00:20 – Composure
00:47 – How though do we maintain our composure as parents?
03:29 – Consistency
03:44 – What we say should be very firm
04:50 – Compassion
05:00 – Hold them and make them feel safe

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Hey everybody, Harper Jones here with Bow-Tiger and you’re watching Saturdays with Harper. Today we’re going to talk about the 3 Cs of good parenting. The 3 Cs of good parenting are; composure, consistency and compassion. So the first one, composure, this is not for your child. Because as we all know toddlers cannot keep their composure all the time. They’re in fact toddlers, their brains are developing and as toddlers they’re allowed to have what we call toddler tantrums. It’s going to happen, it’s bound to happen. They’re trying to understand who they are, what they are, etc., in the world. So we have to allow tantrums with our kids. That’s not to say that we allow extravagant tantrums, but the frustration in little children, that is pretty normal.

How though do we maintain our composure as parents? Because most of the time I feel like we’re more frustrated than the children actually are, yet we have to be the ones who are consistent in what we do and what we say, etc. and aren’t the ones who freak out in a situation. The reason we want to do that first of all is because our children really reflect off of us. If we’re angry they’re likely to be angry, if we’re sad they’re likely to be sad. Their emotions kind of play off how we’re feeling and how we’re responding to things. So make sure that you, as best as you can maintain composure. I am the first to say that a lot of the time, maybe not a lot of the time. We’ll say 50-50.

I’m not able to maintain my composure all by myself and everything’s just hunky-dory, because I have a daughter who likes to test the limits and test me a little bit. So I have to find ways to kind of help myself out with this maintaining composure. The first thing that I do is I use the breathing technique, I’m a big fan of yoga. Of course in the morning and at night, to help me out throughout my day. But I really utilize the breathing technique of deep breaths. It has to be at least four seconds in, four seconds out. Doing about 10 of those deep breaths if I’m in a really stressful situation. Even if my daughter is in the room and she’s trying to drive me up the wall.

If I can just close my eyes and take those deep breaths, it really helps me gain my composure back and figure out how to deal with the situation and how to help my daughter deal with the situation. There are times when she has driven me almost so crazy will say, over complaining or frustrating or maybe she’s crying or she’s throwing a big tantrum. What do we do at that point? Because it’s very, very difficult. Especially for you moms or dads who are stay at home parents. I really applaud you, because you deal with this day in day out. Just all throughout the day and you never know when it’s going to happen. It doesn’t really matter the emotions you’re having at the time, the only thing that matters is how can you better control the situation?

If you’re so frustrated to the point of feeling angry, which we’ve talked about in another video. Go ahead and step out of the room. Make sure your child is in a safe area, like their bedroom. Just not anywhere like the kitchen or the bathroom where they can get into things. Make sure they’re in a safe area, shut the door and maybe walk a little ways away from them. Whether it’s just going outside in the backyard for a minute, whether it’s stepping into the garage. Which I find to be a very nice and quiet place a lot of the time. Moving yourself away from this situation, even for a minute or two. You can listen to one of your favorite songs, listen to some relaxing music. Do your counting, do your breaths. Things like that.

It allows you to gain your composure back. So the second thing, the second C that we were talking about was consistency. It’s very, very important for us as parents to be consistent in what we tell our children. We don’t want to change our opinion too often and we also don’t want to change instruction to them or what we’ve said to them. What we say should be very firm and what we said the first should remain the same thing we say. We don’t even have to repeat ourselves a lot, we’ve made our point and that’s that. The children need to understand that you are the parent and you are the child, and unfortunately until they’re a little bit older what the parent says goes.

For example, they’re in the store and you’re on aisle one, say 1 of 16. Your child asks you for a candy, they want a candy that’s on aisle one. You say no. If you said no on aisle one, when we get to aisle five and now they see the macaroni and cheese or something else that they want. If it’s not on your list, if it’s not something that you guys have decided you’re buying for the week. You have to stick with a firm no, because aisle one was the firm no. If we get to aisle 12 and decide to say yes for the popsicles, our toddler has essentially defeated us. So make sure throughout the whole grocery store aisle one through 16, you keep a firm no on things that were not on your list or you weren’t expecting to purchase for your child that day. Otherwise, they will make it routine.

So the third C and I feel that it is a very important C, and that is the C for compassion. We have to have compassion for our children. We have to be compassionate and hold them and make them feel safe when they’re scared, or when they’re sad or they’re upset about something. Don’t ignore or sort of dumb down their feelings, their feelings are very, very important. If not more important, than even adults feelings. Because their brain, their mind is trying to grow. They’re trying to develop into who they’re supposed to be. They’re trying to figure all of these things out, and they need to feel that their emotions and what they’re feeling at different times throughout their lives are important.

So make sure that you do show your child compassion, give them hugs. Make them feel the warmth of a parent. That you’re here for them and throughout their lives you will be here for them. Okay so guys, this is of course Saturdays with Harper and again we will be back next week. If you guys are watching this video on Facebook or YouTube or social media, please be sure to check out our other blogs on bow-tiger.com and we’ll see you in a bit. Thanks.

