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Birthdays in Quarantine: 12 Best Ideas on Celebrations for Kids

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Does your child have a birthday coming up? Are you worried about what to do to make up for missing your child’s usual birthday party?

Birthdays in quarantine can be difficult for adults, let alone for children! But there are still things you can do to make the day special for your child. Let’s go through the 12 best ideas for your child’s birthday celebration in quarantine.

1. Make It a Virtual Party

If your kid is old enough, moving their birthday party to the virtual sphere might be a viable idea. Group conferencing services like Zoom and Skype are a really great way to keep in touch with your family and friends during this time, and they’re just as useful to make a birthday celebration a little more lively!

You’ll just want to make sure you stagger the arrivals to keep the group small and stop the call from being too overwhelming. And, it’ll give some wiggle room for technical difficulties and other such problems.

2. Throw a Parade

If you live in a suburban or rural area and most of your children’s friend’s families have cars, why not throw your kid a drive-by birthday party parade?

You’ll all be able to stay properly socially distanced, and it’ll help your child feel appreciated and love during this difficult time. Your children’s friends can wave signs, play with noisemakers, and so much more — the possibilities are endless!

Plus, the process of planning a birthday parade for your child will entertain your children’s friends as well, and help engage them in the birthday planning process. Their parents will surely thank you for lifting the mood as well!

3. Bake a Lot of Cake

Even if you’re not big on sweets for your children, a birthday in quarantine is the perfect occasion to break some rules and sample plenty of delicious new cake recipes. Might as well splurge!

Birthdays are a once a year celebration, and it’s really hard to have one isolated from other people, so it’s really important to do what you can to make it special. If that’s sugar, so be it!

You can also make the cake-baking a group activity, so your child can have fun and feel included in the process.

Here are a few different types of cake you may want to try baking for your child’s quarantine birthday:

  • Cheesecake
  • Cookies and Cream Cake (double points for Oreo cookie crust)
  • Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting
  • Chocolate sheet cake
  • Rice Krispie square marshmallow cake
  • Red velvet layer cake
  • Homemade confetti cake
  • Chocolate vanilla cake
  • Candy turtle cupcakes
  • Ice cream cake

The above are just some of the cake options out there for you to try. Hey, it doesn’t have to even be cake! You can try cookies, donuts, and more. The world is your oyster!

4. Take It Outside

If you have a backyard or safe access to a park, celebrating outside can be a really good way to help your kids have fun during a quarantine birthday party.

You can set up a campout, roast marshmallows on a bonfire, go hiking, and so much more. The possibilities are endless when you take your child’s quarantine birthday party to the great outdoors.

Just make sure to pay attention to weather conditions, and be very careful about observing proper safety and social distancing measures if you plan to be in a place that other people have access too. After all, birthdays are important, but safety is really the most important thing.

5. Head Online

If you’re looking for something more creative than a Zoom call, why not head to the video game landscape for your child’s party!

Many video games, like Animal Crossing, are both safe for kids and allow for people to visit with each other within the game. This is a great option for engaging your kids with their friends in a creative and collaborative environment. Plus, it’ll take up a lot of time, if you have other surprises in store for your kid’s big day.

6. Go Heavy on Presents

Presents always help, right? Ordering your child the birthday gift of their dreams might help cushion the blow of COVID-19. Find out what will truly make your child happy this year, and (if you can afford it) buy it! When thinking about what to get your kid for their quarantine birthday, make sure it’s something they can use given the current lockdown measures like a bike or a new video game console.

7. Plan a Theme Day

Making a themed party based on your kid’s interests may help them enjoy their quarantine birthday more than they would otherwise! For example, if your child is a big fan of princesses, plan a day filled with tiaras, big poofy dresses, and Disney movies! For more theme ideas, check out the following:

  • Mermaids, fairies, and other magical and mythical creatures
  • Toy Story, The Incredibles, Cars, Brave, and the rest of the Pixar movies
  • Witches, gargoyles, and anything spooky and scary
  • Star Trek, Star Wars, and the rest of the great beyond
  • Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, and the rest of the classic Disney gang
  • Sesame Street and The Muppets
  • Hockey, Soccer, Tennis, and other sports games

These are just a few theme ideas you could try. Ask your child what theme interests them, so you make sure you know what they want out of their special day!

