Creativity is at the epicentre of human exploration and discovery. Creativity is a force that nurtures human development, innovation and helps us appreciate nature around us. Everyone is creative. Being creative helps children to look within themselves, take a pause and helps them to calm down. Below are a few ways to nurture your child’s creative ideas and imaginative spirit:<ol><li>Encourage possibility thinking: Pose the “What if?” question in front of your child in as many ways as possible; these help children naturally think of creative possibilities for everything they encounter.</li><li>Nurture your child’s interests: Allow your children to choose their after-school activities. Encourage them to more deeply explore those activities in essays and projects at school.</li><li>Expand the language of emotion: Being able to understand and describe emotions is critical to the creative process. Help them with the emotional vocabulary so that they can express their feelings better.</li><li>Play, play, play: Through imaginative play, children explore their ideas and create meaning about the world around them. It is better to provide all kinds of art supplies - crayons, play dough, construction paper, glitter to your child so that (s)he can create freely.</li><li>Explore the beauty of nature: The natural world inspires children to think, question, make suppositions, instil problem-solving skills, and develop creative minds. Children can draw in the sand, make designs with twigs, build forts with branches, or simply lie on the ground and look up at the sky.</li><li>Advocate for the daydreamer: When kids daydream, they explore associations, make connections, and search for possibilities. Daydreaming and a bit of solitude for reflection are among the attributes of highly creative people.</li><li>Invent scenarios: Invent scenarios with your child. This way (s)he will try on lots of different roles and organise his/her thoughts while developing social and verbal skills. Encourage your child to play house, doctor, zoo, farm, space station, school, or store.</li><li>Verbal activities: From rhymes to riddles (check our rhymes and riddles content to get you started), silly sounds to phonics, games such as "I Spy" (and many more activities on our app), verbal interactive activities can inspire and nurture creative minds.</li><li>Encourage art activities: Through painting, sculpture, collage, clay, drawing or any other medium, art is a way for children to work through emotions, make decisions, and express their ideas.</li><li>Ask open-ended and thought-provoking questions: Asking questions that provoke imaginative and creative thinking is an effective way to invite your child to express his/her ideas and share his/her visions. "What do you think would happen if….?" "What's the difference between a dog and a cat?" "What are some other ways to do this?" are a few questions to get you started.</li><li>Limit screen time: Nurturing imagination and parenting in the digital age can be tough. Focusing on a screen is a passive way of learning for children. Engaging children in a kinesthetic manner using their entire bodies and their five senses helps in deep learning and also opens up their minds.</li><li>Remember to allow for downtime: Unstructured, unscheduled time allows children opportunities to imagine and create.</li><li>Limit electronic toys: Electronic toys don’t engage a child’s imagination and so children are simply better off playing with a basic wooden toy.</li><li>Ask questions about their creations: Kids have their own thought processes, and we can’t always see what they are thinking just by looking at something they’ve made. Ask them what they have created to help them articulate their process and the ideas behind what they thought of creating and what they ended up creating.</li><li>Respect: Respecting that each child has the right to be himself/herself and believing in his/her uniqueness builds your child’s confidence. Respect his/her imagination and fantasies.</li><li>Base on Values Not Rules: Too many rules hinder creativity. If you let your children decide their behaviour according to those values, creativity will flourish.</li></ol> Here are some examples of comments that nurture the creative environment:<ul><li>“It’s fun to try it different ways”</li><li>“Tell me about it”</li><li>“Let’s try it anyway”</li><li>“Have you thought of any alternatives?”</li><li>“I see you are having a lot of fun”</li></ul>

Creativity is at the epicentre of human exploration and discovery. Being creative helps children to look within themselves, take a pause and helps them to calm down.

Nurturing your child's Creativity

Being creative helps a child take a pause from the constant running about of life and makes them feel relaxed.