01:35 – Let them sort out their senses
02:00 – Start to help them understand where different places are in the world
02:35 – It helps children understand measurement and just basic elementary math
03:15 – It helps the mind in understanding how to follow instruction
03:55 – Cooking teaches children patience

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Hi everybody, Harper Jones here with Bow Tiger and you’re watching Saturdays with Harper. And today we are going to talk a bit about cooking with our children, with our toddlers. What are the benefits to having our kids in the kitchen? It sounds not fun. It doesn’t sound fun at all. But it actually can be a really fun experience. It helps you out, it helps your toddler out. Makes them feel like a part of a task that you’re doing, and it also can be really stimulating and educational for them as well. So I’m just going to go over some of the key benefits today. Of course I’m sure you viewers, you guys have some other suggestions or comments. If you do have any comments please be sure to leave these comments on the videos. You can leave them on any of our social media pages and we’ll make sure to mention it on one of our next videos as well.

Okay so we’ll dive right into it, what’s the first benefit to having your child help you out in the kitchen. Food, food is very different. Vegetable to vegetable, none are really the same, fruit to fruit etc., nothing’s really the same. Everything has different consistency, different feels, different looks, different shapes, different colors, etc. Looks shapes, colors, all these things that I’m talking about consistency, these are part of the elementary things that we need to teach our children. Now in addition that, food has different smells, different tastes, different textures. These are all senses. This is something, this is what our children, our toddlers really use to start to understand or explore the world at all. So why not make that available to them in a task that we already have to do for the day which is cooking for our family. Involve them in the task and let them sort of use those senses, let their brain develop even faster while we’re going through some of our daily chores at home.

Another thing that we can do is, food comes from different places whether it’s grown in the ground, or in a tree, in a tropical environment or in a colder environment, the places that food grows geographically, this is something that we can start teaching our kids too. Start to help them understand where different places are in the world and maybe even take out a globe so you can show them where your cherries are from, maybe in North America, where some of your fruits come from, maybe down south. All these different things can help your child start to understand geographically what they’re eating and where they’re looking at on a map. Very, very helpful when they get to the school age, they’ll have kind of a one up on everybody if you’ve been doing these kinds of tasks with them and activities with them at home.

Another thing that cooking does is it helps children understand measurement and just basic elementary math. If your child can start to understand at a young age what a full cup is, what half a cup looks like, a quarter cup, things like this you’d be amazed at how helpful that will be in their next few years and when they start to jump into school. Another thing and this is, there are two more things that I did want to mention. Providing or getting our children and our toddlers to follow instruction is sometimes the most difficult task of all. Because they kind of veer off, they don’t want to concentrate for too long or they can’t concentrate for too long. This is sort of a task that aids the mind, that helps the mind in understanding how to follow instruction. Because to get through a recipe or to get your food tasting the way it’s supposed to be, you have to follow that recipe. You have to follow instruction. So not only is this going to help their brain sort of understand and start to develop a reason for instruction, it’ll also help them in other with other daily tasks that you give them, like if you instruct them to clean up their room or if you instruct them to put the markers away, something like this.

They’ll start to understand that to get a result there has to be instruction and they have to follow that instruction. Okay so the last thing that I wanted to mention, we are running out of time, but the last thing I wanted to mention and this is the best part of all, is cooking teaches children patience. Patience is not something that a lot of toddlers have or they don’t have much of. But in cooking you have to be patient, whether you’re waiting for the cake, or the bread to rise, or you’re waiting for the rice to cook which is, that’s the tough one for me. In all different types of cooking you do have to be patient to get the best results, to get the result that you want you have to be patient with your time. And this will help your toddler or your children start to understand how to be patient with their own time.

Now guys of course if you’ve watching this video on Facebook or YouTube I’d ask that you also check out our video blogs on bowtiger.com and as always, we’ll see you next week. Thanks Bow Tiger family, have a great week.

01:18 – Maybe a reward system
02:18 – Alecia’s idea is not an extravagant reward system
03:05 – She gets to pick an extra snack
03:29 – Picking out dinner

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Hey, everybody. Harper Jones with Bow-Tiger, and you are watching our Ask Harper segment. Now last month, I switched it up a little bit. As you guys may or may not know, once a month I do an Ask Harper segment where I take your questions and I try to answer them on air. The answers that I provide you guys are from personal experience and also personal research. As being a mom, I do a lot of research on children’s topics. And then, of course, being part of the Bow-Tiger family, research is really the name of the game for me or for my position.

Okay, so last month, we will get back to last month. Last month, I switched it up, and instead of answering your questions, I actually had a question for my viewers because I was having an issue with my daughter in regards to getting her to clean up any mess whatsoever. She basically refused, so I wanted to get a little bit of insight from you guys to see maybe different things that you’ve tried or ideas that you came up with to fight this little battle that I know a lot of us must go through with our kids.

