Did Your Race Affect Your Prenatal Care 4 Steps to Get Justice

Did Your Race Affect Your Prenatal Care? Get Justice Now!

You already know that pregnancy can be risky business, but did you know that the color of your skin might make you more likely to experience serious complications? The pregnancy-related mortality rate for black, American Indian, and Alaska Native women more than doubles that of any other race. Poorer quality of care and provider biases are thought to be among the reasons for this disparity. If you suspect that your prenatal care suffered because of your race, here are four steps you can take to get justice.

Collect Evidence

The first step in getting justice is to gather all the evidence you can to show that your medical provider was biased and negligent. Hard evidence, including letters, emails and recordings, is always best. However, you can also speak with other patients at the practice who are willing to make statements or testify on your behalf.

Look for white patients who were treated better, other patients of color who were also discriminated against and staff who can corroborate your claims. While bias is a difficult and intangible thing to prove, no bias exists in a void. If you can find real indications of racial bias in the doctors in question, you can add serious credibility to your case.

Report Your Medical Provider

After you have compiled all the evidence, contact your local medical licensing board and file a report against the provider. You will probably be contacted by an investigator in the following days or weeks, so be prepared to answer all their questions. If your provider is found guilty, their medical license will be suspended or revoked.

Find a Lawyer

While reporting your medical provider can help hold them accountable, you also deserve compensation for your expenses and suffering. Find a birth injury attorney with experience getting justice for families who have suffered painful and expensive consequences due to medical negligence during pregnancy and childbirth. If you win your case or reach a settlement, consider putting some of the money in a trust for your child’s future care.

Be an Advocate

Do you want to help prevent other pregnant people from experiencing the same discrimination that you faced? Share your experience to create awareness and change. Join an organization that seeks to advance racial equality in pregnancy and healthcare or consider starting your own. You can also speak to prenatal classes and tell your story in the media or on the internet.


Although getting justice can help you achieve closure, you may also benefit from professional counseling to help you deal with your traumatic pregnancy. You can also find free resources and support groups to help you cope or use social media to connect with others who have similar experiences.

race prenatal care

Top Benefits of Learning From Home for Troubled Teens

Top Benefits of Learning From Home for Troubled Teens

Sitting in a classroom surrounded by 20-plus other students can create difficulties for some teenagers. Not everyone learns the same way, and some of the teens who are ‘acting out’ might do better in another learning environment. Their needs can be better met now by switching them to online high school.

Choosing Their Own Curriculum

Perhaps one of the biggest benefits of homeschooling your teen is that you get to help them customize their own curriculum. You can choose what meshes well with your child’s unique learning methods and encourage them to learn different points of view. Instead of being forced into some arbitrarily designed grade level, your teen can move at their own speed through the curriculum they select.

Construct More Meaningful Learning

Since homeschooling means working one-on-one with your teen, they do not have to fight for the attention of their teacher. There are many styles of homeschooling you can use to create more meaningful learning experiences, such as the eclectic method, which means mornings are more structured while the afternoons are more relaxed for learning. Your child might do better with interest-led learning, but you can also integrate inquiry-based learning into their schedules every day to encourage critical thinking.

Emphasize Life Skills

One thing some schools struggle to do is coach life skills to students. In middle and high school, these lessons get lost on the kids who are slipping through the cracks. Instead of watching your teen slip, start preparing them for becoming adult. What are they going to need to know how to do out in the real world? Life skills can be anything from learning how to budget their money to doing home repairs. This gives them time to interact with you in a productive manner.

College and Career Preparations

Instead of getting burnt-out on busywork, your teen can show the colleges they apply to their homeschool transcripts. In fact, studies demonstrate that homeschool students have better graduation rates, higher ACT scores, and better grade point averages than their peers. They can also spend more time preparing to enter the workforce, figuring out what it is they want to do and how they wish to achieve that goal.

Focus on Their Mental Health

School can be downright stressful. If your teen is already dealing with mental health issues, school can sometimes add fuel to the fire. Giving your teen the space and support they need to deal with their mental health issues is important. If they have social anxiety, depression, or any structural or chemical issues with their brains, they might need to be in a less-crowded area where they feel secure. They can be coached on autonomy and developing their positive behaviors and still get to socialize with others when the time is right.

