Smart Ways to Discipline Your Child

There is no perfect way to discipline your child. Instilling proper discipline in children is one of the trickiest tasks a parent can encounter. As a parent, I find it very hard to handle my children’s behaviour when they become far too difficult. How do you handle tantrums? What must one do when your kids simply won’t listen? To spank or not to spank? These are a few questions that a parent asks when it comes to disciplining one’s children.

Any loving parent would prefer to not spank his son or daughter. When things get out of hand and a parent resolves to spanking, he will most likely regret it afterwards. We have different parenting styles, but generally no caring, devoted parent would want to hurt his or her child. You can be an authoritative parent who outlines your expectations to your kids while still being affectionate towards them, an authoritarian, who is strict with discipline but low on affection, or a permissive parent, who is very affectionate, gives in to your children’s every whim and hardly gives out any form of discipline. Whether you’re authoritative, authoritarian, or permissive, a few helpful parenting tips here and there would be of good use.

Top Ways To Remain Clutter Free

After you have cleaned your house, then it is best to remain your home clutter free. Is it easy to do? Read these tips and see if you can implement these on your home today.

Think twice before buying a product.

Aside from saving money, bringing in new stuff at home can also hurt your goal of keeping it clutter free. So think if you really need to buy that product before taking it inside your house.

source: alejandra.tv

Implement One In, One Out rule

I do this at home and it helps me control the number of stuff that I have to organize and clean. Whenever I need to buy say, a shirt, I keep an old shirt in a box for donation. That’s easy to do isn’t it?

Take a picture of your clean home.

Pictures speak a thousand words. So the next time you fail to clean or think that you are going back to your old habits, take a look at your ‘once cleaned house’. The beauty of a clean and neat place will definitely prompt you to do something to keep it that way.

Do routine clean ups on a weekly basis.

Again, this doesn’t have to be a tiring task, if you are doing your best to keep your home clean. Take things away for donation, purge, throw, do something to minimize the number of stuff you have. You will definitely do yourself a favor in a long run by spending only a few minutes to keep things in order.

Smart Ways To Declutter Fast

A clean house means having items in order, thus keeping it neat and organized. If your house is full of clutter, here are some smart ways to declutter fast.

Spend 10 mins to declutter for each room.

You can use a timer from your phone and or stopwatch. Grab boxes, each one for those that you will keep, donate and throw away. Just spend 10 minutes tops for each room so that you will be compelled to move fast and won’t feel that you are doing a dragging task.

Use your camera to document things to throw away.

Most of us have our own mobile phone and camera so put these to good use. Take pictures of things that you feel that you will miss but have to throw away. Doing this will make you keep some memories without making your house a candidate for the TV show Hoarders.

Don’t let emotions get in the way.

Talking about Hoarders, most subjects find it hard to throw away stuff because they let their emotions rule instead of aiming to have things in order. These are only things, they are subject to wear and tear and eventually have to be thrown away. Your family and relationships matter most, and you will enjoy great bonding moments with them if you have a clean and orderly space at home.

Co-Brushing – Like Parent Like Child

I guess, I am not alone in confessing that toothbrush time is really difficult to implement no matter how you, as a parent, are motivated enough to ensure healthy gums and teeth for your kiddos.

I have an eight-year-old boy who has already lost two of his permanent molars to eating hard candies and chewing gums. Besides his love for candies and gums, he hates the taste of toothpaste and the prickly feeling tooth brushing gives. In fact, I saw him one time washing the toothpaste off his brush to male be believe that he’s done cleaning his teeth even though he wasn’t. My constant reminder on him to toothbrush often end up with arguments and so I decided to look for another way to get him brushing his teeth for real.

As I browsed the web, I stumbled upon the phrase ‘like parent, like child’. It instantly shares the insight that whatever the parent does the child does and in the perspective of dental health, this phrase was dubbed as co-brushing.

Co-brushing is an ideal practice that can enforce and reenforce brushing among kids with ages one to seven years old. Oh well, my boy is already past seven but I thought I would not lose anything by trying it. I had to discipline myself to wait for him to finish his meals so we could brush and floss together. At first he was resistant and I was impatient but in the succeeding months we both got used to it. Also, I took this opportunity to teach him the right way to brush and floss.

