Tips & Ideas

The Development of A Baby’s Mind Through Stimulation

By Andrew Gibson

Every parent wants what is best in life for their children and as a result they strive hard to give their babies the best possible start in life. It is now a widely accepted fact that you must stimulate a young baby’s mind from an early an age as possible. Parents want the best possible education for their children and in order to achieve this, they have to get them into the best performing schools.

In their quest to provide them with a good education many parents start educating their own children in the home. In the past this began when the child was able to walk and talk. The process now begins as soon as the baby comes home from the hospital by providing the baby with objects that will stimulate their mind.

Many parents now purchase interactive toys for their babies. Research has shown that babies react to bright coloured toys. There is now a vast choice of new baby toys available all brightly coloured. Many new baby soft toys now have microchips imbedded inside them. This enables the toys to talk or even sing a lullaby. The new baby quickly picks up the sound of the toy and soon learns how to interact with it. This process is now so advanced that the microchips are produced in many different languages. As a result a baby in England can learn the same lullaby as a baby in China, each baby hearing the lullaby in their own country’s mother tongue.

Traditional baby toys are still popular with the time old favourites being the ones that rattle. The baby again interacts with these toys learning how to rattle them and where the rattle comes from. In the same way as modern baby toys, some of the old fashioned baby toys also help to stimulate a baby’s mind.

The one thing that all of these toys have in common is the ability to make the baby inquisitive and there by speeding up their thought process. The key to the successful mind development of a baby is to make sure that they enjoy the process and that they regard it as a game. Provide them with toys that are cute, cuddly, noisy and colourful. Slowly introduce more toys and games and make the learning process a fun event. The trick is to interact with the baby when playing these games there by not making it a chore or bore to the young child. By providing them with the correct range of toys you can easily teach them about colours, counting and animals while at the same time and most importantly still allowing them to be a baby.

As the baby grows older you can slowly introduce more educationally slanted games and begin to expand your baby’s mind in a fun but subtle way. Encourage the baby to interact with the toys and also interact with you. It is soon very easy to introduce counting games and also to teach the alphabet. There is no better way of doing this than of reading the baby stories.

The use of expression and laughter helps to keep the babies attention. As the child grows older, you should then involve them more in the story but naming one of the characters after them.

By combining and introducing some of the above techniques is a fun way of helping your baby grow up and their mind develop. There are now many baby toys to choose from that are not only fun for the baby but also educationally simulative. It makes sense to take advantage of these toys and providing your baby with the best possible starts in life.

Andrew Gibson is MD of The Card and Gift Company. It is one of the fastest growing online retailers of new baby gifts and cards.To see an example of why The Card and Gift Company is growing so rapidly have a look at Baby Gifts

Article Source: Artipot

Eating Well For You During Your Pregnancy

By David Riewe

Eating healthy throughout your pregnancy is the greatest gift you could give your unborn baby, but there are also a lot of rewards in it for you to. It’s common for many moms to be to forget that they also benefit in eating healthy through out their pregnancy. What you eat has a direct effect as to how well your body copes and recovers from all the physical changes it goes through. It also helps with the physical and emotional challenge of carrying and delivering a baby.

Making a Home Budget That Works For You

By Edward Lathrop

Do you seem to be getting behind in your bills? Is your situation like that old country song, “There’s Too Much Month at the End of the Money?” Here are some ways to help you get up off life’s financial mat and back on the road to prosperity.

Get rid of the gas-guzzler

If you drive 20,000 miles a year and the price of gas is $2.50 per gallon, you will pay $5,000 a year or $416 a month for gas, if your car gets 10 miles a gallon. At 40 miles a gallon you will be paying about $100 a month.

A new car may save you money in many ways plus you’ll be saving over $300 a month in gas charges and you can, probably, find a new car whose payment is $200 a month. So, you will be saving about $100 a month with a new car. If you are making payments on the current gas-guzzler, you will save that much more.

Pay off your credit cards

If there is any way you can pay your credit cards, do it. By making the monthly payments only, you will never pay your credit cards off in full. Even if you have to refinance your house to do it, if you are serious about trying to balance your budget, pay off your credit cards and never use one again!

Pay bills on time

Late charges are financial killers. I know people who pay $300 a month in late charges. Pay on time no matter what you have to do to do it. When you pay late charges you are getting deeper into a hole. There is more about this subject below.

Give up one unnecessary coffee

Maybe you are not a coffee drinker but this example shows you the impact of not keeping your eye on every single daily expense. One extra coffee from your local coffee shop per day costs $60 a month. Sometimes this is the difference between paying all your bills on time or starting on the late payment route.

Maybe it isn’t coffee but there is probably something you can cut out of your daily expenses that might be the difference between success and failure when it comes to balancing the home budget. Here’s how:

When you don’t pay a $40 credit card payment on time it will cost you $25 in late fees, sometimes more. Then, if you do the same thing again next month you will be paying something else late, too because the extra $25 fee will cause you to be unable to pay a different bill.

As you can see, this is a compounding problem. Before you know it, you will have to win the lottery to get out of the mess. It is the little things that mean so much when you are trying to balance the budget.

