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Two topics that most people are tired of hearing about are obesity and childhood obesity. The problem is we will not find solutions for these problems if we “bury our heads in the sand.” Kids Yoga is a viable solution to obesity in children, but this requires schools and parents to take action now.

Obesity has crept up on all age groups quickly; children in some countries need to change their lifestyles immediately. If not, there will be serious health repercussions that will shake our health systems and fragile economies.

How did massive numbers of obesity get here? How can less physical activity in children be acceptable? How could Kids Yoga be a solution?

Parents today have less buying power than our parents had. Many children are shifted from school to day care, while both parents are working extra hours to support the family. Many of today’s meals are composed of processed foods -whether they are store-bought, or bought for takeout, from a restaurant.

Physical education has suffered serious cutbacks since the “Cold War” ended. Back in the 1970’s, and before, children ran and played outside more often.

The Yoga lifestyle helps parents and children manage diet in a very busy and stressful world. If you are conscious of it, there are wiser food choices, even from restaurants. When children practice Yoga, they become much more aware of their diet, posture, activities, and daily exercise routine.

Educators, doctors, Yoga teachers, and parents cannot afford to wait until the next study on childhood obesity is completed to take action. Children are bigger than ever, due to inactivity and a high fat / carbohydrate diet. Large numbers of big children will become even bigger adults, who are at risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, various forms of cancer, and much more.

Therefore, educators, doctors, Yoga teachers, and parents must be proactive. Do not expect grant money, government assistance, or any help from “big brother.” Look at the reaction to global warming by the world’s governments and you see how long it takes to get a reaction.

For parents with school-aged children, there has never been a better time for them to attend Yoga classes. Children consider Yoga an extension of other games and exercises they would normally do. Children will naturally jump, roll on the ground, run, and spin around, in the course of playing with their friends.

With proper supervision from a certified Yoga teacher, children learn what they can and cannot do. Kids Yoga classes teach safe Hatha Yoga techniques for flexibility, strength and muscle tone.

If a child is obese, parents should not expect instant miracles with weight loss, and parents would do well to learn the practice of Hatha Yoga. In this way, parents and children will both be aware of proper dieting and a much healthier lifestyle.

Copyright 2007 – Paul Jerard / Aura Publications

You already know all the reasons why scrapbooking is your favorite hobby and the benefits it brings to your family. So why not share that hobby with your children as well? Scrapbooking for children can be just as fun and meaningful as it is for adults. There are many reasons to start scrapbooking with your kids. Here are just a few reasons you should start enjoying scrapbooking with your kids today.

1. The primary reason most people scrapbook is to preserve their family memories and photographs. Scrapbooking for children is a perfect time to reminisce about favorite family memories. While you create page layouts, you can relive your vacation to Disney World or the last time grandparents came to visit.

2. Scrapbooking family photographs opens up discussion about family history. It’s a time to talk about your ancestors and how they lived. So much subtle education can come from those discussions. It’s a great opportunity to talk about family and friends that live far away as well.

3. Scrapbooking for kids can be a creative outlet the same as it is for you. Providing your children with the materials and letting them enjoy the creative process helps foster their imagination and artistic expression. Scrapbooking for children should not be about the final product or page layout. It should always be about experiencing the process, interacting with the materials and fostering their creativity.

4. Scrapbooking for children is a chance for quality family time. Whether you are scrapbooking with a child one on one or with a few children, you have the opportunity to really listen to them. Have them talk about the pages they are designing, and ask them what they remember about the photographs in the page layout. You may even be surprised at some of their answers.

5. Scrapbooking page layouts can also be educational. Through scrapbooking, you can teach older children about color theory, design principles and even basic photography techniques.

6. As your children are creating scrapbooking pages, they are expressing and documenting their thoughts and feelings in their own words. They also are preserving their handwriting as they journal on their pages. Scrapbooking pages created by your children reflect their unique perspective and memories of family events.

