Torsey's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘kids’

How can I ask nicely for my parents and my husband’s parents to stop buying so many toys for my two girls? Last year at Chrismas, I could only get my daughter a Leap-pad and some cartridges because I knew our families were getting her so much stuff. My oldest has so many toys she doesn’t value any of them, and she often gets doubles from many members of the family.
We recently moved over seas, and I had to donate so much to the Thrift Store and give them to friends. I’m really thankful that we don’t live so close right now because of this. But we’ll only be here for one more year. How do I nicely let them know that a trunkload of toys at every Christmas and Birthday is just too much?

He is 19 and a college freshman.

by: Jeannine Virtue

A study released this week estimates that more than 7 million Americans have misused Adderall, Ritalin and other stimulant medications used to treat ADHD, and that 75,000 showed signs of addiction to stimulant medications.

This recent study, published in the online journal “Drug and Alcohol Dependence,” culled data from a 2002 national survey of about 67,000 households. Research found that men and women were equally likely to abuse ADHD medications but that women seemed to be at a greater risk for dependency. Men, on the other hand, seemed to be at a greater risk of abuse.

A surprising aspect of this study was in revealing who is most likely to misuse stimulant drugs. Most often, college students abuse Adderall and Ritalin in an attempt to boost their academic performance. A previous study showed that stimulant drugs are most commonly abused in highly competitive colleges, with B-average and below college students twice as likely to illegally use prescription drugs.

College student increasingly recognize that Adderall and Ritalin are much more effective than coffee or caffeine pills at helping them sit down, focus, get their work done – through the night if necessary – and still not interfere with their social lives. The drug use becomes a significant problem when college students start to abuse Adderall and other amphetamine drugs, becoming addicted to them or experiencing toxic effects.

With approximately 1.5 million adults and 2.5 million children currently receiving prescriptions for ADHD medications, finding a friend or a friend of a friend willing to sell off their drugs is not very difficult for many people. Most students reported getting Adderall, the stimulant of choice due to its long lasting effects, from those that were diagnosed with ADHD. One Adderall pill can fetch $5, which makes selling off prescription meds a lucrative deal for those with access to the drugs.

Colleges and universities are also reporting a sharp increase in the amount of students making appointments at campus medical centers to obtain their own ADD diagnosis. Not until recently have studies examined the abuse of prescription drugs. One study revealed that those who use prescription stimulants are more likely to engage in binge drinking, drunk driving, and using illegal drugs as well.

Another study indicated that those from wealthier backgrounds were more likely to abuse both legal and illegal drugs. In light of these past studies and the new study showing the high rate of abuse and addiction, some experts believe that the real focus of ADHD medication dangers should center on the abuse of Adderall and other ADHD drugs – not the side effects.

Researchers point out that 75,000 people addicted to stimulants is more worrisome than the 100-200 adults who have had strokes as a result of using stimulant ADHD drugs. Earlier this month, the FDA advisory panel recommended that the FDA put Black Box warnings on all ADHD medications. This black box warning – the most severe of all FDA warnings – would state that stimulant ADHD drugs can cause cardiovascular events and even death, especially if there’s a preexisting heart condition.

The FDA panel expressed a hope of curtailing what is seen as out-of-control over-prescribing of potentially dangerous drugs. Prescriptions for ADHD drugs have doubled over the past five years. The hope is that the black box warning will remind parents that just because a drug is legal does not mean it is safe. Ritalin, Adderall and Concerta are “Class B” drugs and are in the same drug class as cocaine. These drugs have potential for abuse, addiction and physical and mental harm – just as other drugs in this elevated classification do.

Click Here for more about medicine safety …

Kids need things in their lives to make them feel excited and at the same time have these be something that could educate them such bowling t-shirts. The retro bowling style it’s not just clothes, it much more than that. This clothing style has a story behind it like everything else in this world does. However kids need more things that they can learn to love because of the history behind them.

You can make kids aware of the style and even the lifestyle that the people from the era used to lead. The 1950’s were a time where fashion was still glamorous but it had an edge to it. Swing dancers, bowling alleys, lounges and school dances were some of the highlights of the time. Now, the retro bowling shirts still speak of the 50’s era in a way that it’s actually wearable in modern days.

It could be hard for kids not to wear things that they do not see all the time but this is where change can come in. Bowling shirts as a style are great for anyone in the family so now you can set an example for your kids by teaching them to think outside the box and not be afraid to be unique. It is sometimes difficult to find items of clothing that kids will love but it is true what they say, kids imitate what they see. If you create an environment where thought provoking things are being said and even worn then you can help them face life itself without being afraid to be different. There are many ways to give kids confidence but the truth is that part of it comes from the way they look. People nowadays are becoming more open minded to “different” and kids are as well. It is true that kids can be cruel but this can be helped by teaching them to have confidence in themselves so nothing can bring them down.

