Understanding a Child More

My Best Experience How to Nurture A child

2011-01-09T10:26:00.000-08:00

Parents who choose to space children more than three years apart can find many benefits. By the age of 4 or 5, a child is really ready to participate in the care of a new baby. She can feel the baby belongs to her. She can lean to feed, to rock, to hold, to comfort and to play with the new baby. Once she recovers from the initial disappointment that the new baby isn't her own age and her equal in the games she's planned, she can begin to participate with her parents in the game of learning about a ney baby and watching the baby achieve each new developmental step.

The other day, 5 year old maria came bursting into my office saying. 'Dr. L, you should see my baby walking! He don't fall anymore!! With that, he rushed over to his 11 month old brother and held out his hands to his brother. His brother grinned all over at this attention from his hero. He gratefully and greedily grasped Maria's hands to pull up to stand. Barely balancing, he held tightly to his brother's outstretched arms to teeter across the room. As Maria backed up to lead his brother on, he chortled with delight, "see!! Isn't he great?"

As I watched this elegant example for an older child not only teaching the baby to walk but also passing on to him the excitement learning, I thought to my self, "Isn't a younger child fortunate to have such an opportunity for learning about the thrill of living?" Maria and his brother are not only acquiring learning what it means to be deeply dependent upon each other.

At 4 or 5, a child is naturally ready to care for and teach a smaller individual. One of the the most serious deprivations in our culture is that the children in this 4-7 years old age group so rarely have the opportunity to care for smaller children. In mos cultures around the world, older siblings are expected to be responsible for younger children.

Thereby, they learn the ingredients of nurturing and prepare to be parents when their time comes. A space of several years between children automatically provides this kind of experience for the older child. And for the younger child, the opportunity to learn from and older sibling is a real privilege. Our last child acquired most of his skills and has learned most of his values from the careful, patient teaching of his older sisters. His hunger to learn from them was founded on a kind of blind adoration, which is different from a baby's feelings when parents try to teach the same tasks.

I always have been struck with the eager, longing expressions with which a baby or toddler watches an older child. And I am amazed at the imitative learning that takes place when an older sibling stops briely to teach a small child a new skill

Nature and Nurture in Early Child Development

Understanding ADHD in Toddlers and Symptoms

2010-12-29T07:30:00.000-08:00

ADHD in toddler

Understanding ADHD in toddlers are interested points for many parents and proffesional that work and live directly with toddlers. Around 3% to 10% of all children have an issue with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)

Those that suffer from this medical condition often experience many challenged when it comes to socialization and relationships, their performance in school, and the ability to focus on anything for extended lengths of time. In this medical guide, you will learn the most common symptoms associated with children ADHD.

When reviewing the symptoms associated with toddlers ADHD, you'll find that they generally fit within three categories. They are Hyperactivity, Impulsive and Inattention

It's important to realize that when a toddler has the symptoms of toddlers attention deficit disorder, they may suffer from symptoms from more than one category. Most common symptoms include the inability to sit still or stay in one place for an extended amount of time, consistently interrupting others when they're speaking in order to make a point or ask a question, and being easily distracted in one way or another.

Many parents, caregivers, and others that work with children that are attempting to learn more about the symptoms of children ADHD will find that kids are often mindless and seem to be troubled when it refer to try to focus on any one thing for an extended amount of time.

In addition to this, personal items such as dressing, toys, and other points possibly misplaced on a regular basis. Toddler ADHD also results in the child being very active on both a mental and physical level. If you're concerned that your child perhaps suffering from the symptoms of children ADHD, you should consult a specialist in order to set up testing to confirm the diagnosis.

Children ADHD Symptoms

If your toddler has been diagnosed with ADHD, it's important that you gain a complete understanding of the symptoms of ADHD. Toddlers that suffer from this medical condition have symptoms that reflect unique characteristics.

Hyperactivity
For those that experience symptoms of ADHD that are related to hyperactivity, there are many behaviors that perhaps demonstrated. These include talking in excess, walking frequently, the inability to sit still, moderate to severe degrees of restlessness. Then there are those that suffer from symptoms of ADHD that exhibit impulsivity.

Inattentive

When experiencing ADHD symptoms that are related to being inattentive, the toddler will experience symptoms such the inability to devote their attention to a specific situation, it may person, place, or thing and issues with mistakes that are viewed as "careless".
In many cases, the toddler- may have many tasks that are not accomplished. Procrastination, disarrangement, and forgetfulness are quite common in those that suffer from inattention that's directly related to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Impulsivity
The primary symptoms are being impatient, difficulty associated with waiting on a turn, interrupting others, blurting out inappropriately in social settings. Nevertheless, in most cases, the symptoms of ADHD in toddler are related with the characteristic that's dominant with that individual.

Understanding Autism Symptoms Toddler

2010-12-29T00:41:00.000-08:00

Now, numerous toddlers suffer from a developmental complication that's related to as Autism. This complication is part of a particular group of disorders that are named as "Autism Spectrum". Innermost cases, toddlers will be associated with this medical condition before the age of three.

However, there are many cases in which children are diagnosed between the ages of four and six. There are many symptoms linked with autism in toddler. Similar with any other medical condition, there are mild to severe cases.

There are at least two main symptoms that are common among all cases of Autism.
1. Communication
2. Social interaction between the child and other individuals

In a recent research, medical professionals and specialists that work closely with Autism Spectrum Disorders discovered that out of every one thousand toddlers in America population alone, there are anywhere from three to six of those toddler that suffer from this devastating condition.

Every year, the number of children officially diagnosed with this medical condition continues to raise at alarming rates. At this point, there's followed no establishment of a cure for this childhood condition.
On a positive note, there's numerous success associated with the treatments available for children that suffer from this condition. Many babies are able to live full, productive lives cheers to the treatments available.

Autism Symptoms Toddler

Identifying the symptoms of autism in toddler is initially quite challenging. All the same, specialists anticipate three unique areas pertaining to the development of the child that's being evaluated. The first area is the social skills that the child exhibits when interacting with other individuals.

The second is the language development of the child. Last, but not least by any means, is the behavior that's showed by the child. In the most serious cases of Autism, children are totally unable to effectively communicate and interact in a socially acceptable manner with other individuals. In mild to moderate forms of Autism, symptoms may prove to be quite drastic from one child to another.

In most examples of this condition, tpddler exhibit symptoms from the earliest stages of their life. However, there are babies that will display typical progression when it comes to their development then abruptly start to show signs of Autism.

When babies suddenly exhibit symptoms, they may quickly become withdrawn from other people with apparently no reason for doing so, they may seem like they're regressing in skills such as those connected with language development.

In some examples, the baby may quickly start to show signs of aggression. The following exemplifies symptoms that may be showed in the baby suffering from this childhood disorder:

The toddler may seem totally forgetful to the fact that they're being called by their name.
Many toddlers will be unable to reach the point of eye contact and others may have difficulties keeping eye contact with others.
Many children will withdraw and find enjoyment in playing alone.
When it concerns to language, Autistic babies will often display delays in speaking normally; using phrases appropriately, and will be unable to converse in a basic conversation style with others.
It is common for the child to engage in movements that are considered to be inappropriate and repetitive.
The child may start to display signs of performing rituals.
Many autistic babies display a form of hypersensitivity where they seem to be highly affected by sounds, and light.

If your child displays just one of the symptoms associated with Autism, it's crucial to seek medical care. You should make an appointment with the child's doctor and openly discuss your concern.

The professional will be able to conduct an initial analysis of the child and if they feel as if Autism could be the issue, they will refer you to a mental health professional that focuses their time to diagnosing Autism Spectrum Disorders in order to confirm a diagnosis.

Planning Spacing Children

2010-06-22T09:53:00.000-07:00

A long with the blossoming love affair with the first child comes the question,”Must I have another child?” After the initial adjustment to the first baby,and when the first few months of colic are over,new parents begin to experience the euphoria of being in love. Every time they look at their 4-month-old, she smiles back at them adoringly. A vocalization from the parent produces a sigh or an “ooh” in response. The baby wriggles all over as she attempts to communicate with the hovering parent. Few moments in life are as delicious as these minutes of reciprocal communication and in control of the world.

Given A choice in planning a family,parents shoul paln with regard to their own energies and tolerance. Their own reasons for hurrying or delaying in spacing children may be the best gudelines they can follow. A mother who wants to have her family quickly so that she can get back into the marketplace may resent being kept at home for too many years and may indirectly take it out on her family. A father who feels he needs time between each children to save up for their future may be saying that he can assimilate one child and one responsibility at a time. The problem for most families is that they can’t anticipate and plane in advance to accommodate their levels of energy and strength.