7. Spending time with your children and scrapbooking is a chance to express family values. Just looking through your photographs tells a lot about what your family values are. Take the time to discuss them with your children. Family time, friendships, and holiday celebrations all say something about what we value most in our lives.

8. While you share scrapbooking time with your kids, you may just be training the next photographer or historian in your family. One of your children may catch the scrapbooking bug just like you have.

Scrapbooking for kids provides endless opportunities to spend time with your children and have fun together as a family. It can be educational as well as a creative outlet for both of you. Round up your children and gather some photographs and scrapbooking supplies. Enjoy scrapbooking with your kids today.

What are the important factors that go into creating an ideal situation to bring up kids? Well, the role of the mom and dad-essentially, good parenting skills-is crucial. However, other things, such as the environment, education, and community too play a role. We bring you GreatDad’s list of the five best cities to raise your kids in:

5. Boston, Massachusetts: This largest city in New England is especially known for its excellent standards of higher education. Forbes magazine rated the Boston public school system, the oldest public school system in America, as the best in the world. Music, arts, sports, and a world-class urban environment make this a great city to raise your kids in.

4. Miami, Florida: Think about sun, surf, and cosmopolitan bustle and you think Miami. But there’s much more: this city has the largest school district in the world, an active sporting culture, and a beautiful climate year round. Your kids can nurture a love for nature through their visits to Parrot Jungle, Monkey Jungle, and Fairchild Tropical Gardens.

3. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Located on the banks of the Mississippi, this is the largest city in Minnesota. With a flourishing art scene, Minneapolis enjoys the presence of a community of musicians, artists, writers, and actors. Its residents love the outdoors and rate sports highly. All in all, this city with its lakes and parks is one great place to bring up your kids.

2. San Diego, California: Blessed with a sunny beachside atmosphere, this city has much more than water sports on offer. With a high per capita income, San Diego also offers good education opportunities-it has a medical school and at least three accredited law schools. And this is a city that almost knows no crime. Besides, special attractions for children abound, such as San Diego Zoo, SeaWorld San Diego, and Legoland.

1. Denver, Colorado: This scenic city, situated at the foot of the Southern Rocky mountains, is the capital of Colorado. Denver is home to the sprawling Denver Performing Arts Complex. Besides, the city has also spawned eight professional sports teams. Denver also has a pleasant natural environment all the year round, with winter sports such as skiing in the winter. All this makes it the best place to bring up your kids.

Today’s parents feel pressured to use technology to begin their child’s education in utero. For example, the BabyPlus Prenatal Education System promises to “give your baby a headstart” by playing rhythmic patterns to help stimulate early learning. It is time, therefore, to step back and evaluate the true value of toys that incorporate technology to teach.

Toys that are formed from high-tech electronics embedded with semiconductor chips are generally known as edutainment toys. The quality and substance of their play may be limited by the number of buttons a child can push. Some promise to challenge a child by allowing him or her to interact with the educational content to learn it. For example, V.Smile offers a Baby Infant Development System aimed at introducing interactive learning to kids 9 months to 3 years. They can watch educational videos with this system or push buttons on a tray to influence what is happening on a television screen.

Some older toys are also adding electronic bells and whistles to appeal to the current technologically sophisticated generation of children. Dolls now interact with the Internet. Wooden Brio trains make electronic sounds and can be controlled by infrared remotes. The classic Fisher-Price Rock-A-Stack now also comes in a Dance Baby Dance version whose center rod lights up and plays songs when the rings are stacked on it.

Open vs. Closed-ended Toys

An open-ended toy encourages free play with an unlimited number of outcomes. For example, a building set can be used to construct a variety of different structures. A closed-ended toy, on the other hand, has a limited and often soon exhausted number of outcomes.

Not all closed-ended toys are bad. After all, a stacker is a classic closed-ended educational toy: it can only be put together correctly in one way. However, to solve a stacker, a child must develop and use logic and fine motor skills. The child benefits from the repetition of playing with the pieces of a stacker, manipulating them with his or her fingers over and over and thinking about how they fit together until the solution is mastered and then repeated for pleasure.