Everyone wants to look cool and stylish, including kids when they go out with their friends and even to school. For this reason, cool bowling t-shirts for kids are a great option to make them look fun and at the same time not “old.” None of us like to look outdated and worn our. Fashion now it’s a lot more free and people are not being afraid to experiment with their clothes. Let your kid set a trend that is seen now in shows like Two and a Half Men by characters like Charlie Sheen and let him express himself.

There is no greater feeling than to feel like you could conquer the world and that your life is yours for the taking. Clothes can make you feel confident and give you the extra push we sometimes need to get out there and start working to make our dreams come true. Kids need to feel like they can achieve their dreams and independent thinking can help them with this.

Copyright (c) 2007 Jerry Carpos

Reading is an excellent way to encourage kids to learn a lot of good stuff which can help them as they grow older. Improved vocabulary, language, and imagination are some benefits of reading. Parents and schools should therefore actively participate during reading sessions.

Language involves a highly specialized set of skills. It takes years to learn to speak and even longer to learn to read. Mankind spends more time on raising its young than any other species on Earth. Let us admit it, cultural achievements are so complex that it will will require a decade of intensive study on our part for us to master it or acquire even the basic notions. This knowledge is, of course, passed on to us mostly at school and almost entirely in written form.

Intellectual achievements took an upturn when the printing press was invented in 1450, although it took a few more centuries for the general public to start to read. The earlier a parent or guardian can make reading natural to the child, the better he or she will be able to assimilate school material later in life. Reading aloud to small children is directly associated with college achievement. More than half of those who read to their children are college graduates, most are women. Of mothers educated only to high school level, 44 percent read to their pre-school age children. For those who did not complete high school, the figure is lower, at 38%. Almost two thirds of white, non-hispanic children, are likely to be read to, as opposed to 41% of black, non-Hispanic children and 33% of Hispanic children.

How can you get children into reading and have fun with it at the same time? Basically, keep alert, follow your intuition and let your imagination run riot. Below you will find a number of tips, based on the experience of parents who have successfully encouraged a love of reading in their children.

The first thing to realize is that an interest in stories is completely natural to human beings. All societies started out with an oral tradition of story-telling. Tales were entertainment for dark winter nights, they were a means of passing on important cultural facts from one generation to another, and they bound the social group together in a common experience. First and foremost, they offered reassurance in an uncertain world.

Who has not experienced first hand, as a child, the deep comfort of listening to a story? I’m sure you can recall the excitement and delight of a particular tale, which you probably requested on repeated occasions. Perhaps it was a story which allowed free rein to exorcising deeply felt hopes and fears, as do the tales from Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. The child is both stimulated and soothed by the human voice. For making kids drowsy at bed-time, there is nothing better than a looong tale. The child knows from the voice that protection, i.e. an adult, is near. The tone of that voice is so familiar because the child could hear it before he or she was even born.

So, storytelling fulfills a set of primary needs of comfort for the child, who through listening becomes a member of the clan. This is the first benefit of reading aloud, and it is immediate. On top of this emotional stimulus, intellectual skills are built in a number of ways, as is described below.

When a child listens to a story, the child exercises a complex number of skils that can help develop the cognitive abilities of his/her developing brain. Firstly, what is being said is converted into images, i.e. represented in the mind. This is a powerful stimulant to the imagination and to intelligence itself: special abilities are especially spurred, so that the child who is read to can easily imagine, say, a room, a house, a forest, a park, and objects in relation to one another. High ability in diverse fields such as Mathematics and sports is directly related to a child’s special ability.

Naturally, vocabulary is greatly enriched and general expression and articulacy promoted by listening to the language of stories, which tends to be both generally comprehensible, because it is part of a story with beginning, middle and end, and at the same time far richer and more complex than conversational and peer language.

Short-term memory is stretched along with the attention span, as the child follows the plot of the story. Reasoning and moral judgments are challenged, horizons are broadened. This will help with the child’s own decision-making capacity and will encourage independent thinking.

Reading aloud is a theatrical experience, which is why it is fun. As with all performance, the pacing can make or break it. Preparation increases the pleasure and does not have to be elaborate. Selecting the text and familiarizing yourself with it, and if possible adding props, songs or rhymes, will all help to make your family reading more fun and memorable.