Parents who wait for two to three years between their children may wonder whether the children will be too far apart to be friends as they get older. Will they be able to depend upon each other? My own experience has led me to the feeling that if the parents can enjoy the spacing of the children,the children will be better friends for it. If parents are stressed by children who are too close in age,the children will spend most of their chilhood in sibling rivalry. Sibling rivalry is always aimed at parents. Children are inevitably rivalrous,and when parent do not get involved,they will sort out their competitive feelings by themselves. If the children’s rivalry makes parents feel they have not been adequate parents to each child,then the feelings of rivalry are reinforced and may outweight the more positive feelings between siblings. This is another reason for planning children around the parents’ requirement foe available energy. Two-to three year spacing often fits into such needs. By teh age of 2 or 3 most toddlers are basically independent. Their mobility is established,their play is rich and can be independent, they should have established independent eating and sleeping habits,and many of them are on their way to understanding the advantages of being toilet trained.

In addition,by 2 years of age children are ready for group play with others their own age. A peer group can be the highlight of a toddler’s week. The learning that occurs as they play with each other,the discharge of tensions and the sorting out of negativism that can take place in a small play group demonstrates the marvelous availability of children of this age to each other. This means that a mother can set up regular play groups with other mothers,or she can feel comfortable about placing her toddler in a day or group setting-for her own sake-so that she can be available to her new infant. Spacing children two or three years apart can be made easy and productive for everyone in the family.

Please read the getting pregnant plan for best guide your planning.

if you want to get pregnant with a boy, please read How to get pregnant with a boy. this book Explains The Exact Steps You Should Follow To Ensure That You Have The Baby Boy Of Your Dreams.

if you want to get pregnant with a girl please read How To Get Pregnant With A Girl. This book Explains The Exact Steps You Should Follow To Ensure That You Conceive A Baby Girl Of Your Dreams. A Step-By-Step Plan To Have A Girl. Guaranteed.

Developmental Stages Of The Fetus

2010-06-19T08:32:00.000-07:00

Three Weeks 1/5”, .0001 oz.
Embryo’s brain, spinal sord, heart, and blood vessels begin to develop.

One Month ¼”, .001 oz.
Embryo’s nervous and circulatory systems begin to form. Kidneys star to develop. Tissues for muscles and bones, digestive tract and the eyes, ears, and mouth begin to develop. The crude heart beats regularly. Baby possesses the beginnings of all major organs.

Six Weeks 1/2”, .01 oz.
Face takes shape. Buds for arms, legs, backbone, and liver begin to form. Upper and lower jaws develop

Two Months 1”, 1/30 oz.
Fetus has clearly defined eyes, ears, nose, and arms. The hands have fingers and the feet have toes. Cartilage forms, and bones begin to distinguish themselves. The fetus moves, but the mother cannot yet feel these movements.

Three Months 3”, 1 oz.
Tooth buds begin to form inside the jaw. Vocal cords start to take shape, and all organs become better defined, more precise, and functional. Fingernails and toenails form. Nostrils close, eyelids fuse shut. Liver begins to produce red blood cells. Sex organs become defined.

Four Months 61/2”, 4 oz.
Fetus’s movements become more pronounced and mother may feel a slight flutter. Fetus swallows and excretes amniotic fluid. Early fecal matter, called meconium, collects in fetus’s intestinal tract. Nearly all organs are formed. Fine hair covers body. Obsetrician can detect a heartbeat using amplified stethoscope.

Five Months 12”, 1 1/2 lbs.
Fetus develop hair, eyebrows, lashes, facial expressions, and begins to move vigirously and frequently. Mother can feel definite fetal movements. Most organ systems function, first

Five months (continued)
Sucking responses appear, fetus grips with hands. Eyelids are still fused shut, but blinking like movements begin

Six Months 15”,2 ½ lbs.
Fetus’s skin, nails, and hair take on adult form. Fat cells begin to form and vernix – the oily substance that protects the baby from the amniotic fluid – develops. Nostrils reopen, and the baby begins to make muscular breathing motions. The fetus demonstrates brain-wave patterns, and crude hearing and vision systems are present.

Seven Months 16 ½”, 4 lbs.
Fetus’s eyes are completely formed and can perceive light. The eyelids reopen. Taste buds on tongue are functional. Organs continue to mature. Nerve cells mature, fetus continues to lay down fat cells.

Eight Months 18”, 5 ½ lbs.
Nervous system undergoes further development. Fatty sheath, called myelin, forms around nerve fibers. Fetus continues to grow in length, weight, and strength.

Nine Months 20”, 7 ½ lbs.
Lungs prepare to function independently. Fetus continues to grow in length, weight, and strength.

The nutritional needs of pregnant women increase dramatically both because of the rapid fetal growth and because of changes in the mother’s body necessary to nourish the fetus and promote breast milk production. Pregnant women, therefore, need more calories overall and more of each nutrient.

Current understanding of how much weight should be gained during pregnancy contradicts theories in vogue before 1970. For the Past several centuries, many doctors have encouraged women to restrict weight gain while pregnant to a maximum of 18 pounds. At the time, this advice made sense: the mortality rate of women at birth was high, and smaller babies were more easily delivered. Now, however, it is recognized that somewhat larger babies – from 6 pounds 10 ounces to 9 pounds 14 ounces – are more likely to survive and have fewer complications at birth.

Women whose weight is normal prior to conception should gain between 22 and 28 pounds during pregnancy. Women who are underweight before conception can gain up to 30 pounds, and obese women should gain approximately 16 pounds. A minimum of 15 pounds should be gained because studies show that infant mortality rates double when maternal weight gain is inadequate.

The baby itself accounts for only one-third or less of the total weight gain; a quarter goes to tissues surrounding the baby – placenta, amniotic fluid, and uterus; and slightly less than half is needed by the mother. The mother’s blood supply increases during pregnancy, from approximately 8 ½ to 11 pints, as she supplies blood to the placenta and the baby. During pregnancy, fatty tissue increases and is redistributed in the abdomen, back, and upper thighs in preparation for the demands made by the rapid growth of the baby during the last trimester and the high energy expenditure at the time of delivery and while breast feeding.

Most of the baby’s growth occurs during the final trimester. The mother gains little weight during the first trimester, generally only 1 ½ to three pounds. Beginning with the second trimester, however, mothers should gain approximately one pond every seven to nine days. In general, a mother’s low weight gain during the last trimester will mean a smaller baby, with smaller organs – smaller brain, heart, kidney, and liver.

Meals During Pregnancy

2010-06-19T08:04:00.000-07:00

The fetus, growing and developing inside the womb, depends entirely on its mother to supply all nourishment necessary to bring a new, healthy life into the outside world. After birth, infants continue to depend on others to fulfill all their needs. This absolute dependency places upon parents the responsibility of feeding their children well – to ensure their survival and to safeguard their health and well-being. This role must be taken seriously.

A mother should begin by being careful of her own diet throughout pregnancy. Later on, she should continue to eat well herself and to feed her newborn wisely. If a mother is poorly nourished during pregnancy or if an infant receives a diet deficient in essential nutrients, lifelong health problems may develop. You have to understand The Fit And Healthy Pregnancy Guide.

Pregnant women and new parents normally have many questions about how best to fill the nutritional needs of the baby, both before and after birth. Should pregnant women stop drinking coffee? Take vitamins? Drink alcoholic beverages? Is it best for a mother to breast feed or bottle feed her newborn? When should an infant begin to eat solid foods? And, what are the best first foods?

NUTRITION DURING PREGNANCY

Good nutrition begins even before conception. Eating well before conception prepares the mother’s body for the physically demanding period of pregnancy. The mother’s pre-pregnancy health, therefore, can affect the fetus’s health, development, and chance of survival. If a woman is eating poorly and a pregnancy begins, she must promptly improve her diet to compensate for nutrients not present at the time of conception.

After conception the mother’s diet is crucial to the development of a healthy baby. In fact, contrary to previous theories, malnutrition affects the child more severely than it does the mother. In evolutionary terms, this makes sense: a baby born to a nutritionally depleted mother does not have a good chance of surviving.

Therefore, with few exceptions, the mother’s nutritional needs are met first, followed by the needs of the fetus. Both the quantity and the quality of the mother’s diet affect the fetus, in many ways – birth weight, and the risks of malformation, spontaneous abortion, mortality, or retardation.

For the best guide to healthy eating before, during and after pregnancy I recommend you to read the book from American Dietetic Association, Expect the Best: Your Guide to Healthy Eating Before, During, and After Pregnancy (American Dietetic Association) and Frances Largeman-Roth book Feed the Belly: The Pregnant Mom's Healthy Eating Guide

On the next post I will outlines the developmental stages of the fetus. Because organs develop from the very beginning, the mother’s diet matters right from the start. Fetal growth itself is rapid throughout pregnancy, particularly in the last trimester.

Understanding Headache in a Small Children

2009-09-14T10:28:00.000-07:00

Headaches in children also are perplexing. Those that recur at regular intervals are even more so. It is rare for a child of less than four years of age to complain of a headache. There are special times of day when crankiness and other signs of disintegration are likely to be associated with headaches in preschool children. By the ages of 4 and 5, complaints of headaches begin to surface in many children’s lives. Since this is a period when children identify more closely with adults around them, one wonders whether they first get the concept by imitating an adult or older child. Other somatic symptoms, such as stomachaches, obstipation (stool withholding), and leg aches are likely to be recurrent complaints at this time as well.