A closed-ended edutainment toy, on the other hand, may only require a child to press a few buttons. Eventually, it leads to a dead end and the child grows bored and tosses the toy aside. As Martha B. Bronson notes in The Right Stuff for Children Birth to Eight, although a child can have a rich play experience with any toy, basic, open-ended toys encourage this type of experience more than rigidly programmed toys with only one or two functions do. This sort of edutainment toy is not timeless. It is meant to be replaced sooner rather than later by the next big product in edutainment that uses the latest in technological innovations.

Often people assume that toys that use new technology are more innovative and educational than non-technological educational toys. In fact, childhood specialists such as Jane Roberts (president of Young Media Australia, a consumer advocacy group), question how educational and interactive high-tech edutainment toys really are, noting that “[p]ressing buttons and having items do things for you is fairly limiting in terms of how children learn.” Furthermore, many traditional toys are themselves becoming more innovative about stimulating a child’s imagination and creativity without having electronics in them. For example, the blocks in FoxMind’s Cliko game can be used for a variety of games that are challenging to children and adults alike.

Negative Impacts of Edutainment Toys

Overall, parents might not want to encourage children, especially younger ones, to use too often edutainment toys that involve televisions and computer screens. The authors of “Effects of Preschool Television Watching on First-Grade Children,” found that preschoolers who watched more television than their peers did worse in school and were not as well socialized when they entered first grade. Researchers Frederick Zimmerman and Dr. Dimitri Christakis found that babies watching Baby Einstein DVDs and videos scored lower on language skills than babies who had never watched them at all.

In addition, Allison Sloan notes in Shopper’s Guide to Healthier, Greener Toys that computers and television sets emit EMFs, “invisible forcefields whose possible health effects, from headaches to sleep disruption to cancer, are the subject of heated debate.” Children’s developing brains are in the greatest danger from such outside influences.

A final caution about edutainment toys is that they can foster in children an acceptance of a disposable consumer culture. A timeless toy such as a set of wooden unit blocks will hold up under heavy use for generations and can be played with at the same time by children (and adults!) of a variety of ages. Edutainment toys, on the other hand, are usually played with by only one child at a time, and they generally have a shorter playtime and life span. Children quickly master and get bored of them, or their high-tech components break, rendering the toy useless, and then they are discarded, releasing toxic chemicals and metals into the environment.

What Parents Can Do

As technology and the Internet permeate society and people’s lives more and more, it does make sense to introduce children to computers and other inventions that they will need to use as they grow older. A toy is not necessarily bad or useless because it incorporates technology. That said, smart parents should examine the stated purpose of an edutainment toy, evaluate how and what it teaches, and determine if their children could receive equal or greater value from a simpler, classic toy. Roberts warns against the dangers of a parent using high-tech toys as babysitters, substituting interaction with a machine such as a single-player computer game for what should be “the best learning for young children-real-life experience when they model, create, explore, and develop their own initiatives through play.”

Every parent wants his or her kids to be smart and succeed in life. Everything starts during the toddler years. This is the time that the children easily remember whatever you teach them. More so, they are able to copy your actions. They can even follow simple instructions and express themselves in such a way that you might not quite understand. The important thing is that toddlers are able to socialize and learn to be independent. Baby Toys is the perfect toy in developing your kid’s brain as well as building his physical strength.

By constantly exposing your child to various things and explaining to him, what it is and what it is for, the kid tries to understand this. You might want to do this several times in a day to ensure that the child recognizes the item when you show it to him. Letting him read or browse through books with colorful pictures is another thing you can do. Since children love colors, letting him admire the many hues in the book, he is able to different them eventually. Teach him the basics like red apple, green grass and the likes.

If you plan to buy an educational DVD, why not try Baby Toys. It serves as an interactive board book wherein the children can point out the items asked by the narrator. This is also good because the children learn how to appreciate what they see and follow whatever they need to do. Children repeat the words they see which a good thing is. At least you know that they are getting something from the video. Moreover, with constant practice and a little more patience, your kid becomes knowledgeable about the video thus he is able to recognize it whenever you show this to him.