8. Rent Plenty of Movies

Is your child a big fan of the screens? Try renting a special movie (or several) for their special day. There are even options for online streaming, so your child’s friends will be able to watch the same movies at the same time!

With all of the different streaming services out there, there is no shortage of funny, entertaining, and appropriate kid’s movies so you can do a great movie marathon for your child’s birthday party in quarantine.

9. Get Crafty

Having plenty of arts and crafts on hand may help make your child’s quarantine birthday more enjoyable. Let’s go through some crafts that your children may want to try out for their quarantine birthday:

  • DIY stocking piglets
  • Tissue paper box guitars and banjos
  • Slime and goo to play with
  • Tie-dye clothing and art projects
  • Bubbles and magic wands
  • Make-your-own-recycled-paper or flipbooks

As long as you have different supplies and materials, you’ll be able to do tons of different crafts to cheer your child up on their quarantine birthday. Just be sure to stock up ahead of the big day!

10. Make a Montage

If you have a lot of friends and family who may not be able to jump on a Zoom or Skype call, why not make a video montage in celebration of your child’s birthday? Have your family and friends send in video clips wishing them a happy birthday. Your child will know how much they’re loved and appreciated by your friends and family, and it’ll be a memento they can cherish for the rest of their lives, even once we’re no longer confined to our homes.

11. Make a Blanket Fort

Everyone loves a blanket fort, right? So why not make a blanket fort for your child’s birthday? You already have the necessary ingredients on hand, and it’ll be tons of fun for the whole family. Make sure you have enough couch cushions, pillows, comforters, and the like to do it justice!

Once you have the fort built, the possibilities are endless. You can have a competition to make the best fort, have a blanket versus pillow fort war in teams, or stick to more chill activities like movie watching or board games. Making a blanket fort for your child’s quarantine birthday really is a great idea with so many possible activities involved.

12. Go Scavenging

A scavenger hunt could be a great way to celebrate a birthday in quarantine. Plus, it’ll take up a lot of your day, and it isn’t terribly difficult to set up!

You can even find resources online to help you set up your scavenger hunt quickly, easily, and without wasting a ton of money. You should definitely look into setting up a scavenger hunt for your child’s quarantine birthday party.

Making Birthdays in Quarantine Special for Your Family

It’s not as hard as you think to celebrate birthdays in quarantine for your kids. As long as you’re creative and do your best, your kid will have just as good a birthday as they would have before lockdown!

Are you interested in reading more about other, related topics? Check out some of our other blogs.

Perks and Drawback of Powerful Parenting

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Parenting involves guidance to the social, emotional, physical, and behavioral development of a child. Powerful parenting emphasizes the highly-effective strategies of parenting in order to get excellence in behavior management of the child. Holding a newborn may fascinate the parents initially, but it involves a long series of responsibilities and challenges of the developmental period from infancy to adulthood. Therefore, powerful parenting has a long list of pros and cons that affect a child’s behavior either positively or negatively. Here, we will provide you with narrative writing of some very common perks and drawbacks of some powerful parenting:

Authoritative Parenting

One of the parenting styles of powerful parenting is “Authoritative style”. Such parenting somehow manages to develop the balance between too lenient and too strict.

Perks

Children raised under authoritative style are confident, empowered and their emotional understanding is encouraged. This powerful parenting style promotes respect, independence, and flexibility among children.

Drawbacks

The strict rules and regulations in authoritative parenting tend to make children isolated. Such strict commanding parents unintentionally devoid the child of their happiness and joy. Such parenting not only throws a child into the pit of loneliness but it also has the tendency to develop rebelliousness in children.

Too much-involved parenting

This is another type of powerful parenting where parents get too much involved in child’s life whether it is related to his emotional, social, or even academic problems. Such type of parenting loads a child with a number of positive and negative aspects.

Perks

Studies have shown that kids with parents’ involvement in school-based activities show better grades as compared to those raised under uninvolved parenting. Along with better grades, there is remarkable progress in attendance, social behavior, and functioning of the child.

Drawbacks

Getting too much involved in the child’s academic procedures, we see most of the time the teachers are not comfortable with such an attitude. Teachers only focus to satisfy such parents instead of truly focusing on solving their child’s real issues. Moreover, such children are too much distracted by the presence of their parents; causing a lack of focus or behavior problems.

