Be a Good Listener to Your Child – Listen Actively

Communicating with our children can be a difficult task on occasions. We feel like they're not listening to us; they feel like we're not listening to them. Good listening and communications skills are essential to successful parenting. Your child's feelings, views and opinions have worth, and you should make sure you take the moment to sit down and listen openly and discuss them honestly.

Reacting Vs Responding

It seems to be a natural tendency to react rather than to respond. We pass judgment based on our own feelings and experiences. However, responding means being receptive to our child's feelings and emotions and allowing them to express them selves openly and honestly without fear of repercussion from us. By reacting, we send our child the message that their feelings and opinions are invalid.

On the other hand, by responding and asking questions about why the child feels that way, it opens a dialog that allows them to discuss their feelings further, and allows you a better understanding to the origin of their plight. Responding also gives you an opportunity to work out a solution or a plan of action with your child that they perhaps would not have come up with on their own. Your child will also appreciate the fact that maybe you do indeed understand how they feel.

It's crucial in these situations to give your child your full and undivided attention. Here’s where you start listening actively. Put down your newspaper, stop doing dishes, or turn off the television so you can hear the full situation and make eye contact with your child. Keep calm, be inquisitive, and afterwards offer potential solutions to the problem. Don't discourage your child from feeling upset, angry, or frustrated. Our initial instinct may be to say or do something to steer our child away from it, but this can be a detrimental tactic.

Again, listen to your child, ask questions to find out why they are feeling that way, and then offer potential solutions to alleviate the bad feeling. Just as we do, our children have feelings and experience difficult situations. By actively listening and participating with our child as they talk about it, it demonstrates to them that we do care, we want to help and we have similar experiences of our own that they can draw from & share. Remember, respond - don't react. Happy Parenting!

Accor Hotels City Super Sale and a Trip to Mumbai, India

One thing that is the most challenging when making arrangement for holidaying at a chosen destination is finding affordable hotels. Folks like me who like to forego using package tour services and do almost everything on our own are frequently on the lookout for cheaper hotel room rates online. Well, there is one site in particular; accorhotels.com that is currently having an Accor Hotels City Super Sale, providing savings up to 60% for online bookings made between 23-29 June, for stays in 27 cities including Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Hanoi, Manila, Mumbai, Sydney and Auckland between July 10 and September 30, 2009. This sale is for a limited time only, so be sure to head over to the site soon.

I haven’t been to India before and the city that I would like to go to is Mumbai a.k.a. Bombay; the home of Bollywood, India’s great film industry. In Mumbai, I would choose to stay at the new Hotel Novotel Mumbai Juhu Beach (Opening in July 2009) and I found it at the accorhotels.com site. At the hotel, I can laze about at the beach every morning and go tour the Film City Bollywood in one of the evenings. I might even get the opportunity to see one of the pretty Bollywood actresses like Aishwarya Rai or Pretty Zinta. Also, I can’t miss out on going to a few historical monuments in Mumbai like the Gateway of India and the Kanheri Caves for some memorable photos. Yes, a voyage to Mumbai would be awesome and with current record-low air fares in the Asia Pacific region, this trip can be seen as a good bargain.

Save Money with DIY Decorative Concrete

There has been a decline in consumer confidence in the building and construction industry. This may be the same reason why many people are now doing home improvements by themselves. Why not? A little knowledge of the technical aspects combined with the eye for creativity is enough to do the home improvement on your own. People are going DIY.

Why are people turning to do-it-yourself home improvements?

Many construction workers who do not have a lot of experience or expertise in construction or home maintenance are out there right now trying to work on these homes all over the country. As a result, homeowners are finding that the jobs are not being completed to their satisfaction. On occasions they are even prepaying for services that do not get done or are not part of the plan.

You do not have to rely and pay someone to improve your home. Why not try to do it yourself? Yes, DIY style. You can enhance your home’s existing concrete surfaces using acid stains, acrylic stains, epoxy paints, and scoring techniques. When tired of looking at dreary gray concrete, there are some easy projects for the serious home improvement do-it-yourselfer to give your patio, driveway, garage, etc a refreshing & decorative new look.

Decorative concrete work demands more money. It costs double or even triple price of that of regular concrete. This is why many people cannot afford it. There are inexpensive ways to decorate concrete after it has cured without having to pay skilled tradesmen.

Acid based concrete stains are becoming more and more popular for coloring concrete surfaces. They chemically react with the cement material to produce permanent color with variegated or mottled appearance like that of marble. This results in a natural, elegant looking surface.

Water based concrete stains are an alternative to acid stains and are much more user friendly because they’re much less toxic. These stains do not chemically react with the concrete; they are absorbed into the surface pores and act like a dye. The big advantage of water based stains is the wide array of colors available.

By wanting to venture beyond the basic staining of concrete, consider using some scoring techniques to create patterns on the surface. You can make your concrete look decorative like a tile floor for example. It is up to your imagination. An angle grinder with a 4 inch grinding or cutting wheel is the ideal tool for this. The important thing to remember when scoring is to draw the pattern on the concrete first and make sure you are satisfied with the way it looks because scoring is irreversible.

Epoxy paints make an excellent coating for garage floors and basement floors. Many commercial floors have epoxy coatings because of their durability and resistance to chemical spills as well as their appearance. In recent years, however, it has become very popular for residential use with an increasing availability of different colors. This is not a difficult project, but the key to successful application is surface preparation.

Epoxy paints have also become available in a water based form making it safe for the do-it-yourselfer and ideal for indoor applications. They cost a little more than stains. For a 400 square foot garage, you’ll spend about $200 for the materials needed for this project. See? You do not have to spend money to have your home improved. You will save money by going the DIY way. You have the capability to do it yourself. With some instructions and a little bit of work, anyone can turn boring concrete into their own masterpiece.

