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Archive for Parenting Articles
Different Dream Parenting: A Practical Guide to Raising a Child with Special Needs
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When our beautiful newborn boy was transferred to a regional hospital, my husband and I felt lost at sea. A few hours later, we learned that our baby required immediate surgery at a university hospital 750 miles away. Without it, he would die. That news threw us overboard. We longed for someone who could come alongside and pull us out of the water. A book to chart a map through unfamiliar waters and assure us of God’s presence.
But our son was born in 1982 when pediatric medicine was a relatively new field. Families like ours were hard to find. Parenting books hadn’t been written. The internet didn’t exist. Over the next twenty years, even after the surgeries and medical procedures that corrected our son’s condition were over, my search for parenting resources yielded scant results. Eventually, I sensed God nudging me to come alongside young parents lost at sea like we had been, to create a map they could follow. Read More→
Balance Your Time between Children, Work and God
Posted by: | CommentsAs a work at home mom, you are always juggling priorities. Sometimes it seems that there’s not enough time in the day to get everything done–but you must. You’ve got to juggle job responsibilities with raising your kids right and you also want to give enough time to your faith. How do you do it? Maybe these tips will help.
1. Put God First
Putting God first doesn’t mean neglecting your other responsibilities. It’s about recognizing the importance of your faith to getting the rest of your life under control. If you attend worship regularly and socialize with other Christians, you’ll be a happier and more balanced person, which will make it easier to manage everything else you need to do. Putting God first is also about making sure that your schedule allows time for faith based activities and letting everyone in your family know that these are fixed in your schedule – everything else has to flow around them, most of the time at least. Once you’ve established that, you can move on the next aspect of getting organized. Read More→
The key to success with children is teaching them good values that they can take with them for the rest of their lives. Values that will help them excel more at school and even work later in life. And in today’s fast-paced lifestyle one of the most valuable lessons for them to learn is the value of patience and self-control. Showing your children how to wait for things and not get everything “NOW” can go a long way for teaching them life lessons. A great example of this can be found in Dr. David Schapira’s book, Fetus to Fifth Grade. In the book he recounts an experiment done at Stanford University by psychologist Walter Mischel.
Mischel published a study on children at the preschool on the Stanford University campus. He sat them down with a marshmallow. They were told that the research assistant had to leave for a few minutes (approximately 20 minutes) but if they did not eat the marshmallow during that time they would be rewarded with another marshmallow. Some of the children ate the marshmallow, but some did not and forced themselves to wait by thinking of other distractions, talking to themselves, playing games with their hands or trying to fall asleep. He then followed all of the children for a long period of time afterwards.
When evaluated later as teenagers, those children who resisted eating the marshmallow and exhibited delayed gratification were: Read More→
Tips for Finding a Good Nanny
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Finding a good nanny is no easy task. When you invite someone into your home to watch your children while you’re gone you have to have a strong trust that the person is going to spend their time doing the right thing and not teaching your children things that don’t jive with your own morals and standards, and that they’ll be honest and respectful of your home and family in your absence. It’s a rather large responsibility, placing an individual in your home like that. So how do you determine who makes the cut and who doesn’t?
1. Define your parameters
Before you even start looking for a nanny you have to determine what it is you want out of hiring one. Do you want someone who is going to watch your kids and clean the house? Do you want to provide strict instructions for them or let them do their own thing? Do you want them to take on tasks that fall outside the regular nanny duties? Defining what you want will help you choose someone who fits well into your household. Read More→
Will You Be Ready When The Big Questions Come?
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I had a phone interview with a woman who was writing an article on my story of living with a chronic illness and beginning a Christian ministry out of my experience. I was honored, excited, and. . . I got my calendar mixed up.
My 8-year-old son was out of school that day. So fifteen minutes before the interview I told him how important it was for mommy to do this. That he was allowed to play video games the entire time. (I know, I admit I am a mother that occasionally uses bribery.)I got him snacks, milk, an extra cup of milk in the fridge, and locked the high lock on the front door so he couldn’t escape–at least not without me hearing him move a stool over to reach it.
I was in my home office on the phone chatting away. I even shared a little bit about the challenges of being a chronically ill mom with the interviewer. We are colleagues in our organizations but she isn’t a believer. We have talked about it in the past and have a very open relationship in discussing faith and chronic illnesses.
