Mom’s Notes on MP3

June 1, 2014 By Leave a Comment

Bookstore at Parenting Made PracticalThat’s right folks, my good friends Joey and Carla Link have finally released all of their Mom’s Notes on MP3. They are doing this as part of the big launch of their brand new online store over at Parenting Made Practical. The image shown here is a preview of the new storefront. They have graciously offered an additional 10% off all items for DaddyLife.net readers by using the discount code DaddyLife at checkout. This discount code is valid on everything you purchase during the month of June including sale items.

The Links are offering very competitive prices  on their products and free shipping on orders over $50. Of course the Mom’s Notes are a one of a kind resource and a must have addition to the library of any Growing Kids God’s Way alumni parent…that includes you too Dads!!!

Remember. The discount code at checkout is:

DaddyLife

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Character Training with a TV Remote

January 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

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Daddy Life Podcast Episode 33 - Training Character with TV RemoteAnne Marie Ezzo shared a blog post on her Facebook page recently that was authored by Mark Gregston.

The Honest Truth about Dishonesty by Mark Gregston

”A recent Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, shows that 61% of teens admit to lying to a teacher about something important, and a whopping 76% admitted to lying to their parents last year.  Another study, this one conducted in Britain, indicates that an overwhelming 84% of teens said they’ve regularly copied information from the Internet and pasted it right into their homework.

But it wasn’t necessarily those numbers that shocked me.  What really rocked me back on my heels was that this recent study of American teenagers reported that while over 50% of teenagers admitted lying, cheating, or stealing within that last year, 93% of those same kids said they are “satisfied with their personal ethics and character.” In addition, 81% of those teenagers said that “when it comes to doing what’s right, they are better than most people they know.”

The point Mrs. Ezzo made was that (I quote),  “While this blog post is addressed to parents of teens, parents with younger children would be wise to heed the thoughts expressed and thereby wisely help to prevent this issues from developing in your own home. Remember “begin as you mean to go” if you desire to have an honest child, then even those ‘creative stories’ need to have boundaries, we want to set our younger children [let alone teens] for success and direct help keep them on the right path.”

Mark went on to offer advice to parents on how to shift the trends so that teens embrace the virtue of truth over the norm of lying. Mark’s very first recommendation to “Monitor Media” steps into my area of expertise so I want to expand on his advice.

We all know that we can’t monitor every single thing that our kids do. Even if we try we have to be realistic and admit that if we are faced with a kid that is already characterized by dishonesty, deception, and lying then they probably will take steps to avoid our efforts to monitor. How many of us can actually keep up with our kids in terms of technology anyway?

I have shared this example before, but I believe it is worth repeating again and again.  Technology security is more about behavior than the technology!

You can try to monitor and control your kid’s Internet or TV access, but you are only treating the symptom. You must get to the heart if the issue and then end result will be that your child will self regulate their Internet, TV, movie, and gaming activity. They are going to get there soon enough so you might as well teach them early.

Teach Your Kids to Use the TV Remote

Sounds crazy doesn’t it? One of the things we joke about as parents is how much more kids understand about the DVD/DVR and how to operate it. But do they really understand the most important features? As a parent, the two most important buttons on a remote are the “Last Channel” button (sometimes called a Recall or last) and the “MUTE” button. That’s right.

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Babywise – The Early Days

January 10, 2013 By Leave a Comment

This post was provided by Emily Parker from over at journeyofparenthood.com. Please join me in welcoming Emily to the Babywise-friendly Networked Blogs

I have had many of my sweet friends ask how I started out doing from the beginning. With my son, Kye, I did not learn about Babywise until he was three weeks old. But with my daughter, Brittlynn, I started from birth by using some of these techniques:

