| How to Stop a TV Addiction (for Kids) Posted: 21 Jul 2018 01:00 AM PDT Television for kids can quickly go from a fun way to spend time to an addiction. Finding other activities to do instead of watching TV helps engage your child with other things and practice useful skills, like reading, exercising, being creative, or playing a sport. Limiting television time and encouraging healthy TV habits when you do watch are also ways to help stop your child's addiction to television. EditDoing Other Activities - Encourage your child to read a book instead of watching cartoons. Instead of immediately turning on the TV after school, sit down with your child to read a book. Reading will promote your child's imagination and help learn new vocabulary words.
- Find books on things your child is interested in, like dinosaurs, dogs, or airplanes.
- If your child does not want to read, reward them with one episode of a cartoon for reading for a half hour. [1]
- Write a story with your child instead of pressing the "on" button. Your child can create characters similar to the ones on TV and create adventures to go on. Encouraging imagination through writing short stories will stimulate your child's mind. Give your child ideas to get started with, a sentence prompt, or a theme.
- For example, you can use the writing prompt "Write a story about your favorite superhero," or "Write about vacation."
- If your child refuses, suggest to read a book instead.
- Stock up on art supplies and encourage your child to get creative. Buy crayons, markers, colored pencils, or paint and set up art time for your child. Use a variety of art supplies to foster creative inspiration for your child. This can result in hours of entertainment away from the screen.
- Have your child pick out the art supplies with you to get their imagination going.
- If your child refuses, try other art supplies until something clicks and seems fun.
- Take your child on a day trip instead of the movies. Take a trip to a museum, amusement park, or playground. Go somewhere your child will enjoy and learn something from.
- Show your child some options of places to go and have them pick out the place that interests them most.
- If they refuse, take your child to run errands with you, like to the mall, grocery store, or gas station. Getting out of the house and doing something else will help cut back on TV time. [2]
- Go on a walk with your child instead of zoning out in front of the TV. Take your pet or a bicycle and go to a favorite park with your child. Try to get at least a half hour of exercise a day.
- Have a reward destination in mind, like an ice cream shop or arcade. This will help motivate the child to do the activity and reward them for choosing something other than watching TV. [3]
- Play board games with your family in substitution of the television. Find an age-appropriate and engaging game to play with just your child or as a whole family. This will vary by your child's age group, but some classic examples include Monopoly, Chutes and Ladders, Yahtzee, Go Fish, War, and Life.
- Let your child pick out the game to make sure they enjoy it.
- If you child refuses, make it necessary to play one game before they can watch an hour of TV.[4]
- Sign your child up for a club or sports team. Separating your child from the TV by spending time with other children will help them forget about the TV over time. Sign up for girl or cub scouts, a local soccer team, or gymnastic lessons.
- Have your child pick the activity that seems the most fun.
- Take them to meetings once a week even if they don't seem interested. [5]
- Teach your child how to play an instrument or arrange lessons. Learn and practice an instrument. Music is a great way to engage your child, and they can choose from variety of different instruments. You can teach them at home or get them private lessons. Good instruments to start with include guitar, violin, and piano.
- Give your child a few suggestions of instruments to play, and let them pick.
- If they refuse, try another hobby they may like better, like karate or tap dancing.
EditLimiting TV Time - Set a schedule and stick with it. Create guidelines of how long to watch television each day. Do you want your children to watch TV right after school? After they do their homework? Or after dinner?
- Your schedule could start with only two hours of television a day.
- You can also make your TV time at a specific time every day, like after dinner at 6:00 pm. [6]
- Limit TV time while doing other activities. It is easy to fall into a TV addiction if the screen is always on. Turning off the television while doing things like cooking, cleaning, eating dinner, or doing homework can cut down on excessive TV time. [7]
- Hide the remote aside from designated times to watch. After you make your TV schedule, stick with it by taking away the remote and unplugging your TV. This will enforce your rules and limit overall TV time. [8]
- Stop watching all together. If your child is still displaying TV addiction symptoms, stop watching television as a whole. Remove the TV from its location or disconnect the power cord. This will ensure there will be no watching TV. The less television your child is used to having in their day-to-day lives, the less they will miss it.
