Parenting Babies, Toddlers & Teens

Posts Tagged ‘coach’

Does Your Toddler Run in the Street?
This One Key Phrase Will Stop Him in His Tracks!

By Michelle Shelton, Parenting Coach
Keys2Kids.com

Does your toddler run away from you? Does he run into the street at times or run towards it, nearly giving you a heart attack? All mothers have felt the panic of seeing their little guy sprinting toward the street! My mother used to say; “you’ll die a million deaths before you get em raised”.

I often see mothers chasing their toddlers. The little guy is charging wildly toward the street and the mother has a frightened look in her eye. Once she catches Jr. she usually has some harsh words for him and in turn, he giggles and attempts to wiggle away from her. She might even give him a little swat on his diapered bottom to let him know she really means business. The mother then calms down because, after all, he is still a just a baby.

What are you supposed to do as a mother?

Let’s start with a question. What is your job as a mother? Is it to simply protect your child from harm? To feed him, clothe him and take care of his needs? Since the role of a mother is not clearly defined in our culture, we think mothers are supposed to love our child. Period. That’s it. Loving them means taking care of them and doing everything for them, right? Wrong! Get ready because I am about to define your real role as a mother and I want you to write this down! Your job as a mother is to…….TEACH. That’s it. Teach your children how to get along without you. God gave children a mother for this one thing in mind.

You are saying, yeah, but what about training? Isn’t it my job as a good mother to train my children in the way they should go? Yes and no. Training shows your children “how” to do something. Teaching gives them the reason “why” they do something. It is imperative to teach and not just train.

Jeffery Gitomer said it best when he said, “pretend you have a teenage daughter, do you want her to have sex EDUCATION…or…sex TRAINING? Yikes! When you put it that way, it makes sense, doesn’t it?

When you teach your children, you give them the concrete information they need to make wise decisions on their own. They have to think and decide for themselves. They have the information needed to embrace your reasons in a clear, logical way. It is even more imperative to do this with boys than it is girls because boys are usually more logical.

By now you are thinking I forgot about the toddler in the street. Well, I didn’t. My children never went into the street because I taught them “why” they shouldn’t go in the street. Now I will teach you how to teach your children the same thing.

A TRAINING statement would be, “If you go in the street, you will get hit by a car.” Haven’t most little kids been hit by a brother, sister, playmate, or cousin? If they haven’t personally been hit, they have seen people hit or they have hit others! The point is, no one died. No one wiggled around in severe paid and then disappeared. They know they WILL recover if the car HITS them. Hitting is not life threatening, is it?

Scare Them

Now, let’s do a TEACHING situation. Scare them. Does this go against your motherly instinct? Sorry. Reality is, if they run in front of a car, they are most likely going to die. This is scary. They need to fear the cars. How can you scare your own child you ask? First of all, I am not saying go out and rent a copy of Stephen King’s, “The Car” and show it to your child. I am saying fear is sometimes healthy.

If you go in the street, the cars will eat you!

What is a realistic way to make sure your child would have a healthy fear of cars? When my children were little I had a stroke of genius when I said, If you go in the street, the cars will eat you! Children know about eating. They know that chewing would have to hurt. Most have bitten their own finger hard enough to know it would hurt and hurt BAD. They also know that anything they eat is GONE FOREVER.

Once you learn to develop healthy fears in your child, your child will see that the world is a delightful yet scary place and it does have boundaries that limit all of us. After all, that is the truth. Doesn’t your child deserve the truth?

© 2003 by Michelle Shelton. All rights reserved

About the Author
Michelle Shelton is an author, parenting coach, parent consultant, acclaimed public speaker, and parent educator. Michelle is the author of the well known column Life with all these Kids. www.keys2kids.com or contact her at 480-888-9352 or michelleshelton@yahoo.com.

Babies Online can not garauntee that this statement will keep your child safe – this article is posted as an educational resource only.

Make your Own Babywipes & Stamp out Diaper Rash!
by Michelle Shelton, Communications Coach

With my first son, Phillip, we had a great Pediatrician from India. This man was very gentle with babies and you could tell when he held a baby that he loved children. When my son was a few days old, this doctor told me something that I had a difficult time grasping at first. He said, “Don’t wipe your baby’s bottom every time you change the diaper.”

This seemed foreign to me. I listened but I walked away thinking he didn’t know what he was talking about. I was under the impression that I was to clean that baby thoroughly every time I changed him.

Well, I set out to do just what the doctor told me; after all, he was the expert and I was a new mom! I realized somewhere along the line that the doctor was right. The only time I would wipe the baby’s bottom was when he had a bowel movement never when he was wet. Looking back I realized how wise that doctor really was. He understood that the PH of the baby’s skin was the same as the acid in the urine. Rubbing the baby’s sensitive skin 9 or 10 times a day, coupled with the constant PH change was a sure cause of a sore baby bottom. The urine didn’t cause a diaper rash, the wiping did! There was one other culprit that would cause a rash and that was a bowel movement.

With 5 children over several years, I can tell you that diaper rash honestly did not happen at our house. I attribute this to a quick and immediate change with diaper wipes whenever there was a bowel movement and NO wiping baby’s bottom when there wasn’t a bowel movement. Over the years I received many snide comments from on-lookers and well-intentioned friends and family but I would happily report to them that it was the doctor’s orders! What could they say to that?

To wipe or not to wipe must be a personal decision and I will leave you with this bit of “only wiping with bowel movement” information to do with what you will. One more thing though, after years of dealing with doctors, I wish I could tell you that they were all “experts” and that you should always do exactly everything they say, unfortunately, I have not found this to be true. I have found that there are some really good doctors out there and even then you should use your best judgment when dealing you’re your child.

While we are on the subject of baby bottoms and baby wipes, you might want to use this recipe. I made these wipes for over 5 years and always had them on hand. They were easy and saved a lot of money and my husband and I always felt they were just as good as the store brand!

Home Made Baby Wipes
If you go to a second hand store you can pick up an electric knife for about $3 and use it to cut your paper towels in half the short way. I tried other paper towels that were cheaper than Bounty and they would fall apart and mold if you left them in the container, so stick with Bounty for best results.

• ½ Roll of Bounty paper towels
• 1-Cup Water
• 1 TBS baby oil
• 2 TBS baby shampoo or baby bath of your choice
• Rubbermaid cylinder type container or old baby wipe container.

Mix all liquid ingredients in cylinder container. Remove outside plastic and inner cardboard tube from paper towels and place them in the container and put the lid on tight. Flip container over and wait until towels are thoroughly saturated. Pull wipes from middle.

Happy wiping!

© 2003 by Michelle Shelton. All rights reserved

About the Author
Michelle Shelton is an author, parenting coach, parent consultant, acclaimed public speaker, and Arizona Real Estate Agent and parent educator. Michelle is the author of the well known column Life with all these Kids. Visit her web site www.boldtalent.com or contact her at 480-577-8272.