Family And College

Working moms don’t always have a chance to get dolled up the way they did before children. They have to get dressed in the shortest amount of time possible so they can get back to their work, children, and chores. If you are a mom trying to hold down a steady job, you may want to invest a little money into your wardrobe. If you get the right pieces from the start, you will have clothing that is versatile enough for every aspect of your life. Here are some tips to help you put together a working mom’s wardrobe that can last well into the future.

Look for Layers
Layers can be your best friends as a working mom. They allow you to transition from the board room to the class room without much effort at all. You can get some simple shirts to wear no matter what, and then you can get jackets to put on top of them for various times in your life. You could put on a hooded sweatshirt to wear with the kids, and then you could put on a blazer to wear as an executive assistant. This will also help you adjust to temperature changes, so you won’t have to worry about being too hot or too cold. If you want a flexible wardrobe, layers are the way to go.

Focus on Function
You need to find clothing that is going to be functional and fashionable at the same time. For instance, you may not assume that dresses would be functional at all because they look so darn fashionable. In all actuality, they can be perfect additions for working mom wardrobes. You don’t have to spend more than a minute or two putting them on, and you can move around well in them no matter what. This is assuming you get a soft, flowy dress, not something that is super tight. Throw on a jacket to make the dress seem more work appropriate, and you should be just fine.

Notice the Neutrals
Neutral clothing is going to do wonders for your wardrobe because you will be able to use it for multiple purposes. You could wear a pair of dark wash trouser jeans to work or to the park without any issues at all. You can still play around with some focal pieces for the outfits, but you need to have a set of neutrals to work with first. Then you can combine those with accessories and bold tops to make the outfits your own.

Think about Transition
You obviously need clothing that is going to transition well between the different parts of your life. Try to find as many dual purpose pieces as you can so that your wardrobe will stretch throughout the day. You could wear a tank top under a button up shirt at work, and then you can unbutton the top when you leave work. The button up will go from being the base of an outfit to being the accent piece for it. Try to find as many elements like this as you can, and you will be able to make the most out of your clothing.

Most working moms struggle to put together the perfect wardrobe, but that is because they focus on their work and their children separately. These may be different aspects of your life, but they are still connected throughout the day. You have to find clothing that works for all of you, from the coffee-craver waking up at 5 AM to the money-maker coming home at 5 PM. All you need is a closet stocked with versatility to get you through the day.

Being a busy parent can be a challenge, especially if you have to drive your kids to school. Bus routes are not always the most reliable forms of transportation for your children, and they are full of germs that even the most extensive article on WebMD wouldn’t be able to list. If you want to avoid having to send your child on the bus to get to school, you may consider setting up a school carpool with other parents in the neighborhood. That way you don’t have to sacrifice as much of your schedule getting your child to class in the morning. Here is a look at how school carpools work so you can create one for yourself in the future.

Different Types of Carpools

There are two ways to set up a school carpool. One option is to find a stay at home mom in your area that could drive your kid to school every day. In this case, you would pay the person part of your CRNA salary to cover gas and the time the person spends getting your kids. The other option is to alternate driving with other parents in the neighborhood so that you do not have as many trips to make. You will have to pick up other people’s kids at this point, but you won’t have to pay for anyone else’s services.

Benefits of School Carpools

In case you need some convincing about the benefits of school carpooling, I thought I should go over some pros. First, you will save money on gas because someone else will be taking over at least half of the cost. Second, you won’t have to worry about your child riding a bus because you will have a direct connection with a driver. Third, you may be able to drive faster to school if you have a carpool lane in your town. Fourth, you can help the environment by reducing the amount of fuel you use to drive.

I could keep going, but I think you get the point. There are more benefits to come from school carpooling than disadvantages, so you might as well give them a try. If you find the right person to work with, you should have no trouble reaping the rewards of this process in the future.

Finding Someone to Carpool with to School

When it comes to finding someone to carpool with, you need to look for someone who lives in your area and has a kid that goes to the same school. You may be able to get away with working with someone whose children attend a different school if the schools are really close to each other. For instance, the high school I attended had a junior high and elementary school right next to it. If your area has a similar setup, you may be able to work with someone who has kids in a school close by.

Make sure that you can really trust the person you plan to work with, since he or she will be in charge of your child while you are at work. If there is a neighbor that you know and trust willing to carpool the kids to school, use him or her. If you don’t have that option, try to get to know someone else really well before turning your kid over for carpooling.

Carpooling to school has a number of benefits, but only if you find the right person to work with. Check out all of the options in your area, and you will hopefully find the best solution for you.

There are two main types of parents in this world: strict parents and fun parents. Strict parents treat their kids as if they are training to become police officers, and fun parents let their kids run around like wild animals. Neither parenting style is ideal on its own, so it would be in your best interest to find a way to combine the two when raising your child.

Balancing discipline and fun is not easy, but it is something you must learn to master over time. That way, your children turn out to be the happy and responsible individuals you want them to be. Here are some tips to help you raise your children in a stern yet carefree environment so they can see all the world has to offer them.

Responsibility vs. Slavery

When it comes to teaching your kids responsibility, you have to make sure that you give them enough to learn a lesson without turning them into slaves. I recently saw an episode of Wipe Swap (which I never watch, I swear), and one of the mothers had her kids do all of the work for her in the house. While it is important to teach your kids how to take care of a home, it is also important to put in work yourself. Rather than commanding your kids around like a dictator, teach them how to contribute to a household by leading by example. This will help them learn how to help other people without having to be slaves in their own homes.

Fun vs. Frenzy

There is nothing wrong with letting your children play around, but you need to make sure they do that in a respectful way. It is easy for children to get spoiled and start running around out of control. You can’t let your household get to that point. Show your kids how to have fun while behaving respectfully. This will teach them a valuable lesson in life, and it will establish you as the parent in the relationship. If you cannot uphold your authority, your children will never show respect to people in the real world. Is that something you want to happen?

Punishment vs. Abuse

You need to be careful in the way that you are punishing your children, just so that does not come across in an abusive way. You have to make sure that you are firm enough to get a point across but still gentle enough to show that you care. My mother usually didn’t have to do much to punish me, other than look at me in a sad way and tell me how much I had disappointed her. That ate me up inside. My little brother is more difficult though. He has to be grounded in some way in order to learn a concept. You have to find the style of punishment that is going to be right for your child. Just make sure you don’t do anything that comes across as beating. That could get you in jail really quickly.

Every parent should learn how to balance fun and discipline in a home. Kids should be allowed to be kids as long as they are responsible human beings as well. Otherwise, you may as well kiss their futures goodbye. Think about all of the information above and use it to adjust your parenting style. If you make the right adjustments early on, I’m sure that your child will grow up to be the big success story that you want him or her to be.

Every parent wants their child to get a college education. It is natural to want what is best for your kid, even if that means sacrificing a lot of money to see it happen. Most kids have the opportunity to find financial aid to help them pay for college, but that does not mean that you cannot save for a college fund as well. There is no guarantee that your kids will get full ride scholarships, so you need to prepare to help pay for their education. A little bit of money could go a long way when that big day comes.

Here are some tips to help you save money for your child’s college fund.

Know What You Can Afford

The first thing you need to do is figure out how much money you can logically put away for your child’s college education. You don’t want to go into debt for this, even if that seems like something you should be doing. Some people can afford $10 a week and others can put away $1,000+ a month. It just depends on what sort of money they make. Assess your budget and come up with a logical amount of money that you can sacrifice from month to month. That will be the money you can put away for your child.

Just to put things into perspective, let’s see what would happen with putting away $10 a week until your child graduates. With 52 weeks in the year, you will obviously be putting $520 in savings each year. Over the course of 18 years, that comes out to be $9,360. That won’t pay for a full education by any means, but it may give your kid enough money to buy books or rent an apartment while in college. Small contributions make big impacts when you work with them long term. Think about that before you assume the worst about your savings.

Stay Consistent with the Savings

It is easy to get in the habit of “Oh, I’ll just save next week.” This is something that I used to do with my savings all the time, but next week never came. Procrastinating is never the answer when it comes to saving money for a college fund. You need to be active about putting back money every single time you get paid. Eventually you will turn the savings into one of your bills, and then you will be able to pay it out of habit. This will pay off greatly in the end. The second you start steering away from your original plan, get yourself back on track. Otherwise you may miss out on a big opportunity to help your kids pay for college.

Find Ways to Get Interest

Interest is basically free money you can earn just by letting your money sit in a bank. If you put your child’s college fund in a savings account, it will draw a little bit of interest over time. It may be more logical to take a large sum of it and put it in a CD. This will lock the money away for a little while, but it will give you a chance to build a lot more interest. Then when the money gets released, you can combine it with whatever else you have saved and get a new CD. This will quickly add up over time.

If you start thinking outside the box for your savings, you should be able to find a way to get your kid all the money he or she needs for college. Keep that in your mind at all times, and you should be motivated to make this happen.

Kids’ rooms are messy. That’s just a fact of life. No matter how much you try to tidy them up, they seem to get messy again on a daily basis. Kids use their rooms to play with toys and have people over for tea parties. They don’t use them just for sitting and sleeping like adults do. Thus you may have a challenge as a parent of keeping your house clean with kids running around. With that in mind, there are a few things you can do to keep your kid’s room clean, even if it seems like an impossible task. Here are some tips to help you minimize the mess with a little one in your life.

Have Plenty of Storage

You are going to need a lot of storage in your child’s room, more than you probably realize. Toys, clothes, and personal items start to pile up really quickly, and you need a place to store all of that. Whatever storage you get, you need to make sure it is something that your child can have access to. That way he or she can put stuff away on his or her own. Put drawers under the bed, and buy some storage benches to use in the room. Little pieces like that will greatly impact your ability to keep the room clean.

Organize the Room

You need to make sure your child’s room is well organized so that you both can clean it up if you need to. My mother had a dresser in my younger brother’s room, with each drawer representing a different kind of toy. She had little labels on the outside of the drawers with the different types of toys so that my brother could put them away whenever he wasn’t using them. You may have a drawer for dinosaurs and another drawer for trucks and planes. It just depends on what your child likes to play with. The more organized you are, the better off you will be.

Make Your Child Clean

If you clean up for your kid every time his or her room gets messy, you will never teach him or her the value of hard work or responsibility. You need to make sure that your child plays a role in keeping the room clean, even at an early age. You can help with a little bit of it, but your child needs to do the bulk of the work. You can use some sort of punishment as motivation, or you can use some type of reward. It just depends on what your child responds to. My mother used to give my brother $1 for every day of the week that he kept his room clean, and that motivated him every time. You just need to find a similar system for your child.

Consolidate the Toys

Eventually your child’s room will get overrun with toys. All of the little ones seem to add up over time. That is why it is important to consolidate the toys so that they don’t all end up on the floor at the end of the day. Some kids get really upset when their parents try to do this, so either prepare for a fight or wait to do this when your child is not around. As long as you don’t throw out a favorite toy of the child’s, you should be able to clean out the room without him or her ever noticing.

If you keep the room clean on a daily basis, the cleaning process as a whole will seem less overwhelming. Learn how to become an event planner in your own home, and you should see positive results accordingly. Use the tips above as motivation to spruce up the place, and you will be on your way to a great looking home in no time.

There comes a time in every kids life when he or she starts to wonder about the birds and the bees. This is a scary time for parents because they have to educate their children without encouraging them to explore too much. Your kid will eventually get curious about his or her body and the body of the opposite sex, so you have to be prepared for when that time comes. It will spark up when you least expect it. Here are some tips to help you moderate the curiosity so your kid remains knowledgeable and safe at the same time.

Watch over Play Dates

If your child has a play date with someone of a different gender, you need to keep a close eye on it. It is possible that nothing will happen, but it is also possible that someone will reveal something “just out of curiosity.” I was recently over at my mother’s house, and my 10 year old brother had a girl over. When I got there he had on jean shorts, and then when he came out of his room a few minutes later, he had on sweat pants. My mother asked about this, and he got really defensive about the whole matter. Something was definitely up. Mom proceeded to have them play in the den, where she could hear and see them at all times. Sometimes, that is just what you have to do to minimize the exploration.

Bring up the Subject

The last thing you probably want to do with your child is talk about sex, but in many ways, it is better to bring it up than to wait for your child to ask. A lot of children are afraid to ask their parents about their bodies and that whole area of life, so they find out all of their information from other kids on the bus, on the playground, or wherever else they can. If you bring up the subject in the first place, you can at least guarantee that your child is getting the right information from a valid resource. I was one of those kids that was too shy to ask, and it caused me to rebel later on in life. It is better to provide answers for your children, rather than stern looks that will lead to trouble in the future.

Answer with Honesty

If your kid comes out and asks about sex, you need to answer his or her questions with honesty. Your child trusts you to educate him or her about life in general. You need to take that kind of responsibility for what it really is. The truth may make your kid even more curious about how life works, but that is just something you are going to have to get through. It won’t kill you to answer some questions. It may even make you a better person in the end. You can leave out the juicy details, but at least get the basics right. Your child deserves to know what is really going on with his or her body.

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it doesn’t have to be the end to you as a parent. Your child is going to start figuring things out, and it is your job to make sure that he or she figures out the right information. Try not to allow your child to spend too much time with the opposite sex until you lay down the ground rules. Then I suppose you will just have to allow nature to take its course.

Being a stay at home mom is a workout enough, but sometimes that leaves very little energy left for getting your body in shape. Just because you stay at home with the kids does not mean that you have to let your body fall into a slump. Think about Victoria Beckham, Angelina Jolie, Jessica Alba, Sandra Bullock – all of these moms with rocking bodies, full time jobs, and plenty of spare time for their children. If they can do it, so can you. No matter how hectic your schedule is, you can still find a workout that will work for you. Here are some tips to help you do just that.

At Home Workouts

To start your workout, consider looking for a program that you can do at home, seeing that you will likely not be able to go to the gym. You can also look for other exercise routines that may incorporate your children, like bench pressing your toddler and making it into a game for him or her. You can plan an entire exercise routine around the fact that you have kids, and it will be just as effective as anyone else’s routine. You may just have to be creative to achieve the body of your dreams when you’re confined to the house.

Quick tip: Invest in a Wii Fit. This can help you and the kids stay in shape while in the house, and it happens to be a ton of fun to play. You can pretend you’re going through police officer training, or you could just do a plain Jane workout routine. I guarantee the whole family will get a kick out of it.

Dietary Adjustments

Your diet will play a part in your workout routine. Thus you have to make sure you plan meals for yourself and your kids that are conducive to making your body look good. Focus on nutritious foods that provide energy without producing fat. Fruit, vegetables, proteins and lots of water will be the foundations of your daily eating. If you rely on fast food and takeout pizza to feed your family, you will be starting poor habits that are hard to get out of. You have to devote yourself to having a good eating plan if you want to get your body back in its pre-mom state.

Sleep, Sleep, Sleep

You need to rest as much as possible to see positive results from your workout. That means that you need to get a good night sleep if you can, which can be hard to do with children. Try to make your nights as relaxing as possible so you fall to sleep quickly. Then when you get back up, your body will at least have gotten the maximum rest that it could. This will be the time that your muscles form, and it will ultimately be the time that you see the most results. Worse comes to worse, take naps with your kids in the middle of the day. You will see a big difference in your body by doing that.

Being a stay at home mom doesn’t mean that you have to look frumpy. You can still have a fantastic body even with little time in your schedule. Turn family outings into workout adventures, and try to adjust your diet to accommodate for your new weight loss goals. You may have to put in a little extra effort to look the way you want to, but that work will be well worth the confidence you can have with a great body. Take the time to get your health back in order, and you will be a better mom to your children in the end.

Bullying has become a big problem in America, and it is something that your child will most likely go through at some point in time. Kids can get made fun of for being too fat, too skinny, too poor, too rich, too prissy, too manly, and anything in between. I used to get made fun of because I apparently had “chicken legs,” but a friend of mine who was the same overall weight got called fat in school. You never know what the kids are going to say, but there is no doubting the fact that your child is eventually going to be bullied. What are you going to do about that? Are you ready for it? Here are a few suggestions that will hopefully help you deal with a bully in your child’s life.

Bullying Statistics

Before you blow off this article completely, I thought you may want to realize just how serious this problem is. Here are some statistics to keep in mind, courtesy of BullyingStatistics.org:

• Over half, about 56 percent, of all students have witnesses a bullying crime take place while at school.
• A reported 15 percent of all students who don’t show up for school report it to being out of fear of being bullied while at school.
• There are about 71 percent of students that report bullying as an on-going problem.
• Along that same vein, about one out of every 10 students drops out or changes schools because of repeated bullying.
• One out of every 20 students has seen a student with a gun at school.
• Some of the top years for bullying include 4th through 8th graders in which 90 percent were reported as victims of some kind of bullying.
• Other recent bullying statistics reveal that 54 percent of students reported that witnessing physical abuse at home can lead to violence in school.
• Among students of all ages, homicide perpetrators were found to be twice as likely as homicide victims to have been bullied previously by their peers.
• There are about 282,000 students that are reportedly attacked in high schools throughout the nation each month.

Noticing the Signs of Bullying

Most children will not come right out and say they are being bullied, especially if they are boys. Boys are supposed to be tough and take on anything. The last thing they want to do is admit that there is a problem. Thus it is your job to look out for signs of bullying so you can get your son or daughter to talk about the issue. Try to pick up on changes in mood or behavior. Your child may start spending more time in bed or acting really lethargic when you talk to him or her. If you think something is up, try everything you can to get your kid to talk.

Comforting Your Child

When you finally get your kid to talk, you will need to find a way to comfort him or her through this difficult situation. You could try to provide reasons as to why the bully is acting in a certain way, like the fact that he does not get a lot of attention at home or he is jealous of the life your child has. You have to get your kid to understand the situation the best he or she possibly can so that he or she does not end up slipping even further into depression. Tell your child about all of the accomplishments he or she has to be proud of, and hopefully that will ease the situation.

Taking Action

If the bullying becomes a big enough problem that your child threatens suicide or refuses to go to school, you need to talk to someone at the school about the matter. The principal can then call in the bully’s parents to discuss the issue and hopefully come to a resolution about it. If the parents are not willing to cooperate with you, you can consider changing schools or working with an even higher authority in the school system. With the right amount of effort, you can get justice for your kid.

When most people think about starting a family, they picture the process of actually having kids on their own. That is one of the greatest aspects about being together with someone – being able to create new life with the one you love. Even though childbirth is a logical solution for starting a family, the process of adoption could be just as fulfilling in the end. Adopting a child involves taking in a child that came from another family and giving him or her a home to live in. This is not always easy to do, but it can be one of the most rewarding experiences you will ever have as a parent. Let’s take a look at what adoption could potentially do for your family.

Helping a Child in Need

There are thousands of children in foster care and orphanages at the moment just waiting for someone to take care of them. These children want a loving home and a normal life. That is it. In some cases, it may be better to help out someone that already exists in this world, rather than bringing another person into it. I’m not saying that having a child is a bad thing. I just want to encourage you to consider other options when you start planning out your family. Your love and support could make a big difference in a child’s life.

Minimizing the Population

I’m not a huge environmental nut, but I do have some concern with where our world is going. The population we currently have is overwhelming the planet, and we are soaking up more resources than we can replenish. There is a reason why a lot of countries nowadays have limits on the number of children a family can have. It is because we are all reproducing a little excessively. If you can take care of a child that is already here, you can help fight against overpopulation. You might be surprised by how much of a difference that kind of effort could make.

Molding a Productive Citizen

A lot of kids that get raised in foster care end up being trouble makers because they feel abandoned by their parents. They lack the love and discipline they need to become productive members of society, so they turn into criminals, thieves, and hoodlums that always have a parole officer to answer to. You could do your part by taking one of those children off the street and showing him or her the power of love. You aren’t required to do this by any means, but think about the difference it could make on your community. If your kids take the lessons they have learned from you and show them to other kids, who knows how much of an impact your actions can make.

How to Find a Child to Adopt

If you want to look into the adoption process further, you need to contact a local adoption agency, orphanage, or foster care center to see how you can get involved. You may start off as a foster parent to see if you could work well with kids that aren’t naturally yours. If you like that setup, then you could go through the lengthy process of being approved for adoption as a whole.

There is a really neat program online nowadays that actually pairs parents up with good children for their families. It is called A Family for Every Child, and it is basically like a Match.com for adoption. You could either use something like that to select a child, or you could just start looking around the shelters in your area. Talk to different kids in the home until you find one that you could honestly call your son or daughter in the future.

Planning a family vacation can be stressful, time consuming, and incredibly difficult, but it is all worth the effort when you finally get to enjoy time with your spouse and children. If you happen to be a college student on top of being a mom or a dad, you may be a little overwhelmed with the amount of stuff you have to do to prepare for a family vacation. Rather than panicking at the thought of booking a hotel for the week, you just need to have a solid game plan to follow. That is where this guide could come in handy. Read on to see just how easy it could be for you to plan a family vacation.

Know Your Budget

Before you can even begin thinking about your destination, spending money, hotel rooms, etc., you need to know how much money you have to spend on your vacation. Crunch the numbers and figure out how much you have in savings. That way you will have a set of parameters to work within. If you don’t know your budget for sure, plan for it to be on the low side. That way you make a plan that is guaranteed to be within your means.

Pick a Destination

Once you have an idea of how much money you can spend, you need to select a good destination for the whole family. If you have a low budget to work with, you may want to find something within driving distance of your home. That will save you a ton of money on air fare. You may assume driving will save you money no matter what, but that is not always the case when you have to go across the country. If you calculate the hotel costs and the gas you will have to get along the way, flying may be cheaper in the long run.

Try to find a place to go that allows for a lot of activities and relaxation at the same time. The point of a family vacation is to spend time with one another and get a break from real life. Try to get the best of both worlds – a tranquil environment with a lot of life within it. If you pick the right location from the start, you may be able to go back year after year. Worse comes to worse, pick a place with other family members close by. At least then the area will be familiar to you.

Book a Room

If you know where you want to stay, you need to find a hotel room in the area early on. By reserving the room early, you have the chance to save more money than you would with a last minute reservation. When the demand is low for a certain room, the prices for the room drop considerably. This is something you could potentially look forward to. You may want to try looking for a travel bundle of some sort on Priceline to save money on a room and transportation. It just depends on where you are going and how much money you have to spend on your vacation.

Plan for the Unexpected

You need to make sure to keep a little bit of money left over just in case some unexpected expenses come up. You never know if you may have to rent a more expensive car or replace a flat tire on the one you brought on vacation. Rather than freaking out when you are out and about, you might as well keep some spare money to use on your vacation. Worse comes to worse, you come back with a little extra cash in your pocket.

Are you tired of being looked at as a frumpy mom that your kids barely want to be seen with? Wouldn’t it be nice to look like a spicy MILF instead? Most moms don’t exactly have time to jazz up their looks and give off that sexy vibe they once had. They are forced to devote all of their beautification time to diaper changes, scraped knees, and spaghetti splatters on the floor. Before you get trapped in this routine like a lot of other moms, you need to know just how easy it is to sex up your style. Here are a few simple steps you can follow the next time you go out to dinner with your partner. He will never know what hit him.

1 – Let Your Hair Down

If you normally keep your hair in a bun or ponytail, let it down. If you have a chance to blow dry, curl, or straighten it, do so. Otherwise you just need to attempt to make your hair look good down. Men love to see a woman who can jut swish her head back and forth to let her hair flow. You can create that relaxed look if you just let your hair down.

2 – Enhance your Eyes

Your eyes are the key to pumping up the volume on your sex appeal, so try to enhance them in some way. You don’t need to go to the extreme of fake eye lashes, but you should at least try to put some eye liner and mascara on. If you have time for a full smoky eye effect, go for it. That will instantly grab the attention of people around you. Then all you will have to do is send a glance in the right direction.

3 – Find a Sexy Black Dress

There is nothing sexier on a woman than a simple black dress. If you find a cocktail dress that suits your body, you can wear it for almost anything. You can put a coat over it to make it worthy of work, or you could add accessories for a night on the town. This versatility will make your favorite little black dress well worth the money, so do not be afraid to spend a little bit on yourself. This will help you transform your look for the better.

4 – Push the Girls Up

Saggy boobs are never sexy, so you need to find a way to get them where they need to be. I realize this is somewhat hard to do as a mom because breasts never look the same after childbirth. Buy a good padded pushup bra and try to get your boobs up around your neck, not your belly button. Then you can pop a little cleavage out of your dress and hopefully transform the look of your figure.

5 – Throw on Some Heels

To finish off your wife to MILF transformation, you need to wear some sort of high heels. This will improve your posture, making your legs look longer and your ass look incredible. No matter what your body shape may be, a good pair of heels will make it look incredibly from head to peep toe. If you are wearing a simple black dress, you may want to go all out with the shoes. This will save you money as a whole but still give you a chance to look as sexy as can be. Then all you have to do is maintain your confidence to pull off your rocking new look. You’ll be working it like you make a fashion merchandising salary in no time.

No parent wants to punish his or her children, but the fact is that it has to be done. The discipline you teach your children now will impact the way they act in the future. You need to lay down the law without being overly abusive, controlling, or overbearing. This is a delicate balance to come up with, but every college mom and super dad has to do it at some point in time. If you pick the right punishment for your kids from the start, you will have a better chance of raising him or her to be a productive member of society. Here is a look at some of the different punishments you may employ so you can select the best one for your son or daughter.

Timeouts

If your child is relatively young, you may be able to get away with a simple timeout. That involves having the child sit in the corner away from everyone else. The theory is that by having the kid sit somewhere away from the fun that everyone else is having, he or she will learn not to do something bad again. This does not always work, especially for kids who find ways to stay entertained when they are in timeout. Nevertheless, it may be something that you at least try with your child at one point or another.

Grounding

Once a child gets a little older, you can choose to ground him or her from a certain activity. For instance, you could ground your son from the television or from going out to play with his friends. By depriving the child of the things he or she wants most, you can effectively show how wrong a certain act was. I was only grounded one time in my childhood, and it drove me crazy. I remember thinking my world was going to end because I couldn’t go out like I wanted to. You may never need to ground your child in the future, but it is at least something you should keep in mind.

Spankings

I’m not a huge fan of the idea of spankings, just because I know I would have a hard time spanking my child. I have a hard enough time swatting my cat on the butt when he gets up on the kitchen counter, and I barely tap on him. No parent likes the idea of spanking a child, but some kids do not respond well to standard forms of punishment. In most areas of the country, it is not considered child abuse to smack your child on the bum with an open hand. If you use a stick, a belt, or anything else like that, you could potentially get in trouble. Just keep that in mind before you get yourself arrested for child abuse.

Disappointment

The punishment that always worked on me as a child was knowing that my mother or father was disappointed in me. When they told me that, I always broke down and learned my lesson. My mother used to say that she just had to give me “the look,” and that was all I needed to adjust my attitude. You may want to try sharing your disappointment with your child and see what he or she does after that. Some kids won’t care at all, but others will respond by apologizing instantly. You just have to test the waters and see what happens with your kid.

As much as it sucks to think about issuing punishment for a child, it has to be done. Hopefully one of the options above will get you on the path towards raising a successful adult in the end.

Children don’t always want to go by their real names when they’re in school because the names seem too “grown up.” My younger brother’s name is Robert, and he always hated being called that. That is why we all started calling him BJ over time. If you are trying to come up with a nickname for your child, you may be having a difficult time coming up with the perfect representation of his or her name and personality at the same time. Never fear though. You should be able to come up with the best fit possible after reading the tips below. Let’s think like a criminal investigator and figure out what it is going to take to formulate the most suitable nickname for your growing child.

Get Lazy with It

The lazy way to go about giving a child a nickname is to just shorten his or her first name. Allison turns to Ally. Shaniqua turns into Shan. William turns into Will. Melissa turns into Mel. You get the idea. This is usually the most effective way to get a child to respond to a nickname without having to teach him or her a whole new word. Most people actually give out these nicknames on accident when they start to call out a child’s name. That extra syllable is just too much to handle, right? Try to think of a shortened version of your child’s existing name if you want to shave off that extra second it takes to yell at him.

Get Logical with It

Another logical way to give someone a nickname is to use the child’s middle name. That may not work if your child’s name is Thaddeus Zachariah Ish Kabibble Smith, but it could work for a kid named Timothy Luke Jones. If your child has a middle name that is cute and easy to remember, you may want to use it as a nickname. Then all you have to worry about is people getting confused when you fill out official documents for the child.

You could also use the child’s initials if you wanted to, especially if the middle name starts with an A or J. Those seem to be the most fitting initials for a nickname. EJ, CJ, RA, LA…you get the idea. If your kid has initials that sound good together, you may just want to try them on for size.

Get Creative with It

Sometimes it is nice to think outside the box when coming up with a fitting nickname. My brother’s name is Robert James X, but we thought that RJ would be a little too formal sounding. Since he is the third generation of Robert James’s in the family, we also thought about calling him Trey (sort of like the number tres in Spanish). That didn’t work either, so we ended up calling him BJ to represent Bob Junior (Bob being the name of his father). The name just sort of stuck after that. Now he is 10 years old, and he still uses the same nickname. If you think a little creatively for your child, you may end up in a similarly pleasant situation.

You don’t have to have a nickname for your child, but it would be nice if he or she had an “old person” name. You don’t want your kid to be picked on in school just because you had the urge to name her Bethany-Ester. Think like a true college mom and come up with a name that will help your child get through school without being called a wannabe oldie. I’ve been through it people. I can vouch that it is far from fun.

Buying a car for a family can be a challenge because you have to keep everyone’s needs in mind. As much as you may want that Corvette to be sitting out in your driveway, it just isn’t a practical car for a family. That doesn’t mean that you have to give up luxury or speed to get a family car. You just have to know what will work and what won’t work for your family specifically. Let’s take a look at some of the factors you need to keep in mind when picking the perfect car for your family.

Size

You will obviously need a family vehicle that is going to hold the whole family comfortably. If you have six kids to worry about, you aren’t going to be able to fit in a simple sedan that seats five total. Think about the size of vehicle you need based on seating and on storage because both of those factors will need to come into play. You need to analyze the room in between the seats as well as the trunk space in the back. With the right amount of roominess, you should be able to fit everyone in the car comfortably.

Safety

Safety features are always important in family cars to ensure the protection of your children. You need to make sure that the car you buy has a high crash test rating and that it is equipped with kid-friendly safety features. These may include child-proof doors in the back, side curtain airbags, enhanced seatbelt strength, and more. You need to thoroughly inspect a car’s safety features before you put a single penny towards it. That could be a matter of life or death for your children and your spouse.

Price

You obviously need to crunch the numbers to figure out where you want your car payment to be. That will determine the price range you get into. Most newer cars are going to cost $20,000 to $30,000 overall, depending on what you buy. That will likely put your payments in the $400 to $600 range a month based on the loan terms you get. If you put a lot of money down or look for a cheaper car, your payments will obviously drop. You just need to figure out what you can afford as a family and start looking for cars in that price range.

Fuel Economy

Since gas prices continue going up, you need to keep a car’s fuel economy in mind. That doesn’t mean you have to get a Prius with a million miles to the gallon, but you should look for something that gets at least 15 mpg in town. If you make enough money to cover the fuel for a gas guzzler, then by all means look for what you want. My husband and I have never purchased a car based on fuel economy because we just love our cars too much. You still need to keep this in mind though so you can be prepared for the costs that come your way.

Maintenance Expenses

You need to make sure you can pay for the upkeep on a car before you buy it. Some cars cost more money to maintain than others based on their age, make, model, and overall features. You can usually look up information on forums to find out the maintenance costs that most people have gone through with a car you are interested in. Then you can determine if you can afford the costs.

Once you find a car you like, go to AutoTrader to find some of the options in your area. All it takes is a little research on there to get a good deal. Hopefully the tips above will lead you to the perfect car for your family.

Raising a family is a challenge as a whole, but it can especially be a challenge with picky eaters in the house. My younger brother used to eat nothing but hot dogs when he was a kid, and none of the rest of the family liked hot dogs at all. Nevertheless, my mother was able to plan meals for all of us and still maintain her sanity at the end of the day. I learned some tricks of the trade from her that I thought I would share with you. Here are tips to help you plan meals for your whole family.

Plan a Week in Advance

When you’re cooking for one or two people, you don’t always have to plan out what you are going to eat. You may plan for a day or two, but that is most likely where the planning stops. When you have a family though, you need to think ahead long enough to make the most of your resources. Try to plan out your dinners for a full week so you can get whatever groceries you may have at the house. This will get you better prepared to feed the crew.

Make Some Leftovers

In order to maximize your time and energy, you need to think about cooking leftovers for the next day. You could make a big pot roast or a giant pan of spaghetti that can be reheated or repurposed in the morning. It just depends on what your family likes to eat. You can either reuse that food in your meal the next day, or you can save it for a special day of the week. In my family, we always had a leftover night where everyone ate his or her favorite leftover from the fridge. Mom didn’t have to cook and we all got what we wanted. It was a winning solution all the way around. You can employ that same practice in your house to save time and money in the end.

Avoid Enabling the Picky Eaters

If you succumb to the wants of the picky eaters in your family, you may never be able to eat as a group. If Billy loves chicken and Barb loves hamburgers, you may struggle to get everyone to eat at once. You need to do your best to force the picky eaters in your family to eat whatever it is you fix. Otherwise they may end up refusing to try new things later on in life. You don’t want to enable them. You want to encourage them. Give them what they want every now and then, but don’t give in all the time. You need to be the one that plans the meals at the end of the day.

The Components of a Good Family Meal

You should have a rhythm to every family meal you plan. There needs to be a primary meat and at least two sides for every dish. One of those sides should ideally be a fruit or vegetable. Even something as simple as a salad or a fruit cup can complete a meal and make it truly special. If you have time to make a dessert, you can do that as well. Just make sure you have enough of the primary components to support a dessert. My favorite meal from my mother was roast beef with mashed potatoes and green beans. It was the perfect combination of food in my opinion, and it was one that I still crave to this day. Try to figure out how to become a chef in your family and you will be satisfyin the crew in no time.

Children grow incredibly quickly, especially when they are in their infancy. Watching your kids grow up is hard enough, but it can be even harder if you don’t have the right bed for your child. Buying a good bed for your child is just as important as buying a good bed for yourself. You just may have to put a little extra thought into getting something your child can use and love. Here are a few tips that can help you pick out the bed that your child has been dreaming of. (Ha! Unintentional pun there. “…dreaming of.” I’m subconsciously witty today.)

Conversion Beds

If your child is still in his or her crib years, you may want to invest in a piece of furniture that can convert between a crib and a bed as the years go by. A bed like this will have side walls that you can take down whenever your child no longer needs them. Conversion beds are great investments because cribs are so expensive on their own. You should be able to use something like this for a few years without much trouble, and then you can worry about a different kind of bed to invest in.

Growing Beds

If your child is past the crib stage but not fully ready for a big kid bed, you may want to get a growing bed that you can adjust over time. A bed like this will have an adjustable bottom that you can move to whatever position you need to be. As your child gets taller, the bed can get longer. Then it will eventually be the size of a regular bed. At that point, you will be able to determine if you want something new or if that is sufficient enough.

Trundle Beds

Trundle beds are great for kids that like to have sleepovers. If your child likes to have friends stay the night, this could be a perfect addition to his or her room. A trundle bed is a bed that has a sliding mattress underneath it. That allows you to keep the look of one bed for most situations while still having the ability to put a second bed in the room as needed. When a kid comes over to stay the night, all you have to do is pull the bed out and put some sheets on it. Your kids will surely love this feature.

Loft Beds

Kids love loft beds, without a question. These beds are designed like top bunks for bunk beds, but they have room underneath them for a desk, dresser, couch, or whatever else you may want to put in there. You obviously don’t want a bed like this if the child is too small to be trusted on a top bunk. If your kid is older though, this could be a great option to maximize your space and make your child happy at the same time. Your kid could actually keep this bed through his or her software engineering degree if you get something sturdy enough. Believe it or not, college kids love top bunks too.

You don’t have to buy a crazy race car bed to make your child happy. You just have to think of his or her needs and get the most comfortable option possible. Think about how the child needs the bed to function, and find something that suits that need first. Then you can worry about its design. No matter what your budget is, there will always be a bed out there for your child.

Children are inherently snoopy, so it can be a little difficult to hide Christmas gifts from them. I never managed to find my gifts when I was a kid, but my 10 year old brother seems to spot his every year. Perhaps my mom has lost her sneaky spark though. If you want to avoid a similar situation in your life, you need to know what it takes to hide Christmas presents from children. The tips below will hopefully let you do just that.

Utilize Your Height

The one main advantage that you have over your children is your height. There are certain areas of the house that kids just can’t reach, and you can potentially use those areas to hide their gifts. You could store them in the upper shelves in your garage or the top portions of your closets. Think about where in the house they simply wouldn’t have access to, and you can use that area to store the presents. Just make sure that you cover them up when you do this, as your kids may still be able to see what they can’t reach. An old towel r blanket should do the trick.

Ask a Friend

If you have a friend that doesn’t have kids, you may ask if you can store the gift at his or her house until Christmas. My parents did that once with a bike because they simply didn’t have a place for it. They went over to get the gift Christmas Eve, and then they just made sure that I didn’t go near the truck before the morning. I had no idea what was going on. Talk to some of your friends and see if any of them will let you hide your children’s presents at their house.

Hide at Work

If you can lock your office at work, you may use that area for some minor Christmas storage. You can’t clutter the office with gifts because your boss probably won’t like that. Storing a few gifts there shouldn’t be bad though. By doing this, you will at least know that your kids don’t have access to your presents, assuming they don’t come to your workplace very often. You simply need to make sure that no one in the office is liable to take the gifts when you’re not around. That could actually ruin Christmas, not make it better.

Check Hidden Compartments

You may have hidden areas in your home or car that you could use to store Christmas gifts. For instance, I had a whole storage space under my trunk lining in one of my vehicles, and it was supposed to be used for the spare tire/jack. There was a ton of extra space in there though, so I could have easily stored a few flat-ish gifts in there. You may have similar areas in your car that you don’t even know about. Explore your house and your vehicle a little bit and see if you find a good place for gift hiding.

Conclusion

You don’t have to wait to ’til the last minute to buy your Christmas gifts if you have a good hiding place for them. Pretend that you have an event planning certification and use it to think about Christmas logically. You have to be three steps ahead of your children or you will never be able to hide your presents successfully. Think about where they would probably look for their gifts and put them in completely different areas. Hopefully, you will be able to setup a surprise for that magical day.

Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas! Does that sound ring a bell? If you have kids under the age of eight, chances are they still believe in Santa Claus. Santa is a complete representation of the joys of Christmas, and it’s no wonder why so many parents teach their children about him around the holidays. He encourages little boys and girls to be “good for goodness sake.” Preparing for Santa is somewhat of a big deal, so you may want to make the most of it. Here is a quick guide to help you show your kids the best Santa Claus experience they can have.

Hide the Presents

The first thing you need to do to prepare for Santa is hide your presents from your kids. The children have to assume that Santa was the one that brought the presents, so they can’t see them on the tree early on. When you wrap the presents, write “Santa” in the from section, not “mom and dad.” Then put the presents away in the guest room closet or in an area where the kids aren’t going to be looking for them. That way you have everything setup for when they go to bed Christmas Eve.

Make Milk and Cookies

Santa Claus loves milk and cookies you know, so you might as well make some before he comes on Christmas. This gives you time to spend with your children, and it gives you an excuse to eat cookies on the holidays. You can bake whatever kind of cookies you want, but try to ask your kid what he or she thinks Santa would like. Then you can make your cookies accordingly. Set the cookies out on a plate with a glass of milk right before the kids go to bed, and then “Santa” can come by to eat them later on.

You could take this one step further by preparing reindeer food for Santa to take with him. This may be a bag of carrots, oats, bread, or something else you think deer would naturally eat. Put all of the reindeer food in a little bag, and then put a Post-it on top that says something like, “Santa, please take this to feed the reindeer. Thanks.” Then the kids will know the food is going to the right place.

Do Your Santa Duties

It will take you awhile to get the kids to bed on Christmas Eve because they will be too excited about their presents in the morning. Once you know they are asleep though, you can pull the presents out from their hiding spot and stick them under the tree. If you have something like a new bike, you may want to hide it under a blanket in the corner so it isn’t noticeable at first. Then you can make a big reveal. Toss out the reindeer food in a way that your kids won’t ever see it, and eat the cookies so that only crumbs are left. You don’t have to drink the milk, but you should pour all but a small layer of it out so it looks like Santa drank it. That will have your kids convinced that he came.

I don’t necessarily agree with the idea of Santa, but it is a Christmas tradition that I can’t deny. If you want to keep this tradition going in your family, you just need to make sure you think like a CIA agent and stay four steps ahead of your children at all times. If you are sneaky enough, you can keep the Santa charade going for several years in a row.

If you’re looking for a fun project for your child’s next birthday, consider printing off your own temporary tattoos for all of the party guests. There are a number of ways that you can go about this, so some design ideas are listed below. For the actual project, all you need is an inkjet or laser printer, ink, and temporary tattoo paper. Print the designs according to the instructions on the paper, allow them to dry, and they should be ready for application. Here are a few different options you have for the design on your tattoos:

Names

Kids love it when you get personal, so you might just want to prepare tattoos that contain each guest’s name. Pick a fun font that won’t be too hard too hard to read on the skin but still gives the image a bit of flair. Most typing applications you will use have an option for word art so you can create three dimensional text, curving words, and all kinds of unique looks. Just get creative and see what happens. Make sure to set the text to be mirrored before printing or it will transfer backwards on the skin.

Party Themed Images

If you are having a specific theme for your party, try emulating that in the tattoos. You could still keep names going, but maybe you could have an image included with it that fits the part theme. That could provide some cohesion to it all. If it’s a coed party, think about doing different images for each gender. Boys and girls like to feel special like that. Have princess crowns for the girls and pirate hats for the boys, or whatever else may fit the overall design you were going for. If all you have is the image, then you just have to copy/paste it all over the paper so you don’t print one page per tattoo. That will be a big waste of money and resources.

Kid’s Drawings

If you have a scanner, you could always let the kids design their own tattoos. Section off some sheets of paper so that the drawing space is just as big as you want the tattoos to be. You could just fold it in half several times so that all of the sections are even. Cut out each square and give it to the child. Then let them use markers to design the images. That will show up better than crayon or colored pencil would once scanned. Gather the images and put them on the scanner to form a full page. Then scan it into your computer and print it off with your inkjet or laser printer. The kids can then wear their own art at all times. The may look completely atrocious, but the kids won’t know that. They’ll feel accomplished for their works of art.

How to Print Your Own Temporary Tattoos

If the ideas above have inspired you to do this for your next kid party, you can follow this guide from another one of my blogs to print your own tattoos: Print Your Own Temporary Tattoos. All you need is tattoo paper, a printer, and a creative mind. Hook your kids up with some cool temporary tattoos, and you’re guaranteed to be the best parents on the block. You may not be able to apply for a tattoo artist license after this, but you can at least have fun at a party. Think of some creative options you can try out, and then print your way to the cool parent zone.