Summer Sun Safety for Kids

Summer sun safety for children is a key priority for many parents.  Sure you want your kids to enjoy the outdoors in the summer, but you also want to make sure that they don’t get sunburned.

Sunscreen for kids is the first step to sun safety.  Dermatologists recommend applying sunscreen on kids at least 15 to 30 minutes before they go outside to play.  Even one serious sunburn can increase a person’s risk of getting skin cancer in the future.

Make sure your re-apply sunscreen for children every 2 to 3 hours, or even more frequently if they are swimming.   You can also practice sun safety and stay outside between hours 10 am and 4 pm, when the sun’s rays are the strongest. This is important even on cloudy or overcast days, since the sun’s rays can still come though the cloud cover and cause sunburns.

Don’t forget to keep your kids well-hydrated.  Children are especially prone to becoming overheated in summer, often not realizing just how much they are sweating while just “playing”.  Just follow these guidelines to help prevent hydration.

- Plan quiet activities for the hottest part of the day – either indoor ones or something that can be done in the shade

- Made in the shade – whether it’s in your backyard or the park, stake out some shade for kids to rest and recharge in.

- Wear lightweight and loose fitting clothing.  Bring plenty of water, sunglasses and sunscreen

Sun safety for kids means more than just applying sunscreen once and forgetting about it for the rest of the day.  Just keep applying the sunscreen, encourage kids to drink plenty of water and provide quiet, shady time for breaks and sun safety for your children will be a breeze.

How to Display Kids Artwork

Kids love create art, but as a parent, you can soon feel swamped with the amount of projects that accumulate.  Here are some ideas on how you can display kids artwork without letting it overtake your home.

• Put up a clothesline in your kid’s room and let them select which pieces to hang – this art gallery can be changed at whim and allows for a lot of space for pictures
• Designate one area of your house as a family art gallery.  Hang up pieces in frames for a more organized look.  You can also put newer pieces on top of older ones. Every so often sort through the pieces and put them in storage.
• For bigger items like sculptures or crafts, consider creating a children’s art display on a set of shelves designated for that purpose.

Children’s artwork is an important way for them to express their creativity and their output should hold a place of honor in your house.   Help them feel good about their work by finding ways to display kids artwork in your home. You never know – one day their pieces might be in a real art gallery.

Fit Family Challenge

Stuck with a bunch of lazy couch potatoes at home?  Do you want a fit family?  Why not try a family fitness challenge to get everyone healthy and moving.  Follow these simple steps to create a home fitness family challenge.

Step 1. Find an activity for everyone.  Ideally, the whole family should “compete” in one type of activity, but you can allow family members to choose different activities.  Common ones are biking, hiking, walking, or swimming.

Step 2. Make a fit family schedule for everyone.  Look at everyone’s schedule and block out fitness time.  Ideally this will be the same time for the whole family, but if schedules don’t allow for it, you can schedule family members for different blocks of time.

Step 3. Set Goals -  Everyone may have different fitness goals – for mom and dad it may be a weight-loss goal, but for the kids it may be a time or distance goal.  Record your baseline stats and then create a chart to measure everyone’s progress towards their personal fitness goals.

Step 4.  Create a fit family jog  You can find these on the internet or make on yourself.  Just make sure it contains a place for the date, the fitness activity, and the time spent on the fitness family activity

Step 5: Reward Your Family Fit Team  – As a family, decide on rewards for everyone reaching their fitness goals.  You can have individual goals or family goals, or a combination of both.    Celebrate reaching goals in a healthy way.

Before you start a fit family challenge, be sure to consult with your doctor to ensure that everyone is healthy enough for exercise.

And remember, while it might feel great to reach fitness goal, the whole point of a family fitness challenge is to encourage everyone in the family to stay healthy, and be physically fit, rather than winning prizes.

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Outdoor Games for Kifs

As a mom, you want your kids to stay active during the summer months.  You definitely don’t want them moping around the house, staring at the TV or playing video games.  Here are some great outdoor games for kids that are sure to keep them active and busy all season long. Sometimes the simplest games are the best.

Water Play – Summer is hot, no doubt about it.  But instead of letting the kids sit inside the air conditioning all day, bring out the water balloons.  Fill up some balloons with water and let them have at it Just remind kids never to throw water balloons or aim at someone’s head or face.