They Can Socialize More

One of the arguments against homeschooling is the lack of socialization. This misconception is harmful since social development is a strong factor in homeschooling. Not only can your teen develop closer relationships with you and the rest of the family, but they can become more independent, get involved in the community, and be taught that it is okay to go against stereotypes. There are also homeschooling groups that get together and have their kids socialize out in public.

Your teen might just find that online high school is more effective for them than traditional high school. They are acting out for a reason, and in the safety and comfort of their own home, the two of you can begin exploring the reasons while your teen learns to become a healthy, intelligent, and capable young adult.

Canva - Hands and Pills on White Background

Risks of Teen Addiction and Solutions that Exist

If you’re the parent of a teen, it’s important to be aware of the risks of teen addiction. The problem of addiction affects teens of all socio and economic backgrounds, and understanding the risks and possible treatments can help you take swifter action to get your teenage son or daughter the help that’s needed.

The Mental Health Factor

Teens who suffer from mental health problems are often more prone to addiction. Depression, anxiety and other struggles with mental health can entice more teens to use drugs and alcohol, to try to cope with their mental and emotional anguish. Young people who struggle with thoughts of suicide are also often likelier to fall into addiction.

Societal Influences

Young people are often influenced by their environment even more so than adults, and certain negative influences can increase a teen’s chances of engaging in dangerous practices. If your teen sees their friends using drugs or alcohol, your son or daughter may succumb to peer pressure and start using these harmful substances themselves as a way to feel “cool.” Abuse and bullying are other factors that can lead teens to start abusing substances as a coping mechanism. The problem may be compounded further if a teen sees adults using drugs and alcohol regularly.

Possible Treatment Alternatives

Different treatment methods exist to help teens overcome their addictions, and the right method for your teen will depend on his or her specific needs and the level of their addiction. Some teens have experienced success by completing 12-step programs or other types of outpatient care. Inpatient residential care gives teens with addiction challenges the chance to live in an addiction treatment center while having 24/7 access to care and more intensive therapy options that what most outpatient treatment facilities provide.

The Power of Parental Support

Your support will be paramount to your teen’s recovery. Without the proper parental support, teens often have more difficulties completing their treatment plans and often relapse into addiction. It’s always important to keep an open line of communication so that your teen can talk to you whenever he or she has questions or needs additional support. You should be willing to discuss topics that might be uncomfortable, as these issues may be related directly to your teen’s addiction challenges.

Teens can overcome their addictions more effectively with the right resources and parental guidance. Doing whatever is necessary to curb your teen’s addiction will help your son or daughter lead a healthier life throughout adulthood.

Know the Signs and How to Handle Cases of Child Sexual Abuse in Your Family

Know the Signs of Child Sexual Abuse in Your Family

The mere thought of child sexual abuse is difficult to think about on any level. When you place that concept into the context of a familial relationship, it can be quite easy to shut down and want to look the other way.

If you believe your child or a child you know may have been sexually abused by a family member, though, it’s important to know the signs of this abuse so that you can properly respond. To help you on this difficult road, here are some insights so that you can know the signs of child sexual abuse and how to handle these instances.

Strange Avoidance

One of the ways that a sexual predator gains the trust of a potential victim is by becoming close friends with them. From the outside, this typically looks like a simple, loving relationship, especially in the context of a family. If you notice a sudden change in this relationship, though, wherein the child seems to be avoiding a certain family member that they used to enjoy being around, you may want to investigate further.

Change in Behavior

One of the ways that a sexual predator convinces their victims to stay quiet is to instill fear in their hearts and minds. This fear, in many cases, will cause a child’s behavior to change in fairly dramatic ways. If you notice that your child doesn’t enjoy certain activities that they used to do all the time, or if they pick up sudden bad habits such as nail-biting or wetting the bed, then it could be evidence of a serious issue.

Get Help Quickly

Given the complicated relationships involved in familial sexual abuse, it’s important to find a trusted child sexual abuse lawyer as soon as possible. Having a lawyer to guide you through the process will help you when emotions run high to ensure the victim is fairly represented. This can also help on the back end as you seek to hold the rest of your family together to try and provide some sense of normalcy for your child.

What do You Do After ??

Collect Evidence

Although a victim’s testimony is a crucial part of convicting a sexual predator, it is helpful to have other types of evidence to present at the trial. This additional evidence will help to seal the case, ensuring the perpetrator receives the full punishment that they deserve. Therefore, collecting emails, texts, notes, photos, and anything else that pertains to the case is helpful as you seek justice for your child.