Authoritarian Parenting

Authoritarian parenting is a powerful parenting in which all rules and regulations are set by parents only without the consent of their children. In this parenting, only the parents decide their child timetable, interests, subjects to choose, setting a room, and even what clothes to wear. The children are never told why they are raised with such strict rules. Such dominating and commanding parents create a lot of positive and negative behaviors in their children.

Perks

Such children tend to follow rules all their lives and pass this legacy to their children as well. They are goal-oriented as they are taught to plan their goal from the very start of their school.

Drawbacks

The children raised under powerful parenting of authoritarian parents are not free thinkers. Ever since the child regained his conscious, they are given strict instructions from their parents, to spend their lives accordingly. They are strictly forbidden not budge an inch from such setup. Such an imposed lifestyle tends to develop lower self-esteem and a deep-rooted animosity against their parents and society. They are deeply pressured by being not decisive in their personality.

Too much friendly parenting

This powerful parenting has been appreciated widely due to its positive effects on the child’s personality. In the past, we see that there was a very serious and unfriendly relationship between parents and children. Those children used to hide everything from their parents leading to disastrous results as the cost of child sexual abuse. Today, when technology has not hidden anything from children, therefore being a friendly and cordial relationship between a child and the parents is quite inevitable. Such a relationship has the following perks and drawbacks in a child’s life:

Perks

The child enjoys the essence of life with strong confidence, positivity, free-minded. They can easily live independently. They are good at making decisions. As their friendly parents had been very good listeners, trustworthy, therefore their children do not hesitate to share any secrets with them.

Drawbacks

Though being friendly is escorted with a number of positive aspects but it has few drawbacks along. A child gets over-confident about his personality. He is not taught to listen to others thus this trait leads others to get irritated by him. People avoid making friends with him. Another drawback is that he gets involved in the superiority complex which is the same devastating as being over-confident.

To conclude, we can say that such powerful parenting appears to be very satisfactory for the parents but it brings your child under the quest of everlasting personality disorder. Thus, there needs to be a balanced relationship between the child and his parents to obtain the future goals of your child.

Let Her Choose Her Clothes: How to Help Your Daughter Develop Her Own Sense of Style

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What your daughter wears doesn’t have to cause a fight day after day. There are strategies that you can take as a parent to let her choose her clothes within some parameters that you set. You’ll want to let her develop her own style, within reason.

Instead of letting what your children are wearing become a constant point of contention, use these tips to make sure that your daughter (and your son, if that’s an issue too!) can express herself through her style without making you crazy.

Don’t Make a Big Deal About Her Clothes 

The bigger the deal you make, the more your child will probably want to go against your wishes. If your children are wearing mismatched clothes, as much as it might kill you, bite your tongue and let it go.

Instead of fighting about what to wear to school today, let your children pick their clothes. Provide reasonable choices and let them put an outfit together. Let them show their personality through their fashion choices.

Don’t Go Overboard with Rules 

Putting too many restrictions on your daughter will make it less likely that she will follow them. Be reasonable and set some general parameters, but don’t go crazy. More rules will likely make her want to rebel against them or resent you.

Don’t Expect Your Teen to Dress Like You 

If you’re constantly fighting with your teen about her clothes, you need to take a step back and remember when you were her age. If you expect that she will emulate your style or want to shop at the same stores, you will likely be disappointed.

Juniors departments and stores exist for a reason. Don’t expect someone half your age to dress like you.

Do Give Options

Kids want to exert some independence. Most everything about their life is dictated by parents, including bedtimes, what’s for dinner, and what they’re allowed to do. Choosing clothes is one way they can show their style and make their own choices.

Give your child options when getting dressed. Present them with two or three shirt and bottom options and let them pick. You can also buy coordinated tops and bottoms that they can easily mix and match without your help.

Do Set Some Parameters

If your daughter loves to wear sweatpants or loungewear to school, but you insist that she needs to wear jeans or more structured pants, consider letting her wear comfortable clothes one day a week.

If you want her to dress up for certain occasions, like church on Sunday, give her free reign the rest of the week. If she has the ability to pick her own clothes most days, it will be easier to get her to follow your rules to dress up on Sunday without a huge fight.

Do Pick Your Battles 

Girls clothes don’t have to be all pink or cutesy. Bright primary colors, classic styles, and timeless looks that both you and your daughter will like are out there. Find these clothes, buy them for her (with her input), and let her dress herself.

There are far more important lessons to teach your daughter than constantly harping on her clothing. Pick your battles and avoid this one.