Many children have headaches from time to time after the ages of 6 or 7.
Certain children who begin to complain of headaches in early childhood will eventually end up with migraine headaches. As with other, milder forms of headaches, there are likely to be many triggers may be more powerful in some children the prodrome, either a feeling of nausea or eye signs-such as flashes or crinkles in the visual field. Migraine sufferers learn to dread them unless a specific antidote can be found. I would urge parents of children with regular, severe headaches to have a checkup for migraine and to try the various new medications which show some promise. Any severe headache which has an acute onset, last for more than a few hours, and is not relieved by aspirin like substances, deserves the attention of the child’s physician.

I would like to address the milder from of headache which is not so severe and which disappears after rest or mild painkillers and parental attention. Certain children, however, may develop a more severe from of headache which is not as easy for parents to understand. Since they are also likely to occur at a predictable time of day and are more incapacitating to the child, parents are likely to worry about them and wonder about their cause. The child herself will soon begin to dread them and to worry when she is developing one of these episodic headaches. If they are not as severe as true migraines and there is no genetic history for migraine, and if the child’s physician has been consulted to rule out underlying reasons for them, the parents themselves may be able to alleviate them with the right approach.

As agood parents you have to know the fast act when your child get headache. As a best guide book, I recommend you to buy book with title: Heal Your Headache: The 1-2-3 Program for Taking Charge of Your Pain

Some experts said about this book:

"This book is clearly written, insightful and filled with useful tips for all individuals with migraine. A must read!" -- Ronald J. Tusa, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Neurology and Otolaryngology, Dizziness and Balance Center, Emory University

"This is a very useful book that provides a fresh and logical approach to the management of headaches." -- Roy A. Patchell, M.D., Chief of Neuro-Oncology, University of Kentucky College of Medicine

Maybe you interested with my previous post about Lactose intolerance babies

Lactose Intolerance Babies

2009-09-08T06:28:00.000-07:00

Baby Lactose Intolerance

Intolerance to lactose, the main carbohydrate in cow’s milk and breast milk, is a condition that requires special care and planning, especially for infants. This condition is different from milk allergy.

Lactose is composed of two sugars, glucose and galactose. Normally, lactase, an enzyme located on the cells lining the digestive tract, breaks down lactose into its component sugars. Lactose cannot be absorbed unless it is broken down. If it is not digested, it stays in the intestine where bacteria turn it to hydrogen gas and acid. The gas causes bloating and sometimes cramps. The acid irritates the bowel and causes watery stools.

There are three forms of lactose intolerance: congenital ( present at birth or hereditary), or primary; secondary (related to another underlying physical disorder); and physiologic, or age related. Congenital lactose is rare, but it is a permanent condition. Lactase deficiency causes the newborn to have profuse, watery, diarrhea. Infants cannot survive on a formula containing lactose, but they do well when fed a lactose-free formula, such as a soybean derivative.

Secondary lactose intolerance can happen after an episode of infectious diarrhea or other gastrointestinal disease. The lactose intolerance develops because most of the enzyme that breaks lactose into its component sugars is located in the mature cells of the gastrointestinal tract. Any process that disrupts normal maturing of cells lining the bowel or injures the gastrointestinal tract can lower levels of lactase and make it hard to digest lactose. This lactose intolerance is not permanent, but the time it takes for lactase to regain normal function varies, depending on what caused the problem and the recuperative powers of the individual.

Finally, a large proportion of the world’s population – especially blacks and Orientals – loses the ability to digest lactose with age. The age when this occurs and the degree of lactose intolerance. Age-related lactose intolerance does not develop before 3 years of age in black children or 5 years of age in white children.

People with lactase deficiencies are placed on lactose-free or lactose-reduced diets. These diets limit all types of untreated milk (whole, low fat, skim, buttermilk, powdered, evaporated, and condensed). Lactose-free milk, which has been pretreated with lactase, is widely available in supermarkets. Several lactase enzyme preparations, which are added to milk to break down most of the lactose, can be used by people with limited tolerance to lactose. In addition, enzyme capsules, which are taken with meals to process lactose in the body, are available.

Lactose-free diets also avoid milk byproducts such as yogurt, cheese, ice cream, and some kinds of sherbet. Foods containing milk or milk solids – prepared mixes such as muffins, waffles, pancakes, biscuits; some dried cereals and most instant hot cereals; commercial cakes, cookies, and pie crusts; margarine and salad dressings made with milk or milk solids; creamed vegetables; hot dogs made with milk solids; and creamed soups and chowders – also are eliminated. (see also the discussion of milk allergies, earlier in this chapter.) Other lactose-containing foods that may be excluded from the diet are chewing gum, chocolate, peppermint, butterscotch, and many artificial sweeteners. Labels, once again, should be read carefully.

When all products containing milk are eliminated, calcium supplements are necessary. However, parents should consult a physician before giving any supplements to a child. The child’s pediatrician, who is most likely familiar with the condition, will be able to recommend the proper supplement.

Maybe you interested with other article from Michelle L Barron about Assisting Families in Making Appropriate Feeding Choices: Cow's Milk Protein Allergy versus Lactose Intolerance.: An article from: Pediatric Nursing

Please also check my previous article about milk allergies in infant

Milk Allergies Infants

2009-09-08T06:04:00.000-07:00

Allergy to cow’s-milk protein is estimated to affect as many as 12 percent of infants and young children. Because cow’s milk is one of the principal sources of calcium, protein, riboflavin, and vitamins A and D, parents of children who are allergic to cow’s milk must be sure that adequate levels of these important nutrients are eaten in other foods and change the milk with up & up Soy Infant Formula 6 pkthis formula are free milk-free and lactose-free. With DHA & ARA, Iron6-pk., 25.7 Oz. Per Container.

Infants rarely have sensitivities to breast milk, so breast feeding is a good way to avoid the potential problem of milk allergies that may stem from cow’s-milk-derived formula. Human milk is available from milk banks in some areas of the country for mothers who are unable or choose not be breast feed their infants.

Cow’s-milk-sensitive infants normally grow and develop well when they are given soy-based formulas, which are available in pharmacies and many supermarkets. Some infants, however, also, have allergies to soybean milk. These infants generally are fed an elemental diet, or partially digested formula, in which the protein is broken down into amino acids or small groups of amino acids.

Older children with allergies to cow’s milk may be able to drink goat’s milk without a reaction. Goat’s milk, however, is deficient in folic acid, and children fed goat’s milk must be given folic-acid supplements. Other milk-sensitive children can tolerate milk that has been heated, and this allows puddings, cakes, soups, and custards to be added to the diet.

Levels of sensitivity may vary from child to child. One child may be unable to tolerate cow’s milk but may be able to eat other dairy products in small amounts with no reaction. Another child may be extremely sensitive cow’s milk and all food products derived from it. In this instance, cheeses, butter, cream, ice cream, milk sherbet, cakes, puddings, margarine made with milk solids, milk chocolate, hot breads made with milk (such as pancakes, waffles, biscuits, and muffins), and hot dog containing milk solids should be avoided.

When cooking and baking for a child with milk allergies, parents can substitute soybean milk for cow’s milk. Fruit juices also can replace cow’s milk in some recipes. Pancakes, waffles, muffins, and French toast can be made without milk.
Although milk or milk byproducts often are present in breads, cakes, cookies, pastries, soups, and other processed foods, milk-free versions of some of these products are widely available. French and rye bread, for example, usually are made without milk. Graham crackers, saltines, sode crackers, pretzels, most cereals (served with fruit juice or milk substitutes), meats, vegetables (without cream sauces or butter), fruit, potatoes and pasta also are suitable for children on milk-free diets.

Fortunately, the majority of children with milk-protein allergy outgrow it by the time they are 12 to 24 months of age and are able to drink milk and eat milk byproducts with no reaction.

Maybe you interested with Understanding Wheat allergy in babies

Knowing Wheat Allergy in Babies

2009-09-08T05:28:00.000-07:00

Wheat Allergies

Wheat allergies is not as common as milk and egg allergies, but it presents more of a challenge to parents because most baked foods – commercial and homemade – use wheat flour as the primary ingredient. In addition, because most wheat flour is enriched and serves as agood source of iron, thiamin, niacin, and riboflavin, other sources of these vitamins and minerals must be found.

Fortunately, a number of wheat-flour substitutes are available. In most recipes, one cup of wheat flour can be replaced by three-fourths cup of rice flour, one cup of corn flour, three-fourths cup of coarse cornmeal, one cup of fine cornmeal, or five-eighths cup of potato flour. One cup of soy flour also may be a suitable substitute, but one-fourth of it should be replaced by anpther flour (usually potao flour) to help prtevent an unmistakable soybean taste.

