Family Tips

First of all, do not panic, if it seems to you, that your child grows insufficiently quickly. Children grow jerky. You have already seen it. Still yesterday he or she was little one, and today it seems to you, that you child has already become absolutely adult. If it seems to you, that the child grows insufficiently quickly, you’d better go to your children’s doctor.

Simply suggest him or her various foods, and you will see, that the child will choose what is necessary for an organism. Recent researches of the American Dietary Association have shown that in spite of the fact that 49% of mothers are worried that their children are hard to be pleased in meal, their children receive enough useful substances during a meal.

Provide various and diverse food for your child. Remember, that the more often you offer the child different products, the higher is probability, that your child will start to eat various products.

For the beginning, you should understand that it is impossible and unnecessary to force the child to eat diverse food. Try to understand, that the choice of your child to eat only this, instead of any another food, first of all, is his or her own choice. Try to look from the other point of view - the child learns to make the first choice in the life. And you try to force him or her to eat what the child does not want or can not eat in such amount. Frequently in further these children have eating disorder - they simply do not know, when they should stop eating or the meal starts to be associated with some obligations and something unpleasant. Your aspiration to force the child will have an effect further. Your child will be simply less open to new gustatory senses in the further life.

It may be so that you are not ready yet that your child will be in order, if he or she eats only cracker and washes down it with water all the day. You cannot expect from the kid eating balanced and useful food each time. If you are disturbed with his or her habits, simply start to write down that your kid eats. You will be surprised that your child has all necessary food groups in course of some weeks, instead of at one sitting. So, he can eat only fruits one week, only meat – the other week.

You also should understand that your expectations of the necessary amount of food are not always correct. Take your dietary intake, divide weight of your body into weight of the child and you will understand that usual portions are huge for your kid. Two-three pieces of bread for the five years’ old kid are equivalent to 15 pieces for an adult.

It is completely normal, if your kid has suddenly decided that he or she hates everything that you did not give him for a dinner - even the food, which he or she adored yesterday. Other extreme is also frequent - when your kid insists on the same food: Mum, give me again and again kefir and from same bottle. And it proceeds until the kid does not begin to hate kefir and starts to love porridge.

Experts say that the reason of such behavior is fear of new sensations. It is just what our civilization has developed for protection during evolution. You simply do not try what you have not tried earlier. Kiddies simply love everything that they have already tried earlier - it concerns daily habits, as going to bed, it concerns food and meal. Kids love things which they have tried or tasted earlier.

Other reason why small demanders do not want to eat - is a postulate «only try to force me do it». Kids put to the test your authority.

It may seem that the kid just does not have patience to sit on one place and to eat up a breakfast. What to do? Experts say that the best way is to create similarity of routine for meal. Try to remove all distracting things, as the TV, radio and pets.

The American scientists from Yale University have conducted a research and established that infants in the age of six months are capable not only to crawl and sound, but also to distinguish good and bad intentions of people.

According to new research, babies get social skills within the first several months of a life, therefore are capable to estimate intentions of other people, deciding who from them is a friend, and who - an enemy.

“We do not claim that babies reflect upon ethical questions, but they better treat those who act well, than those who do bad things. This is the basis of moral principles which are formed later”, - says the author of the research Kaily Hamlin. 

The data of the experiment specify that people start to estimate associates from the social point of view at an early stage of development, - mark the authors of the research.

It would be ridiculous to offer a five years’ old kid to choose the nurse, products in a supermarket or a schedule of a day. Nevertheless even small children should learn to make a choice. The small child should be given so-called «choice in a framework». Something similar makes an advertisement with us, asking which hamburgers do we prefer: round or square? Willy-nilly we should think of it, even if we do not favor these hamburgers.

Precisely the same thing is with the child: you should not discuss or lecture on advantages of movement and fresh air, it is enough to ask: «Where shall we go today: to a children’s playground near a house or to the park?»; «What will you drink: water or juice?»; «Will you put your toys in order now or after a walk?».

Such questions put limits: they do not allow the child to decide whether to remove toys or not. But they allow to make the choice, and the child will do cleaning more responsibly if it is his or her own decision.
As a whole, till 5 years age children are better to be offered a choice of one of two variants, and in a further their amount is gradually increased.

Let’s assume 13-years old girl saying her parents: «Today I go to visit my friend, may I stay there for a night»? If the parents know nothing about this friend, there are two bad answers. The conservative bad answer: «In no case! Do not dare to go there in at all». The liberal bad answer: «What a question! You are already adult girl».

