Food issues are a source of stress for parents with eight out of ten Australian parents being concerned about their child's eating habits. One-third of parents worry that their child isn't eating enough. Many parents are concerned that their child will go hungry or will not receive the proper nutrition necessary to keep them energized throughout the day.

Despite the challenge of meal times it is important that parents work with their children on eating healthy and fresh food from an early age, as they will only become fussier as they get older.

We should avoid stereotyping children's foods and give children some degree of choice rather than restricting them to limited options. In saying this, it is believed that you shouldn't be cooking a separate meal, but rather get your child involved with you in the kitchen to create a sense of ownership and enthusiasm for food and eating. As well as this, it is always best to teach your children about the value of healthy food, remembering that children do not have control over many things in their life, with food being the exception.

Strategies which can be implemented in an attempt to foster good eating habits include: Be positive: Meal times should be made into positive experiences. If a child tries something new or eats something new they should be praised, focusing on the good behaviour and encouraging the child to do this regularly.

Don't make a fuss: Rather than engaging in an overwhelming fight about food, do not panic or force them to eat. This will in effect create a negative association with food and meal times. Instead expose children to new foods in a relaxed environment as children often respond more positively to this and have more chance of eating newly introduced food items.

Variety: Do not just offer favourite meals as this tends to encourage extreme fussiness, which may lead to a restricted and unbalanced diet. In saying this, offer a variety of healthy meals and keep trying new recipes.

There is always a lot of confusion about toilet-training so this is a brief introduction one way of approaching toilet training. Toilet-training can and usually will be a lengthy and often frustrating period of development for both parent and child. This is due to parents often wanted the child to be toilet-trained a lot sooner than is feasible.

Please understand that toilet-training is a very personal and individualised developmental milestone - It is not one that should be forced or expected of any child. Physically and developmentally children should be able to begin by 2.5 years however this is still an estimation and it is up to the child to decide when they are ready.

"Pull-Ups" nappies are not advisable. They are confusing and difficult to use due to the simple nature of their design. They can be too tight and too big to function as underwear making them difficult to remove if required. To a child, they look and feel like a nappy making it more difficult for a child to make the distinction between nappies and undies. We recommend that parents who opt for pull ups, use them at home and do not recommend them in the centre.

As such, this brings us to the next point - consistency. We try very hard to keep each educational and developmental experience consistent with those happening at home. This applies especially to toilet-training. Whatever you are doing at home, we will try to emulate at the centre (as long as it doesn't go against our personal/professional philosophy). This way, the child is given correct and consistent advice and support when it comes to the more difficult areas of development. (The same can be said for behaviour management, sleeping and eating issues, basic motor, language or self-help skills, etc)

As part of keeping consistent, we recommend a specific method we toilet-train children which has been tried and tested over many years. The first step is to ask.

Seeing as though it is the child who will decide when he/she is ready to toilet-train, and in keeping with the consistency required for a successful toilet-train, we recommend that you follow this simple method to ease the pressure and frustration both child and parent can feel towards this often embarrassing development:

• Ask: when a child is having their nappy changed, ask them if they would like to go to the toilet. If the answer is 'Yes', take the nappy off and sit them on the toilet (to begin with, they will more than likely, need you to hold onto them, they may squirm and ask to get off the toilet straight away, they may even be scared - they are to be taken off immediately and reassured that, "that's okay")
• Once the child is comfortable in sitting on the toilet, ask them almost every hour whether or not they want to go. At this stage, more often than not, they will say 'no' but it is always good to ask.
• The child will slowly get more comfortable sitting on the toilet and eventually may even go. A very good indication that a child is ready is when their nappies are clean and dry upon waking from a sleep or even during long periods of play (at normal nappy change times). When this happens, children will often begin telling you they need to go using the correct words ("Wee" and "Poo"), holding themselves between the legs and or going to the toilet door to wait!
• Once this is happening training has officially and fully begun and as such, carers and parents must be fully aware of when a child needs to go and taking them as soon as possible.
• Once in underwear, accidents will occur and this can be frustrating for adults and embarrassing, even scary for children. It is our job as mature adults, at this point, to reassure them and make sure that the accident is dealt with as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

Please remember that it is the child who decides when it's time, the adult needs to ask the child during the early stages and the adult needs to be very supportive during the later stages.