Your kids will thank you for it, and their school performance will improve. But remember, this is a long term thing. You’ll know you’ve really been successful when your kids start to read aloud to their own children.

Most of today’s kids are suffering from obesity and the rate is growing day by day. The problem arrives from the fact of not having physical exercise in children. Today most of the kids want to enjoy their spare time by playing video games, watching television, or by reading. Earlier kids had enough exercises which they achieved while playing games like football, baseball, or by even climbing trees.
Active kids are found to be better and fit. An exercise program includes work out for achieving strength and flexibility. The program followed by kids is completely different from the ones followed by grown ups. The main reason for kids hating exercise is that they found it repetitive and boring. For gaining their interest, one has to make the exercise a bit interesting. That can be done by adding fun in the form of games. In other wards some games can be modified by adding more physical activity in it. Initially parents or teachers should organize such games. They have to participate with them in such games. Once they acquire interest, they will invite their friends so that it will be a group activity.
Exercise is a very important activity needed by today’s kids as most of them are in active and not enthusiastic. Without having a physical activity will create some many problems later in their life once they cross the age of forty. Changes have to be made in their lifestyle so that they will become more happy and energetic. There is unique factor found in almost all kids and that is there fun loving nature. Child psychologists suggest including the fun factor in all the activities which there are hesitant to do.
Parents have a major role in influencing the kid’s nature of interest. If you want your kids to follow a healthy lifestyle you should also practice it. You can change the lifestyle in such a way that kids will start imitating you. For example if you were using elevator instead of stairs your kids will also follow you. But instead if you use the stairs the kids will be happy to follow you and after some they will use the stairs even in your absence.
You should plan the exercise schedule interesting and fun filling so that kids won’t stay back in front of the television to watch entertaining serials and shows. You can make it further interesting by doing a group activity with all of your family members so that the kids will be thrilled and amazed. The above strategy can be followed while performing activities like walks, cycling, swimming, biking, etc. Always try not to push your child too much for exercises which will have a negative impact on the kid by loosing interest. Kids should never feel that is a sort of punishment to them.
The children in higher classes at school will get the opportunity to practice soccer, baseball and basket ball. You can also practice the game with your child at home by using the garden space. The kid should feel that you are a participant of the game and not a trainer. These types of games will boost the spirit and energy level of your kid and they will never get lazy to do physical activities.

 By Tom Bloch

It’s no secret that schools across the nation are in trouble. Teachers are overstressed, overwhelmed, and unable to get students to cooperate. If you’re a parent of school-aged kids, this is a distressing reality. In the whirlwind of work, household chores, social commitments, and everything else that sucks up your time, it’s incredibly hard to take an active role in their education. I’ve realized two things: 1) without parental involvement, kids are far less likely to live up to their potential, and 2) with encouragement and caring, even kids from the toughest homes can thrive. So just imagine what your own children can do.

Chances are, few readers will be able to identify with the severe challenges faced by some of the kids I’ve taught. Still, I believe all parents can benefit from what I’ve learned. My book not only showcases the grim dynamics of the inner city classroom, but it also illuminates the truth about what kids need to succeed. Having committed adults who care and push them to excel tops the list.

I ended up co-founding an inner city college preparatory charter school called University Academy, located in an area of Kansas City known for its crime and poverty. The school serves over 1,000 students in kindergarten through grade twelve. Over the last five years, all but two students who have graduated from UA went on to attend college, a remarkable accomplishment for an urban school.

Through my experiences I have learned techniques that help underserved kids from low-income, broken families discover their self-confidence, ambition, and a sense of accountability. Much of the success is due to the school itself, but in so many cases parental involvement makes the biggest difference. When parents of UA students get involved and stay involved, the kids succeed at high rates.

Keep reading for a few of my own tips on how to engage your children and prime them for optimum learning and success in school.

Brush up on your own reading, writing, and ’rithmetic. Perhaps the best way to guarantee that your kids succeed in school is to review their homework with them each evening. It is not at all uncommon for parents to have to re-learn entire subjects to help their children succeed. Help them grasp a concept they’re struggling with. Remind yourself that nothing else—no TV show, no housework, nothing—is more important than your children’s academic and character development.

Invest in more of the intangibles and less of the tangibles for your children. I have noticed that even low-income families send their children to school in the most expensive Nike shoes. What this proves to me is that materialism is rampant in society—not just in high-income families, but in all families. Kids need to learn to discover more value in enrichment activities and less value in status symbols. On holidays and birthdays, choose to give your children life experiences in addition to material objects. Take a trip to a historic site within a day’s drive. Or buy a musical instrument for your child along with the weekly lessons. One day he or she will be grateful for the memories and useful skills you will have helped create.

