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Happy and Successful Kids Life Skill 5: Critical Thinking
Happy and Successful Kids Life Skill 5: Critical Thinking By Jan Pierce Everyday life involves a lot of problem-solving. How do you encourage your children to get along with others? What’s the best way to help your child learn to manage their time and select appropriate activities? Should you let your kids play video games and which ones are off-limits? Without realizing it, you’re making logical decisions every day, and your kids need to learn how to make sound, logical decisions as well. Thinking logically helps kids get balance. Not just in their social and emotional lives, but in their reading, their writing, and their math and science explorations as…
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The Birth of a Mother: Yoga Can Help Childbirth and Infant Rearing
The Birth of a Mother Yoga Can Help Childbirth and Infant Rearing By Hannah Muse The journey of pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum is undoubtedly one of the most incredible, life-enhancing, fulfilling experiences one can ever experience! And – whether it’s our first pregnancy or our fourth – it can also be a great challenge for our bodies, minds, and emotional life in ways we’ve never experienced; in ways that we don’t always feel ready and resourced to handle without additional support. Who needs goat yoga when you’ve got baby and prenatal yoga? And in Santa Cruz you can learn to be a prenatal yoga teacher. Photo: Expressivephotographics.com Luckily there is…
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Sing to Your Baby: Music and Brain Development
Sing to Your Baby Music and Brain Development By Jan Pierce The sweet interaction between a mother and her baby when the mother sings to the infant is a universal behavior. And researchers now know that this simple, most natural activity is mutually beneficial to both mother and child. Singing provides the sensory stimulation that helps baby to focus attention enabling learning, and the mother feels empowered as she creates a positive bond with her baby. Music builds connection, both with words and the unconscious mathematics of creating a melody. Benefits of Musical Experiences But studies are showing that a broad array of musical experiences can build connections in the…
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Swimming Lessons Save Lives
Swimming Lessons Save Lives The sooner you get them educated the better By Tiffany Harmon The stark truth is this: drowning is the leading cause of accidental death for children ages 1 – 4 and is the second leading cause for children 1 – 14 after motor vehicle crashes. Unfortunately, many children are at risk due to low, or no swimming ability, and the risk is even higher for minority children. These statistics, while frightening, are extremely relevant for us, as residents of the Monterey Bay Area. We are incredibly fortunate to live in an area that is home to amazing ocean views, wildlife, and opportunities for recreational activities like surfing, swimming,…
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Finding Summer Camps with Flair
Finding Summer Camps with Flair By Jan Pierce Most of us remember summer camp. It was great: Rustic cabins, swimming in the lake, arts and crafts, songs around a campfire and capture the flag in the evenings. It still sounds good to me. But times have changed and lots of kids are more excited to plan a summer adventure around performance academies than attend a traditional summer camp. There are lots of options and while they are not inexpensive, they do offer wonderful opportunities for your kids. They can be week-long overnight experiences, or day camps only. SUMMER DAZE day camps, sleep away camps, arts camps, sports camps, fire fighting…
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When Soap Gets In Their Eyes
When Soap Gets In Their Eyes By Brad Kava Despite the claims of baby shampoos not to irritate children’s eyes, bath time was a horror for our 2-year-old until we discovered the baby bath visor. Whatever we did, he wanted nothing to do with having his head shampooed. Soap always got in his eyes and he hated it. Photo by Brad Kava Now, with the visor, he loves baths and doesn’t mind the once-annoying shampoo. As much as we wish we could get everything we need locally, we got this on Amazon, made by Danyoun and sold for a whopping $2.22. There are others listed there that are more ex-…
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The Right Fit
The Right Fit It’s Scary How Many Kids are Playing Sports in Shoes that May Look Cool, But Will Hurt Them By Bob Pursley Here we are again a new school year which brings new sports seasons, whether it is football, cross country, basketball or soccer the kids are asking you to buy the equipment that they will need for these sports. Some of these sports require very specific equipment including the proper footwear for the sport. Sports such as field sports require cleats which are a no brainer but when it comes to running and indoor sports it is not so cut and dry. As a High School Athletics…
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Finding the Right Tutor for Your Child
Finding the Right Tutor for Your Child By Jan Pierce There are many reasons for a child to fall a bit behind in one school subject or another. Maybe your family moved and the new school does things differently, or maybe your child is operating on a different developmental clock than the curriculum. Whatever the reason, being behind other learners is never a happy situation for your child. You may be able to do extra work at home to catch up, but often a tutor is the best way to help a child make great strides in learning. Hiring a tutor is a serious venture. You don’t want to risk…
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Tired of Watching your Kids Play Video Games?
Tired of Watching Your Kids Play Video Games? HERE’S HOW THEY CAN BUILD THEIR OWN. IT’S MORE FUN By Ricky Chavez Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, and Super Mario may all be titles that you’re familiar with, whether it’s kids, teens, or adults, the amount of people that these games have reached is baffling. Today you can’t go anywhere without seeing people doing one of the many popular dances from Fortnite. Everyone seems to be so hooked on so many of these games and many have enjoyed them so much that they’ve said to themselves, “I want to make a video game!” but where does someone even start? My name is Ricky…
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Why One Child Turns Out So Well, But Not the Other
Why One Child Turns Out So Well, But Not The Other By Chris Jackson Have you ever thought, “I just don’t get why all my kids didn’t turn out well; I parented them all the same, so what went wrong?” Bingo. That’s just it: if you want all your kids to turn out the same (well-adjusted), parent them differently. When you parent them the same, they can and do turn out differently (and often not in a good way). You may have heard the recent news about a local police chief’s son who was arrested. On the department’s Facebook page, the chief stated, “His sisters (one corporate and the other…
