“Playing” or “Fighting” with Baby…

Posted on December 2, 2013 by llpitlwp

This video shows a dad “fighting” with his baby. To me this borders on child abuse. I know that dad is trying to be funny but at the baby’s expense…therefore …NOT FUNNY.

Just like teasing this kind of “baby rough housing” seems over the top especially when you make a video of it and you are able to see the baby’s facial and physical reactions to the actions of his dad.

What do you think?

To me, making a You-tube video, “Fighting with Baby“, actually encourages other parents to rough house with the babies in their lives.

This is just not funny…

Babies are learning trust especially in their caregivers; here we see the baby’s father literally throwing him onto the bed…twisting him around his arm and tickling him silly. The baby then tries to defend himself by “hitting” dad in the face only to be thwarted in his self-defending efforts.

I love social media and baby/kid videos but this video makes me sick as I watch it. I would like to see it taken down and a statement from the dad apologizing for using his son to publicize his own career. I would also like him to say that this activity could be emotionally and physically harmful.

Some people think that baby’s are “things” and have very few needs since they seem to just eat, sleep and cry. This is simply not so.

Babies are developing emotionally and physically at a very fast rate during their first year of life…parents and caregivers have a major role in this development. “Fighting” with baby is something we should not ever consider during this time.

At the very least: This video should come with a disclaimer.

Puke Fest, Photography, Play

Posted on November 22, 2013 by llpitlwp

Puke Fest, I think all of us have experienced this but not to the extent of this mom. She has developed and shared a strategy for dealing with the flu in her family of six children.

Get some tips to be ready if “puke fest” comes to your home.

http://www.yummymummyclub.ca/blogs/julie-cole-the-baby-machine/surviving-pukefest

If you like taking photos of your family when they are not sick…this is a wonderful site that will take your photography to new level without even leaving your home. You will need a real camera…not just your phone. Have fun and enjoy the view.

Welcome! I am so excited that you are here and eager to learn more about photography! I want to share with you everything I have learned over the past couple of years and help you along your journey! Whether you just got your first DSLR or you have been shooting for years, we have something for everyone.

New Here? – Click it Up a Notch.

Play is one of the most important things our kids do that add positively to their growth and development. Here are six gifts that will encourage your child to direct their own play.

Learning to be a responsive play observer takes thoughtfulness, restraint and practice, but once we get this down, we’ll discover more delightful moments of joy, humor and surprise than we ever thought possible. And we need these daily parenting “bonuses” to balance the more difficult moments and break up the monotony. We’ll also get more guilt-free breaks from parenting because we’ve encouraged our children to hone their independent play skills in our presence (but that’s another post).

6 Gifts That Encourage Child-Directed Play | Janet Lansbury.

How Do You Know If You and Your Child Need a Play Date Consultant?

Posted on July 20, 2013 by llpitlwp

Have you ever heard the expression that “there is nothing new under the sun”…

I was a believer in that saying, until I read about this!

Experts said that kids may need the play-date tutoring because their young lives have become so regimented, with classes in subjects like Mandarin and violin, that they don’t know how to play with others.

via Rich parents hire play-date consultants to help kids play better for private-school admissions – NYPOST.com.

Since when do children need experts to tutor them in how to successfully negotiate a play date? Has childhood really become so regimented that kids don’t know how to be kids any longer?

Or is it that parents do not know how to let kids just be kids?

Play is childhood…it is how children learn about the world and how they develop skills that they will use in day to day life. It is how they first learn to problem solve.

Watching children play is absolutely fascinating…at least in my eyes.

As a grandmother of one…I am having the time of my life…I am getting to have another chance to interact on an almost daily basis with a child. I have learned from experience with my own children “not to sweat the small stuff” that children will figure it out if left to themselves to solve a problem.

Patience and time is what I have on my side. This was not always true and I realize that it is the same for this generation of parents. Like myself, they cannot wait for their children to grow…they want them to succeed…they want them not to have to deal with all the difficulties that they dealt with as children. They want “the best” for them.

