Gift ideas for different kind of kids

Each year, the market is flooded with a huge variety of toys. This can lead to much confusion for parents who are looking for toys that will stimulate their child. Most parents are looking for toys that are intellectually stimulating and give value for their hard-earned dollars. The rule of thumb to follow when picking a toy for your child is to consider what type of kid you have. The following gift ideas are arranged according to your child’s personality.

The Bookworm

If your child loves books or is nicknamed “the bookworm”, then this is a great opportunity to introduce your child to literary series of books. The Favorite Series Starters Boxed Set: A Collection Of First Books From Five Favorite Series For Early Chapter Book Readers is the perfect gift for children between the ages of 6 to 9. This is a great way for children to follow their favorite characters and also promote literacy.

The Computer Whiz

If your child enjoys manipulating three dimensional puzzles and interactive games, then the Sifteo Cube Intelligent Game System is the right choice. These offer children an interactive and tactile gaming surface, bringing to life a passive screen. It encourages lots of finger and hand manipulation. This is an award-winning game system, great for small groups and individuals.

The Scientist

The Primary Science Set created by Learning Resources, is the ideal gift item for children who like to experiment, take things apart and put back together. This toy comes with real scientific tools, sized for tiny hands. It contains tools such as a funnel, eyedropper, flask, goggles, tweezers, and 10 activity cards. The toy enables children to carry out authentic experiments.

The Builder

Magna Tiles Clear Colors 100 Piece Set is the best gift for children between 2 and 12 years. Children will enjoy building different ideas and taking them apart. These tiles can be used in conjunction with LEGO as well. This toy is a teacher’s favorite because it is great for building fine motor control, not to mention creativity. It will keep children occupied for hours.

The Board Gamer

This type of child enjoys playing in groups or even one-on-one. Board game toys such as Qwirkle by Mindware are great for building spatial reasoning, pattern perception, as well as color and shape recognition. Board games encourage your child to think critically. Board games are great for family pastime, and even as a group activity with friends.

The Artist

This type of child enjoys dabbling with paint brushes, crayons, markers, and coloring pencils. Crayola Oil Pastels are a great gift idea for this type of child. The color shades are vivid and creamy, and are great for teaching color theory because they can be blended to create secondary colors. They are an inexpensive item and can be stored easily.

The Great Pretender

This type of child enjoys fantasy, and make believe. Apart from dressing up, children can also use puppets to express themselves. For instance, the Melissa & Doug Puppets are a great gift idea for children ages 3 and up. They can be used to tell stories, express emotions, and for general learning.

The Athlete

This type of child is very active and usually enjoys engaging in all types of sporting activities. The Kickback Soccer Goal And Pitch Back is a great gift idea for just this sort of purpose. Children can use this toy to play soccer, hockey, street hockey, and back ball.

The Homemaker

The Red Vintage Kitchen is a great toy for a child who enjoys pretend play in the kitchen. Apart from cooking, children can set up a restaurant, go shopping, unload groceries, and even have tea parties. This is a great toy for children aged 2 to 8 years.

Choosing a great gift for your child will be much easier if you can identify what “type” of child you have!

Mooting Responsibilities and Allowances for a Child

Setting a routine and following it smoothly is the major factor that contributes to efficient running of any household. But, a critical question that all the parents' face is: When is the right time to raise the stakes for my child? Be it allowance or responsibilities on day-to-day basis. Every parent has two options, as the child grows up. These are: letting them be babies or helping and guiding them to grow up. Then the concern is, whether are we pushing them to grow up too fast? Hence, it is vital to strike a perfect balance and respecting them for what they are. The first sign to re-evaluate the routine is when the child starts getting jaded and uninterested in the set daily routine of chores and bedtimes.

1. Taking more responsibilities: It is always better to be flexible and willing to appraise routines on daily basis. When your child starts outdoing his assigned chores list, that's the time you can challenge him to add on more responsibilities. Allocate a new task and see if he can do it himself. To your surprise, you might find it completed. But, if not, then you jump in for help. When you notice your child sneaking around and doing something unacceptable, then explain him that it is a privilege for which he might not be ready. At the same time, this behavior is an indication for you to provide him more responsibility and then reward him with more freedom as privilege.