So I did get a response, and this was probably my favorite response, and it’s gonna sound a little funny to be my favorite response as I’m not normally prone to any reward system, but we will explain that in a minute. Now the response was from Alecia. And Alecia mentioned, “Maybe a reward system. Every day she helps clean, she gets a star,” that’s cool, “And if she gets a full week of stars, then she gets a small price from say a price shirt. She gets to pick an extra snack like ice cream or she gets to select or choose what everybody’s having for dinner.”

Okay, now, normally, I am not big on the reward system, and why am I not big on the reward system because I feel that a reward system sort of initiates the handout problem. Immediately, when a child thinks that they’ve done something good, they’re doing that because they expect to get something in return. Now, does the real world work like that? Absolutely not. You have to do things because you know that they need to get done. You do not always do things and expect something in return. We know that, whether it’s from work, whether it’s from people, friends, family, etc., a lot of the times you’re just doing things because you know it’s the right thing to do, not necessarily because you’re getting anything back.

And that will be why I don’t like reward systems, but what I did like about Alecia’s idea is that it’s not an extravagant reward system. It actually…it’s sort of on small scale. So this isn’t necessarily something that’s going to, you know, dent our children or give them the idea that they always need to expect something for doing something. The small price to her, I feel that I’ve… This is what I’ve started on actually, small price to her, I did stickers, did some little erasers. I did do some sugar-free candies, just different little things in there, but nothing that’s super pricey or super extravagant.

And then the second two ideas that she provided, I haven’t tried these out, but I really like this. One, if she didn’t say pick an extra snack like going out for ice cream because then it’s like a trip that the child gets to taste. You go out for ice cream and you get the big ice cream that cost you, you know, bookoos of dollars, with sprinkles and everything else. Well, no, she just gets to pick an extra snack. So maybe you guys are at the grocery store, she gets to pick out some ice cream that the family gets to enjoy during the week. I think that’s a good way to incorporate a reward. Get what you’re wanting and also get them…which is cleaning the room, and also get them something. Initiate the idea that they want to do this, the cleaning up for you or different chores that you’re trying to do. It’s not an extravagant price.

And then the last one was picking out dinner. Well, what’s great about this is this is one of those like reverse psychology rewards because your child gets to pick out what they want for dinner or what the family wants to have for dinner. Now, I will say when they’re picking out what you guys are eating for dinner, don’t just randomly say, “You can choose whatever you want.”

What she gets to do is you get to provide these different options and say, “Okay, you get to choose between these.” So regardless, you win because they were all your options initially, but she is feeling rewarded in the fact that you’re taking her opinion on what the family’s going to have for dinner. Okay, so that’s enough about the Ask Harper segment from last month. Alecia, thank you so much again for giving me your input and ideas and I’m definitely trying that now. I’ll let you know a little bit more about how it goes in the next Ask Harper segment.

The one other thing that I wanted to mention today is my sister-in-law asked me a really good question over the last week. I want to share it with you, guys. She asked me where I get music for my daughter. Because the radio, as you guys may or may not know, it’s not the best place to look for music for a kid. There’s just a lot of mature content, we’ll say, on the radio these days and most of the stations out there are just not appropriate for families or children to listen to.

Now, if you have this problem, if you’re in this predicament, I would suggest checking out…my favorite is Pandora. Pandora, Spotify, or iTunes would be the top three. What you are able to do with these programs is actually specify the type of music the entire time as to what you’re listening to. So you can specify Disney music, children’s music, lullabies, nursery rhymes, really whatever you want, story time, and you don’t have to worry about even the commercials that come on being too mature for the listeners that are hearing them, which are your children.

So again, that was Pandora first, that’s my favorite, Pandora, Spotify, or iTunes. Pandora is actually a totally free subscription unless you decide that you don’t want to have any of the commercials, then you do have to pay a small fee for that. Spotify as well, if you wanted on yourself, you have to pay a subscription, and iTunes as well as there’s a small fee. But there are free parts of these applications that you guys can use and try out. I definitely suggest them.

So anyways, that’s our Ask Harper segment for this month. Of course, we will see you guys back next month. If you have any questions or comments or anything for me, please feel free to leave those at the bow-tiger.com website, or you can also reach us on any of our social media, and we’ll see you guys back next month. Thanks so much.

01:05 – Help them understand the emotion
01:47 – Let them get out the emotion and express it
02:20 – Talk about anger itself
02:36 – Explain the good things
03:34 – Let them understand the mean and the malicious things

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Hi everybody, Harper Jones with Bow-Tiger here, and you are watching Saturdays with Harper. Do any of you guys out there deal with an angry toddler or angry child? This isn’t something that we maybe want to discuss in our parent groups or with friends, because you may feel that you are a little embarrassed if your toddler is maybe more frustrated than other toddlers, or gets more frustrated over certain situations. Of course, there are a lot of things that come into play with toddlers and the emotion of anger. So, you want to make sure at first you do go to your doctor and get everything checked out, just to make sure there isn’t any underlying medical issue that’s causing this frustration with your toddler.

