How to Talk so Kids will Listen & Listen so Kids Will Talk

How often as parents we have found ourselves at crossroads not being able to see what is right and wrong in bringing up children. In spite of our best efforts at being responsible parents, we, nevertheless, fear what effect our bearing has on the kids' formative years. At times, when our personalities are at loggerheads, we may be at a loss to choose the right method of action to handle the little vulnerable personalities who so generously give us joy by simply being themselves as our sons or daughters.This book here, believe me, help us to understand kids better.

Communication with my son has greatly improved by understanding his point of view with the help of some techniques taught in this book. 'How to Talk so Kids will Listen & Listen so Kids Will Talk' by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish is widely popular and is available in amazon.  

Super Nanny shows are a great help

I watched a few episodes of Super Nanny in the You Tube. Its quite helpful to manage your child better. For all those who are finding it hard to manage toddlers, some suggestions given by Super Nanny can be useful. Here is a link to one of the episode.

Well behaved toddlers in the West

I really wonder how the toddlers in the West are well behaved. Indian toddlers, for example my son can get nasty with other kids. His behavior is unpredictable when he is taken out especially to a supermarket. But it is not the case with those born in the West.

However, the older children are not as well behaved as the toddlers are. But nevertheless I would love to learn how toddlers are trained. 

Babies Feel Insecure

I learnt that babies do feel insecure when there is no sound around. I was surprised at this.

My son's doctor says, inside the womb the babies are used to listening to high decibel sounds. After born they feel alien to be in quiet surrounding.

He also advises to carry the baby 36 hours :) a day. This makes the baby feel secure. Immediately attending to baby's cry is important as it increases self worth in him.

Baby Clothes

The house is filled with baby clothes. I am running out of space to keep all the clothes that come as gift for the new born. Maybe we made a mistake renting this small place. The house location is good with an adjacent park and greenery around. But the house is too small.

After Abhay Charan is born I am finding it increasingly difficult to adjust in this small house. It is high time we look for a bigger house in the same locality. It is difficult to get a good house in Chennai for a reasonably good rent. We had to reject 38 houses before we settled for this one. I wonder how long it will take to get another house.

Bathing Baby Without Making it Cry

Lately I have figured out a way to bathe the baby without making him cry. This is how you do it.

1. Keep ready his towel, clothes and other things required for and after the bath.
2. Take lukewarm water in a tub with a mug to pour water on the baby.
3. Sit on a short stool in the bathroom, keep the baby on your bare thighs balancing him with your left hand.
4. With your right hand start pouring water on him starting from the feet and gradually rising up to the neck. This is to avoid startling him with water.
5. Once he is comfortable with water use gram flour paste to clean him. This is better than soap as the flour does not dry baby's skin.
6. Try to do this quickly because babies get chill very fast.
7. Now rinse the paste with plenty of water and swaddle him in a warm towel.
8. Bring him to his bed and remove the towel from the lower part of his body and wrap his nappy. Then proceed to bare his torso to dress him up.
9. And finally, do not forget to sing your favorite song through out his bathing session. This helps to relax the baby.

To Increase Breast Feed for the Baby

Oats porridge is good to increase breast feed. Next best things is to fry uncooked boiled rice in a pan till it turns golden, grind it in a blender, boil the ground powder in water for a few minuits, add milk, sugar and a pince of salt to make rice porridge. This is also very good to increase breast feed.

Colic babies

Babies are such fun to be with. I believe 'colic baby' is not a right term to refer to crying babies for there is really no melencoly in these little ones. Mostly we mothers fail to notice what is creating discomfort to them. If we are careful to keep track of their reqirements and their discomforts, every baby can be a happy baby.

"Colic baby' term makes it look as though some babies are born with that quality which I strongly believe is a false perception.

Its a Boy!

He was born on 12th August. Since then I have not been able to find any leisure time. He is sleeping right now and is likely to wake up any minute.