In this quest for “the best”, today’s parents may just be denying their children what is best. That is just being a child and being allowed to grow and develop through play activities and imagination.

Can trust be said enough times? Trust should be our mantra. It is the secret to the most successful parenting and also the secret to enjoying it. Trust in our child, along with the magic word “wait”, help us to stay our course when friends, family, and unenlightened professionals imply that we’re not doing enough, and/or our child isn’t keeping up. Trust will remind us to let go of personal expectations for our child and to instead recognize and support the expectations she has for herself. Trust, trust, trust. It will never lead us astray. ~ Janet via Janet Lansbury/Elevating ChildCare

Parenting is definitely work and that has not changed.

In many ways, it is even more difficult in today’s world to unplug, wind down, and leave the calendar open to do whatever you fancy for a day now and then.

Just perhaps parents should schedule themselves to unschedule and let themselves and their children stop and learn to play.

Toast Tuesday…

Posted on October 9, 2012 by llpitlwp

“Fostering Self-Directed Play: ten tips to help pre-schoolers entertain themselves “| Loving Earth, Mama!.

It is Tuesday…and I like to recommend a blog once a week. Today, I found “Loving Earth, Mama”.

Motherhood is a journey, a fun if challenging ride – won’t you join me on mine?

I never considered myself an “earth” mother but as a grandmother I am reading more and more about parenting styles…there are so many styles and the differences are sometimes so slight that at this point they are all melding together in my head. This melding is not a bad thing. In fact, I rather think that it is the way it should be. I find when I get fanatic about any one thing I soon get tired of it and close myself off to so many other good things. For me balance is key. It isn’t easy but I prefer it.

I hope you enjoy “Loving Earth Mama” and don’t let the name push you away…it is like judging a book by its cover but in the age of technology we often do not even see the book cover any more.

‘Breast Milk Baby’ …

Posted on July 20, 2011 by llpitlwp

Breast milk baby-doll, I never thought about it to be truly honest. But now that it has been a discussion on “The View” and other morning news shows, I guess I do have an opinion.

Personally, I think that this doll can certainly teach children about breast feeding therefore it is a good thing. Children are learning all the time and playing with a breast-feeding doll will do no harm…I see it only as a positive experience.

Recently, I was walking with a 2 year old little girl who has a Princess Tiana doll. Now, the little two year old was caucasian and as we know Princess Tiana is a ‘black’ character from the Disney movie, ‘Princess and the Frog’.

We were actually walking through Chicago’s Midway airport. During this walk, I could see both white and black men and women smiling as they watched my little friend tending to Princess Tiana. This little one will soon learn that there is a difference in skin color but right now she is just being a child and enjoying herself.

I feel the same way about the breast feeding doll…little ones will be just being themselves while playing with this doll…they will not have acquired all of our ‘adult’ hang-ups about breast feeding.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could look through the eyes of a ‘little one’ when it comes to breast feeding and simply see a mother feeding her child.

Adults have been preparing little kids for adulthood in wacky ways for generations. When I was in grade school, I had to coddle a bag of sand for two weeks, pretending it was my baby. My friends had to take care of an egg, making sure not to drop and break it.

Now, a Spanish company is bringing a breast-feeding doll for kids to the United States. The Breast Milk Baby works by making motions and suckling sounds when a sensor in its mouth gets close to a flowery halter top the child wears while “breast-feeding.”

The doll has already seen success in Europe, generating more than $2 million in sales for its maker, Berjuan Toys, since the doll was first released in Spain four years ago.

But the reception in the United States has been mixed.

Berjuan Toys’ U.S. spokesman, Dennis Lewis, told BlogPost on Monday that reactions to the doll have been 75 to 80 percent positive stateside.

“Once people sit down and think about it, there’s nothing controversial about it,” Lewis said.

Some of the support has come from breast-feeding advocates, who say the doll helps children learn about how to feed a baby in a natural way.

But parents interviewed by “Good Morning America” were split on the issue.

via ‘Breast Milk Baby’ breast-feeding doll headed for U.S. – BlogPost – The Washington Post.