Aside from letting the children watch educational videos, another great thing wherein you develop his intellect is to buy him informative books. Buy him books about plants, animals and the likes. Try to discover which he likes best and let him see the world through the book. If you have time, take him to the zoo for him to admire the beauty of nature up close. This also helps him to recognize the animal before him with the animal in the book. Children love looking at animals and touching them so give them this opportunity to learn more about the wildlife.

Whether you are using Baby Toys or other products, the important thing is to put priority for the knowledge and education of the child. Even though they know many things, feed them with new information for him to be a well-rounded person. He may not know everything for one item, at least he knows a little bit of something in each thing that he sees. Children are hungry for knowledge and it is your job as their parents or guardians to do whatever it takes to satisfy this. Books, internet and the television are among the many things you can use to provide him knowledge.

Kids want the best Christmas toys. There are so many that come out that you may not know which ones to buy. So, what I’m going to do is share with you some of the best Christmas toys for kids. That way, your kids will have the best gifts this year.

The best Christmas toys for kids are:

1. Transformers Optimus Prime. This is a great gift to give your kids. This is one of the best Optimus Prime toys to ever come out. Your kids will love this toy.

2. LEGO Mindstorm NXT. This is another great toy for kids. This is a popular gift that parents are buying for their children. The LEGO Mindstorm is an educational toy that kids love to play with.

3. Nintendo DS Lite. This is another one of the best Christmas toys for kids. The Nintendo Lite is a popular gift that a lot of kids want this year. There are a ton of great games that kids like to play that are also educational.

4. EyeClops Night Vision Infrared Stealth Goggles. The EyeClops Goggles is probably the coolest toy out right now. It allows you to see during the night. A lot of kids want this toy for Christmas.

5. Hannah Montana Malibu Beach House. This is a great gift for little girls that like Hannah Montana. The house is based off the hit show, Hannah Montana. Which is why a lot of kids want this toy for Christmas.

These are some of the best Christmas toys for kids. If you’re not sure what to get your children or if you really want to surprise them this year, you should get the gifts mentioned above. They will love those presents and will have the best Christmas ever.

People hardly have time for nature due to the hectic life styles today. There is no time or inclination to pay attention to the environmental problems caused due to abuse of nature by humans. A good way to begin environmental education is by involving children and making them aware of nature and teaching them to respect it. One such environment friendly activity is gardening. Kids love the outdoors and involving them in gardening activities can be a good way to teach them about nature and the cycle of life. Some of the benefits that kids could derive from gardening are discussed below.

Science:
Children can be explained the wonders of life, like the plant’s life cycle or the place of the plants in the food chain and how human beings are responsible for the protection of the environment. They can experience the miracle of life by observing the development of a seed to the fully-grown plant. This will serve as a practical instruction for the science lessons they are learning at school, thus making it a fun activity.

Life:
Watching a seed grow into a sapling is a satisfying experience and the kids will learn to appreciate nature and all living things. Gardening will teach the kids to treat all living things with care. It can help to generate feelings of tenderness and care as a part of the emotional development of the child. The children can learn the importance of the elements of nature that is air, water, sunlight and soil and how they are linked to the human necessities of food water and shelter. Simple gardening jobs like weeding can be used to educate the children on the philosophy of life to weed out bad influences.

Relaxation:
Studies have shown that gardening can have a calming effect and reduce stress. This holds true for kids as well. Gardening can be used as a therapy for abused children, and also treat children from broken homes. It has a calming effect and thus helps to build up the child’s self-esteem.

Quality Family Time:
Gardens have a lovely ambience and this helps to relax and unwind after a stressful day. It is a place to play with your children and bond with them. One can spend quality time with the children just by talking with them while doing the gardening chores. It is an enjoyable way to do things together as a family and get to know your child as an individual.

