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Tips to Make Life Easier and Safer Are you always in a rush? Are never enough hours in the day? It is a common complaint of parents. Life is crammed full of work for every parent. From the moment they are born to the time they are grown up and leave home, kids make work for us. Not just work, but problems. But that’s not all. There is a good side to parenting. Kids bring joy and for millions of parents around the world, kids are the most precious thing they have. All too soon the children will be spending most of their time away from home at school and with their peers. Our time with young children is precious. No day can ever be repeated. Make time to have fun together. Keep routine times such as bath time, eating, bedtime, free of stress. Talk together about books, games, animals, news, people. Make time to relax with your children and enjoy their achievements and their company. Parenthood is complex, demanding, frustrating, painful, full of fear, heartbreaking. But it is so rewarding, so joyous, so…so wonderful. Keep sight of the joy. Fourteen ways to add more hours to your day 1. Get up earlier – Early in the morning is an ideal time to garden or get to the computer. It can be a great time to work on something special for yourself. Later the family demands attention. Later, life gets hectic. Early, one is relaxed, refreshed and there are fewer distractions. 2. Watch less TV - People waste hours a week on TV programs that do nothing for the soul. Be selective. Choose to watch programs that fit your personality and lifestyle. Turn the TV off or walk away when your program is finished. 3. Use commercial breaks - If you watch commercial TV to make or do something else. Commercials give you time to make a simple toy, tidy the room, clean your teeth, put the garbage out or do many small jobs. 4. Use the car as an office - Driving time can result in a brainwave bonanza. Use driving time to plan your day, come up with ideas, compose letters, lists, stories etc 5. Let your imagination run wild - While doing those boring household routines such as washing or cleaning. A good beginning is to say ‘what if…’ Take action on the ideas when the boring tasks are over. 6. Don’t have a dishwasher?- Stack the dishes in the sink, add the detergent and run hot water over them. Leave to soak while you make the beds or hang out the washing. By then the dishes will have almost cleaned themselves. 7. Try the 10 minute cleaning routine. Take one task or area of the house and see what a difference you can make in 10 minutes. You’ll be amazed. 8. Try the 2 minute clean-up for kids – Tell the kids to tidy the floor in their rooms in 2 minutes. Set a timer. They can’t complain over 2 minutes and a lot can be achieved in that time. Even offer a reward for a clean floor. 9. Organise your work-stations . Put baskets for dirty clothes in each person’s room. Use the baskets on washing day to sort the clothes straight from the line to the bedrooms again. 10. Organise undressing.- Fold your clothes as you take them off, and put them away. This will keep the bathroom and bedrooms tidy and save a lot of time on washing day. 11. Organise the kitchen –Save steps while cooking. Have everything you need close at hand. Minimise the chore of unpacking the groceries - get each person to unpack one bag. 12. Shop less - Do one or two big shops a week instead of shopping every day. Driving, parking, shopping and going home again take hours every week. One shop is also cheaper. 13. Have a place for everything and put things into their places after use. This will reduce time spent in searching for missing items. 14. Use baskets for quick storage and clean-ups e.g., have baskets for the kids to put their toys in at the end of each day. Have a basket for all the shoes. Use baskets to sort the family’s clothes when they come off the line. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First Aid Summer is approaching in Australian and our children will spend much more of their play time outside. At the child care centres I attend children are once again being made aware of sunscreen and why we need to wear it. After telling stories about spring, I talked to the children about bees and bee stings. Few children get stung by bees but at the moment flowering trees are crowded with bees. Young children especially, need to know that bees are dangerous. Many insects sting or bite and can cause pain or allergic reactions. Children with bare feet are at risk of stepping on insects, glass, sharp objects, prickles or other nasty surprises. Every week approximately 1,300 children will be treated in a hospital emergency department in my state. Are you prepared to deal with injuries at home or away? Here are some helpful ideas for you
Show your child pictures of dangerous creatures such as bees, wasps, spiders and snakes so they will recognize them. What your child can do in an emergency
All children have an important role to play in helping their friends as often only children are present. They can get help by phone if an accident happens. They can tell adults exactly what happened. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Keeping food safe Food is essential for life but unsafe food can cause death. Five million people in Australia suffer from some food related illness each year. We all need to practise safe food handling and make sure that food taken to school from home is stored well. Food left out of the fridge for more than 2 hours may be dangerous to eat. This means that sandwiches for school should be made the night before and frozen. There are strict regulations imposed on all canteens now and on the staff who work there regarding storage, preparation and handling of food. Here is a website you can look at for information that will help you with food issues at home also. www.food authority.nsw.gov.au/ Here are some tips:
