Kids And Energy

Im not sure why, maybe because its summer, Im getting a lot of questions and stories about kids and energy. Ill put them all under that broad category but there have been several different subcategories discussed: kids and ADHD, kids and anger management, and kids and computers.

Kids and ADHD

Lets start with kids and ADHD. There seems to be a big trend here in the US of drugging our children so they can control their behavior in school. I am NOT in favor of this practice.

Why is there such an epidemic of ADHD diagnoses in our children? I dont want to oversimplify but I believe one reason is that our children dont have the opportunities they had in previous generations to run around and expend their energy.

In years past, kids got to play in the parks, in the streets and in their own yards. Today, that happens less and less. Parents are too afraid to allow their children to be outside unsupervised, and rightly so! There are predators out there who would do your children harm. However, kids still need to expend their energy, somehow.

So, many times the activities available to them at home are sedentary, such as playing video games, watching television, talking on their cell phones or using the home computer. None of this provides opportunity to release energy, unless your children are like my niece who paces vigorously while talking on the phone.

Then we send them to school and expect them to sit down and be quiet. In addition, many schools are reducing the amount of physical education time for our kids and Ive even seen recently that some schools forbid children to run at recess or use certain playground equipment because they fear of physical injury lawsuit. Is it any wonder our children are having difficulty?

Now I know there are parents and teachers out there who have stories of children who have been helped immensely by the addition of Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta or Dexedrine to their daily diet. If you know a child who is being helped by his or her medication, Im not saying to discontinue it but for every child who is being helped, I believe there are at least three others who are still exhibiting all the ADHD behavior the medication was designed to reduce.

There have been studies done on placebo medications that show that in double blind studies, when neither the patient nor the doctor knew whether the patient was getting the actual drug or the placebo, the ones getting the placebo actually did better. Is it possible there is a placebo effect with some children?

If your child displays what you or the teachers believe is an excessive amount of energy, do your best to create situations where that child can expend energy. I have two boys who could both have been diagnosed with ADHD as children. They were very physical. Luckily, I lived in the country during a time when parents sent their kids out the door to simply play. I also spent a lot of my spare time running them around to different athletic eventsYMCA soccer, wrestling, flag football, T-ball, basketball, you get the idea. This definitely helps.

Kids and Anger Management

I spoke with a woman over the weekend whose son is 10 years-old and she says has anger management issues. We didnt really get into his specific behaviors but it caused me to reflect on some inherent differences between males and females.

I think that from very early on, boys and girls deal with their anger differently. As a general rule, girls need to talk about it to feel better, while boys need to work it out physically.

So if you have daughters, you want to teach them verbal skills to be able to work out their frustrations but with boys, you will need to provide opportunities for them to work out their anger physicallymaybe with a punching bag, racquetball, running, or martial arts. The list of possibilities is truly endless but dont expect your boys to talk about it, at least not until theyve had the opportunity to release the anger in a safe physical manner.

Kids and Computers

This week, a mother contacted me about her child disobeying her limits with the home computer and sneaking time beyond her allowed limit.

In this situation, the mother had a need to protect and nurture her child. She wants to be able to loosely supervise her daughters time on the computer to possibly prevent her from falling prey to adults who victimize children by finding their victims on the Internet. She also wants to support her childs need for physical activity so she restricts her computer usage and encourage outside physical activities instead. Is this mother wrong? Absolutely not.

Her daughter, on the other hand, has a desire to be on the computer. All her friends are on there and want to know why she isnt. They dont have limits while this girl does. This girl is quite accomplished on the computer and can build website pages for her friends. She also has a high need for freedom and doesnt like being restricted and the computer is plain fun to her. She gets her love & belonging, power, freedom and fun needs met with the computer. Is she wrong? Absolutely not.

How does it get resolved? I think the way to resolve this issue is for the mother and daughter to sit down and talk about what each other needs and wants in the situation. If the child can convince her mother that she has the skills and knowledge necessary to protect herself from predators and she agrees to engage in other healthy activities each day, then her mother could relax her restriction on the amount of time she has on the computer.

In this case, and many others like it, the daughter wouldnt be able to meet her freedom need with the computer if there wasnt a rule to break. Sometimes we create the very behavior we are trying to stop with the rules we make. When a person has a high need for freedom, they will inevitably break the rules, particularly the ones they dont like or that dont make sense.

Parenting is one of the hardest jobs youll ever do and the stakes are incredibly high. We all do the best we can and hope for good results. Fortunately, when we have good intentions are kids generally survive in even thrive.

Kim Olver has a graduate degree in counseling and works with parents and children helping them with their communication skills ultimately leading to an improvement in their relationships. Sign up for her free teleclass Empowerment Parenting at http://www.therelationshipcenter.biz/EmpowerParenting.htm.