Children are the future generation, and they can be educated to take care of the environment by involving them in gardening activities and at the same time promote their development as a good human being.

Today more than ever it is harder to maintain a healthy lifestyle with sedentary pastimes such as watching television, playing video games and surfing the Internet competing for our kid’s time and replacing more physical activities.

Combined with the easy availability and low cost of unhealthy processed foods or ‘junk food’, then this can have an impact on children’s health, not only throughout their childhood but leading into adulthood causing serious health problems at a later date.

It is therefore important to make a concerted effort to ensure children lead a healthy lifestyle and maintain overall fitness. However it can be difficult to make a start and to inspire your kids to follow your lead, so we have compiled a list of ten tips to help you along the road to health and happiness.

1) Involve the Whole Family – Sometimes kids can be reluctant to take part in sports and games, especially if they think that they are being ‘forced’ to do them against their will. Children take their lead from their parents so if they see their parents taking part in sports and fitness then they are more than likely to want to copy. Ensuring that the whole family stay fit and healthy can provide the right motivation for the less reluctant child to get involved. Embracing a healthier lifestyle yourself can help teach a child that they need to do the same.

It doesn’t have to be all about playing ‘football’. For instance a family outing to the zoo, theme park or local attraction such as a ruined castle will keep kids on their feet, give them something interesting to see and do whilst keeping them fit at the same time. Making an effort to have days out where the whole family joins in can lead to a child having an overall healthier lifestyle.

2) Use ‘Active’ Transport – Ditching the car when possible and either walking or cycling instead can help keep the whole family fit and healthy. Perhaps this means walking to school instead of taking the car or maybe a trip to the local park or shops can be accomplished by cycling there instead.

Although it may not be possible for everyone to ditch the car so easily due to distance or time constraints the occasional journey can still perhaps be substituted. Not only is walking or cycling better for your health, it can save you money and help the environment- all great examples to set your kids!

3) Regular Exercise – The key to staying fit and healthy for both adults and children alike is to exercise regularly. Try to schedule exercise activities (whatever they might be) at regular intervals but do let your kids set the pace. As soon as a child feels they are being forced to take part in a ‘fitness’ regime then you may start to get some resistance and refusal to join in.

Pushing your kids beyond their limits may have a negative impact on them wanting to do anything at all. Forcing them to train to become better at a sport or activity can seem like the right think to do if they appear to have a talent for something, but it is important to ensure that your kids are happy and not resenting the activity, as long term this will end up becoming a problem.

4) Keep Fit Through Daily Chores – Lets be honest, no kid enjoys having to do their weekly and daily chores, but chores are a good thing to implement as they help teach a child responsibilities whilst helping them to ‘earn their keep’.

If your child isn’t that keen on sports and outdoor activities then a subtle way for them to get some additional exercise is by combining their chores with physical activities. For example washing the car, mowing the lawn or vacuuming the house all are great ways to burn some extra calories and to get your kid moving and keeping fit without them even realising it!

5) Keep it New and Fun!

Many of us can recall sports lessons at school when we were forced to do sports we didn’t enjoy, more often than not in the freezing cold, without proper clothes. These horrible moments cement a negative impression on sports and fitness in a child’s psyche. This negativity needs to be avoided so the buzz word to remember is ‘fun’. If you ensure that any activity you take part in is fun for your child then fitness doesn’t become a burden or a chore and soon becomes a normal, everyday part of their life.

Kids can bore easily so an activity they have enjoyed in the past may quickly loose its shine from one week to the next. Unless you are intent on turning your kid into the next sporting superstar then whatever activities they do to stay fit is unimportant as long as they enjoy it.

Introduce new sports and activities into a child’s routine can be a great way of finding new active hobbies so it’s worth experimenting and trying different things. How about crazy golf, trampolining, horse riding or kayaking? There are plenty of things to try!