Now, with that said, if all of that is clear, you need to figure out how to help your toddler through their emotions and how to help them deal with anger. Now, the best way to be able to deal with an emotion and help a child deal with an emotion, is to first help them understand that emotion. With toddlers we really have to get down to the simple basics of things, and anger to them is something that they feel, something that they can see. So, that’s the first thing you want to do with your toddler. You want ask them, have them express to you how they think anger looks like. If somebody is really red in the face, they’re squinting their eyes, maybe they pull up their fists or maybe they’re crying. Maybe they’ve run away, maybe they don’t want talk to people. That’s what anger looks like. But have your toddler express to you what they think anger looks like.

The next thing you want to say, “Well, how does anger make you feel?” Let them kind of get out the emotion and express it, “It makes me feel sad, or it makes me feel scared.” There are a lot of different emotions that play into anger in different ways that can make our children feel. And allowing them to express that kind of give them sort of a safe feeling, or more of an understanding of how they are feeling, and maybe we can help them walk through some of these frustrations.

Now once you’ve done that, once you know and your toddler knows that they have good understanding of what being angry, what that emotion really is, you want to talk about anger itself. Anger has been known — and although this is probably not the most popular way to state anger — but anger has been known to do a lot of good in the world.

Now has anger been good for the world? You can explain to your toddler the good things that people have decided to do because they were angry about something. Not the malicious things or the mean things that people decided to do because they were angry, but the stance it made them decide to take. Maybe they decided to stand up for something or somebody, because the way a person or something was being treated, really made them angry. So, it made them take a stance. You can of course lessen it down on a level so we’re down on a toddler level, but ideas like that to let your toddler know that being angry isn’t necessarily bad, they just have to understand and figure out how to sort of harness that frustration and that power to turn it into something good. And if we can teach our kids…I say this all the time, if we can teach our kids though at the toddler age, the toddler level, to express their emotions or use their emotions for the good, it’s going to be great for their future and the future of all of all of our children.

Now, of course you do also want to make sure that they understand the mean, the malicious things that can come out being angry and the things you can and cannot do. It is not polite or right to yell at somebody and scream at somebody if you are angry. It is not right for them to hit if they are angry. They need to know that those are lines they do not cross and it’s not acceptable. Again, what we want to do is we want to help them understand how to cope with their anger, maybe with breathing techniques. Counting to 10 is a really good one where you just breathe deeply and count to 10. I do it myself, and my daughter does it as well when she’s mad. But help them understand how to work with their anger to have positive outcomes, how to harness that energy, that frustration that they are feeling, and use it for something good.

All right guys, of course if you are watching this video on Facebook or YouTube, I’d ask that you also checkout our video blog on bowtiger.com. And as always, we’ll see you next week. Thanks.

00:35 – Prepping them at home
00:57 – Eye contact
01:35 – Staring contest
02:11 – We greet them
02:20 – How to properly say hello with a good handshake
03:31 – The last thing is the conversation itself

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Hi, everybody. Harper Jones here with Bow-Tiger, and you are watching Saturdays with Harper. And we’re gonna talk a little bit about conversation with your toddler today, how to really prep them for conversation, whether it be with kids on the playground, teachers at school. There’s a few things that you want to teach your child, and you can do at home, to kind of prep them for this sometimes very, very scary thing that they have to do. A lot of toddlers are really shy and somehow difficulty chatting or speaking with people. So prepping them as best as you can at home really, really will help them when they get into social situations. As I said, whether at the playground, at school, out with mommy and daddy, at a birthday party, whatever it may be, these little tips should definitely help your little ones when they’re out and about.

Okay, so the first thing that I want you guys to work with your toddlers on is eye contact. Eye contact means you’re engaging in the conversation. If you are having a conversation with somebody, but you’re looking down at the ground, or you’re looking all around, you’re not really engaging that person. You’re not really having the conversation with the person. You’re having the conversation around the person. But it makes what you’re speaking about, or what you’re toddler is speaking about, and what the other person is saying less important or seem like less important, because you’re not able to look them in the eye.

So how do we teach shy toddlers to look everybody in the eye? I mean, I used to have a very difficult time even getting my daughter to look at me in the eye, but I found one thing that really, really helped was having staring contest. I would have staring contest with her all the time. My other family members would have staring contest, friends, other kids would say, “Okay, it’s a staring contest. You have to stare for 12 seconds, 15 seconds, as long as you can stare.” Doing this and making it kind of a game initially made her really more confident in looking at somebody. She didn’t have this issue wherein she had to kind of look around. She was very happy staring straight at somebody’s face, looking right at them while she was having a conversation.

What’s another thing that we normally do when we say hello to somebody or we meet somebody? We greet them. Well, we’ve already got the eye thing done. If your toddler is looking somebody in the eyes down and they can do that, the next thing they need to know how to do is how to properly say hello with a good handshake. A handshake is a nice way to, one, greet somebody, and also to let them know that they are important, and also to let your toddlers know the importance of their handshake. You wanna teach them a nice, firm handshake, a nice welcomed greeting, a warm greeting to whomever they’re greeting. And the way I did this is just teaching it with a little web game.

