Parental Wisdom® by Tina Nocera

Birthday party gifts – keeping expenses down

February 20th, 2008

As with any kind of change, someone has to start. People who were previously following the crowd will now be happy to line up behind you. The problem is they just can’t be first.

Take the out of control spending on kids birthday gifts. If your child goes to two parties a month, you have to allow for that non-trivial expense in your monthly budget.

What if you stopped spending what is ‘expected’ and started spending what you could afford to spend. Taking it a step further, even if you could afford the $25 spend per gift, don’t do it. These children simply don’t need all these gifts, nor do they even appreciate all these gifts.

Simple is better so check this article about WHEN YOU JUST DON’T KNOW WHAT TO GET THE MAN IN YOUR LIFE for that special someone.

If the child likes to draw, get a blank sketchpad and some pencils or markers.
If they like taking pictures, then get them a book on photography and some nice photo quality paper.
If they to go the movies, then movie tickets with a few bags of candy tied with a ribbon will be just the ticket.

And for your own child’s party, you may want to bravely suggest – no gifts, and instead celebrate with friends.

Remind your child just how lucky he is to have friends.

Tags: birthday parties, children, kids, material things, parenting
Posted in Friendship, Media & Marketing, Money & Material Things, Popular culture | 80 Comments »

There’s a reason for everything

February 17th, 2008

An outbreak of the flu is hardly good news, but there is a reason for everything. We find that we can clear our schedules, slow down and cuddle up. Why do we need to wait for the flu or a snowstorm to do something that makes so much sense?

Our generation of parents is so involved in our children’s lives that we have taken on the role of ‘Julie the Cruise Director.’

Let’s take a look at where that has gotten us:

• When they are very little, we register for mommy & me gym classes. Reality check, you can do that at home for no cost at all. Mommy, are you the one that needs the play date here?
• When they are toddlers, we’re registering them for soccer and pee-wee tee ball camps. Reality check again, this costs money and more importantly children actually get less time to play than if the parents played with their kids at the park or in the backyard. Also, the kids aren’t learning how to form their own teams.
• In grade school, we add music and tutoring to the sports schedule which leaves no time for play or family. The mini-van is well stocked with food and beverages as we have no time for dinner. And, by the way, no time for conversation since the mini-van has DVD’s playing in the head rests.
• We check our calendars to find free time for play dates that we’ve selected.
• High school comes around and by this time the kids are burned out by the politics of sports so they’ve stopped playing. Since they never started a game on their own, they don’t know how. Technology has taken the place of making real friends, again something they’ve never had to do.

Back to today’s lesson. Parents – do less and you’ll do more.

Tags: kids, marketing, media, Play
Posted in Family, Healthy Lifestyle, Media & Marketing, Money & Material Things, Play | No Comments »

Too Many Toys

February 12th, 2008

Consideration for Potential Side Effects or Interactions While taking Weight loss pills

While these over-the-counter alternatives offer convenience, it’s important to be aware of potential side effects or interactions with other medications. Always consult with your healthcare provider before starting any new supplement regimen.

To summarize:

Compare different brands and formulations based on ingredients and dosage instructions.

Evaluate recommended usage duration for each alternative.

Highlight unique features or selling points of specific alternatives.

Discuss potential side effects or interactions with other medications. Try Alpilean weight loss pills

By considering these factors, you can find the best OTC phentermine alternative that suits your needs and supports your weight loss goals effectively. Remember to prioritize your health and consult a healthcare professional for personalized guidance.

Cost and Savings Tips for Phentermine Alternatives

Finding affordable options for OTC phentermine alternatives is crucial, so let’s dive into some cost-saving tips without compromising quality or safety. Here’s what you need to know:

Overview of pricing variations among different OTC phentermine alternatives

Compare prices: Research various brands and compare their costs to find the lowest price.

Generic vs. brand-name: Consider generic alternatives, as they often offer similar benefits at a lower cost.

