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9/11-15/08 
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PARENTING TIPS, FACTS & LINKS
FACTS:
Parents are stretched thin these days. Between health care costs, child care hassles, looking for a home in a good district, and paying for college, raising a child is becoming increasingly expensive. Little wonder, then, that married couples with children are more than twice as likely to file for bankruptcy as their childless counterparts, and 75 percent more likely to have their homes foreclosed. And the danger is growing worse by the year: In 2002 1.6 million people filed for bankruptcy, many of those middle-class parents.
In the face of such hardships, many families have sent both parents into the workforce to try to make ends meet. After all, surely if both parents work full-time it shouldn't be hard to ensure financial security, right? Wrong, say authors Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tyagi, in their book, The Two Income Trap. Two-income families are almost always worse off than their single-income counterparts were a generation ago, even though they pull in 75 percent more in income. The problem is that so many fixed costs are rising -- health care, child care, finding a good home -- that two-income families today actually have less discretionary money left over than those single-earner families did. As the authors write: "Our data show families in financial trouble are working hard, playing by the rules -- and the game is stacked against them."
Now if it is that hard for two, imagine how hard it is when there is only one parent:
According to the U.S. Census Bureau in August, 2007, there are approximately 13.6 million single parents in the United States today, and those parents are responsible for raising 21.2 million children (approximately 26% of children under 21 in the U.S. today).
According to the U.S. Census Bureau single parents are:
She is a Mother:
- Approximately 84% of custodial parents are mothers, and
- 16% of custodial parents are fathers
She is Divorced or Separated:
Of the mothers who are custodial parents:Of the fathers who are custodial parents:
- 44% are currently divorced or separated
- 33% have never been married
- 22% are married (In most cases, these numbers represent women who have remarried.)
- 1% were widowed
- 57% are divorced or separated
- 24% are currently married (In most cases, these numbers represent men who have remarried.)
- 18% have never married
- 1% were widowed
PARENTING TIPS:
TIP #1 Make eye contact with your kids. Stop doing what you are doing to listen to and speak with your kids. Make clear requests and follow up to ensure the requests are done. Then praise your kids for a job well done.
TIP #2 How often do you take time to notice the absence of adolescent acting out behaviors? If you spend energy pointing out the negative behaviors and delivering consequences, consider spending twice that amount of energy pointing out things you appreciate and times they aren't acting out.
A simple, "Thanks for being home on time," is worth a lot to an adolescent. Their concept of time is very different from an adult's and when they have tried to do well for a day they believe it should count for something. They quickly become frustrated when their efforts are not noticed.
And remember, that attention to any behavior is attention to that behavior. Do you really want to attend more to the negative than the positive? Think about that.
LINKS:
www.moterjones.com Mother Jones is an independent nonprofit whose roots lie in a commitment to social justice implemented through first rate investigative reporting.
www.lifetips.com LifeTips continues to be “the place to go when you need to know” for millions of readers.
www.cafemom.com As the world's original social networkers, moms are connecting on shared interests, passions, challenges, and local geography. Moms have created more than 35,000 groups. Popular groups include pregnancy, raising boys, recipe swap, photo moms, and marriage and relationships. CafeMom features include fully customizable profile pages, friends' networks, journaling, a widget platform and strong privacy / anonymity controls. CafeMom is focused on creating a great site for moms that is somewhere they can come to get advice, feel supported, make friends or just relax.
www.childwelfare.gov Child Welfare Information Gateway promotes the safety, permanency, and well-being of children and families by connecting child welfare, adoption and related professionals as well as concerned citizens to timely, essential information.
A service of the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, we provide access to print and electronic publications, websites, and online databases covering a wide range of topics from prevention to permanency, including child welfare, child abuse and neglect, adoption, search and reunion, and much more.
www.americanhumane.org The mission of the American Humane Association, as a network of individuals and organizations, is to prevent cruelty, abuse, neglect, and exploitation of children and animals and to assure that their interests and well-being are fully, effectively, and humanely guaranteed by an aware and caring society.
www.parenting.org Parenting Help - Free Tips, Advice, Resources & Guidance
www.focusonthefamily.com Focus on the Family exists to serve you and your family. It's in our DNA as a non-profit Christian ministry who follows God by supporting, encouraging and strengthening families worldwide. And we're not an organization to rest on past efforts and accomplishments. Every day we're at work on new programs and initiatives that will help you and your family even more.
www.ivillage.com iVillage Inc., a division of NBC Universal, is the first and largest media company dedicated exclusively to connecting women at every stage of their lives. Ranked the #1 online destination for women with 31.4 million unique visitors (comScore MediaMetrix), iVillage.com offers an authentic community infused with compelling content from experts on health, parenting, pregnancy, beauty, style, fitness, relationships, food and entertainment. The site's interactive features include thousands of message boards and a wide variety of sociail networking tools, allowing women around the world to connect, share ideas, and seek advice and support about everything from fertility to fashion.
