Image via Pexels

Of all the many balancing acts of parenthood, trying to get your home right has to be one of the most challenging. It’s a constant battle between you wanting a stylish space that expresses your personality and facilitates family life, and creating a home which is child friendly and not too overtaking by the tide of baby equipment and toys that having children tends to bring. A sleek, Minimalist decor may sound perfect – but is it realistic and practical? Making a few small adjustments can have a huge impact in making your home much more conducive to family life while still keeping it looking great.

Create A Dedicated Play Area

If you have the space, creating a playroom space for your kids is a great move. It helps to keep toys, books, gadgets and games contained in one area and also lets children have the space to explore and play without being in the way. If you can dedicate a corner of the family room or kitchen, so much the better as you can keep an eye on playing children. Set up a soft rug and some extra storage for toys and you have a great play area that your children will enjoy.

Pick Hardwearing Surfaces

The wear and tear that your house can go through during the normal course of family life can be extreme, and the signs can soon show in your home. Pick surfaces such as flooring, work surfaces and wall coverings according to how durable they are. This doesn’t have to mean compromising on style – there are plenty of stylish and durable finishes available that you may not have considered such as Stained Concrete or new paints which are washable so any traces of crayon can be wiped off! Consider what may be an impractical choice as well – for example, that super modern high gloss kitchen looks fabulous in the brochure, but once it’s covered in sticky toddler hand prints that you have to continuously wipe off it isn’t going to look as good! Choose the highest quality, sturdiest materials you can afford for your home and they will stand up to the test of time.

Add In More Space

There’s little doubt that children and their possessions can tend to take over a home, but before you consider the expense and stress of a move, consider whether it’s possible to squeeze extra space out of your existing house, perhaps by investing in a loft conversion or home extension. Many families also opt to add a freestanding garden studio if they have outdoor space available – this can act as a home office, gym, studio or even as a hangout space for older kids and a playroom for smaller ones. There are also generally corners of the home that are dead space and can be adapted with some clever carpentry work into extra storage – always a welcome thing. Having said that, if you’re thinking of any house extension or renovation project, try to get in touch with AB Builders Borehamwood or wherever you’re located as they could provide you with various ideas on how to go about making your home look unique.

Go Open Plan

When you have a family, you need to be able to supervise children at play, and it’s also nice for the family to be together even when pursuing separate activities. For this, an open plan layout works best. Consider how you could alter the floor plan of your space by opening it up and removing some internal walls. Not only will this give a lovely feeling of space, but it can bring areas that are currently underused up to their full potential and transform the whole feel of a home.

Pexels

Life can move quickly, and it often takes us by surprise. We can often find ourselves dealing with it by getting into habitual processes, the rituals and routines that govern our life. This is good. Security comes in repetition, and so does safety. A secure family home will have a good routine that everyone follows, and of course free time to balance that out. But, with anyone, especially someone dealing with many responsibilities as we’re sure you do, it can sometimes be that these habits seem boring, and then our standards start slipping.

This means that we’re starting to lose focus of the everyday nature of our lives, and the beauty that can be found there despite having to do a few activities a few times a week. For that reason, it might be that holding yourself to a higher standard could be a fun new activity to keep yourself reminded as to why you chose this life in the first place.

We hope the following advice can help you:

Start With Everyday Habits

Lao Tzu once gave the incredibly popular quote: ‘Watch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become deeds. Watch your deeds. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Character is everything.’ Put simply, you could say, ‘focus on the everyday.’ It’s not often worthwhile making grand and heavy sweeping changes in your life unless absolutely, absolutely necessary, because it’s very easy to take things too far and you might end up going further than you had originally intended.

But it is possible to start with everyday habits. Driving that little bit safer, deciding to fully stick to that 6.00am wake-up time instead of having to rush to work everyday, and giving yourself just a little more time to experience the morning by walking to work can slowly help transform you into someone with aforementioned character.

Know When To Ask For Help

Sometimes, being a better person isn’t in what we do, but in how honest we are with ourselves. It can be that if we refuse help that we sorely need, we end up becoming less and less together and that can show in our actions and behaviors. To that end, it’s very important to know when to ask for help, and how you might even go about that in the first place. Thankfully you can do this. It might be a lawyer can help with your car accident, that you visit HR to complain about that colleague you’ve needed to avoid, or perhaps you need to deal with acute PTSD you experienced from a bad experience years ago.

Open Your Heart

Often, in the need to fulfil our daily duties, in the need to defend ourselves and our families, and in the ability to stay strong, we can close off our hearts. It might be that opening your mind and emotions to being more empathetic, in helping others, and in general trying harder to relate to other people and their experiences is what you need to avoid becoming cynical, as this can often happen with age.

With these tips, you’re sure to hold yourself to a higher standard.

