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What is it that girls’ dolls and boys’ figurines have in common? Admittedly they both have heads, arms and legs, and look vaguely but not entirely human. Girls’ dolls tend to be about a foot in height at least, whereas most boys’ figurines are around six inches tall. There doesn’t appear to be any particular reason for this height discrepancy apart from the physical requirements that girls’ dolls have, in that they tend to wee, whereas boys’ toys tend to carry guns, which can be made in miniature as they tend not to work, requiring the boy in question to supply the necessary sound effects and explosive consequences.

The answer is that they both help children to develop their role playing experiences and opportunities, and as such, are a hugely valuable toy in developing children’s awareness of themselves as individuals and the makeup of the world around them. Children need to practice role play, and are doing so almost the whole time, whether you are aware of it or not. Their mimicry of you as an adult is a form of role play, their use of dolls or figurines to act out situations, conflicts, opportunities or groups is also a valuable role play exercise.

It is often in opportunities such as these that children have the freedom to try out new ways of approaching situations, see things from the other person’s perspective and understand that the other person even has a perspective at all. Children, and adults, usually learn better by doing, rather than merely observing. Having said that, children are excellent observers. Once they observe a situation, whether in real life, on television or in a book, children take on board the ideas, the characters and the conflicts, and mull them over in their heads. They will quite happily dress up as their favorite characters and prance about with a colander on their head, a pair of shorts draped over their shoulders and a wooden spoon in their hand, bravely taking on the might of the linen bin monster who is lurking at the top of the stairs.

But these games should not be dismissed as merely childish. To the child, everything is very much more real than we adults can appreciate, and children often learn valuable ideas in such situations as these – especially when they are playing in a group. Sets of figurines, in particular, lend themselves very well to group play, and if they are based on a particular television show or book, then all the better.

It is when children play in a group at role play that people’s roles are discussed and defined, and the rules laid down. Whether this is as themselves as the characters, or with their dolls or figurines, they will have a firm understanding of their roles, and the rules, before the game begins. Teams are formed, strategies devised, conquests achieved and lessons learnt. They don’t realize it, of course, and the moment you congratulate them all on such a fine educational learning experience they’ll probably sell their dolls and figurines and take up macrame instead.

Victor Epand is an expert consultant about kids toys, dolls, and video games. You will find the best marketplace for kids toys, dolls, and video games at these sites: http://www.4kidstoys.info , http://www.dollsgamestoys.info , and http://www.usedvideogamesell.com .

Confident kids are safer kids. It’s common sense and no special safety secret. Kids who are confident are naturally less of a target for predators and criminals, even the bullies at school.

Confidence belies and underlying, subconscious message that says, “I’m not easy. I’m not going down.” Confidence takes care of thwarting the majority of potential threats from other people your child can face.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of kids today that are not confident. They shrink from contact with adults. They bow their heads and look at their feet when they talk with others. They feel just a little less important than other kids and they fail to make eye contact with even the smallest of other children.

If your young child is not very confident, then teach then to pretend they are confident. Yes, this is a very sensitive issue with most parents. No one wants to admit their child lacks self-esteem. In doing so one admits they have not built it into their child from birth. Who wants that kind of responsibility or admittance of failure?

However, you need to make a difficult assessment. Again, if your child is not confident, then teach them to pretend they are. Teach it as a game. Call it the “Feel Good Feel Bad” game.

Ask them if they want to play a game. Get excited, get their attention. Play it with them. Have your child walk around the room and at the command of “Feel Bad!” have them hang their heads, shuffle around and moan. Actually ask them to go back to a time when they might have been sick or sad, and remember what that feels like in their bodies. In doing so, we can actually begin to see some of the
children sagging in their posture.

After a few minutes of this ask them to remember a time when they were really, really happy and excited. Perhaps it was their birthday. Perhaps it was Christmas Day, opening presents. Whatever it is, we take them there in their minds for a brief few moments and have them bounce around feeling happy. You can see them physically straightening up as they envision their happy, exciting moments.

Through a series of “Feel Bad!” and “Feel Good!” commands you expose them to the way these two states feel and the bodily sensations that each of them create. You want them to be able to differentiate between physically feeling good and feeling bad.

More importantly, when you see they understand the difference, you can then teach them to pretend they can “Feel Good” even when they don’t. What you are really doing is getting them to turn feeling good on whenever they want to do it.

This means they can at least project confidence even though they may not feel that way for any number of reasons. You can now get them to “Feel Good” and appear so (meaning appearing more confident) especially when they are outside or alone.

If you can get your child to appear confident even when they don’t feel that way they become less of a target for predators. Kids can learn to fake out predators with these simple games. They give a child an extra edge of safety whenever they may find themselves alone without Mom or Dad.

It is also possible that if your child can begin to feel good when they need to or want to, they tend to like how it feels. They slowly begin to gravitate more and more to those good feelings we show them. It means they can really take hold if parents reinforce these ideas at home.

Joyce Jackson is a child safety expert, #1 bestselling author, consultant, speaker and trainer. For her extensive website and information see http://www.KeepingKidsSafeToday.com.

Your child has two brains. Yes, as a parent you may feel they may not even have one. However, we do think, despite the scientific evidence, that kids, all of us for that matter, have two brains.

There is one in their head and one in their belly. We call the one in the belly the Belly Brain. It’s the one brain in their belly, the Belly Brain, that in safety, is the more important of the two.

