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After attending a workshop last month in Los Angeles at the Center for Nonviolent Education and Parenting given by the founder and director Ruth Beaglehole, it became quite apparent to me that most childcare providers along with most parents are completely unaware of this amazing method and positive approach to child rearing. I, myself, was embarrassed to see that so many of the old and unfavorable practices that I acquired from my own parents have been used by me on my own children.

When I was first introduced to the idea of visiting the center, my thoughts instantly reverted that this would be a place where one goes to stop physical violence; yet, I quickly learned that there are many ways where violence is communicated not just through physical means but through a vocabulary of feelings and needs, between observation and evaluation and between requests and demands, and the role of power and punishment.

So why is this notion of nonviolent communication so important as it relates to child development? According to Dr. Marshall B. Rosenberg author of “Nonviolent Communication – A Language of Life” (a book I highly recommend for everyone to read), “NVC helps us connect with each other and ourselves in a way that allows our natural compassion to flourish. NVC fosters deep listening, respect and empathy and engenders a mutual desire to give from the heart.”

There are many ways we communicate to children that can be damaging to their self-esteem and development. If we begin with the concept of “observation vs. evaluation” consider the way we constantly observe people and their actions with the use of moralistic judgments that imply wrongdoing and badness because these are not in harmony with our values. We often attempt to motivate our children through insults and criticism and by guilt and shame.

For example: What if your child is having difficulty with mathematics and he answers a problem with the wrong answer. The first reaction would be to say something critical as in “how could you possible make such a silly mistake.” Instead, the better response would be “I’m confused at how you came up with that answer. Could you show me how you got that?” You have now made an evaluation that will help this child get to the right answer instead of instantly providing him with an observation that only made him feel bad.

Punishment is another form of violence that never works. People are often led to something with the use or threat of punishment. The reason we know this doesn’t work is because of two questions: what do you want the outcome to be and what do you want the person’s reasons to be for doing as we request? If a person is doing something you want out of fear or as a result of punishment then you have not achieved anything because the desire to do what you wanted has not come naturally from within. Instead, the action comes about through force and fear.

Guilt is another form of violence, but in order to be successful at it, you need to convince people into believing that they can create your feelings. For example: “It really hurts me when you don’t get your work done.” The guilt trip you have just laid on this person is played when they believe they are the cause of your suffering.

Shame is another form of violence: any attempt to use labels to make one feel bad about their actions. For example: You call a child “lazy” in an attempt to make them feel bad about not completing their chores. This doesn’t accomplish anything other than perhaps having the child grow up thinking that he/she must be lazy since doing the housework is something they struggle to do.

The basic vocabulary of nonviolent communication is feelings and needs. The idea that both Dr. Rosenberg and Ms. Beaglehole want to instill is that if you can speak to feelings and needs, then it’s easier for other people to see our humanness. When we are living the nonviolent communication, all we can see is the feelings and needs of others. The trick is to put our own needs and feelings aside so that we can have a better understanding, communication and overall relationship with others and particularly with our children while teaching them how to communicate in nonviolent ways.

Marta Perrone, author “Help! How to Find Hire Train and Maintain Household Help!”
Free report: “Top 10 Mistakes Household Employers Make When Recruiting Help.
http://www.domesticpublications.com – http://domestic-connections.com – http://martaperrone.com

In 1989, Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced the goal of eliminating Tuberculosis (TB) from the United States by year 2010.

However, today TB and drug-resistant TB cases are continuously reported in every state. An estimated 10 to 15 million persons in the United States are infected. More than 14,000 cases were reported in 2003 in the U.S. TB killed 1.7 million people in 2003. It remains the leading killer of adults in the world.

The increase in TB worldwide is due, in part, to the expansion of the HIV/AIDS pandemic (at least one-third of the people with HIV die of TB. Social forces such as racism, sexism, other social inequalities and political violence and poverty contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS and TB.

Drugs that could stop or slow down these epidemics, such as first hand anti-tuberculosis medications and anti-retrovirals are not available in impoverished countries where they are needed most.

In the United States, and especially in California, Tuberculosis is largely an immigrants’ affliction. In a recent report by the state’s Department of Health Services, California led the nation in the number of new TB cases reported last year – 2,989. Three-quarters of those were among people born outside of the United States and nearly a fifth were younger than 16.

Experts say that many immigrants bring the bacterium from countries, including Mexico (24%), the Philippines (14%), Viet Nam (9%) and other foreign born (29%) where TB is endemic and health systems are relatively weak.

Many immigrants come infected but undetected due to inadequate screening of new immigrants who are foreign students, workers and visitors. Only refugees are screened, and that system is not flawless. The concern is how entrenched TB remains in some immigrant enclaves and how 1% to 2% (8 to 10 cases) in California is resistant to standard antibiotics. This, of course, has given fuel to the fire over illegal immigration.

