Why do we need parenting tips from someone else?
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Parents often believe that their way of raise their children is the best and might feel offended if someone else tries to interfere by giving advices. Some of use even have a hard time taking advices from their parents, who have more experience in raising children. But is your method of raising children correctly? Will they be fulfilled and complete adults? Hopefully they will, but when people approach you with advice regarding your child or parenting skills, you should think about the reason and not feel offended.
Parents are involved and too subjective
When it comes to their offspring, parents may be subjective, not wanting to admit that there is a problem or not willing to apply the right correction. And by that I do not refer to any aggression towards the child but by taking the right attitude and approach regarding a misbehavior or issue. All parents want the best for their children and find it hard to apply a punishment, but you must find the strength to do it, especially if another person points out that your child is not having an appropriate behavior. Most often, parents will state that their child is independent, has a lot of energy or has a strong personality in an attempt to find excuses for a behavior that is encouraged to be different. It is great to encourage your child to do and achieve things, but you should also listen to opinions especially if they state something regarding the way your child is acting. From the outside, with objective eye, the problems can be more easily identified, as parents may learn to live with a child that is misbehaving.
It is impossible to know it all
In the case you are a parent for the first time, it is impossible to know everything about raising a child and how to react to the situations that come up down the road. So advices coming from someone else, more experienced, can be more than welcoming. Being a parent is a great gift, but also a great adventure, as every child is unique in his way. Don’t be afraid to share opinions and experiences with other parents at the playground. Discuss with your parents and friends who have older children about the issue you encounter. As a parent, you may be filled with good intention, but sometimes the lack of experience will make things not too pleasant.
Keep in mind that the person that come us with advice might have encountered the same type of problem in the case of his or her child. And noticing the same thing is happening to you, that person will be more than willing to share her findings and experiences. So you’d better listen to what that person has to say, before deciding if the advice is bad or not. The information that you will find out might be of great use.
Sometime we need specialized help
There might be a situation when raising your child or managing his behavior can get out of your hand. It is not the fact that you are a bad parent, but some people do have issues with their children. Either they were too permissive, either the problem hides other causes, like ADHD. In the cases when the behavior becomes a problem, due to circumstances or medical condition, our children need the help of a specialist. So you will need to receive the parenting tips coming from these persons, as they mean only to help you solve the problem and help your child grow up harmoniously.
It is not wrong, nor does it make you a bad parent if you ask for support in the cases you feel you cannot control your child any more, or you have troubles raising him. As I said before, it is impossible to know it all, and in some situations the causes do not depend entirely on us. Usually, a parent starts having problems with his child because, by thinking he is doing the child an enormous favor and offering the life he wants, he actually did more harm by not asserting a set of rules. When the child is very young, the problems are not significant and often pass by unnoticed. But as the child grows, they will become more apparent and can even become bothering, affecting the parent-child relationship.
Dealing with the acceptance of an exterior parenting tip
You are the parent, and you are entitled to make all the decisions regarding your child. But the people who come to you with parenting advices are not doing it out of a mean intention. It is true that some are more polite in expressing their opinions, and some tend to be rather invasive. But the general idea is to help you out. Don’t take it personally, because no one wants to interfere with your parenting skills. It is a natural behavior between parents, since they enjoy talking about their kids, good and bad. Thus, try to embrace this aspect like an innocent way of sharing experience between parents. Because who knows, maybe one day you will need a useful tip.
So you see, receiving parenting tips from someone else is not a bad thing, nor does it make you an irresponsible parent. Humans, as social beings, will try to learn from each other, based on experience and knowledge. And this applies in the case of parenting as well. You cannot isolate your child from the rest of the society and raise him after your sole rules. He needs to be out in the world, explore and experience. So inevitably, he will be subjected to the opinions of the people that surround us. But regard every advice like a piece of information with a useful potential. Being a parent is not easy all the time, so finding someone willing enough to share some of this experience can really be helpful sometimes.