If you’re looking for gifts for your kids, you probably want to know what the best gadgets on the market right now are. Technology is always improving and advancing, and it’s easy to fall out of the loop if you’re not following new trends. We’re going to look at some of the best child-friendly devices and gadgets that you can buy right now, and they all offer something fun and interesting for kids. You can find out more about them and why they make great gifts below.

Beginner Drones

Drones can be great fun for people of all ages, and there are beginner drones that have been designed with the needs of children in mind. You’ll want something that’s very durable because it will probably be handled in a less than careful way and it’s also likely to experience a few crashes. If you need some advice on the best drone, then you might want to check out drdrone.ca as you’ll find lots of valuable information there.

Coding Robots

There are now toy robots that can be programmed in various ways. But they act as educational toys because they use apps that teach coding and the results of that coding work are put to use in the robot itself. So, if your child is already interested in computers, coding and robots, this is going to be the ideal gift for them. And even if they don’t already have that interest, they soon will after using a coding robot.

Puro Sound Labs Headphones

If you’re buying for a child who loves music and loves to listen to it all the time, this is the ideal product for them. Puro Sound Labs headphones are generally considered to be the best headphones aimed at children on the market right now. They offer great sound quality, there’s nothing overly complicated about them and they’re comfortable to wear and use. All in all, they’re great headphones and they make a fantastic gift.

Hoverboards

There are few things cooler in this world than hoverboards, and now you can buy them. Lookup a hoverboard price and see how affordable they are. You might be surprised by it but this new kind of technology won’t let you down in terms of performance. They’re so fun to use and the child you’re buying a gift for will certainly not get bored of them anytime soon. So if your research shows you that getting one of the Hoverboards on the market is the way to go, then get ready for your child zooming around the house and having the time of their life.

Nintendo Switch

Finally, there’s the Nintendo Switch, which is currently making waves in the video game console market. It manages to be a regular video game console that you connect to your TV, but at the same time, it’s also a handful device that you can take with you. That’s what makes it great for kids. They have the option to play it how and where they want to play it, within reason, and not to mention with their wide list of exclusive games this is just a great console to have.

However, you might have concerns like what if your kids would break it or do some damage to it, once you get it for them. Well, they are kids, and these are bound to happen. What you can do in such a scenario is find game console repair tools, and get it repaired for them. Or you can have the kids to handle it for themselves-which would be more fun for them.

Image Source

These gadgets are the ones that are capturing the imaginations of children right now. So, if you’re looking for something new to get for your kids, you should make the most of these options. Each of them offers something unique and something very fun for children.

If you have children, one of the scariest things for you can be thinking about the future – how can you prepare them? What if you’re not always there to help them? They don’t have to be in their teens or twenties for you to start giving them sage advice on how to live. The lessons you teach them begin from birth, whether your realize it or not!

Below, we’ll give you some advice on preparing your children for the future with some simple tips.

Put Money Away And Teach Them To Do The Same

One of the greatest things you can do for your kids is put money away, while also teaching them to do the same. Every family should have an emergency fund, as you just don’t know what’s around the corner. Not only that, when you save and respect money, your kids will too. You can teach them great lessons by allowing them to earn pocket money with chores, or even just choosing to give them a set amount per week and encouraging them to really think about how they want to spend it. Do they want to spend it now and have short term enjoyment with a cheap toy/sweets, or would they like to save it and get something even better later on?

Talk about money in an honest, neutral way so that they know when to spend and when to save.

Teach By Example

Your mood and attitude teach your kids by example. If you’re stressed, studies have shown that your kids will be too. They are very intuitive and pick up things like this from you. Work on your stress levels and figure out how you can make yourself happier – you’ll be setting a great example and ensuring that rubs off on your kids.

credit

Talk To Them About The Future and Be Honest

Talking to your kids about a future without you can be tough, but sometimes necessary. You don’t have to do this while they are very young, but you might want to discuss things like your will and end of life care with them as they get a little older so you can be sure there won’t be any disputes between family members or issues. On top of that, if they re old enough to understand how inheritance and the like works, then now could be a good time to inform them of what your plans are with that. Helping them understand what your final wishes will be, how to divide what you own, and so on, could save a lot of stress later in life. If you haven’t done that yourself, it could be a good time to speak to a Michigan estate planning attorney, or indeed one local to you, to help you out as well.

Praise Them Correctly

Praising your kids correctly has a direct impact on their self esteem. You want to praise them in a way that shows them working at something is the way forward, not that they should be naturally gifted. If you praise them by telling them they’re a natural born genius whenever they show you something they have done, they will be likely to give something up the second it gets hard. They’ll probably also become crippling perfectionists who over analyse everything. Watch how you speak!

Help Your Kids See That Learning is A Lifelong Thing

Learning doesn’t stop at school. Show your kids it’s a lifetime thing and set an example by always aiming to grow and expand in your own life.