One-of-a-kind Website Takes the Guess Work Out of Safety Parameters for Young Kids and the Web

It’s a moment many parents are apprehensive about. Our little one learns how to navigate the mouse and becomes interested in using it. Before we know it they are online playing games, checking out their favorite websites, and will soon start interacting with friends and family via email. As exciting as this is for children, it opens a whole new world of worry for moms and dads. We give our kids helmets and training wheels while they learn to ride a bike; it should be similar with the Internet given all of its potential dangers!

A one-of-a-kind website takes the guess work out of safety parameters for young kids and the web. Zilladog.com is a guarded 100% safe Internet portal and email system that can be used at home or in schools. If you check out www.zilladog.com and it’s easy to see why kids and parents love it. Besides giving kids all their favorite games, websites, movies and entertainment at their fingertips, the site has a bevy of safety features that protect kids from predators and protects the family computer from contaminated spam, spyware, etc.

Just some of the state-of-the-art safety components include:

No links to 3rd party websites, rather only links to sites that have been reviewed by its staff of parents. When clicking on a 3rd party link in Zilladog.com you are not redirected on the Internet, rather the link opens up safely within the Zilladog.com website.

Zilladog uses a parent-approved buddy system for its email and chat service. You need to enter a parent password to approve a buddy for your child. This means when on the Zilladog.com website, your child will only be communicating with people they actually know and who have been approved by you, the parent.

The site was designed to automatically filter out inappropriate spam and unsolicited email. If you give your child an email with Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. they can easily receive a link to a contaminated virus. We all know pop-ups are widely common when “surfing” the Internet!

Social Mom Lisa Marie's Weekend Suggestion: 3rd Annual Legends Tour Championship

If you are looking for an outdoor family activity that the whole family will enjoy, then plan to attend the 3rd Annual Legends Tour Championship at the beautiful Island Course at Innisbrook Golf & Spa Resort this weekend. Event activities will kick off on Tuesday, November 8th with golf clinics but continue all weekend through the main event, The Legends Tour Open Championship, on Saturday and Sunday.

Publix and Kraft Foods are co-sponsoring two new features this year. First, the Healthy Living Expo will feature a select number of wellness and lifestyle vendors offering advice and samples from 8am-4pm on Saturday and Sunday. Set alongside the Island Course, fans can also take a "Birdie Walk" and visit various checkpoints for vendor samples. Once they visit all of the checkpoints, fans can then redeem their passports for a free t-shirt at the Legends Tour merchandise tent. The Birdie Walk is open from 10am-2pm on Saturday and Sunday.

To announce the partnership between the Girl Scouts of West Central Florida and the Legends Tour Open Championship, several Tampa Bay area girl scouts participated in a golf clinic with players from the LPGA at the Innisbrook Golf Resort in Palm Harbor. Girls had the opportunity to learn about golfing basics, improved their game and asked questions of LPGA Legends Jan Stephenson and Dawn Coe-Jones. The Girl Scouts of West Central Florida is the official charity of the Legends Tour Open Championship and 100% of ticket proceeds will be donated to the Girl Scouts of West Central Florida. Tickets can be purchased at the gate. Children 17 and under and all military personnel with ID gain free entrance every day.

The weather is forecast to be wonderful this weekend so make plans now to get outside with your family!

For more information about the Legends Tour Open Championship, please visit http://www.thelegendstour.com/ and for more information about Innisbrook, visit http://www.innisbrookgolfresort.com/

How to Have a Stress-Free Daylight Savings Experience with Your Children

Back before you were a parent, the end of daylight savings was a welcome relief to pitch black mornings. An extra hour of sleep is more valuable than gold, especially post parenthood. Enter Sweet Bundle of Joy who doesn't share your affinity of snoozing and also has a set, circadian rhythm that doesn't magically readjust over a weekend. Your baby doesn't care that Uncle Sam dictates a useless time adjustment every six months.

