UN News - UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Katy Perry calls for increased focus on children in Viet Nam

UN News - UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Katy Perry calls for increased focus on children in Viet Nam

UN News - UN children's agency 'alarmed' at refugee and migrant deaths in the Mediterranean

UN News - UN children's agency 'alarmed' at refugee and migrant deaths in the Mediterranean

Stressing over summer break

Okay moms, summer is here and you will soon stop loading your little ones into the car every day of the week like you normally do and dropping them off at school where you are sure they will be using half of their day there and you can at least do one thing or the other before you pick them up again.

Lets not pretend too much, some of us actually look up to Monday, when our children will go off to school again and you will have little time to yourself either as a stay home mom, a part time working mom or even a full time mom.( maybe not too much for a mom that has more younger once that still stay home) But one or twice we have breathe that sigh of relieve when we drop them off.

Either because we want a break from the ones that can not stop chartering away asking every type of question that you can never imagine, or the ones that will not stop whining about one thing of the other, or the ones with a very strong personality and will challenge you about everything all day long if you let them, to say a few.

Now you are beginning to wonder what you are going to do when they are home all day all summer long and deep inside you it's almost like you are going crazy thinking of what to do, how to do it, when to do it. Checking out every advert on any activities for kids and hoping to get ones that you can afford so that your babies can enjoy their summer but most of all that you still remain your whole self by the time summer break ends.

Well, unlike many people will give advice on what to do that will make things okay, i don't think there are much you can do because those things will not go away and the most important thing is that you gave birth to them, they are yours and the will remain your even after summer break has ended. It's easier to say do this and this when some of the advice givers don't even have kids yet.

WHAT I CAN TELL YOU IS

• Just relax, take the day as it comes and before you can say Jack Robinson, time is gone.
• Also try and do activities that they are interested in. When you engage them daily in things they really love to do, they are more excited and they are more in a relax mode.( Certify every activities first).
• Be involve with them by doing fun things together.
• Set goals for them, like reading some number of books for a particular period of time and seeing who read more, they will love it because children are competitive.
• Reward good behavior and it will motivate them to be good

I believe there are still more options out there but as you know i am not a professional when it comes to kids but one thing i am is that i am a MOTHER, and that counts. Thanks for reading and i hope you were able to relate to this a bit and gain something. See you soon like my 2 years old will always say.

UN News - Colombia: agreement to reintegrate children from FARC welcomed by UN envoy

UN News - Colombia: agreement to reintegrate children from FARC welcomed by UN envoy

UN News - Nearly a quarter of the world’s school-age children live in crisis-hit countries – UNICEF

UN News - Nearly a quarter of the world’s school-age children live in crisis-hit countries – UNICEF

Be Encouraged

Okay, i don't have to really think that deep before i know what i want to blog about today. Have you ever woken up and had those feeling of: hmm today is really going to be a hectic day and you started bracing yourself for what ever will come. Well that was the type of day i had yesterday.

I woke up feeling really tired even though i have been sleeping for like six hours( actually maybe less because i have a six months old). I managed to drag myself up from the bed to get my son ready for school and i  just made sure i went through the whole day not feeling like myself. I had to continue attending to my kids despite the fact that i myself needs attention. my priority those moments are my kids

Enough of my story, what i am driving at is that, as parents, no mater how you feel, the little kids that we have do not stop demanding your attention or what they need from you. and its not really easy especially if you have more than one like myself.

And that is where self encouragement comes in, for that fact that no one is around to be a source of energy, that is the more reason why you should push on, encouraging and believing in yourself every step of the way.

 Its actually easy for others to give you words of encouragement at the moment that you need it without checking back to see how you actually did. but if you are the one guiding yourself on, at the end of it all when you realized that you have scaled through, you will be able to give yourself a pat on the back because you understand where you are coming from.

likewise we should apply this type of method not only to taking care of our kids or doing house chores but to those big projects that you have to face and accomplish during your down times.
Always remember that down times are not forever, its just but for a moment.

https://www.facebook.com/EncourageASoul/

Help for moms 2

  I wrote about the situation of moms all over the world some few days ago and i want to believe most mothers understand my point and can relate to the contents of my writing.But rather for me to be the analyzer of what the problem is and how its affecting most people including me, i will rather think of a way out that will be beneficial to both myself and everyone that has the opportunity of reading this write up.