2. Allowance: It is nice to reward the child with praise for completing tasks when they are young and wanting to help you around with daily chores. While most of the daily chores should be attended to without any monetary rewards attached to it, a little additional incentive and raised allowance for harder and difficult jobs will motivate them to do more. The raise can be in any form like: money, freedom or a chance to go somewhere or meet somebody. Also, prior to any raises it is important to be sure about the duration of their allowance, the frequency of raise and your own affordability in the long run. Educating the children about the direct relation between hard work and allowance is a priceless and vital goal for their adulthood.

It is wise to move ahead gently and gradually observe the child's reaction to every change that you bring up. Taking any decision or changing a routine involves a lot of parental instinct.

Top 10 Natural Sleep Remedies

Are you suffering from insomnia? Rest assured you are not alone! There are hundreds and thousands of people that are suffering from it. The reason is stress and anxiety. These factors affect the mental well-being affecting the sleep pattern adversely. More and more people are taking sleep inducing drugs and pills to sleep. However, this has been proved to have serious side effects on both your mind and body.

 Given below are some natural sleep remedies which will put to bed naturally:

1.         Sleeping Routine: Try and develop a good sleeping routine. Avoid sleeping till late or till noon on weekends also, as this may lead to disruption of your biological clock, thereby leading to unnecessary sleeping problems. This will not only help form an automatic sleep-wake clock inside the mental system, but also avoid the problem of tossing and turning while trying to asleep.

2.         Working Out: Studies have proved time and again that working out regularly not only helps you stay more active and fit but also improves your quality of sleep pattern. Working out regularly leads to less depressive symptoms and sleepiness during the daytime as well, thereby enabling you to take a good sleep during the night.

3.         Better Diet: You must adopt a diet which involves intake of lesser amount of caffeine. For instance, you must avoid too much coffee or tea or even soft drinks. Also avoid overeating and spicy food, which may lead to indigestion or acidity, thereby leading to unhealthy sleep pattern.

4.         Stop Smoking: There are several studies that show that non-smokers are bound to have a healthier sleeping pattern than people who smoke regularly. The reason is simple, nicotine as it has causes sleep withdrawal problem. It is also a well-known fact that smoking leads to respiratory problems which disrupts your restful sleeping patterns.

5.         Avoid Drinking at Night: One of the myths associated with alcohol is that it puts you to sound sleep. On the contrary, drinking alcohol at night not only harms the pattern of sleep brainwaves that make you feel fresh in the mornings, it also disrupts your long term sleeping patters.

 

 

6.         Avoid Kids and Pets: One would even come across several studies which prove that people who sleep with their pets or kids on their bed are the ones facing most trouble in having a good night’s sleep. Each creature requires its own space, whether it is your pet or your kid or you yourself. Hence, each must have a space of their own, so that you are not disrupted from your sleep.

7.         Switching off to Night Mode: Whether you are thinking of taking a nap during the day or during the night, it is important for your brain to sense darkness around. This is because psychologically, your brain considers brightness as the time to wake up and darkness as the time to go to sleep. Hence, keep your room free from any form of light when sleeping, especially when you really need a good restful sleep.

8.         Avoid Television: You must avoid watching television just before going to sleep. This is because you need to put your mind in a relaxed frame while sleeping and sitting in front of the television or computer puts your mind in an alert state, which can grasp all the information flowing from these electronic mediums. The bright light from the television or the computer or even your phone can cause trouble in going to sleep and hence, these should be avoided.

9.         Focus on Mind Relaxing: You must have noticed that it is easier to get sleep when your mind is absolutely relaxed and free from all thoughts. Therefore, lie down on your bed and shut your mind from everything. Focus on your breathing pattern and try to relax each muscle of your mind, starting with your brain muscles till your foot muscles.

10.     Comfortable Bed: You must find the right kind and form of mattress and pillow that suits your body structure, especially your neck and back. Too thin a mattress can also cause stiffness in muscles and backache. In case you are having such troubles while sleeping then try and adopt a different mattress for a while to see if it’s the mattress which is causing trouble. If yes, then it is time for you to be a new one which suits your body.

