Is TV making your child fat?

Childhood overweight is a societal issue gaining increased attention among Americans today. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 15 percent of children and adolescents are overweight. Overweight children and adolescents are above the 95th percentile for body weight in their gender and age group.

Childhood overweight is on the rise in all age groups. For example, CDC reports that the incidence of overweight among 6 to 11 years old boys and girls in the U.S. has quadrupled in that last 30 years.

One contributing factor to the increase in childhood overweight is electronics – specifically, time spent in front of the TV and playing video games. A multitude of studies have determined that television viewing contributes to childhood overweight by physical inactivity and by encouraging snacking, particularly high fat and high calorie foods.

Another study of 6,000 youth found the chances of being overweight increased by approximately 2% for each additional hour of television viewing per day. Research at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, confirmed a link between television viewing and children’s food consumption patterns. They found that greater TV use is associated with higher intakes of fat, sweet and salty snacks and carbonated beverages; and lower intakes of fruit and vegetables.

Perhaps the best advice for parents is to get their kids to be active, or better yet, to be active WITH their kids, to limit TV watching to less than two hours per day, and to make sure they eat healthy foods. This isn’t a new concept, although when behaviorist John Lock drafted similar principles for raising children in 1693, he had to idea what parents would be up against!

Parenting Multi-racial Children

As multi-racial families become more prevalent in our culture, many challenges remain in raising multi-racial children. For example, children may grow up dealing with glares and comments from peers and adults who reject their family background. How can parents help their multiracial children thrive in their community

Researchers, educators, and practitioners working with multi-racial children suggest that parents follow several guidelines. First, they recommend that parents be open in the family about race and cultures. They can do this by encouraging their child's natural curiosity about differences and answering questions about the child's own background.

Parents can locate books and movies about multi-racial families and that "portray multi-racial individuals as positive role models". The family can attend different cultural events in the community and become familiar with the language, customs, and culture of all family members.

Families can also live in a diverse community where there is less sense of being "different". They can try to meet other multi-racial families and form support networks. Parents can also look into the local school system's training for teachers and counselors and encourage programs that increase understanding of multiracialism, or select schools that emphasize diversity as part of their program.

Like all children, multi-racial children "need to feel supported" and "nourished" "in their everyday environments" Parents, teachers, and extended family can have important roles to play in providing this nourishment.

Sources: American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 1999.

Toilet Training while out with Children

Living with toddlers is no doubt an adventure. As these little humans begin to develop skills that make them more independent, such as speech, mobility, dressing themselves and going to the toilet on their own, they are also developing new challenges for their parents. Working through potty training can be one of the most difficult challenges... but it doesn't have to be. It takes patience and persistence. To help your toddler make the transition from diapers to the toilet, helping them get there when they're not at home is also important.

Work with other caregivers, including your daycare provider or babysitter, to be consistent in your approach to toilet training. When you are out, be especially patient. You will soon learn where the closest restroom is in every grocery store, restaurant, and mall.

It is important to know that for every child there will be accidents. This is just a normal part of toilet training. Punishing or spanking the child for an accident can only make things worse! (Children who are punished for mistakes may end up resisting the toilet altogether.) Instead, stay calm and encourage the child; remind her or him to let you know when he or she has to go. Be sure to praise your child when she or he uses the potty, and tell her or him that you are proud. Celebrate with your child when you make it through the first "dry" day and congratulate yourself on your patience.

Letting natural consequences teach a lesson

A natural consequence is something that may happen naturally if your child does or does not do something. If parents allow them to work, natural consequences can be the best teachers for our children. Meaning – parents must be willing to not interfere with the consequence their child has “earned” as a result of his or her behavior. Of course, if a natural consequence puts your child in an un-safe position or can result in a life-long consequence, you must intervene.

However, many children are “rescued” by parents instead of being given the opportunity to safely experience the consequences of their actions. And for this, many children simply do not learn to be responsible. For example, a household rule may be the put dirty clothes in the hamper every day. That’s a bare-minimum request, right?

A natural consequence to a child not putting their dirty clothes in the hamper means that clothes don’t get washed. Period! However, if a (loudly complaining) adult always goes into the child’s room to pick clothes up off the floor on laundry day, the child isn’t learning to be responsible for his or her clothing.

Parents have a choice; continue to ignore the child’s refusal to follow the rule and pick the clothes up - which is only teaching the child that someone will take up the slack for his or her irresponsibility - or leave the clothing where it is and let the child suffer the consequence of having no clean clothes.

