Importance of nutrition for a child’s growth

Nutrition awareness in children is essential. Parents should teach their child about different foods and their effects on our body. If a child learns about all this at an early age, he/she can live a healthy life throughout. Healthy eating habits and regular exercise should be a regular part of a family's life; this will help children to emulate their parents who will in turn provide a good example for them.

Nutrition has become the growing need of the day. With more and more children falling prey to diseases and disorders, a lot of emphasis should be given on the five major food groups, all of which are required for good health. Dairy products provide proteins, vitamins and minerals and hence they are an excellent source of calcium. A child should at least have two to three servings of milk, yogurt or buttermilk each day.

It is always better to provide your child with skim milk and nonfat yogurt. Children should avoid eating high fat cheese and ice cream as they are harmful for our body. Candies and chocolates should also be restricted in a child’s diet as sugars supply a large amount of calories, with little nutritional value. Parents play an important role to teach children to live a healthy and a fit life.

Bed time stories for children

Which child is not fond of bed time stories? I have seen parents finding it difficult to find stories to narrate it to their kids every day. Nursery rhymes are usually narrated to their kids by their grandmas or moms themselves. Though I haven’t seen many fathers being good at the art, one can always try!

It is not necessary that you tell your child only about Cinderella and three bears’ stories. If you know about something that you want your child to improve on, develop your own stories in such a way that the story has a moral from which the child can learn. Make sure that you do not narrate stories that involve ghosts and devils because this may affect the child and he or she may not be able to sleep well. Some may even complain of evil dreams.

Short stories are also a great way to spend quality time with your children. It is very important that you spend such time with them because only then a child will open up to tell you about the daily activities of his life.

There are a lot of books too that are available in the market that tell wonderful stories. Your child may not be able to read them but they will definitely help you in narrating a good story to your kid. Gifting story books to children is also a great idea. Story books contain attractive visuals in it and hence when you are narrating a bed time story to your children, you can show them the visuals of the story and they will be able to imagine the characters of that story in a better way.

Extra curricular Activities for Children

In today’s competitive world, your child is expected to be a master at all. Also, going with the popular idiom- All work and no play makes jack a dull boy proves that extra curricular activities should be encouraged.

Many parents force their children to join drawing classes, hobby classes, dancing classes, skating classes, elocution classes, etc to join - the idea to let the child do what he or she enjoys. If you force anything on the child neither is your child going to enjoy it nor will you be satisfied with their performance.

I have seen another species of parents that lay too much importance on academics. Here, you child will only become a ‘book worm’. There is a strong need for activities outside the academic world that teach them a lot of things that books perhaps may not be able to teach them.

It is important that you hone a good skill in your child. If your child loves art, then take him to a peaceful place (may be a green meadow along the country side) with a canvas and allow him to paint whatever he wants to.

If you have budget constraints and cannot afford classes that many parents enroll their children in, you can sit at home and involve your kid in a lot of extra curricular activities. For example, go skating or cycling with your kid. If they are interested in cookery, teach them a simple dish or two!

It all boils down to involving your kid in something that he or she loves doing. A lot of schools also lay stress on extra curricular activities and prefer children who are all- rounders rather than just academic scholars.

When do Permanent Teeth Come in?

Ever seen a just born baby? Well, I have. Usually a baby has no teeth that you can see but the fact remains that the teeth have already started to form in the bones of the jaw. Sometimes, it makes me wonder how teethes grow in a human!

At around six to eight months, babies get their first teeth. They are usually the front two teeth on the lower side. After that, teeth come at regular interval. It takes around two and a half years to have all twenty teeth erupted.

Usually children during this stage tend to be more peevish. Parents associate such problems with this process of teething. Many kids even drool. A lot of parents also assume that raised temperature is a problem due to teething.

Primary teeth are important for both eating and appearance. Any child who has lots of decay in their baby teeth is likely to have the same problem with their permanent teeth unless their diet changes drastically.

The permanent teeth start to erupt around the age of six to eight. The first permanent molars which appear behind all the baby teeth also erupt at the time when the lower front two teethes start erupting. Then around the age of nine to twelve, they are followed by the premolars. The canines also appear at around the same time. Later the second molars start erupting at the age of eleven to thirteen. What is popularly known as the wisdom tooth appears later at the age of seventeen and later. Roots of the baby teeth are dissolved by the eruption of the permanent teeth to allow these permanent teeth to erupt. This happens with the baby teeth becoming loose and falling out.