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HELP 4 EVERY PARENT www.help4everyparent.com |
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Food for Day Care Bread, cheese, custard, yoghurt, noodles, egg and diced vegetables are all healthy and easy to prepare foods that will give your toddler energy and be fun to eat for lunch.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Good eating habits begin as soon as a baby begins tasting solid food. Some babies accept all food as it is offered but some are fussy. It is best to persist in offering tiny tastes of the same food until it is accepted. Savoury tastes are important to develop. All too soon children develop a liking for the over sweet foods that many food companies market. Raw fruit without added sugar makes an excellent snack any time of day because it contains energy without spoiling the appetite for the main meal. Look for the fruits in season.
Make sure that your toddler is helping you in a safe place. Protect the child from sharp and hot things. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Kids love to eat and help prepare novelty food. Here is a healthy fun snack. Slit a bread roll scoop out most of the soft middle fill with chopped ham or a spoonful of cooked mince and some chopped tomato sprinkle with garlic salt, top with grated cheese. Bake in oven or microwave until cheese has melted. Add a carrot stick mast. Eat. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With Christmas approaching, kids and adults too are likely to be invited to parties where much of the food is sweet and inappropriate for diabetics. As more and more people become obese it is important to reduce fat and sugar in all our diets so concerned parents will be on the lookout for ways to do this. Here is an idea I found at www.diabetic-lifestyle.com Frozen Strawberry Pops Ingredients
Method
To serve, let stand at room temperature just until you can peel off the paper cup. Eat at once. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Summer time is great for fresh fruit. Some pre-schoolers are unwilling to try new fruits, but a novelty approach may work. Cars appeal to boys and it is easy to make a fruit car on a plate. Use a half slice of watermelon for the car body and let your imagination work freely to construct the rest. Suggestions are kiwi fruit wheels, a banana driver, mango strips for the windows and peaches slices for mudguards. Girls may prefer a fruit dolly. Use banana for the doll’s body and legs, cherry or grapes for feet, a peach slice for her head and mango or melon for her skirt. Umbrellas, bags and hats can be cut from pineapple, pawpaw and orange segments. Children love helping to make fruit novelties and you’ll find that they come up with lots of their own ideas. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is currently an excellent ad on TV showing a child making a healthy food rocket. I’m sure it will appeal to children because it shows a child doing something fun himself. At the supermarket a couple of days later, I saw a free magazine at the checkout showing a boy also holding a good food fun snack. I took the magazine home and visited the website associated with it. The site is full of recipes children can follow and every one promotes healthy eating habits in a fun way. There are also interactive games for children to play. Do take a look and get your children involved www.freshfoodkids.com.au Congratulations to the company. I hope other supermarkets will follow this lead. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Family exercise is a great way to relax with the kids. When my children were small we had a pet donkey. Every afternoon before dark we took the donkey out walking. One child rode and the others walked alongside. The donkey, as well as the children looked forward to this. Not many families will have a donkey but many have dogs that need and enjoy exercise. Why not make it a family outing? In this way, everyone benefits. The route can be chosen by a different member of the family each day. Even for primary aged children it is good to have an adult along as there can be problems. Barking dogs in gardens may frighten your animal and other children may try to interfere with it. There is also traffic to watch out for. If you don’t have a dog, you could walk to see a dog that belongs to someone else. There is sure to be friendly person who owns a dog, in a street not too far away. If you stop to talk to a dog owner and ask about the animal, they will soon welcome the attention you and the children give. Remember though, to teach your children never to touch a dog that is not familiar to them unless the owner says it is safe to touch. If you feel tired at the end of the day, an energetic walk will revive your spirits and you’ll be setting a good example for your kids to follow. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dancing is an activity that can reach from birth to death. It reaches across all cultures and can be gentle or vigorous, sad or joyous, demure or sexy, and can be done alone or in groups. It is a healthy exercise and one to be encouraged. How can dancing begin at birth? Almost all babies like to be jiggled and almost all parents spontaneously jig their baby up and down to provide comfort. Jiggling is a form of dancing. Put on some music, turn on the radio and dance while holding baby in your arms. By the time baby is standing up holding onto some furniture, he/she will probably be moving in time to the music. This is the first dancing a baby will do spontaneously. Toddlers who see television will be sure to join in dance routines in their own way. By pre-school age, children are skilled copiers, and dancing and singing have become second nature. By joining in yourself and initiating dance or movement each day, children will continue to develop their skills and gain aerobic exercise at the same time. Dancing can take different forms. Many towns have dancing groups so that youngsters can learn ballet, Scottish dancing, tap, line dancing or ballroom dancing. Groups for adults are also available. With the Beijing Olympics approaching we have seen how gentle dance movements are followed by Chinese people of all ages in public places to herald in each day. All forms of dance give wonderful exercise but if you dance at home to music of your choice, it doesn’t cost a thing and can be such fun for the whole family. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Olympics has focused a great deal of attention on sport in the last month. From the media we see that many schools and individual teachers have organised Mini Olympics for children, with emphasis on taking part rather than on winning or with every participant getting a reward. I have done this myself during storytime, by holding the Toy Olympics, much to the delight of the children. Sporting clubs everywhere have had an upsurge of interest in sport from swimming to athletics, hockey to gymnastics, basketball to boxing, beach volleyball to sailing. Of course we are all pleased when one of our teams or athletes wins a medal, but it is pleasing to see the media coverage given to so many different events and athletes from other countries. I’m sure that friendships will have been forged between athletes world wide. Hopefully the upsurge in sports interest will continue so that more people take up an active lifestyle. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Children are prone to catch an illness easily because they often have their heads together and don’t think to take preventative measures. They learn at school that germs cause colds and flu, and other illnesses but they find it hard to understand that germs will be passed around even though they can’t be seen. Is it possible to reduce the number of colds in the classroom or child care room by taking simple measures.
Have a policy of not accepting sick children in your room. Have posters in your room about hygiene and be a good role model. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I learnt something new today and wonder if you already know it. We teach children to cover their mouths when coughing but they should cough into their elbow rather than covering the mouth or nose with the hand. It makes sense, as germs transferred to the hand will be passed on to people, toys, doors, chairs etc. whereas germs caught by the clothing or skin on the inside of the elbow are unlikely to touch anyone else or any toys. Research has shown that viruses can remain viable for several hours on surfaces. Of course teach children to use tissues when blowing their noses or wiping mouths and to discard the used tissue into an appropriate bin. Teach your child to blow one nostril at a time, closing the other one off firmly as this is best for the ears. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We were beginning to think that summer would pass without any summery days. Half way through January, the hot weather has struck with a vengeance. Some states are experiencing day after day of 35 to 45degree temperatures. Special care should be taken that children have sufficient fluids to drink, especially water. They need shady areas to play in and will need sunscreen reapplied often. While the water at the beach is very inviting, remember that people burn very quickly there because of the glary light and children burn fastest of all. The best lunch time food for hot days is salad food. In an esky pack tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, pineapple pieces, raw beetroot which is crunchy, tuna or smoked salmon, and thin sheets of Lebanese style bread in which to roll up the salad fillings. Children will love helping themselves to this type of food. Tomato juice or fruit juice without added sugar is most refreshing to end this type of picnic. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was almost unbelievable that while Victoria was being devastated by bushfires, there were disastrous floods in Queensland and then northern NSW. Where ever there is flood, there is a threat of waterborne disease as the water goes down. Clean water is sometimes polluted by unclean water getting into the system. River and creek water may have dead animals floating in it or be polluted by mud. Water for drinking should be boiled to avoid this Mosquitoes breed quickly in any pool of water and with mosquito bites comes the risk of Ross river Fever and Dengue Fever in Australia, and in many countries there is Malaria. Here are some tips to avoid getting bitten.
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