  • Focus on Full Feedings: Nothing else during the first two weeks matters. Just do your best to keep your baby AWAKE while eating to make sure they get a FULL feeding. You don’t want them to be snacking all the time…so tickle their feet, wet their little heads, do what you have to in order to keep them awake while they eat!
  • Feed On Demand: Whenever Brittlynn woke up, I fed her. Since I did focus so much of my effort on full feedings for her she fell into a natural 3 hour eating routine pretty early on. The better you do with the full feedings, the less often they will wake up hungry!
  • Wake the Sleeping Baby: Sleep is important, yes, but in the early days keeping your supply up and getting in those full feedings is TOP priority. Make sure you are feeding your baby 8-10 times a day in a 24 hour period. In the first few weeks they shouldn’t go longer than 3 hours between feedings (except after the late-evening feeding where you cross your fingers and hope they give you a little more rest!).
  • Eat-Awake-Sleep Cycle: A sleepy newborn is a common thing but even at the hospital I tried to have this cycle in place. After she ate I would try to keep her awake before putting her to sleep. Even if just for a few minutes! Literally, sometimes it was a quick second of her eyes being open before she went to sleep…but it counted 😉 Again, keeping the baby awake during feedings helps with this cycle. The only time you don’t want any awake time between eating and sleeping is during the middle of the night feedings!
  • Put the Baby DOWN to Sleep: I never held Britt to sleep. Even in the hospital I always put her down in her little crib when she was sleeping. At home we always put her in her crib or pack and play or bassinet to sleep…never in our arms! If she woke during nap I would move her to the swing to finish the nap but resisted ever rocking her/holding her to get her back to sleep. It did happen sometimes, but was always a last resort. That’s a beautiful thing about nursing…you get LOTS of cuddle time!
  • Avoid Sleep Props: With nursing you really want to avoid introducing a pacifier anyway, but I think it’s especially helpful for sleep training to not give the baby any type of prop. My son was a pacifier baby and was also a terrible napper up until we weaned him from the pacifier at age two. Brittlynn never took the pacifier and has been able to self-soothe so much better than Kye ever did!
  • Attack the Gas: Gassy babies struggle to sleep because they are in pain. Britt was a gassy baby and it did cause her sleep issues. During her (brief) awake times I would make my #1 goal helping her get rid of gas. There are all kinds of burping techniques and other tricks to relieve a gassy baby (I loved to pump her little legs! Always did the trick!) and you can also give gas drops when needed to help. A gas free baby is a happy baby 😉
  • Respect the “Schedule”: For the first couple of weeks there is NO set schedule. However, when she slept I didn’t wake her for visitors and such. People want to see the baby but I told them she was sleeping and let them know when I thought she’d be awake again if they wanted to stay. And even when she was awake she pretty much ate the entire time anyway so they could really only see the back of her head while I nursed her 😉 I would always let visitors hold and love on her as soon as she got done feeding, during those few rare awake moments!
  • Keep Sleep Conditions Consistent: We swaddled Brittlynn at the hospital and continued to do so as soon as we got home. We swaddled her every time she slept. We also made sure that wherever she was sleeping (in her room during naps, ours at night for the first couple of weeks) that it was kept very dark and that we had white noise of some kind. It’s important during awake times (feedings too!) to have the conditions be noticeably different than they are during sleep times (have it bright, no swaddling, etc).
  • REST: It is hard to do but you have to take care of yourself. Giving birth is no joke and you need your rest to be able to fully recover and give your best self to your baby. Whenever I wasn’t nursing Brittlynn I would try to soak in a bath or SLEEP. People will WANT to help you…let them. You need it! By taking care of myself I was better able to take care of her and give her what she needed to allow her to thrive 🙂
I truly believe that starting to implement the Babywise techniques from birth helped Brittlynn to develop into the wonderful sleeper she is today. It is such a blessing to have a baby who loves her sleep. We are able to spend more quality time with our son and as a family together because she is always well-rested!
Our family the night we came home from the hospital with Brittlynn!
Emily and family
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Kindle Fire FreeTime Parental Controls Review

January 4, 2013 By 1 Comment

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Daddy Life Podcast Episode 32Kindle Fire FreeTime Parental Controls

How Kindle Fire FreeTime works

FreeTime is an App that some preloaded on new Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD readers from Amazon.

What Kindle FreeTime does well

– Control amount of time kids spend on the three categories available (Apps, Video, Books)
– Restrict access to parent Kindle system apps, videos, Internet, Music*, Books
– Tracks book reading progress separately between parent and each of the kid profiles in Kindle FreeTime. My wife and my son are both reading The Roman, The Twelve, and The King by Jenny L. Cote. My son generally stays ahead of my wife so his place is saved in his FreeTime profile and does not affect the last read place saved by my wife in the main Kindle OS.

Kindle FreeTime failures with some workarounds

– Music is not accessible from within Kindle FreeTime with apps and services built in by default

Workaround: Install a music playing app. Then add the Music player app to your child’s Kindle FreeTime Apps. WARNING: The music app will burn up app time. There is no way to limit screen time per App so all apps count towards daily limit.

– Kindle opens into the last profile used in FreeTime or the main full featured profile if FreeTime was not active during last shutdown.