It is such to joy to have a baby of your own. I used to baby sit many of my friends' babies. It used to be an enjoyable task. At the end they would take their babies back. For some time after my baby was born I was thinking that some will take the baby back. It took some time before it sunk in me that he is there to stay.

We have named him Abhay Charan. He is smiling looking at faces already. His father is his favorite. He is excited when ever he sees his father.

Waiting for the baby

There are four more weeks to go for the baby to arrive as per the date given by the doctor. I am eagerly waiting for the moment. In India we don't get to know the sex of the baby till it is born. So waiting to know if it is a boy or a girl is the biggest excitement.

We are not able to come up with any name yet for the baby. It all depends on the day he or she is going to be born. There are many auspicious days around which he can be born. On Aug 5 is Balarama Jayanthi, 14th Aug is Janmastami and 15th is Srila Prabhupada appearance day. I hope the baby is born close to these auspicious days.

Slowly things are changing at home. Baby things are taking up the space. Most of the talk is around the baby. Eagerness and excitement in the air. I pray to the Lord that every thing should go on well with child birth.

Ways to Be a Better Dad

Have a great relationship with your child’s mother.

Research shows that children do best when their loving, biological parents raise them. If you are married, make your relationship the best it can be. Read books on marriage, take seminars, join a couple’s support group, or get counseling from a professional.

If you are no longer married to your child’s mother, then work on having a positive relationship with her. Children identify strongly and feel loyalties with both parents. When there is conflict, children are often caught in the middle and pressured to take sides. This harms the children’s

sense of self and their ability to have healthy relationships. If your relationship is strained, do whatever works to improve it.

Spend quality and quantity time with your child

Both you and your children benefit when they are a priority in your life. You will feel the satisfaction of seeing them develop and your children will feel valued and encouraged to develop well. Some fathers say their children are important, but this means little if they have no time for them.

Spending time with our children when they are small is like depositing money in a relationship bank account. When they reach adolescence, the bond wehave built will protect our children from negative activities, make them more likely to succeed in their education and will help them have positive relationships with their peers.

Do things together that foster God consciousness

There are many activities we can do with our children that will help them to become conscious of the Lord and to respect His magnificent creation. Here are some ideas:

• Recycle together
• Pick up trash together
• Plant a garden together
• Dance and chant together
• Milk a cow together
• Make a garland for the Lord together
• Serve people sanctified vegetarian food together
• Read and tell stories about the wonderful and loving Lord
• Take a nature walk together
• Cook and offer food to the Lord
• Fix something together
• Build something together
• Be a good role model

A famous cliché says that behavior speaks louder than words. Once in India, a mother brought her child to see a saint and asked him to tell her child to stop eating sugar. The saint told the mother and child to return in a week. When they did so, the saint said to the child, “Stop eating sugar.” The mother thanked him and asked why they had to come back before he would instruct. He said, “First I had to stop eating sugar myself.”

To effectively teach our children positive behavior, we must first set a good example for them to follow.

Show your love

Physical affection is essential for the psychological and physical well being of your child. It is well documented that infants die and children fail to thrive without enough physical touch. Lots of hugs, handholding and pats on the head are important non-verbal ways to express love. These

gestures communicate how special and valuable your child is to you.

Ways to Be a Better Dad is written by Arcana-siddhi dasi

Prenatal Exercise

Thirteenth Week Trauma

During the 13th week of pregnancy the gyne asks the pregnant woman to under go a particular scan to rule out Down syndrome. For most of the mothers-to-be this is a traumatic experience. The fact relating to Down syndrome are here from Wiki:

Down syndrome, Down's syndrome, or trisomy 21 is a chromosomal disorder caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 21st chromosome. It is named after John Langdon Down, the British doctor who described the syndrome in 1866. The disorder was identified as a chromosome 21 trisomy by Jérôme Lejeune in 1959. The condition is characterized by a combination of major and minor differences in structure. Often Down syndrome is associated with some impairment of cognitive ability and physical growth as well as facial appearance. Down syndrome in a baby can be identified with amniocentesis during pregnancy or at birth.