Longer, slower baking usually is necessary when flours other than wheat are used. Cornmeal and rice flour tend to have grainer textures, but when they are boiled in the liquid that is used in the recipe they achieve a smoother texture. When this method is used, the mixture should be cooled before the other ingredients are added. Nonwheat flours do not react well with yeast; therefore, other leavening methods must be used to achieve a lighter density, especially with the coarse flours such as cornmeal and rice flour. Adding 2 ½ teaspoons of baking powder for each cup of coarse flour, beating the egg whites before they are added to the dough, or using sour milk plus baking sode are some possibilities for creating a better texture.

Children with wheat allergy can eat breads made with 100 percent cornmeal, potato flour, and rice flour, and some can tolerate bread made with rye flour and oats. Parents must read labels is commercial breads, however, because most are made with flour mixtures that contain wheat. Corn, oat, or rice cereals usually cause no trouble for children who are allergic to wheat. Meats, fish, and poulltry should be prepared without bread-crumbs and without flour-thickened gravy. Gravy and sauces can be thickened with cornstarch or tapioca starch.

Foods to avoid on a wheat-free diet obviously include cakes, pies, cookies, and doughnuts, but also canned soups, salad dressings, pasta, hot dogs, processed sheese, and malted drinks.
Allergy to a commponent of wheat – gluten (also found in rye, oats, and barley) – is called celiac disease, or gluten enteropathy. In this cindition, gliadin, an extract of gluten, causes damage to the gastrointestinal tract when sensitive children eat it. The damage results in an inability to absorb needed nutrients. Diarrhea and growth failure often occur. Although age and symptoms may vary, most children with celiac disease develop diarrhea between 6 and 24 months of age. When gluten is removed from the diet, children with this allergy recover completely and thrive. They must remain on a gluten-free diet for life

Sensitivities to foods other than milk, eggs, and wheat tend to be easier to manage because most of the offending foods can be avoided with few problems. Fortunately, most food allergies subside as a child gets older; allergies to fish, shellfish, and nuts, however, often last through adulthood. A variety of cookbooks are available with suggestions for preparing foods for people with allergies. Some of these are listed in the Other Reading section at the end of this book.

As mentioned earlier, parents should work with a physician or a registered dietitian when their children have food allergies.

if you need more information about wheat allergies I recommend you to buy DVD from Dr. Thomas O'Brian about Unlocking the Mystery of Wheat and Gluten Intolerance
Watching this DVD, you will become more vigilant about staying away from wheat in any form. It would be an eye-opener for people with unresolved health problems. Its extensive research references clearly show a world-wide concern about the effect of Celiac disease beyond digestive problems.

Please also check about egg allergy in infants

Egg Allergy in Infants | Eggs Allergy Symptoms and Treatment

2009-09-07T06:57:00.000-07:00

Egg Allergy Babies

Eggs are another common cause of food sensitivity among infants and young children. Frequently, reactions to eggs are severe, occurring within minutes of eating them. The albumin, or the white part of the egg, usually causes the reaction, but some children are sensitivity to yolks as well.

Eggs are rich sources of high-quality protein, fats, and essential vitamins and minerals, but these can also be obtained from meats, fish, nad poultry. Unfortunately, eggs are used in most cakes, pastries, and cookies, and some breads, sauces, and glazes. Eggs are used to thicken and bind together ingredients in cooking and baking, and as a result they may be hidden in foods.
Egg-free cooking at home has been simplified with the introduction of egg substitutes – both powder and liquid – which are available in most supermarkets. These egg-free replacements mimic the flavor and color of real eggs and can be used for many egg dishes. (Several of the egg substitutes, however, are designed for people who are trying to lower the cholesterol level in their diets. As a result, some do contain egg whites, and these are not appropriate for children with sensitivities to egg. Careful scrutiny of the label is extremely important.)

Most egg-free substitutes will not duplicate the thickening and binding properties of real eggs that are necessary when backing. To achieve the binding effect, mashed bananas can be substituted for eggs when blending together powdered ingredients of cakes, cookies, or breads, for example. In recipes where eggs are needed to thicken liquid ingredients, an alternative is to combine two tablespoons of whole wheat flour, one-half teaspoon oil, one-half teaspoon baking powder, and two tablespoons milk, water, or fruit juice to replace each egg.

When baking egg-free muffins or other pastries, an additional one-half teaspoon of baking powder may help compensate for the decrease and casseroles, extra amounts of flour or cornstarch may produce the right consistency.

Children who are allergic to eggs can eat most commercial and homemade breads (white, whole, wheat, pumpernickel, rye, French), saltine and soda crackers, graham crackers, and cereals. Potatoes, rice, and pasta (except egg noodles or pasta made with egg) also are safe for egg-sensitive children. Meats, fish, and poultry are fine unless coated with egg batter before cooking. Cheese, fruit, sherbet, frozen yogurt, pies, and puddings made without eggs are all safe desserts. Better-quality ice cream often is made with egg yolks, so parents should check the labels.

More information about Egg allergy, I recommend you to buy a book The Allergy Self-Help Cookbook: Over 350 Natural Foods Recipes, Free of All Common Food Allergens: wheat-free, milk-free, egg-free, corn-free, sugar-free, yeast-free
As a parents guide of course it is a good resource in serving the food for your daily meals

Egg-sensitive children should avoid hot breads such as muffins, pancakes, French toast, and pastries unless they are made without eggs or with egg substitutes. Also, cakes, cookies, frostings, meringues, custards, and creams usually are made with eggs. Salad dressings made with eggs and soups containing egg noodles should be avoided. Hot dogs, sausage, and meat loaf may contain eggs. Again, reading labels is always very important.

Please follow the link to read how to understand Kids food allergies

Kids Food Allergies Understanding

2009-09-01T06:44:00.000-07:00

Food allergies are common disorders among children, especially those younger than 3 years of age. Symptoms are varied, can be mild or serve, and can occur in almost any part of the body, although they usually affect the gastrointestinal tract (vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps), respiratory tract (swelling of the throat, nasal stuffiness, wheezing), and skin (hives, rash, swelling).

Sensitivity to cow’s-milk protein is the most common food allergy among infants and young children. Other foods that cause allergic reactions for many children are eggs, wheat, chocolate, nuts, fish and shellfish, corn, soy, peas, tomatoes, citrus fruit, legumes and strawberries. Almost any food substance can trigger a reaction in a sensitive individual.

Identifying food allergies is important. Delays in growth, resulting from poor absorption of vital nutrients and stress on the body, can be associated with allergies that go untreated. Therefore, children with food allergies should be evaluated and monitored by a physician. Also, early diagnosis of food sensitivities means that parents will not mistakenly withhold foods needed by the child.

Several methods are used to diagnose food allergies. The most common is the elimination diet, in which a suspicious food is omitted and any disappearance or reduction of symptoms is noted. The food being tasted is reintroduced a few weeks later to see if symptoms recur. Another diagnostic tool for determining allergies is the scratch or prick test, where a small nick is made on the skin and a drop of the suspected substance, or antigen, is applied to see if a reaction occurs. A dairy of all foods and medications taken up to 72 hours before the onset of reactions is another method sometimes used to identify food allergies. A family history of food allergies also may provide clues.

After food allergies are identified, treatment usually involves partially or totally eliminating the offending food, products containing it, and its derivatives. This may not be a problem when children have only one or two food sensitivities. Children who are allergic to many foods, however, require careful menu planning to make sure that they get enough of all the necessary nutrients.
Three common food allergies – milk, eggs, and wheat – are among the most challenging because these ingredients are contained in many processed and prepared foods. Parents of children with any of these sensitivities should take extra care to read labels and recognize ingredients that are byproducts, curds, and whey are all derived from milk by products. Egg byproducts may be listed as albumin, vitellin, livetin, or globulin. Gluten, bran, food starch, vegetable starch, and vegetable gum can indicate the presence of wheat.

Parents should work with a physician or a registered dietitian when their children have food allergies.

Please also check How to understand the temperament in a Child

Knowing the Temperament Types in a Child

2009-09-01T06:34:00.000-07:00

Temperament is something we're born with -- it's a set of traits that makes each of us unique, and it's a powerful factor in determining how we react to the world. The way a child approaches a new situation is one example of temperament at work.

By understanding these patterns, parents can tailor their parenting approach in such areas as expectations, encouragement, and discipline to suit the child's unique needs.

flexible
children are generally calm, happy, regular in sleeping and eating habits, adaptable, and not easily upset.

Active
children are often fussy, irregular in feeding and sleeping habits, fearful of new people and situations, easily upset by noise and commotion, high strung, and intense in their reactions. Providing areas for vigorous play to work off stored up energy and frustrations with some freedom of choice allow these children to be successful. Preparing these children for activity changes and using redirection will help these children transition (move or change) from one place to another.

Cautious

children are relatively inactive and fussy, tend to withdraw or to react negatively to new situations, but their reactions gradually become more positive with continuous exposure. Sticking to a routine and your word, along with allowing ample time to establish relationships in new situations, are necessary to allow independence to unfold.