The questions that most of us ask are; 

What can i do? 

How can we help one another to achieve our aim?

In my own words i will like to tell us what we can do and how we can actually help our self and one another.

What can i do? 

I have always believe that there is a way out of every situation even though the situation may be different and there are things i can do to better my situations but all we just need to try. Don't be defeated before the war starts.

One thing i know for sure is that women are strong both physically and mentally and are capable of achieving a lot by them self. You are already doing a lot by juggling all your activities so do not break down because you have it in you, bring out that strength in you, set out your priorities and try to achieve them one after the other without thinking too much of what is still left to be done. Take one step at a time.

  

How can we help one another to achieve our aim?

As much as everyone is busy with their lives, we can still come together as moms to help each other live a life void of stress.

Lets create care groups among ourselves and alternate who watches the kids at what time so that others can have a day off . Or if your circle of friends are the ones that prefer baby sitters, u can collectively hire one or two to babysit your kids together there by reducing the financial stress(which i will still blog about in details) Rely on your circle of support for advice, relief, and help with some of your hardest tasks. 

Lets ask for help whenever we need it from the few people around us that are still willing to help. It may be family members, friends, neighbors, community groups and organizations or just anyone we truly know( please do not for any reason give you kids to strangers to watch) who is genuinely interested in a positive relationship where you both can help each other out.

I also want to say even when you ask for help and cant find non, keep your head up and just go on with your life, if anything or anyone at all have told you or still telling you that you cant achieve without outside help, just go on and show them you can.

And that is the greatest help you can find. YOU.

Help for moms

Hi everyone, i woke up this morning thinking of what moms go through each and everyday, trying to balance work with home with kids( including their husband) if you understand what i mean with a tone of humor because they tend to behave like babies sometimes.

Anyway, back to my point. In the society that we are today, women take up more roles than it used to be with our parents in the olden day. Dont get me wrong, our fore parents( mothers) do a lot during their time but there is that element of help from families, friends, neighbors etc that is not available in today's society.

In the now society, nobody cares to even offer to help you with watching or playing with your kids so that you can have sometimes to yourself. Not because they do do wish to help, everyone is just busy either with their own kids or just with something else trying to make ends meet.

And for some of us that have families willing to help, we may actually be living far from them.

Its so tough on career moms and even stay home moms are not exempted as many people thinks, it actually feels like they do more sometimes than the ones that goes to an office to work. Only difference i believe is the office and home environment

So i just thought to myself today, there must be a way out to relieving the stress on women generally, what can we do for each other to help balance our lives so that we can better impact our kids in positive ways?...........to be countinued

Encouraging reading in kids

I found it very interesting when parents or adults says that children or even teens should be left alone to do what they need to do at their own time. Yes, its very good to let them be independent and take their time achieving milestones but its also a reality that no kid want to do anything except to play.  

Well, maybe not everyone but I can speak for myself growing up, I love to play and it takes the help and intervention of my mom who stood her ground at all times insisting that I read before I realizes that I need to be more diligent about my studies and it finally paid off. 

As a mother myself, i find it sometimes challenging and its like a tug of war sometimes getting my little ones to sit down and read or let me read to them. as much as am trying to help, i wouldn't mind learning myself and getting one or two tips on how to start having a better experience reading with my kids

I will be uploading books that will be of great help to you and your kids and also short children stories from me and other writers.  Its not too late for you or your young ones to start reading, lets do it together. 
The question i will like to ask is,  

what do you do to help and encourage your young ones to read?

Lets try and answer the question and use our answer as a medium to help and encourage others with little kids
please remember to leave your coments.
see you soon

Parents: Here's how to stop the worst of social media 2

What can a parent do?

So what is a parent to do besides screaming and longing for the days when "tag" was just a game on the playground?