Nurturing your childs Creativity

Are there any psychological effects on children watching cartoons on TV or mobile?Cartoons are the most popular entertainment for children. Earlier children would spend time outside playing with their friends, compared to now where they choose to spend time in front of the TV, watching their favourite Cartoons for hours. Ever since the emergence of the cartoon industry, it has been noted that watching cartoons can have both negative as well as positive impacts on a child's psychological growth along with their physical growth. Positive Impacts:<ol><li>Early Education: Preschoolers can get help to learn alphabets, shapes, numbers, and colours while watching TV. Undoubtedly, television can be an excellent educator and entertainer. The moving, talking pictures and colourful visuals make learning interesting and fun for kids.</li><li>Cognitive development:&nbsp;Watching TV and cartoon can help in the development of cognitive skills in kids. Skills such as logic and reasoning ability, visual and auditory processing, and sustained and selective attention of a child are developed and enhanced in kids.</li><li>Linguistic skills:&nbsp;Watching cartoons in different languages can assist children in not just learning different languages but can also help them improve their pronunciation and their manner of talking.</li><li>Creativity:&nbsp;watching cartoons enhances creative thinking in children. They may start thinking of new creative ideas like stories, characters, situations, etc on basis of cartoons they watch.</li><li>Morals and Culture:&nbsp;Mythological cartoons can introduce children to their religion and culture. Many cartoons end with good lessons of morals like kindness, caring and compassion.</li></ol> Negative Impacts:<ol><li>Violent Behavior:&nbsp;Kids who watch violent acts are more likely to show aggressive behaviour and also may fear that the world is scary and that something bad will happen to them. Also Because Cartoon characters display no more than little harm during violent scenes, children may believe that no one gets hurt or feels pain since cartoons escape unscathed after experiencing violence or an accident.</li><li>Less-empathetic behaviour:&nbsp;Few cartoons characters display a lack of empathy and rude/ disobedient behaviour towards others. Kids might mimic this behaviour and challenge their elders when they are disciplined for bad behaviour.</li><li>Rough Language:&nbsp;Few cartoon characters make use of rough language, as a result of which children begin to use foul/ rough language in their day to day life.</li><li>Anti-social behaviour:&nbsp;Several cartoons encourage antisocial behaviour and give wrong messages to kids. Cartoon characters often display risky behaviour, such as smoking and drinking, and may also reinforce gender-role and racial stereotypes. These can affect a kid's behaviour and make them believe it is normal to be aggressive, spoiled, or violent. cartoons may be the reason for many children to even become bullies in schools.</li><li>Health Issues:&nbsp;Children who consistently spend more than 4 hours a day watching TV are more likely to be overweight. They watch cartoons even when they eat because many parents believe it gets easier to feed babies watching television. Health issues arising due to sedentary lifestyle and inactivity for hours include obesity, vision problems, and nutritional deficiencies due to bad food habits.</li><li>Role models:&nbsp;From a very young age children start to mimic their role models. A role model is someone who either inspires and motivates the kids or discourages and admonish them, thereby shaping their character and personality as adults. Children often idolize their favourite cartoon character which could be Often a misleading role model that encourages the wrong habits or displays insensitive behaviour towards others. This kind of impact of cartoons on children’s psychology can often lead to devastating outcomes and result in kids being withdrawn, uncommunicative, antisocial, or unruly.</li></ol> Tips for parents: <ul><li>To make cartoons a healthy entertainment and a good and effective source of learning for kids, parents should pay more attention to providing selected cartoons to their kids that could positively influence them.</li><li>Parents must control the time children spend watching TV. They can choose appropriate cartoons for their kids. It would be better if parents also regularly watch and discuss the characters of cartoons with children. This way they will not only keep their kids away from violence but also direct them to different activities.</li><li>Lastly, it is recommended for parents to avoid placing their kids in front of screens while they’re eating.</li><li>Let's protect kids from the negative impact of Television media! Because healthy kids mean a healthy future!</li></ul>

Watching cartoons programs had a significant effect on the behaviour of children. Cartoons can have both positive and negative effects on cognitive and behavioural development.

Influence of watching cartoons on children

Watching cartoons can both negatively and positively influence children. Along with being the best educator, Watching TV can surely encourage children to become aggressive and violent. Hence, the cartoon industry is believed to influence a child's brain as well as physical development.