Online vs. in-store: Explore online retailers that may offer competitive prices compared to brick-and-mortar stores.

Tips for finding cost-effective options without compromising quality or safety

Read reviews: Look for feedback from other customers to ensure the product is effective and safe.

Consult healthcare professionals: Seek advice from doctors or pharmacists who can recommend reliable and affordable alternatives.

Utilize discounts and promotions: Keep an eye out for special offers, such as buy-one-get-one deals or discounts on bulk purchases.

Suggestions for utilizing discounts, promotions, or bulk purchase offers to save money

Check manufacturer websites: Many companies offer coupons or promotional codes on their websites.

Sign up for newsletters: Subscribe to newsletters from health supplement companies to receive exclusive discounts and savings opportunities.

Join loyalty programs: Some retailers have loyalty programs that provide additional discounts or rewards points that can be redeemed later.

Exploring potential insurance coverage or reimbursement options

Contact your insurance provider: Inquire about any coverage options available for OTC phentermine alternatives.

Flexible spending accounts (FSAs) or health savings accounts (HSAs): Check if these accounts can be used towards purchasing these supplements.

Remember, while considering the cost-saving aspect, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons of each alternative carefully. Prioritize your health needs alongside saving money when making a decision.

By following these tips, you can find affordable OTC phentermine alternatives that meet your requirements without breaking the bank. So start exploring and save money while working towards your health goals!

Coupons and Discounts for OTC Phentermine Alternatives

Looking to save money on your OTC phentermine alternatives? We’ve got you covered! Here are some great ways to find coupons, deals, and discount codes that can help you get the best prices on these prescription-free weight loss aids.

Where to Find Offers

There are a few websites and platforms you should check out. These sources often have exclusive discounts and promotions that can save you a bundle. Here’s where to look:

Online Retailers: Many online retailers offer special deals and discounts on OTC phentermine alternatives. Websites like XYZPharmacy or ABCSupplements often have ongoing promotions or limited-time offers.

Manufacturer Websites: Don’t forget to visit the official websites of the manufacturers themselves. They may have exclusive coupon codes or loyalty programs that can help you save.

Coupon Aggregator Sites: Websites like CouponCrazy or DealFinder gather all the latest coupons and discounts from various retailers in one place. Simply search for “OTC phentermine” or related keywords, and you’ll find a list of available offers.

Loyalty Programs and Rewards

Some manufacturers of OTC phentermine alternatives offer loyalty programs or rewards systems that can provide additional savings. By signing up for these programs, you can earn points with each purchase, which can be redeemed for future discounts or even free products.

Seasonal Sales Events

Keep an eye out for seasonal sales events that may offer additional savings opportunities. During holidays like Black Friday or New Year’s, many retailers offer significant discounts on various products, including OTC phentermine alternatives. Take advantage of these events to stock up on your favorite products at discounted prices.

So don’t pay full price for your OTC phentermine alternatives when there are plenty of ways to save. Check out these sources for coupons, discounts, and loyalty programs, and make sure to take advantage of seasonal sales events. With a little effort, you can find great deals that won’t break the bank!

Exploring

The KISS principle (which stands for Keep It Simple, stupid) relates to just about every area of our life. Not surprisingly it begins when our children are little.

Visit the home of any family with little kids and you see toys, toys, and more toys. The overabundance of toys makes each toy less special, less noticed and less valued. I have often found that putting toys away for a while and rotating them offered a better chance for the kids to appreciate them more.

But, as often happens the problem that many of us experienced, was resolved a mom.

Lori Pope launched Baby Plays, a web-based company that rents toys, think of it as a Netflix for toys.

Customers pay $28.99 a month to get four toys a month for three months and $35.99 a month to get six toys a month for three months. Families willing to sign a yearlong contract can get six toys a month for $31.99.