Many people from immigrant families live in the poorest and most crowded neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area. With its large immigrant population and dense neighborhoods, Los Angeles County is a TB stronghold. It had 930 tuberculosis cases in 2004, more than most states, according to Health Department figures. They live in the most likely places to find tuberculosis.

Due to financial constraints, they may think it is merely a cold and not seek medical help until they are really sick. Understanding TB and how it is carried and contracted should be of interest to you if you have an immigrant working on a daily basis with you and your family members.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a disease caused by bacteria that usually attacks the lungs. It travels through the blood and can also attack other parts of the body such as the kidney, spine and brain. If not treated properly, it can be fatal. TB is spread through the air from one person to another when a person with the active TB disease of the lungs or throat coughs or sneezes.

People may breathe in these bacteria and become infected. However, not everyone infected with TB bacteria actually becomes sick. In most cases, the people who breathe in the bacteria can fight it so that it does not grow. The bacteria become inactive, but remain alive in the body and can become active later. This is what is called “latent TB infection.” People who have latent TB infection have a positive skin test reaction but do not feel sick, have any symptoms nor can they spread TB and they have a normal chest x-ray and sputum (phlegm) test; however, some who have weak immune systems do go on to develop TB disease.

Babies and young children have weak immune systems. People with active TB can get treated with medicine and get cured and those with latent TB can take medicine so that they will not develop the active TB disease. The TB disease attacks the tissue and can actually create a hole in the lung.

The following are symptoms of active TB disease:

A bad cough that lasts longer than 2 weeks;
Pain in the chest;
Coughing up blood r phlegm from deep inside the lungs
Weakness or fatigue
Weight loss
No appetite
Chills and fever

An important question when hiring a nanny or housekeeper would be how do you confront your prospective employee with the concept of getting TB tested prior to coming to your home to work with your newborn child. If you are working with an agency, you should ask them to have their applicant tested for TB. Your decision to hire this employee would be subject to the test results.

This can get sticky, if you are dealing with a prospective nanny or housekeeper directly. You may not want to inform this applicant that you will only hire her/him based on the test results. This could get messy. The way to approach the offer would be to say that you would like to have the following medical tests performed and that you will be concurrently checking references along with criminal and DMV records to determine a job offer. If the TB skin reaction test comes back positive, you would need a chest x-ray to see if the TB is in effect latent and inactive. As mentioned earlier, with medication, this condition can be controlled and never develop into active TB.

You may or may not feel comfortable about not knowing whether or not the employee would take the necessary medication. What is most important, however, is that you know the test results so that you can incorporate this information into your decision making when hiring household help, housekeeper or nanny.

Marta Perrone, author “Help! How to Find Hire Train and Maintain Household Help!”
Free report: “Top 10 Mistakes Household Employers Make When Recruiting Help.
http://www.domesticpublications.com – http://domestic-connections.com – http://martaperrone.com

My family knows that I hold honesty as one of our core family values. I often talk to my kids about family values and why we believe in them. I have always had a rule that if a child confesses to something the consequence will be much less than if they tell a lie to cover it.

But yesterday Sam decided to put me to the test by telling a lie. Now I’m sure it wasn’t a lie in his mind. Nevertheless he told me an untruth. He said that he had missed the bus to school sports because his teacher had kept him in at lunch time.

On phoning his teacher I found out the whole story. Yes, he had been kept in at lunch time for a few minutes but he still had plenty of time to catch his bus. He had walked up to the bus stop with a friend and then decided that he would rather go to Basketball than Soccer. So he had taken off without even telling a teacher where he was going.

I felt disappointed that Sam had told me a lie. He had actually come home from school grumping about this poor teacher when in reality it was nothing to do with her. Sam had made bad choices that day and thought it would be easier to blame someone else for his choices rather than accept responsibility for his own actions.

Now, here’s the thing: we cannot control what our kids say or do. But And this is where the kids learn to do things differently next time.

When Sam gets home from school today I am going to tell him a story about a child who tried to blame everyone else for his own actions. I want Sam to think about what he would do if he was the parent. Sam is thinking right now that he has done nothing wrong because he is tyring to justify his actions. So I want him to think about how he can change things.

It is often a good idea to create a story out of it and bring the child in as a third party. This way the child doesn’t feel like you are attacking them personally. I hope I am explaining this properly for you. When a child doesn’t feel threatened they are more likely to hear what you are saying and take notice.

Anyhow, we will talk this afternoon. My objective is to help Sam realise that he must take responsibility for his own actions without trying to blame anyone else for his poor choices and if I can get him to see that, then I have done my job in this matter.

The end result is that Sam will get a consequence this afternoon. I want to show him that he made a bad choice by telling me a lie. I might ban him from the computer for a day or two, just long enough for him to feel annoyed and perhaps think about why he lost a privilege. I want him to feel motivated to change his actions the next time and learn from this incident.