Ole-Fashioned Fun

A popular outdoor game for kids is capture the flag.  Play is simple.  Divide the kids into two teams and give each team a different colored cloth to use as a home base.  Set the bases at opposite ends of the yard.  Set up two areas for jails.  As the kids try to capture the flag and get tagged, they are “out” and get sent to jail.  If a player reaches the out base without being tagged, she can free all the other kids.  The point of the game is to capture or steal the other team’s flag without being caught and sent to jail.

Hopscotch – Another fun outdoor children’s game is hopscotch.  You can get a quick refresher course on the rules by checking online.  Use sidewalk chalk to make the hopscotch board on your driveway or sidewalk and have the kids get hopping.

Hey – you knew there were plenty of great outdoor games for children that will keep them busy in the fresh air and away from the TV.  Get them started and you will soon be excited to discover all the other fun summer activities kids will come up with on their own.

How to Find A Good Babysitter

As a parent of a tween you may think finding a babysitter for an older child is a piece of cake.  Think again.  You should still use care when choosing a babysitter for the older child.  Of course, many parents are lucky enough to have grandparents or other family members close by to help babysit, but when you’re far way from family, how can you find the right babysitter?

First turn to the mom-network. Ask friends, co-workers and other moms.  While they may not be willing to share their favorite babysitter with you, they may have additional candidates for the job.   Just letting people know you’re looking for a babysitter will cause candidates to come your way.

Don’t forget the local YMCA or a house of worship.  The Y often runs babysitting certification classes and a church or synagogue often has members of the youth group babysit kids during services.  Both places are great to find experienced trusted sitters.

The local college is also a  great source for babysitters – with more fleixibility and mobilut than high school students, you’ll likely find students who are eager for a part-time job.  Check with the education department as well – students training to be teachers often love to babysit.   And your tween will totally look up to the cool babysitter – and feel less like they’re being babied.

Once you have selected some babysitter candidates, it’s time to form a list of questions to ask the babysitter.  Start by discussing their experience.  See if they have babysat for other kids and their ages.  Find out if they have taken a babysitting certification course, including first aid and CPR. Ask them if they have preferences on what ages of children they like to watch and what they would do during their time with the kids.   Throw out some ordinary and not-so ordinary scenarios to them and see how they would react.

Ask for references and check them carefully.  Good babysitters will be happy to provide references – whether they’re other parents or coaches or teachers. If your babysitter seems reluctant to give your references that might be a red flag.

Once you have narrowed your candidate pool to one or two, set up a trial babysitting time. You should let your kids and the babysitter interact without you hovering – disappear into another part of the house, go for a short walk, or run over to a neighbor’s.  Your kids are a great judge of character and they will be able to tell you what they think of the new babysitter – and she will know who she needs to impress.  If your kids are younger and can’t talk, give the babysitter some space put poke your head in from time to time to see the interaction.

Using these strategies to find a babysitter will make the whole process that much easier. Knowing what questions to ask a babysitter will make finding a good babysitter a piece of cake.

Kids Fitness Exercise

Parents and medical experts can all agree on one thing -an active kid is healthier than a non-active kid.  However just what is a safe kids exercise?    It’s harder and harder these days for kids to get enough exercise, between the cutbacks in physical education, busy schedules and the temptations of the internet and TV.   For some kids, exercise is easily obtained by playing an organized sport, but not every kid of family has the skills, temperament or money to be a team player. However this doesn’t mean that you can’t promote kids fitness at home through the simple exercise of running.

But there is one thing that can be great for both parents and kids -  running.  However, running as a kids fitness exercise has both risks and benefits.

The Risks of Running as Kids Fitness Exercise

Like with any exercise your kids participate in, running should be supervised.  If you’re not a runner yourself, you may want to take the sport up with your kids and start to do it together.  This is an excellent way to promote health and bonding.   And you can supervise your child’s running to insure she isn’t overdoing it with running and hurting themselves.

One of the first things to teach your kids -  stretch first.  Once they have properly stretched, pace their run with a warm-up period, a running period and a cool-down period.  Work on their distances starting slow and short and working up to longer and longer periods.

And as always, don’t forget consulting with your doctor before staring any kids fitness exercise to ensure that its appropriate for your child’s health condition.