Most children have some level of intensity on several temperament traits, but one dimension will usually dominate. Refrain from using negative labels such as "cry baby," "worrywart," or "lazy." By doing so, the adults can alter or adjust their parenting methods to be a positive guide in their child's natural way of responding to the world.

I recommend you to read 4 Effective Keys to Stop Misbehavior. This is the Parenting Tools That Are Guaranteed To Work For You And Your Child.

Maybe you interested with my previous article about child nutrition please follow the link

Understanding The Principles of Child Nutrition

2009-08-31T06:48:00.000-07:00

Children Nutrition

We live because we eat. The amount of reliable information about food and health has increased enormously since the 1970s, and recommendations about diet continually change to reflect this rise. Unfortunately, half-truths and misinformation have grown just as explosively, and families often are confused by a bewildering mixture of fact and fiction, solid advice and sensational claims.

The parents have to understand the principles of child nutrition; how the body uses food; the links between nutrition and health; and successful ways to encourage children to eat food that is good for them. Good nutrition during childhood is vital to a growing, developing body and a healthy adulthood.

Providing nourishing food is one of the most significant, lasting ways parents show their love for their children. With a sound diet, parents provide raw materials for growth and development- for active and alert children who grow physically, emotionally, and intellectually. By presenting that food in a warm, happy setting, parents nurture sensible eating habits that often last a lifetime. Feeding is caring, and feeding well is loving well.

The child will eat when they hunger. The Infant also will cry when they hunger. Not surprisingly, hunger was the first and most frequent reason given for eating. Hunger is triggered by the body’s need for six kinds of nutrients: protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water. All these nutrients are needed for survival and growth. A lack of any one of them for a long period of time inevitably leads to health problems.

Infants and young children are especially sensitive to the hunger signals their bodies send out. Unless forced or strongly encouraged, they rarely eat more or less than they need. Even more remarkably, over the course of a few days, if presented with foods containing all the essential nutrients, children will adequately balance their diets.

In addition to filling the body’s needs, food has rich cultural significance. This is immediately evident in the use of food related words, often to signify emotions-sweetie, honey, apple pie, fruitcake, rotten egg, peach, spicy, salt of the earth, tart, and oily.

The foods that people eat, when and how these foods are eaten, and even the size of a serving varies from country to country, as well as from neighborhood to neighborhood and house to house. Eating patterns, however, can be linked to several general trends-personal food preferences and family eating patterns; social roles and pressures; the larger culture; and environmental, technological, and economic factors affecting availability. Taken together, this complicated web determines whether a person eats rice and beans, steak and potatoes, or shredded cabbage and shrimp; six meals or three meals a day; uses fingers, chopsticks, gourd, or fork; and whether the meal satisfies hunger.

Maybe you interested with my previous article about
How to teach Discipline in a Small Child

How to Teach Discipline in a Small Child

2009-08-29T03:35:00.000-07:00

The job of disciplining a small child is one of the most difficult, but also one of the most important responsibilities of parenthood.The most obvious times necessary for discipline occur in the second year and soon thereafter. By that time, a toddler is getting into all sorts of new, exciting situations. Driven by the excitement of learning, he gets himself caught in more than he can handle. As he builds up to more and more excitement, his eyes dilate, his hands tremble and explore indiscriminately, his legs keep him going from one place to another. From his high of exploration, he will inevitably hit bottom. What about the danger of being overly punitive or of hurting the child physically? Children in the second and third years can keep on pushing too far, testing until you lose control. At the end of the day, when parents are tired and ready for a cozy visit with each another, a child may begin to press the hardest for repeated episodes of discipline. The parents need nurturing too, and may feel like spanking or slapping the child. If that doesn’t work, the tension can build up, until the parent really feels like hurting the child.

One approach is to pick up the disintegrating baby, hold onto him firmly, sit down and rock him calmly and soothingly. As you rock, talk to the child about how upset you both are, and how you both can calm down to have a nice time together. If this reaches the child, it may well break through the upset and you can continue on each others’ wavelength. If you are determined that the provocative behavior must stop, a child usually knows it and falls in with your firmness. If doesn’t, putting him in his room “to cool off” gives you both a chance to collect yourselves. In that way, a parent can help a toddler learn to contain himself, and to learn from the discipline.

Another time at which one can expect breakdowns is when excitement builds up-with the visit of grandparents, or during a visit to a crowded shopping center. Obviously, prevention of a blowup would be infinitely preferable to having to deal with a toddler or a 3-year-old.

Please also read about Learning to share with your child

About me

2009-08-27T08:42:00.000-07:00

Child is everything for the parents but also sometimes the parents feel stressful with their child behavior. Understanding a child actually is not easy. We have to understand the time, condition and the psychological of our child.

I am DR Linda try to present my experiences into the articles at my blog http://child-understanding.blogspot.com how to understand a child more.
These experiences actually I got from my experiences with my child and family. These experiences have also got from the patient in my clinic who tries to share about their children behavior in their family.

I hope my article can be useful for you as a reader.

Understanding Learning to Share with a Child

2009-08-27T08:13:00.000-07:00

Have you seen a little child attack each other when they are playing? One will attack the other; the one who gets attacked will look absolutely shocked and show that she is suddenly realizing that it hurts to be bitten or to have one’s hair pulled. This can be the first vivid lesson in what it means to act upon another person. if she feel hurt so she will never do it again later.

Learning to share can be painful but rewarding. Learning to share may be the most difficult aspect of growing up in a family. But it is also the most important thing one can learn in childhood, for learning to share means learning to understand the other person’s feelings. Parents have their own problem with sharing. In thinking about a new baby, few parents feel really competent to care for more than one child. And this sense of inadequacy may well convey itself to the first child as a fear of not being available to her. Having more than one child does demand that parents plan to divide their attention. Saving a special time for the older child becomes as important as being available to the baby.

When you are expecting a new baby, prepare the older child for the separation and then for the changes in your relationship. Let her learn to participate with you and identify with you as a caregiver for the new baby. After the new baby is at home, and many things are demanding your time and energy be sure you save a special time for them especially for your older child. Each older child deserves a small segment of protected time for each parent. The amount of time doesn’t matter, but the quality of it does. One hour a week for each child with each parent can be like pure gold in maintaining your relationships. Spacing of children should be a selfish decision, with as much consideration for one’s own available energies and needs as possible.

The Guidelines Learning to Share with Your Child

• Do not allow your own problems with separation from the older child to keep you from sensing the child’s loneliness.
• Prepare the older child for the separation of your going away to have a new baby. Bring a special “love” home for the older child to play with and to imitate you as you care for your baby.
• Set up special occasions for the older child to hold and care for the new baby.
• Have special times to be with the older child and plan them without the new baby.
• Talk about these special times at all other times to make them symbolize how much you miss the earlier one-to-one relationship.
• When parents are not too stressed by sibling rivalry, it is easier for the child to express her feelings.
• Be prepared for the developmental regressions that are likely to occur in the older child, for example, increased negativism and temper tantrums, a recurrence of wetting the bed, baby talk, wanting to be treated like a baby, etc. The older child usually will regress in the areas she has just mastered, but the regression may be less obvious and less specific. A parent’s role is to support, not to punish or to show disappointment. Special attention to the older child’s needs for other outlets will certainly pay off. The natural negativism of the second year can find outlets in imitative play with other negative 2-year-old.
• All of these point to the importance of deciding when to have a second child on the basis of the parents’ ability to have emotional and physical energy left over for the other child. If they are happy in the spacing, the older child will adjust to any configuration

Maybe you interested with my article about How to Understand Child Behavior

How to Understand Child Behavior

2009-08-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

Understanding Child Behavior

before understanding your child, it is important for parents to realize that their ability to shape a child”s behavior is limited by individual differences, present at birth. At birth, we see infants who overreact to every noise or stimulus-starting visibly, crying out, changing color, spitting up, and having a bowel movement- all as part of reaction to a single stimulus. Other infants will react to the same stimulus by lying quietly in their cribs, eyes widening, faces alerting, color paling, and bodily activity reducing to a minimum, seeming to conserve all energy in order to pay attention to the stimulus. These are both normal reactions, at different ends of a spectrum. The involvement of the infant’s whole body is apparent; attention and psychological mechanisms are intimately tied to physiological reactions. As babies get older, their physiological reactions may appear less connected to their personalities.

The parents cannot change the individual differences, they have some control over their own reaction to their child” s behavior. Often an eager or anxious parent will focus attention on and over emphasize a routine event, such as thumb sucking which is in itself of no importance, and reinforce it until it is a problem.

Parents are likely to focus on a common developmental aberration and reinforce it as a pattern at any age. They are likely to do so for unconscious reason and may not be aware of their role in reinforcing the behavior until it is already a habit. Even at this point it is not too late to relieve tension for the child and to break the vicious circle.

The parents may have to try and ignore child behavior, try not to give in, remove certain privileges, look and sound as if you mean it when asking you child to do something. Most importantly concentrate on encouraging and rewarding good behavior all the time

How To Cope Positively With Difficult Child Behavior.

