Obesity in Children

I wonder if it is becoming a common trend or is it just me – but over the past couple of years I have been witnessing an increasing rate of children who are obese and overweight. While some parents may like to see that their children are fed well, it does not necessarily mean that they are any healthier than their trimmer counterparts. In fact, many obese children have been diagnosed to suffer from diabetes at a tender age. Also, studies have shown that obese children tend to be less attentive in class, less active in school and also lack confidence in their social activities later on in life.

There are several factors why more children are getting obese these days.

In the big cities, parents are often reluctant to let their children play outdoors due to fear for their safety. Instead, they encourage their kids to go online or play video games for entertainment. Play time nowadays is reduced to accommodate extracurricular activities and school homework assignments. Gone were the days when kids had more time on their hands to play with their friends.

All of this results in diminished unstructured play time. Children need time to play with other children to get social interaction. Socially inept kids are more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression and attention-deficit disorder in addition to obesity. Unstructured play fosters innovation and creative thinking. Kids need to be kids to be healthy and happy!

Happily, obesity in children is a situation which can be prevented or improved. Here are a couple of suggestions for parents and schools to combat the growing problem of obesity in kids.

 Less TV and Internet – Reduce the number of hours children spend watching TV, playing video games, getting online and chatting on cell phones. All these activities (or inactivities!) encourage sitting or lying down for long stretches of time. Get your child to go to the playground, play sports with his friends or anything else that requires him to get off the chair and onto his feet.

I hope that parents of obese and overweight kids will consider the above suggestions and take the correct step forward to give their children a healthy lifestyle and solve their weight problems.

Another recent study shows that there may be a direct link between children going to bed late and obesity! Study author Dr Jim Dollman points out that most kids get up at around 7am however they now go to bed at least half an hour later.

Dr Dollman says the lack of sleep could be a cause of higher weight levels in children.”That’s the difference in sleep duration between overweight and normal weight children, according to a recent study overseas,” he said.

“So it may well be that the 30-minute reduction is contributing in the increase in the prevalence of overweight that we’re seeing among children.”

Annoying Child Behavior Problems and How to Manage Them!

It is a very well known fact that the child behavior problems can be very very annoying.

Many parents are often irritated by the behavior of their children – they would like the behavior to stop and / or change, however they do not know what they can do to initiate the ceasing of or the changing of the behavior of their children.

More often than not, parents will simply just become used to annoying behavior and therefore the annoying behaviour simply just escalates. Often to a point where it becomes a bad habit and / or bad behavior. Some parents choose not to pay any attention to their kids annoying behavior, although they are still aware of the behavior of their children.

We all know that all parents would like their children to behave better and that is why parents should be consistently encouraging their children and teaching their children good behavioral practices. If parents remain diligent in teaching their children good behavioral practices, then the bad behavioral habits will eventually cease to be a problem.

Patience is one of the essential key skills that every parent needs when teaching their child to change their behavior. Losing patience is never going to help a child improve his or her behavior. It will just become an additional problem in the future when the child displays a lack of patience when doing things. Something that most kids learn from their parents by the way! Parents need to keep this in mind.

A few helpful tips for managing changing child behavior are:-

- Parents need to approach helping their children overcome an annoying behavioral problem proactively.

For example, when a child starts crying just to get their own way, parents should never give in to the child.

It is better to just leave the child to cry and just continue whatever task you are doing at the time.

By doing this, the child will learn that crying and / or throwing a tantrum is not the way to get what they want.

- Always keep it in mind that children learn how to behave by watching their parents and siblings. The people they spend most of their time with.

If you do not want your child to yell and scream, then you need to set the example by not doing it yourself.

- Explain to your children the types of behaviors you will not accept from them, but keep it short, simple and to the point. Children don’t understand well when they are lectured. They will just lose concentration and start thinking about something else.

- Ban all negative behaviors as well as negative words. Teach them alternative ways to say certain things. Instead of saying NO teach them to say ‘I’m busy right now. I’ll do it in a minute!’

Instant results in your changing child’s behavior are possible, but not likely, so it’s best to remember that all things do take time.

- Take note of when your kids are behaving well and give them lots of encouragement and praise when they are well behaved. Kids love to be praised and they will soon become addicted to it. So, always give praise when it is due.

Your child’s changing behavior is normal, so learn to focus on encouraging good behavior and discouraging bad behavior and there will no longer be any child behavior problems.

There are many things that we as parents can do to manage changing child behavior. Behavior doesn’t usually change overnight, though and a behaviour that you think you have quashed may reappear in the future. Only thing is, it will be a little easier to change a second time round.

Toddler Hitting Problems

Toddler hitting problems can be downright frustrating for parents to deal with. Controlling child behavior problems requires parents to be patient and to learn to understand what is going through your child’s mind and to learn how to properly guide your child in the right direction. After all, your toddler may have no clear concept of the difference between right and wrong. Your child may be blissfully unaware that his actions have very real consequences that can be felt by the victim of the hitting.

Toddler hitting problems are a means of expressing himself. It is not that your child is necessarily doing it out of pure anger and frustration. He may simply be trying to get a point across or communicate an idea. Toddlers also like to experiment with cause and effect. Perhaps he may want to see what happens if he hits another child.

So how can you, as a parent, deal with toddler hitting problems as such? Here are 5 tips on effectively controlling toddler bad behavior:

1. Do not hit your child as a punishment if he hits another child. By doing this, you are absolutely sending him the wrong message, that hitting is okay sometimes. So if you are one of those parents who believe in hitting your child as a form of discipline, it might be a good idea to rethink your strategy at this point. The key is to get inside the mind of your child and try to understand things from his perspective. It is not necessarily the case that your child is intentionally trying to hurt the other kid.

2. Pay attention to the child who was hit, not to the child who did the hitting. The idea here is to not reward your child’s hitting with attention, as that might encourage your child to think that he can get more attention from mommy and daddy if he hits more and more. By paying attention to the victim, you are disrupting your child’s thought process that associates hitting with pleasure (in the form of garnering parental attention), when he sees instead that the victim gets attention instead.

3. Explore alternative forms of discipline. You must make eye contact with your child and clearly explain to your child that what he did was wrong and that he hurt the other child. You may also punish your child with a timeout or other similar form of punishment.

4. Learn to anticipate hitting before it happens and redirect your child’s attention. If you are able to determine a discern-able pattern of repetitious behavior that leads up to hitting, then you should intervene and redirect your child’s attention or energies in such a way that he would not end up hitting in the first place.

5. Guide your child on how to use other means to achieve the same end. For example, if your child is hitting another kid due to a squabble over sharing a toy, then teach your child alternative means to resolve the dispute, such as by teaching him how to assertively but politely talk to the other child.

Toddler hitting problems are common. Controlling toddler behavior requires you to get into the mind of your child and to teach him. By hitting your child or screaming at him, you are sending him the wrong message.