Why should you care about a Belly Brain? Simple. It is the one thing you and your child can count on in their ability to keep themselves safe. At some point in their life, your child is going out somewhere with out you. School. The end of the yard. The Park. Soccer practice. The Mall as a teenager.

At some point in their life your child will be out without you and will need to be able to take care of themselves against any danger. In safety, we think kids can learn to sense danger as it is developing and get away from it. Sometimes they’ll even be able to see it and avoid it. It’s called prevention.

It can be any type of childhood threat such as bullies at school, a car slowing as it goes up and down the street, being near a neighbor or close family friend or being in a room one on one with another adult.

When something inappropriate or threatening develops we want your child’s natural instincts, which we simply bring awareness to and build upon, to go off. We want them to find a trusted adult, parent or family member and get help. We want them to act confidently, assuredly and quickly.

Thus, the Belly Brain. You need it because your child needs it. It is the first line of defense, prevention, in their ability to keep themselves safe. Frankly, it’s the name that is unique: Belly Brain.

You’ve got two, we have two, your child has two. Yes, there is the tangible anatomical brain in our head. That’s one. Then there is the brain in our stomach. It’s what we call our natural instincts, intuition, our visceral feeling, that gut reaction about people, places and things.

Our society and culture, as we grow, does it’s best to negate this instinct and get us to “think” instead of following natural instincts. We quietly and very efficiently learn to ignore our intuition.

Why do you think there is such a proliferation of self help groups and “back to nature” and rediscovering our true self programs for adults? They all have one thing in common: getting back to listening to what is truly inside ourselves.

Kids have this intuition. They just need to learn to pay attention to it. When children are young and are taught to listen to that little voice inside that is always there to protect them, they can use it effectively in keeping themselves safe.

Joyce Jackson is a child safety expert, #1 bestseling author, consultant speaker and trainer. For more on the Belly Brain of Safety see http://www.MyBellyBrain.com

If you have children, you most likely have a few toys in the form of stuffed animals lying around in the playroom or the bedroom of your children or in any other parts of your home. Stuffed animals are usually made of some kind of fabric material. Fabric materials all attract dust so if you, your children, or other family members have allergies, than the stuffed animals can be a potential danger to you.

Now, stuffed animals are great toys and companions for children. However, if they are the cause of health-related problems, than this can become a bit of a problem. Children get attached to their toys, especially the stuffed animals. You, as a parent, would very likely want to keep your child happy and healthy at the same time, right? Well, than the solution to this dilemma is to keep the stuffed animals in your home as clean as possible. Here are a few tips that we can offer about keeping your plush toys and stuffed animals clean.

A Clean House Helps Out

This is the most obvious tip that you, as a parent, probably already know. If you regularly clean your house thoroughly, you will in effect be reducing the amount of dust and allergens inside of your house. Now, since the stuffed animals and other plush toys are kept inside your house, you will reduce the dust and allergens that are transferred to these objects because the environment that it is kept in is cleaner.

This first tip is a common sense one. A cleaner house will keep the dust from building up as fast on the stuffed animals that your child has in your home.

Storing The Stuffed Animals

If you would like added protection from dust and allergens getting on the stuffed animals, perhaps you would do well to consider storing the items in an air tight container whenever your child has no need for the stuffed animals or whenever he or she is not playing with it.

Containers that are air tight will provide the best protection for the items that are stored in it. Air tight containers will not only protect the stuffed animals from dust and allergens while it is kept in the container, but it will also protect it from other elements such as water and other liquids.

So, here are two simple tips we offer you on keeping stuffed animals clean. A clean house and air tight containers will be a great deal of help when you are trying to keep the plush toys clean.

If you are looking for the perfect stuffed animal for your child, you can visit Funkee Monkee dot net. Funkee Monkee is a site that Jay authors featuring great stuffed animals. You can visit this site at http://funkeemonkee.net.

This morning after my children left for school, I walked into the bathroom and saw clothes all over the floor. Needless to say I was not impressed. Rebekah had forgotten (yet again) to pick up her clothes after having had a shower. I thought about picking them up for her, then decided that I would leave them for her to pick up later that day.

I started thinking about how I was going to fix this problem. After all, Becky always left her clothes in the middle of the bathroom floor. It seemed like no matter how many times I told her she would still just not hear me.

Anyhow, I wandered to her bedroom and opened the door and guess what I saw? There was a beautifully made bed with no creases or wrinkles in the blankets, the pillow was straight and perfectly arranged, there were dolls loned up on the pillow case in a neat fashion and there was absolutely nothing on the floor that shouldn’t have been there. The toy boxes were neatly lined up in the corner. I couldn’t fault a thing.

So I made a decision there and then. When Becky came home from school, instead of concentrating on the one thing she didn’t do right, I was going to compliment her on the other hundred or so things that she had done very right that morning. Do you see what I am getting at here? What do you think is going to have the best response from my daughter? Nagging about the one group of things she didn’t put away or complimenting her on the many other things she did do right this morning?

Becky is still at school but I can tell you what the response will be already. I bet you that by bed time tonight she will have found her pile of clothes in the bathroom and picked them up without any prompting from me. You see, this is the way kids work. You compliment them and they will look for more ways to be extra helpful. Test it and see. You’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish simply by choosing to ignore little things in order to praise the outstanding achievements.

So, the next time you see something that your child hasn’t done and get annoyed about it, try thinking a little differently. Just see if you can instead find something to compliment them on and it might just make the world of difference. Just a thought. It works for me.

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