About the author:
This guest post provided by Shaffizan from Blog About Her, http://blogabouther.com/ to support women who need solutions for breastfeeding, breast pumps and baby health.
Photo: flic.kr/p/nM5r5x
Filed under Parenting Advice | Comment (0)How to choose the right breast pump
The choice of choosing the right breast pump depends very much on your needs as a breastfeeding mother. The amount of milk you need to pump every day, your baby’s feeding habits and your personal schedule. Thus, one of the things you should look for when choosing the best breast pump is the power source that is handling the suction, how much suction will it develop, details about the suction and release cycle and how many of these cycles it can produce per minute. We will talk about the performance each type of breast pump can provide.
The details can make a difference
The hand pump is entirely controlled by you, so you will have complete power over regulating the suction. You either squeeze a pump, move a cylinder, and some even allow control by foot. The only inconvenient is that when you need to pump milk every day, for several times during the day, the process can be tiring and time-consuming. So breast pumps are not that efficient when you want to breastfeed exclusively and during extended periods.
For electric pumps, the suction gets better because it is activated by a motor. The majority of the models will allow you to control the power of the suction, making the milk pumping process more comfortable for you. But by far, the best electric pumps are the ones that develop the most suction and release cycles per minute. You might be tempted to think that a slow rate of suction and release cycles will be gentler on your breasts, but you are wrong. The cycling rates that are slower are rather hard on your nipples, because it keeps them in the suction position longer than necessary, producing a discomfort if frequently used. The upper-quality breast pumps will be able to develop 60 complete cycles every minute, which is great for your comfort and time.
Deciding on the quality of the pump
We all are tempted to believe that a higher quality pump will help up extract a bigger quantity of milk. The truth is that in some cases, regardless if you use an expensive pump or a cheap pump, the mother might get the same amount of milk per pumping session. Why? Sometimes it depends on the anatomic features and the ability of the body to produce milk. The only difference would be for the time, as a high-quality pump will shorten the pumping time considerably. Although, don’t get scared about this aspect, because a large number of women will obtain higher milk quantities if they use quality pumps. Therefore, it is good to get a reliable pump, first for your comfort and time, and then for the amount of the milk as an additional benefit.
Mostly, what you need to do with a breast pump should be the deciding factor when it comes to quality. If you just want to pump occasionally, for small quantities of milk or just to store the milk in the fridge, you don’t need a top notch pump. If you want to enhance or maintain the quantity of your breast milk for a newborn that has not yet been taught feeding at the breast or cannot nurse yet very efficiently, then a quality pump will help you do that. With a low-quality pump, you may risk of not getting the best milk supply you need.
For a working mother that wishes to breastfeed her baby, even if she is away during the day, a quality pump will make a difference. They pump fast and efficient, shortening the time of the process, and allowing her to resume her activities. If the pumping process is comfortable and practical at the same time, it will help to provide the strength to deal with both being a mother and going back to work. So it may be a good investment. Or do you plan on having a second baby? Or more? Then acquiring a top quality pump is also good in these cases. You will be able to enjoy pumping milk for each child.
Also, you should think about the places you will want to use the pump. If you need to carry the pump around, choose a lighter and smaller model, which operates on batteries. Although, the inconvenient about batteries is that they get used up pretty quickly. A plug adapter for the pump would be great because some bathrooms have outlets. Or if you can enjoy some privacy in your working office, you can pump even there. So it depends very much on your lifestyle.
Other aspects to consider
Besides the quality, you should also be careful of other elements when choosing your breast pump. Cleaning the most important parts of the pump is essential for hygiene and keeping your baby safe. The components that come in contact with your milk or breasts should have the possibility of being dismantled and washed with hot water and soap. Also, these parts must be sterilized as well, for the maximum protection of your child. Either by boiling them, washing them in the dishwasher at a temperature of 140 degrees or just using a sterilizer – they must end up being germs free.
Borrowing or using a used pump can be tempting, due to low prices, but the risk you and your baby are exposing to are too big. Severe viruses like hepatitis and HIV can be transmitted through breast pump parts. In this case your health and your baby’s well-being are more important than a few dollars.