Take a Step Back and Let Her Choose Her Clothes 

It will be hard, but let her choose her clothes. Give your daughter some autonomy to make her own choices and develop her own style.

If you found this article useful, take a look around at some of our other articles before you go.

Talking to your Child About the Coronavirus

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It’s safe to say that, throughout the world, the coronavirus is the subject that is foremost on everyone’s mind. From Intertops casino bonus players in Hong Kong to scuba divers in Hawaii, regardless of your background, interests, financial situation or social standing, fascination and worry about what the coronavirus is doing in the world has become an all-consuming obsession.

It’s reasonable to expect that, even if you try to keep concerns about the pandemic from your kids, they’ll hear things and wonder. Coronavirus is the first item on everyone’s newsfeed every night. The kids know that it’s the reason that they can’t play with their mates, the cause of school and playgroup cancellations and the motivation behind almost everything that’s happening in today’s society, everywhere in the world.

If you think that your kids are unaware of the situation, you’re wrong. There’s almost no way to isolate your children enough to protect them from any knowledge of what’s happening. If you think that the correct way to approach this subject is to stay quiet, you’re risking your kids’ emotional health. You’ll be doing more harm than good.

You don’t need to spell out the gory details when you speak to young children. There’s no reason to discuss the scary symptoms of the disease, the damage that it can do to the body, the death rate, worries about the collapse of the medical system or any other horrors that may keep you awake at night. Young children can’t really process that kind of information. But it’s important to create an environment of open and honest communication so that your children know that they can come to you with their questions and their worries.

More psychological damage is done when worries, concerns, questions and anxieties are left unspoken. Open up discussions and let your kids know that you’re there to answer their questions. The answers may not always be calming. But if your children know that you’re an honest source of information, it will give them the strength that they need to get through this era.

Communication

During this era of pandemic, we must stay aware of what our children might be experiencing. Children as young as three know that “something’s wrong” but if they don’t have access to an explanation that puts the situation into a frame that they can understand it can cause feelings of anger, sadness, irritability, frustration and depression. If those feelings aren’t addressed, the child may experience long-term emotional consequences.

The first thing that you want is for your child to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you can provide them with honest information. They need someone that they can trust during this period of uncertainty and that someone must be their parent. So tell them – there’s a virus, and in order to keep more people from getting sick, everyone has to take precautions. We can’t meet with too many other people, can’t go out as much as we would like, must wash our hands more, etc.

It helps children to know that there’s something that they can DO. Give them action items – meet with grandma and grandpa online, wash your hands, wear a mask, don’t hug, keep a distance from others, etc.  It’s also important to pay attention to signs that your child is stressed or anxious. If you see that your child is becoming withdrawn, is more argumentative, is sleeping more or isn’t interacting well with other family members, consider reaching out to a mental health care provider that specializes in pediatric mental health for a consultation. Many communities have set up free mental health phone lines where you can call for advice.

What to Say?

In speaking to your child about the coronavirus pandemic, you want to strike a balance between providing accurate information and fueling the child’s anxiety. Children have active imaginations. If you create an atmosphere in which the child’s imagination is left to run wild – either by talking about the situation too much or too little —  you may find that s/he is building up worst-case scenarios in his/her mind.

How do you strike the balance? Think about what the child needs to know. At age 3, s/he probably just needs to know why s/he isn’t going to pre-school, so you just might want to say something like “there’s a virus and we need to stay home so that we don’t get sick.” By age 6, you can elaborate a bit more – “there are a lot of germs in the air, and they’ve found that fewer people get sick if we stay home for awhile, so that’s what we’re doing.”

You can be guided by your child’s questions. Some kids might be complacent with just the bare minimum of information while others, especially those who have family members who have been sickened by the coronavirus, may have more questions. The important thing is to let your child know that you are a reliable source for honest information and that you’re there to talk about any issues that they may wish to raise.

