My children’s health, education, and well being mean too much to me to pass up this learning opportunity.

Mealtime is the best time to learn how not to be a jerk.

Manners matter, and mealtimes are a great time to work on them. I’m talking beyond please pass the salt. Whoever helped to make our meal gets a thank you from everyone eating. While I enjoy being told, “Thank you Mommy for making this beautiful dinner, ” I like even more to be able to see my son’s pride when I thank him for chopping vegetables for our dinner. Dinner makes our team stronger.

We eat the same meal.

Since he’s a child, he can only eat what I prepare. Though his favorite food is probably bread with butter, he’ll eat just about anything that’s served to him because he knows that’s the only option.

Some nights he eats dinner willingly, and others he’s slow because he’s not into it. Yes, it can be frustrating and exhausting, but parenting isn’t always about sunshine and rainbows. I remind him if he wants to grow strong and be healthy, he has to eat a variety of foods. While he doesn’t have to eat the dinner I’ve prepared, there’s no other option, and he’ll have to wait until breakfast if he wants something else. I think he’s chosen twice to not eat, only to come back later and sit down and eat.

That said, I do try to make good tasting food I think everyone will enjoy, and most nights I’m successful. He’s learned that he doesn’t have to love every bit of food that’s presented to him. It’s just one meal. Life will go on. Chew, swallow, get over it. I find myself applying this lesson to so many things throughout my week. I hope it’s one that sticks with my kids.

We talk at the table.

We talk about our days, the books we’re reading, the music we’re listening to, the things that made us laugh, the food in front of us. We talk. We take turns. We’re modeling conversation skills and building our children’s verbal and memory skills.

It’s so fun to see what my son wants to share with his dad from his day. Often the parts that stood out to me are not the ones he chooses to share. I’m reminded that he’s his own person, and he gives me the chance to see his POV. I do the same for him.

We keep a stack of library books at the table.

We check out about 20 books a week from the library. If my husband is able to join us for dinner, he reads the page closest to him, and I read the one closest to me. Otherwise, the attending adult does all the reading. The catch is that we only read if our 4 year old is actively eating.

We aim to read through three books a meal at lunch and dinner. If the story is good enough, he doesn’t care what’s on his plate, as long as we keep reading.

I love that there’s built in reading time in our day. I never have to ask if we’ve read any books. Between lunch, dinner, and bedtime, we’re reading so much. I love that my son can now read some to us.

The result of all this that is dinner time is no short affair in our house. It’s at least an hour most days. I consider the time an investment in my family.

Запись How I Use Mealtime for Discipline, Conversation and Education впервые появилась Baby & Blog | Celebrating Black Mommyhood.

When you hear the term “crack baby, ” you might picture the movie Losing Isaiah with the screaming baby suffering due to his mother’s drug habit.

He was the classic crack baby: disruptive, troubled, and fictional.

Crack babies aren’t a real thing

Yes, some children were exposed in utero to cocaine, but there is no scientific literature to support the theory of the troubled crack baby.

The story of the crack baby myth is one based in racism, classism, politics, and ratings. It began with a doctor who thought that babies exposed to cocaine were suffering unique, extreme effects that would only increase as the children aged. His report was ratings gold.

Doctors at the time questioned the existence

There were doctors who disagreed with the crack baby label and attempted to dispel the myth. Dr. Clare Coles had noted that many of the signs of a crack baby were normal behaviors for premature babies. Yet her rebuttal didn’t make good news.

“Coles’ findings were ignored, however, because they didn’t fit into cultural stereotypes and failed to feed the media narrative. Reporters railed about an estimated $5 billion annual strain on the government, and everyone got extremely worked up because the concept of the “crack baby” plays into sadly familiar ideas of race and class. Since crack was relatively inexpensive and far more prevalent in poor areas, it was convenient to use this fear to justify classist and racist rhetoric (i.e., “poor, black neighborhoods bring their problems onto themselves and cost the rest of us by doing so”), ” Callie Beusman wrote in the article Good News: 1980s ‘Crack Babies’ Epidemic Was Hugely Overblown.

In an interview to the New York Times, Coles said, “There are certain ideas that people want to believe that really fit in with cultural stereotypes, and it’s hard to get rid of those.”

The crack mother was the worst welfare fear

In her book Living Color: Race and Television in the United States, Sarah Torres, a professor of information and media studies, explains the racism behind the media storm: “As a composite “she-devil, ” the crack mother takes the image of the welfare mother, so prominent in the demonology of Reaganism, and fuses it with the sexually aggressive Jezebel. […] A particularly menacing image of fertility, the crack mother personifies an out-of-control black sexuality.”

Torres references quotes from leaders at the time such as Rep. George Miller of the Select Committee on Children who said, “We’re going to have these children, who are the most expensive babies ever born in America, are going to overwhelm every social service delivery system that they come in contact with through the rest of their lives.”

Similarly, a Florida juvenile court judge William Gladstone said, “These kids have enormous, physical problems, mental problems. They will go into a system that is woefully inadequate, woefully underfunded. They’ll grow up to be tomorrow’s delinquents.”

These children weren’t seen as medically frail victims, instead they were presented as a future criminals.

What the research really says about crack babies

The fears about these children were unfounded as current research shows that “[a]lmost every prenatal complication originally thought to be due directly to [prenatal cocaine exposure] was found to result from confounding factors such as poor maternal nutrition, use of other drugs, depression, and lack of prenatal care.”

