Your Ultimate Guide to Building Parent Friendships

Life no longer remains the same post having a child. Your priorities change and have to be aligned with the needs of the child. This means you may not be able to hang out with your colleagues post work for coffee anymore. Nor can you get out to meet your college buddies for a quick bite in the middle of the day. Especially when you’re the only parent in the group.

The parenting guides from We Positive Parenting, Ahmedabad’s top counselling centre for parents and children, suggest that instead of sitting out and being a loner, parents must get out, make newer connections with other parents and build friendships with them.

Parenting will get challenging with every passing year, but when you have a strong friendship with other parents, it gets easier with the exchange of knowledge, ideas and support from fellow parents. Here’s our ultimate guide to building great parent friendships and how they can benefit you.

New activities for new friends

Now that you have a child, it doesn’t mean you have to get cut out from your old group of friends. Instead, it gives you the opportunity to welcome new and interesting people into your lives, in the form of other parent friends. All you have to do is be open, accepting and active.

The first place where you can find like-minded parents to be friends is the school. Since many schools involve the parents to participate in various activities with their children too, there are chances of you meeting many new people and click with them. Volunteer yourself to participate in various parent-child activities where you get to interact and bond with other parents.

Another great suggestion for a parent bonding cum friendship building activity is to host homework or study sessions for their kids together. This way, not only do you get to exchange ideas on teaching your kid, but you can get their school work done on time too.

You can then take this relationship further by inviting the parents over for fun potluck dinner on weekends, where your kids get to play with each other outside the school environment, while you get to chat with the other parents. Initiate conversation with them without expecting anything. Maybe the other parent is also feeling as nervous as you are. And maybe he/she will be later grateful to you for taking the lead. Be proactive and introduce yourself to other parents at such events.

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Parents, Let’s Invest In Appreciation!

“It is strange that sword and words have the same letters, even more, strange is that they have the same effect if not handled properly” –Anonymous

As parents, you love to see your kids grow up in the right way, with the right manners and the right behaviour. Our children learn their first lessons in life from us. We as parents are their first gurus. We aim at teaching our kids everything. And to make them the best version of themselves, we have to correct them when they make mistakes. Usually, parents do it by pointing out their errors, to make them realise that what they did is wrong and how they need to improve on it.

But, have you ever realised that it might bring out a negative side to it?

We want our children to listen to our advice, and accept them wholeheartedly. But that’s not the case all the time. Children, especially teens, tend to act out when challenged and do exactly the opposite, to fulfill their whims and fancies. They don’t listen to what you say or maybe don’t even follow your instructions.

This situation definitely irks you. Isn’t it? So, what would you do in such situations? Shout at them or get angry? That’s the normal reaction…

But, is that the right thing to do? Well, it isn’t. Your frustration comes from the improper dealings. In anger, it is very easy to lash out. Because, when your ego gets hurt, your emotions are vulnerable. This is a result of the poor communication with the other person, and in this case they are our children. It may happen that your body language, certain actions or words may hurt our child’s sentiments.

Now if you think that in this case should we always speak about things that don’t upset the other person and be nice irrespective of the situation? That also does not seem right, because life will become calculative for you then instead of being natural.

Yes, you might be wondering if avoiding a confrontation is the key, or being nice to your children all the time would help. It is not. Because it will set a wrong standard and your kids will not respect your authority. So, what to do in such scenarios?

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A Healthy Pregnancy Guide for Expecting Mothers

“Do I really have to eat food for two now?”,

“Can I exercise?”,

“Why am I so tired all the time”,

“Is this even good for me and my baby?”.

An expecting mother has a lot of questions in her mind. What to do and what not to do, she is always stuck between these questions while everyone around shares their own unsolicited tips and tricks.

The parenting professionals from We Positive Parenting, offering prenatal guidance in Ahmedabad have come up with this health guide for mothers-to-be

What should you do as a soon to be mother?

1) Have a healthy diet

An expecting mother should eat 5 to 6 meals every day. And these meals should be well-balanced.

