Just the other day we were having breakfast at IHOP and there was this huge party of what seemed like a family gathering of sorts. There were small children, parents, grandparents and all… We are talking about 12 people all sitting together.

There was this small boy who got pretty fussy when placed in the high chair once they arrived. His mom was clearly annoyed and overwhelmed with him and she gave him things to play with, he was also sitting right next to another small child, a girl who was not fussy.

The little boy cried and threw his crayons and paper to the floor and proceeded to make a fuss. His mom scolded him, shushed him and even lightly smacked him on the arm in an attempt to stop the crying and fussing.

This went on for quite some time, mom even took the little boys high chair and faced it away from everyone sort of “timeout style” thinking this might quiet him. Both mom and dad took turns dragging said boy in to the bathroom where he no doubtidly got smacked or yelled at in private. Each time the boy returned to the high chair he continued to fuss and cry, mom repeated the above techniques over and over with no result.

The boy cried through our entire meal and nobody in the family other than mom and dad paid him any attention. Mom and dad were only providing negative attention and eventually an IHOP server came out with some to go cups and a trinket that she placed under the to go cups. She played with him and he quieted right down!

The whole situation was just another thing for us to observe and learn from as soon to be parents. We’ve gotten lots of ideas about what to do and what not to do thanks to being able to learn from other parents and I wanted to take this a step further. I want to know what your take is on the following things and why they do or do not work:

1. Young children in public. Do you take yours out and do they behave the way you want them to? How do you avoid bad outing experiences and also allow the child to be a child while still enjoying yourself?
2. Electronics and parenting. Do you allow children to have a  TV, computer, video game system, etc in their room? Do you limit the time spent on electronics, why or why not? How do you know your little ones aren’t being exposed to the wrong stuff via the electronics?
3. Dinnertime. How is dinner time done in your house and why? Do you make sitting down for family meals a priority or does everyone eat at different times, why or why not?
4. Parents time with kids. Do you and your spouse/ partner share equal time with the children or does one parent do more than the other, do you think this is important? Do you worry about children not bonding enough with one parent, if so how do you remedy this?
5. Good cop/ bad cop. Does one parent get to be the good cop all the time or is disciplining done equally by both? Do you worry that this impacts one parents relationship with the child?
6. Housekeeping vs. Quality time. Are you concerned about making sure your child lives in and is exposed to a clean orderly house? Or, are you more concerned about spending quality time with the kiddos even if the dirty dishes pile up and the pet hair covers the floor?

Also, if you have some advise on something I haven’t brought up yet share that too! I am in an advice getting mood.

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We get the keys to our new place on 2/25 and need to be out of this place my 2/29.. It’s nice to have a few days to make the transition although I wont be able to spend my time blogging on those days cause I’ll be making trips back and fourth in the car trying to move loads of boxes.. Oh, well a bigger place is good so it’s worth it right?

Oh, I almost didn’t mention that my man got offered a promotion. I can’t list the specifics because it’s not official yet and I don’t want to blow his cover but basically got offered better/ more air time position that ideally should pay more and further his career more… We are excited about the possibilities but like I said it’s not official yet so we aren’t counting our chickens before they hatch.

Okay, so back to the point of my post.. We are moving again. I have become the little moving experts since I have moved every year for the past 8 years or so..

I am very anal about having all the moving/ utility documents with me (and not packed away) during a move. We have the best luck with utility companies, NOPE! It seems everywhere we move to has something that was not turned on or transfered as we requested. either the phone line doesn’t work or the electricity is not on or the satellite dish doesn’t get installed till 2 weeks after we are in the place… It’s always something so having that documentation on hand really makes getting it solved easier.

I am looking for little tid-bits of advice still though, do you have any?

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I encourage you to check out gather.com, it’s a very popular social networking site where you can publish content and earn gift cards. Also, stop by and check out all the motivational content posted over at: http://motavation.gather.com/.

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