Though this is undoubtedly a devastatingly difficult topic to talk about with anyone, it’s important to find one or two trusted friends who you can talk to throughout the process. If you try to keep your emotions locked inside, they will become overwhelming until you do something that causes you or others harm. By having others to talk to when you’re struggling, you’ll help ensure that you’re able to provide a solid emotional foundation for your child to lean on.


Glasses or Contacts How to Know Which is Best for Your Child

Glasses or Contact Lenses? How to Know Which is Best for Your Child

Has your child’s optometrist recommended corrective lenses? With more than 60 percent of the population wearing glasses or contact lenses, they’re not alone. Getting their first pair of glasses or contacts is a milestone for many kids and teens, but how do parents decide which is best for their child? Here are four factors that can help you choose.

Age and Maturity Level

Contacts require a great deal more care than glasses, so children who always forget to brush their teeth or wash their hair may not be the best candidates. Kids who aren’t old enough or mature enough to keep their contacts clean and in good shape can suffer injuries and infections from improper use. Make sure your child won’t wear dirty lenses, clean them with spit or swap contact lenses with friends.

Sports and Activities

You might think that contact lenses and sports don’t mix, but many eye doctors recommend contacts for athletes. Glasses don’t provide peripheral vision correction, which means that your child’s athletic performance may suffer. It’s also easy to lose or break glasses while playing sports. However, children who participate in water sports like swimming and diving should avoid wearing contacts in the pool due to the risk of irritation and infection.

Eye Health

Contact lenses work best for healthy eyes. If your child suffers from frequent eye infections or allergies, wearing contact lenses can increase irritation and even result in vision loss. Wearing contact lenses can also reduce the flow of oxygen to the cornea, a condition called hypoxia, in some wearers. If your child wears contacts, make sure they practice good eye care and remove the lenses at the first sign of problems.

Type of Vision Correction

While nearsightedness and farsightedness are easily corrected with contact lenses, a condition called astigmatism is more complicated. A common cause of poor vision in kids and teens, astigmatism is a genetic condition that causes the cornea of the eye to be shaped like a football instead of a sphere. Regular soft contact lenses are not good at correcting this problem, which means that your child may need to use glasses or a special type of contacts if they have astigmatism.

If you and your child still can’t decide between glasses and contact lenses, keep in mind that many people use both. Check with your vision insurance plan to see if two types of vision correction are covered and remember to ask your child’s optometrist for both prescriptions.

How Our Skin Sparkles

Strong Roots Have No Fear

4 Ways to Encourage Tolerance and Diversity in Your Child's Lives

4 Ways to Encourage Tolerance and Diversity in Your Child’s Lives

Children begin to notice differences like skin color and hair texture around the age of two, which means it’s important to start teaching your little ones about diversity and tolerance  early. However, it can be difficult to expose your children to other cultures if you live in a homogenous or isolated community. Here are four ways to encourage diversity and tolerance in your children’s lives whether you live in a big city, a small suburb or the middle of nowhere.

Engage in Culturally Diverse Media

Books, movies, and shows are a great way for your child to explore other cultures from the comfort of your couch. Media from all over the world is now accessible thanks to the internet, so take advantage. If your child is a good reader, consider showing television programs and movies in different languages with subtitles.

Talk About Other Cultures and Religions

Young children learn most effectively from their parents, so start a dialogue early about diversity and culture. Have casual conversations about different cultural practices, holidays and religions. Try pointing out churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious buildings when you’re driving with your children and discuss the different religions practiced there.

Raise Your Child Bilingual

There is no better way to introduce your child to another culture than teaching them a second language. Language opens the door to other cultures and societies by letting you get to know them in their own words. Consider enrolling your child in a bilingual early childhood center where they can be fully immersed in the language and interact with native speakers. Growing up bilingual may also give kids an advantage in other areas like math and music.

Participate in Cultural Activities

Whether you choose a pow-wow, soul food cook-off, religious service or a ballet performance, attending cultural activities with your child is an excellent way to broaden their horizons. While watching videos and reading books about other cultures is a great way to introduce them, nothing beats experiencing it for yourself. If your family travels for vacations, consider choosing locations where your child can experience unique cultural activities that he or she can’t access at home.