A nutritious and well-balanced diet includes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and iron-rich food, that includes protein, vitamin A, C & D, calcium, potassium, folic acid, iron and adequate fat etc. They are as below:

Vegetables	Fruits	Dairy
Beans	Mangoes	Fat-free milk
Peas	Bananas	Low-fat yogurt
Carrots	Apricots	Skimmed or 1% milk
Sweet Potatoes	Oranges	Soy milk
Pumpkin
Spinach

Aim to drink at least eight or more cups of water each day. Remember, avoid overeating as an expecting mother’s body needs only 300-500 additional calories per day. Moreover, avoid coffee as increasing dose of daily caffeine intake during pregnancy has been associated with an increased risk of miscarriage as well.

Maintaining a food diary can be very helpful.

2) Exercise regularly, but don’t overdo it!

It is completely safe for an expecting mother to do basic exercises regularly. Many mothers-to-be fear increasing the risk of miscarriage, low birth weight, or early delivery due to exercising and end up avoiding them completely. We suggest you take the guidance of your doctor and gynaecologist and start working out as advised by them.

Experts suggest brisk walking, water workouts, and cycling on a stationary bike as some of the safest exercises for pregnant women. Remember do not exercise out in the open. Wear loose clothes and workout in a temperature-controlled room to avoid becoming overheated. Consume an ample amount of water post workout every time.

3) Get enough sleep & rest

Pregnancy can be physically tiring and mentally draining. Mothers often complain of lack of sleep due to the discomfort from the changes occurring in their body.

Ample sleep is very important for the mother and the offspring.Kathy Lee, a professor of nursing at the University of California San Francisco studied how pregnancy affects sleep. In the conclusion of her study she stated that to assure adequate sleep, health care providers should prescribe 8 hours of bed time during pregnancy.

In order to get good sleep, develop a relaxing bedtime routine. Try to avoid electronics for at least an hour before you go to sleep and use a maternity pillow to support your back and knees while doing so. Yoga and mindfulness meditation also help in getting good sleep.

To avoid having leg cramps while sleeping, consume a lot of water. Apart from that try to limit caffeine intake in the diet as it reduces total sleep time and efficiency.

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5 reasons why you shouldn’t hit your child

Don’t answer back, else I’ll give you a tight slap!

This has been the standard reaction from parents towards their children, when they respond back with denial or defy their advice and ideas. What parents from that generation never understood is that this style of disciplining can have serious effects on their children for the longest time.

A study on Effective Discipline to Raise Healthy Children published in the Journal of American Academy of Pediatrics further states that physical punishment is linked to an increased risk of negative behavioural, cognitive, psychosocial, and emotional outcomes for children.

Let’s look at why corporal punishment, or hitting children to discipline them is not the right way, and some words of advice from Ahmedabad’s best parent counsellor at We Positive Parenting

a) Corporal punishment weakens the bond between the parent & child

Hitting a child will never teach that the road they are on is unsafe. It instead plants the seed in their mind that the person hitting them is unsafe to be with. This is one of the reasons why children who were brought up with corporate punishment start distancing themselves from their parents as they grow up.

It is human nature to dislike someone who hurts. Hence, when a parent hits their child, it drives an emotional wedge between them. The practice may look like it’s working on the child. But it only produces superficial good behaviour in the child, which is born out of fear. When parents showcase their authority on the basis of fear, the child tends to lose respect for them.

On the other hand, a bond based on love, respect and empathy grows stronger with time.

b) It makes children more aggressive

The Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment conducted to study the Impact of observed violence on children’s behaviour showed that children imitate or copy the aggressive behaviour of adults around them. If they see an adult acting aggressively, they are likely to act aggressively even when the adult model is not present. This means, when parents hit their child, the child can become a hitter eventually. Moreover, when kids or teenagers are not able to get even with their parents, they take their aggression out on others.

Hence, it is important for parents to set an example of empathy, towards them and others, in front of their kids.

c) It harms the self-esteem of the children

“Stop crying or I’ll hit you again”.

When children hear such comments from their parents, they tend to feel helpless. Their self-worth is damaged by the actions of their parents as they feel like their cries for help are being ignored and they are being humiliated by the people who are supposed to love and protect them. They not only feel betrayed but also feel like they don’t have any control over their own life.

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