It's just a few days to your child's birthday and you are wondering if everything will go according to your plan or not. Well, here are a few things you can prepare beforehand so that on your child's special day you are not busy with organising and execution and are able to spend quality time with your child: <ul><li>If you're calling your child's friends over, make all the calls at least 3 days prior and take the confirmations so you can make the arrangements accordingly.</li><li>If you are planning to get food from outside, call the catering people and make appropriate arrangements for the special day.</li><li>If you are going to plan an activity for children, get all the materials for the same and keep everything in one place so that you don't have to rush around for everything on the day of celebration.</li><li>Get a house help for the whole day to help you with the arrangements prior to the celebration and also to help you tidy up the place post the celebrations.</li><li>Make your child try on the clothes and footwear before their birthday so that if any changes are to be made, they can be done within time.</li><li>Wind up all your personal/professional work one day prior to your child's birthday so that you can give your undivided attention to your child.</li></ul> If you are confused as to what you can do to make your child's birthday fulfilling, take a look at our 'Birthday Celebration Ideas' article to get some ideas.

Don't fuss about the preparations on the day of the celebration of the child's birthday, instead, see what you can manage prior to the celebration to make the day less stressful.

Preparing for your childs Birthday

Don't fuss about the preparations on the day of the celebration of your child's birthday, instead, see what all you can manage prior to the celebration to make the day less stressful.

In a joint family, every member takes their turn to nurture and nourish the child. Joint families are a boon to working parents or otherwise too. Children get to learn to respond and interact with others, adapt to changes and people. Raising a child in a joint family also becomes a bit easier on the mother because of the whole support system. Like every coin has two sides, bringing up a child in a joint family also has its own set of pros and cons. <ul><li>A joint family has too many authoritative figures which usually can give contradicting signals to a child. In a joint family, the same message should come from all the adults in the family. If jumping on the bed is not allowed, then the same message should come from both parents and grandparents.</li><li>It Is given that the parenting styles of grandparents and parents are going to differ. And when the differences arise, children are quick to catch those. So whenever you feel conflicts arising, it is better to sit down and talk about the differences when the child is NOT around. Set ground rules about raising your child.</li><li>In a joint family, a child learns good family values from the elder family members.</li><li>Children in a joint family are less hooked on gadgets as everyone in the family is ready to cater to their needs, be it emotional, social, physical, or in academics.</li><li>Making decisions for a child might get conflicting in the joint families as the grandparents tend to impose their thoughts and opinions. Sure, at times the help and insights are great but at the end of the day, it is solely the right of parents to decide the best for their child.</li></ul> In the end, it is up to parents to weigh the pros and cons of raising a child in joint and nuclear families and then decide what’s best for their child(ren).

A joint family is a large family where the grandparents, father, mother, uncle, aunt and their children live unitedly under one roof.

Parenting in a Joint Family | Types of Family

A joint family is a large family where the grandparents, father, mother, uncle, aunt and their children live unitedly under one roof.

Parenting in a Joint Family

Children should be trained for swimming after the age of 4 years because that is when they are developmentally ready. Swimming Essentials to be kept handy while going swimming with your child:<ul><li>Swimming costume</li><li>Towel</li><li>Shampoo and Shower gel</li><li>Hair clips and bands</li><li>Swimming Cap</li><li>Goggles (Swimming Glasses)</li><li>Armbands</li><li>Swim nappies (if required)</li><li>Tan lotion</li></ul> Children are often quite excited about water, but do consider these water safety basics when you are in a pool with your child:<ul><li>Keep a continuous watch on kids; this is mandatory everywhere - in a bathtub or in a swimming pool.</li><li>Check the quality and strength of the tubes that your child is using.</li><li>Don’t be pushy. If the child is too scared, take them out of the water and try again later.</li><li>If the child is learning to swim, an adult should swim at arm’s length (close to the child).</li><li>Children should be away from the pool when adults are not around, never leave the child unsupervised.</li></ul>

Swimming pools can pose some danger so it's better to take precautions. Children should be trained for swimming and taken care of while about basic water safety rules.

Swimming Pool essentials for kids to make their pool time safe

Swimming pools can pose some danger so it's better to take proper precautions.

