photo credit: The Jamoker

When you decided to become a parent, you most probably tried to prepare yourself by reading and learning as much as possible about this parenting role. For every parent, it is the start of a life-long journey that gets more and more interesting, not to mention complicated.

When you become a parent, you strive to be a wise, good and successful one. Who wants to be a bad parent anyway? In order to help you get started, below is a compilation of some of the best parenting websites and resources.

These websites are chosen based on the criteria below:

• It provides beneficial and useful information.
• It features a lot of diverse topics essential to parenting.
• It has been around for at least three years and has amassed lots of useful contents.

Below are the recommended sites in no particular order:

1. http://www.babiesonline.com/
Here, you will find quite a comprehensive site having been established since 1997 covering everything about baby, pregnancy, parenting and even offers free baby stuffs.

2. http://www.parents.com/
This is a one-stop website which is also the home of two other sites, namely http://americanbaby.com/ (an American Baby Magazine) and http://www.familycircle.com/. There are categories on family life, getting pregnant, babies, etc.

3. http://www.parenting.com/
This site covers subjects on fertility, pregnancy, being a mom, recipes, activities, etc. There are especially a lot of inputs on parenting and child. Don’t forget to check some of the provided tools like the ‘Child Symptom Checker’ and the ‘Guide: Ages & Stages’.

4. http://www.kinderstart.com/
This is an index directory and search engine specifically targeting on resources relating to young children. There are various categories available such as child development, pregnancy & birth, food & nutrition, adoption and so on. There are also resources useful for teachers. Therefore, if you are stumped looking for answers, you may want to check out this directory.

5. http://www.surfnetkids.com/
I like this site especially because I can access to educational games for my kids instead of leaving them to play on other ‘brain-wasting’ games on the computer. There are math games, picture games, word games, science games, simulation games, etc. If you are a teacher, there are a variety of educational activities available for your students or pupils.

6. http://babyzone.com/
This is an ‘all-in-one’ site on babies starting from preconception. Everything you want to know about pregnancy can be found here and there is a category for adoption as well. Take your time to browse this site especially if you are planning to start a family soon.

7. http://www.familyeducation.com/
There are separate categories for moms, kids 0 – 6, kids 7 – 11 and kids 12 – 18. Hence, if you have questions that are specific to a certain age, this site is easy to navigate and search for the answers.

8. http://parenting.ivillage.com/
I would describe this site as very useful for all moms. There are categories for health, home & garden, beauty & style, pregnancy & parenting, etc. There is a section on “Ask the Experts” where you get your questions answered by real experts. For example, questions relating to pediatric health, child care, child psychology, fitness and even stepparenting. I believe you will find this section useful.

9. http://positiveparenting.com/
This website is easy to navigate and very straightforward. It has been around since 1995 and has accumulated a great deal of information as well as useful resources for parents. To keep updated on parenting issues, subscribe to their informative newsletter. If you wish to enhance your parenting knowledge on a specific area, check out their online bookstore for the great choices provided.

10. http://www.parentstalk.com/
This site offers you parenting tips, advice from parenting experts, ideas on family activities and also craft ideas. There are also two other related sites, i.e. http://kidscomjr.com/ (for kids ages 3 to 7) and http://kidscom.com/ (for kids ages 8 to 15).

There are really a lot of other good parenting websites and below is a list of other notable sites to visit if you crave for more information.

• http://www.babycenter.com/
• http://www.kidshealth.org/
• http://family.go.com/
• http://www.theideabox.com/
• http://www.parentingteens.com/
• http://www.iparenting.com/
• http://www.familycorner.com/
• http://www.todaysparents.com/
• http://www.thelaboroflove.com/
• http://www.parenthood.com/
• http://www.familydoctor.org/
• http://www.parent.net/

photo credit: laura padgett

WParent.com is a blog dedicated to the subject of parenting. It covers a whole range of topics from safety and health to parenting tips to make your parenting job easier and bearable. As parents, we all encounter similar universal problems as we do our best to fulfill our parenting role regardless of nationality, religion, culture, educational background, status, etc.

In order to give the readers more information and resources, I feel it is proper to list down some of the popular blogs on parenting available out there.