About the author:
This guest post provided by Shaffizan from Blog About Her, http://blogabouther.com/ to support women who need solutions for breastfeeding, breast pumps and baby health.
Photo: flic.kr/p/5i9S9p
Filed under Parenting Advice, Parenting Babies | Comment (0)How Whisper, Noname and Snapchat apps influence parent-children communication and relations.
Whisper:
Whisper is a free of charge iOS and Android mobile app, which allows its users to send messages anonymously, and to receive replies. Users post messages like greeting cards, where text is displayed over an image. The app was launched in March 2012 under the original name WhisperText by CEO Michael Heyward and Brad Brooks, who is the CEO of mobile messaging service TigerText.
Anyone can post in Whisper an anonymous message as a text overlaid on a picture. When you open the app, you see six such images. Each one has a “secret” on it. You can respond to a message publicly or privately, choosing a public anonymous post or a private pseudonymous chat. Users don’t have a public identity in the app. While they do have persistent handles, there’s no way to contact them except *through* the messages they post.
Using Whisper, parents can learn generally what young people think of. Whisper does not allow users to know opinion of specific person, it allows only generally.
Noname:
Ever wanted to say personal things to your children or parents and stay anonymous? Ever wanted to say things one-on-one without any traces?
App “Noname” that was developed by Ben Anor and his app developing company AppNinja.co, will help you start a conversation anonymously with someone that you know.
No chance that your child tell you “you are old and primitive” when you write anything to him/her in Noname. You child does not know who writes him, so you can study what problems he/she has and treat them anonymously.
No chance that your parent will ground you, if you say him/her in Noname that he/she is not paying enough attention to his children.
Parent can ask anonymously what would like a child as a Birthday gift. A parent can get an answer and still make a surprise to his child.
No history, nothing is saved on the servers, no one can trace the source of the messages or see the content of the messages. Phone contacts of users are not saved on the servers as well – Noname creates a database of phones inside a phone of user. Everything is fully anonymous. Noname uses peer-to-peer (P2P) technology, using which nothing leaves traces.
“Noname” is being released in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store: http://nonamesms.com
“Noname is a new ideology. People should be able to say anything personal to their contacts and stay anonymous. “Noname” has recently been launched and customers are using it today. Our initial tracking shows us that we are experiencing viral success as the number of users is increasing exponentially.” – said Ben Anor – CEO of the company.
“Noname” provides a new channel for communication between people.
Snapchat:
“Snapchat” is a photo messaging application developed by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown. In “Snapchat” users can take photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and send them to a controlled list of recipients. These photographs and videos are called “Snaps”. After 1 to 10 seconds the “Snaps” will be hidden from the recipient’s device and deleted from Snapchat’s servers.
“Snapchat” users are sending 700 million photos and videos per day. The company has a valuation of $10-$20 billion.
Snapchat does not give any added value in relations between parents and children. The biggest amount of users of Snapchat are teenagers.
While Wisper allows communication in one space for all, “Noname” does not support that. Noname allows only one-on-one messaging. Noname CEO – Ben Anor – commented that supporting of group chats demands saving the data on the servers. Thus, since decided that no data will be saved, Noname technically can not support group chats.
While Wisper raised $60m, Snapchat raised US$485k in its seed round and in June 2013, Snapchat raised $60m in a funding round led by venture-capital firm Institutional Venture Partners. Snapchat also appointed a new high-profile board member Michael Lynton of Sony’s American division.
A Silicon Valley venture capital firm (Kleiner Perkins), negotiated a financial agreement with Snapchat in August 2014, at a time when the company was valued at US$10B. That time Snapchat had 100m monthly active users. Prior to the amount raised with Kleiner Perkins, the company had already raised $163m in funding.
Even after acquiring $1.2 million from angel investor that prefers to stay anonymous, Noname is the smallest one between mentioned companies, but a very potential one.
Photo: flic.kr/p/bB9BhC
Filed under Kids & Computers | Comment (0)