Why It's So Important to Make Legitimate RuneScape Money

You can have all the RuneScape money you will ever need easily and there are only two very basic things you have to do to get it. The first thing is to do a little bit of work and the second is to know the best strategies to make legitimate RuneScape money.

Honestly, no one really wants to do the work for you so if you really want to make lots of RuneScape money and become a millionaire, then you need to put in a little time & effort to get good at the game. However, to create an elite level 85+ RuneScape character and make massive RuneScape money in less than a week, youll need to follow top secret strategies that only top notch pro players know about.

However, I tell you one sure way to totally destroy your game, your reputation, and peoples respect for you and that it is to beg for items or gold. The desperate act of begging tells other RuneScape players three things.

1. You dont respect yourself enough to make your own RuneScape money.

2. You dont respect the people you beg for RuneScape Money.

3. You want to take advantage of their hard work to make the RuneScape Money in the first place.

Thats why you must never, ever beg for RuneScape money. Believe me, its a lot easier to make RuneScape money the legitimate way than it is to resort to begging (or scamming, which is even worse). In a desperate moment asking for RuneScape money may seem like the easy thing to do but an hour later youll probably end up losing your RuneScape money and most importantly your self respect. Seriously, in that same hour you could have easily made 50K in RuneScape money employing the right tactics.

Sure, there are people who will give away things for free to low-levels. As a matter of fact, I have a friend that once gave away a whole set of rune to random passer bys and Ive even given away party hats to total strangers (Im an old player). The important thing to know is that RuneScape gamers usually only give away stuff to people that arent begging for it in the first place! Its funny but true so if another RuneScape player surprises you with a freebie, be thankful for the gift but move on and definitely dont try to make a RuneScape living that way.

I have nothing to say about scamming except that it totally sucks. If youre willing to stoop to the lowest level of dishonesty to get your money by scamming or hacking (especially when theres a far easier and more honest way), then theres nothing anyone can do to help you.

Have you ever seen a pro player beg for RuneScape money? Have you ever seen a level 80+ beg because they lost all their RuneScape money in the wildy? Have you ever heard of a top notch player that doesnt have time to make RuneScape money or to train stats? No so if you want to preserve your pride and learn to play RuneScape at an elite level always follow the simple rules I just told you about.

Copyright 2006 Roy Phay

Roy Phay is an Internet Marketer on Top 101 Secrets of Runescape ebook. It is a content-rich and most valuable ebook ever written on Runescape, it is Not about Runescape Cheats. It is an ebook sharing the Fastest, Easiest Step-by-Step cut throat strategies to Create Millions and Level 85+ in RuneScape in less than 7 days. To get a copy of the ebook, please click on http://www.RunescapeTopSecrets.com Now!

Stop your Dog Barking When You're Away

Obviously, most problems with barking dogs result from dogs that dont have their owner around to quiet them down. In fact, the owners absence in many cases is whats rousing the dogs vocal chords.

Most of what you can do to get your dogs barking under control is done directly by you when you catch your dog in the act. For instance, if you know that your dog is barking at, say people who walk their dogs past your house when youre away, then it is possible to recreate this scenario with you present so you can correct the behavior. However, intermittent barking such as this may be tolerated, by you, the neighborhood, and indeed your local dog legislation, provided your dog is not menacing passers-by through a crumbling fence.

A lonely dog barking or whining can be both much more of a nuisance and much more difficult to address, but there are still some things you should be doing. Try to come home more often, or try to arrange for a friend to visit, ideally with their friendly and energetic dog. It may nip the problem right in the bud. Enough said.

If you know youve got a barking dog problem that has the potential to anger neighbors, a little public relations work can go a long way. If possible, ask your neighbors if there is a barking nuisance coming from your place and, if there is, tell them youre working on it. Then work on it.

You might also try staging a false exit. Walk once around the house or whatever it takes so they think youre gone. When your dog barks, correct the behavior with a Quiet command (though your sudden appearance will likely be enough).

You can use special bark collars, that either use sonic or electric power to correct your dog. Others squirt a substance such as citronella when they bark, a scent they despise. I dont use them, and the ones I have seen in use were awkward and not 100 percent effective. But I stay away from them less because they train through discomfort (they do not harm your pet), and more because they displace the source of authority from you to some device they dont understand. Furthermore, they dont differentiate between acceptable - even necessary - barking on one hand, and noise pollution on the other.

Theres also a medieval-like procedure whereby the dogs voice-box is removed to render them barkless, or at least takes the bite out of their bark. This is simply abhorrent.

A better option for desperate dog owners is arranging some form of doggy day care, whether its a professional service or a personal arrangement. Some dogs simply do not get enough stimulation during the day, and they will let the world know about it until they do.

Martin Olliver is a proud member of the Kingdom of Pets team (http://www.kingdomofpets.com). For more great articles on problem barking, visit: http://kingdomofpets.com/dogobediencetraining/articles/barking_dogs.php.