www.disneyfamily.com Disney Family was created to help parents with the most important job of their lives: raising their family in the best environment possible. We are committed to creating a nurturing, safe, and well-informed environment for guests and members to expand their parenting knowledge in a fun, entertaining way -- just what you'd expect from one of the most trusted names in family entertainment.
www.familyfun.go.com Features crafts and activities, recipes, travel tips, party ideas, and offers subscription for print version.www.unmetneeds.com Your donations of skill, time and money enable the Unmet Needs Program to provide assistance of many kinds to families of American service men and women here at home. 100% of your donation goes directly to a military family in need. Thank you for your generosity.
www.warmingfamilies.org Warming Families, a project of the One Heart Foundation, is a 100% volunteer project that delivers blankets and other warm items to the homeless and displaced while strengthening families through charity work. At the heart of this project are Area Volunteers who function to coordinate efforts and locate and supply local shelters and nursing homes.www.fisherhouse.org Supporting America's military in their time of need, we provide "a home away from home" that enables family members to be close to a loved one at the most stressful time -- during hospitalization for an illness, disease or injury.
www.pta.org As the largest volunteer child advocacy association in the nation, National Parent Teacher Association (PTA) reminds our country of its obligations to children and provides parents and families with a powerful voice to speak on behalf of every child while providing the best tools for parents to help their children be successful students.www.cwla.org Child Welfare League of America. Our highest mission is to ensure the safety and well-being of children and families. We advocate for the advancement of public policy, we set and promote the standards for best practice, and we deliver superior membership services.CWLA is an association of nearly 800 public and private nonprofit agencies that assist more than 3.5 million abused and neglected children and their families each year with a range of services.www.aaaparentcoach.com AAA Parent Coaching Services exists to help all parents be the parents they want to be every day.
www.at-risk.org At-Risk.org has been compiled as a resource for parents and the general public in search of information about at-risk youth. This site will present you with information and articles about helping at-risk youth. The Works Cited page of this site will reference any at-risk youth resources that were used to compile the content for this site.www.hearttouchinc.org Heart Touch, Inc., is a non-profit organization that provides remedial training services for fathers to help the become more responsible.
www.imissyoudaddy.com "A touching tribute to Daddies overseas from the little ones left behind. It identifies what our children feel, but cannot express."www.littlepenpal.com A service that encourages reading, stimulates children's fantasies, and teaches them about other cultures and languages. Contains a gallery of exciting, fictional characters that send out real paper letters every week about their adventures.
www.radiodad.com This is the web home of the "Radio Dad"! "Radio Dad with Mike Austin" is heard on radio stations nationwide, Monday - Friday. This daily, one minute feature offers tips, ideas, expert interviews and stories about positive fatherhood and grandfatherhood.www.ruralfathers.com RuralFathers.com is a website dedicated to help professionals work with fathers and young children living in rural America through staff training, father child development activities, father child group activities, male involvement meetings, an online bulliten board and other multimedia links.
www.wfnetwork.bc.edu The Sloan Work and Family Research Network is designed to support research and teaching, promote best practices at the workplace, and inform state policy on issues that affect the lives of working families and the places where they work.www.AltEdNet,org A web site for presenting alternative education issues to parents.
Free Range Education | Learning Outside the Box | Learning by Skipping School
mothers35plus.co.uk Mothers 35 Plus is the UK's leading website devoted to 'late motherhood' and has been online since 1998.
www.myparentingportal.com My Parenting Portal is available to answer your questions, help with your concerns and give you up do date information about all parenting issues.www.forparentsofadolescents.com free monthly parenting tips from a professional author and therapist.www.teenbehaviorcontracts.com Chris Theisen and John Boardman created teenbehaviorcontracts.com to help parents teach their teenage children important values--such as responsibility and good character. Their site contains useful information, helpful tips, and a highly affordable set of downloadable parenting tools. Chris Theisen earned his degree from the University of Northern Colorado in 1994. Since then he has spent over ten years working with children and teens, mostly in therapeutic settings. He is the author of the teen contracts and also created the discipline program and teen tools that are available on this site.
www.troubledteensguide.com TroubledTeensGuide.com attempts to educate parents about different types of services? Like there are many types of troubled teen school and summer programs which provide teen's friendly atmosphere and solutions for struggling families. All these programs run to help adolescents and troubled teenagers by finding the right place for your teen.www.parentingteens.meetup.com Meet other local parents of teenagers to discuss dealing with raising a young adult.
www.parenting-journals.com Promoting happy and healthy families. Tips, articles and resources for parents and children.www.allaboutparenting.org Do you want your parenting to be effective and rewarding? Discover helpful tips and practical parenting advice from other parents!www.worldvision.org World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.