When teaching your child about diverse cultures, don’t forget that your own is important too. Take your children to your own cultural events, share recipes and stories from your ancestors and talk to them about your family traditions. You can also encourage them to share their culture and traditions with their friends and classmates at school.

Counter the Effects of Addiction in Teens With Support

Counter the Effects of Addiction in Teens With Support

Parents hoping to receive treatment for addiction often worry about how this recovery journey will affect their children. With the proper treatment and precautions to protect children from the effects of addiction, individuals in recovery can achieve sobriety, while healing their familial relationships. Read on to learn how parents can seek treatment without negatively affecting their children.

Consider Inpatient Care

Inpatient residential care is likely the most intensive form of rehab treatment. Allowing clients to undergo detox and receive treatment in a residential facility (inpatient care) will give parents the best opportunity to overcome addiction. Over a period of several weeks or months, parents will learn to overcome their addiction and develop new routines. This will help them rebuild their lives after rehab.

Meet with a Therapist

Therapy is an essential part of treatment. While detox programs and residential treatment are crucial for healing the body from the effects of addiction, therapy helps clients achieve emotional and mental sobriety. In inpatient treatment, you’ll receive group therapy, individual counseling, and family therapy. As you learn new techniques, they will help you overcome the old habits that facilitated your addiction.

Make Your Home a Sober Environment

After receiving treatment from an addiction recovery center, it’s important to prepare for your new life outside of treatment. While residential care prepares clients for a life of sobriety, coming back to your home after rehab can be particularly triggering. If you’re planning to live at home after rehab is over, make sure to give your home a thorough cleaning.

Transform your home into a sober environment by eliminating all sources of addiction. This includes everything from alcohol and drugs to anything that may trigger you like photos of old friends or similar items.

Have Children Stay with Family During Recovery

Recovery is a long process that isn’t limited to your time in inpatient treatment. As you acclimate yourself to your newfound sobriety and life outside of rehab, it’s important to make sure your children have a safe environment as well.

If possible, send your children to stay with other family members or friends during your initial period of recovery after rehab. As you become more solidified in your sobriety and your daily routines, your children will be able to return to a safe and sober environment.

Addiction treatment is the best option for parents hoping to achieve sobriety and create a healthy environment for their family members. Make sure your children experience the benefits of recovery by taking this information into consideration.

A Perfect Bathroom for a Child With Physical Disabilities

A Perfect Bathroom for a Child With Physical Disabilities

A child’s home should be both safe and allow freedom of movement. That can be tricky to arrange if the child has a physical disability that impairs their mobility. One way to ensure a child’s freedom of movement is to put the most important rooms, like their bedroom and bathroom, on the main floor, so they won’t have to try to navigate stairs. However, the bathroom is a small space to navigate for any child with physical disabilities. Here are a few ways you can upgrade your bathroom to make it less hazardous for them.

Size matters

In order to accommodate a wheelchair, the bathroom will need at least 30 by 48 inches of clear floor space. The toilet seat should be no higher than 19 inches, and the sink and countertop should be no taller than 34 inches. The latter should also have space for the wheelchair to roll under them. The faucets need to be designed so the child can turn them with only one hand and a force of no more than five pounds of pressure.

A Perfect Bathroom for a Child With Physical Disabilities

Support rails

There needs to be support or guard rails near the toilet and in the shower within easy reach. They will provide enough support so the child can get off the toilet or in or out of the bathtub with little trouble. Most support rails or grab bars can support a person who weighs up to 250 pounds. Sheltering arm grab bars are attached to the toilet on both sides; many also have legs that extend to the floor to provide extra support.

Showerhead

The showerhead should have pressure balancing or anti-scald valves to reduce the risk of being burned by hot water. A pull-out or hand-held showerhead will allow the child to wash themselves while seated. Some showerheads have slide bars that allow the user to adjust the height.

Gel mats

Gel mats will prevent the child from slipping on a wet floor. They should be placed in the tub, just outside it, and near the sink and toilet. While this may not be necessary for wheelchair-bound children, others with muscular or mental disabilities can benefit greatly both from the aid against slipping, and the somewhat padded landing surface in the case that they do.

