Your child has a date with the family doctor, for a vaccination. Perhaps it’s time for flu shots. Even if you don’t have an appointment scheduled now, eventually she is going to have to face the needle; something neither of you is looking forward to. So what is the best way to prepare her for it? Here are 10 tips for preparing your child for a shot:

1. Hypnosis – For truly phobic young patients, hypnosis has been a successful means of treatment. The children eventually overcome their fear of getting shots. Make sure you find a licensed provider and are aware that this therapy does not work for everyone.
2. Distraction – Anticipation makes the experience far more ominous and scary than it would otherwise be. If you can preoccupy your child just prior to administering the shot, it will take the edge off.
3. Lidocaine – When applied to the area where the shot will be given, this medication can dull the sensation and make the shot not hurt (as much). Some doctors also use cold spray to numb the area before giving an injection.
4. Sing – A comforting, lilting familiar voice can work some serious magic on a child’s nerves. The sound of their mother’s voice literally has a soothing physiological effect on children, reducing the heart rate and lowering anxiety levels.
5. Discuss, don’t dwell – Explain to your child what you will doing at the doctor’s office, including the shot. Focus more on the check-up and other factors, and maintain an upbeat tone. If you dread it, so will they.
6. Surprise – Alternately, you can opt to avoid any discussion about the shot itself, to alleviate any anxiety if your child is prone to worrying. Tell them just before the shot happens so they have a little time to mentally prepare, however.
7. Bring a Game – Provide some entertainment as a distraction and to keep your child in good spirits prior to the shot. The less they think about it, the less it will hurt.
8. Bring Fun Bandages – Let him pick out some Scooby-Doo or Sponge Bob bandages and make preparation for the shot a fun experience.
9. Read a book – Better yet, have your child read a book aloud, and get immersed in an enjoyable story. Like a game, this will help them keep their mind off the shot and lessen their anxiety.
10. Educate – Tell your child about vaccines, illnesses, and why it’s important to have shots on occasion. The more they know about the importance, the more likely they are to stay strong and suffer without complaint when the time comes. After all, even a child knows it is better to hurt a little now than be sick for a long time later.

No matter what kind of child you have: a worrier, a crier, or a fearless wonder, there is a way to keep them calm and happy, even in this circumstance. Know what your child’s needs are and find ways to work with them to make the visit to the doctor a pleasant experience for all concerned.

Every child in about third grade starts learning about multiplication.  This learning continues for several years as the children learn how to multiply bigger and bigger numbers.  Helping your child learn their multiplication math facts early will help them tremendously in school.  Check out 10 ways to teach your child multiplication.

1. Flash cards: These are tried and true for a reason, they work.  However, not all children do well just sitting and memorizing facts so this method is for the child who is good at rote memorization.  Based on how well they learned their addition and subtraction math facts you should know your child’s learning style.
2. Online games: Do an Internet search and you should pull up several fun online games to help your child learn their multiplication math facts in a fun way.  This method usually works well for the child that learns better visually.
3. Worksheets: Books are available at major book retailers that will help with multiplication worksheets.  Many times just the act of doing something over and over will help the child learn their facts.  You should also be able to find free worksheets online that you can print out for your child.
4. Books: There are many funny books on the market like Times Tables the Fun Way.  This book is very colorful and fully illustrated to help kids learn multiplication in a fun and easy way without the pressure of normal methods.
5. Bake cookies: Multiplication is just adding over and over.  Get out some sugar cookie dough and roll it out.  Pick an example like 3×4 or 4×6 to start out with.  Have your child cut out 6 cookies and lay them on the cookie sheet.  Get out chocolate chips or cinnamon candies or M&M’s and have your child place 4 on each cookie.  Have them count how many total candies or chips are on the cookies.  Explain that 6×4 is just 6+6+6+6 or 4+4+4+4+4+4 and that they all equal 24.  This activity is great for a kinesthetic learner (those that love to move).
6. Table: The multiplication table is really an easy way for your child to get a visual on what they are learning.  With flash cards they are just random facts that seem endless.  When you look at the multiplication table it narrows down what they need to learn.
7. Videos: There are videos online or that you can buy that will help explain the multiplication facts to your child if you don’t think you are up to the challenge or if you just want to have one more avenue to help your child learn their facts.  Sometimes the more ways you can present something the easier it is for them.  Something will click for them and the more ways you try the easier it will be for them to find what works best.
8. Game: Play a card game called Factor. You will have to convert a regular card deck to play this game and you probably won’t be able to use it again for regular cards.  Remove the King and Queen from the deck.  Write an 11 on the Jack and a 12 on the Ace.  To play you have to learn what numbers go together to make other numbers.  Like the factors of 12 are 1, 2,3,4,6 and 12.  You deal out 6 cards to each player.  The player to the left of the dealer starts and calls out what the ‘target product’ is for that hand.  This is determined by them multiplying two of their cards together in their hand.  Then you go around the table and everyone plays a factor of that number if they have it.  They keep the card in front of them because the product of those cards will be their score for that hand.  They played a 3 and a 4 so their score is 7.  The first person to reach 100 wins.
9. Songs: School House Rock has a whole series of 3 minute songs about multiplying by each number.  It’s always easier to learn something when it’s set to music.  The type of child that will learn their facts from a song may surprise you.  Songs allow the child to move around and sometimes that will make the difference in what makes it click for them.
10. Writing it down: The more times that you write something down, no matter what it is, you are more likely to remember it.  It’s a proven fact that if you write something even once it improves your ability to remember because the brain files written information differently than information that you have only heard.  Why do you think teachers make naughty children write one sentence 100 times?  So they don’t forget it that’s why, so it works with multiplication facts as well.