Safe Swimming Pool Essentials and Considerations for Children

Swaddling is a part of caring for newborn babies since centuries. This makes the babies feel as if they are in the womb. It is one of the best techniques to calm a cranky baby and help them sleep for long. It can be particularly helpful for babies with neurological problems (problems associated with nerves, like migraine, stroke etc.) or colic (abdominal pain during infancy). It also can really help babies to fall and stay asleep on their backs. Consider these points when you are swaddling your baby:<ul><li>If your baby is happy without swaddling, don’t swaddle.</li><li>Always put your baby to sleep on his back if he is swaddled.</li><li>Make sure that whatever you are using to swaddle doesn’t become loose.</li><li>For the healthy development of the hips, babies’ legs need to be able to bend up and out at the hips. Swaddling for short periods of time is likely fine, but if your baby is going to spend a significant amount of the day and night swaddled, consider swaddling a little easy that lets the legs move.</li></ul>

Swaddling gives a very cosy feeling to a newborn baby. The baby feels as if it is still in the mother's womb.

The art of Swaddling a baby

Fatherhood is a biological and an emotional sea of changes. Starting a few months before childbirth, testosterone levels lower as prolactin, vasopressin and other hormones increase rewiring a man’s brain to prepare him for fatherhood. Entire area of man’s brain grows and develops in response to hormonal changes in the first year of a child's life, which allows him to care for a newborn. There is an increased sensitivity to crying, a deeper capacity to bond emotionally and a greater responsiveness to another’s needs. Men and women can experience depression very differently. Symptoms which might indicate poor mental health of a father:<ol><li>Increased anger and conflict with others</li><li>Increased use of alcohol</li><li>Frustration or irritability</li><li>Violent behaviour</li><li>Significant weight gain or loss</li><li>Isolation from family and friends</li><li>Being easily stressed</li><li>Increase in complaints about physical problems, like headaches, digestion problems, fatigue</li><li>Problems with concentration or motivation</li><li>Loss of interest in work, hobbies and/or sex</li><li>Working constantly</li><li>Self doubt</li></ol> Some of the factors that can contribute to depression in new or soon-to-be fathers include:<ol><li>Personal history of depression</li><li>Family history of depression</li><li>Worries about being a parent</li><li>Feeling overwhelmed with expectations in your role at work and your role as a father</li><li>Financial problems</li><li>Lack of social and/or emotional support</li><li>Stress in relationship with family or spouse</li><li>Missing attention and/or sex from partner</li><li>Lack of sleep after the baby is born</li><li>Feeling excluded from the bond between mother and baby</li></ol> Diagnosis:Your mental healthcare professional will ask you to fill up a depression-screening questionnaire to confirm whether you have depression or not. Following are a few ways which you can follow to take care of your stress and emotions:<ol><li>Work on building stronger bond between you and your partner. Understand her needs and desires and talk about your own too. Feel free to express in front of your partner or family or friends.</li><li>Develop a support team from your family. Ask for help. Say YES when they offer.</li><li>Take time for yourself. Have some “me-time” either watching TV, going for a movie or taking a short break from work and spending time doing things you like.</li><li>Talk to other families who have experienced the same.</li><li>Spend time with your baby to develop your own confidence.</li></ol> Treatment:<ul><li>Talk Therapy: PPD is a severe form of clinical depression. Your psychiatrist might suggest you to see a counsellor who will ask you questions about your life. It is important that you answer them honestly. These sessions will help you gain a different and healthier perspective about things. Therapy is different and personalised for everyone but these are a few topics which you might touch in your sessions: your feelings, your beliefs, your behaviour, your life pre and post birth. There are 2 types of talk therapy:</li></ul><ol><li>Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: You and your counselor work together to identify, then change, thoughts and behaviors that are harmful to your mental health.</li><li>Interpersonal therapy: Your therapist helps you better understand how you behave in your relationships and how to work through any problems.</li></ol> <ul><li>Medication: Antidepressants are drugs designed to treat depression, including postpartum depression. They work on different chemicals in your brain.</li><li>Self-care: Get more sleep and exercise, eat healthy foods, do fun activities and relax. Doing these things can help to boost your mood.</li></ul>

A parent's mental health is of the top most priority when it comes to parenting. A healthy mental space leads to a happy and healthy bond between a parent and a child.

