Enjoying Meals Together

Enjoying Meals Together

May 6th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Eating a meal together has a number of benefits for your family. While sitting down to a meal together can be a challenge with busy schedules, it’s worth the effort to get your family to the table at the same time for at least one meal a day.

Teaching Good Habits

Sitting down to a meal together helps your children to form good habits that will last a lifetime. This includes both healthy eating habits and table manners. When you sit down to eat with your family, you have an opportunity to teach them how to behave at the table. If they learn good manners at home, you won’t have to worry about how they will behave at a restaurant, or if they are invited to a meal at a friend’s house.

Eating meals together also encourages healthy eating habits. Seeing you eating the same healthy foods you have been encouraging your kids to eat will make them more likely to give it a try. They will also learn to slow down, and enjoy their food, rather than rushing through a meal which can cause indigestion.

Seeing you prepare a meal every day will give your child a better appreciation for what goes into the food you serve. Making everyone a part of the meal preparation and clean up process will also teach your children responsibility. And when everyone has a share of the responsibility for making a great family meal, they will enjoy the food more and dinner time battles will start to disappear.

Time to Talk

Family meal time might be the only time you are all in the same room and not focused on something else. Make it a time to talk, catch up with each other, and get to know what is going on in everyone’s busy life. Even for the youngest child, it’s a great time to see mom and dad interacting and chatting about something other than the bills or who is driving carpool this week.

This daily opportunity to reconnect will foster a sense of closeness and security in the family. Your children will start to open up to you more when it becomes normal to spend this time talking. You might hear about things going on in their lives you would otherwise never have known about. Once you have get in to the habit, you will find everyone looks forward to meal time as a chance to spend time together, not just a necessary break for food.

Starting this habit early in life has ramifications for your children as they grow older as well. Research shows that kids who eat meals with the family regularly have better grades and are less likely to get in trouble with drugs and alcohol down the road.

Better meals, Better Budget

Eating at home has many benefits, but the two most important are better meals and saving money too! Eating out can be very costly, and it usually means a less nutritious meal.

When you prepare your own food at home, you know what goes into it. You can use fresh produce, choose organic ingredients if you prefer, and watch the salt and fat content. You can also control your portion sizes, which is difficult to do at a restaurant. Making an effort to eat meals at home will save your family money, which can be spent instead on something everyone can enjoy, like a family vacation.

Equality and Family Responsibilities: How to Share the Load

Equality and Family Responsibilities: How to Share the Load

March 11th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Whether you are a two-income family, or one is the breadwinner while the other stays home with the children, finding an equitable method of sharing the family responsibilities can be a challenge. All too often, one parent winds up feeling they are bearing most of the burden. It’s not long before a feeling of being overwhelmed and underappreciated can set in. Keeping family life running smoothly is a task best shared, and the best place to start is by sitting down and formulating a plan.

Take It Seriously

If your partner comes to you complaining of feeling overwhelmed, the first instinct might be a defensive reply outlining just how hard you are working too. That might be true, but try your best to see it from the other side. Especially in a family where one person works outside the home and the other stays with the kids, things really can get off-balance in a hurry. The working parent often feels that because they have to leave the house and earn a paycheck, they aren’t responsible for doing as much around the house.

Bear in mind that a stay at home parent isn’t just doing one job, but multiple jobs every day. The tasks of caring for children, keeping the house clean, preparing several meals a day, and running all the various necessary errands keep this parent who “doesn’t work” going from dawn until dusk. There are no weekends from this job, no vacations, and no sick days either.

If you both work outside the home, you will have a limited number of hours when you are at home to make sure all the household tasks get completed. Both partners need to do their fair share to keep one person from becoming overwhelmed.

Figure Out What Needs to Be Done

Make a detailed list of the daily, weekly, and monthly tasks. Include everything from emptying the dishwasher to taking the kids to check ups. Seeing all the tasks laid out in this manner makes it easier to see just how much there is to get done! Split it into categories: housework, childcare, and errands.

Once you have your list, divide it fairly. There may be some tasks more suited to one partner or the other, and there is nothing wrong with that. It makes sense for a stay at home parent to take the kids to their doctor’s visits. But there is no reason that both parents can’t take turns making dinner.

If there is a task your partner just really can’t stand doing, offer to take it on, but pass on one of your more hated chores in return. You could also decide on a monthly or weekly rotation of chores, so no one is stuck with the same jobs all the time. Don’t forget the kids! Even toddlers can take on a few small chores, and it’s never too early to start teaching responsibility.

Post the list of regular jobs and who is responsible for each in a visible place as a reminder that everyone is accountable for their fair share. You might want to purchase a white board so that the jobs can be changed according to a rotation, or erased when completed.

Compromise is the key to harmony in the home. You will find that everyone is a lot happier when no one feels overworked and underappreciated!

Great Ways to Encourage Your Toddler’s Independence

Great Ways to Encourage Your Toddler’s Independence

February 26th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

The toddler years are filled with many challenges for parents, and one of the toughest to deal with is often your toddler’s newfound sense of independence. The more a toddler grows, learns and accomplishes, the more he will develop his own opinions and a desire to do things his own way. While parents want to encourage self-sufficiency, toddlers are not always quite as ready for the world as they may think.

I Can Do It by Myself!

You might start to hear this phrase, or something quite similar, a lot from your toddler. Learning to do things for yourself is an important part of development, but toddlers are unable to understand the difference between what they can successfully (and safely) do without help, and what they still need assistance to accomplish.

Avoid the meltdown that will surely follow a flat out denial by trying to find some small portion of the task that is more manageable. Does your little one want to pour his own milk from a heavy jug? Suggest that he hold the cup steady on the table for you while you pour. Does he want to climb in and out of the tub on his own? Explain that the tub is slippery and you don’t want him to fall, but allow him to step in and out while holding onto you for support, rather than lifting him in and out. Small concessions will allow toddlers to feel they are doing things on their own, while still keeping it under control.

Learning Responsibility

Toddlers aren’t too young to have a few jobs around the house, and giving them tasks to accomplish will encourage independence and teach responsibility too. There are plenty of simple tasks a child as young as two can handle. Have your toddler carry his own dishes from the table to the sink. Teach him to throw his own clothes into the laundry hamper. If you have a family pet, make feeding the pet together a daily routine. Tasks like these will not only help your toddler feel like a big kid, they will also make him feel like he is an important part of the family.

Offering Choices

One of the most common ways toddlers assert their independence is through food, clothing and activities. A child who previously ate everything set in front of her will suddenly become a picky eater. She might refuse to wear her coat or shoes, and express strong opinions about the rest of her wardrobe as well. Convincing her to take a bath or get in the car takes a monumental effort. All of these things are common results of a toddler’s desire to gain some control over her environment.

Fortunately, many toddlers will respond to being offered a choice. It gives a feeling of control, and prevents power struggles. Keep the options to only a few, however, to prevent the decision making process from taking all day! Lay out two possible outfits for the day, and let your toddler choose between them. Before you make lunch, ask if she would prefer grilled cheese or chicken noodle soup. Taking a bath may not be optional, but you can still let your toddler feel she is involved in the decision making process by asking her if she would like bubbles or no bubbles, the blue towel or the red. The same goes for getting an unwilling toddler out the door. You could offer a choice of toys to take on the ride, or a choice of snacks to bring along.

It takes a little creativity and some understanding of what is going on in your toddler’s mind to find solutions that both allow your toddler to gain independence as well as keep parents sane. Remember that giving a little can go a long way, and you will be teaching your little one to make wise choices, recognize her limits, and also take on a little responsibility!