Children - Inspired Living SA

Dettol SA to Donate R1 million to the Children's Hospital Trust

The Red Cross Children’s Hospital was built in 1956 and is the only stand alone, specialist children’s hospital dedicated entirely to children in southern Africa. The Hospital is a public tertiary and secondary level hospital in Cape Town, and is dedicated to delivering word-class paediatric treatment, care, research and specialist training. As a referral Hospital patients include very sick children who need highly complex interventions to recover.

With your help, Dettol will be donating R1 million to this great cause. Dettol is asking mothers to become heroes by liking the Dettol SA Facebook page and thus adding momentum to their donation. The Dettol SA Facebook page will also be sharing valuable tips and information with South African mothers pertaining to sustainable family health and hygiene. It has been found that many diseases affecting child mortality can be reduced by 75% by adopting good hygiene habits.

The Facebook page will also have a Q and A section where mothers can ask parenting and family health questions. Mothers, along with Dettol, will also be given an opportunity to answer other mothers’ questions using the valuable knowledge they have gained from caring for their families.

Every mother wants to protect the health and wellbeing of their children. Get on board with this great initiative and improve the health of your family, as well as that of the sick children at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital.

Children, Family, Parenting

Healthy Lunch Box Challenge

As parents we all know how important it is to ensure that your children eat a healthy balanced diet and how difficult it can be to achieve, especially when you have fussy eaters in your family! When it comes to packing a healthy lunch box, we can all relate as to how frustrating it can be to continually come up with new, healthy lunch box ideas! I know that I find packing lunch boxes a challenging task, especially when you children become bored with what you are offering them. So it’s fair to say that we could all use a bit of help when it comes to “lunch box ideas.”

Just the other day a rather clever “idea” popped into my inbox, in the form of the “Healthy Lunch Box Challenge” being run by “Little Cooks Club”. Interesting – that’s what I thought, so what does this entail?

[quote style=”1″]Our “Challenge” this year is to get children eating healthy food at school during school times (08h00 – 13h00). We are only concentrating on during school, not after school. If all children are getting good, healthy food, they will all be forced to eat healthy food with their peers. – Little Cooks Club [/quote]

What are the benefits of your child eating a healthy school lunch:

As there is a rather high rate of obesity in young children, it goes a long way to eliminate this problem by excluding unhealthy options from your child’s diet.
Eating a healthy well balanced, nutritious diet is vital for good concentration and avoiding learning issues.
Certain unhealthy foods can negatively affect behaviour; some children are allergic to the preservatives in these foods which can lead to inattentive or bad behaviour in class.

How to join the Healthy Lunch Box Challenge:

First register for the Challenge. By doing so it will then allow Little Cooks Club to send you a new monthly schedule with recipes for that month, tips and ideas. It also gives us an idea to see if parents are interested in the Challenge. Click here to register.

Print out the monthly schedule and stick it onto your fridge. (This is what it looks like.) If your child doesn’t like certain things on the list then choose from the other options – everything is healthy on my list and acceptable for children. If your child has specific food allergies then please give them something else; you all know your own children – this is a guideline only.

To read more about this awesome challenge click here to visit the Little Cooks Club website.

Image source: Pinterest

Be Inspired, Children, Family, Quotes

Miracles

What a weekend! My eldest started writing exams today – which means we were all studying, Afrikaans,over the weekend! It actually feels like you are back at school and studying again – I am not sure who is more nervous, her or us?! So being the beginning of a rather long week we can use all the MIRACLES we can get! 🙂 Just not too sure if I am patient enough to wait 48 hours!

Have a great week!

Image Source: Pinterest

Children, Family, Featured Posts, Parenting, Parenting Advice

Helping your child to develop a good body image

Nobody ever said that parenting was going to be easy and I must admit parenting two girls is not without its challenges. Especially when it comes to developing a good body image and tricky subjects and like weight, looks, sibling rivalry to touch on just a few! Just when you think you have it sussed they throw another curve ball at you!