Postpartum Depression in Fathers

Palak Vyas

Qualities to look for the right cradle: <ol><li>The base of the cradle should be wide and sturdy so that it doesn’t topple and fall.</li><li>The distance between the slats should be appropriate, not too wide that the baby’s fingers or head get stuck in it.</li><li>Choose a cradle that has a sturdy mattress. It should be firm and well fitted. In case if the cradle doesn’t come with a mattress, you can buy it separately. Soft mattresses increase the risk of SIDS.</li><li>Choose a cradle with a fair and reasonable price as you are going to use this for a few months only. So buying an expensive and fancy cradle is a waste of money. The only criterion here is to buy a cradle that is comfortable to use, strong and reliable.</li><li>Check whether it meets the safety standards for design, structure, usage etc.</li><li>Select a cradle that has an automatic swing option; it relieves much of your work of swinging the cradle every now and then.</li><li>Get a cradle with either lockable wheels or no wheels at all. The cradle should be steady all the time.</li><li>These days cradles come with lullabies and music stored in it. It can be a great help to you.</li><li>Ensure it is portable and flexible enough to be travelled with.</li><li>The height and design of the cradle should be comfortable as you will have to pick up and put the baby back for n number of times. So look for your convenience.</li><li>Avoid cradles that come with sleep positioners. Sleep positioners may pose as a suffocating hazard.</li></ol>

A cradle is a baby bed with curved bases so it is easy to rock them from side to side.

Selecting a cradle for your baby

You may be coping up with financial challenges of managing your career or climbing up the corporate ladder, parenting is something where most people are stuck. Raising a child with both parents working is indeed a challenging task. But, do not worry, a research shows that having a working mother has no impact on children’s happiness in adulthood. Also, children of working mums and dads are often successful in their later careers. The key here is to divide the household chores and child’s responsibilities equally among both the partners. For example if the mother is cooking food, the father should help with the dishes or vice versa. Similarly, if there’s a meeting or function to be attended in the child’s school, both the parents should do it alternatively. It should fall on to any one of the parents’ shoulders. Things to take into consideration here are:<ul><li>Work timings of both the parents: Say for example if the father has to report to work early in the morning, it is obvious that he won’t be able to take up the household chores in the morning. If the child has to go to school in the morning, the mother will have to look after that if she has the time in hand.</li><li>Work profile of both the parents: Say for example, if the work profile of the mother is stronger than the father and requires more time, then the free time that the mother gets should be first devoted to the child and then to the household chores. Or the mother can opt to do the household chores along with the child. This will help her to bind with the child better.&nbsp;</li><li>Both the partners should be mature enough to understand the above two points and work in the direction in which both the parents get equal amount of quality time to spend with the child.</li><li>Make sure that the time which you are spending with the child should be quality time. play family games post dinner, go for a walk together. A weekly ritual of spending the day on a day off also does wonders. Take the opportunity to learn about their interests, what is going on in their schools and classes, how are things with their friends, if there is anything that’s bothering them, etc.</li><li>In all these, do not forget to spend alone time with your partner. You both are each other’s strongest pillars. Once in a while, plan family outings so everyone is just having fun with each other by leaving behind the worries.</li><li>If your partner is not helping you share the responsibilities of the house and of the child, talk to your partner calmly and make them understand that you cannot do this single handed and it might take a toll on your mental health.</li><li>Make them understand that for healthy family dynamics, you will need their full support in everything.</li><li>In case if you are not able to sort it out, you can take counsellor’s help to resolve the situation between both of you.</li></ul> What can be done to reduce the burden on working parents other than sharing the responsibilities:<ul><li>Find a quality Day care: Find good, trustworthy, hygienic day care for your child. This will help you stay at peace and focus on your work at office. Also, ensure it offers flexible hours. In case if the grandparents are available and are ready and healthy enough to take care of your child, that option can also be considered.</li><li>Have a good morning routine: This is extremely important for working parents as a haphazard morning can spoil both your and the child’s day. Spend some time while brushing teeth together, give a long and refreshing shower, have breakfast together and a little conversation while you drop the child at school/bus/van.</li><li>Stay organised: Prepare everything a night before, pack the bag, chop vegetables, have a menu for breakfast. This will give you enough time to spend with your child.</li><li>Take good care of yourself: When you are tired and stretched, it gets difficult to manage both work and home. Have some ‘me time’ wake up a little early – exercise or go for a walk in green surroundings. A healthy body and healthy mind will keep you fit and energetic for the day.</li><li>Take help whenever required: You can always seek assistance from parents or grandparents. Offer car pooling for evening activity class on a busy day at work and arrange for a play date for children over the weekend.</li><li>Avoid planning to give equal time for both: You cannot practically do that because some days are extremely busy at work and sometimes baby’s health/education will need an extra attention. Flexibility at work and home is the key to strike the right balance.</li><li>Be a smart cook: you can boil 2 – 3 types of lentils on weekends and stuff them in refrigerator, this will save your cooking time on weekdays and spare time to spend with your kids. If your finances allow, outsource certain tasks like cleaning, cooking etc.</li><li>Discipline sleep schedule: The efforts should not be to wake up early; the efforts should be about sleeping on time. Spend more bedtime with kids and wake up early together. Share small household chores with your kid(s).</li></ul>