Individuals with Down syndrome tend to have a lower than average cognitive ability, often ranging from mild to moderate developmental disabilities. A small number have severe to profound mental disability. The incidence of Down syndrome is estimated at 1 per 800 to 1,000 births, although these statistics are heavily influenced by the age of the mother. Other factors may also play a role.
...The incidence of Down syndrome is estimated at one per 800 to one per 1000 births.[12] In 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated the rate as one per 733 live births in the United States (5429 new cases per year).[13] Approximately 95% of these are trisomy 21. Down syndrome occurs in all ethnic groups and among all economic classes.
Maternal age influences the chances of conceiving a baby with Down syndrome. At maternal age 20 to 24, the probability is one in 1562; at age 35 to 39 the probability is one in 214, and above age 45 the probability is one in 19.[14] Although the probability increases with maternal age, 80% of children with Down syndrome are born to women under the age of 35,[15] reflecting the overall fertility of that age group. Recent data also suggest that paternal age, especially beyond 42,[16] also increases the risk of Down Syndrome manifesting in pregnancies in older mothers.[17]

Current research (as of 2008) has shown that Down syndrome is due to a random event during the formation of sex cells or pregnancy. There has been no evidence that it is due to parental behavior (other than age) or environmental factors.
Pregnant women can be screened for various complications during pregnancy. Many standard prenatal screens can discover Down syndrome. Genetic counseling along with genetic testing, such as amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling (CVS), or percutaneous umbilical cord blood sampling (PUBS) are usually offered to families who may have an increased chance of having a child with Down syndrome, or where normal prenatal exams indicate possible problems. Genetic screens are often performed on pregnant women older than 30 or 35.

Amniocentesis and CVS are considered invasive procedures, in that they involve inserting instruments into the uterus, and therefore carry a small risk of causing fetal injury or miscarriage. There are several common non-invasive screens that can indicate a fetus with Down syndrome. These are normally performed in the late first trimester or early second trimester. Due to the nature of screens, each has a significant chance of a false positive, suggesting a fetus with Down syndrome when, in fact, the fetus does not have this genetic abnormality. Screen positives must be verified before a Down syndrome diagnosis is made. Even with the best non-invasive screens, the detection rate is 90%–95% and the rate of false positive is 2%–5%. False positives can be caused by undetected multiple fetuses (very rare with the ultrasound tests), incorrect date of pregnancy, or normal variation in the proteins.

Confirmation of screen positive is normally accomplished with amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling (CVS). Amniocentesis is an invasive procedure and involves taking amniotic fluid from the amniotic sac and identifying fetal cells. The lab work can take several weeks but will detect over 99.8% of all numerical chromosomal problems with a very low false positive rate.[21]

The tests that the gynes suggest are not accurate in their result and these tests can cause abortions in one out of every ten cases. I wonder on what basis the doctors suggest such in-human asuric tests for to-be mothers. Like abortion, this is a serious issue we should all consider. It the name of tests they are simply promoting abortion unscrupulously. What kind of tests did our grannies take before they gave birth to 10 children in their very homes. My own granny had 8 children and all were delivered at her home. Today, I feel medicine is nothing but an unethical business.

Just the other day we took a friend who had very high fever to a local corporate run hospital. Within one hour of admitting him in the hospital the doctor asked us to take a PET scan for the patient because he suspecgted cancer. Gosh! You how we would have felt! However we took the scan immediately and it costed us Rs.25,000. The result was negative.

Later we found out that the scan center is also owned my the hospital authorities and it is a revenue generation method for the newly opened scan centre. More over PET scan is not considered for initial diagnosis. It is only to see the spread of cancer once is it fully blown. For initial diagnosis they use Biopsy. Can you imagne how cheated and robed we would have felt? They are all simply there to make money out of our misery.