Posts Tagged ‘Parenting’

Make Unhealthy Foods Healthy

November 23rd, 2009

Article from: My Family UK

It’s not uncommon for kids to have a penchant for junk food. Prying that burger out of their hands may not be an easy feat. Our advice is to stop trying.

Junk Food

Follow these home-made tips on ways to make typically unhealthy foods healthy. The kids will love it: they’ll seem the same. You’ll love it: they’ll be healthier and happier. It could be a lot simpler than the struggle, and will start your kids on the path to health.

1) Pizzas

At home, make a wholemeal base for a fibre boost, or cut a foccacia in half or use wholemeal pitta bread. Make a mixture of chopped tomatoes and tomato puree to go on the top and then, depending on your taste, top with a variety of vegetables, olives, tinned tuna or lean meats. Finish with grated cheese and cook for twenty minutes. Arrange on the table and watch as your flock grab and scatter to their hearts content.

2) Homemade burgers

Make your burger from the leanest beef you can find. Add onions, parmesan, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper and garlic and finally an egg to bind it all together. Grill instead of frying until golden brown and crispy. Garnish with lettuce, cucumber, salsa and cheese and serve with wholemeal rolls.

3) Popcorn

Keep the fun in family film night by cooking the popcorn in olive oil and adding a few sprinkles of cayenne pepper, or a slight scattering of sea salt.

4) Vegetable Crisps

Packets of crisps are often full of salt and saturated fats. Try thinly slicing your own potatoes and baking your own crisps in the oven instead. The thinner the crispier so you could use a peeler for this. Put them in bowl with some sunflower oil and a little sea salt, and toss to give them a good coating. Then lay them on a grease proof baking tray and pop in the oven for 30 minutes at a reasonably high heat. You can even try making vegetable crisps with carrots, parsnips and sweet potatoes. Before serving give them a light coating of honey for an extra flavour.

5) Chips

Instead of frying your chips, which uses far more fat, bake yours. Great alternatives to the common potato are parsnips, courgettes and sweet potatoes. Simply chop them into chip-like sticks and drizzle oversome olive oil. For extra taste, add a sprinkle of sea salt (nottable salt as the body is unable to process it), black and/or cayenne pepper, which is mild enough even for kids. Bake until crispy and chip-like.

6) Fry-ups

Make your Sunday fry up into a Sunday grill up and it’ll immediately become far healthier. Trim the fat off your bacon and grill alongwith tomatoes or chopped mushrooms. Poach your egg in a drop of vinegar for 4-5 minutes, and add a few tablespoons of baked beans which are bubbling over with iron and protein.

7) Ice lollies

Up your children’s vitamin C intake by several levels with natural ice lollies. Simply blend up their favourite fruits until smooth, add a squeeze of lemon as a natural preservative, pour into lolly orice-tray moulds and freeze. There’s absolutely no need for chemical-filled, shop-bought lollies when these are so delicious and simple to make.

8) Sweet things

Cookies, biscuits and brownies that aren’t sweet aren’t going to be eaten. But do they really need to be all that sweet? Substitute the sugar in your home-made cookies and cakes by adding healthier ingredients such as oats, nuts, raisins, dates, prunes and seeds. This is a great way to get those vital vitamins and minerals into your child’s diet.

9) Chicken Nuggets

This is a fabulously messy meal to make at home and so the kids will love it. Cut your lean chicken breast into small bite-sized pieces. Set up four bowls and depending on how many children you have, each child can be assigned to their own bowl.

10) Kebab

Simply buy some mince pork or lamb, mix together with garlic, coriander,salt, pepper, parsley, cumin and an egg, and grill. Share into pittas with houmous, salad, salsa, raw onions, roasted peppers and whatever else you can stuff in there and challenge your children to eat without anything falling out!

Further Information

For further information, and for more great ways to have fun with your family, log on to www.myfamilyuk.com. With a huge collection of articles covering everything from child safety to rainy day activities, you’ll find all the help, guidance and entertainment you need to be a great parent. Go to My Family UK now!

My Family UK is a brand new website that is turning the online focus back onto families. We’re dedicated to supporting you and your family live the life you choose to the full, with games, tips, offers and articles on all aspects of parenting. If your family means the world to you, check out www.myfamilyuk.com.