Refinance high interest loans

If your mortgage interest is over 8% it’s time to refinance. A $200,000 mortgage for 30 years at 8% is $1,468 a month; at 6% it is $1,200. On top of that, if you have any equity at all you can add your credit card balances to the principal you are refinancing. $20,000 refinanced would bring your mortgage principal up to $220,000. However, at 6%, the monthly payment would be $1,320.

With the old 8%, $200,000 mortgage you were paying $1,468 monthly, plus you were probably paying about $400 monthly in credit card payments. If you are a homeowner having a problem balancing your budget, look into what a refinance could do for you.

Don’t worry about points and closing costs, you are tying to balance the budget because that is your best chance at stating down the road to prosperity. It is not the time to worry what you will be paying over the course of the mortgage. Once you have your budget balanced, you can look into saving 10’s of thousands of dollars by paying off your mortgage sooner.

Give yourself an allowance

Give yourself a weekly allowance to use as carrying around money. Calculate how much you need for your weekly expenses and stick to it. I know people who have saved $300 a month by doing this. Think about it, $300 is only $5.00 a day for both husband and wife.

Audit your bills

Audit all your bills. For instance, take a look at your cable bill. I bet there are some things there you don’t know you have but are paying for. How about your phone bill? Are there ways you can save money there? Many people can but they never knew it. Is there any way you can cut down on heating or lighting expenses? You won’t know until you audit your bills.

One bill you should definitely audit is the cell phone bill. I’ll bet there are families who could save $500 a month if they decided to make believe it was the 50’s.

It is often no more than $200 a month, or $50 a week that spells the difference between making it and breaking it in the world of home finance. So, get organized. If you don’t you could end up being road kill along the side of the road to financial freedom, but if you put your mind to it, you’ll be the windshield and all those annoying creditors will be the bugs!

Ed Lathrop is a successful real estate investor and a series 3 commodities futures broker. He has extensive knowledge of the credit/mortgage markets as well the commodities futures market. He has developed EzCalculator, a Mortgage Calculator with a “pay off credit card debt” calculator, a free “student loan” calculator and the famous “How to Make $100,000 on Your Mortgage” calculator. Come visit this free site at Free Financial Calculator. Also, get a Free Amortization Schedule and find out how it can save you thousands of dollars at: Amortization Schedules Free.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Edward_Lathrop
http://EzineArticles.com/?Making-a-Home-Budget-That-Works-For-You&id=958555

Ways To Raise Self Esteem

By: Wai Chong Mak

What is self esteem? According to Dr Keith Levick (2002), self esteem is our personal belief system that defines our world. It affects every aspect of our lives: how we feel about ourselves and others; how confident we feel; how negative or positive we are.

Healthy self esteem

A child with healthy self esteem will act independently, take on responsibility, face frustration, learn from mistakes, express his emotion in a safe way, be confident and relaxed.

Low self esteem

On the contrary, a child with low self esteem will be dependent, easily frustrated and influenced by others, complaining, blame others and may exhibit emotional problems. Labelling and comparing children with others will low the self esteem of the children.

How to develop healthy self esteem

1. Give Attention

Children measure love in term of T-I-M-E. When you spend time with them with attention, they feel loved. It helps to build self esteem of the children. You can play with your children e.g. kicking football, role playing game, playing toys with them together. They will not remember the toys you bought to them when they were young. However, they will remember the important moment with you while you are doing something with them together and the way you are interacting with them.

2. Affirmation

Affirm the child’s good characters and behaviour e.g. responsible, caring, obedient and so on. For instance, a father praised the child’s effort to put the shoes in the shoe rack. He said, “You are very orderly because you tidy up the shoes.”

Before we go to sleep, my husband and I go to the bedside of each child and tell them how important and wonderful they are and affirm their good characters and behaviour. It helps to build the bond with the children and enhance their self-esteem.

3. Unconditional Love

Parents give unconditional love to their children. They are totally accepting their children as who they are. Parent s can accept their strengths and weaknesses. On one hand, parents can encourage them to develop the good character quality. On the other hand, parents need to point out to their children what kind of behaviour and attitude that is not right and how to improve it. Parents need to assure their children that they love them disregard of their behaviour and motivate them to improve their behaviour and attitude. With unconditional love as the basis, it helps the children to improve their self esteem.

Parents involvement is very important in the development of their children. They give constant effort and time to affirm their children, they help their children to feel loved and secured. Thus, they will feel good about themselves and raise their self esteem.

Author Resource: Ms Mak Wai Chong, a mother of 3 children, is a freelance trainer and counsellor. She has worked as social worker and counsellor for 17 years. Visit her website at WiseParents.net for prenatal training and parenting information and FREE newsletters.

Article From Niche Article Directory

This article Success at the Grocery Store was posted on getting-ahead.blogspot.com by Jennifer who is a home schooling mom.

I wanted to post a link to the article because I think Jennifer summed up in a very clear manner, the reasons why you need to make a grocery list and stick to it.

She stresses the need to plan ahead and avoid running back to the store for the items that you may have neglected to get the first time. This helps to avoid impulse buying during the extra, unnecessary trips. Please read her article for more information.