Open shower

The traditional closed shower is located either in a bathtub or is surrounded by walls. The open shower, by contrast, has no enclosures. It opens up space in the bathroom and is much easier to navigate. It is similarly easy to put a water-proof chair under the showerhead. The installation of hydro construction products like floor drains and shower grates can help you achieve this, leaving no bath or shower curbs to hurdle for your child.

Some of these modifications can be expensive. Fortunately, there are grants that people can use to pay for modifications designed to help a person with a disability.

New to Being a Stepdad? 4 Ways to Find Support in Your New Role

New to Being a Stepdad? 4 Ways to Find Support in Your New Role

Even though divorce is a heart-breaking experience, many people are finding love on the other side through remarriage and blended families. While this is a beautiful experience, it can be a challenging one with the children. If you’re in a position where you get to become a stepdad, you’ll want to make sure you have supportive people in your corner when things get tough. Consider the following ways you can get support.

Keep close contact with friends and family

Communication is key. When you have a close friend or family member that you can use a sounding board, you’ll be a blessed man. Furthermore, make sure that the person who serves as a sounding board can understand the importance of confidentiality.

Consult with healthcare professionals

When you’re dealing with growing children, there are a lot of nuances like hormones and puberty. You have to consider those factors when you’re dealing with them. It’s also important to factor in your own trauma and baggage that you bring to the relationships. Find a trusted doctor and counselor to take about issues like child-rearing and development.

Find online forums with other stepdads

Though the internet can be a treacherous space, the internet can also be a safe space within forums. If you find a forum of step-fathers who support one another and send each other encouraging stepdad quotes, you can maintain a sense of anonymity by creating an alias name. Use different names to protect the privacy of your family members. At the same time, offer wisdom and receive advice from those who seem to provide positive insight.

Keep open communication with your wife

Always maintain a strong connection with your wife. You two are the ones who are glued for the rest of your lives. The children will grow up and move out. It’s extremely wise for the two of you to maintain a united front. If you’re having issues with ways to deal with one of the children, get on one accord regarding how you two will handle the children together. When you two support one another, the children will have no choice but to fall in line.

It’s also important to remember that there will be days when you feel the need to throw in the towel. When those times, it’s okay to take a time-out to go for a walk, exercise, or do something to cool yourself down. Know how to handle yourself so that you don’t make a mistake you regret. After all, it’s an awesome responsibility. Focus on making a positive impact with every chance you get.

4 Ways to Help When a Child Has Chemically Sensitive Skin

4 Ways to Help When a Child Has Chemically Sensitive Skin

Chemical sensitivity is a difficult condition to diagnose. With all of the same hallmarks of allergies, such as rashes and irritated skin, but no common allergen to blame, it can be difficult to see it as more than just ‘sensitive’ skin. However, many suffer from this condition where their body reacts to harsh chemicals and heavy metals with an allergic or even auto-immune type response. While it may feel that your child is allergic to the world, there are steps you can take to make your home a safe haven for them. In addition to learning what the worst irritants are and carefully reading labels to avoid the culprits, here are ways to help your child’s skin problems.

Avoid Harsh Cleaners

Irritating preservatives prevent microbial growth but unfortunately can cause irritation to the skin. Preservatives are known to be the second most common cause of allergic contact dermatitis. Dyes tint products to match skin colors, disguise an undesirable ingredient color, or to tint a product to appeal more to the consumer. Formaldehyde releasers, parabens, and others preserve a product against mold, bacteria, and fungus contamination but also can cause irritation. Surfactants are known for their cleaning or detergent use and for foaming action, but some are skin irritants and sensitizers.

Install a Home Water Filter

Many people install kitchen water filters to counteract the effects of hard water for drinking, but children with particularly sensitive skin may find themselves with dry, itchy skin after every encounter with hard water at every home faucet. In this case, it is simpler to install a whole-home water filtration system to cover all of the water in your home, including showers and bathroom faucets. It filters any sediment, the chlorine odor and taste, and other undesirable elements that may be causing your child discomfort when washing their hands or bodies. Any residential plumbing service will be able to install these, and as the filters rinse and clean themselves, it is a fairly straightforward addition to your home’s plumbing.