Wise parents will not answer at once “yes”, or “no”, and will start to ask the child and search for variants: «What you need it for? Are there alternatives: can we, for example, meet you? Why would you like to stay there»? In a result any decision will be more reasonable and more responsible for both sides.

Conversation can never be too much. It concerns the child of any age. Therefore before making the decision, it is necessary to talk to the child.

Let us suppose, the kid declares: «I do not want to go to kindergarten tomorrow». Parents can not neglect this message, it needs to be investigated. But it is equally silly to agree with the child at once and to search for the nurse urgently.
When the small person experiences helplessness, he or she often starts to feel fear and not always understands the reason. And here parents act as natural psychotherapists, if take children’s feelings seriously and give the child chance to talk about them. The more the child expresses fears, the less they frighten. It is vital to show the kid that to be afraid (and also - to feel like lonely, guilty, angry) is normally. Tell him or her about your fears. You should ask open questions (but not those demanding short answers): «What don’t you like in kindergarten? What does frighten you there»?

If you want your child to turn into an independent person, you should start thinking about it literally from very young age.

It is easier for us to spoon-feed the kid that then to clean and wash a floor and a ceiling; we quite often would like to solve arithmetic exercises to have a rest at last. All parents do this way sometimes. But if such style of care becomes habitual, in a result you should accompany the 25-years old child to his love dates.

The baby is born as an entirely and completely dependent creature, then he or she needs some dozens years to become autonomous. Wise parents help him or her to find independence. It is difficult: all parents wish protect the child from severe realities. But there is a simple law of independent person’s upbringing: you must not do instead of your child those things, which he can do without your help. Yes, the child will have some troubles, but he can learn to deal with stress only from his own experience. Otherwise parents will have the child, who avoids risk at any cost and doesn’t believe his own forces. Such child will suffer already in the primary school age, when problems are inevitable and parents can’t be alongside all the time.
Therefore, for the sake of the child’s future, do not do superfluous. Such approach will undoubtedly increase timetable. However, there are no successful “express trains-methods” in a dialogue with children.

The feeding mothers refusing animal food can cause serious harm to intellectual development of the child. American doctors from the Centers of diseases control and preventive maintenance have told in the weekly edition about two cases of development disorder. It has been connected to deficiency of vitamin B12.

The main sources of this substance necessary for development of a brain are products of animal origin, such as meat, eggs and dairy products. Nursing mother provides the child with all vitamins, only if she herself consumes all nutrients or takes corresponding vitamin complexes.

In two cases told by doctor Maria Elena Jefferds, mothers refused all animal products. In 15-month’s age doctors have revealed growth inhibition and development delay. It was found out, that the mother, who was vegetarian within several years, fed the child with breast milk for eight months.

At the same time on pages of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report doctor Jefferds has noticed, that vegetarians, certainly, should continue breast feeding but keep up sufficient level of necessary for the child substances.

American scientists have proved that women with the bigger difference between the size of a waist and hips are more intelligent and give birth to children with higher intellectual faculties.

Researchers from the Californian University in Santa Barbara and University of Pittsburgh have found out that women’s hips contain fat acids omega-3 which promotes development of mother’s brain and also the child during pregnancy.

“Round hips contain the important nutrients which promote development of a brain and help to give birth to clever children”, - has explained one of researchers, Stephen Galin from University of Santa Barbara.

“Men subconsciously pay attention to pneumatic forms as it is important for reproduction. Now we know biochemical hidden motive of such popularity”, - has noted William Lassek from University of Pittsburgh, informs Daily Telegraph.

American psychologists have put a task to find out under what circumstances a dog can bite the child. It is known, that the dog treats the kid as a younger member of a troop, a cub, which needs to be cared of. And all the same, there are still some accidents, sometimes with grave consequences.

For 4 years psychologists have analyzed 111 cases when children were assailed by their own dogs. Three quarters of incidents have taken place because the dog has been unexpectedly frightened during a game, or has heard a sudden noise, or a clap of a petard. Sometimes four-footed friends do not bear attempts to take off their titbit. And some from the dogs, had serious diseases, and have reacted with a bite to an attempt of the kid to touch a sore spot.

The conclusion arises by itself: for the sake of own safety the child should be taught from the earliest age that a dog, as well as the person, can become aggressive “because of nerves”.