As if parenting weren't already the hardest thing anyone has ever done in the history of doing things, we must deal with the time change and our children. Here's what will happen, if you're new to fall-back with children: they wake up after the same number of hours of sleep. So if Junior typically wakes up at 7:00 am, you'll now have a 6:00 am early riser after the change. Start gearing up for that adjustment now with these six easy tips.

1. Extend bedtime a little later each night.
Folks who prefer to rip the band-aid off may just push through a few tough days and move bedtime forward a full hour immediately. Older children can handle a change like that a bit easier. But if you you have a baby or toddler, I recommend pushing bedtime back by ten or fifteen minutes for a few nights. This will take some discipline, but establishing a solid bedtime routine and sticking to it is not only important for your sanity, but for your child's health, too.

2. Expect grumpy toddlers for up to three weeks.
Again, the younger the child the longer it will take to adjust. According to multiple studies, poor or inadequate sleep causes irritability, stress and anxiety. No big surprise there. Pile on top of that an inability to verbally communicate and you've got a cranky young child on your hands for days, if not weeks. Just brace yourselves and prepare to expect some rocky terrain.

3. Reduce other variables to focus on sleep.
Kids do really well when they have time to hone in on one skill or hurdle at a time. If you're potty training, pull back on the reins for a while to let the lack of sleep pass. Trying to concentrate while sleep deprived makes you ineffective and irritable -- and the same goes for Junior.

4. Get room darkening shades or curtains.
Kids sense morning like sharks smell blood; the tiniest crack of daylight can wake even the hardest young sleeper. Keeping it dark in your child's room will encourage more sleep in the morning, something you'll want all year round. If you're not a fan of drapes, grab online coupons for custom blinds from sites like CouponSherpa, and outfit your windows with tailored dressings on the cheap.

5. Consistency is key.
It's tempting to give in to Little Darling when she pitches a fit for candy at the grocery store. If you give in to her demands, she'll just ratchet up the decibels on your next visit. That same principle applies to adjusting your clocks back. Stick to later naps and a later bedtime to avoid prolonged pain. According to Kim West, social worker and sleep coach, children will adjust to your age-appropriate sleep requirements when you are consistent. This means having the exact same routine every night and responding in the same way to your child's testing.

6. Minimize exposure to artificial light.
There's solid evidence that exposure to artificial light limits the production of melatonin, a key hormone in regulating the sleep/wake cycle. This goes for TV too. Cut the pre-bedtime cartoons and opt for relaxing, sleep-friendly activities like reading or puzzles.

Ashley Grimaldo comes from a long line of penny pinchers and enjoys blogging on money-saving tips and advice for frugal-minded parents. She lives with her husband and three children in Bryan, Texas. Ashley has been featured among such media outlets as Redbook, The Chicago Tribune, Time.com, and CBS News-Houston.

Annual Head Start Awareness Month

On Wednesday, October 19, Hillsborough County kicked off the Annual Head Start Awareness Month at a celebration at the County Center. October has been designated as Head Start Awareness Month. This year’s theme, Young Minds Need a Head Start, emphasizes the program’s focus on child development and early learning. Head Start/Early Head Start is a child and family development program for low-income, working parents of children ages zero through four.

Members of the public joined with dignitaries, elected officials, agency partners and parents to honor local Head Start trailblazers including Jan Platt, Ann Porter, Doris Reddick, Delia Sanchez and Claudia Silas. Evangeline Best gave the keynote address. Head Start children led the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance via a prerecorded segment.

Lakeshore Learning Materials generously donated lunch for all attendees.

Every year around the December holidays, Head Start/Early Head Start reaches out to local businesses and the community for donations to help provide every enrolled child with a gift for the winter holiday. Please consider donating new, unwrapped gifts for needy babies and children (six weeks to five years old). Your charitable contribution to this annual holiday appeal can make such a difference. For more information about this program, please contact Laura Rice at 813/272-5140 ext 3106.