Keep Surfaces Wiped Clean

Washing and disinfecting your kitchen surfaces and hands regularly is an important step to help your family’s health. FoodSafety.gov advises taking steps to clean surfaces, utensils, dishes, and hands with hot soapy water before, during and after preparing and eating each food item. Wiping should never be in a circular motion as that causes a dirty wipe to be passed over an area which has just been cleaned. The best technique is to wipe in straight horizontal lines overlapping the previous one and should be done from back to front, from top to bottom, and from cleanest to dirtiest.

Avoid Body Soaps and Shampoos With Artificial Scents

Fragrance may be used to cover up undesirable odors in some of the ingredients in chemical shampoos. Use a natural shampoo that will give clean hair and is free of offending chemicals. A natural shampoo combines essences, essential oils, botanical products, super-hydrating herbal extracts, and nourishing vitamins and minerals that not only moisturize and clean the scalp and hair but also maintain pH balance. The fewer products, the better in terms of caring for your child’s sensitive skin.

Protecting the surface of the skin from inflammation and irritants and providing calming and gentle formulas for skin and hair care will go a long way towards giving your child welcome solutions to everyday necessary chores.

preemie care

Preemie Care for Baby’s Growth – After NICU

Taking a baby home from the NICU is a relieving experience for parents, but this can also be nerve wracking time as well. Parents must be sure to provide their baby with all the tools they need to grow into healthy children. The following four preemie care tips will help parents ensure their babies are growing properly.

Read to Your Baby

Parents with premature babies must focus on exercises and activities that help to stimulate their child’s brain development. Reading is an important activity that will help to facilitate a child’s growth. According to scientists, the earlier parents read to babies, the more prepared they will be for the rigors of school once they start kindergarten.

While reading to children is important for all babies, preemies especially benefit from this activity for two reasons. Reading helps nourish brain growth and development while serving as an important way for parents to bond with their child. Research shows that even in the NICU, reading to preemies helps foster this bond between parent and child.

http://localhost/raisingworld/2019/03/28/comprehensive-list-children-books-strong-values/

Try Kangaroo Care

Kangaroo Care or skin-to-skin contact is another essential way for parents to help their premature babies grow. This intervention technique is a practical way for parents to comfort their child and help them bond. With both mom and dad providing Kangaroo Care, babies are able to feel parents’ heartbeats, smell their scent, sense their voices, and feel the sensation of skin-on-skin. This experience helps to release oxytocin for both parents and the baby, allowing the baby to feel safe and calm while reducing stress.

Encourage Play Time

Parents hoping to encourage their premature babies to grow should engage in playtime. This supervised playtime can include stuffed animals for babies, songs, stories, massage and similar activities that stimulate the various senses. This playtime will help babies feel secure and loved while encouraging brain development and further growing the bond between baby and parent.


Add Supplements to Breast Milk

Parents with premature babies must pay special attention to their baby’s weight gain and nutrition. As preemies have different needs than babies born full-term, parents need to make sure their baby has the proper balance of nutrition and fluids. Premature babies that are breastfeeding will benefit from nutritional supplements added to the breast milk.

Parents should consult their child’s doctor to determine exactly what supplements to give their baby. Typically, preemies will benefit from vitamins D, C, A, calcium, iron, calories, folic acid, and additional protein.

Babies that are born prematurely need extra care to make sure they are on track with their growth and development. With the above four strategies, parents with preemies will be able to make sure their children stay healthy.

How to Recognize and Treat Addiction in Your Teens

How to Recognize and Treat Addiction in Your Teens

An addiction is an incredibly complicated disease that can bring your child’s life to a grinding halt. That is why you must always keep an eye out for the early warning signs of addiction and seek out help right away if you believe that your teenager is struggling with this disease.

Social Isolation

One of the most common signs of teenage substance abuse is social isolation. As the addiction becomes stronger, you might notice that your child no longer wants to spend time with their family or go out with friends. An addiction can also make you lose interest in activities that you once loved. Over the course of a few months, abusing those substances could become the most important thing in their life, and you need to reach out if you want them to avoid long-term problems.

Aggressive or Combative Behavior

You are sure to get into at least a few arguments with your teenager over the years, but your relationship with one another should be mostly positive. If they are struggling with an addiction, then all of your interactions could become hostile or confrontational. There may even come a point when they act aggressively if you even bring up the idea that they might have a problem. While beating an addiction is never going to be easy, professional rehab services are more effective than ever.

