Speaking to Your Young Children About the LGBTQ Community

As parents, we are always concerned about our children and we tend to ask ourselves an abundance of questions. For instance: “Is my child doing well in school?” “Why is my child so picky?” “How can I tell if my child’s speech is normal?” These are questions parents can usually answer or seek out resources to obtain answers for.  But what answers do parents have when the question is “how do I explain the LGBTQ community to my child?” It can be a challenging process to educate children about LGBTQ individuals , no matter what your beliefs or values may be. The acceptance of the LGBT community can be seen through entertainment, education, marketplace, as well as social media. It shows the tremendous change in our culture and has become extremely effective to educate and highlight LGBTQ awareness.

Guest Post: Alexa, Cortana, Siri and Google Assistant: AI in your home

We are excited to have Carrie Rogers-Whitehead from Digital Respons-Ability back for today's guest blog post.

Have you recently bought a virtual assistant for your home? Another word for a virtual assistant is an artificial intelligence, or AI. These tools are convenient for remembering numbers, sending reminders, purchasing items and more. More and more of these devices are coming into homes. Consumer Intelligence Research Partners reports a growth of 200% in these devices from 2016 to 2017. Amazon is currently dominating the market and "won" the 2017 holiday buying season.

Guest Post: Preparing Your Home for Parenthood When You Live with a Disability

Nesting is the act of preparing one’s home for the arrival of a new baby or child. Typically, nesting involves things such as painting a nursery, buying a crib, baby-proofing the house, and making sure everything is as clean as possible as the due date approaches. However, when you are a parent living with a disability, your nesting process is generally more intense.

Age Appropriate Chores for Children

Do you ever find yourself wondering what types of chores your child is capable of performing or how to help motivate them to do chores in the first place? Here are five helpful tips to consider.

Is Your Child FUSSY?

A fussy baby, especially when mom and dad are tired or fussy themselves, can seem like the hardest hurdle in parenthood. There were several times when, especially in the middle of the night, I couldn’t seem to figure out what my daughter was trying to tell me. What was I missing? 

Guest Post: Parenting Tips to Reduce Holiday Stress

During the holidays, we dream of making sentimental, joyful memories, but our realities often don’t measure up.  Juggling work and parenthood is challenging on its own. Once you throw the holidays into the mix, tensions can easily flare and blood pressure rises. Fortunately, there are many ways to reduce your stress, enjoy your family, and make those dreams become reality.

Toddlers and Touching

Before I get started I want to say that this topic might make some of you uncomfortable. However, as a Parent Support Specialist, who gets this question a lot, I feel it's important to address. The topic is toddlers touching themselves.

I often get a comment or a concern about a toddler who has started touching themselves in their private area and sometimes it’s in public. Parents don’t know what to do or what to say. Hopefully these tips can help when/if this starts to happen to you.

Are Chores Worth the Hassle With Kids?

The ultimate dream: a clean house. Keeping a house clean is hard work with all the toys, snacks, and clothes that land on the ground daily and all of the activities and meals that moms are in charge of. Cleaning can be intimidating if mom is the only one working, and eventually she will end up feeling like a maid. If only there were little helpers around so mom didn’t have so much work… Oh wait! That’s what kids are for! Even toddlers can do simple chores to help keep the house tidy.

Organizing chores can seem difficult. Training kids can seem daunting. Is it worth spending time to train them? The majority of adults feel this way. In a survey conducted by Braun Research, 82 percent of parents did chores growing up, but only 28 percent report implementing chores with their own kids. Let’s get that percentage up! Kids will learn self-control and feel a sense of accomplishment as they grow and learn how to complete the new tasks they are given. Parents will enjoy a clean (if only slightly at first) house. And the entire family will have more time together! Here are some tips to make chores a good experience for parents and kids:

When can a child be left home alone?

Do you remember the first time you were left home alone? Perhaps you don’t; once you got older and more used to it, it became a natural thing. For children and for parents, however, this moment can be terrifying to say the least. How do you decide when you can leave your child home alone?

Stay Hydrated!!!

Parents are always reminding their children to drink water, especially in the hot summer months. But what about you busy parents? Are you getting enough to drink?

Guest Post: Understanding Your Child’s Problem Behavior

Samantha Corralejo is a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at Utah State University.  Her research topics include parent training, time-out, and parenting interventions for Latinx families.  She has applied experience as a behavioral therapist and parent trainer in a variety of settings.

Why do they do that?