Developing a Good Body Image

So my dilemma at the moment is how to encourage a healthy sense of one’s physical appearance without making an issue out of it or over emphasising the topic. I will not deny the fact that I have always been body conscious but I do try and ensure that I eat a balanced diet and exercise regularly. As parents, my husband and I both try and focus on the health aspect, emphasising healthy body – healthy mind. In a perfect world this would be enough but unfortunately once our children become aware of the media and what the “world” deems as being acceptable – it feels like we are fighting a losing battle.

Statistically South Africa falls somewhere in the middle of the graph as far as fatalities caused by eating disorders, the USA has the highest rate – somewhat alarming when my daughters are trying to model themselves on American pop stars and actresses. Please do not get me wrong, I am not saying that all popular people have eating disorders but the media certainly makes a big deal if anyone of them puts on a few extra pounds!

After reading an article recently on the “Fad” diets that actresses follow, I was even more alarmed at what length someone will go to “lose weight”. The most terrifying diet mentioned in the article is “the Baby Food Diet” – you have got to be kidding me, this cannot be healthy or pleasant to do. The thing is I love good food to much too even contemplate doing something like this; what’s better than a delicious steak and a baked potato – yum! (I am making my own mouth water!) I will admit that I have certainly tried a few crazy “detoxes” in my time but never lasted more than a few days – who wants to eat onion soup three times a day!

Where does this leave us as parents and how do we deal with children who show signs of becoming obsessed with losing weight and developing a full blown eating disorder? I guess the thing we have to realise is that having an eating disorder does not always mean you are thin – binge disorders can make people over weight. The issue lies with an unhealthy relationship with food, so the most important thing we as parents can do is lead by example – ensure that our children see us eating a healthy well balance diet and exercising regularly. By doing this we can encourage them to do the same and focus on the health aspect rather than the weigh aspect.

I think we also need to be sensitive to our children’s feelings and perception of their own body – encourage them to talk about how they feel. Also be aware of what you say about others – I always maintain if its not positive or helpful, keep your mouth shut! Which brings to mind an incident which happened over the weekend – a rather insensitive shop assistant told my very impressionable 10 year old that she had fat on her ankles (we were shoe shopping) – as I said if you don’t have anything good to say then don’t say anything! I then had to spend the rest of the afternoon explaining that the woman had no idea what she was talking about and was just trying to make sales – needless to say we did not buy anything from her!

What can we do to help promote a healthy sense of being?

Make sure your family eats breakfast and share family meal times as often as possible.
Limit access to magazines or social media that promote underweight celebs as being glamorous – teach your children to discern what a healthy body image is.
Encourage your children to be active and exercise regularly.
Talk to your children about their feelings towards their own body.
Promote healthy self-esteem and self-respect.
Most importantly, lead by example – live a well-balanced life!

Articles I found helpful on the subject:

Children, Family, Featured Posts, Parenting

Milestones

We cannot avoid milestones – they are a part of our lives from cradle to grave. We measure our existence and our success in life by milestones, “firsts”, “birthdays”, getting engaged, getting married, having babies – they become our markers along the road of life.

As parents we watch these milestones like hawks – how fast our baby grows, when they start to walk, when the start to talk, when they cut their first tooth – the list goes on.

In our lives at the moment we are facing some rather large millstones, it is our 15 year wedding anniversary next month – yes you can be married for 15 years and still be happy and in love! My beloved is turning 40 early next year – yikes, I remember when I was a child thinking that 40 was so old! As I said fairly large milestones!

Another milestone we have been faced with recently is the decision, whether or not to have any more children – which may not be a big deal to some people but a rather large decision for us. It is almost as if you are closing a chapter in your life. It is not necessarily the easiest decision to make and you constantly question your motivation but now that we have made the decision – I believe it was the right decision and timing for us. I think that you know – that you know!

Going forward I know that there are so many more milestones that I cannot wait to experience – getting older is not one of them but watching my girls become young woman, achieving success in their lives and careers, getting married and having babies – being around to experience all these milestones with them!

So enjoy your family – cherish those millstones, celebrate each one no matter how small and insignificant they may seem.

Images: Super Mom & Pinterest