The studies are not condoning cocaine use. Instead, they found that the actual health impacts are limited, and the children outgrow them.

Poverty and the “crack baby” label hurt the children more

Some researchers think that the low expectations of being a “crack baby” did the most damage. As Michael Lewis, a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry, explained to the New York Times:
“in a doctor’s office or a classroom, ‘you cannot tell’ which children were exposed to cocaine before birth.

That report goes on to say that poverty related factors were much more damaging on children’s intellectual and emotional development. Researchers have also found that being labeled as a crack baby negatively impacted the children as they were stigmatized with every physical or behavioral problem being too quickly associated to the lost cause of being a crack baby.

The problem was discussed in an NPR interview with Dr. Hallam Hurt, neonatologist and professor of pediatrics:

Host Michel Martin: Do you worry, though, that a whole generation of kids [..] was written off essentially because people believed that they weren’t capable of very much? I wonder if you ever think that maybe more kids could’ve achieved at a higher level, if people had not been so quick to believe that they couldn’t do anything.

Dr. Hallam Hurt: I absolutely believe that. And I think that one of the most deleterious things is when a child might have been identified as quote, that pejorative term, crack kid, in school. And often they were written off.

These children were most definitely victims though the culprits turned out to be more complicated than drug abuse.

Had you heard this updated information? Are you surprised?

Запись New Studies Show the “Crack Baby” Was a Media Myth Designed to Frighten Whites and Criminalize Black Children впервые появилась Baby & Blog | Celebrating Black Mommyhood.

When we talk about weight loss and diets, the question that everyone asks is, “Am I going to be hungry?” Let’s be honest, no one likes to be hungry, and hunger can cause the best intentions to fail.

But with meals featuring whole grains, you won’t feel hungry. That’s because whole grains are full of dietary fiber.

Fat-melting and stomach-filling

Fiber ensures that as your meal digests, there is slow release of sugars into your bloodstream, and very importantly, fiber adds bulk and keeps you feeling full for much longer, reducing your visits to the snack box throughout the day. All of this while nourishing your cells for a more vibrant you.

Since whole grain foods are low-fat and cholesterol-free, they are an ideal way to build new eating habits for your flat-tummy scheme. But, the coolest thing about whole grain foods, are the resistant starch they contain. It’s that fat-melting, stomach-filling, metabolism-boosting carb that does not get digested.

It just moves through your digestive system while forcing your body to burn up the fat it has in storage. The only precaution for anyone who isn’t currently getting enough fiber in their diet, is to drink lots more water to help your body adjust to the increase in fiber once you switch to more whole grain foods.

Easy changes, big results

Nutrition experts tell us that a balanced diet includes fruits, vegetables, proteins and grains, and these are also fiber rich foods. An apple has 17% of your daily value of fiber, compared to apple juice which has 2%. In vegetables like potatoes, the fiber is in the skin. Fruits and vegetables are the only or even the best fiber source.

The national healthy eating guidelines encourage us to consume about 6-ounces of grains every day. Now, if you’re not a bread-lover, you may think that 6 ounces is a lot. But, a 1-ounce serving of grains is easily eaten in your regular snacks and meals. For example, as:

1/2 cup cooked oatmeal (8% fiber)
1 slice whole-grain bread (8% fiber)
3 cups popcorn (15% fiber)
a 6-inch tortilla (8% fiber)
1/2 cup cooked, whole-wheat pasta (12.5% fiber)

So, if your breakfast is a serving of oatmeal and two slices of bread, lunch includes two tacos, and dinner involves some of your favourite pasta, you would’ve gotten all 6 ounces in without thinking about it. Not to mention if you had snacked on some air-popped popcorn throughout the day, total you’d be at 67.5% of your daily value of fiber. The rest would be easy to get with vegetables and fruit.

Beware though, it’s not about buying fiber powder or processed food with fiber on the box. It’s about eating real food.

Запись How to Lose Weight Without Feeling Hungry впервые появилась Baby & Blog | Celebrating Black Mommyhood.

I never really understood why this particular drink was so important to doctors. I mean, humans after all produce milk for our own species, why is drinking milk from another species viewed with such a high regard, that some believe it to be mandatory? So I asked one pediatrician, and he answered, “It’s such an easy and convenient way to get fat, protein and calcium, why would you not want to give it to your child?” Ah, gotcha! So that was it: ease and convenience.

There are actually many reasons one would want to shield their young toddler from dairy. Reasons may range from eczema, to religious, to personal choice. And the truth is, although cow milk is promoted by many pediatricians, it is not necessary. What is most important is that we give our children a balanced diet so that they receive all the nutrition they need for a growing body. If you are looking for a beverage that is high in fat, try Coconut Milk. If you are looking for a rival to cow milk with regard to protein, Soy milk will be your best option. Many foods are fortified with calcium such as orange juice and cereals. Also green vegetables and white beans are naturally high in calcium. Therefore you can give you baby a healthy, nutritious diet without using dairy product at all. Below are some popular beverages that are alternatives to traditional cow milk. Some of the beverages are fortified with other vitamins that you will not get with milk such as vitamin E in Almond milk and Hemp is high in Omega 3’s. Check out the nutrition facts of a variety of non-dairy beverages below.

Hemp.com

Mommies, what alternatives to dairy do you give your children?

Запись 5 Non-Dairy Alternatives to Cow’s Milk for Young Children впервые появилась Baby & Blog | Celebrating Black Mommyhood.