Ever wonder why your child is acting up?  Most parents have seen a range of undesired behaviors from their children like whining, tantrums, hitting, and… more tantrums.  Often your child’s motivation is clear, like the infamous grocery store meltdown because you said “no” to the cookies.  What if I told you that understanding why your child is misbehaving is the key to helping to change it?  I’ll review a few of the common reasons children act out and the tried-and-true ways to help change your child’s behavior for the better.  These methods have been used by families all over the world and are backed by research.

Guest Post: 10 Tips for Having Difficult Conversations, Part 2

We're excited to bring you part two of Amy Lund's 10 tips for having difficult conversations with your children!

Use their words
Of all the things you do, this is probably the one that will make the biggest difference. Using our child’s words shows them that we are listening and that makes them feel validated. A great way to do this is to say, “What I understood you to say was ____” and then use as many of their words as you can remember. Take this one step further by then asking if what you understood was what they meant. When we use their words to clarify, we are sending a powerful message that we not only care what they are talking about, but we want to understand their view and concerns, and that speaks volume to them.

Guest Post: 10 Tips for Having Difficult Conversations, Part 1

Help Me Grow is excited to have Amy Lund of SmarterParenting.com lend us her advice on having difficult conversations with your children. Part two will be posted soon, so stay tuned!

My mom was always waiting up for me, book in hand, when I came home at night. Often we’d spend the next hour or two talking about life and the problems I was facing. During those late night talks we discussed everything, nothing was off limits. Topics ranged from heartbreak over a boy, my latest crush, how to have a healthy self-image, what to do when I felt uncomfortable in a situation, sex and drugs, and how to deal with peer pressure.

6 Tips for Playing with your Baby

I am a new mother, with a baby who is now 2 months old. Babies are known for simply sleeping, eating, and pooping when they are first born, but I wanted to do what I could to help support my daughter's development, since I know that there are many things you can do when babies are still young. Here are some ideas about how to play with your baby.

Sing/Read – Babies love to hear your voice, and even recognize it. Singing and reading to your baby helps to teach them about rhythm and patterns of sentences. It also helps begin the foundation for language.

Quiz: Children and Screen Time

Recently I had the opportunity to give a presentation to a group of moms about screen time with their children.  A quiz was given to see what they already know.  Take the quiz below to check what you know!

Guest Post: Bests for Baby—Nutrition, Food Safety, and Homemade Baby Food

Photo Credit

Across the state, USU Extensions offer various classes to Utah families. The Utah County head of Family and Consumer Sciences, Cathy Merrill, wrote this post for us about infant nutrition and baby food.

WE LOVE OUR BABIES! From the very first moment, we want the best for our children: the best food, the best education, the best love. As new parents quickly discover, “best” for the baby often means “work” for the parents, but the kids are totally worth it! Few "bests" seem to take more work than making sure baby has the best food possible. Baby food, including formula, is expensive, and sometimes very confusing. Here are some basics about nutrition, as well as a simple way to make baby food at home to save money while still giving your child the best!

5 Tips for Coping With Childhood Stress

It is more and more common for children and adolescents to have stress and anxiety in their lives. It seems stress is on the rise across all generations but can be even more concerning in children and adolescents. According to a study by the American Psychological Association, almost one third of children reported a physical symptom associated with stress. Without proper attention, stress and anxiety can continue to build and have a negative effect on children through their lives. Here are five tips to help you and your child manage stress.

Time In: An Alternate to Time Out

The idea of positive time out, or "Time In," is based on the understanding that children do better when they feel better. Time In can help children learn many life skills, like the importance of taking time to calm down until they can think and act more clearly. Time In is a form of positive reinforcement through a connected style of parenting, rather than withdrawing parental attention when a child is misbehaving.

The Ultimate Guide to Surviving (and Enjoying) Winter with Your Kids

As the daylight hours shorten and the weather gets colder, it can become increasingly more difficult for your entire family to enjoy winter (especially when it can seem to last forever!). The change of season signals less time children play outside and more time indoors, which can add pressure to parents. Unfortunately, many of the go-to indoor activities are watching TV or playing video games. While fun in moderation, being cooped up in the house can make you and your children go nuts! Here are five tips and activities to help you and your family enjoy winter:

Tips for finding (and keeping!) a great babysitter

I spent most of my free time in high school babysitting for people who lived in my town. At one point in time, I was busy almost every night of the week and even some days when I didn’t have school! When I moved away to university, I passed “my families” onto my little sister. I loved babysitting and even moved into a nanny position when I got to university. Here are some tips on how to find and keep a great babysitter that I have gathered from being a babysitter for over 8 years!