I taught my daughter that with the web of my hand and the web of her hand, the proper handshake was done if those two webs touch. So she practiced. She actually would sit there and practice shaking her own hand, but she also practiced shaking my hand. And then I noticed when we’d go out, and I’d introduce her to somebody, and I’d say, “Honey, can you shake their hand? Can you say hello?” she now had the eye contact down. Although she still looked a little shy, she may have been blushing a little bit in the cheeks, she was able to say hello looking directly at the person. And then when she go to shake their hand, she gave them a nice, firm handshake. And that really shows her that she’s got the confidence within her, and it also shows people that she’s middle-ish. [SP] She’s was a confident, young girl.

So the last thing that we can do, we went over the greeting, the handshakes, we also went over eye contact. The last thing is the conversation itself. A lot of toddlers maybe don’t know how to have conversation. They wait to be asked a question or they just ask the question, “Nope. Okay, now what do I do?” You need to teach your toddler that conversation is questions back and forth. Conversation means engaging with somebody else and being interested in what that other person also has to say back. So the way I did this is we have a little game. We use this little ball. It’s this little kind of pink squishing ball that she’s had forever. And we used this in a million games, the quiet game, the talking game, all sorts of game.

But anyways, for this game with conversation, all it is is the person holding the ball has to ask a question, and then the person who isn’t holding the ball has to answer the question, and then the ball is passed to that person. So you go back and forth holding the ball, and you ask questions and you answer. And you’ll notice as you start to play this game really on a daily basis with your child, they’ll get better and better at kind of expanding the conversation while they have the ball and also while they’re answering the questions. And before you know it, you and your toddler have had a 5 to 10-minute conversation, and it’s all because of the ball. No, but it really, really will work, and it’ll really help them when they get to the social areas that they will be in in regards to school, out on a playground, at birthday parties. Regardless of what it is, your child will feel much more comfortable in those surroundings when they are confident within themselves that they know how to speak to people, they know how to greet people, and they know how to make other people feel welcomed by them.

So those are a couple of tips for you, guys. I hope you take them home. And also, hey, if you guys have any tips for me or any additional tips to add to this video, please reach out to us on Bow-Tiger or, of course, on any of our social media. You can certainly add to the video. I’ll definitely mention it later in another video. We always love to get your input on any of the video blogs that we’re doing. And speaking of that, if you’re watching this blog on Facebook or YouTube, please make sure to check out our other blogs on bow-tiger.com. And as always, we’ll see you next week. Thanks, guys.

01:45 – I’m hoping maybe you guys, the viewers, can help me out
01:52 – My daughter doesn’t want to clean up anything
03:01 – We have tried all sorts of things with her
03:18 – Let me know if you have any tips for me
03:24 – I’d like to try out the tips you give me and let you know which ones work

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Hey everybody, Harper Jones with Bow Tiger, and this is my monthly “Ask Harper” segment. Now as always at the beginning, I kind of explain to you guys what the segment’s about, and how you can participate. Each month I do an “Ask Harper” segment where I answer questions that you guys send in, questions, comments, questions for me, questions about your kids, what can we do about this, that, and whatever, and I try to just give you guys my advice.

Of course, I’m only an expert by personal research and also experience, which I have a lot of, having raised my daughter. I’m still in the process. I’m learning with all of you guys, so I’d love to hear comments back from you guys. And if you have any tips for the other readers… or excuse me, viewers of Bow Tiger that would be great as well. We can really make this a collaborative effort as parents, and get through the toddler years together, and just make it a learning experience. Of course, it’s a learning experience for everybody.

But it also can be a teaching experience. You guys can use some of the knowledge that you’ve gained while raising your kids, and help out the rest of our little community as well. So, feel free to leave any comments that you choose, or questions.

Now, for today I’m actually switching it up a little bit. This is normally an “Ask Harper” segment. Well, instead of asking me, or me answering questions from different viewers, I wanted to switch it up, and I’m going ask you guys. I’m actually in a little bit of a pickle with my daughter. Now, I’ve gone over an entire segment on how you can teach your children to clean up, and my daughter seems to have just hit a wall. And I’m hoping maybe you guys, the viewers, can help me out and let me know if you have any ideas on what we can do.

She doesn’t want to clean up anything. It’s not really more of a direct “No” that she gives you when you ask her to clean up, she certainly doesn’t do that. But she really works her way around it, like “Oh, yes, yes, I’m going to do that,” and she kind of veers away as you’re veering away doing something else. And all of a sudden you realize, okay, she never picked up the blocks. Now she’s on to coloring with her crayons. And then from there she goes from coloring with her crayons to trying to build a tent, or playing with her teddy bears or the dollies, or whatever. But she doesn’t clean up, and I have tried quite a few things.