In 2006, 87 percent of World Vision’s total revenue was used to directly benefit the poor. For more information, visit the World Vision website.www.babiesonline.com Babies Online was created by me, Shannon Anderson. I'm a single mother of a beautiful daughter who was born in September 1996. Most of my friends and family lived 2000 miles away, but still I wanted them to be able to see her grow up! I started out mailing pictures, but most of the time was just too busy to make copies of the "good" pictures. Being the internet enthusiast that I am I decided that it would be so much easier (and cooler) to put everything on a web page and let them see for themselves what a beautiful baby she was. Needless to say, it was a hit! I thought everyone should be able to do this! But since many people don't have the time or the knowledge to create a web page themselves, why don't I do it for them?! Thus the creation of Babies Online in July 1997.
Pics & addresses of pedophiles in your area click: National Sex Offender Registry: www.nsopr.gov or www.familywatchdog.us or www.meganslaw.ca.govwww.ChildHelp.org calls you when a predator moves into your neighborhood.www.predatoryaliens.com provides pictures/wanted posters of pedophiles who are not listed on meganslaw.gov (due to their immigration status).For helpful links click: Brenda'sLinksFor tips on prevention click: PreventionTipsWe need a government that works for us, not against us. For more click: JusticeReform
MORE LINKS
Child Abuse
Childhelp USA National Child Abuse Hotline
1-800-4-A-CHILD
(1-800-422-4453)
www.childhelpvillage.com
The Childhelp USA® National Child Abuse Hotline operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and receives calls from throughout the United States, Canada, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico. Approximately 134,000 callers are assisted annually with Childhelp USA's abuse hotline.
The Childhelp hotline is staffed with professional counselors who utilize a database of thousands of emergency, social service and support resources. Since the 1982 inception of the Childhelp hotline, more than 2 million calls have been received from children in the midst of abuse, troubled parents, individuals concerned that abuse is occurring, and others requesting child abuse information.
The child abuse hotline offers crisis intervention, information, literature and referrals. State-of-the-art technology provides translators in approximately 140 languages. (source: Childhelp USA)Child Abuse Awareness
www.child-abuse-blog.blogspot.com
This site was created to bring to the forefront the sad reality of child abuse throughout the world in the 21st century. The site contains blogs, information and links to other sites dealing with abuse of all kinds.Child Care
Choosing child care is an important decision. Good child care arrangements can improve the daily lives of children and parents. In addition, children in high quality care have higher levels of success when they enter school. (source: Child Care Aware)Lawyers for Children
www.lawyersforchildren.orgLawyers For Children is a New York City based not-for-profit corporation that provides free legal and social work services to children in foster care and to children who are involved in high conflict custody or visitation cases. We have compiled a list of local and national links to child advocates, government agencies and other organizations of interest to our clients and their guardians.Parenting Teens
www.parentingteens.comInformation and articles for teen parenting, troubled teens, teen education, teen boot camps. Also provide parents to offer their views about military schools, boarding schools and parenting issues.Teen Boot Camps
www.teenbootcamps.comInformation about various teen boot camps and military pre-training camps for teens and troubled teens.Mountain Homes Youth Ranch
www.mhyr.comMHYR is a therapeutic wilderness treatment program for troubled teenagers ages 12-17 that operates on a 15,000 acre working ranch in Northwest Colorado. The MHYR program has been featured on the Dr. Phil show and received students from the show who needed therapy.Mental HealthFindCounseling.com is a mental health portal and searchable directory of therapists, including psychiatrists, psychologists, and marriage and family therapists. Its features include a glossary, journal articles, and self-help resources. The website features psychologists around the country and the other resources can be of use to anyone around the globe.
Domestic ViolenceYour support and encouragement can be of tremendous value to a friend involved in an abusive relationship. You can ease the isolation and loss of control by listening, providing information and helping your friend to explore options. (source: National Domestic Violence Hotline)Missing Children
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
1-800-THE-LOST
(1-800-843-5678)
www.missingkids.com
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s® (NCMEC) mission is to help prevent child abduction and sexual exploitation; help find missing children; and assist victims of child abduction and sexual exploitation, their families, and the professionals who serve them.Runaways
Every day 1.3 million runaway and homeless youth live on the streets of America. One out of every seven children will run away before the age of 18. Each year approximately 5,000 runaway and homeless youth die from assault, illness, and suicide. (source: National Runaway Switchboard)Abuse SurvivorsAbuse World (United Kingdom). Committed to raising awareness and reducing the stigma of mental health; focusing on abuse and providing information, advice and support.
www.abuse-survivors.org.uk/FACTS:Abuse is reported on an average of every 10 seconds and three children die every day as a result of such abuse.Child abuse and neglect is reaching epidemic proportions with disastrous consequences. Judges, lawyers, physicians and other community professionals agree that tax dollars would be best spent preventing abuse and preserving families. Unfortunately, adequate resources have not been invested by state and Federal government to make significant prevention possible. One problem is that on both these levels the political constituency necessary to meet the needs of children has not been organized.
It is clear that children and families need advocates. They need a concerned body of individuals who are willing to champion their rights and fight for advances in services that benefit children.
They need you.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in 2003, approximately 906,000 children were victims and an estimated 1,500 children died of abuse or neglect.