Baby Plays’ inventory includes popular toys by brands such as VTech, LeapFrog and Playskool as well as more obscure European manufacturers. Pope keeps at least seven of each kind of toy in stock so she can fulfill almost every request. She plans to double her inventory over the next two months.

Pope mainly stocks sturdy, easy-to-clean toys with few parts or parts that are easily replaced. She searches Web sites and catalogs for popular toys that are appropriate for small children and meet all European and American safety standards.

Check out this website for more great options on toys for your kids. Guess the kids would really look forward to a visit from the UPS driver!

Tags: Babies, children, entreprenuers, parents, Play, Toddlers, toys, websites
Posted in Babies, Family, Family Friendly America, Money & Material Things, Play, Toddlers | 13 Comments »

Stars You Can Look Up To

February 7th, 2008

A friend was over for dinner the other night and mentioned a web site, Fafarazzi, that combines two great American pastimes – celebrity watching and fantasy sports. She mentioned that anything celebrity related was evergreen. Sadly, she is correct.

I wish that our kids could look up to real heroes, but unfortunately real people, even if they might have done wonderful things, just don’t sell magazine covers, or hold our interest with late breaking news.

The next best thing might be reading a blog by Deborah Ng, a professional blogger who created Celebrity Role Model Blog where she writes about the good that celebrities do.

Might be a good way to counter the negative influence of Lindsay, Paris and Britney. You won’t need a telescope to watch these stars.

Tags: celebrities, children, fantasy sports, media
Posted in Media & Marketing, Popular culture | 1 Comment »

First Rule – Do No Harm

February 5th, 2008

The Hippocratic Oath is an oath traditionally taken by physicians pertaining to the ethical practice of medicine. It is widely believed that the oath was written by Hippocrates, the father of medicine, in the 4th century BC.

You may have heard it begin this way, ‘First, do no harm’.

Parents should have to subscribe to that.

It is difficult enough for us who love our children to be certain they are safe. Why would any parent open their home and put their child at any sort of risk for a reality TV show?

“The Baby Borrowers,” a takeoff of a BBC series, appears to leave babies in the care of inexperienced teenage strangers for long periods of time.

If we want to give teenagers a challenging taste of parenting reality, have them spend a Saturday afternoon in a Chuck-E-Cheese.

Parents, remember the Hippocratic Oath.

Tags: Babies, children, NBC, parenting, reality tv
Posted in Media & Marketing, Parenting 101, Popular culture | 1 Comment »

The Beauty of Balance

February 1st, 2008

An article from the Belleville Intelligencer of Ontario Canada describes the concept of balanced parenting. What I love about this article is that any of us can relate to the situations described.

In balanced parenting there are rules, consequences and love. There is not an umpire deciding who did what, which makes sense because you won’t have an umpire following you around in life to rule on fairness. We all know, life isn’t always fair.

The concept of balanced parenting, if done consistently, would help us raise children that accept responsibility and think before he/she acts.

In my book Because Kids Don’t Come With Manuals® I wrote that a parent’s job was to raise happy, healthy, independent children that contribute to society.

Can becoming a balanced parent make that goal easy?

Tags: children, parenting
Posted in Parenting 101 | 1 Comment »

Connecting the dots – obesity, behavior and the media

January 25th, 2008

As I read my daily papers, The Wall St. Journal and USA Today, I cut articles that might be of interest to Parental Wisdom members. There is a pattern emerging where experts are trying to figure out what is going wrong with kids today. Three recent articles shed some light are where they are headed:

• In the January 14th edition of USA Today an article entitled ‘A lifetime of danger in childhood obesity’ paints a bleak picture of the medical issues that could result in overweight children and then explain how parents can create a healthful environment.

• USA Today on January 15th tells us of a ‘new direction’ on the part of PBS to create an online subscription based education website aimed at 3 to 6 year-olds.

• The January 17th edition of the Wall St. Journal asks ‘what’s gotten into kids these days’ and wonders why three-year-olds are being expelled at such an alarming rate.