To summarise:

• If the child is showing signs of being ready, ask the child if they would like to sit on the toilet during nappy changes.
• Once the child is consistently happy enough to be sitting on the toilet during nappy changes (regardless of them doing anything in the toilet or not), monitor to see how long the intervals are where their nappy stays dry.
• Once the child starts doing wees in the toilet, introduce undies to be placed on top of the nappy as the next step.
• At this stage we will take the child to sit on the toilet every hour and get them to help pull their undies down while we take off the nappy. This will help them get used to the motion of pulling their undies up and down.
• Bite the bullet and get rid of the nappy and have the child in undies all day.

Today's mother can have many roles and returning to the workforce while their baby is young is becoming quite common. This can bring on many questions to be answered as the best way to handle breastfeeding whilst your child is in care. It is possible to express and store breast milk so that your baby can still receive your milk in your absence.

Your centre will be happy to work together with you to gain the best possible outcome. The following chart is a helpful guide when storing breast milk.

Further advice can also be sought from the Australian Breastfeeding Association counselor in your area.

Not my child!! He/ She will never bite!! Unfortunately we need to accept that biting is common in babies and young toddlers. Whether it is intentional is another story! There are many possibilities why a baby/toddler may bite. We need to understand this can be a child's normal behaviour and generally not a sign that there is something wrong with the child, home or the child care service.

What can we look out for to assist the baby to look at other alternatives other than biting and to protect his/her group of friends that may be the innocent bystander?

Communication: Is the child frustrated due to limited language and has worked out to get what they want quickly a quick bite does the trick!

Hungry/Tired: Are we letting the child become overtired or hungry leading to lack of tolerance towards his/her peers?

Is it intentional: Does the child realise that his/her biting actually hurts or are they just trying to be affectionate and kiss their friend.

Boredom: Do they gain excitement from the drama biting causes. Does the child need more stimulating activities?

Attention: Does the child receive enough attention or has he/she worked out that biting brings instant attention.

Over excitement: Is there too much going on in the room for the child to cope with.

Teething: Are the child's gums hurting and relief from pressing on anything brings relief.

What is the solution?
It is important as parents or childcare workers to become watchful of the child that is going through a stage of biting. Discovering a pattern of when the child bites and why assists with creating strategies to prevent the opportunities for biting to occur. Having prior knowledge of when and why the baby bites assists with being able to creating strategies that may help the baby/toddler to use another method other than biting to reach his/her goal. One important factor in all of this is to address the behaviour and not label the child.

In child care one strategy known as 'shadowing' can help minimise the biting incidents. This strategy relies on staff members working as a team. One idea is for one child care worker to wear a wrist band for thirty minutes. This identifies her as the primary carer for the biting child for that time and is expected to keep a special eye on his/her whereabouts. This continues for the whole time the child is going through the stage of biting.

On a note of hope biting in young children almost disappears as fast as it appeared!

Behaviour Management

Learning appropriate behaviour starts at birth, along with other teaching and learning. It is important to know and understand a child and recognise their level of development, the environment and time of day when managing challenging behaviours in order to gain the most positive outcome for a child.

Behaviour management strategies should focus on forming expectations which are developmentally appropriate and relevant to each child. It is beneficial to focus on helping to show a child what to do instead of what not to do. Explaining why they have been redirected, stopped or reprimanded assists the child to make judgements about what is appropriate or inappropriate behaviour and sets clear limitations.

It is important to understand the causes of inappropriate behaviour in order to manage and guide the child's behaviour effectively:

• Anger and frustration
• Tiredness
• Desire for attention
• High activity levels
• Jealousy
• Tiredness
• Boredom
• Mimicking what they have seen others do
• Social ineptness

Using strategies which encourage and guide acceptable forms of behaviour in a positive way is more beneficial than focusing on negative behaviour and punishment. In the long term children will be provided with Examples of positive behaviour management techniques include:

Positive Reinforcement
Positive behaviour is praised consistently through the use of language, physical, and positive facial gestures. An example of verbal positive reinforcement may include "I like the way you shared your truck with the other children". Highlighting the specific part of the behaviour you are praising reinforces the appropriate behaviour so that the child will remember this next time around.

Redirection
When a child is playing inappropriately the child is redirected to a new experience. Redirection can be used as when a child is playing inappropriately with other children or using a piece of equipment or toy in a negative way. An example of language you could use when using redirection is "you have been hitting your friends in the sandpit and making them feel sad, you need to find a new place to play now".

Role Modelling
In the same notion it is important to role model appropriate behaviour so that children are shown how to act in every day situations. Children mimic how adults use language, interact, use body language, react to situations and so forth so it is important to lead by example. Children will learn the appropriate ways of acting in each social context.

These strategies focus on building a child's self esteem and facilitating pro social skills. It is important to remember to always give children clearly defined expectations and guidance towards acceptable behaviour.