Benefits of Running as a Kids Exercise

Fortunately, running is one of those things kids often do on their own, without much prompting from parents.   But playing chase is very different than taking up the sport of running as an organized fitness activity.  Just like an sport, you will need to invest in some equipment, like sneakers and weather- appropriate gear.  You may also want to work with your children and start tracking or timing their runs, or help them set mileage goals, as a way to keep them motivated.  This can be done with a simple stopwatch and a pedometer.

Running is also a great basis or training for other sports, or it can become a sport in and of itself, like track or cross-country.  Another way to keep things interesting is by running with your child in local 3k and 5k running races as ways to have fun and add some competition to the activity.

The great thing about running is that it’s a kids fitness activity that can be done almost anytime or anywhere, with a partner or without. It may be an activity you enjoy with your kids or it may be something they really take to alone, rejoicing in the strength and sense of achievement it gives them.

Kids Summer Camp Checklist

The tradition of a kids summer camp can be a great experience for children and their parents.  Once you have selected which camp your child will attend, it’s time to start planning for the actual camp program.  How does a parent really know what a child needs at camp?  Most summer camp programs will send a welcome packet including a list of what to pack, whether it’s a summer day camp or an overnight program. In addition, here are some tips for creating a camp checklist.

For day camp programs, make sure you have a daily pack of swimming gear, like a towel, swimsuit, swim shoes and sunscreen.  Add in a hat, filled water bottles, sandals, an extra set of clothing, and a lightweight rain slicker and sweatshirt and your child should be all set for whatever heads her way.

Many summer day camps provide lunch and snacks for your child.  If they don’t, then you will need to pack a lunch every day in an insulated lunchbox – include an ice pack to keep the food cool.  And don’t forget to have snacks handy in the car when you pick them up after a long day of camping.   Your children will have been very active and waiting until dinner time to eat will likely make them grumpy.

For sleep away camp programs, the same basic list of items is needed except more.  First off you will need to know how long the camp lasts, and whether or not your kids will have the chance to do laundry.  If there is no laundry service available, then  pack twice as many pairs of underwear and socks as days in the camp.   For other clothes, a good rule is one t-shirt and  pair shorts for each day of camp, a few sweatshirts, two pairs of pants, two sets of pajamas, flip slops, sneakers and several bathing suits.

And don’t forget the toiletries – toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, comb and a hairbrush.  Include two sets of washcloths and towels.  Pack everything in a plastic bag or carrying case to get these things to and from the shower.

Most camps won’t allow cellphones, video games, or music players, so check to determine what the rules are at your camp program.  Raindy day activities like books, cards and puzzles are also a good idea to pack.  And of course, don’t forget to label everything.

With some careful planning, your kid’s summer camp experience can be a great one.  When they’re well prepared – thanks to you, your kids can focus on having tons of fun – the whole point of camp.

Relationship problems can appear once couples  have been married for awhile.  Once the joy of being newly married has worn off, and they have spent a lot of time with their spouse, one partner or another may begin to feel that they don’t have as much in common as they thought.  Or one spouse may wish to take up a new activity that holds no interest to the other.

All marriages go through highs and lows.  Marriage problems begin to rear their head when couples become stressed about parenting issues or job issues.  Top it off with  financial issues like money worries, saving for a house and different spending habits and all of a sudden it may seem that a great marriage is a totally unattainable goal.  Soon you and your happy spouse may fight, act resentful or give each other the silent treatment.   Arguments where hurtful things are said, or worse, when nothing is said can turn a small issue into a huge one.  To avoid getting to that point, use some of these tips to restore harmony in your marriage.

• Remember why you got married in the first place – what attracted you to each other. Find those feelings and bring them to the surface.  Make sure your partner knows you are still attracted physically and mentally.
• Start by really listening to your partner.  What important thing are they trying to say?  Listen respectfully and don’t judge.  Don’t jump into solution mode, instead just listen for awhile before offering advice.  Maybe your spouse just wants a sympathetic ear, not a therapist.
• Go out without the kids.  Get a babysitter and try date night. Try to go several times a month – you don’t need to spend a lot of money – you could have a picnic in the park, for instance, but just take the time to relax and focus on your relationship as a couple without worrying about the kids or housework

A perfect marriage doesn’t really exist. Just about all married couples will admit to having ups and downs in their relationship.  So strive for a great marriage where the two of you have time together, are loving and remember why you got married in the first place.