Finally during a Parental Wisdom tele-seminar held this week on peaceful parenting, a caller asked what she could do to calm down her five-year-old at school because the teacher said he wasn’t sitting still. The teacher suggested the mom consider signing the boy up for a soccer team. The mom is already stressed about just returning to work and trying to keep it all together. Just what she needs, another to-do added to her already over-scheduled to-do list.

The solution to these seemingly unrelated problems is easy. Lighten up and let kids play. I mean real play, not online play, or signing them up with teams at such a young age they spend more time in the field picking their noses rather than listening to yet another round of instructions from adults running their lives. Involve them in your lives and the work that you need to do. Relationship building isn’t forced.
• Talk to your children when food shopping about healthy choices
• Have dinner together every night (or as often as possible) and talk about your day
• Give children chores such as setting or clearing the table
• Shoot baskets – no team shirts needed

Behavior problems will disappear, healthy living and family fun will be a way of life.

Is it this easy? Try it and prove me wrong. I would love to hear back from you.

Tags: children, media, obesity, online games, Play
Posted in Family, Healthy Lifestyle, Media & Marketing, Play, Popular culture | 2 Comments »

Perception is not reality – the safety of our kids

January 22nd, 2008

I was speaking with the mom of an eight-year-old girl. Her daughter wanted a friend to come over and the mom thought it would be a good idea to take the girls out to the park to play. The other mom’s response, “No, it isn’t safe.” The irony is that the 2nd girl has a TV in her bedroom with cable, a cell phone and a computer with Internet access. What that mom hasn’t realized is that she has opened the front door of her home to the entire unsupervised outside world.

Under pressure, MySpace.com announced that it will take further steps to protect children from adult content and possible predators on the site. Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says that MySpace agreed not only to third-party monitoring but also to working on age verification technology.

I was curious about how this works so I downloaded a white paper on this topic to learn more. If you’re interested visit IDologoy.

The bottom line as always parents, the best protection our children have is us in their lives.

Tags: center for missing children, children, internet preditors, media, myspace, Safety
Posted in Media & Marketing, Parenting 101, Popular culture, Safety | No Comments »

Teenagers – Like Rodney Dangerfield, They Just Need Some Respect

January 18th, 2008

An article in The Patriot-News reminded me of a situation from a few years ago. We went to a movie theatre and just before the movie started, the door opened. The manager looked in, scanned the crowd and found a small group of adolescent kids who were eating popcorn and sipping soda, just like everyone else. The manager glared at them and yelled, “If you do anything, I’ll throw you out!”

They weren’t doing anything. I don’t know if some other incident happened earlier or another time, but at that moment, they were well-behaved.

I thought the manager was disrespectful and wondering how kids learn respect if they’re treated that way. Don’t get me wrong, there are adolescents and teens that behave badly, but stereotyping is wrong and unfair.

Let’s teach by example.

Tags: respect, Teens
Posted in Empathy, Self Esteem, Teens | 4 Comments »

The Link Between Music and Family

January 12th, 2008

I’m grateful that our son Michael has shared his interest in music with us. In addition to the obvious benefits of learning something new with your child, I realized we can all learn a lot from musicians. Michael is taking In Home Voice Lessons now and his voice is beautiful and he even though about making a band!

Passion
It is never work if you love what you do. Musicians don’t call it practice, they call it play. The more you play, the better you get.

Respect
Musicians appreciate and respect each other’s work. They encourage solos in performing and always share creative ideas.

No discrimination of any kind
Watch a concert by Eric Clapton and you’ll see him performing with B.B. King and John Mayer; always giving guest performers the limelight. He proves that you can learn from those around you, young and old.

There is always a new song to sing
Music is infinite, and we all have something to offer, and a new way to play it. Finding ways to harmonize our uniqueness with the uniqueness of others can be very rewarding.

As we try to teach our children life lessons, these are lessons we can all benefit from.

Posted in Parenting 101, Play, Teens | No Comments »