Of course we need to pack high energy foods in school lunches. Protein, not sugar, is the best way to provide energy. The best foods for protein are meat, eggs, cheese, milk and yoghurt. These can be frozen satisfactorily and packed in the lunch so that they are ready to eat at lunch time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Women are generally very good at multi tasking. During shopping, washing, cooking, cleaning and other routine activities, we are busy thinking of what has to be done next and how to fit everything in our day. We also manage to do several jobs at the same time. While unpacking the groceries we will be tidying the cupboard, cooking the dinner and helping children with homework. Boys and men on the other hand, seem to put their full concentration on one major activity whether it is work or pleasure. A male partner sits to watch the football until the end before attending to someone else’s request. He is likely to say, ‘I’ve got to finish this first,’ before he comes to help you. A woman is constantly leaving her work to attend to the children. She puts aside some pleasurable activity to help her partner search for the missing hammer or to be a mechanic’s assistant. I wonder if this is a nature or a nurture thing? Can we do anything to train our sons to multi-task more frequently? There are many time stealers in our lives and we need to prioritise our tasks in order to make time stretch more. We need to help our children to do this too and being a good role model will help. Our days are crammed with must do things but we need to make room for pleasure too. Here are some suggestions:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Every business, every government these days, strives for the workforce to be more and more efficient. The business of parenting is no doubt in the top bracket of important and essential businesses. How efficient are we as parents? Do we strive to achieve more productivity? Do we use our time better as the years go by? What makes for efficiency in parenting? As an efficient parent we need to
It sounds a tall order. Young parent struggle just to feed, wash, clothe and love the baby. And those parents with multiple births… I can only sigh and admire them. Young parents are usually tired most of the time. I remember spilling coffee down my clothes when I fell asleep while drinking it with visitors one night. As a grandmother I still haven’t achieved a clean, tidy house and garden. I used to long for one. My priorities have changed but I’m still working on becoming more efficient. I think efficiency is a life time study. Here is a link to a great site for tips on organising your life. You can even sign up for a free newsletter every week. http://www.getorganizednow.com/free-ezine.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Winter is a high risk time for house fires. Open fires, stove fires and heaters cause the most problems but electric blankets that have not been checked since the previous winter are also risky and of course fires in the kitchen are always a possibility. When a house burns down it is a devastating experience for the occupants and if people are injured or die it is really tragic. However careful people are, a fire can occur, so everyone should be prepared. We should
Did you know that children sleep so soundly that they do not hear a fire alarm? But they will respond to a parent’s voice telling them to get up and go outside because of fire. It is possible to get a recording of your voice that will activate when the alarm goes off. People who live in upstairs flats, or houses with different levels, have a particularly challenging environment. Every home is unique and we must all work out our own evacuation plans but here are some ideas:
For house fire or bush fire one cannot be over prepared. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With the advent of warm weather kids will be delighted to spend more time in the garden. To make this time safe for them and les worrying for you, it’s worthwhile teaching them some basic safety rules. •Tools. Teach kids that leaving hoes, rakes and shovels lying in the dirt is dangerous. They or anyone else can run or trip over it and get a nasty puncture wound to feet or legs. Tools last longer if put away where they won’t rust. •Nature. Any spiders or other bugs in your area need to be identified and recognized by kids. These can be scorpions, funnel webs, red backs or snakes. Bees and wasps are also classed as dangerous. Show them where these bugs are most likely to be found, e.g. red-back spiders like the undersides of black plastic pots and rocks. •Plants. Stinging nettles and thistles can cause pain if not recognized and dealt with appropriately. Some shrubs are thorny; other plants such as tomatoes can cause an itchy rash. Some children might be allergic to some plants. •Soil. Soil contains many bacteria that are good for plants and bad for humans if they get into the bloodstream. Teach kids to treat their scratches promptly and properly. Keep their tetanus shots up to date. •Potting mix. If kids are using potting mix, make sure they know to keep it damp and wear gardening gloves. Once kids can recognize danger and deal with it, you and they will be more confident of letting them have fun in the garden. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Summer time is fast approaching in Australia and that means storm time. There have been incredible storms in Queensland during the past week with hundreds of lighting strikes. Teach your kids something about the dangers of lightning. There is no safe place outside in a thunderstorm. During November a boy and his mother were hurrying home across a soccer field when the mother was struck by lightning. She was injured and luckily her son was not. Lightning strikes the tallest object in its path, so standing on a flat field, invites danger. However, sheltering under trees is also dangerous as the trees may be struck and you along with it. The best course of action when thunder is about, is to get inside as fast as possible. If no building is available, a car is a fairly safe place unless you are touching metal while in there. Never stay on the beach in a thunderstorm.