Hillsborough County’s Head Start/Early Head Start Program, a division of the Department of Family and Aging Services, is a four-time nationally recognized Program of Excellence by the National Head Start Association and is a three-time federally reviewed Gold Seal Program. For more information on programs and services offered call 813/272-5140 or visit www.hillsboroughcounty.org/headstart.

Caption for baby bonnets photo: The Expectant Parent Program offers free child care, training, nutritional and support services, health and early intervention services as well as parent activities for First Time and Teen Moms. For more information, please contact Monica Wiggins at 813/272-5140 ext. 3193.

Is the Economy Killing Fatherhood? Advocate Reveals Ways to Be A Better Father in Trying Times

Tom Watson knows what it’s like not to have time to spend with your kids.

"It used to sting me when I was working hard at building my business and I’d hear my kids talking about me," he said. "One would ask the other to see if I had time to play with them, and the other would tell him not to bother, because he knew I’d be too busy. It was like a knife in my heart. With the economy as tight as it is, I know that I’m not the only father with the same issue. These days, many fathers are either unemployed and working hard to find work or they are working two jobs or more just to make ends meet. Either they don’t have much time for family, or they just aren’t in the mood for family because they are despondent or feeling helpless as a provider."

But, it doesn’t have to be that way, according to Watson, author of the autobiographical Man Shoes: The Journey to Becoming a Better Man, Husband & Father (www.manshoes.net). Watson’s tips for dads in a tough economy include:

Share Time – Don’t spend time with your kids, because that term makes it sound like you are giving away time that you could be using for other things. Share time with them, because sharing indicates that you both get something out of that time. It’s important for your kids to know that you aren’t paying attention to them out of obligation, but rather, because you need to be with them as much as they need to be with you.

Make a Schedule – Stability and security are important to kids, so set up a time every week that is just for them, and do your best to make that time on your calendar immovable. Give them something they can look forward to on a regular schedule and it will show them how important they are to you and help you build a trusting relationship with them.

A Little Time is Better Than None – If you’re working two jobs or work out of town and commute home on the weekends, they will understand if you don’t have a lot of time to spend. Even if you can only block out a couple of hours every week, that can be enough. As long as you keep to the schedule and don’t let them down, that time will be as valuable as if you spent the entire weekend with them.

Don’t Plan Big – Parents who work a lot sometimes feel guilty about neglecting their kids, and they cater to that guilt by making big plans with their kids on a regular basis. They feel that doing something lavish and expensive will somehow be seen as a payback to their kids for not seeing them often. The pitfall is that the bigger the plan, the bigger the expectation. The truth is, kids don’t care. You don’t have to spend a lot of money or make big plans all the time. It could be as simple as going to the park to fly kites and eating a brown bag lunch together, and most kids would be happy with that.

"Life is a choice and the person you choose to be is in your control. No matter the hand you may have been dealt, there are no excuses," Watson added. "I grew up as an orphan and I acted out a lot, because I lacked the guidance of a family until I was finally adopted," he said. "And even when I found stability with my adoptive parents, the Watsons, it took some time for me to settle down. Having shoes on my feet, clothes on my back and food on the table were all good things, but it wasn’t those things that soothed me as a child. It was the time, love and attention I received from the Watsons that put me back on course and that’s what every child needs. While it may seem to some that working hard to provide for their families is their primary responsibility as a father, that’s just not so. Children are adaptable and can do without material things more easily than they can do without the love and attention of their parents. If my experience meant anything to me, it showed me that it takes more to be a dad than to just bring home the bacon. It’s not enough to just do for your children – you have to be with them, too."

About Tom Watson

Tom Watson is a survivor of child abuse, upheaval and 13 foster homes, so he learned how to overcome adversity at an early age. Later in life, Tom was faced with heartbreaking tragedies which threatened to destroy him. He drew from previous life lessons to persevere and show that new beginnings are possible at any age or stage of life - no matter what obstacles get in the way. These principles and their applications are chronicled in his new book Man Shoes: The Journey to Becoming a Better Man, Husband & Father (www.manshoes.net).