Teens and Sex How To Talk To Them About Sexuality

November 22nd, 2009

Sex is the last thing a parent wants to hear coming out of their children’s mouth. It is a nightmare and an unwanted thought when thinking about your child and sex at the same time. As they get older, there are some curious thoughts that go through their mind. Frightening as it sounds; communication is the key between you and your child when it comes to sexuality. We as parents cannot be there for out children 24 hours a day, all we can do is instill some experience and knowledge into their minds and hope it guides them intellectually to the right decisions in life.When you child approaches you about sex, take a deep breath, it can be an unnerving and an uncomfortable feeling… It’s not going to be easy at first, but in the end, you will feel better about talking about it. Ask your teen what lead them to ask you this question. If they tell you that someone they have interest in has brought it to their attention, then it is ok. Hopefully they have not done anything yet. With the way society is with our kids growing up in it, peer pressure can be a bit overwhelming and more likely some teens might give in to it.Explain to them that their body is a precious temple, keeping it pure and maintaining their virginity is a very rare and special thing. State that even though they might be thinking about doing it; they are simply too young for such an experience and the best thing to do is to wait until they are older and more mature. Inform them that just because you have feelings for someone it doesn’t necessarily have to be any sexual involvement, that there are consequences when having sex and even though your teen might think they know all about it, there is always more to tell.Unprotected sex can lead to you contracting a sexually transmitted disease, like gonorrhea that can cause inflammation of the genital mucous membrane, burning pain when urinating, and a discharge. It is caused by a gonococcus bacterium. Another disease to worry about is PID (Pelvic Inflammatory Disease) an inflammation of a woman’s reproductive organs in the pelvic area, which can cause infertility. Syphilis is a serious sexually transmitted disease caused by the spirally twisted bacterium Treponema pallidum that affects many body organs and parts, including the genitals, brain, skin, and nervous tissue, and Chlamydia, which can cause infertility, chronic pain, or a tubal pregnancy if left untreated. Many diseases can be contracted with oral and sexual intercourse. Oral sex is not safe and you still can catch certain diseases in your mouth.Love can be a cruel emotion. Let you child know that just because they feel strongly towards another person, it does not mean that their feeling are mutual. Sex can be the only issue with the other person; he or she could be out to use you for it. Help them to understand that if they are not willing to wait for the right time, then that person might not be such a good influence on them.Motherhood is a hard job; a child simply cannot raise a child. They have plenty of time to grow up, get their education and then they can decide if being a parent is what they want. Life is so good; they should be able to enjoy it while they can without any setbacks. Sex is a way of two people showing their love for one another. It is not something to take lightly. Giving up your virginity is a very important choice and you should not be coursed into it.Trust and communication is so crucial to you and your child’s relationship. Your child being able to come to you and talk to you about the most important things that are going on in their life is so necessary. Knowing how your child feels and what is going on in their life without being too concerned, makes an open and great relationship between you two.If you think that your child might go that way, then talking to them about birth control is an option. Sometimes talking does some good, but not enough and they still might end up having intercourse. Just be safe, let them know about birth control methods to prevent pregnancy. It’s hard I know, but you rather educate them and be safe about it, then to do nothing at all.Good luck, being a parent is hard work. We want the best for our babies, sometimes it is hard to separate the day they were born from the day that they became adults. We wish our children could stay the cute adorable babies that they once were. They have to grow up, there might be drama, rebellion, and a lot of hair in the sink, but in the end, we love unconditionally and appreciate every single moment.

 

Health, Advice, Sex, Relationships and more

I’m a wife and mom of three beautiful children. I live in ILLinois USA. I have been an online marketer for two years and have been writing articles for a year. My main subjects are business and health. I can help others with advertising their business to get exposure.
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Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children

November 21st, 2009

You may recall that several years ago President George W. Bush appointed Joe Mcllhaney, a well-known advocate of abstinence- only programs, advisor to the CDC. In April 2002, Mcllhaney testified to Congress that there was no evidence that comprehensive sexuality education programs are “successful at all” — a year after Doug Kirby’s report for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy documented this success. Now Mcllhaney has written a book. Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our

This article was reviewed by Marty Klein. PhD. an AASECTcertified sex therapist living in California. He can he reached at mk@sexed.org.

You may recall that several years ago President George W. Bush appointed Joe Mcllhaney, a well-known advocate of abstinence- only programs, advisor to the CDC. In April 2002, Mcllhaney testified to Congress that there was no evidence that comprehensive sexuality education programs are “successful at all” — a year after Doug Kirby’s report for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy documented this success. Now Mcllhaney has written a book. Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children, claiming that science supports why sex is had for unmarried people, especially adolescents.

