Where are those monsters hiding?
“I scared! Help, Mommy! I scared of scary monsters! Mommyyyyyyyyy!”
This is what I have been waking up to lately, usually soon after I put my toddler down for bed and occasionally in the middle of the night as well. I try to wait it out in hopes he might go back to sleep on his own, but no such luck, so I trudge into his room, cranky and bleary-eyed to reassure him that there are no scary monsters, which usually entails a mommy snuggle and maybe a song.
Sweet soft memories with my boy, but it’s doing a number on my sleep! I …
The author himself spent his childhood in an abusive and dangerous home.
You might have heard of the book called the Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker. It was made famous when Oprah had him on his show, at least that’s when I heard about it. The same author has written a book along the same lines but meant particularly for children. It’s called Protecting the Gift, Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe.
I was at the library one day and happened to come across it, so it was a book that I read by chance, but I’m so glad that I did.
It’s a common sense book intermingled with …
Is your child afraid of snake, spiders or other “icky” things? It could be that your reaction to these things might have played a role in the development of this fear. Children are not born with a dread of snakes or spiders but learn these fears very quickly, a new study suggests.
In one experiment from the study, the researchers showed two videos side by side to children as young as 7 months. One video showed a snake and the other showed something non-threatening, such as an elephant. At the same time, the infants heard a recording of either a happy or fearful voice.
The infants spent more time looking at the snake video when they heard a fearful voice, the researchers reported, but the children showed no sign of fear themselves.
In another experiment, 3-year-olds were shown a screen of nine photographs and asked to select a target item. The children identified snakes more quickly than flowers and more quickly than other animals that look similar to snakes, such as frogs and caterpillars.
Say No To Strangers
The other day we were all getting ready to go out to dinner. My husband was in the shower and I was getting dressed. Serophina was playing in her room. Suddenly she comes into our room talking about how a man was knocking at the door so she opened it and he asked for her mom or dad. At first I was a little confused because I would never dream that she would ever answer the door to a stranger without coming to us first! But that’s exactly what happened! I followed her to the front door and sure enough there was a man …
Hi, my name is Mamta and I’m a Paranoid Parent. (“Hi Mamta.”)
I live in constant trepidation of child kidnappers and predators; one’s lurking behind the bushes, quietly watching and another disguised themselves as a normal, nice person integrated into regular society.
Thanks to the abundance of horrific, real life stories of children being abducted on their way home from school, while playing in their neighborhood or sometimes even from their own backyards; thanks to television shows like Dateline: To Catch a Predator, and recently watched movies like The Lovely Bones, I have to admit that I, #1 trust NO ONE and #2 NEVER let my children out of my sight.
I sometimes …
Could I get that to go please?
When my first one was a baby and needed to be nursed while we were out, I’d always go to the car or find a fitting room if we were at a clothing store. I NEVER breastfed in public, even though I had a proper cover that prevented anyone from seeing anything from the neck down.
Not that I think it’s wrong or offensive, I just was not comfortable doing it. I’m way too self-conscious and would never be able to relax with people around.
When you only have one baby to take care of, it’s easy to just pick up and leave …