Sometimes kids won’t eat because it may be an extension of the power struggle we experience with them in other areas.  They feel overpowered, bossed around, or simply small, during the majority of the day, and then discover at mealtime that YOU now want something from them.  Others just don’t like trying something new and others may have real dislikes for tasting or eating certain foods.  Or perhaps they’re just not hungry because they were allowed to snack too much earlier in the day.  It is also common for children to become run down and tired by the evening meal, or pepped up and on their second wind.

Taking measures to stop the chaos begins with recognizing what may be going on with you over this conflict.  Are you recreating the control your parents had over you in forcing you to eat?  Depending on the time and conditions of your childhood, food may not have been as plentiful as it is now and your parents were trained by their parents to eat when it was available.  Some parents overreact to a child not eating, feeling a sense of fear that if they don’t get the child to eat; their child may starve and develop eating disorders.  In actuality, the parent’s over reaction can create eating disorders.  Avoid forcing a child to eat what is prepared because it will drive them further away from cooperating or being interested in eating in a healthy manner.  The parents manner of behavior during an emotionally charged moment can make a child’s challenging behavior even worse.

As a solution to getting the kids to eat, I suggest parents establish a readily available alternative to whatever is being served and allow the children to have the power to choose between the prepared meal and this new established alternative.  The established alternative must not be anything sweet and must not require special preparation.  When my kids were little, our established alternative was a cup of dry Cheerios; the kids could select what Mom or Dad prepared for dinner or a cup of Cheerios.  For some of our children, the alternative was the immediate selection in the beginning.  As most parents do, I worried about them getting the proper nutrition if all they ever ate for dinner was Cheerios.  But because we were consistent with our rules and boundaries, the Cheerios soon grew old and we found the children more willing to eat the prepared, hot food.  Then as they grew older, we added a few more alternatives such as crackers and eventually, a PB&J sandwich.  We never allowed sugared cereals or cookies, and the PB&J wasn’t allowed until they were old enough to prepare it themselves.  The object of the alternative is to give them a choice at meal time and make it something very simple to fix that they can eventually fix themselves.

Here are a few words of wisdom regarding restaurants… they were made for adults!  If you are struggling with getting the kids to behave when the family is eating out, do one of the following: go to a “kid-friendly” restaurant that caters to children, bring a bag of activities to keep them busy and focused, or get a baby sitter and eat out alone occasionally as a couple.  My granddaughter, like her mother, was always a challenge at restaurants.  She talked loud, got up and down from her chair constantly, picked fights with her brother, threw her menu on the floor to see if anyone would pick it up, and leaned over the walls and planters to talk to other patrons.  Frequently she would shout at the wait staff walking by, saying, “Excuse me, I need a new red crayon.  Mine broke!”