I am also keen about him getting off the habit of eating sweets and drinking sodas. And so, I myself had to refrain from ingesting them. As the saying goes, ‘practice what you preach’. Take a look at this wonderful infographic I found. I thought, all the reminders I ought to tell my son are summed up here.

Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.

 

5 Tips To Keep Your Home Safe While On A Vacation

It is the time of the year again when your whole family decides to go on a trip and be on a relaxation mode for some days. Because nobody will be left behind to watch over the house, it is best for you to observe certain measures that ward evil doers off your property and belongings. Take a look at the following tips on making your home more secure while your family is on a vacation.

1)  Request for help – Find a friend or relative who can guard and stay in your house for the entirety of your vacation. Be sure that he or she is someone you can trust. If you’re not comfortable with this idea, have at least three dogs guarding your house from the outside. Requesting help from your local police is advisable too.

2) Refrain from spreading the news about your vacation online – The rise of different photo sharing sites and social media platforms caused many people to be addicted in giving minute by minute update of their whereabouts. Doing this makes it easy for thieves to track your every move. Once they learn that you are already out of the house, they can quickly perform their evil plans.

3) Momentarily stop your mails and newspaper delivery – Local post offices usually hold mails for people who will be leaving their residences for three days or more. Cut-off the newspaper delivery too. When newspapers pile up by entrance door or lawn, people will suspect right away that there are no one in the house to pick them up.

4) Lock all points of entrance – These are not only your back and entrance doors. Windows and other openings to your house are included here. Before you leave, have all family members check if all your passage ways are locked up. Other things which you might need to lock up are gas and water pipes.

5) Install security devices – Obviously, these are the likes of CCTVs which you can connect to your laptop or mobile devices with the aid of the internet. If this is quite costly for you, purchase locks or lock systems which can keep your property fastened until you get home from vacation.

Childproof Your Home With These Easy Tips

If you are starting to build a family, your kids could still be very small. At this stage, they are prone to accidents even when they are just at home. And no matter how dedicated you are in taking care of them, they can still be out of your sight and volunteer themselves to pending dangers. Thus, it is advisable for you to childproof every part of your house.

The first room you ought to pay attention to is your children’s room. Ensure  that electrical wirings are far from their reach. Cover the electrical sockets. Avoid clutter on the floor to keep your kiddos from slipping especially when it is dark. Provide railings for your smaller children who are not that strong to stand on their own yet. Remove tables and pieces of furniture that are made of glass. If there are stand alone cabinets in their room, cover its edges with rubber protectors to keep your youngsters from bloody injuries.

In the kitchen, keep all pointed and sharp utensils inside hard-to-reach cabinets. Keep matches and other flammable locked up. Accidents can happen in bathrooms too. Even though your youngsters take a bath under your supervision, it is always safer to have  rubber mats and lid locks that can keep them from drowning and slipping. Lock the medicine cabinet in your bathroom to avoid poising amongst your children.

photo credit: from babygooroo.com

 

Thoughts On Renovating A Rental Home

When you do not have huge money at hand, you are left with no other choice but to rent a place to stay in. This option will allow one to dispense smaller amount of money. However, it comes with the disadvantage of giving your family discomfort and inconvenience in the instance that the size and style of the place do not suit your lifestyle. 

Perhaps, your family has been staying in the same property for a couple of years. Your landlord may then allow you to carry out some home improvements. This may sound sweet but hidden problems could spring from this when details are not laid out clear. Even though the landlord himself permitted your home renovation project, is the  local government going to permit it? As we all know, you can be sued for violating one or a couple of laws related to renting. Violations of such laws can be very very expensive.

Moving forward, reflect on whose going to pay for the renovation. More often than not, landlords would not to spend even a single centavo for leaking ceilings, faulty wires and chipping walls among others. Nonetheless, they welcome improvements funded by the tenants because they see these as added value to their place which can attract future renters to their advantage. And you can never bring away with you whatever you attach or get fixed for your rental home.

In my opinion, renovating a rental home must only be done when it is a matter of life and death. If the situation is otherwise, simply choose to save the renovation budget you have for purchasing your new home. That way, you get the assurance of investing or spending on a property you yourself ow.