Freda McKissic Bush is his willing accomplice, a hoard member of Mcllhaney’s Medical Institute for Sexual Health, and a memher of lUish’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, which favored ideology over established knowledge in biology, psychology, sociology, and economics. Hooked is a skillfully produced, emotionally manipulative, political tract. All sexuality educators will benefit from familiarity with it, because it’s a virtual primer of the tactics used by abstinence- only and sex-negative policy-makers, including:

• The sex-as-a-problem paradigm. The resulting policy goal is to minimize this problem, rather than finding ways to help young people celebrate their sexuality or use it for personal growth.

• Zero discussion of decision-making skills other than urging a simple refusal to engage in erotic activity.

• The recurring use of the word “children” to refer to biological adults who happen to be minors (i.e., age 17), or unmarried. Policy discussions about sexuality that treat 12-year-olds and 20-year-olds as a single category are based in ideology, not social sciences.

• A scientific-sounding discussion of “chemicals released in the brain during sex” which “can become addictive.” This rather old news is presented as a scientific “breakthrough,” without any mention of similar neuro-chemical activity that accompanies sports, eating, singing, and other pleasurable behavior.

• There is no discussion about how young Americans’ bodies now mature in ways for which society is unprepared (150 years ago, onset of puberty and age of first marriage were almost concurrent; that has changed dramatically). Similarly, tbere is no acknowledgement that society is responsible for most young people’s sexual difficulties by stimulating them sexually (as consimiers) and giving them enormous autonomy (privacy, cell phones, etc.), while deliberately withholding the information they need to handle the inevitable feelings and situations.

Sex for some young people will be negative and even damaging. There are good reasons to guide kids away from too-early sexual activity, along with other activities for which they are not yet prepared developmentally. The “reefer madness” approach of this book equips neither parents nor young people with the positive attitudes and communication skills they need to understand and shape sexual decision-making.

This book is a desperate cry from frightened, angry people who are more interested in the purity of their own ideology and religious visions than they are in actual young people. They are, in fact “hooked” on something far worse than the ”addictive” brain chemicals that help make life worth living.

For more on latest research and news visit:
http://primespot.yolasite.com
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Discussing Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Safe Sex With Your Teens

November 19th, 2009

Nowadays our kids are learning about sex at younger and younger ages and the biggest problem for most parents is that a lot of the information they are receiving is wrong and, quite frankly, downright dangerous. For this reason it is vitally important that parents talk to their children about this whole subject, earlier rather than later, to ensure that their children are safe and do not either end up as parents themselves before their time or with a nasty, if not life-threatening, disease.Now this might seem a little strange, but the first piece of advice for any parent who is about to tackle this subject with their children is to take the time to learn about it yourself. You cannot give your child the right information unless you have it yourself and things have probably changed dramatically since most of us learnt ourselves, possible many years ago. Thankfully, there are several trusted and well respected organizations today that are only too willing to give you the up-to-date information you need and also to provide you with information which you can communicate to your children in a tried and tested form which they will both understand and accept.The accepted wisdom for many years, and still the preferred route for many parents, is simply to teach children abstinence. This is not a good approach and has been shown time and time again to fail. Like it or not as parents we have to accept that there is a good chance that our children are going to have sex before we feel that they are ready to do so and our prime responsibility must be to ensure that they do so safely and responsibly. The important thing to remember is that, whatever our own attitude towards sex, we cannot necessarily expect our teenagers to have the same attitude and can only point them in the right direction. At the end of the day the decision will be theirs and not ours.Many parents feel uncomfortable about talking to their kids about sex and find a raft of excuses to pass the problem off onto somebody else. For example, a lot of parents feel that this is something which should be dealt with in schools or that there is no real need to deal with the subject at all, because kids today can pick up all the information they need from their peers or from sources such as the Internet. This is simply a ‘cop out’ and amounts to nothing more than evading your responsibilities as a parent.You need to ensure that you children get the right information and that they receive it from someone they trust – and that means you. More importantly when your child has a problem, is concerned about something or simply has a question about sex, he needs to know that he can come to you and talk about it openly and easily and without any embarrassment on either side.If you are still feeling nervous about talking to your child about sex then just stop and think for a moment how you would feel if your fifteen year old daughter came home one day and told you that she was pregnant, or your sixteen year old son told you that he had been to the std clinic because he had been having a problem and has been diagnosed with HIV. Dealing with the consequences of your own failure to tackle sex education in a responsible and timely manner can be devastating, not least to the children you love so much.

Parenting4Dummies.com deals with all aspects of parenting including raising problem teenagers and giving teen sex advice
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