Get Them Counseling

Once you have confirmed that your child is struggling with an addiction, you need to contact an organization such as Lifeline right away. Getting your child counseling is going to be vital to their recovery, and you want to find a program that was specifically designed for teenagers. In addition to one-on-one counseling, your child might also benefit from group therapy, family therapy, and short-term inpatient services.

Support Them Along the Way

One of the best things that you can do for your teenager is support them as much as possible during their recovery. Overcoming an addiction is a long-term process, and your child is going to need support from those they love the most. You should also make sure that your child is surrounded by positive and healthy people who are going to give them good examples to follow.

After discovering that your child is struggling with an addiction, you are going to experience a wide range of emotions. While it might be tempting to lash out or argue, it is important to remember that your teen needs support and love if they are going to overcome this disease and move on with their life.

HELP YOUR CHILD BUILD CONFIDENCE AND A GLOBAL MINDSET EARLY.

 

4 Steps to Handling Tantrums in Autistic Children

4 Steps to Handling Tantrums in Autistic Children

All children go through periods of tantrums while they grow and develop. Tantrums are a response a child has when they do not get what they want or need. Tantrums in autistic children can be a challenge. A meltdown occurs from over stimulation. It is important to remember that a tantrum is not the same thing as an autistic meltdown. A tantrum and a meltdown need to be handled in different manners.

4 Practical Steps to Handling Tantrums in Autistic Children

Recognize Tantrum Behavior Triggers

There are certain events or situations that can trigger tantrum behavior. Wanting something that they don’t have, lacking the skills needed to ask for it, not getting something as quickly as they want, and being denied something that they want, can all be tantrum triggers. Knowing your child’s specific triggers beforehand can help you avoid certain situations and prevent unnecessary outbursts. Often, speaking with a professional child psychologist can help tantrums in autistic children by being better at identifying triggers that may not seem so obvious.

Teach Preventative Skills

Many times children do not have the skills necessary to get their desires and needs met. It is at this point that they will break down and throw one of those infamous temper tantrums. Teaching them proper communication, problem-solving, negotiating, impulse control, and self-soothing skills can help to lessen or minimize tantrums. Often, if a child is able to notice their frustration early on, they can take the time needed to calm down and prevent the buildup to either a meltdown or a tantrum.

Reinforce Positive Behavior

Many times children will continue the behavior that gets them the most attention, even if it’s the bad behavior. Therefore, it is important that their positive behavior gets the attention it so rightly deserves. If you see your child react appropriately to the issues that would normally lead to a tantrum, praise them for their efforts in the moment. Show them how proud you are of their accomplishment with a hug or high-five.

Use Proper Disciplinary Skills

Unfortunately, there may be times when your child needs proper discipline for unacceptable behavior. Autism and discipline need to be handled differently than a typical child going through the terrible two’s. Children with autism have difficulty understanding the language of everyday rules. Raising your voice in anger or frustration can only make an autistic child withdraw further.

The first step in proper discipline is to assess your child’s needs and strengths and apply the appropriate approach that works best with their particular personality. Professionals can also assist in identifying what methods work best with your child’s particular needs in discipline and in communicating.

While dealing with a child who is throwing a temper tantrum can be extremely frustrating, it can be overcome or even avoided with the right tools. Knowing what triggers your child ahead of time is the first step. Teaching them the skills they need to prevent their feelings of frustration and then reinforcing good behavior can lead to a healthy and calm future for the both of you.

Helping Kids Imbibe Both Languages in a Bilingual Household

Helping Kids Imbibe Both Languages in a Bilingual Household

Love is beautiful in whatever way it manifests itself. One of the most beautiful sights to witness is when two people come across cultures to find one another and fall in love. It’s not always an easy thing to do, but it’s wonderful when a couple can embrace their differences, stand in solidarity and build with each other. One of the most interesting components involves having children. If you both speak a different language, consider the ways you can raise your child in a bilingual household.

Celebrate both cultures as a family

Respect is paramount when you’re teaching about different cultures. Do your own research to make sure you’re not passing down information about other cultures that is steeped in ignorance or specific stereotypes. As you teach your child to respect both cultures, it’ll become second nature. One of the ways you can teach respect is through balancing the exposure to both cultures. Find ways to promote and highlight the beauty of both instead of putting one country and culture on a pedestal above the other.

