Parenting a preteen child is an enormous work to do, but you don’t
need to shy away from it if you want your effort of becoming a successful
parent to be commended.

Part of the many challenges you are going to face as a parent of a preteen
child is the one relating to drugs.

Drug use has come to stay and most preteen are now fully involved in it.
If you don’t want your own preteen to be involved, then you need to take
some cogent steps right away.

The following are the routes to encouraging your preteen child to avoid drugs
starts:

1. You have to start your effort with straightforward discussion about drugs.
Spend time with your preteen child and explain the danger drugs pose especially
in his or her growing body.

2. You must emphasize in your discussion the immediate effects of alcohol,
tobacco (through cigarette smoking) and drugs on different parts of
the body. For instance tell your preteen that tobacco makes one feel lightheaded
while alcohol weakens one’s coordination.

3. Long-term consequences of drug use which include drug addiction should be
pointed out to your preteen child.

4. Let your preteen know that alcohol or drugs does not hurt the user allow;
it also affects  members of their family and friends.

5. Teach your preteen how to respond to a friend’s offer of drugs or alcohol
and the kind of excuse he or she could give in order to turn down the offer.

6. Give your preteen the chance to bring his or her friends home without any
interference from you that way you will get to know the parents of your child’s
friends and the friend’s interests.

7. Finally, it is imperative that you should not try to do this all alone. You should
work with other parents in order to reinforce one another’s efforts to keep
your children drug free.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz.

Children are of varied types and it is only when you have the
knowledge of who your children are that you will know how to
correctly handle them.

As a parent who is blessed with many children, you would have
already observe that your children are not in any way similar in
their reaction to issues. Generally they may look alike due to the
genes that produced them.

That is the end of the similarity among them. Obviously they are
different character-wise ,therefore, they don’t require equal ways
of treating them. You should know how to identify who your children
are and be able to handle them accordingly in order to get the best
out of them.

The following are the different types of children that we have:

1. Tactile child: This type of child is prone to being are easily
perturbed by physical things. The parent should try to encourage the
child referring to how well they physically do things. There are times
when the child wil throw things like toys all about, don’t chastise the
child just pick the toys and ,better still, buy unbreakable toys instead.
The child could also get boisterous; learn to control without physically
applying punishment for this behaviour.

2.Auditory child: A child with this character trait has the disposition
to whine, scream and stump around angrily. I know that, like every other
parents, you may not like your child to be like this because it can easily get
on your nerves, more so when it is exhibited in a public place. You should try
to create a strategy to know what the problem is a find the right solution. If
you try to study the child, you’ll probably know those things that trigger this
behaviour.

3. Visual child: This one child that will usually turn to see the reaction of the
parent whenever he is trying to go beyond the limits. The truth is that a child
that does this is just trying to seek attention. He is trying to know if someone
is noticing what he is about to do. You can easily preempt the action of this
type of child at any given time. Show the child signs that you suspect that he
wants to do an unacceptable thing. This will serve as a caution.

4. Taste and Smell child: A child with this trait is not inclined to be naughty,
but they can be excessively sensitive. So, you have to watch it. They respond
to praises and highly sensitive to condemnations. The child will probably want
to keep to herself even when you are in a crowded place because she doesn’t
want to be noticed. She is probably an introvert.

Anytime you go to a party you should help the child to relieve her anxiety
before she burst into tears and run away to hide herself where she feels that
people will not see her.

Now, you know what the character trait of every child is, try to show true
Understanding ant time your children show their true selves, and avoid hurting
them.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz.

Do you wonder why this should be so?

Well, being a parent entails a lot most especially
being in charge of another human being makes you feel
a sense of responsibility indeed.

You will always have the indescribable feeling that
those who are not parent can never feel. You are
attached to that baby all of the time even when you
think you are right there at your work place.

Everything abut your life revolve round the children,
if you are the type that is really interested in
what your children grow up to be in life, you can never
have enough time for yourself or the children.

So, how do you cope with being a parent then?

The following are ways to cope as a new parent who is
truly interested in making a success of being a parent
at the end of the day:

1. Read Books on Parenting: This is a fact that most
parents have neglected because they don’t seem to realize
the need for them. What l want you to know here is that
most of the books on parenting are well-researched and
are probably written by parenting coaches, parenting
experts, parents who have had practical parenting
experiences for many years.You’ll be tapping into the
results of many years of experiences as researchers or
as real parents who had passed through the process you
are about to go through as a new parent.

2. Seek Help from Experienced Parents: If you want to
succeed in parenting will urge you to seek the help of
experienced parents who could be your neighbours, work-
mates, friends church members, or relations. The people
have garnered a lot of practical experiences that you
can just get for free without feeling bad consulting them.

3. Be Ready To Spend Money: Being a parent would require
that you will be spending a lot of money taking charge
of the growth and well-being of your baby right from the
very day of conception in pregnancy. You should be ready
to go through that without hesitation because it isyour
responsibility which can’t be passed to another person.

4. Establish a Close Relationship with Your Partner: You
may not have thought about this as something you should be
worrying yourself with. However, it is an important aspect
of parenting you must think about.Your relationship with
the mother or father of your baby is very important in the
development of the child and its well-being. It’s been
proved that a home where the two parents are at peace with
each other will guarantee a balanced growth for the baby.

5. Get Additional Source of Revenue: You need to get some
other sources of revenue to be able to successfully cope
with being a parent in today’s world because there so many
things you need to spend your money on to get your child
where you desire that they should be.

Basically, these are five of the ways by which you can cope
with being a parent. You can see that they are practicable
and easy to do for those who truly desire to get their
parenting on the way to success.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

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.

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

This is an important subject that we all should feel very much attached to in order for the new generation of the human race keep coming and our world get expanded the right way.

Today we are experiencing teenagers who are becoming parents without really planning to be.It just happened by mistakes and suddenly they realised that they are already parents in their own right but without any knowledge of adequate know-how.

This is where the subject matter of this article comes in:

Won’t it be far better for all of us if parenting is taught as a subject in our schools especially at the very senior class level?

I feel we shou;ld now consider this.

Students who are already within the ages 16 and 19 need to know what parenting is all about so that they can decide on their own to either zip-up and never go into any unprotected sex with their partner or go into sex with the awareness that they would be responsible for the consequences of their sexual relationships.

What do you feel about this?

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

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

Should you worry yourself over this?

The answer is NO!

Life is meant to be spent to your personal benefit.

You can’t live your life to satisfy another person to your detriment.

The following are pieces of advice you  can make use of as a single parent:

* Never embarrass your children with the way you’re dating your new partner.

* Don’t keep late nights or sleep outside your home no matter the circumstance.

* Work hard and be there for your children whenever you’re needed.

* Don’t be tempted to bring men into your home.Yes, it’s your home quite right, but what lesson would you want your child to learn from you?

* Be ready to make sacrifices for the sake of your children. They are the reason you’re called a parent, mind you.

* Be strong and organise your life bur never to the  detriment of your children.

* Provide for the needs of your children so they could be like the children who still enjoy the company of both parents.

These are very valuable pieces of advice that you should always remember and commit to heart at all times.

Enjoy your parenting efforts.

Sikaz

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

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