Don’t expect teachers to raise your child. Some parents expect schools to do all the work in educating and socializing their children. But this is both irresponsible and impossible. It must be a dual effort. When parents instill respect, responsibility, caring, and compassion in their children, teachers can enforce these values. Some parents who are disengaged from their children’s education also expect their kids to be passed along to the next grade regardless of their academic achievement. This kind of parental mindset transcends all socio-economic class boundaries. As a parent, it is your responsibility to teach your child to work hard and live according to a strong code of ethics. Otherwise, it’s like trying to build a house without first building a foundation.

Support teacher decisions. It’s perfectly natural for a parent’s pride to be wounded when his or her child fails in some way in school. And, unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for parents to react angrily towards the school when their children are punished for misbehavior. But this kind of reaction is almost always a big mistake and does children no favors. If you suspect a teacher is treating your child unfairly, then by all means sit in on a class or schedule a conference to get to the bottom of things. Children must learn to follow rules and to accept the consequences for not doing so. And by supporting a teacher’s fair decision, you create a united front that your child is far more likely to respect.

Commit to volunteer. The phrase is shop-worn by now, but it really does take a village to raise a child. Try your best to be not just a parent to your own child, but part of the “village” for all the children. Schools desperately need involved, committed, and dedicated parents. If you have a special skill that can be shared with your child and his or her school family, consider volunteering. The inner city school that I co-founded feels so strongly about parental involvement that it requires parents to volunteer a minimum of twice a year to enrich their school’s support network.

Parental apathy and even hostility are real concerns in today’s schools. The truth is, it’s very difficult for teachers to make children successful without the support of parents at home. Even in affluent households, where parents can afford private schools and tutors, kids are still kids. They need the involvement and commitment of their parents in order to develop the skills and values necessary to succeed in school and in life. It’s a principle that goes beyond socio-economics.

Still, the primary message of my book is one of hope. Because underprivileged kids are proving they can overcome terrible conditions, those of us born into more fortunate circumstances should never settle for less than our best. Many of the kids featured in Stand for the Best are rising to find their greatness. If they can do it, your kids can, too.

An excess of praise may be doing kids more harm than good. A cover story in this month’s Scholastic Instructor magazine asks whether kids today are “over praised.’’ The concern is that by focusing on self-esteem and confidence building, parents and teachers may be giving real goals and achievement short shrift.

The article cites a recent study in which eighth graders in Korea and the United States were asked whether they were good at math. Among the American students, 39 percent said they were excellent at math, compared to just 6 percent of the Korean eighth graders. But the reality was somewhat different. The Korean kids scored far better in math than the over-confident American students.

The notion that you can praise a kid too much is heresy to parents and teachers who have long believed that building self-esteem should be the cornerstone of education. If kids believe in themselves, the thinking goes, achievement will naturally follow. But confidence doesn’t always produce better students. Scholastic cites a 2006 report on education from the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center that found that countries in which families and schools emphasize self-esteem for students lag behind cultures where self-esteem isn’t a major focus.

The problem with this “rah-rah mentality,’’ as the magazine describes it, is that it can take away the sense of satisfaction that comes from genuine achievement. “Self-esteem is based on real accomplishments,” Robert Brooks, faculty psychologist at Harvard Medical School, told the magazine. “It’s all about letting kids shine in a realistic way.”

The downside of too much praise is that kids may start to focus on the reward rather than what they are learning. Worse, failure can be devastating and confusing for a student whose confidence is based on an inflated ego, rather than his or her actual abilities, the magazine notes. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t praise our kids or that teachers shouldn’t try to engender self-confidence. But self-esteem should be the result of good grades and achievement, not false accomplishments.

Last month, Cognitive Daily reported that parents and teachers should be specific rather than general when they dispense praise. An example of general praise is telling a child, “You’re smart.’’ Specific praise would be to say, “You did a good job reading,’’ or “You did great on your math test.’’ Kids who receive general praise about their abilities are more likely to exhibit “helpless” behavior when they encounter problems with learning, compared with kids who receive specific praise about their achievement on a task.

The reason: a child who knows she’s a smart girl feels defeated if she has trouble reading a sentence. But a child who has been told she is a good reader is more likely to have confidence in that specific ability and work a little harder to tackle a more difficult book.