Workaround:

–  Kindle Fire has the ability to load a screen lock pin. We share this with our oldest son who is the primary user. We (my wife and I) are diligent to log into FreeTime and enter into Riley’s profile so that the Kindle will open back into his profile when the screen lock pin is entered. He gets to protect access to his apps and books from his younger brothers and we know he is only accessing his content because the Parental Controls password must be entered to get to the root OS of the Kindle Fire.

Kindle FreeTime Feature Requests Wish List

– Five minute warning before time allocation is up
– FreeTime profiles tied to screen lock PINs
– Add a music category that works like video category where parents can choose which songs kids can listen to. Then FreeTime App time is not eaten up by listening to music with 3rd party app.

PARENTING News

The Ozz family is growing.
Babywise Friendly Blog Network – Check them out

The Journey of Parenthood
Childwise Chat
Chronicles of a Babywise Mom
Daddy Life
Graceful Mom
My Baby Sleep Guide
http://www.babywisebooks.com/


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Luck or Babywise?

November 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Emily Parker over at The Journey of Parenthood has found freedom from that nasty four-letter word that so many Babywise fans face. LUCK. Emily has dispelled the myth of luck in parenting by repeating her results of having a content and well-adjusted child who sleeps through the night and naps like a champ. All too often parents who use principles from On Becoming Babywise are told how “lucky” they are to have such a content baby.

Emily shares har passion for Babywise and the results that the principles have delivered for her entire family. Visit her blog and welcome her into the family of Babywise Friendly BLogs.

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Terrible Twos or Terrific Twos

November 15, 2012 By 1 Comment

Terrible Twos vs Terrific Twos

An adult that swings between terrible and terrific as often as a two year old usually ends up with a psychological diagnosis. A two year old can take you through the process of loving or despising even the thought of having more children multiple times within an hour if you rely solely on your feelings. So what do we do with these feelings? In short we need to avoid letting our feelings and emotions drive our parenting.

My wife and I were surprised when we were told by our friends Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo that the “twos” are more like a measure of a period of time between the ages of 14 and 40 months as opposed to being an age of two years old. They share this fact with parents to give them comfort in the fact that these behaviors seen during the “twos” are normal and can be experienced for a longer range of time than some parents realize. The Ezzos remind us that kids are going through some of the most dramatic changes they will experience in their entire life. These changes are social, physical, emotional, verbal, and cognitive to name a few.

The picture above represents a difference in responses from my son on his 2nd birthday during a span of 14 seconds. These little “twos” can turn on a dime and we as parents need to realize this in our child’s life and prepare for it. We may want to take it personal and get frustrated or even angry, but  we must remember. It’s not personal and our kids are not out to get our goat.

 There are some things we can do to make this period somewhat more predictable and pleasing.

First-Time Obedience

My friend Maureen over at Childwise Chat blogged about this subject a few days ago. First-Time Obedience (FTO) is exactly what it sounds like. You child is characterized by FTO  when they come to you when call them the first time. You should not have to count, threaten, bribe or even raise your voice. Training FTO is easier than you might think…for the child. Our friends the Ezzos tell us and we have proven the fact that parents are the ones who have a hard time learning FTO.

Self Control

We train self control this using several methods, but the most popular is to use sit time. I am not talking about a reactive time-out to a bad behavior, but a proactive process of training your child to sit for a predetermined amount of time. With the little ones we start out having them site with hands folded and legs crossed for a few seconds. We increase the length of time as the days and weeks of training pass by. Before you know it you have a two-year old who can sit for a few minutes at your request in a public place without getting up. As the Ezzos teach, one of the most important thing to remember with something like self-control training is that you can’t expect your child to do in public what you have not trained in private or times of noon-conflict.

Feed the Beast

Appeal to your child’s development process. Given them activities that will reach them through all of their senses. My wife likes to do things with things like sidewalk chalk. Your kids get to make a mess of the driveway and at the same time they are seeing bright colors as they feel the resistance of the chalk against the concrete as it make s very distinct sound.

Make Use of Time

Know your child’s best times for going out or having friends over. There are times when having a play date with a friend is just not a good idea. Your child needs to be rested and can’t be hungry if play dates are going to be successful. In most cases kids at this age have a short attention span so you should not expect your child to play nice in the sandbox with three other kids for an hour and a half while you talk with your friend. Kids need room to move.

Be Directive

It has been said a million times but we parents have such a hard time getting this one through our thick heads. As parents we must direct our little ones rather than constantly chasing them around saying “NO”. Rather than be reactive to what they should not be doing we need to work on being proactive and telling our kids what they should be doing. Do these things and have more terrific moments than terrible moments.