6) Turn the TV Off – When you live a busy life and have a full time job to contend with then it’s easy to let your kids entertain themselves in front of the television. Years ago kids TV was limited to a few hours in the afternoon and morning, but now with the advent of cable and satellite channels, children have dedicated stations that they can watch all day. There’s nothing wrong with watching TV, it can be fun and educational, but it’s a very inactive pastime.

Try to limit screen time and turn off the TV after a few hours. There may be arguments to start with but your child will start to get into a routine and will also look for other things to do whilst the TV is switched off- ideally more active things to do!

Kids also love playing computer games which are traditionally thought of as being very inactive. Lately things have changed a little- with the release of games such as Dance Dance Revolution and Wii Sports, you can now get a workout in front of the TV. Where possible steer your child towards these ‘active’ games and then they’ll get the benefit of keeping fit and healthy, whilst doing something they really enjoy.

7) Try the Scouts & Guides – Not all kids are the outdoors types so may not suit absolutely everyone, but getting your kids involved with the Scouts, Guides or similar well organised groups can be a great way of ensuring your child lives an active lifestyle. For example the Scouts in the UK are open to young people from the ages of 6 to 25 and they take part in a wide range of activities from rock climbing, camping to sailing and hiking. Also there are a lot of creative and educational pastimes that these groups get up to making it a completely rounded experience.

Nutrition & Healthy Eating – To maintain a healthy lifestyle, exercise needs to be combined with healthy eating and good nutrition. Good nutrition doesn’t always have to be about boring foods that your child doesn’t like, so try to introduce a wide range of cuisines and styles to your child’s diet. You never know what they might enjoy eating.

Moderation is the buzzword for eating healthily. Minimise unhealthy snacks such as crisps, chocolate, biscuits and sweets and perhaps introduce them only as treats or for special occasions. Your child will not get used to having these ‘treats’ all the time and will appreciate them much more when they do have them. Unhealthy foods as listed above do not provide much if any nutritional benefit and can contain unhealthy additives which most nutritionists agree are not great for long term health.

Be wary of processed foods, they can sometimes contain unhealthy amounts of salt, sugar or other additives. Try to cook meals using raw ingredients, that way you’ll always know what goes into your food. It can be more expensive and time consuming to do this but the long term benefits to the whole family can be immense.

9) Team Games – If your child is showing signs that they enjoy sports such as: football, hockey or netball, then getting them involved in a local youth squad is a great way for a child to get all the exercise they need. Not only will they have fun and get fit, they may make friends with other kids on the team providing additional reason to go to team practice sessions. Adults can also get involved, perhaps by helping out with coaching or lifts to and from training sessions.

Again, having fun is key- if your kid stops wanting to go to practice, initially some light coaxing or persuasion may be necessary to get them back in the mood. However if this reluctance persists, long term you are better off letting your child dictate what they enjoy doing. As mentioned previously in this article, kids can get bored easily and can soon go off any activity, no matter how much they previously liked it.

10) Activity Holidays – Looking to kick start a new healthy lifestyle for the whole family? Taking an activity holiday where your child can get to try a wide range of sports and activities can be a great way of getting fit and finding new and interesting things to do. Venue’s such as Center Parcs offer the perfect weekend break escapes with a wide range of activities that suit all ages and they also run special offers such as ‘kids eat free’, which can save you money. Finding activities that inspire your children to become more active is the best way to ensure that they keep fit and healthy. Activity holidays are a great way on ‘hitting the bullseye’ and finding things that your child enjoys, that you may not have ever considered before.

To begin with, here are the ground rules for grown-ups. First, don’t overload your kids with toys. Too many at once will simply overwhelm them.  Second don’t take away old favourites – even if doggy, teddy, or dolly has been loved to bits. And third: suggested age ranges aren’t set in stone. Be patient if a child can’t yet cope with some particular game. She’ll soon get the knack.

As a natural, on-going part of our work as parents, teachers, early childhood specialists and others involved with children at home or elsewhere we observe children at play. This includes selecting the right products to enhance play and learning.