 

These ten habits will let you have a sound sleep and help you stay active and fit throughout the day.

10 Creative Ways of “Coming Out Of The Closet”

The terms “coming out of the closet”, refers to an individual who has a homosexual orientation, and decides to inform others. The “closet” is in reference to a secret, because acceptance of homosexuality is not widespread, which is why most individuals keep their sexual preference in the “closet”. So if you have decided to come out of the closet, congratulations! Here are 10 creative ways to let everyone know you are gay and proud of it!

1) Bake a cake- Organize a get together for your friends and relatives and bake a cake. Write “I am gay” on it in icing. Make sure the icing is in a bold, and in a contrasting color.

2) Send out announcement cards- Design special announcement cards with the message “I am gay and proud of it!” This is quite a unique way of announcement. Avoid e-cards as most of the times they are considered to be spam mails by your friends and relatives.

3) Announce it on Facebook- Write a sincere anecdote about how you found out that you were gay, and post it on your page. Make sure that this information is only visible to your friends and family. Making this information public might put your safety at risk.

4) Make a cartoon strip- Create a cartoon strip with you and another character. Devise a quirky conversation between the two, with you ultimately stating your sexual preference. This is a great idea especially if you are a great artist.

5)  Write a song and publish it on YouTube- This is a great way to be original, and it enables you to send the link to anyone. You can potentially make big bucks out of this venture. But make sure your song is original though!

6) The “I am gay” fortune cookie- Invite your near and dear ones over for dinner. At the end of the meal, hand each guest a fortune cookie. The note in each cookie could read “X is gay, and wanted to let you know”.

7) Send a tweet- On your twitter page, send out a tweet to everyone you know. This is a perfect way to send out the message short and sweet.

8) Chain text message- Create and send a text message to all your friends, saying “Have you heard the impossible? x is gay!” This way you will not miss out anybody!

9) Create your own web page- On your page you can post an announcement about your “coming out”. Also, add information about gay, gay laws and notions so that people can actually understand it.

10) Have your own “coming out” party- Invite fifty of your closest friends, and inform them it is a costume party. Dress up in a drag queen’s outfit, and answer the door, with the phrase “Welcome to my coming out Party”. This will create laughs, and definitely generate a conversation.

“Coming out” is a big step, so why not make it a memorable one!

Snoring Is The Number Three Cause Of Divorce

Did you know that snoring is the number one medical cause of divorce? Shocked! But this is true. It is quite annoying if your partner snores all throughout the night. Couple often begins with arguing about sleeping and the argument is soon heated because of tiredness, irritability and this causes tension. This also impacts your blood pressure.

A study, examining quality of sleep, was conducted at London’s Imperial College, with 140 volunteers, who lived near Heathrow and other major airports. This study found that noise levels higher than 35 decibels, such as planes, traffic, and even snoring, cause spikes in blood pressure of 0.66 mm Hg, at every five decibel increment. Just for your information, a 90 decibel level is similar to the noise of a jackhammer.

Since hypertension can lead to whole host of diseases such as strokes, dementia, heart and kidney disease, experts suggest that you remedy your current sleeping situation. Consider the following techniques to get a sound night’s sleep:

Invest in a white noise machine

These machines send out variable sound frequencies which mask or cancel irritating noises. Placing an air filter near your bed will have the same impact. The partner can hope to have a sound sleep.

Listen to Soothing Music

Simply load up your iPod with soothing tunes, and listen to this as you fall asleep. Ambient sounds such as rain, ocean waves, and wind chimes, can have the same impact.

Invest In a Pair of Ear Plugs

Ear plugs may or may not block the sound entirely, but they do work in reducing volume. You will have to experiment with a variety of ear plugs before selecting a pair that fits you correctly.

These might seem trivial solutions but these are worth a try and not let your health being affected. Also, to save your wedding make sure you share a healthy relationship with your partner. The relationship must involve emotional and physical intimacy to strengthen the bond the fight the problem of snoring if it gets in the way of your relationship.