Here are some slogans to help kids remember rules :
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lack of time is probably a universal problem but particularly this is so for working mothers. The most important factor in time management seems to be prioritising one’s work and removing distractions. To do this one needs to know exactly how much time is spent on tasks now. Time your day Break the day up into time zones such as
Into each time zone write the tasks that you do each day and the time taken. How much time is really spent on each thing? You may be surprised. For example how long do you spend in bed thinking about the day instead of getting up and starting it? How long do you spend in the shower? If these are important times for thinking and planning, there will be no need to change them but it is so easy to lie for half an hour cosily tucked up on a winter’s morning when you only meant to be there for five minutes. Consider what kind of person you are, i.e are you a morning person or a night owl? If your partner is a night owl and you are a morning lark this makes for an extra problems as you juggle things so that you can spend satisfying time together. List your priorities Are they fun time at home with the family? Outings together? Gardening? A tidy house? Social activities with friends? Study? Preparing appetising meals? Volunteering at school or in the community? Sport or physical fitness? List common distractions Here are some common ones:
Cut out those extra shops you enter just because the display in the windows entices you, only go in once in a while. Do something else that is relaxing rather than watching habit TV. Be strong and give up meetings that are not benefitting you and the family. Delegate jobs to other members of the family, make a list each day of achievable things and tick them off so you can see what you have achieved. Remember to have enough sleep as tired people are inefficient. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In October a six month old baby in a pram at a Melbourne railway station had a miraculous escape from death. The incident was captured on the security footage and released to the media as a warning to everyone. The pram was at the back of the platform well behind the marked safety lines but the brake was not engaged. Baby’s mother let go of the handles for a moment while she hitched up her slacks. The pram immediately rolled quickly forward. Mother tripped as she lunged at it and the pram tipped over onto the track just as the train arrived. The pram was carried forward 30 metres before the horrified driver was able to stop the train. When the pram was put upright, the baby was still strapped in and only received a couple of grazes. If the baby harness had not been buckled up that baby would have been thrown out and killed. The lessons are use brakes always and use the harness always. Restraints for kids in cars are mandatory but in an accident the restraint itself can cause injury if it is not the right one for the child. Children between four and seven years of age are too small for adult seat belts and many children up to ten years are still too small. The belt must sit correctly on the hips or it can cause paraplegic injuries. Have a qualified person check that your restraint is properly fitted and is the correct one for the height and weight of the child. There is a simple test you can do yourself too. Get the child to sit up straight, with back against the back of the car seat. If the child’s knees are not at the edge of the seat so that the knees bend naturally and the leg is at the right angles, without the child moving forward from the seat, he/she is not tall enough for an adult restraint. Check your child today. Accidents are often caused by someone else. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Holiday time is unfortunately often accident time especially on the roads and on waterways. Some of the reasons are:
An emergency is a crisis situation and demands an immediate response. Emergencies may concern a car accident, a fire, a near drowning, a fall, a flood, difficulty breathing, a sudden acute illness. How can you prepare your family for an emergency?
Prepare for emergencies at home by
How can you help others in an emergency?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peaceful places and peaceful times The Christmas and New Year period is a busy and often exhausting time. We make preparations for holidays, shop for gifts and get in extra supplies of food to tide us over the public holidays. If family is coming to stay we have to re-arrange the house to fit in the extra people. Even finding room in the fridge can be taxing. Parents, especially those with excited children under their feet, need some quiet time to recharge their batteries. They need a space in which to relax away from the hurly burly of the family too. Mothers with pre-schoolers often find that the bathroom is their only refuge and even when in there, the children are knocking at the door and asking or telling her things. Try to set up a corner somewhere in the house that the others recognise as your space where you can sit doing nothing or read or follow a hobby. Hang a picture there or put a special ornament on a shelf to make it feel special. A tiny corner in the garden makes a good peaceful spot too. Here are some ideas to help you get those minutes you need to recharge yourself:
Adults need quiet time just as much as the kids do. Ask friends what they do to relax and try out different ideas and see what works for you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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