A Healthy Way for Weight Loss

Obesity is a serious problem & has potential to reach epidemic levels by the year 2020. To help prevent such an epidemic, one can make people aware of the risks of being overweight or obese. Some diseases that are associated with being overweight are heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, & hypertension. Losing weight & keeping it off will help prevent & control the aforementioned diseases.

The fad these days are the quick weight loss methods. Many of them are so hyped up & do not provide lasting results. Dieting methods that involve dietary drinks, foods, supplements, or even pills hardly work or at most provide marginal & temporary results. Some people still fall for them because they do not really understand weight loss. Pursuing a healthy weight loss option provides life long results. Throw the expectation of losing a ridiculous amount of pounds super fast, out the window & start being realistic.

Having said that, here are some tips on how you can lose weight the healthy way:

1. Starving is a big NO. Forget about dieting by skipping meals. A human body needs energy & sufficient food is the fuel. By skipping meals, the stored calories will be used up instead of the energy provided by the meal. For example, easting only one huge sandwich as the only meal for the day will have it all end up directly to the flab problem area (love handles, buttocks, hips, & etc)

2. Have the Breakfast of Champions. Eat a healthy breakfast to give the body’s metabolism a boost. The breakfast eaten after waking up is used to burn fat/flab all day long.

3. Small & more frequent healthy meals are better than three ‘gut filling’ to the max meals. The practice prevents over eating, increases metabolism & make calories burn faster.

4. Make a realistic weight loss goal. How much weight do you want to lose? Forget about doing the improbable like losing 40 pounds in two weeks. Instead, instill the thinking of eating healthy & staying healthy for the entire life span. Stick to your realistic weight loss plan like super glue.

5. Drinking lots of water will help burn fat & keep body cells hydrated & healthy.

6. Cut the sugar intake. Meals taste better anyway with plenty of fruits & vegetables, bread, rice, pasta for essential carbohydrates. Also don’t forget lean meat & other protein rich foods. Leave the sweets, sodas, & tempting pastries for the not so frequent occasion. You may want to indulge once in a while; why torture yourself, right?

7. Eating the right fats is actually good. Olive, peanuts & canola oil have healthy fats. Tuna, salmon & mackerel have omega-3 fats which is good for the heart. Watching the fat intake will be good too so that you can keep your weight at the proper level.

8. Last but not least, the most dreaded of all weight loss endeavors; exercise! Don’t fret; any mundane activity can help shed the pounds off. For example, skip taking the car when you only want to go somewhere that is a few blocks away. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. You can also go jogging, cycling or use skates. Do the activities regularly & before you know it, you are already losing weight!

Be realistic with yourself. Accept your body as how it is now; plenty of flab or not & you know you can make it better. Take it slow & take a break after losing 5 or 6 pounds before moving on with losing the next 5 or 6 pounds. A better run at losing weight & improving health resulting in a new, healthier you can be had by healthy eating, drinking lots of water, having enough sleep & exercising regularly. Happy Weight Loss!

Successfully a Parent & Its Ever Changing Role

We watch our children grow right before our very eyes. It seems like only yesterday they were a baby learning to crawl, walk, and feed themselves, and now they're in school, involved in activities, making friends, and learning to be more and more independent. Parents before us have said that from the moment they're born, we are constantly learning to let go of our children. As a result, our parenting strategies have to change. As our child grows, develops, learns, and matures, so does our parenting role.

As your child has grown, you undoubtedly have discovered they have their own unique personality and temperament. You've probably unconsciously redeveloped your parenting skills around the individual needs of your child. Being so, no two children are exactly alike, and therefore, neither should your parenting style. Some children may need more guidance and feel unsure of them selves, so we've become used to having to guide, lead, show and encourage that child consistently through their childhood while still trying to encourage independence and give praise in order to build their self esteem and confidence level. Yet another child may be very intrinsically motivated and very willful and not need a great deal of guidance or leadership from you. While you encourage their independence, it's also important that you also encourage their ability to ask for help when needed and continue to praise good deeds, actions, and traits.

The most important tools we have in order to successfully adjust our parenting skills are our eyes and our ears. We have to see what's going on with our child and we have to hear what they are telling us. It's important that we encourage our child to be their own individual while still being available to them at whatever level or degree where they need us. Sometimes it's situation-specific as well. A child may not need us to be as directly involved with their schooling to ensure their overall academic success, but they may need us to be more involved in their social life as they may be feeling a bit shaky or scared when it comes to making new friends or meeting new people.

So the bottom line is this: as your child grows and changes, so should your parenting skills. Keep your eyes and ears open and communicate honestly and openly with your child, and you'll both mature gracefully. Happy Parenting!

Studying Still Attractive Even for Jobless

Even in periods of a slow economy, many people still think that using whatever money they still have for paying to further their education will be worth it and rewarding over the long run. I saw videos of people being interviewed regarding this topic and many of those interviewed think that furthering their studies is a good idea, even for those who have recently lost their jobs!

Many people continue to look at acquiring a degree as a form of investment. Getting a degree can be easier by attending one of the online universities like Capella University; an accredited and a fully online university. Acquiring a degree online means that one does not have to use much energy for traveling an instead will be able to direct all that energy to what is most important - acquiring the skill and knowledge within the degree course; taking good care of one’s precious investment.

This blog post is based on information provided by Blogitive. For more information, please visit Blogitive.com.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Irene Silber
Capella University
612-977-4132
irene.silber@capella.edu