Author: Deanna Mascle Parenting is the most difficult, the most challenging, and the most important job we will ever have. So many of our children's future successes and problems can stem from our success as parents. Yet fortunately we do not have to go it alone. We can learn from the successful parents around us, if we are fortunate including our own parents, and also learn from those less successful as well. In addition, we can learn many important lessons about parenting from our own children. If we only listen and pay attention they tell us so much about what they want and need from us as parents. While we can so often get caught up in the little details and daily grind of parenting, if we keep sight of three main goals then the rest will take care of itself. All our children really need from us are these three all-important gifts: our love, our care, and our time. Love is the easiest and yet the most overlooked of the gifts we must give our children. We love our children. It i

Author: Deanna Mascle Imaginative play is an important part of childhood. Not only is it fun for children but it is also an essential part of learning and developing. Children learn about themselves, about their world, and lay the groundwork for their future through imaginative play. Yet too many children are not encouraged to use their imagination through play. There are three essential ways you can encourage imaginative play in your child -- by providing the place, the time, and the supplies. Does your child have a place for imaginative play? Is there somewhere, even the corner of a room, where they can build a block city or shape play dough monsters? Can they assemble all their stuffed animals into a school or all their cars into a parade? While children should be encouraged to pick up after themselves sometimes it takes a while to build the city of their dreams and they want time to play with it again. Try to strike a balance between your need for order and their need for imagi

Author: Deanna Mascle Parenting is a tough job. All too often we do not come to appreciate just how rough our parents had it until we become parents ourselves. While parenting has always been challenging, it seems that parenting today is even tougher than it was for the generations before ours. I believe that is is more difficult because we are raising our children in a far different world than our parents raised us. For the most part, our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had a pretty good parenting guide set out for them by watching the other members of their family and the world did not change the greatly from one generation to the next. In addition, previous generations of parents had a strong support system of not only examples but helping hands. Today, our mobile society and high rate of single parenthood (through divorce or from the beginning) have not only destroyed the support system of yesteryear but also created a lot more challenging childhood to parent. In our

Author: Deanna Mascle Parenting is the most difficult, the most challenging, and the most important job we will ever have. So many of our children's future successes and problems can stem from our success as parents. Yet fortunately we do not have to go it alone. We can learn from the successful parents around us, if we are fortunate including our own parents, and also learn from those less successful as well. In addition, we can learn many important lessons about parenting from our own children. If we only listen and pay attention they tell us so much about what they want and need from us as parents. While we can so often get caught up in the little details and daily grind of parenting, if we keep sight of three main goals then the rest will take care of itself. All our children really need from us are these three all-important gifts: our love, our care, and our time. Love is the easiest and yet the most overlooked of the gifts we must give our children. We love our children. It i

Author: Deanna Mascle Imaginative play is an important part of childhood. Not only is it fun for children but it is also an essential part of learning and developing. Children learn about themselves, about their world, and lay the groundwork for their future through imaginative play. Yet too many children are not encouraged to use their imagination through play. There are three essential ways you can encourage imaginative play in your child -- by providing the place, the time, and the supplies. Does your child have a place for imaginative play? Is there somewhere, even the corner of a room, where they can build a block city or shape play dough monsters? Can they assemble all their stuffed animals into a school or all their cars into a parade? While children should be encouraged to pick up after themselves sometimes it takes a while to build the city of their dreams and they want time to play with it again. Try to strike a balance between your need for order and their need for imagi