Help! I'm a parent!

Puberty Health

2008-10-11T22:44:00.000-07:00

As parents, we need to equip our children with knowledge and confidence as they begin their journey into adulthood.

We talk to our children about the changes they will soon notice in their bodies:
Puberty Questions.

Do you also discuss Puberty health with your child?

It can seem a little intrusive to tell our 15 year old son he is a little smelly! Our, 13 year old she is getting spotty, or our 12 year old daughter she must pay particular attention to intimate cleanliness during and after her period.

If we don't tell them, prepare them in advance, suggest products and encourage them to use them, no-one else will. Unless of course they are told unkindly by their peers!

Another aspect to puberty health is sexual health. It is crucial that our teenagers know about and understand how to avoid contracting sexual diseases and unwanted pregnancies.

To read more about Puberty Development, female and male puberty and advice on how to tackle the tricky subject of Puberty Health, go to this page on my website:
Puberty Questions.

Talking to your child about SEX!

2008-04-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

AAAAAHHHHHH! Do I really have to?

I believe as parents we do have to if we want to have an impact:

Do you want your children to grow up with your values and beliefs?
Do you want them to wait until they are old enough to know when they have found someone they really love before having sex?
Do you want them to avoid teenage pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, most common amongst teenagers?

Of course you do! Don't we all?

Check out my page on Child Sex Education to help you overcome the difficulties and embarrassment of talking about such a delicate topic with your kids it isn't as hard as you may think!

Overweight toddlers and kids

2008-02-14T06:32:00.000-08:00

This is an increasingly common concern for parents.

Is my child overweight?
How can I know?
How can I help him?

My brand new pages on
Child Nutrition are packed full of information, advice, recipes, even suggestions on how to get your kids to eat fruit and veg!

Check out my Fat children page for specific advice on overweight children and how to help them.

You may also find my new
Child height and weight charts helpful to check if your child is a healthy weight.

Lots of parenting freebies as usual on my site!

Expert Parenting Advice!

2008-02-11T13:40:00.000-08:00

Being a teacher, a mum, an adopter and a foster carer, my parenting experience covers a lot of areas!

Since I started my website Parents-in-a-Pickle I have been able to help many parents and answered numerous questions on parenting issues.

As so many people experience similar problems I decided to put the most frequently asked questions into an eBook with my detailed answers. I hope that it will be reassuring, as well as helpful, for people to see that others are going through similar difficulties!

You can download the entire eBook in seconds - there are 30 questions on issues such as temper tantrums, social problems at school, children hitting, lying, stealing etc.

Go to Advice expert parenting to find out more.

I am currently working on a whole new section devoted to feeding infants and toddlers - watch this space!

Anger management for parents

2008-01-22T09:00:00.000-08:00

We love our children but don't they make us MAD sometimes!

It can be really hard to control our anger, particularly when we are stressed, tired, alone, or all of those things.

I have advice on my website to help parents deal effectively with the challenging behavior of their children and find alternative methods to showing anger and spanking their children.

My approach is practical and sympathetic. No-one is perfect, and many parents admit to smacking or shouting at their children when they are really pushed.

There are suggestions for avoiding conflict in the first place, finding ways to avoid lashing out and workable discipline methods which don't involve shouting and spanking.

Most importantly, never forget that parenting is a tough job, and in any job you are entitled to support and a break once in a while.

If you are not getting this, you are bound to feel at the end of your tether once in a while!

How to be better parents?

2008-01-19T05:04:00.000-08:00

How to be better parents, or how to be good parents is a question often asked of me, either on my website Parents in a Pickle or on AllExperts.com.

The answer is that if you are asking the question, you already are good parents!

People who show concern, who search the Internet for answers, who feel guilty when things go wrong, are demonstrating that they care enough to make improvements.

Remember how many parents there are out there who don't care, or who think they know it all!

Your children are lucky to have you.

Of course I have advice on my website for all sorts of different aspects of parenting, and there are free downloads to help as well such as behavior charts and potty training charts, but remember, if you are inquiring, then you are already a better parent than many!

Give yourself a pat on the back before you find the advice you are looking for.

Free printable potty training charts!

2008-01-15T00:33:00.000-08:00

I have now added to the freebies on my site and designed some potty training charts and 2 certificates of achievement.

I have found the behavior charts were very popular, so decided to try my hand at designing some other charts which help parents.

There are several different ones to suit girls and boys with different interests.
Printable Potty Training Charts

Take a look, and if there is anything else you would like to see, go to
contact us
to make a suggestion.

Good luck with that potty training!

Help! My toddler's a monster!

2007-10-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

All toddlers will test their parents out (rather like teenagers!) and if they realize their behavior causes a reaction, they will continue and push things as far as they can go.

The key is to not react, to ignore the tantrum, to pretend you have not noticed. If you find that difficult, walk away, go into another room.

On the other hand, when she displays other behavior, the type you do like, give her a great reaction, show her how pleased you are, play with her, tickle her and generally show that you think she's great!

If you persevere you will find that she gradually learns which behavior gets a reaction and as you will have engineered this, it puts you back in control instead of her!

Check out my website on www.parents-in-a-pickle.com

And my 'Squidoo' lens on Help! I'm a parent!

Tips for getting my 2 year old to potty?

2007-10-24T02:13:00.000-07:00

I'm a great believer in not stressing about potty training. Go with the flow, if your daughter is having a set back, consider putting her back in nappies, or pull ups for a while. If she doesn't like that, she will soon go back to the success she was having before. If she is happy to go back to this for a while, it would be less stressful for both of you to allow this. As for night time, the same advice applies. You will be able to see if her nappy stays dry every night. If it is not yet, don't worry about it. She is only 2, so has plenty of time to get used to this in her own time. Some children continue to wear pull ups at night at the age of 4, even older, so she is still very young. You can be certain that she will be fully potty trained, and probably dry at night, by the time she starts school.

For more parenting advice, try my site: www.parents-in-a-pickle.com