When both the parents are working, it becomes a tad bit difficult to manage work, household chores, and spending time with the child.

Working parents and Responsibilities

Dr Ajab Primuswala

<ul><li>When you say that your child is lying, there are two aspects to it. Whether the child is lying to save himself/herself or whether the child is lying for fun sake.</li><li>If the child is lying to get away from punishment for something which they did, it is their defence.</li><li>Make it a point to make them realise that their behaviour is unaccepted. You can do this by telling them, “Irrespective of whatever you have lied, I know the things you have done. You can’t hide it from me.”</li><li>If they are lying for fun, make them realise that there are consequences for this lying habit.</li><li>Lying is something which they are using as a defence mechanism or as a method of manipulating and altering the truth.</li><li>Here, being calm is the most important requirement for the parent because as parents we feel, “Oh! How can my child lie to me?”</li><li>You have to be very sure that your child is lying to you. You will have to talk to them and give them a solid proof that you know they were lying.</li><li>You have to be sure and be thorough with the facts because children are very smart. If you just say, “You are lying and I know”, they will not agree to it. So keep your facts ready and then confront them.</li><li>Confronting your child has to be an immediate action after the episode. If you know that your child has lied to you today, then confront him/her there and then. Do not keep it hanging.</li><li>Lying tendency also comes with the concept of fear. Maybe your child is too scared of sharing his or her stuff with you and that's the reason they might be lying to you.</li><li>Here, what you can do is, try and gain that trust and develop a rapport with your child where the child doesn’t want to lie to you. It is just that they are scared of your behaviour towards them and this is motivating them to lie.</li><li>So first check for yourself that whether you are the reason behind your child’s lying. If yes, you can rectify yourself and go ahead and reassure them that they can share anything and everything with you. Tell them, “It’s okay, I will handle it and you can trust me completely, you don’t need to lie to me”.</li></ul>

Children lie when they feel they actions will not be accepted by their parents. Assure your child that you will be there to support them when things go downhill.

Dealing with child's habit of lying

Samiksha Choithani

Car sickness is usually caused as the brain receives conflicting information from inner ears, eyes and nerves. The child cannot see outside the car but can feel the motion. This conflicting situation can lead to upset stomach, fatigue, loss of appetite and vomiting.Here is what you can do to prevent it:<ul><li>Guide the child to look outside instead of using phone, playing game or reading a book. If the child can sleep during travelling, it is the best.</li><li>Plan your child’s meal before travelling, avoid giving too much of food or oily or spicy food before travelling. Give them plain or simple food like upma or khichdi or daal-rice.</li><li>Candies will provide relief during nausea (vomiting sensation), try to give them ginger candies if available.</li><li>Distract the child or keep them busy talking to them about the trip or play his/her favourite music or sing rhymes together.</li><li>If you are talking a long road trip take medicines prescribed by your paediatrician and take frequent breaks during the long journey.</li><li>If your child gets car sick, immediately stop the car and take them out, walk around, place a cool napkin on child’s head.</li></ul>

Getting car sick is very common in adults as well as among children. If your child has a history getting car sick, it is better to go for other travelling options. If it is completely unavoidable, few measures might help your child feel better.

