Ten Tips for Raising Happier and Healthier Children
1. Be warm, loving, and responsive. When children receive warm, loving care, they are more likely to feel safe and secure with the adults who take care of them.
2. Respond to the child’s cues and clues. Recognize and respond to sounds, movements and expressions that your child makes. This will help your child feel secure and attached.
3. Talk, sing, and read to your child. All of these things help your child’s brain make connections it needs for growing and learning now and for learning later on.
4. Establish rituals and routines. Teach your child to know when it’s time for bed by developing routines such as singing a song and pulling the curtains - daily routines and rituals associated with pleasurable feelings are reassuring for children.
5. Encourage safe new experiences and play. As infants grow, they begin to explore the world beyond their caregivers. Encourage this exploration. While we may think of learning as simply acquiring facts, children actually learn through play.
6. Make television watching selective. Watch television with your child, and talk about what you are viewing. Don’t use TV as a babysitter.
7. Use discipline as an opportunity to teach. In addition to consistent and loving supervision, teach your child limits. Never hit or shake a child!
8. Recognize that each child is unique. Children grow at different rates. Their needs and feelings about themselves reflect, in large measure, parents and caregivers attitudes toward them.
9. Choose quality child care and stay involved. Visit your child care provider often, and seek someone who responds warmly and understands your baby’s needs.
10. Take care of yourself. Parents need care too. When you are exhausted, irritable, depressed, or overwhelmed, you may have a harder time meeting the needs of young children.
Many are reluctant to open their homes to needy children because they have been misinformed or don't truly understand what foster care or adoption is all about. Please click on the link below to learn more about providing care to these very special children. I think that you will realize the potential rewards attached to loving a child of your choosing. This video will hopefully persuade you to seek more information about this process. Every child deserves the love of a family!
http://www.thevideosense.com/video/Keeping-Kids-Healthy-Adoption-A-Forever-Family-