After a couple of weeks of this, I’m betting most children will “get with the program” and follow the rule. I’d be willing to push for his or her independence a little more by TEACHING the child how to sort clothes and run the washer and dryer himself. End result is a responsible, independent child and a happier, quieter household.

Likewise, a natural consequence for forgetting to study for a test may is that the child may do poorly on the test. Parents, you are not doing your children any favors by letting them stay home “sick” on test day because they were irresponsible. In fact, you may be encouraging the irresponsibility!

The world is full of natural consequences. See how many lessons your child can learn this week by allowing natural consequences to do the job.

Forgiveness in marrige: Is it always a good thing?

When a couple gets married, more than one friend or family member passes on the time-honored advice to “never go to bed angry.” Indeed, relationship experts have long emphasized the importance of forgiveness in marriage, a teaching that can seem hard to argue with.

But how does forgiving one’s spouse for minor transgressions, like nagging, arguing, or moodiness, affect the likelihood that he or she will do it again?

Researchers writing in the Journal of Family Psychology recently asked 135 newly married couples to keep a diary for a week. Each day, participants recorded whether their spouse did anything negative and whether they forgave him or her. Results revealed that spouses who forgave their partners were twice as likely to report poor spousal behavior again the next day. In fact, when partners reported both forgiven transgressions and un-forgiven transgressions, their spouses were six times more likely to transgress the next day if they had been forgiven.

Although the study did not explore whether the forgiving spouse had actually told their partner they had forgiven them, these results indicate that forgiveness alone may not be enough. In fact, forgiveness may actually encourage further transgressions among partners who often behave poorly. These negative behaviors may be a symptom of other relationship difficulties that require more direct intervention. While “never going to bed angry” continues to be wise advice, partners should recognize that truly resolving their conflicts may require more than just forgiveness.

Single mothers are teaching boys to do housework

In many families, children help out with chores, from washing dishes to mowing the lawn. However, boys and girls often have different jobs, with girls doing more cooking and cleaning and boys more household repairs and lawn care, reflecting our culture’s beliefs about gender and housework. Girls also spent more time overall on chores --about an hour more a week, according to some estimates.

On the other hand, a small study published in the Journal of Family Issues finds that in some single-mother families, these traditions are being challenged. Researchers looked at what prompted low- and moderate-income unmarried mothers to ask their sons to do housework, and how sons reacted.

Most boys helped out with a variety of chores, including ones typically considered “female,” such as ironing and laundry. Many also watched younger siblings, and a few also babysat for neighbors or other relatives.

Pressed for time and money, mothers relied on sons, and boys did a “significant amount” of work. But mothers’ motivations went deeper: They believed that boys should learn to do housework because it teaches “practical life skills and responsibility”. Also, a key motivation was to raise a son to be a good partner and “pull his own weight” once in a family of his own.

Although some boys resisted these responsibilities, most felt competent and satisfied with their work, while recognizing the importance of helping their mothers. Meanwhile, the mothers took pride in their sons as their families challenged long-held traditions about household work.

Single Parenting and the Time Crunch

If there is one thing single parents can get stressed about, it is lack of time to meet all their responsibilities. Most say they have too little time and too much to do. Learning to manage time is a problem for most people--not just single parents. Everyone has 24 hours a day; no one can get more. However, to have enough time to do the things that are important to us, we need to learn to control and manage our use of time. Start by making a list of your priorities and another list of things you spend time on that are not very important.

We can make a promise to ourselves to take control of our time. We can learn to cut out less important activities in order to free up time for more important ones. Sometimes events, other people, and our feelings keep us from accomplishing what we want. Everybody has a few of these barriers--barriers that take up time that we could be using to reach our goals. Typical time wasters include spending too much time on the telephone, spending too much time watching TV, not using short blocks of time constructively, "breaks" that turn into "vacations," and being impatient. Another example of a time waster is anything “high maintenance,” which can include morning routines, hair styles/make up, household clutter and simply having too much stuff, such as toys and clothes. A time waster and distraction for children is often television – so you may want a “no TV rule” on school mornings so they can stay focused.

Many people also have unrealistic time expectations and underestimate the amount of time it takes to accomplish a task, get the children up and ready for their day, time needed for homework, or to drive somewhere.

The next step is to decide if we can delegate tasks to others in the household. Even young children can help if we teach them how. Make a list of chores that your children are capable of doing and remember to add more responsibilities as they get older. For more information on time management for single parents, so to: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/HE/HE33900.pdf.