Our Parenting Advice Articles will be back next Wednesday!!

As always, The Cackleberries team will be bringing you fresh new content and feature articles full of parenting advice.  Just like before, this year will be no different as Cackleberries.com will continue its successful Wednesday feature by providing more expert articles to help parents solve those tough child rearing dilemmas.  If you’re not familiar with the The Cackleberries Expert Articles feature, it provides great parenting tips, tricks, and techniques to help you deal with any sort of situation that may arise throughout the process of parenthood.  On top of that, we try to cover timely and relevant seasonal topics or trends in the world of everything moms and dads.  If you’d like to see past articles, you can view all of our expert articles on the right side of the page under the “Expert Articles/Parenting Advice” category.  We know there are subjects out there that you would like discussed so if you have a topic you’d like us to cover, feel free to let us know at  info@cackleberries.com

Thanks for stopping by and we’ll see you all next Wednesday for another great parenting advice article!

Hey everybody!  The Cackleberries Team is back from the Christmas break and is looking forward to having another successful year with all of you.  For 2010, we’ll be providing the same great content that you’ve come to expect as well as a few new features that we think you’ll enjoy.  On top of our regular offerings of drawing lessons, recipes, expert articles, and product profiles, we at Cackleberries.com will be trying out some new topics and content as well.  Be sure to let us know what you think.  If you have any ideas for other content or suggestions about our current posts, please let us know and we’ll make it happen – we are here to give you what you and your kids want.  We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and wish everyone the best in 2010!

Here’s a snippet of what’s to come here at The Cackleberries Club….

• After the over-indulging and always filling holiday feasts, we will be providing some healthy recipes for you and your family in the near future
• Continuing with our drawing lessons series, we’ll be offering printable step-by-step drawing lesson sheets that you and your kids can practice at home
• Expect more pertinent and timely expert articles covering a wide range of parenting and family related topics
• Watch for our our latest regular feature for you and your kids – Do it yourself arts and crafts!
• More reviews and features on family friendly companies and products we think you should know about
• Not to mention our video posts, relevant news stories, the latest about our website for kids – cackleberries.com, and much more……

With all these features, we hope to see you back here each and every day!

With our regular Wednesday feature, Cackleberries.com has another expert article to help parents solve those tough child rearing dilemmas.  The Cackleberries How-to feature provides great parenting tips, tricks, and techniques to help you deal with any sort of situation that may arise throughout the process of parenthood.  You can view all of our expert articles on the right side of the page under the “Expert Articles” category.  If you have a topic you’d like us to cover, feel free to let us know at  info@cackleberries.com

With American Thanksgiving now upon us closing in, we have a mini 2 part feature to make sure you have the most successful thanksgiving dinner ever!  If you missed Part 1 of our Thanksgiving Dinner Tips, be sure to check it out.  For the conclusion of our 2 part series, Read on……

How to Host a Successful Thanksgiving Dinner – Part 2 of 2

Cackleberries has compiled an 8-step guide to pulling off a highly successful Thanksgiving Dinner. Last Wednesday, we shared with you the first half.  Today, we will share with you, the second half…..

5 – Always prepare a little more food than you think you need

More often than not, the amount of food you think you’ll need will be enough. However, when a niece unexpectedly invites the new boyfriend, your brother’s family is able to attend last minute, or uncle Joe heads back for third helpings, you’ll be glad that you prepared for the unexpected. The one thing you never want to do on Thanksgiving is run out of food.  Besides, the worst-case scenario is that you’re left with tasty leftovers for the rest of the week. Not such a bad predicament.

6 – Whenever you’re planning on eating dinner, tell your guests it’s an hour earlier

While most guests will arrive early for all the planned festivities, there will undoubtedly be the guests who arrive just in time for dinner.  For example, If your planning to eat dinner at six, tell your guests you’ll be eating at five.  No one wants to be left waiting for the lasts guests to arrive before dinner can be served. In order to avoid this unpleasant circumstance, you may want to spread a little white lie about when you expect dinner to be ready.