There are actually some steps parents can take, the experts say, such as signing up for the social networks your teens are on and following them. Talking to your kids about social media is effective, too. If your teen gets off the phone and seems sad or upset, ask them about it. An encouraging finding from the CNN study showed that kids whose parents were more involved in their social media lives were less likely to remain upset about something that happened online.

"Kids who were experiencing some conflict on social media, be it with a friend or schoolmate, had very elevated levels of distress but that experience was mitigated if their parents were highly involved with monitoring their accounts," said Robert Faris, a sociologist with the University of California, Davis and another child development expert who collaborated with CNN on the study. "So parent monitoring effectively erased the negative effects of online conflicts."

Parents would also be well served by spending some time on the same social networks their teens are using just to get a sense of how they work and what impact they might be having on their children, said Underwood. She can relate; after she received a grant to study Facebook and began to post more often, she realized how excited she was when people "liked" what she said.

"It is really reinforcing to a middle-aged mother, so think how it feels to a young person," she said. "So parents need to get on these platforms."

Teens have always been concerned about popularity, but it takes on a whole new dimension when they can measure their status in likes, shares and comments. Parents can help their kids keep it all in perspective, said Faris, who is an associate professor of sociology.

"Encourage them to try not to keep score," he said. "Don't sweat the small stuff. Don't worry if you're not tagged. Don't count likes. Don't exclude other people. There are a lot of things that could make social media a little healthier for kids."

And there's another thing parents can do -- encourage our teens to put their phones down from time to time and do something else, go shopping, head outside, have fun in other ways.

"Help them steer away from it because it's really hard for them to do it on their own," said Underwood.

Jay, a 13-year-old who participated in the study, said social media is addicting -- but her grades went up once she put her phone down more often: "A lot of kids are going to be like, 'She's talking gibberish. I can totally multitask,' and that's what I thought until I put my phone away and I'm the happiest person I could be right now."

What do you think is the best way for parents to monitor teens' social media use? Share your thoughts with Kelly Wallace on Twitter @kellywallacetv or CNN Parents on Facebook.

Parents: Here's how to stop the worst of social media by kelly wallace

As the mom of two girls, ages 7 and 9, there are countless reasons why I'm freaking out about the teen years. But topping that list, at the moment, is the thought of parenting in the social media age.

My kids won't be allowed to have smartphones until middle school at the earliest, but once the genie is out of the bottle, how will I possibly be able to keep tabs on everything they're doing on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook and all the other yet-to-be created social networks?

Short answer: I won't. But the findings of a new "CNN Special Report: #Being 13: Inside the Secret World of Teens," shows why we parents should try to do a much better job of understanding what's happening online. ( The documentary, #Being 13, airs at 9 p.m. ET Monday. Watch to find out the results of the first large-scale study of its kind on teens and social media.)

"(Parents) just don't get the impact that social media has on, like, teen's lives," said 13-year-old Morgan, one of the 200 eighth-graders from eight different schools who agreed, along with their parents and schools, to allow CNN and two child development experts to monitor all their posts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook over a six-month period.

Even for parents who try to control their children's social media use, the CNN study found a disconnect between what their parents think about their kids' posts and how their children are feeling. Sixty percent of parents underestimated how lonely, worried and depressed their kids were and 94% underestimated the amount of fighting that happens on social media.

Related: The acronyms kids really use on social media

"Even the parents who would be the most vigilant about monitoring, I believe, most often, wouldn't know enough to know the small hurts that sort of pile up on kids over time," said Marion Underwood, a child clinical psychologist with the University of Texas at Dallas and one of the two experts who collaborated with CNN on the study.

We parents often don't have a clue as to how subtle the aggression can be. I just learned that young people might post a group photo and intentionally not tag someone included in the picture, or, they might share a photo from a party or outing with the goal of hurting those who weren't invited.

"When we were young, I didn't know every party I wasn't invited to. I didn't see pictures every time friends, good friends, got together without me. Now they see all of it in real time," said Underwood, who is also dean of graduate studies at the University of Texas at Dallas and a professor in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. "And I think that's very hard to take. And we maybe haven't prepared them as well ... to deal with it in the best way."

so what can parents do..........to be continued