I have tried the cleanup song which she used to love, well that doesn’t actually faze her any more. I have told her I’ll reprimand for not cleaning, so she’s gotten time out for not cleaning. I’ve tried to assist her and help her, and make it look like it’s fun. We kind of like talk, she’s got one of those net baskets that hang in the corner of the rooms, so you toss the teddy bear, or something. It’s kind of like a basketball game. Most of the time it just makes the whole process of cleaning up the teddy bears a lot longer, but it is still fine. We have tried all sorts of things with her, and she just doesn’t want to clean up her toys anymore.

I’m not sure where this new found laziness has come from, but it’s certainly being experienced right now in our household. So you guys, as my viewers, help me out. Let me know if you have any tips for me, anything that you can offer, I’d greatly appreciate and I will certainly try it out.

The other thing that I’d like to do is to try out the tips that you guys give me, and I’ll let you know which ones work. I’ll share back with you guys which ones worked so the rest of the audience can see what worked, and then maybe you guys can use that on your kids as well.

Anyways, so this is the “Ask Harper” segment. Next month we’ll go directly back to answering questions from the viewers. And so, please submit anything — you can submit it on Facebook, Twitter, any questions on Facebook, Twitter, social, media in general. Or also the Bow Tiger page, we do have an email at Bow Tiger, and you can do that as well.

Okay, so we’ll see you guys next month. Have a great day, everybody.

01:04 – Arts and crafts
01:49 – Any museums, whether they’re art museums, children’s museums, historical museums
03:22 – Your local YMCA is a great place to go to for summer activity

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Hey everybody, Harper Jones here with Bow-Tiger, and you are watching Saturdays with Harper. And for those of you that don’t know, I reside in the Southern United States in a city called Tampa, Florida. Woo-hoo. Okay, so it’s like 200 degrees here right now. It’s not really 200 degrees. It’s like 91 as a high today, RealFeel like 108. It is extremely hot down here, and I love, you know, playing outside with my daughter.

I love getting outside, getting in pool, going to the beach. I love outdoor activities, really. I mean, I’m really into hiking, anything I can do outside. Kayaking, things like that, I love. But the problem is right now, as is around the United States and other parts of the country, it is so hot. And it’s almost too hot, unless you do a full pool day or full beach day, to play outside. So I have had to come up with some different things that I can do with my daughter inside.

Now I know I’ve talked about arts and crafts for rainy days. These work for when it’s super hot outside too. And crafts are great, but crafts, honestly, only last so long as well, especially over the summer time, when kids are out of school. Your toddler maybe doesn’t have a preschool that she’s going to at the time, unless they’re in daycare. You have to find things to do with your child to keep them entertained, and also things that will sort of entertain you as well.

So what are some things? Where are some different outlets to go to for indoor activity fun over the summer? Now my first recommendation, of course we have a few great ones in Tampa, so they are very local to me. If you do live in a city or near a city, you will also have these available to you. Any museums, whether they’re art museums, children’s museums, historical museums. A lot of these museums, even if they’re not typically catered to children, will cater more to children over the summer, because they know parents are going to be bringing them.

And there may be some field trips going on with summer camps, and this is a great place to spend, really, all day. A lot of these museums are full of visual things, like the art museums. They’re full of interactive activities, the historical museums especially are typically full of a lot of interactive. You’ll find interactive t art museums too though, and these are a nice, cool place to go spend your day. You can get some lunch. A lot of the times, these museums are focused somewhere around a, say, park.

So it’s great to maybe go for a walk in the shaded trees around the park, go back into the museum, and just really enjoy your day. It’s a learning experience for your children and for you. I can guarantee you, any museums that your city offers or town offers, it’s something that you’ll feel that you really left, gained some knowledge about some things, and your children will have been just involved in it all day. They’ll be super sleepy by the end, so it’s a great thing to think about.

Now the other thing, and this is whether you are in a city, or maybe you’re not necessarily in the city, you’re in the outskirts, a lot of these places, a lot of towns still have YMCAs. Your local YMCA is a great place to go to for summer activity, summer fun with your children. One, they normally have a pool. Two, they normally have different activities going on. I know in my city, we actually have a booklet that we can look up online, or you can also have it mailed to you, or pick one up at any of the local YMCAs, and this goes over all of the summer activities for all ages, and it goes from birth, from newborns up to 60, 70, and beyond really.

But there really is something available for everybody. A lot of the times these things are low cost. It’s not going to cost you a lot. And you can involve your days with things inside instead of outside when it’s just way too hot for you to bear the outdoors. And I don’t blame you at all if you do. It’s so super hot out there right now that trying to find indoor activities should be something we’re all doing.

Now, if you guys have any suggestion on other things that you can do indoors, I do encourage you to comment back or email me at Bow-Tiger. Do any of those things, and you can kind of let me know some of your ideas so I can share this with the audience as well. I’m happy to namedrop if you’d like me to namedrop as well, just on any of the activities or ideas you guys have for the summer.

Of course, if you guys are watching this video on Facebook or YouTube, please be sure to also check out our videos on Bow-Tiger.com. And we’ll see you next week. Thanks.