Establish House Rules

Make simple rules for your child. Start with a few "things we do and don't do." Discuss them with your child.

Prevention Is Better Than Cure

If you feel that your child's behavior is beginning to get out of control, "nip it in the bud" by distracting your child's attention onto a positive activity or game.

Understand Your Child's Behavior

Define simply and clearly any difficult behavior. Keep a diary of what led up to the behavior and what immediately followed it. From this, see if there is a pattern. What are the triggers and consequences which might be keeping the behavior going? DON'T blame yourself but work at changing your responses.

Discipline With Short Time-Outs

Try to view discipline in a different way e.g. if a rule is broken, discipline with a time out a short, quiet time alone, without play. Alternatively ignore minor behavior difficulties as your attention will often inadvertently encourage the very behavior you want to stop.

Take Five

When tensions and anger rise in you or your child take five. Take five minutes to cool down and to ask yourself, "Why am I getting so angry?" Try to identify the real problem, then find the solution. Always control your temper.

Never Strike In Anger

Research has shown that hitting your child does not help, and can do more damage. Try to avoid striking your child in anger. Smacking is not effective in reducing poor behaviour, as it does not teach children good behavior.

Don't Yell or shout at children

Try to avoid yelling at your children in anger. Do not put down your children. If they break a rule, tell them what they did wrong and why that makes you angry. Be angry at what they did, NOT at who they are.

Get Away

When you feel frustrated, angry or uncontrollable, let your feelings out safely away from your children. Get out. Take a walk. Do not stay alone with your children when you are overwhelmed.

Understanding Thumb Sucking in a Child

2009-08-20T19:26:00.000-07:00

In our culture, thumb sucking or dependency on a blanket on a comforting “lovely” like a teddy bear are considered bad habits.

The need for such self-comforting patterns as thumb sucking and cuddling a lovely becomes apparent as one observes how small children use them. When they are tired and yet can’t let themselves stop, they fall back on a familiar self-comforting pattern of behavior in order to calm themselves down.

Thumb sucking started in the newborn period and was reserved for transitions-when going to sleep, waking up, resting during an exciting play session, or giving up a feeding after being satiated. Later on it was used when a toddler got too excited and needed to calm down. It seemed to be a small child’s way of adjusting to the many demands of his world.

Thumb sucking or finger sucking is a natural and even desirable behavior for the infants at certain points in his day. For example, when he is tired, bored, or frustrated, the resourceful infant will fall back on a comforting and self-controlling behavior such as sucking his thumb. With this as a crutch, he can pull out of his stimulating, exciting world and reorganize. He can vegetate, recover, and get ready for the next exciting interaction with the world.

Knowing and Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect

2009-08-20T18:38:00.000-07:00

Child abuse is the physical, psychological, emotional mistreatment of children. Child abuse happens in many different ways, but the result is the same- serious physical or emotional harm. Physical or sexual abuse may be the most striking types of abuse, since they often unfortunately leave physical evidence behind. Child neglect is the most common type of child abuse. Neglect is a pattern of failing to provide for a child's basic needs, endangering a child’s physical and psychological well-being.

It’s so dramatically when we know that child abuse has been going on since children have been born. Learn what to do if your baby won't stop crying. Never shake a baby - shaking a child may cause brain damage that often leads to severe neurological problems and even death.

Physical abuse can include striking a child with the hand, fist, or foot or with an object, burning, shaking, pushing, or throwing a child; pinching or biting the child, pulling a child by the hair or cutting off a child’s air.

Whether the abuse is physical, emotional, sexual, or neglect, the scars can be deep and long-lasting, often leading to future child abuse.

Parents who physically abuse their spouses are more likely to physically abuse their children. Understanding more about their children and family is the effective way to prevent child abuse in family life. The parents should meet their children’s emotional and physical in their daily lives. Give the children attention, love, care and support. One of the most important things is the patience.

Maybe you interested with article about Understanding Sadness in a Child

Understanding Sadness in a Child

2009-08-19T02:58:00.000-07:00

Being sad is very different for a child from crying. Crying is an active, protesting state, whereas being sad is a passive, low-keyed one. Crying can serve many purposes-anger, protest, a call for help, or just letting off steam at the end of the day. After the crying period is over, the emergency will have been met, someone is likely to have responded, and everyone feels better. Life can be resumed. Not so with sadness. Sadness is a more prolonged state for the child. She is likely to respond to this feeling with little physical activity and few bodily changes. The depressed feelings do not express themselves or get alleviated easily. Since these feelings cannot be changed right away, they are likely to be frightening to parents. Parents may easily overreact, trying to push the child out of her “mood”, or they may try to ignore it in her. Neither approach is likely to work for more than temporary periods. Sadness in a child is likely to represent a real cry for help.

How does a parent evaluate periods of sadness, and help the child pull out of them? First of all, timing should be considered. Do these periods come at a time when there are real and understandable which the child might find difficult to understand or to handle? If so, there is already a better chance of helping the child recognize the reasons behind her sadness.

“How entrenched are these periods?” Is the child unreachable or can she cheers up when interesting events occur? If the former is true, it is a measure of how deeply affected she may be. But the fact that she can be cheered up or it may well be an indication of things that deserve attention.

Finally, how much does this sadness invade other areas of the child’s life, especially her relationships with others? Does it keep her from wanting to play with her friends, or do her friends shun her because she is sad? Do you feel sad when you are around her? All of these would be indications of the extent to which her sadness was affecting her, and could be used as guidelines in deciding how much should be done about it.

Please also read my article about The Guidelines when a Child is Having Fear

Knowing The Recommend Guidelines When a Child is Having Fears

2009-08-19T02:16:00.000-07:00

When a child is having fears, I recommend the following:

1. First, see the fears as part of a normal spurt in development. In an older child the fears may accompany adjustment to a stress at school or at home. Or they may occur at time when the child is trying to deal with aggressive or competitive feelings. If parents look on fears this way, they can be less frightened of the symptoms in the child and lessen the anxiety around this symptom.

2. Offer the child reassurance about himself as well as (more directly) about the feared objects. Try to face them honestly and directly, but don’t expect reassurance to allay them. A deeper understanding of way he may be fearful is the ultimate goal, but it may be hard to put into words. Often it is better expressed indirectly in ways that give the child permission to act out aggression or to verbalize anxieties and competitive feelings. Giving him acceptable ways to be aggressive and reassuring him about them may help a lot.

3. Do not let up on discipline and limits, but let the child know all over again the reason for the limits and how they help control the very feelings he may fearful of. Congratulate him openly when he can conform to these limits and be patiently understanding when he can’t. Let him know from you that it is learning process which takes time. No one really likes to learn these limits.

4. Make the child aware of acceptable outlets for the negative or aggressive feelings. Talk openly of how other members of the family or of how friends he cares about handle their aggressive feelings. Introduce sports and other acceptable ways for expressing these normally developing emotions.

5. Help the child begin to express himself and to understand why he feels these negative, angry, and aggressive feelings. In doing so, you will be establishing invaluable patterns for sharing the inevitable turmoil’s of later periods, of adolescence, etc. Fears can be seen as a window into the inevitable periods of adjustment which all small children must go through.

Maybe you interested with my other article about Understanding The Aggression in a Child

Knowing and Understanding The Fear and Aggression in a Child

2009-08-19T01:35:00.000-07:00

By 3-1/2 or 4 years of age, fears accompany the beginning of normal aggression. Most children begin to have feelings of aggression at this age as part of growing up and of trying themselves out. The psychoanalyst Erik Erikson has described how aggressive feelings surface at 4 or 5 years. But, before they can be acknowledge or acted upon, they are boiling around inside. A child begins to experience complicated feelings when he sees a toy gun or when he imagines himself using one. When he wants to last out at someone but dares not, there aren’t too many ways to handle the feelings that keep coming to the surface. Fears help to keep them in check. Selma Fraiberg’s wonderful book, The Magic Years,* has outlined for parents some of the sources and the evolution of these fears in 3-6-tears-old. All parent of children in this age group should read it.

An example illustrates this type of fear: “your child 3-1/2-old is suddenly afraid of everything
“. He’s fearful of fire engines and loud noises. He’s especially afraid of the dark and of going to bed alone. When his parents leave the house, he has to know where they are going, why, and who we will be with-and he like to hear them tell him over and over.

The children fears represented a period of rapidly learning about himself. He was learning what it was like to feel aggressive. This period in children’s lives always demand an extra adjustment. How will he learn to control his aggression? Learning about himself at such a time carries with it a price. As they become aware of new feelings, children fall into a kind of him balance in which they may become temporarily oversensitive to things and events around them. This increased sensitivity is likely to show up in the form of fearfulness or of expressed fears. These are an expression of the normal anxiety that goes with the reshuffling of one’s ideas and awareness of aggressive feelings. A child with fears can be seen as asking for help from those around him-help to see the limits of the new feelings as well as the limits of his own capacity to deal with the situation.