7 – Make sure you have adequate amounts of cooking, serving and dinnerware

This is an often overlooked element of hosting any large get-together. Most people simply don’t have that many glasses, plates, serving utensils, or any other items you’ll need in bulk. No need to worry though, simply make sure you take stock of what you have, and come up with solutions for what you don’t. Plastic cups, borrowing items from friends, or even renting dinnerware are all options. Just determine what you’ll be needing and how you want to go about getting it.

8 – Prepare For The Unexpected

Your niece’s new boyfriend prefers non-alcoholic beer, your aunt has one to many drinks and needs a place to sleep for the night, your barbeque runs out of propane while cooking some appetizers. Basically, anything can creep up on you that you didn’t account for. In order to pull off a problem free day, you need to do your best and plan for the unexpected. Without going overboard, try and have contingency plans in place to deal with potential problems. Obviously you can only do so much in preparation but by checking in to things beforehand, you’ll save a lot of hassle. For example, pick up a variety of drinks for different tastes and designated drivers. Check your propane tank or have a spare cylinder to be on the safe side. Make up the guest bedroom or have an inflatable mattress on the ready just in case. The more time you take to prepare, the less time you’ll stress the day of.

Sounds easy enough right? Well with these tips, you should be able to have a fantastic and highly successful Thanksgiving Dinner! Good luck and have fun!

If your interested, make sure to check out Part 1 of our Thanksgiving Dinner Tips.

With our regular Wednesday feature, Cackleberries.com has another expert article to help parents solve those tough child rearing dilemmas.  The Cackleberries How-to feature provides great parenting tips, tricks, and techniques to help you deal with any sort of situation that may arise throughout the process of parenthood.  You can view all of our expert articles on the right side of the page under the “Expert Articles” category.  If you have a topic you’d like us to cover, feel free to let us know at info@cackleberries.com

With American Thanksgiving closing in, we have a mini 2 part feature to make sure you have the most successful thanksgiving dinner ever!  Read on for part 1 and be sure to check back next Wednesday as we release the conclusion of Cackleberries Guide to Thanksgiving!

How to Host a Successful Thanksgiving Dinner – Part 1 of 2

Cackleberries has compiled an 8-step guide to pulling of a highly successful Thanksgiving Dinner. Today, we will share with you, the first half…..

1 – Have Entertainment For The Kids

If you have children in the family, you’ll need to take steps to make sure they’re entertained, especially if you’re going to be preparing food all day. Ideally, you could have the young ones running around outside and playing in the yard but with the late date of thanksgiving and the likelihood of inclement weather, you’ll need to have an indoor alternative. A room full of toys, video games, board games, or books would go along way in providing the children with something to do. Snacks are also key since dinner may not be served on the same schedule that the children are used to.

2 – Have Entertainment For The Adults 

Most people think that things will take care of themselves. While this may be the case for some, it may not be for others. If you’re hosting a thanksgiving get-together, you’ll want to make sure you have activities that people can participate in. Whether it’s board games, movies, football on TV, or even house duties such as serving or bartending, people will want some form of entertainment. Be sure to provide options.

3 – Prepare As Much As You Can The Day Before

No one wants to have a family gathering and not get to participate themselves. Well, that’s what will happen if you don’t head this advice. Cooking a Thanksgiving feast is a massive undertaking. Anything that you can prepare ahead of time should be. Peel potatoes and leave them in a bucket of water, make pies, prep dishes for baking ahead of time, etc. The more prep you do, the more time you’ll have to enjoy your thanksgiving.

4 – Plan Your Menu And Get All Your Ingredients Early

Nothing is worse than a last minute trip to the grocery store, only to find that they’re all out of cranberry sauce. Plan your menu ahead of time and make sure you have everything on hand for the meal. This includes appetizers and beverages. You don’t want to be caught running out of anything. Also, be careful to ask your guests ahead of time about any allergies they may suffer from. Depending on what you find out, you may need to prepare alternative food options.