What things do you do in parenting to bring about more terrific two days?

 

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Sensory Bins

November 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Caden with his sensory fidgetSensory items are very familiar to our family. As the parent of a special needs child with developmental delays, we get creative in terms of finding objects our Caden can use to fidget with. One of my fellow Babywise Friendly Blogger friends has posted some great tips for creating sensory bins for home. Bethany from The Graceful Mom has collected resources from other Babywise friendly moms in forums and shared them in a blog post today titled Babwise Week: Sensory Bins. Bethany reminds us that sensory items are great for all children in their developmental process. She uses then in her regular routine with her preschooler.

Just this week I was at the hospital for an extended day of appointments related to Caden’s surgery, actually scheduled for today. My smart phone battery was drained and I didn’t have my charger or my wife’s iPod touch for Caden to watch movies or play games. Instead I got creative by given Caden an oversize pink paper clip and a condiment cup from the cafeteria. He is shown in this picture playing with these items as he browses books in the pediatric Cardiology waiting room at the Children’s Hospital at he Medical University fo SC.

 

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Do You Teach and Require Obedience?

November 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I am amazed at the number of parents who seem to be allergic to the word obedience. And parents are even more adverse to the term first-time obedience…unti they experience or witness it in action. Then they want to know all about how to get it in their family.

Maureen over at Childwise Chat has served up a great summary post on the subject today. She asks us parents, “Is obedience an option?” Then she leads us through a review of some of the common mistakes parents make that create roadblocks to obedience. She shares some of her observations of the barriers taught by the Ezzos in Growing Kids God’s Way and in On Becoming Childwise: Parenting Your Child from 3-7 Years authored by Gary Ezzo and Dr. Robert Bucknam. Some of the issues shared by Maureen are threatening, repeating, bribing, and negotiating with yoru kids and much more.

Don’t worry if Maureen’s blog post leaves you hungry for more on the subject of obedience. She has authored an ebook on the subject endorsed by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo titled Live in Harmony With First-Time Obedience: How to Use Love, Authority and Consistency to Teach Your Child to Obey the First Time, Every Time. 

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The More Kids the Easier

November 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A fellow Babywise Friend blogger has provided a great perspective on the difference between having many children verse one child. Valerie Plawman over at Chronicles of a Babywise Mom shares her encouragement as a mother of multiple children. She passes no judgement on parents who choose to have an only child, but instead offeres a unique and uplifting view of life as a mom of four children. She says:

“Seven years ago, I counted down the hours until my husband got home. Today, when he walks in the door I am shocked that the day is almost over. My children keep things interesting.”

What a joy that must give to her husband. Life as a stay-home mom of multipel children can and should be viewed as a benefit rather than a burden.

 

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Does your husband have a free night?

October 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Post by Bethany from The Graceful Mom blog

Date NightSomething my husband and I have done for a few years is give each other a “free night” every week. It is a night where the other spouse gets to have a night off and use the time however he or she chooses away from home. I say “away from home” because it does not seem to work well, at least for us, to block off time at home. It just works better to get out of the house, and that is part of the gift. Some weeks we both use our “free night” and some weeks my husband uses two while I use none. It all works out in the end but it has been a very fun way to bless the other person.

Even thought it might not seem like it at first, we believe it really ties in to the Ezzo/Babywise philosophy of have a parent-directed philosophy. Our children see us prioritizing the other parent’s need for some downtime, and it also gives the parent at home a fun tonight to do something a little special with our children. For instance, my husband almost always uses his night to play ultimate frisbee. Thursday nights have now become popcorn and movie night for me with the kids. They love it, I get some extra cuddle, and my husband comes home so energized. Honestly, one of the things I like the most is seeing how happy and refreshed my husband is after coming back home. I used to get so anxious about single-parenting nights…now I really, truly look forward to them. Either my husband is out exercising his heart out or I usually try to meet up with some girlfriends for dessert.

I truly believe that offering each other some downtime has been a key part of how successful our marriage has been. We do also make spending quality time together a high priority, but I have learned the value of giving my husband that special time to himself. Ironically, it makes our marriage better too. We plan these nights in advance, and it has actually been a lot of fun seeing what the other person decides to do.

I know it is hard finding one more night to set aside but I promise it is well worth it. So if you have noticed your husband or wife looking a little peaked and worn out…offer them a free night…their choice…their blessing!

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