Parenting Your Children -

Are you happily thriving or just surviving?

If you are reading this, it is likely that you have children, you love them, and you want them to have a great childhood. If you are like me, you need all the ideas you can find to make day-to-day parenting fun and fulfilling.

Fingerpainting and playdough may be major yawners for you. Take a look at the following activities for innovative ideas to enhance your parenting and the quality of the time that you spend with your family.

Develop new talents and skills yourself as you teach your child the fun side of life. Look for things to do that you will enjoy just as much as your child does.

Create together, be active together, sing, dance, and draw together. Here's how -

First Idea - Try This Instant Bubble Machine.

This is great fun and also provides some exercise time for youngsters.

Put an electric fan on a chair and get out the bubble wand and bubbles. Turn on the fan and let the fan blow bubbles all over the room while you do little more than dip the wand in the bubbles and hold it in front of the fan. Get the kids to chase and catch bubbles. They will be ready for any suggestion that you can think of to wear them out while you are generating no-effort bubbles. Get them to run in circles around bubbles, flap their arms through bubbles, and jump over bubbles.

One really fun variation is to let your children swing at the bubbles using badminton racquets! This is also a great outdoor summer activity. You will want to have a turn too!

Start a Great "Building Blocks" Tradition.

This is a hobby that you can enjoy and develop together for many years.

A starter set of 80 Mega Bloks is great, but will be limiting if your family's creations start to get large or detailed. The packages for the blocks have a few fun pictures, which helps in getting started.

The "Mega Blocks Just Build" set goes one step further with an "Ideas Book" which makes building things together a lot of fun.

Your children will enjoy the creativity of working with Mega Bloks, Legos, and other building block sets. And so will you.

Check this out for a fun and easy project to build together, made with a basic set of Mega Bloks building blocks.

Learn to draw together.

I never could draw anything interesting for children - until I found this simple but great cartooning book. It's a great asset to be able to sit with your children and create entertaining and fun pictures together.

Here are samples of some of the easy cartoons that you can learn to draw with children, displayed from the "How to Draw Cartoons" book as seen in the Amazon link above.

Have Library Singing Time At Home -

You will find wonderful nursery rhyme videos online that you and your child will enjoy. Here's one. There are many others which will teach and entertain you and your child! You can have library singing time at home on those days or evenings when you can't go to the library.

Many thanks to www.supersimplesongs.com for the great work they do for children.

Get a Fitness Ball To Keep in the Living Room.

This is a great item for enjoying children and grandchildren alike! They can even be purchased complete with resistance bands and a wall chart exercise guide and DVD.

The reason I enjoy these so much is that while I am playing with the kids, I am getting a great workout and a great stretch! Now that is the ultimate goal - to be enjoying yourself while interacting with the children! It's a great strategy. Playtime equals funtime for me and the kids, both at the same time.

Equip Yourself With An MP3 Player and Earphones.

You can do many kiddie games and activities with your youngsters while enjoying your own music or audio files. I put together puzzles, color, draw, glue, cut, and watch TV with the kids, all while enjoying my own music or audio files.

Create a Simple Orchestra.

You will need a toy piano (or real piano if you have one). There is simple sheet music available online, but you don't need any music to start with. You can depend on the kids to pound away on the toy piano while singing their favorite songs. Toy drums are easy to come by and fun to play. Add in a simple plastic harmonica and a set of maracas or a rattle. Now, you can get a great cacophany going, and the youngsters love it.

Karaoke Machine.

Your children will enjoy performing for you just as soon as they have learned a few simple songs. You can download the songs you have taught them onto an MP3 player or an IPOD and plug it into the karaoke machine shown here. Everyone will enjoy taking a turn choosing a song and singing into the microphone.

While this karaoke machine does not display lyrics, it has many advantages over other machines, particularly the ability to play your own downloaded music.

Karaoke singing is tremendous fun. You will enjoy being entertained by your children and their friends. You will also enjoy having your own turn at the mike.

One More Resource That Parents Need -

Having sufficient financial resources is a consideration in parenting, and in life in general! It is possible and very satisfying to have wonderful family interaction with limited financial resources. An excess of money does not guarantee a happy family.

At the same time, finding a system for generating more income can be a great blessing. I like a group that I have found with a wonderfully unique perspective and a great plan. I think it is the best I have seen. Sooner or later it was inevitable that someone would put together a program that really assists people in advancing financially. I believe this is it. Check it out.

I hope you have found some great ideas on this hub for interacting with your children and enjoying the time you spend with them.

Please take time to comment, I would enjoy your valuable feedback!