Speak both languages at home

Make it a habit of teaching and speaking both languages at home. As your child learns to read, label each item in the home with the name from both languages. If you and your family eat breakfast and dinner together, consider splitting the time. You all can speak one language in the morning and the other language in the evening.

Find a bi-lingual preschool program

Your child is going to spend a considerable amount of time at school. It’s great to find a program that will support the work you and your spouse are doing at home. This is why it’s wise to find a Bilingual Early Childhood Center to visit and potentially enroll your child in. Do your own research to make sure it’s a program that you are comfortable with. The benefits of a good program, however, will mean greater fluency for your child in both languages and a greater sense of bonding socially among their peers.

Share both languages in your visual media

When you all are watching television or movies as a family, experience a variety of options. If Saturday night is your family movie night, alternate between watching movies in the respective languages of the home. The same applies to television shows or news channels. Even if you or your spouse aren’t fluent in both languages, having regular access to both languages during their developmental years will go a long way in helping them build their vocabulary.

When you’re teaching a child to speak one language, it can already prove to be an interesting journey. However, when you add another language on top of another, you’ll have to be even more intentional. As you implement these tips, remember to do so with lots of patience. Know that this is a journey worth committing to because children are sponges. They can learn whatever you teach them.

Helping Kids Imbibe Both Languages in a Bilingual Household

30 % Discount This Summer.
Grab it for a Quick Summer Read Now!

helping kids with adhd

Not Just a Phase : 4 Things to Know When Helping Kids with ADHD

Having a son or daughter with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can be challenging for both you and your child.  You may feel frustrated at their lack of focus and discipline, and they can quickly become frustrated with themselves as well. Learning to recognize the symptoms and knowing what to expect can help both of you manage the condition better so that your child can still be happy and productive in their life. Here are four things that every parent should know about helping kids with ADHD.

Things Every Parent Needs to Know When Helping Kids with ADHD

Learn More about Helping Kids with ADHD

Kids Don’t Outgrow ADHD

It’s important to realize that ADHD isn’t just some childhood phase that your kid will grow out of someday. For many people, having ADHD is a lifelong struggle that can impact their work and home lives in a variety of ways. With time, they can find ways to manage it better, whether it be through focus exercises, medication, neuro-feedback sessions, or basic coping mechanisms throughout the day.

However, in order to do that, they need help right now in their youth to find ways to work with and around their condition so that they can carry those methods into their adulthood.

Early Treatment Is Crucial

Getting early treatment for your child can help both of you avoid certain problems that are often associated with untreated ADHD. This treatment should include working with doctors and mental health professionals, like those at Smarter Parenting, who can customize treatment plans to help your child better cope with the condition. ADHD often includes problems with impulse control that cannot be handled with regular disciplinary methods.

Professional help and guidance can help you and your child recognize when their disorder is interfering with their thoughts and actions, and how the child can take pre-emptive steps to handle it. While it isn’t ideal, medication can often become necessary, especially if their impulsiveness gets to the point that they frequently become injured.

Distractions Aren’t Intentional

In the early stages, you might believe that your child is intentionally getting distracted to avoid certain responsibilities in school or around the home. However, this isn’t the case. The fact of the matter is that so many areas of their mind are firing up at once, that focusing on just one is like trying to keep cats out of trouble in a china shop. Increasing the stress and pressure on them will only add to the problem. Instead, help them find coping mechanisms to focus their minds.

Fidgets like spinners and stress balls can help direct the excess energy in their minds and bodies, giving them more mental space to focus on the task at hand. White noise, such as wordless music, can achieve the same effect in some circumstances, as well. Understand that finding what works is an effort of trial, error, and research that may take years before you finally see your child excel.

Time and Patience Are Required

To properly cope with ADHD, you and your child will need a lot of time and patience. Getting frustrated or expecting your child to progress quickly while undergoing a certain treatment could be detrimental. Children with ADHD often respond better to parents who show compassion and are willing to take the extra time to help manage the condition. If you and your child are struggling to find the time and patience to deal with ADHD properly, consulting with a counselor or another professional in the ADHD field is advisable.

There is a lot to learn about having a son or daughter who’s been diagnosed with ADHD, but making yourself aware of everything that’s involved with the condition can be highly beneficial for both you and your child. With the right knowledge, you’ll make the entire process of managing ADHD easier for everyone.

Read more about how to help kids with different abilities.