Questions

Some common questions that children might raise, and answers that will help calm their worries, include:

  1. What is coronavirus?
  2. Coronavirus is a new kind of flu.  Since it’s new, scientists haven’t come up with good treatments or ways to prevent it yet, though they’re working on it and hopefully, very soon, they will. In the meantime, we have to do whatever we can to keep it from spreading.
  3. Can I catch the coronavirus?
  4. The virus spreads like the flu. If someone has the coronavirus and they sneeze or cough, their germs are sneeze or coughed into the air and anyone who those germs touch can get sick. Germs can also pass by touch. So if you touched a door handle that someone who had the coronavirus touched, and then you put your hand near your mouth or eyes, the germs can get into your body. That’s why we wash our hands a lot and even wear gloves when we go out.
  5.  Can we do anything to keep from getting sick?
  6. In addition to trying not to get too close to people, we should try to wear a mask every time we go out so that we don’t breath in anyone else’s germs.

Reassurance

Young children especially seek reassurance by asking the same question repeatedly. Often, that’s their way of coping with anxiety due to the unknown. In many ways, that’s how adults cope – checking the news feed multiple times a day, talking with friends and family about what’s happening, etc.

Patience and understanding will be the key to helping our children get through this point in our history.

Ways to Keep Your Kids Healthy

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Health is one of the biggest blessings in life, as it enables us to cherish our precious moments. When we are physically fit, we can perform at our optimum levels in our personal and professional lives. In the same way, psychological health helps us remain upbeat and have a positive attitude in life. When we speak about wellbeing, then individuals, as well as families, need to pay attention to their health and fitness.

It seems particularly true during the COVID-19 lockdown when everyone’s health appears to be at risk. The confinement has affected kids and the elderly the most, making them stressed and lethargic. As the restoration of normalcy is not immediately possible, it is imperative to take a few steps.

This article will list out some ways to provide your kids with a stimulus and inspiration to be healthy and well. You can incorporate some fresh changes in their life to make their routine productive during and after the lockdown. So, let’s start.

1. Arrange a Fitness Activity

Arguably, there can be no better way to utilize the available time by indulging in some activity and form of fitness. While jogging is not quite possible inside a house, running on the treadmill is. Likewise, you can engage your kids in karate classes through online tutorials. You can do so in a small space and minimal equipment.

Moreover, you can choose puzzles and mind games as a fun activity for your kids. It will boost their mental health.

2. Transform Their Diet

Diet is the single most important factor to consider for wellbeing, so it is time to enrich your kids’ diet. The smart way is to include some healthy elements in their regular and routine intake. The right blend of vitamins, folate, protein, calcium, carbs, and fiber will keep them healthy in the longer run. The natural sources include fruits and vegetables, coupled with some shakes and non-carbonated drinks.

You may also want to add an energy drink in the diet, but be sure to read the labels to identify the ingredients. Some supplements may offer a health boost but are not beneficial in the long term.

3. Enhance Their Creative Side

To keep your kids healthy, it is essential to pay attention to their psychological side too. If you want to awaken the creative side of your kids, then perhaps this is the right time to lift the cover over the canvas and the brushes. You can take some prints of their favorite images and put them up for a drawing. These images could be of the superheroes or the scenic spots, whatever your kids like. To make it enjoyable, you can announce rewards for accurate and creative paintings. This activity will sharpen the artistic skills and abilities of your kids and will allow them to think freely.

4. Go for a Brisk Walk

When it comes to being healthy, then there’s nothing like a walk or a good jogging session. The right way to involve your kids in this activity is to do it together. What makes it more interesting is a reward system to encourage to walk or run greater distances. In the lockdown, it may be difficult to go for a walk as usual. So, you may head to the nearest walkway or street to your residence to indulge in this activity. For keeping your kids healthy and refreshed, it is essential to do brief walks whenever possible.

5. Let Them Relax

No fitness routine or vigorous exercise can yield the desired result if it is not coupled with some sort of rehabilitation. So, it is good to take a break every once in a while. And do what makes you relaxed and reenergized. For the children, there can be nothing more fun than to connect with their long-distance friends and peers. It is also essential to allow your kids to play videogames as much as they want as doing so will keep them going.

Videogames are not just good for reflexes, but these are necessary to prevent monotony. It is good to keep a watch on the kids, but it is also essential to allow them to be themselves some times.

The Takeaway

Keeping your kids healthy and inculcating some productive habits in them is not an easy task. It requires constant and consistent efforts to make healthy activities part of your life. It is ideal to utilize this lockdown time to engage your kids in fitness activities and enrich their diet. It is imperative to take part in indoor activities as well as some occasional brief outdoor walks and exercises. A few changes in the routine would yield significant benefits during these testing times as well as in the years to come for your younger ones. Happy Parenting!

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