Ellen and the Vacuum Kid

Considering their inestimable imporance for us and the high role of their schooling for the protect the world’s wellbeing kids~children and teens are also very important from the point of view of another coefficient. Hand in hand they create the biggest seller’s market

They form the biggest demand for foods, films, for cosmetics, for IT just to see some fields of the selling. Let see how many new fahion items, toys, sweets, and fun stuff we buy for our kids each monthy, as they grow up.

children and teenage girls and boys mean the highest ever demand also in fashion. At first the clothes companies target the parents with their marketing first for start, and then let teens have their own way in taste.

About the food practices, if we take any fastfood company, McDonalds could be far from being this famous, if kids and adolescents didn’t like to spend time over there. So you can see it’s selling strategy is premamently built on to keep kids also including teens in their stategy lately with putting music watching and listening possibilities in their eateries.

As they say, kids see what to eat by seeing their outlook first. If the outlook is not suitable,for them, then they don’t want to taste it anyway, just think of spinach. The hundreds of forms of confisseries weren’t this famous if kids weren’t crazy for their colors. Luckily there are also a lot of fruits and veggies in attractive colors to choose from.

On the color decision, it’s generally stands for all we, and especially kids and teens all choose from. Other businesses too have begun to focus on the younger generation in electronics ,such as mp3, iPod, mp3s and mp4’s and laptops and mobile phones, and all their many combinations. And so, they have reached a great success with all of them. Here also applies the color-code: selling their new devices in many nice-looking colors

Teenage guys mean the biggest ever buyers for every computer games, cellular phones, mp3, mp4, Ipod, notebooks. All IT companies concentrate on the young generation to buy and to update always to their better, more special products. Not to mention the fashion manias in all schools at all stage.

About wear, you see the market of child and especially teenage fashion is blooming, it’s indeed important what our kid~childs~children wear, first for us, and then later on for themselves. All fashion stores have a big kid department and an also bigger adolescents storey.

With all their curiosity to learn more about the world, both kids and teens need to know about all, because want to be up-to-date in always, and anyways this is their task to do, to get prepared for the globe they will live in. Let’s let them to learn. To read more about this subject and to find warcraft gold for sale visit the link in this sentence.

The average child spends 900 hours in school per year and nearly 1,023 hours in front of a television. In fact, most children plug into the world of television long before they even enter school and when they do, statistics show that 70% of child-care centers use television during a typical day.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), children watch around four hours of television a day. The AAP guidelines however, state that children older than 2 should watch no more than one to two hours a day of quality programming. Further, children under age 2 should have no ‘screen time’ whatsoever (that’s no TV, DVDs, computers or video games) at all. During the first 2 years, a critical time for brain development, television can get in the way of exploring, learning and spending time interacting and playing with parents and others, which helps the young develop the skills they need to grow cognitively, physically, socially and emotionally.

While there are many entertaining and educational experiences for children to have on ‘screens’, it is important to keep in mind what children need at different ages for their healthy development. So, how much time is okay?

• Children under 2 years – very little time, preferably none.
• Preschoolers – an hour of age-appropriate programmes a day is plenty.
• Children 5 to 8 years – an hour a day maximum.
• Children over 8 years – an hour and a half to two hours a day is acceptable.

To follow these guidelines means that your children have the time and opportunity to build strong bonds with real and caring people, have time for active physical play and ‘hands-on’ activities of all kinds.

Therefore, plan what you watch and limit your child to the amount watched each day. Decide together what programs will be watched and only have ‘the box’ on then, rather than on all the time. This teaches children to think, plan, make choices and allows time for them to do other things important for their development.

Other issues to be aware of or implement include:

• Remember to lead by example – your child’s viewing habits may be copied from yours.
• Television viewing for a very young child should always take place in your company.
• Record programs so they can be played at a time that suits your family.
• Encourage children to discuss how they feel after watching a program.
• Play ‘spot the gimmicks and tricks’ when watching commercials.
• Decide on bedtime based on your child’s age, and not on the time a certain programme ends.
• Children need to relax and unwind between television and sleep, so turn the volume down or off before bedtime.
• Make television one of many activities your children do – so organise outings, play-dates and activities for them that don’t involve ‘screens’. Fun arts and crafts such as coloring and drawing are always well received – especially if you join in – and especially if you choose coloring pages of a favourite character – so for example at sites like Spongebob Coloring Pages you’ll find the best Spongebob colouring book

Television has its advantages. It can be educational and entertaining. It can open up new worlds for kids, giving them the opportunity to virtually travel the globe and learn about different cultures.However, many down-sides also exist; many children are exposed to violence, advertising and adult material that is not age appropriate.

Like maintaining a balanced diet or regular bedtime, establishing healthy television habits is one of the most important things you can do for your family.