Stay tuned for the completion to Cackleberries Guide to Thanksgiving next week!

With our regular Wednesday feature, Cackleberries.com has another expert article to help parents solve those tough child rearing dilemmas.  The Cackleberries How-to feature provides great parenting tips, tricks, and techniques to help you deal with any sort of situation that may arise throughout the process of parenthood.  You can view all of our expert articles on the right side of the page under the “Expert Articles” category.  If you have a topic you’d like us to cover, feel free to let us know at info@cackleberries.com

Today’s topic covers a problem that is becoming more and more prevalent as new video gaming systems require an unprecedented amount of in-depth interaction and fully immerses a child into the gaming experience.  Today we discuss…..

Dealing with Your Child and Video Game Addiction

If you’re like most parents, you probably feel as though your child spends a little too much time playing video games. The trouble is, once your child is hooked, it is a difficult task to create alternative options to gaming that wont result in your child revolting over the limiting of their game time. This form of entertainment and relaxation is quite important to most children and it is important not to overlook this fact when deciding how to handle the situation. Having said that, some new rules or alternative options need to be put in place to reduce the time your child spends in front of a television or computer screen. You don’t have to be so severe as to ban video games all together but you do need to regulate the amount of time they can play in a given day or week. In order to try and change your child’s habits, you’ll need to come up with other forms of entertainment and activities for your child to participate in. Here are our top five entertainment alternatives to help you accomplish this goal.

1 – Have Them Participate in Extra-Curricular Events

It is well documented that activities such as music, sports, scouts, and girl-guides have a definite positive impact on children. The lessons and skills learnt in extra-curricular group activities such as these are a great way for your child to experience different elements of life while keeping them away from constant video game use. Have them select an activity they’re interested in and sign them up for it.

2 – Plan Family Outings

By getting the whole family involved in some specific planned activity, you get to determine where your child is, or more specifically, where your child isn’t. If your child is very reluctant to part ways with their video games, this may be a good option. When trying to entertain your child with something other than their gaming obsession, it may require you to ‘force’ them into planned family events. Things such as a day at the park with sports and games, a movie night, a trip to the local museum, or any other similar activity are all good ways to get the family up and about.

3 – Schedule a Designated Reading Time

It seems as though many children these days aren’t reading as much as previous generations. With new technologies such as computers, video game systems, and pocket size entertainment units, reading seams to be suffering. The value of literature should not be understated and it is important to maintain reading skills in your children. Books are a fabulous way to let your children expand their imagination while learning at the same time. If you’re looking for a positive way to wean your child off of video games, this is a great alternative that you can feel good about enforcing. Even though your child may be hesitant at first, you’ll likely see them come around to the joys of reading, especially if you can latch them on to the latest book craze like the Harry Potter series invoked.

4 – Make Them Choose

Make up a system where your child is given a specific amount of time to play video games per week. So long as their video game playing doesn’t interfere with other family or extra-curricular activities, you can let them determine how and when they will use their game time. Your children will discover the value of planning and learn how to schedule their allotted time to maximize their fun. Your child may also plan to save up their game time in order to have play dates where they invite their friends over for gaming days.

5 – Set Up a Reward Program

Video game time can also be made contingent on your child’s actions and behaviour around the house. Similar to the option listed above, your child can choose to stockpile their time as they earn it. However, with a rewards based system, you can also decide to take away game time depending on your child’s conduct. This video game time can be made dependent on things such as chores and homework being completed satisfactorily, general attitude and willingness to help around home, or any other criteria you deem relevant.

Try to be creative when it comes to scheduling events or activities that mitigate your child’s video game use. When it comes down to it, if your child enjoys the alternatives you’ve put in place, chances are they won’t even notice their reduced gaming time.