Caring for car sick children

Juhi Mishra

You can homeschool your child via different approaches. To start with, there can be different approaches one may take. The way/approach majorly depends on the requirement and suitability of the parent and hence the planning may be done. Approach #1:<ul><li>Taking the child out of a regular school and start educating them at home without any affiliation with a School or Board. This way the children may learn in an independent manner and won’t have to follow a particular curriculum. The homeschooler family gets to explore all the resources, methods and content nationally and internationally.</li><li>Later, with the progress, the family may choose a Board which is suitable for the child(ren) to appear for their 10th examination and accordingly, they may be introduced to the curriculum.</li><li>This kind of set-up fit suits the children who are in elementary or middle school years. For children who are close to the 10th grade and have to sit for their board exam as well, one might want to look at other approaches since there is less time in hand.</li></ul>Approach #2:<ul><li>Some schools allow parents to enrol their children as a private student. In this approach, parents can choose to teach their children at home but have to follow the curriculum and examination process of the school.</li><li>In this approach, Parents have to personally approach the schools, that have affiliation with the Board they prefer (IB, SSC, IGCSE, NIOS etc.). In this case the homeschooler family will have to follow the standardised curriculum adopted by the school (they have enrolled into).</li></ul> Apart from the approaches, one may start with the following pointers:<ol><li>Understand the legalities involved</li><li>Locate homeschoolers nearby, in your city</li><li>Explore homeschooling methods/approaches</li><li>Design a plan suitable for your child</li><li>Attend book fairs, conferences and events</li><li>Spot your support network</li></ol>

The decision of homeschooling a child is a major one and needs to be taken in the light of researching all the pros and cons, legalities and challenges that come with the step.

Homeschooling your child

Children get cranky for many reasons. However, neglecting the cranky behaviour of a child is clearly not a solution. It is important to identify the cause and find a solution for it.If your child is a toddler the reasons can be:<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Change of usual schedule.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Upset stomach</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Pain in some part of the body</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Suffering from cold or flu</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Sleep deprived</li></ul>You may try some home remedies like having simple food for few days, give your child a long night sleep or you can put some nilgiri oil drops in the hanky and place it near the child. Rest and food can help your toddler overcome this behaviour.If your child is an infant the reasons can be:<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Hunger</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Fatigue</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Messy Diaper</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Rashes</li></ul>To make your child calm, check the diaper regularly, try and feed the child more often. If the mother is breastfeeding the child, she should avoid spicy food for a few days or any food that can create stomach problems in infants. Additionally, keep a regular check on rashes on neck and thighs. Give proper amount of sleep to your child.

It's normal for kids to get cranky but as a parent do not lose the cool.

Why is my baby so cranky/fussy?

Pacifier is something which is going to be there in your baby’s mouth for a long period so you want to be very sure about how and what to consider before buying one. <ul><li>Size: First things first, consider the size of the pacifier and the age of your baby. Pay attention to the recommended age bracket on each pacifier.</li></ul>Up to 6 months: small-sized pacifier6 to 18 months: medium-sized pacifier18 months and above: large-sized pacifier <ul><li>Construction: Pacifiers come in many varieties like single-piece, three-piece, stuffed animal, etc. With the 3 piece pacifier, make sure that any of the parts should not be lightly attached. They should be fixed properly to avoid any kind of choking hazard. Single piece pacifiers are the safest of all.</li></ul> <ul><li>Nipple material: There are two different materials available in the market.</li></ul> <ol><li>Silicone: This is easy to clean and is less prone to retain odours. They can be easily washed in dishwashers.</li><li>Latex: They are softer and are more flexible than silicone material but this material wears out faster. Usually, they are not dishwasher safe. If your baby is allergic to latex then you can either use natural rubber, non-latex or silicone ones.</li></ol>&nbsp;<ul><li>Guard type: There is a standard size as per the baby’s age and so you have to select accordingly. The guard prevents your baby from drawing the nipple into his/her mouth and choking while (s)he is using the pacifier. There are holes in the guard to allow air circulation between the guard and the baby’s face and prevent moisture rashes.</li></ul> <ul><li>Washable: It has to be easy to wash and sterile. Pacifiers must be dishwasher safe if possible.</li></ul> <ul><li>Use coloured pacifiers so that you can spot them easily.</li></ul>&nbsp;<ul><li>Don’t attach anything with your baby’s pacifier. Do not sugar coat it. Do not attach it to your baby’s body. Always keep it clean.</li></ul>

A pacifier is a rubber, plastic, or silicone nipple which is given to an infant to suck upon. It comes with a mouth shield to avoid the danger of swallowing it and choking up on it.

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Why is my baby so cranky/fussy?

Selecting a pacifier for your baby

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