She says she is still exploring. I hear the office door open and my son appears before me. I signal with my finger, “just a minute” but he says, “Mom. . . Mom! . . . MOM!” Read More→
Why Does My Child Act That Way?
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Every parent has a moment when they look at their child and wonder, why is he doing that? But child behavior isn’t such a mystery. After all, how many times have you explained your child’s latest outburst or action and the other parent says, “Oh yeah, Johnny used to do that too.”
Child behavior is governed by a combination or interaction between three things:
1) Temperament – This is why two kids in the same family can come out so different. Kids are born with their own temperament, sometimes referred to as “personality”. My son was a very easy going baby (except when he had colic) and child. He’s a relaxed and easy going teen. My daughter was fussy and needy. She has low frustration tolerance and difficulty with change. They are both great, smart, wonderful kids, but they perceive and react differently to the world based on their temperament. Read More→
Is Your Family Too Busy?
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Each week, is it a juggling act of sports and activities and carpools and meetings and church events? Do you fly past each other as you rush out the door? Are the treads on your tires and your tennis shoes wearing thin?
You are racing to finish homework, fold laundry, declutter the clutter, cook dinner, answer email, walk the dog and take care of the lawn
Can you relate to this madness?
Sisters, why do we do this? Why do we pack so much into our days… into our lives… that we fly by the seat of our pants? We find we’re racing from one thing to the next and are weary and frazzled when it’s all said and done.
Read More→
The Adolescent Brain: A Work in Progress
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Everyday some teen, famed or unfamiliar, makes the headlines…and the picture is usually not pretty. Adolescents today live in a more dangerous, sexualized, oppressive, and media-saturated world. They face more pressures and are coerced into starving themselves, undergoing unnecessary plastic surgery procedures, hooking up, and using substances. Research shows that celebrity obsession is also having far-reaching psychological effects.
As an adolescent I believed the destructive messages the pop culture presented to the millions who become captivated with their lives: binge drinking is okay, sexting makes you cool, an eating disorder and cosmetic surgery are the answers to perfect beauty, marriage doesn’t have to be forever. All I got was a life full of torture, shame, and fear. Why was it so easy for me to fall to temptation and make the wrong choices? That is a question that plagues most people who live with or work with an adolescent. Read More→
Pregnancy Tips – Recommendations for Eating Right While Pregnant
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For a large percentage of women, the time when they gain the most weight is when they are pregnant. More than 25% of
women gain more than 40 pounds during pregnancy. Typically, 18 to 20 pounds are due to the baby and pregnancy changes, so the rest of the weight gain (20+ pounds) will stay on your body after childbirth.
The Institute of Medicine now recommends the following guidelines for pregnancy weight gain, depending on body type, with the average being 30.5 pounds for women in the U.S: Read More→
Lumps
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Lumps. They’re everywhere. We hear about them at the doctor’s office, see them in our gravy, and toss and turn to avoid the ones in our mattresses. They sneak into our socks (I detest sock lumps), invade our pillows and make our mashed potatoes look rugged. Lumps come in all sizes and appear in a plethora of places.
But how about you? Are you a lump? At the end of the day, do you find yourself plopping yourself down in front of the TV (or the computer or a novel), only slightly aware of the goings on around you? Consider the following scenario:
Child (coming in from school): Mom, can I have a snack?
Mom (seated on the couch, engrossed in reading): Mmm. Sure.
Child: Did you know there’s mold on this bread?
Mom (still engrossed): That’s nice.
Child (testing to see if Mom’s really listening): I failed my history test.
Mom (barely audible): Good for you.
The eye contact is nonexistent. The interaction is stale at best (much like the bread). One thing, however, was communicated: What I’m doing right now is more important than you. Read More→
CWAHM.com is a dream that God has truly brought to life. I began CWAHM.com in 2000 while learning HTML. I thought it would be a fun hobby and a way to compile all the information I was seeking on working at home. I am a mom of 2 (1 boy, 1 girl), a wife and I do work from home. I accepted Christ as my savior at the age of seven as a Sparky in my church’s AWANA club. I have a Bachelor’s degree from Grace University in Human Development and Family Studies/Bible. I love working from home and I pray that CWAHM will be a blessing in your life as it has been in mine.