We can depend on the durability and versatility of such items as blocks, construction toys, games, puppets, and transportation toys. They stimulate the imagination, engage the player, have value and hold up over time.

“There. Did you see that?” a worried mother asked her friend after observing her gifted daughter stand up and walk away from two other little girls who were playing a card game.

What some parents conclude after watching their gifted children at play can be very far from the reality of the situation. Some parents, like the one from above, believe that their child isn’t being social when she doesn’t play with the other children. In fact, the issue might not be with the playmates; rather, it might be the choice of games, because gifted children learn and grow from play. Of course there are important social issues for gifted children that parents need to consider; however, since the gifted child can process at a higher level, he or she might gravitate to older children or to other children who have the same interests and abilities rather than to the boys and girls of the same age.

Children are little sponges when it comes to learning, and they are perfectly capable of doing that without toys that are described specifically as educational toys. Children’s toys are supposed to be fun, and most educational toys that children love will combine learning with having a great time.

The old classic children’s toys like Lego or Playdoh are great for stimulating child development and creative tendencies. Young children can start with the basic sets that don’t come with any complicated extras and work their way up.

Children’s educational toys are an essential component to every child’s playroom. Life would be much easier if we could just accept the fact that kids have always, and will always, spend most their time playing with toys. In the last few years, parents started getting more and more interested in choosing all sorts of educational toys for their children.

Playing with educational toys is one of the means that help children to establish contact with the world they live in, especially during the infancy stage. During the infancy stage, toys serve as educational materials to stimulate the child’s sense of sight, hearing, and touch. A rule of buying educational toys is to keep in touch with the child’s interests.

Once your kid has graduated infancy, the learning process becomes a little more complex. A year ago, they were learning how to eat solid food by chewing on a pillow. They were learning what would eventually allow them to read by staring at the mobile above their crib going around and around. Now it’s time to start thinking about reading, mathematics, basic building and organizational skills, further social development… the list goes on.

The wrong way to go about teaching these skills, and certainly you know one or two parents like this, is to treat the educative process too much like… well, academics. You don’t want to turn learning into something boring, with worksheets and assignments and so on. Learning should be fun, and if you teach that at a young age, it will remain with your child through their whole life.

But how does a parent know how much is too much to give? The dilemma is persistent though perilous when parenting pre-teen and teenage daughters when stuff and idols have their most tenacious grip.

What could be more innocent, more harmless than toys? If we were the toymakers, our products would no doubt reflect our love for children, our love for God, and our desire for holiness and purity. Unfortunately, the shelves of most toy stores are filled with toys made by those who are definitely of another mindset entirely.

Do children need toys? I would answer yes. Less affluent children have, for centuries, created their own: a piece of wood wrapped in a scrap of cloth became a doll; other bits of wood became animals, houses, tools, or weapons. Children seem to need to play almost as much as they need food, shelter, and love. Toys are the necessary props.

In this day and age of satellite TV with hundreds of channels, computers with 24/7 internet access and video games that also connect to the internet it is difficult to get out children to take the time out to do something more constructive and educational like reading a book.

What we have to do is conform a little with the times and make use of the technology to give our children tools for learning that they enjoy. How do we do that, you ask?

There are many companies now producing videos, video games, and computer games that are not only fun to the children but are at the same time educational. I am not suggesting that you only buy educational products because if you were to do so your kids will rebel and then you won’t even have the technology they like working for you.

What we can do however is mix it up a bit and include some educational games. These products are available for every age group from toddlers all the way through high school so there is no excuse for not using them. For toddlers you get games that will help them learn shapes, colors, and numbers more rapidly. I have a nephew who is only 4 years old reading on the level of a 9 year old, to me that is evidence the methods work.

I have used the programs with my own son who was struggling in school and disinterested in certain subjects like math and history for example. One of the games I used with him took the kids back in time to Egypt and the Great Pyramids and made it fun to learn history and math at the same time. His grades shot up in a matter of weeks. Is that not worth the price of a CD or DVD? It definitely was to me.