The ten sites listed below are sourced from http://topsites.blogflux.com/parent/

1. http://www.boobsinjuriesanddrpepper.blogspot.com
My first impression on this site is that it is a ‘funky’ site as hinted from the name itself. The language can be a bit strong but there is a great deal of information found here.
2. http://tipjunkie.blogspot.com
This is a great site if you are lacking in inspiration or ideas. There are so many creative inspirations posted here for example, ideas on home decorating, entertaining and organizing a birthday bash.
3. http://www.tertia.org/
This blogger lives in South Africa and her blog describes her personal experience regarding infertility among a lot of other things.
4. http://likemerchantships.blogspot.com
This site is visually pleasing with plenty of beautiful pictures posted by the owner making her site very enjoyable to read.
5. http://www.myfamilylovesit.com
If you want an inside peek into a family’s life, take a look at this site. It is all about family.
6. http://neenmachine.com
This is ‘Everything you want to know’ site. The topics are diverse covering working from home to home and garden. If you are busy, you may want to check out this one site.
7. http://groovy-mom.com
My first impression of this site is simple and elegant. The postings are easy to read under various categories like pets, knitting, crafts and television.
8. http://www.bargainshopperlady.com
This is the site to check out if you like shopping. The owner is a bargain shopping expert based in USA. You can expect to find lots of bargains here.
9. http://owlhaven.net
If you have a big, big family, then this is one site you don’t want to miss. Mary, the site owner has 10 kids where some are adopted from Korea and Ethiopia. Learn how she and her husband raise their beautiful family.
10. http://www.steptalk.org
This is a site for stepparents to congregate and exchange ideas. A very interesting site as there is a lot of contributions from other like-minded bloggers.

At the time of writing, these are the top blogging sites for parenting ranked according to the number of unique visits to each blog. These sites receive thousands of unique visitors per week attesting to their popularity.

The next five parenting blog sites below are the Blogger’s Choice Awards winners for 2008 in the category of Best Parenting Blog.

1. http://www.karencheng.com.au
The owner Karen Cheng, calls her site ‘Snippets of Life’ focusing on women’s lifestyle, fashion, parenting, etc. You can see her impressive personal touch in this blog.
2. http://www.outnumberedonline.com
This is one great parenting blog written by a man named Jason Mayo. It is interesting to read about parenting and other topics from a man’s point of view.
3. http://www.onteenstoday.com
As the name suggests, this site is about teens and youths. What is interesting about it is the authors are all teenagers (age 13 -17) giving insights from the kid’s perspective.
4. http://oureverydaythings.com
The site owner Leonny, lives in Singapore with her family. Her site contains beautiful pictures on her family mostly taken by herself. She writes a lot of great inspirational posts which can be food for thought for the rest of us.
5. http://edunloaded.blogspot.com
This blog belongs to a dad of 3 kids also living in Singapore. It is again refreshing to read about parenting from a ‘dad’ point of view. He shares a lot of things about his family life.

I don’t have a personal favorite as all of them are unique and interesting in their own way. The wealth of information and the sharing of personal stories are great to read. I normally find myself glued to the computer for hours as I am unable to stop reading them.

Oftentimes as parents, we do feel like our problems are special, unique and difficult to handle. This makes our parenting job looks so tough and feels like a heavy burden. Therefore, it is good to read about how other parents manage their role and solve their problems and live to see another day. Personally, it makes my parenting job easier to cope with. I also get the chance to say “Been there, done that”, to new younger parents and feel good about it.

Becoming good parents to your children is not easy. Most of the time we use methods that we learn from our own parents when we were young. We also apply knowledge that we pick up along the way or have read somewhere. Nobody said it was easy and most often than not, we learn through the whole parenting experience of what method works and does not work.

Ultimately though, parents have similar goals in what they expect from their children through their parenting skills. Parents hope for among other things, to have children who know responsibility, respect and compassion. Parents want their children to grow up to have good self-esteem about themselves, to be self-reliant, to be a good and helpful person, etc.

My own helpful tips for parents are:
1. Teach them to fish
2. Be a good role model
3. Respect your children

Teach them to fish

Teach your children about the idea of doing things by themselves to achieve or complete a task. Parents tend to complete a task or bow in to their children’s demands. If the parents do everything for their children, the children will come to expect this in every situation. Once your child has reached pre-school age (3 – 4 years old), they are old enough to understand instructions or requests. You can request them to do simple chores or tasks like putting back or arranging their toys, books, shoes, clothing, etc.

These will teach your children about responsibilities and being proud of themselves for being able to do something that the adults normally do. It will be easier for them as they grow up to accept more and more of life’s responsibilities.

Be a good role model

The person closest to the children is the parents. So be a good role model for them. Act the person that you would want them to be when they grow up. You may face some slip-ups from time to time but most of the time, play a good role and show a good example. From personal experience, it is a hard thing to do sometimes. We sometimes get home from work bringing all our problems and are certainly not in a good mind-frame to handle or listen to the children’s problem. Just remember that we are the parents and the children naturally turn to us to help them, to advice them or just to listen to them.

Respect your children

Children are very smart and catch-on very fast. They learn and pick-up a lot of things during their growing years. Starting at a young age, they start to show their individual, unique personality.

As parents we should give them room to grow, to make mistakes and not to expect perfection from them. Your expectations must be reasonable and agreeable to them. To expect more than they could give will put on unnecessary pressure on them and it will make them miserable and become rebellious.

Simply put, be flexible and constantly get their feedbacks. Become their friends or best buddies and they will always hold you in good regards.

The above are my tips to assist you in your parenting journey. You may have your own methods or tips to guide you in becoming successful parents but there is no harm to give mine a try.