00:47 – There are certain things that you need to make sure you keep private
01:11 – Make sure your public profile does not provide any personal information
01:48 – Checking in is not necessarily the safest thing to do
02:08 – Keeping the information private
02:21 – make sure you don’t provide personal information about your child
02:36 – Your address, make sure it’s never online
03:09 – Utilize privacy options

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Hi there, Bow-Tiger world. This is Harper Jones, and you’re watching “Saturdays with Harper,” and as you guys know, I’d like to talk to you guys about sort of relevant information, things that are coming up in my own life, things that I think you guys would be interested in that are good topics to discuss. And I came across one this week, and this actually happened to me, and I thought this would be something good to talk to you, the parents, about and just discuss with you guys. And it is the use of social media when you have kids.

We’re going to use Facebook as an example. As you guys know, I’m on Facebook, I’m on Twitter, Bow-Tiger is on Twitter. We’re posting different things: online video blogs, online podcasting, so I certainly express my views, opinions, and some of my private life online. But there are certain things that you need to make sure you keep private for the safety of your children, the safety of your family.

So using Facebook as a prime example, this is a great example, we’ll start off with your information on Facebook. Facebook does give you the option to leave your phone number out and available for everyone and really provide a lot of detailed information if you want to. I suggest keeping that extremely vague. Make sure that your public profile does not provide any information, any personal information, your birthday, your phone number, address, anything like that. And then, even to friends and family, if they are your friends and family and they’re close enough, they probably have that information, so it’s not necessary to provide that information online, and if they really need to get a hold of you, they can always do it through a messenger.

The next thing I want to talk about is photos. I love to post photos of my daughter and show everybody how she’s doing, how she’s doing with school, how she’s doing with her friends, and just what we’re up to, but you need to be careful on how you provide this information. Checking in is not necessarily the safest thing to do. It starts to provide kind of a timeline of where you’re at with your child, and to a predator out there, and I’m not saying that friends and family are predator, but some of that information does leak to be public online, and you never really know when or what’s going to be available and to whom.

So keeping the information private, like where you guys are going, the school or the preschool that your children attend, keep that type of information private. It’s not necessary for people to know, or to share your photos. And then the other thing you want to do is make sure you don’t provide personal information about your child. It’s great to say, “Happy birthday,” you know, to your child online, if you want to do that, and provide some cute photos, but we don’t need to list out their birthday or list out their birth year or any personal information about them.

Your address, that’s the big thing, make sure it’s never online, and then little personal information about them, because you can actually start to build…somebody, if they were a predator, could actually start to build basically a profile of your family and your child, and you want to make sure that you avoid that at all costs. And just keeping your personal information personal and private is the best way to do that. You can still use social media, you can still share what you want to, but make sure that you take the proper precautions before posting online.

Facebook gives you the opportunity to have a lot of privacy options, as far as photos go, as far as personal information, posts that go public or private, so definitely utilize those, and just make sure that you’re using social media safely and in a way that it will not affect your family in a negative manner.

Thanks so much, and if you guys are watching this video on Facebook or YouTube, I’d ask that you check out our video blog on bow-tiger.com, and we’ll see you next week. Thanks.

00:53 – For your children’s safety
01:06 – The things that adults speak about don’t mean anything to a toddler
01:57 – They can get a lot more leniency
02:30 – Parents need to have that adult time
03:56 – Even though you’re a parent, you are still your own person

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Hi everybody. Harper Jones with Bow-Tiger, and you’re watching Saturdays with Harper. And I came across a really funny YouTube video over the last week, and I’m sure that a lot of you guys have seen it as well. If you haven’t, go on to YouTube and look up the “Friend versus Parent” speech (see video here and check out the sequel here). And it is basically a speech that a mother gives sitting at her countertop in her kitchen. And she’s pretty comedic. She’s pretty funny. But it basically goes over why you need to be a parent and why you cannot be your child’s friend. And she brings up some really, really good points. And I thought that my viewers as well would definitely benefit from some of the points that she brought up and just the whole idea of being a parent and not being a friend.

Okay. So what’s the first reason that we need to be a parent, not a friend to our child. Well, innately, we are the mother or father of our child. We’re not a friend. And we need to remain that way just for their safety. I mean, for the safety of the child to make sure that we always have their best interest at heart, we need to make sure that we remain as a parent to the child.

The other reason is a lot of things that adults speak about don’t necessarily mean anything to a toddler. There’s no relevance in a toddler’s life or a child’s life to what you’re talking about as adults. So one, you’re not gonna get great communication back if you try to use your child as somebody to talk to about these things, and two, the stress of the frustration that you might be having when you’re trying to talk about things may be or most likely will be too much for your child to handle. So we definitely, you know, don’t want to do that. We don’t wanna stress our kids out. So we’ll try to avoid it for that reason.

