times, but never be tempted to go beyond the normal by overprotecting the child.

What is wrong in overprotecting your child is simply that the child will never be wrong as far as you’re concerned. She or he will never learn the right lessons of life which is that all of us must strive and struggle for ourselves without relying on others to help us defend us at all times.

Let your child protect him or herself with a little contribution on your own part. By so doing the child will be developed and feel safe even when you’re not there to protect him or her.

5.Failing to make rules: The world is orderly simply because it’s guided by rules and order. For this reason we all must learn to go by the laws of nature for us to be peaceful in life.

If you fail to make rules that will guide your child’s life simply because the child is an only child, then you’re already showing the way to crisis and chaos in the child’s life because there will be no orderliness in the child’s life.

These are the five sins of parenting an only child which you should avoid as a concerned parent.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

Let not your spirit be weary teaching your child the right values!

You’re tired of repeating yourself over and over again, aren’t you?

Sure! Every reasonable person will…

We get worked up when we’re made to sound like a crack disc; repeating the same instruction to our children every time.

It’s disheartening that children seem to be somewhat carefree in their attitude to parental instruction. But you need not let them wear you out.

Most times you will need to repeat yourself while telling your child the end for personal hygiene; as they don’t see any reason why they should keep their clothes clean and change them when they are soiled.

Bathing and brushing of teeth every morning and night, is probably not his concern except if you press hard to make it happen.

Have you, at anytime, sat down to find out the reason behind this behaviour?

Why is your child ‘hurting’ you so much and making you to get exasperated repeating the same instruction several times?

It could be either of these two reasons:
(a) Forgetfulness; and
(b) Deliberate attempt to disobey.

Because children’s minds are filled with so many ideas about leisure activities, they find it hard to remember our instructions on values. Those things are not programmed into their to-do memory.

You might have offended your child without knowing it; he feels the only way to get back at you will be to deliberately turn down your instruction and make you yell at him.

You yell…

Consequently, you hurt yourself in the process; and he feels delighted doing it.

There is a remedy!

1. See your child as an individual who has a mind of his own.

2. Don’t keep quiet; you don’t have to. But don’t yell at him. Keep talking.

3. Keep teaching him the value of integrity, hard work, fear of God, and respect for constituted authority.

4. You must open the communication line between you and your child. Until the message sinks in his mind, your job is not done yet.

5. Listen to what he has to say.You’re the parent, and so what?You’ve got to put an end to being dogmatic and don’t take every matter seriously.

6. Reach a compromise by sparing time to engage your child in useful no-hold-bared discussion. And listen carefully!

That is the trick…you’ve got to listen, if you want to have p-e-a-c-e !

Pay attention to your child and hear what he is saying as the world is changing.

Believe me, if you do all of the above, your child will always listen to your instructions and obey .He will turn out to be the best of friend you can ever have.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.
Sikaz

Anger is a natural display of emotion by human beings.
There are many ways by which every person tries to show
his anger physically.

Your child,like every normal human being,usually
get angry over some unpleasant experiences she or he
is going through.

But do you know when your child’s anger signals are
displayed?

Can you sense it when the physical display of anger is
being shown by your child?

Perhaps you’ve not made an effort to even study your
child’s emotion.

Perhaps you’re even less concerned about the child’s
anger as long as you’re not disturbed by whatever
emotion he or she is passing through.

Well, you should begin to observe your child’s
physical display of his or her anger because the
signals are so obvious for a descerning person to
see.

Here are three ways by which you can easily identify
your child’s anger physically:

* Clenching Fists: A child that is angry will normally
clench his or her fists because the muscles are all going
to tightened just to push away whatever is causing him or
her to get so angry.So you have to observe this physical
display just to be sure.

* Shortness of Breath: Anger can’t be hidden because it’s
always in display for whoever cares to see.You must try to
see if your child’s breath is normal or not.A shortness in
your child’s breath means that he or she is really angry.

* Sweating:From the face to the palms and the whole body,
your angry child will be covered by his or her own sweat
to show you that he or she is very angry with whatever
situation he or she is facing a that point in time. For
quick and easy identification of the child’s mood,take
a look at the child’s forehead and you will notice some
sweat coming out.

There you are, the three physical signals of anger in your
child are listed above for easy identification.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

Identifying and articulating your child’s feelings could be a daunting problem at times because teenagers are known to be secretive in nature.