Acknowledgment of guilty feelings and feelings of turmoil seems too risky, so the children express himself in his fears. His fear allowed him to regress to a more helpless state, through which he could gather in longed-for attention from his parents. As he did this, he projected all of these frightening aggressive feelings on something’s outside of himself. He then could be afraid of aggression in others around him.

Fears and aggressive dreams are an expression of healthy development in the 4-6-year-old child. If parents respect them and are reassuring and protective, they can help the child learn about this phase of development in himself.

Watch a Video and Learn About the Anxiety Child Program

Please also read my article about How to Understand Fears in a Small Children

Understanding Fears in a Child

2009-08-19T00:57:00.000-07:00

Expressing fears can be one way for a child to cry for help. They strike a sensitive note in parents and generally produce a comforting reaction. If they occur often enough, they may call attention to a more deep-seated insecurity in the child, and parents then may be forced to eliminate unnecessary pressures and stresses on the child. In this way fears in children serve a double purpose.

Fears and being fearful are a normal part of childhood. They express the child’s need for dependency and occur especially at certain times in a child’s development. Nearly always they accompany a rapid spurt in one or more areas of development-in the intellectual, emotional, or motor spheres.

Tamar E. Chansky's wonderful book, Freeing Your Child from Anxiety: Powerful, Practical Solutions to Overcome Your Child's Fears, Worries, and Phobias
This book has outlined for parents some of the sources and the evolution of these fears in 0-10 years old. All parent of children in this age group should read it.

A child’s first fears may be expressed as a heightened sensitivity to strangers, which crops up at several expect able points in the first year. Peaks of stranger awareness and the fear of strangers are the first evidence in babies of their increasing ability to distinguish the important people in their lives. Learning to tell mother from father and from “others” is a major job of infants, and it starts early. By the age of 4-6 weeks, babies recognize fathers and behave differently with them than with mothers or with strangers. By 4 months they become increasingly wary of whoever is not mother or father and try to avoid close contact with that outside person. Even a familiar “other” may create anxiety. All sights and sounds suddenly seem more important. This awareness accompanies a well-recognized cognitive spurt at 4 months.

In 4-month-old babies will look over a mother’s sister or a father’s brother very carefully. After such a lengthy assessment, the baby will begin to cry relentlessly if he is picked up by this familiar “stranger”. Not until his mother or father takes him back will he stop crying. Is this “fear” on the baby’s differences? If a familiar grandmother or grandfather looks him in the face at this age, he will break down into loud, protesting wailing.

At I year of age these same imbalances create new turmoil. For a few months the baby may have been tranquil about strangers and strange situations, But when he stands, is learning to walk, and is cruising around the house, he become sensitive to and fearful of change all over again. A sense of control allows the baby to make choices: Will I walk away? Losing control seems to threaten all his newly found motor skills and the sensitivity that goes with them.

The baby may wake up screaming two or three times a night at this age. The child’s new activities lead to all sorts of unresolved experiences. The frustration left over from the day expresses it self at night, and the fears are a cry for help. Night time fears at the first year are an expect able reaction to the excitement of learning so many new things.

Watch a Video and Learn About the Anxiety Child Program

Please also read my article about Understanding When The Baby Learn About Loving and being Love

Understanding When The Baby Learn about Loving and Being Love

2009-08-19T00:38:00.000-07:00

The infant always learns about her universe. She learns s who can respond with intimacy; she learns what behaviors from her will elicit a response; and she learns that when she sets the tone will be engulfed in this wonderfully rewarding exchange. In this way, she learns about herself as a social human being very early. In this system she first learns that she is what we call “being loved”. The father and mother sometimes asking the question like, “How will she know when she’s loved?” the answer is, “Watch her and she’ll tell you.”

This reciprocal system is at the heart of parenting. Being there when she needs you and showing her that you care is the parents’ side of this communication system, the baby’s chance to learn that she’s loved. The reward for you as you enter into this intimate communication is that you will “know” when you are in touch with your baby. The underlying rhythm of attention-inattention is so compelling that it carries you along. The baby’s response to each bid is so heightened that you will feel a glow as she smiles, vocalizes, or wriggles all over. At the end of it, as if she were saying to you, “it’s your turn now,” she will turn off her response to wait for yours. In such a period of play, the chances to learn about each other are endless.

These reactions are strengths in a baby of 4-8 weeks of age. When the mother does brighten up to play with her in the usual manner, the baby redoubles her responses with obvious joy. In other words, a small infant who is loved expects a kind of responsiveness from each of her parents, and when she does not get this she has marvelous, strong ways of defending herself from the disappointment-at least temporarily. In these defensive periods, she well may be learning important coping mechanisms for future disappointments.

Another but important part of this intense signaling system is the capacity of the parents or the baby to put an end to it or limitation. If she spent all the time bathed in this reciprocal system without interruption, her day certainly would become too heightened or too flat and even boring. So, the limits on it are as important as the fact that it exists. The baby learns that she can participate in such a period of intense interaction, but that a necessary separation will follow. From this experience of separation, she will learn that she is a separate individual and can manage for herself, too. This system feeds her development, as does the frustration of terminating it and the experience of being left to herself. The part of a parent’s responsibility is to allow baby opportunities for autonomy-to learn that when she reaches for and gets an object handed to her.

There is time, in other words, when setting limits, saying “no,” or even leaving the baby to find her own answer may also tell a baby that you love her. In this way, the small infant learns early about loving and being loved.

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Please also read the article Knowing Behavioral Communication Between Father and The Baby

Understanding Behavioral and Communication Between Father and His Baby

2009-08-19T00:18:00.000-07:00

The father sets up a different but predictable behavioral system with the baby. By the age of 3-4 weeks his rhythm with the baby is clear and differentiated from the one mother and infant have developed together.

Drs. Suzanne Dixon and Michael Yogman in the Child Development Unit at Boston Children’s Hospital have found that fathers are more likely to use a playful approach, and to “jazz a baby up” by heightening the rhythm the baby sets. They tap different parts of her body in rhythmic games, they speak in more heightened rhythms, and they exaggerate facial expressions in ways that seem to say to the baby, “Now, let’s play!” A small baby first watches quietly as she stars such a period with her father. Then she will hunch up her shoulders, look eager, and finally laugh out loud, bouncing up and down in her chair. So predictable is that a baby of 3-months will take on an expectant look, hunched shoulders, and will lean forward in her chair when she hears her father’s voice. It is as if she knew that her father’s presence would result in this special playful kind of communication.

Fathers, in turn, learn to expect very early to see this playful attitude on the face and in the body of the baby, and they respond to it with an expected, playful attitude. Even when the father is the primary caregiver, the baby seems to save a special “play” track for her father and a softer, smoother, less heightened set of rhythmic responses for her mother.

These predictable patterns indicate the importance to each of the participants of having a known set of behavioral signals which say to each, ”You’re here and I’m with you!”

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Please also read How to Understand Emotional Communication in a Baby

Understanding The Earliest Emotional Communication in a Baby

2009-08-19T00:07:00.000-07:00

There is a predictable pattern of behavior as the mother and father interacts with the infant. There are remarkable things in all cases in which the parents are having a “good” time with their babies.

The baby is placed in a reclining infant chair, on a table. The mother is instructed to sit in front of her and to talk or play without picking her up. When the mother first come in, she usually stars to talk gently to the baby, to hold onto her legs or her buttocks as she first greets her, and then begins to talk to her. When the baby sees her, she greets her mother with a bright smile and pays an increased attention to her. When they play each other it will make a rhythmic dance as they signal back and forth. The baby usually sets the rhythm as she looks at her mother, her face brightening, her hands and legs reaching out toward her gently, then smoothly curling back into herself. When we looks her baby eyes it’s intensely interested in her mother’s attempts to engage her, and a dulled-down look in her eyes as she tunes herself down. Often she looks to one side to “recover” from the intense looks her mother gives her. She is attending intensely then recovering in a gentle but definite rhythm, as if to protect her rather fragile, immature heart and lung systems from becoming overloaded.

The mother looks at the baby most of the time, but she plays with her in rhythms-touching her, then pulling her hand back only to return to touch her again, often patting or rubbing rhythmically and in time with her. She smiles and vocalizes in a timing very much synchronized with the baby’s. Her head bobs gently forward when she looks at her, and withdraws when she tunes her down. All of her rhythms and her advances are timed to the baby’s attention cycles.
Underlying all of this communication system called a “feedback” system. As mother and baby are locked into each other’s signals and rhythms, they are feeding each other more than simple message. They are saying to each other that they are really in touch, and the feeling of synchrony say to both of them, “We are really locked into each other.”

We can see it as the base for the baby’s earliest emotional communication. In this way she learns by “feedback” about the world around her, as well as about herself. If the baby changes it by a smile, the chances are that her mother will smile back-and thus she learns about the effect of smiling-on those around her as well as on herself. The same goes for vocalizing, for making a reaching-out gesture to which the mother will respond in her way. In this reciprocal system, no one leads the other all the time. At one point, the baby may be setting the tone; at another it will be the mother. Each leads the other in an alternating system. At any moment, either one can turn the other off. This part of it is important to the baby, whose immature nervous system makes it necessary to be able to turn her mother off before she, the baby, gets overloaded with the excitement of too many messages from mother.

