It's never too early to start introducing your children to a bit of housework!

-Stefan

Greetings! Fathers can often feel unappreciated in their families. Usually what this means is that they’ve forgotten a fundamental rule of being successful in their family relationships. If you ever feel unappreciated in your family, this article might be just for you. Enjoy!

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I’d had about as much as I could handle for one day.

My computer was frozen, I was tired from a weekend with little sleep, and I was working in a yard that would soon need a scythe to cut it. Kids activities were crowding an already crowded schedule, and there seemed like no time to relax.

When do other people find the time to do all these things? ... read more >>

Michael Grose is Australia's leading parenting educator. Michael shows you what it takes to be a great Dad. Visit Michael's website www.parentingideas.com.au for more parenting tips on bringing out the best in kids.

"Parental Recognition is a real high driver..."

Great tips to get your kids to help around the household chores with out expecting payment.

Thanks Michael

- Eric

Greetings to you! The next time you consider whether you should have your kids doing chores around the house, consider this article. Hope you enjoy it:

You have a chore to do around the house, and your kids want to help out. You know it might be nice for them to help, but you're feeling a bit impatient. And you know it might turn into a two hour project, with a big mess to clean up. A mess that could be avoided if you did it yourself.

We've all been there, haven't we?

It can be so much easier to do the household chores and projects without the assistance from your little friends. After all, who's got the time in today's world to make a project longer than it needs to be?

You do. ... read more >>

What makes music and dance important?
From birth children really respond to music and movement. For example we use it to calm a baby who is tired or upset, or we can use it to energise children at a party.

Music and dance is a great medium for moving and learning because most children love music and dance. It helps to build an awareness of emotions and is a great form of physical and emotional expression.

For young children music and singing are great for language development and speech and memory skills because of the repetition. We know that children's brains develop very fast in early childhood and music and movement helps make connections between different parts of the brain.

How does music and dance help with physical activity and movement? ... read more >>

Why are fine motor skills important?
Fine motor skills are important because children need them for activities like writing, playing instruments and playing sport later in their lives.

Once a child can hold a pencil or cricket bat without having to think of "how" to hold it, they can then concentrate on what they are going to write, or how they are going to hit the ball with the bat. This is called automaticity, which is the ability to do something without thinking about it.

It's important to note that being active isn't just about doing full-on physical things and playing sport. It's anything and everything involved in moving your body and having body awareness. For example, in younger children it's about knowing where their fingers are and what they can do.

SPARC aims to develop the skills in our children to be active and healthy from a holistic perspective – so it's about food and lifestyle too. ... read more >>

Let’s face it, running a business from home while looking after the kids is an ongoing juggling act.

I’m fortunate enough to have my own home-based business, which I work in part-time. It is a catalogue shopping company specialising in products that are safer for families and the environment. I don’t take any orders, make any deliveries or do any billings. I simply set up my customers’ accounts, and whenever they purchase product it is couriered direct to their doorstep, and I receive a commission. Sounds bliss doesn’t it? ... read more >>

Obviously, fathers are supremely aware that their parental role is not limited to paying the bills. For example, they know that their physical presence in the home makes a difference. And research backs them up on this point: children, especially boys, who grow up without the presence of a father are more at risk of developing problems of self-control, behaviour and adaptation. The reason is simple: as children develop, they require guidance, supervision, care and attention-an assignment likely to wear down even the most heroic super-mother raising a child alone, let alone two or three children (and sometimes a spouse for whom she must do the washing and ironing as well!). By sharing parenting tasks, the job can be done more thoroughly, with more consistency and in a way that is more balanced toward the child's needs and expectations. ... read more >>

Sharing household and parenting tasks doesn't mean that both parents care for and spend time with their children in equal and identical measures; rather, it is more a question of equity. In some families, fathers play a supporting role to mothers; in others they carry out specific tasks; in some, though this is atypical, they assume the lion's share of the parenting duties. There is nothing that says any one of these formulas is intrinsically better than the others; nor has it been shown that an ideal and rigid model of "equal" sharing of parenting duties is preferable to an "unequal" or asymmetrical model if the latter fulfills the needs of a specific family or couple. ... read more >>

Having a high level of emotional intelligence in your children is the best way to ensure that they live a happy, successful, and responsible life as an adult. Here are ten ways to help your kids attain a high degree of emotional intelligence:

1. Model emotional intelligence yourself
Yes, your kids are watching very closely. They see how you respond to frustration, they see how resilient you are, and they see whether you’re aware of your own feelings and the feelings of others.

2. Be willing to say “no” to your kids
There’s a lot of stuff out there for kids. And your kids will ask for a lot of it. Saying no will give your kids an opportunity to deal with disappointment and to learn impulse control. To a certain degree, your job as a parent is to allow your kids to be frustrated and to work through it. Kids who always get what they want typically aren’t very happy.

3. Be aware of your parental “hotspots” ... read more >>