Parents, you have a chance to choose what your family’s core values will be. You should talk to your kids about them, encourage them and uphold them at all times. Your kids will thank you later on in life, you can be sure of that. So take time out today to think about your core family values.

Kim Patrick is a single mother with four children, living on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. She is author of the book, “Get Your Child To Behave In 30 Days Or Less”. Her web site is:

http://www.mychildcanbehave.com

My children were angels this morning. Horray! It so makes the morning go easier when things run smoothly of a morning. Two of my kids were up and dressed before 7am and all ready for school – lunches packed, hair combed, teeth brushed, beds made. What a breath of fresh air to get up to that.

Then came the question, “Mum, since I am ready for school, can I please go on the computer?” Now, generally I have a rule and that rule is that nobody gets to go on the computer before school. Usually if I let one child go on it will distract the others and everyone ends up being late for school. But today my kids had done so much so quickly and excelled themselves so I wanted to let them know that good behvaior is always noticed and will be acknowledged in some small way every time.

I said to my two boys, “OK, what is your plan? I need to be on the computer by 8am so between the two of you there is only one hour. How are you going to plan your time wisely? I put the onus on them to sort out who would go first, how long their turns would be, as the last thing I wanted on a Monday morning was an argument before school.

The boys put their heads together and chatted and came up with their plan. They came back to me and Sam said, “Kieren’s going on now until 7.30am and then I am going on until 8am”. I listened to their suggestion and reminded then that I would need the computer promptly at 8am and that I didn’t mean 10 past 8am.

The boys agreed that they could stick to those rules so off they went happily. They had worked really hard to get ready for school so early and deserved to be rewarded. Now here’s the thing: my kids did deserve recognition for their outstanding efforts this morning in preparing for school. I decided that I was prepared to bend the rules and allow them to go on the computer. That was my choice and I made it. If parents make the rules they have the right to bend them also.

I’m not saying that it is always OK to bend the rules but sometimes it is OK. When kids see that you are kind and compassionate and not just some big authority figure they will respond to you much better. My kids have left for school now and they were off the computer before 8am for me.

So they have proven trustworthy in this one area. So, next time they come to me of a morning and ask the same question, what do you think my answer might be? I think I am very likely to say “yes” again. why? Kieren and Sam have proven that they can be trusted with the computer in the morning.

We need to remember to give our children plenty of opportunity to earn our trust and my kids earned my trust this morning. I was really proud of them and I hope they felt proud of themselves as well – there was no fighting over the computer; they played nicely and the morning went very smoothly.

I am glad I chose to give my kids a liberty today. It was a liberty well deserved. and I wouldn’t mind betting my kids will come home from school and thank me for letting them on the computer this morning.

The main thing that my kids can learn from this experience is that there are good consequences from good behavior. My kids were well behaved and received an unexpected reward for their efforts. And that is how the real world operates.

Kim Patrick is a single mother with four children, living on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. She is author of the book, “Get Your Child To Behave In 30 Days Or Less”. Her web site is:

http://www.mychildcanbehave.com

Sometimes children can have a hard time sleeping at night. Some children have no problem falling asleep when it is time to go to bed at night. However, some children have issues with this. At times, it may be frustrating for a parent because they may feel like the young child is playing games, so to speak, or being disobedient. While this may be true in some cases, in many cases it is not.

So, what are some ways to help your child to fall asleep at night? Well, let us discuss a few tips and tricks we as parents and guardians can do to help our children get to bed and fall asleep at the proper time at night.

Children Are Energetic

Children have a lot of energy to be burned, so it may be a good idea to make sure that they burn that energy throughout the day. If they do not exert themselves enough, they may have pent up energy when it is time to go to bed and this may be a reason why they have a hard time falling asleep. Make sure that your children have a little time to play and run around so that they have no trouble getting to bed. Not only is this good for helping them to sleep better at night, but this also gets them used to to exercise. Exercising and physical exertion is an important area to instill in your child while he or she is young.

Take Naps at the Proper Time

If your child takes naps during the day, be sure that he or she does not sleep too late in the evening. If this happens, your child may not feel the need to go to bed at the proper time because their bodies may feel well rested. Getting your child up from his or her nap before it is evening should help.

Feeling Secure With a Toy

If your child slept in your room when he or she was a baby and has just moved into a room of their own, sometimes sleeping alone in a room may feel lonely. Children who are not used to this concept need time to adjust. During the adjustment period, you child may feel insecure at night and have trouble sleeping. While a stuffed animal or teddy will not be an instant cure or remedy for the situation, having one to sleep with may help your child a little during the adjustment period. Having a stuffed animal handy may very well do a great deal of good for your child.

So here are just a few tips to get you started in the right direction. A good nights sleep is important for your child to have and no doubt you as a parent would like to ensure this for your child.

Jay authors a site devoted to cute teddy bears and other stuffed animals. If you would like to get a great stuffed animal for your child, you can visit Jays site entitled Funkee Monkee. The address to Jays site is http://funkeemonkee.net.