Both mother and baby have some control over this dialogue. The baby is learning about herself and her influence on an important “other” by her behavior. The mother is learning how to tune in to her baby’s responses and subtle needs.

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Please also read the article How babies Learn about Love

Understanding How Babies Learn About Love

2009-08-18T23:40:00.000-07:00

The most common questions with which young parents asking: “Am I doing the right things for my baby?” and “How will she know that she is loved?” The questions are generated by a desire to take all the right steps in childbearing at a time when our culture is no longer very sure of its goals-and at a time when there are no sure ways for parents to find out what these goals should be.

Perhaps the fact that there are so many different points of view is good in some ways. At least young parents needn’t be burdened by the feeling that there is just one answer and that they can’t find it. The wealth of conflicting sources of advice may press them of find their own solution, an individual one rather than a prepackaged one. I worry about joining the fray and offering one more bit of advice to already overloaded parents.

However, what I would offer would not be specific advice. All I can recommend is: “Do what makes you and your baby feel the best and gives you the nice time together.”When confronted with that answer at a party, anyone who is searching for a simple answer immediately turns away from me and finds a new, more rewarding conversationalist. When a parent who is seriously searching for the answer ask me, I can work toward fuller advice. I urge parents to follow their own “best instincts”-made up of a combination of intuition, their own past experience, and what they can learn about the issues with which they and their child are coping. Such a solution, of course, is not a file-safe; along with good periods there will be periods of conflict. The difficult times can be used for reevaluation and change. I don’t think that what you do as a parent is nearly as important to the child as how do you it-and what feelings of caring go into it. In other words, the very fact that you care and are concerned about your baby is the most important message that she will receive.

But-how will she know that you care about her? Don’t all parents care about their children? Don’t all of them mean well, and still make serious mistakes in rearing their children? Probably they do, but the degree to which they are freed of their own problems and able to listen to the child’s own needs may differ considerably. Caring enough to be able to look beyond one’s own needs in order to be there when your child needs you is no small order. And to be really available may be a lot harder than it appears to be on the surface.

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Maybe you interested with article How to understand Natural Stresses in a Child

Understanding Natural Stresses in a Child

2009-08-18T22:51:00.000-07:00

How to Understand Natural Stresses in a Child

Each age has its natural stresses or we can call it Children Development Stage Symptoms, but there are certain age related physical or psychological symptoms that crop up regularly. By recognizing them as normal, transitory signs of development, parent can avoid setting them up as problem areas.

Knowing and Understanding Natural Stresses in a First Year

• Colic and crying-normally two-three hours per day in the first three months
• Spitting up after feedings
• Thumb- or finger sucking
• Infrequent bowel movement in a breastfed baby
• Constipation-hard bowel movements which can be softened by changes in diet
• Waking at night just prior to developmental spurts
• Feeding refusals associated with wanting to feed self at 8 months or so

Knowing and Understanding Natural Stresses in a Second Year

• Feeding aberrations-refusing one food after another, eating only one meal a day
• Temper tantrums and breath-holding spells
• Withholding stools and problems around toilet training-usually from training instituted too early and too much
• Pressure to conform

Knowing and Understanding Natural Stresses in a Fourth to Sixth Year

• Headaches or sick stomachs in boys just before school
• Bellyaches in girls
• Tics, masturbation, lying, stealing, fears, and nightmares, especially in boys as they develop aggressive feelings they can’t handle during the day
• Transient periods of bed wetting (enuresis) in boys

Knowing and Understanding Natural Stresses in a Early School Years

• Overreaction to illness, to injury
• Using illness to substitute for school fears
• Constipation
• Occasional bed wetting during illness or hospitalization
• Headaches due to tension
• Stomachaches due to tension

Knowing and Understanding Natural Stresses in a Adolescence

• Lack of appetite or anorexia
• Overeating
• Delayed onset of menstruation
• Concern about body image, associated with early or delayed development

Many of the symptoms named above are surprisingly common as children develop. They often become of concern to the child himself. If parents add their own overreaction, they are redoubling anxiety in the child. Children are able to handle their own concern, but not that of their parent’s. If parent block communication by, for example, being overly strict or punitive, the child may settle on the physical complaint as a safe way of getting attention or otherwise dealing with the adult.

When the child expresses concern about a symptom, there is a fine line between the possibility of the parent’ overlooking a possibly serious disorder or neglecting the child’s genuine needs or, on the other hand, taking it too seriously and emphasizing its value in his mind. When a child has paint, parents must first make sure it isn’t serious. They then can reassure the child, both by their attitude and by their having checked it out that he needn’t be over concerned either. If it is ignored, the child may have to try harder to get the parents’ attention.

Maybe you interested with How to Understand Hypersensitive Infant article

Understanding Hypersensitive Infant

2009-08-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

Knowing Hypersensitive Infant

Nevertheless, there are infants who are difficult to nurture. As one attempts to rock them gently, they stiffen and arch away. As they are rocked, they have a series of body startles which result in inconsolable crying. If one looks in the face of such a baby or talks to her, she arches, looks frightened, and turns away. Every attempt to reach out for this kind of infant seems to result in negative responses. She cries for long inconsolable periods in the day. Social stimuli seems to turn her off but not on. What can a parent do to reach such a baby?

Any caring parent will automatically blame herself for failure with such a baby. In turn, the efforts overload the baby even more, and she turns off even more dramatically. The stage can be step for feelings of failure on both their parts-in the mother, a feeling of having failed as a parent, and in the baby, an expectation to fail in reaching others.

How to Understand Hypersensitive Infant

For many of hypersensitive babies there is no available explanation. A mother who is handed such a baby will automatically feel this behavior is her fault.

In order to try to understand hypersensitive babies and this failing process, I have studied a group of babies who demonstrated what I saw as hypersensitivity to social stimuli even in the newborn nursery. In the noisy, overlit nursery, they lay with staring eyes, looking off into the distance and frowning. As I watched them, although they appeared to be awake, they seemed almost mesmerized and unavailable. If you talked gently to them or rocked them, they looked more worried. Their frowns would deepen, their eyes become more glazed as they stared doggedly away. As one tried to get a positive response, their respiration's would increase to become deep and regular. If one persisted, they often would turn actively away, their color would worsen and they might even have a bowel movement or spit up. Normal social stimuli seemed to be too much for these babies from the start. The kind of things from these babies brought stiffening, turning away, and withdrawal.

When I realized that these babies were demonstrating a kind of hypersensitivity as newborns, it began to explain other behaviors I saw in these babies. Their ability to control their state of consciousness was not as effective as it was in most full-term babies. Most such babies would come for sleep slowly and be reachable for interaction for a while; even in crying they could be reached temporarily by a voice or by holding and rocking them. If you tried to play with them at feeding times, they overreacted with their gastrointestinal tracts.

The baby could accept one stimulus at a time, but not more than one. And even that stimulus had to be turned down to her limits. The baby could settle down slowly to take in and respond to an auditory or visual or tactile stimulus, or the kinethetic stimulus of being picked up or rocked.

Most such babies would come from sleep slowly and be reachable for interaction for a while, even in crying they could be reached temporarily by a voice or by holding and rocking them. They would give one the feedback of having done the right thing for them

Since I have begun to understand these infants, I have been able to demonstrate this hypersensitive, over reactive behavior to their parents. Instead of feeling helpless and ineffectual with their babies, they can change their approach, slow down, cut down on stimuli around such a baby, and deal with her in low-keyed way.

Swaddling them helps at times. Using a pacifier or teaching them to suck on their own thumbs may help them gain a kind of control system of their own.

Feeding them in quiet, darkened room with as little stimuli around them as possible can also be a help. Keeping their days and night on a regular, predictable schedule and cutting down on too much activity is a help to both these babies and their parents.

These hypersensitive babies are at one extreme end of a spectrum of difficult to understand infants. Parent must exercise great sensitivity to be able to nurture them successfully. Parents who had expected a lovely, calm, easy to reach baby must adapt their rhythms, their level of stimuli, their whole day and night cycle to meet these babies needs. It is great challenge. to teach these babies to take in and respond to stimuli without losing control over themselves can be an enormous task

Instead of feeling helpless and ineffectual with your babies, you can change your approach, slow down, cut down on stimulate around such a baby, and deal with her in a low-keyed way. Swaddling them helps at times. Parents must exercise great sensitivity to be able to nurture them successfully. Parents who had expected a lovely, calm, easy-to-reach baby must adapt their rhythms, their level of stimuli, and their whole day-and-night cycle to meet these babies’ needs. To teach these babies to take in and respond to stimuli without losing control over themselves can be an enormous task. But when such a baby is reached and can learn over time how to manage her environment for herself, she is on her way to a successful future.

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