Teenagers, especially the boys pretend to their parents about their feelings in order not to be seen as weaklings.

Boys tend to be open to their friends much more than their parents when it comes to matters of personal feelings as they feel much more comfortable even when they are laughed at.

Emotional expression that borders on irritation,embarrassment,disappointment, anger, sex and inadequacy are usually bottled up by teenagers so that their parents are not aware of such feelings.

You must be observant as a parent. You must be aware about the way your teenage child is feeling at every moment if you don’t want to experience unpalatable consequences of such bottled-up emotions.

Here are some of the ways by which you can identify and articulate your child’s feelings at all times:

* Ask The Child About His Feeling: Don’t hesitate to ask your teenage child questions about his or her feelings at all times. The good thing is that most human beings, your child inclusive, hardly succeed in keeping up with pretenses for too long.

* Ensure Your Child Talks To You: You should try to make sure your child talks to you no matter what  it will take you to get that done. Most teenagers don’t find that funny though. But as a parent you must create a conducive the atmosphere for that to happen successfully because that is the only way by which you can break the emotional ice.

* Create The Opportunity: Why do you thin your teenage child is not feeling easy to talk to you about his or her emotional feelings? Why would a child you’ve brought to this world keeping his or her feelings away from you?

This is a question you need to ask yourself most times.

Well, your child does so because he or she has not been given the impression that you’re his or her friend from the onset. You’ve not created the conducive environment for that kind of close relationship between you and the child.

Now is the time to learn to create such close relationship so that your child could begin to see you as a friend who he or she could rely on when it comes to matters relating to his or her emotional feelings.

* Create The Necessary Space: Most teenagers l know feel caged by their parents and they desire to have their on space where that will feel very comfortable all alone.You have to create enough space for your child so as to make your home a comfortable environment for him or her to stay. This is the only reason why your teenage child is not sitting at home and always go outside to look for comfort among his or her friends.

* Provide A Shoulder To Lean On: You should now begin to provide a friendly comfort for your child to stay with you whenever he or she is feeling troubled by whatever he or she has encountered in his or her sojourn on earth.

There is no better ways to do this than the provision of a comfortable shoulder to lean on in times of trouble.The realisation of the fact that there is a parent around to share his or her problems with without any dust being
raised will make their child express him or herself better for you to provide the right solution without apportioning blames.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

Video games are here to stay as children love to play them and there is or nothing you can do about it as a parent.

Some parentds don’t like their children playing video games and they will go to any extent to ensure that thechildren are truly not playing video games either on theirmobile phones or with the other devices.But the question is very simple:is there a harm in playing video games?

Well, to some parents, ther sure are harms hence they will never let their poor little children near video games for any reason whatsoever.

Here are seven reasons l feel parents should let their children play video games:

1.Everybody plays the games: Vatually everyone that l know takes delight in playing video games and this includes your children’s friends.The truth is that if you don’t allow your own children to play video games at home,they will eventually get to play the game at their friends’ places where you’ll not be able to monitor them.So, why don’t you just give them the required permission and buy the games for them and monitor their activities as they play right there in your sitting room?

2. Video Game makes your children Smarter: I’m not simply saying this for the fun of it;the fact isthat when a child engages in video games he will getsmarter with every other thiungs he is to do as the game usually provide children many challenges that will make them improve different skills like reading logical reasoning and mathematical calculations skill.

3. Video Game Develops Creativity: The games will provide the avenue for your children to develop their creative energy just as they will stimulate basic computer skills in them throguh a fun process not as in a formal classroom situation.

4.Video Games keep kids out of trouble: Do you desire that your children are kept out of trouble?Then the perfect solution to that is to get them to play video games that automatically keep them out of trouble since it will occupy their time.

5.Children Will Learn Patience: Playing video games ensures that a child will learn to be patient since he will sometime have to wait for his opponent to make their moves which will give him the chance to score his point to win the game.

6.Video games is an avenue for children to be together: Playing video games usually provides the avenue for  your children to come together either to play against one another or to form a team.

7.Video games teach children decision-making: Since video games require action and respond about what one is seeing on the screen,it then requires fast decision making.An intelligent child will use the opportunity to learn decision-making if he doesn’t want to be beaten by opponents all the time.

Video games are very good indeed and every parent should try to get their children one or two games at home,if not for anything just for the benefit that are listed above.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz