This post is from our guest blogger, Christopher Hillery, a certified youth fitness trainer and the owner of Transformer Fitness. He will be posting monthly articles about healthy kids and activities for parents and children to do together. For more information on Christopher’s personal training programs, check out his website at: http://www.transformerfitness.com

Is Using Food as a Reward for Good Behavior a Good Idea?

The other day at a department store I accidentally overheard a conversation between a mother and her son who looked about two years old. Ok fine, I was eavesdropping when I heard the mother say, “That’s not how a nice boy acts when he wants candy bar.” I admit that the child’s actions required some form of discipline since he was throwing books off the nearby bookshelf with little regard for the other store patrons, but holding a food-based reward over his head can potentially start a chain reaction that can effect the rest of her son’s life.

Using food as a part of a reward or disciplinary system can have damaging effects on your child’s psyche. By rewarding or disciplining your child with food, they form an emotional attachment it. Think about all the times you have said, “I accomplished (insert goal here) this week so I’m going to consume a whole pint of Ben and Jerry’s as a reward for a job well done.” I won’t lie I do the same thing on occasion. Once I became aware of my actions, I thought about how I could help my clients (most of whom are mothers and fathers) change the emotional relationship they had with food so they could educate their children on how to reward themselves without the use of food.

Start a reward system that promotes more active benefits like taking them to the park to play, miniature golfing or to a water park. All of these activities will form emotional bonds between your child, an active lifestyle and most of all you. If activities or “movement experiences” become the basis for rewarding good behavior, your child will form emotional bonds with exercise and activity rather than with food. Both food and activity rewards create motivation for good behavior but the food based reward only lasts as long as it takes the child to eat it. Once the food is gone, so is the motivation to be well behaved. Whatever activity you or your child chooses as reward will be more of a positive impact, meaning the positive feelings the child gets from the prolonged activity will make a much more effective and lasting impression. That positive impression will lead to more positive behaviors in your child since they are now motivated by an experience that lasts longer than a few bites of a Butterfinger.

Here are some additional tips that will help you create a healthier reward system:

1) Remember that the purpose of food is to give our bodies the necessary fuel to get through each day. I am NOT discounting the importance of food tasting good and being enjoyable. I am saying that food should be looked at as a physical necessity rather than an emotional one. Your child doesn’t deserve food because they behaved at the grocery store. They need food to grow up healthy and that fact should be instilled in them at all times.

2) Schedule meals and snack times at the same time everyday. By doing this, you are getting your child on a guess-free eating schedule. They know each day that lunch is at noon regardless of how they behave. This helps your child view food as a daily requirement rather than benefit that accompanies good or bad behavior/feelings.

3) Talk to you child about the importance of eating healthy and being active. This may seem like a no-brainer but most parents avoid talking to their children about living healthy lifestyles. Make the discussion fun and easy to understand so your child retains the information more effectively. For more information on how to talk to your child about health and nutrition, check out http://www.fitnessforyouth.umich.edu/.

4) Recognize and address your own emotional ties to food and make changes to your behavior. Children often adhere to the “monkey see, monkey do” philosophy and may adopt behaviors of yours. If they see or hear that you are rewarding yourself with chocolate cake for a job well done, then they may start expecting similar rewards for their accomplishments.

I hope this article has provided you with some helpful tips on how to create your own activity based reward system for your child. My gut told me I should have shared this pearl of wisdom with the mother of the book hurling child, but I kept my mouth shut as I tried to avoid a hardback copy of the latest Elmo book

This post is another one of our new features. We will be posting monthly recipes from the Children’s World Cookbook - UsBorne Books. To view or purchase this amazing and diverse cookbook, visit our friends at:

http://www.ubah.com/R2633

Bloomsbury Review - September/October 2002
The Children’s World Cookbook includes favorite recipes from many countries around the world. For the United States it is cheesecake and brownies! The most fascinating aspect of the book, though, may be the pages devoted to explaining one food type as it appears in different countries. For instance, the page on breads around the world shows pictures of brioche, pretzels, nan, pita, focaccia, and more. If your child has any sense of adventure when it comes to food, this book will surely be of interest. It is not a young child’s book, however, but meant for someone old enough to know his or her way around a kitchen - maybe even you. Reviewer - Cindy L.A. Jones, Ph.D.

French Apple Tart

(Serves 4)

175g/6oz. plain flour
85g/3oz. chilled butter
30g/1oz. caster sugar
1 egg yolk, beaten
1-2 tablespoons cold water
450g/1lb. cooking apples
55g/2oz. caster sugar
3 eating apples
2 tablespoons apricot jam
2 tablespoons hot water

a 20cm (8in.) flan dish

Oven temperature: 200°C/400°F/Gas mark 6

1. Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces and add them to the flour.
2. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingers until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Add 30g/1oz. caster sugar.
3. Mix in the beaten egg yolk and enough water to make a ball of dough. Put it into a refrigerator for 30 minutes.
4. Turn on the oven. Peel the cooking apples, cut them into quarters and cut out the cores. Slice the quarters.
5. Put the apples, cold water and sugar into a saucepan. Cook them over a low heat until the apple is soft. Stir well.
6. Sprinkle some flour onto a board and onto a rolling pin. Roll the pastry into a big circle about 2cm/1in. thick.
7. Line the flan dish with the pastry. Prick it with a fork and trim the edges with a knife. Bake it for ten minutes.
8. Spoon the cooked apple into the pastry case. Slice the eating apples and arrange them in circles on top.
9. Mix the jam with the hot water and brush it over the sliced apples to glaze them. Bake the tart for 30 minutes.

(c) 2000 Usborne Publishing Ltd.

We’ve all heard the recent reports of companies claiming to have all natural and organic products, increasing their prices to the consumer and then failing the independent testing done to assure that products are indeed as “Organic” as they claim to be.

How are consumers protected from this scam?  Many shoppers accept paying higher prices for higher quality products, and that usually means healthy, natural, and organic.  People purchase these products for a reason; they do not want the harsh chemicals, by-products or preservatives typically found in run-of-the-mill items.  I am one such mom that is adamant about organic products for my daughter, especially in the Health and Beauty Care section.  Too many of the well-known manufacturers use science-based rather than nature-based components in their baby lines.  I purchase my baby products at Sprouts or Whole Foods stores with the belief that they are indeed safer and subject to more stringent testing but…one never knows for sure, until now!

I recently came across the website called Skin Deep Beauty which evaluates every ingredient in most every product on the market when it comes to health and beauty care.  After evaluation, it then give the products a ranking from 0-10 with 0-2 being low-hazard, 3-6 being moderately hazardous and 7-10 being highly hazardous.  It breaks all of the items down into categories and then into further subcategories to help consumers search.  You can also enter specific ingredients to see what testing has shown regarding their safety and you can search by product name to find specific items you are currently using.  This site evens breaks down every ingredient and states what problems, diseases, etc. each of its ingredients have been linked to in testing.  It is truly a wealth of information about what we are putting onto and into our bodies.

Thankfully, the products that I have purchased were all in the very low hazard group, meaning they are indeed what they claim to be; organic, natural and SAFE.

This company is not for profit and they are funded by donations and sponsorships only.  They do some political work trying to get laws changed for testing, producing and manufacturing of health care products as well.  They offer companies a Compact for Safe Cosmetics that they can sign to declare:

That all of the cosmetics and personal care products made by our company anywhere in the world meet the formulation standards and deadlines set by the European Union Directive 76/768/EEC to be free of chemicals that are known or strongly suspected of causing cancer, mutation or birth defects.

To implement substitution plans that replace hazardous materials with safer alternatives within three years. We will accomplish this by:

• Conducting an inventory of potential chemicals of concern in our products (or byproducts) to determine their toxicity to living things, their persistence in the environment, their ability to increase in concentration in the food chain, their contamination of our bodies, or qualities they possess that pose hazards including carcinogens, endocrine disrupters, sensitizers, mutagens, reproductive toxins, developmental toxins and neurotoxins

   

• Developing an aggressive substitution plan and timeline: to move to safer materials, prioritizing for substitution those compounds internationally recognized as most toxic; to provide for an ongoing review of safer materials and chemicals as effective, cost-competitive alternatives are available, and; to work with upstream suppliers to provide toxicity data on chemicals in products.

   

• Publicly reporting on progress to meet these goals.

You can search the signers to see if companies that produce your most widely-used health and beauty care products have agreed to the compact.

By utilizing this resource and others like it, consumers have a watch-dog that can alert them to the dangers and false-claims by untrustworthy manufacturers trying to make a quick buck off of the “green” movement.  Thank you to Skin Deep, please keep up the wonderful work!

Hello Everyone!

This is our NEW feature, BookWormz, where we review and post about muti-cultural books that embrace our spirit of diversity and unity.  We hope you enjoy these favorites as much as we do!

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush

Sing Along with Fred Penner as you follow four children from different countries, each getting ready for school. See what the pictures tell you about different ways of life in Europe, Mali, India, and China.

“In this cheerful picture book with an accompanying CD, four children in different cultures act out the revised words to a traditional song, ‘Here We Go round the Mulberry Bush’ … Brimming with activity and color, the stylized acrylic paintings make each setting look different and inviting … Slipped into a plastic pocket on the endpapers, the CD features Canadian musician Fred Penner singing the new words. Appended notes introduce the old song and the accompanying movements. An upbeat way to introduce the notion that people around the world are different yet have much in common.”
- Booklist

“This multicultural treat will encourage creative movement as well as creativity in inventing other verses for preschoolers.”
- School Library Journal

Sung by: Fred Penner
Illustrated by: Sophie Fatus

To order Here we Go Round the Mulberry Bush, please visit our friends at:

BAREFOOT BOOKS and enter EV01 upon checking out.

Happy Worming,

“Zapateo” is a Peruvian dance mixing Andean and African heritage, popular in a few coastal towns south of Lima is kept alive mostly by Afro-Peruvian children living in the area.

Traditionally, children practice throughout the year to dance for “Baby Jesus” when Christmas comes but lately, little children have started to understand that it is up to them to maintain the tradition.

Children have started to join dance companies to practice and improve their skills, the video that we share with you is in Spanish but even if you are not a Spanish speaker you can be sure to enjoy the music and the performances. The kids in the video come from unprivileged rural areas south of Lima, but in spite of their financial situation, they find joy in what they do, stepping hard to show their devotion and commitment to the dance and their ancestry.

httpv://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?video_id=L79ymaMDmjU&rel=1&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//i.ytimg.com/vi/L79ymaMDmjU/default.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskKbkde1rz6CS8EYhwKIC7QT&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1

To fully join a company, the children have to be “baptized” which includes splashing with Holy Water, some encouraging words from their “Zapateo Masters” and eating some salt.

The dance consists of a competition between two groups of dancers and it’s also a way to create music using the feet as a percussion instrument. Usually dancers are accompanied by guitar and cajon (wooden drum box) players. The Afro Peruvian Zapateo is similar to the stepping tap dance of African Americans and other Afro descendant communities around the world. The origins of most of them are from Africa itself

Gigi Pedraza
Inca Kids, A Fair Trade Store
www.incakids.org

I have a three year old who loves the water. Seeing the pool everyday gets her so excited and she can’t seem to think about anything else but jumping in that water. She just loves paddling the length of the pool and floating on the raft with me, but her favorite part is jumping off the pool deck to fetch her chew toys…Did I mention my three year old happens to be a Golden Retriever? My point in sharing this tale (or should I say tail?) is to discuss one of the summer activities kids enjoy more than anything. What could be better on a hot summer day than to splash around with friends and family in a cool body of water?

Swimming is a phenomenal way for your kids to expend some energy and burn calories. The best part about it is, they don’t even recognize they are exercising. When you introduce a child to a new “movement experience” like swimming, running or biking, it needs to be as enjoyable as possible. If the act feels like a chore, the child will lose interest and enthusiasm almost immediately. That is the great thing about swimming. 99% of the time, the child is begging for you to let them get in the water. Many, if not all of them, are hard to pull away from the water once they get in. They could be as wrinkly as a Shar Pei and they would keep on treading water.

Of course before you can allow your child to swim without parental assistance, they will first require some swimming instruction. Although the tried and true method of throwing your child into the deep end of the pool to “sink or swim” was once a popular method of swimming instruction, most people today (including the local law enforcement) would say that is an antiquated and ineffective approach. The best way to teach your child to swim is to enroll them in a professional swimming instruction class. These classes are taught by well-qualified instructors who can teach your child to be a successful swimmer. They create a fun and supportive environment that teaches children to be less fearful of swimming. Throughout the classes, your child will develop the skills necessary to become stronger swimmers. Don’t wait too long to get your child acclimated to the water. They say that if you haven’t learned to swim by the time you are 15 years old, chances are you never will.

If you can’t find a credible swim school in your neck of the woods, try looking at your local municipalities’ recreation calendar; many offer swim classes year round for kids of all ages. Check with your local Parks and Recreation Departments to see if they can send you out a listing of all the swim related classes they have available.

Once your child has mastered the basics of swimming including floating, treading water, kicking, paddling, submerging their faces under water, jumping off the sides of the pool and using their arms and legs to swim to you, they can be introduced to more diverse and advance swimming activities. If you child shows an athletic disposition to swimming or diving, find a local swim team for them to belong to. Swimming laps is a great total body cardiovascular workout for kids to be involved in. They get to meet other kids who share their love of the water, learn proper breathing techniques that can transfer into any other endurance sport and will get a great resistance training workout. When you swim, you use your arms and legs to displace the water around you. The water acts as a form of resistance which helps build muscle while you swim around the pool. It really is the best of both worlds. You can get a great total body resistance training and cardiovascular workout at one time. What could be more efficient than that?

While all the information listed above is designed to encourage your children to become comfortable in the water, I must stress the EXTREME IMPORTANCE of water safety. Each year approximately 830 children ages 1-14 die as a result of unintentional drowning. That statistic is for Maricopa County in Arizona. You can only imagine what that number is on a nationwide or on a global scale. In order for you to keep your kids, and your kids’ friends safe around the pool this summer, please make sure you take the necessary safety precautions. For some of the best tips on how to keep your children from becoming another drowning statistic, check with your local fire departments for a checklist of important safety tips you can implement around your home.

Have fun swimming and keep up the good work!

Christopher Hillery has been a Certified Personal Trainer for 9 years and is the owner of Transformer Fitness in Phoenix, Arizona. He was once an overweight child and knows first- hand how the effects of being overweight can be damaging. It is his goal to help overweight children and adults develop lasting healthy habits and a positive body image. Chris can design a full workout program for parents and children which can include a nutrition program, along with equipment to use at home. For this and other services visit http://www.transformerfitness.com Chris can be reached via email at: christopher_hillery@yahoo.com

For some parents across the country, weekends are measured in soccer game start times, baseball innings and tournament scores. Researchers estimate that over 14 million children play one type of organized sport and several of those youngsters play multiple sports depending on the season. Sports are important for teaching good sportsmanship, goal-setting, teamwork, and for encouraging children to have an active lifestyle. Aside from these obvious advantages, organized sports can also play a much larger and culturally significant role as well.

Sports combine athletic as well as social skills and mix them up into an organized framework. Children are often required to put aside their own desires and ego for the sake of their team. They spend time learning from and befriending teammates who often are more like brothers and sisters than mere friends. Team uniforms are worn to signify solidarity and equality; everyone’s uniform looks the same. Children learn to play, strategize and communicate with people from all walks of life; those of different religions, race, ethnicity, gender and culture and work toward a common goal - winning. They are often exposed at an early age to those that are different from themselves but possess equal or greater skills and they come to realize that everyone is different, but differences can be strengths as well. Consider the following sports when looking for a diverse team activity for your child:

1. Baseball - - Baseball not only requires good communication from all team members; pitcher and catcher, outfielder to infielder and between the out and in-fielders themselves, it also encourages children to assist struggling teammates who are not performing well. By succeeding individually, children help contribute to a winning team environment and each child knows that even though he or she may not have their best game that day, one of their teammates will pick up the slack.

Major League Baseball also has many international stars and role-models that children of different ethnicities and nationalities can look up to and admire. There are players from Japan, Korea, Canada, the US, Australia, Mexico, Cuba and several other countries around the globe. MLB has training centers in a number of Central and South American countries and are constantly providing instruction and education for their players. The teams play exhibition games overseas and have created a World Baseball Classic which features international teams competing against each other for the title.