One final thought about kids and eating; keep portions small.  Overloading a child’s plate with food can be overwhelming to them.  Give them very small amounts of all the items prepared for the meal and allow them to ask for more.  Putting a full plate of food in front of your child could be like saying “go explore space!”

Bill Corbett is the author of the book “Love, Limits, & Lessons,” and the executive director of Cooperative Kids.  He produces and host a TV show for parents called, CREATING COOPERATVIE KIDS, and you can watch it online at www.TheParentingShow.tv.  He has three grown children, two grandchildren, and lives with his wife and 14-year-old step daughter Olivia.  You can visit his Web site www.CooperativeKids.com  for more information and parenting advice.

Do you have a child that hates taking a bath?  What do you think the reason is?  Sometimes adults feel like kids are just being difficult when they refuse to take a bath and that there isn’t a real reason behind why they don’t want to take a bath.  However, sometimes there are real reasons why they resist.  Check out 10 real reasons kids fight taking a bath.

1. Fear of water: Some kids could have a fear of water.  It does happen and when kids get older their ability to voice their fears improves.  Maybe they choked on some water in a baby pool once or they knew someone who drowned.  That could have caused them to fear water and wonder if the same thing could happen to them.
2. Painful rash: Kids can get a nasty case of diaper rash or variations on diaper rash that are extremely painful when they hit warm water.  Even older kids could get a rash brought on by an allergy to laundry detergent.  If parents always send them in to shower by themselves then there is no way that they would know what is going on.  Older kids might be embarrassed to say something about a rash.  Rashes are sometimes brought on by medications and it could be serious so look deeper into why your child doesn’t want to take a bath.
3. Fear of going to bed: Some kids suffer from night terrors or nightmares and have a fear of going to bed.  Many bedtime routines include taking a bath so it’s not unusual for a child to think that if they can prolong the bath that they will prolong having to go to bed.  Getting to the bottom of their fears is important so you can give them the help they need.
4. Get too cold afterwards: It’s not fun to get out of a nice warm bath and get really cold.  It’s possible that your child is really sensitive to temperature changes and just dreads getting into hot water only to get out and be really cold.  Helping kids by bringing a heater into the bathroom or drying them off quickly afterwards may help them not dislike the experience so much.
5. Don’t like getting hair pulled afterwards:  My daughter has long hair that tends to get really tangled when she washes it.  She has actually told me that she hates taking a shower because she doesn’t want to get her hair pulled.  While we try our best not to pull her hair we have added a spray-in detangler to her routine so she doesn’t hate it quite so much.
6. Hate cleaning the bathroom up: Both my kids hate that they have to pick up towels and wipe up any water on the floor when they get done with a shower.  They also have to pick up their clothes and take them back to their room.  For some reason they hate doing this and this will cause them to fight taking a bath.
7. Hate the blow dryer: Some girls hate the blow dryer.  The sound is loud and it blows their hair in their face which they don’t like.  Going to bed with wet hair or going out in the cold with wet hair isn’t a good option so sometimes blow drying is a necessary evil.  To avoid this fight you might move the bath time from bedtime to maybe the morning or after school when there’s more time to let it dry naturally.
8. Don’t want to miss out: If you have particularly social kids or you are doing something really fun as a family it can be hard for a child to leave the fun to go take a shower or bath.  Try to let your child know that you will pause the movie or the game until they get back.  To avoid this you might change bath time to after school when there isn’t so much family fun going on.
9. Afraid of falling in the shower: Children can get a little careless in the bathtub and maybe they have slipped or fallen in the past.  Having a fear of falling or getting hurt is actually pretty common.  To help with this you might put rubber grips on the bottom of the bathtub to give them better traction.
10. Hate getting sprayed in the eyes: Once a child reaches a certain age they are better off taking a shower versus a bath.  Girls with long hair have a hard time washing their hair by themselves in a bath so a shower works out better.  However, they are still pretty short and may hate having the spray get in their eyes.  A solution for this is a shower head that attaches over the faucet and can be suction cupped to the wall at whatever is an appropriate height for your child.