What’s another reason? Another reason is when…as they get older, if they see that you are a friend and you’re not a parent, when they start to get that defiance in them, which all children do at some point, it’s just a matter of how much, they’ll see a lot more…that they can get a lot more leniency with you because they don’t view you necessarily as a parent figure, an authoritative figure that they have to listen to all the time. They are more of a friend. So they can take or leave what you say or what you tell them to do because you’re not gonna do anything about it because you’re one of their friends. Don’t ever get into that situation. It may be easy to manage them when they’re three feet tall, but all of a sudden, they turn into a 10-year old, a 15-year old, and it just will wreak absolute havoc on your life if you guys do that.

For the parents out there, I’d say…I also wanna say that having an adult group of people that you can go out and enjoy some time with if you wanna do one of those wine and dine nights or an art and wine night, I love both of those by the way, it’s very important for you guys to get out there and have that adult-parent times, speak with other parents or girl friends of yours, guy friends of yours, any of that. Just get out there and enjoy some adult time. A lot of the time, especially with our first born, we tend to spend a lot of time at home, a lot of time with the child, and you’re almost talking, you know, that baby talk all the time, and your discussion is over squares and circles and triangles, and one, two, threes. It’s not over adult information. It’s not really letting your brain express what’s going on in your life, how you’re feeling. And it’s not allowing you to really enjoy a lot of things outside of your child, which of course, we enjoy a lot. Nonetheless, you guys need to have that adult time.

So try to either go out with friends. If you’ve lost touch, this is a great time to kind of reconnect or reach out to friends that you maybe had before. Try to regain a group that you can use. A lot of the mommy-toddler groups also offer mommy nights out where the parents go out, mommy-daddy nights out, too, where the parents go out without the kids. One of the parents decides to babysit, and then you all get to go out for a couple hours and just enjoy some adult time, because even though you’re a parent, you are still your own person and you still probably enjoy a lot of the things that you did prior to being a parent.

So don’t forget about those things. Sort of keep a connection with yourself and your past, and all the things that you did enjoy before children. And this will make for a happy, successful family and toddler.

Okay, guys, if you are watching this, of course, on Facebook or YouTube, I’d ask that you go check out our blog on bow-tiger.com. And as always, I’ll be back next week on Saturday for another Saturdays with Harper. We’ll see you then. Thanks.

00:22 – Piercing ears is a decision
00:38 – Best age to pierce your daughter’s ears
00:52 – Wait until the age of around 10 years old?
01:37 – Get it done before they get to the toddler years?
02:10 – Anywhere from 6 months old to 18 months old?
02:42 – Make sure that you’re using the right type of earrings

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To pierce or not to pierce my child’s ears, that is the question. Hi everybody, my name is Harper Jones with Bow-Tiger and you’re watching Saturdays with Harper. Although this conversation maybe is focused more towards the baby girls, we can also discuss this with baby boys as well.

Piercing ears is a decision that a lot of parents go through. Some people are adamant in not allowing their children to get their ears pierced. Some people feel that maybe it’s a better idea to get it done when they’re younger so they don’t even remember that it hurt. So what is the best age to pierce your daughter’s or possibly your son’s ear or ears?

Now as I said, there’s a lot of discussion and opinion about this specific subject. A lot of people may wait until the age of around 10 years old and not allow their children to do it before then. One, because it allows your child the option to have an opinion of whether or not they want their ears pierced, and then the other reason is because at 10 years old, their hygiene is a little bit better. They’re better at taking care of themselves and they understand that they need to stay clean, that they maybe need to take care of their earrings while their ears are healing, etc. So maybe waiting until an older age is a good idea.

Now if you are one of the parents that is very pro on getting their ears pierced when they’re younger, you’d like to have it, you think it looks cute and you want them to have it done, I would actually say that you’d want to get it done before they get to the toddler years. The reason for that is just the amount of fidgeting that they’re going to do with their ears. When they’re younger, once they have their ears pierced, they kind of forget about it so there isn’t going to be a whole lot of touching of the ears. It’s a little bit easier for you to keep clean. Of course, the hygiene after the ears are pierced is super, super important. So if your children aren’t necessarily touching them as much, this will keep them cleaner and make it easier for the healing process to do its thing.

So I would say anywhere from 6 months old to 18 months old is best if you are deciding to pierce their ears at a younger age. If you decide not to, I would just say, “Okay, then we’re waiting until she’s 10.” Any of those in between years does pose a risk of infection because they’re much more apt to mess with their ears, try to touch their ears, twist their earrings, etc. You only want to do that, of course, when you’re cleaning the actual pierced location.

Another thing I wanted to mention is if you guys are deciding to pierce her ears, make sure that you’re using the right type of earrings. A lot of metal types can actually pose allergic reactions to children. So you want to make sure that you’re using a stainless steel, medical grade really, surgical steel is what we want to use as their initial earrings for both the earrings and the post, and this will just lessen the irritation while the healing’s going on.

If you guys have any questions about this subject, please feel free to Facebook me on our Bow-Tiger Facebook page. Or you can also email me through our bow-tiger.com page. Of course, if you guys are watching this blog on Facebook or Youtube, I urge you to go to our bow-tiger.com site and check out the rest of our video blogs there. We’ll see you next week. Thanks.