2. Basketball - - Basketball requires communication as well. While on the court, players make each other aware of their positions as well as the position of the defenders. It also encourages and rewards players for unselfish play in passing the ball to others to score. It necessitates an understanding between all players and the coach when plays are created in practice or called out during the game. Basketball is a game of camaraderie and the more time a team spends together practicing, the better they know where teammates will be during any given play in the game.

Recently, the National Basketball Association has seen an influx of international players as well. There are players from all different walks of life and several different age groups, as the NBA allows high school players to participate. Basketball is a very popular international Olympic sport and thousands of fans from every different country come out to support their team during the trials and 2 week events.

3. Football - - In football, we truly see the uniform disguising all differences. The helmets children wear to protect themselves also offers a mask to hide skin color, gender differences and cultural distinctions as well. Everyone looks the same on the football field; there is no one better than another; the great equalizer. This helps children to be judged more on their ability to play, rather than what they look like or where they come from. Football, like Baseball and Basketball requires communication skills between teammates as well as a desire to unselfishly sacrifice oneself for another teammate.

4. Other Sports Programs - - There are a number of other special sports programs in communities across the country that focus on helping children with disabilities participate and establish relationships. Special baseball fields, basketball courts and tennis facilities allow children in wheelchairs, walkers and on crutches to play sports alongside of their peers. Mixed leagues provide children without physical disabilities the chance to participate and learn about children that are different from themselves.

Although many people may consider sports divisive and ego-driven with all players performing for themselves, parents can use sports as an opportunity to teach children about the satisfaction that comes from being part of a team. Children can learn life lessons as they play; leadership, teamwork, social skills and they can also learn that people that look, speak or play differently from themselves are people that they want to get to know and become friends with. Children are open to learning about others and accepting those who are different. We as parents need to be conscious of what we are teaching and the opportunities that we provide to them for doing just that.

It’s almost summer! That means it’s time for splashing around in the pool and escaping the heat by heading to the cool mountains for some outdoor fun. The products we use to protect us from the sun and from the pesky outdoor pests that we encounter during our summer activities can have less than desirable ingredients and chemicals listed on their labels. In order to avoid harmful substances that are absorbed into our skin, what should we look for to know we are using safe products for ourselves and our children?

Protection from the sun is important, but so is knowing what types of things to avoid in commercial sunscreens. Remember, our skin is our largest organ and anything absorbed into the skin can be transported to other organs in our body in about 7 seconds. In recognition of that fact, try to avoid the following common sunscreen ingredients:

PABA: Many people are very sensitive to this ingredient and can end up with red, itchy skin.

Benzophenone (benzophenone-3), homosalate, and octy-methoxycinnamate (octinoxate): These chemicals have shown estrogenic activity in lab tests. Oxybenzone is a derivative of benzophenone and it is linked to allergies, hormone disruption, and cell damage. According to the CDC 97% of Americans are contaminated with this widely-used sunscreen ingredient.

Parabens (butyl-, ethyl-, methyl-, and propyl-): Parabens are common in sunscreens so avoiding them may prove difficult. They are preservatives that have estrogenic qualities. They have produced abnormal hormonal effects following on laboratory rodents, particularly male, resulting in decreased testosterone levels and other abnormalities. They have also been found to accumulate in the breast tissue of women with breast cancer.

Padimate-O and Parsol 1789 (Avobenzone): While on the surface of the skin these chemicals appear to prevent UV damage but when absorbed into the skin they can actually damage DNA. There is evidence that the sun’s light may cause these chemicals to become reactive and cause free-radical damage.

Safe sunscreen components include any zinc oxide or titanium dioxide products that scatter, rather than absorb the sun’s rays. In addition, you can use protective sun clothing to keep your skin shielded when you are planning to be outside. Hats, sunglasses and UVA/UVB repellant swimwear are widely available and provide the safest protection for kids and adults alike.

To combat those pesky mosquitoes and other biting insects, we need to once again, examine what it is that we are using on our skin. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency suggests the use of “non-chemical” methods to deter biting insects before any consideration of chemical insect repellents. Most bug sprays and repellents contain DEET. DEET is a pesticide that is considered HIGHLY toxic. Experts report that up to 56% of DEET applied to the skin penetrates the skin and about 17% is absorbed into the blood stream.

One of the major adverse effects of DEET exposure to children is seizures and brain damage. As parents, it is wise to utilize caution, care and knowledge in your approach to protecting your children from dangerous insect bites.

Consider using barriers like window screens and netting to shield your children and protect their skin with long-sleeve shirts, long pants and socks. Other commercial products with safe and effective ingredients are:

MiEnviron Certified Organic Personal Bug Spray
SmartShield
California Baby SPF 30 + Bug Repellent

Now that warmer weather is here, families can spend time together enjoying being outside. If we can do a little bit of label reading before purchasing some of the summer necessities, it will be a safer and “greener” season for everyone!

Hello Everyone!!

This week we are participating in the mommyfest.com Blog Party!!  Click on this link to go and visit all of the other wonderful blogs that are participating.

To celebrate our participation, we are giving away one of our Regionz Kidz Tank Tops for infants, toddlers or moms FREE

To enter, just leave a comment with your email address on this entry with your favorite character, gender and design from our Regionz Kidz sketchbooks, found on our website home page.  At the end of the week, we will choose our winner and you will be contacted via email to choose your size!!

Also, in your comment, if you are interested in receiving our monthly newsletter, please make a note of that and I will add your name to our list.  Our newsletter contains articles on diversity, healthy kids, and growing up “green”, along with coupon codes and great partner deals.

Thanks and enjoy the PARTY

Moms deserve a special day all to themselves. Being a mom myself, I am probably biased, but… I believe that being a mother is the most difficult thing a woman can do & the accomplishment is something to be celebrated!

The origins of Mother’s Day have roots in the 1600s. Mothering Day as it was called in England, became an especially compassionate holiday toward the working class women. On the Sunday of Lent, servants and trade workers were allowed to travel back to their towns of origin to visit their families. Mothering Day also provided a one-day reprieve from the fasting and penance of Lent so that families across England could enjoy a sumptuous family feast—Mother was the guest of honor. Mothers were presented with cakes and flowers, as well as a visit from their beloved and distant children.

The modern day US celebration is very similar to the celebrations of the English so long ago. We shower our Mothers with flowers, greeting cards and gifts to thank them for their devotion and love. However, the Holiday is not specific to the United States and is celebrated all over the world in a number of different ways.

• 1. Argentina: During Día de la madre, young children gather their mothers together and read them poetry.
• 2. Japan: On haha no hi, families prepare traditional dishes that their mothers taught them to cook. The Japanese give their Mothers flowers (especially red carnations), scarves, handkerchiefs and handbags.
• 3. United Kingdom: The Mother’s day traditions include a gift of violet and the customary Simnel Cake, a glazed fruitcake inspired by a folk tale about a married couple, Simon and Nell. So the story goes, this pair could not decide bake or broil a cake. So in the end they did both. Thus Simnel Cake was born.
• 4. Finland: Mother’s Day is called aidipayiva and in the morning the family takes a walk, picks new flowers and makes a bouquet for their mother. A particular flower called the valkovuokko is favored. Mom is then presented with a decorated bouquet, while also being served breakfast in bed.
• 5. Sweden: Mother’s Day takes a charitable course; the Swedish Red Cross sells small plastic flowers leading up to the holiday, and the proceeds raised are given to poor mothers and their children.

This year to celebrate our wonderful Mothers in a new and different way, perhaps we can adopt a few of the unique customs that are celebrated around the world. Read a poem to your mom, bake a cake, serve her breakfast in bed, or make a charitable donation in her name. Take it from someone who knows, she will appreciate the originality and thought that is put into making Mother’s Day such a special and wonderful day of celebration!

Lisa Smith has a BA in Psychology & is the Owner/CEO of Regionz Kidz, a multi-cultural infant & toddler clothing line featuring ethnically diverse characters and designs. She publishes a blog on her website http://www.regionzkidz.com that discusses cultural diversity & children & is a frequent guest blogger on other blogs and websites regarding parenting and children’s issues. She is also a monthly contributor to Educated Mommy Magazine. You can contact Lisa directly at: lisa@regionzkidz.com