- Also try doing this for just a week or over the weekends to limit television time but not cut it out cold turkey. This will give your family a break from depending on technology, especially if your child has a serious addiction. After your TV break, your child may not want to watch TV quite as much.[9]
EditEncouraging Healthy TV Habits - Watch television together as a family. Focus on the program with your child rather than multitasking with something else. This will not only help you become aware of what your child is exposed to, but also connect as a family. [10]
- Be a role model with your television habits. If you want your child to cut back with watching TV, you need to monitor your use as well. Turn it off when you aren't watching, and be intentional with when you do watch TV. Children are influenced by their parents' examples, so set a good one by not watching too much television. [11]
- Choose what to watch ahead of time and only watch TV during that program. Select a show or movie to watch with your child. Watching TV consciously will show your child that you should be engaged when watching television. This will reinforce proper TV viewing times rather than watching only when bored.[12]
- Help your child make smart choices while watching TV. Teach your child the difference between an advertisement and a TV show, and talk about what aspects of a given show happen in real life. This will help them understand that not everything on TV is real and true. Encourage your child to choose to stop watching TV after so many episodes and do something else.
- You can say something like, "Hey Nicholas, see that? That is a commercial, something that shows you something to buy. This is not part of the show, okay?"
- After the show, say something like: "When that guy hit the guy in the blue hat, that is not something you want to do in real life. Hitting strangers is not okay."
- Remove TV from their bedroom and limit time watched before bed. It is easy for a child to become dependent on television if they can turn it on at all times of day. Keep your screen location contained to the family room. Not having a screen in their bedroom will eliminate time spent watching.
- Be mindful to not have them watch TV during the hour before their bedtime, to give your child a break from the screen and help them sleep better. [13]
- Try to prevent your child's TV usage from even becoming an addition by taking these steps early on, as preventative measures.
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| How to Gain Muscle Without Weights Posted: 20 Jul 2018 05:00 PM PDT You can try other options to build muscle. For instance, you can use body-weight exercises to help strengthen your muscles. If you just don't want to buy weights or go to the gym, you can also substitute household items for standard weights in your weight-training exercises. However, weight exercises are not the only way to bulk up. Doing plyometric and callisthenic exercises over time can also help you create muscle. EditDoing Body-Weight Exercises - Work out a routine that rotates among strength-training exercises. When you're not using weights, your body becomes the "weight" that you use to build muscle. For instance, a pushup, where you're pushing your body off the floor, uses your body's weight to build muscle. However, you can't just stick with 1 exercise. You need to rotate through exercises to build up muscle across your body.[1]
- Try exercises like squats, handstand pushups, pull-ups, dips, and body rows.
- You can also try things like sit-ups and 1-armed handstands up against a wall for balance.
- It can help to rotate through types of exercises. For instance, on your first round, do body weight squats, standard pushups, alternating lunges, and side planks. On the next round, try squat jumps, pause pushups, split-squat jumps, and front planks.[2]
- Alternate between limbs. Many exercises call for you to use both arms or both legs at once. However, if you only use 1 at a time, you work the muscles in that limb harder, helping you build up muscle. Alternate which limb you use on exercises that use both, such as doing pushups with just your left arm and then just your right arm.[3]
- To mix things up, try a push up with your feet close together. If that's easy for you, try lifting one foot off the floor for your pushups. Alternate so you perform the exercise equally on each leg.
- If you try one-arm pushups, attempt to hold the other arm behind your back. If you're ready for an added challenge, place the free hand forward or out to the side. Again, perform any one-sided exercises equally. There are tons of way to vary your pushups to increase their difficulty.
- Increase the difficulty. When you're doing a body weight exercise, push until you can't do another rep. However, once you're able to do 15 reps each time, it's time to move up to a more difficult exercise. More difficult exercises challenge your muscles more than repeating a less difficult exercise over and over.[4]
- For instance, maybe you start off doing wall pushups because you're not quite ready for floor pushups. Once you get the hang of those, try doing pushups from your knees, and eventually move on to typical pushups.
- Once that seems easy, try pushups with an arm or foot raised to increase difficulty.
- Workout at least 3 times a week. If you want to build muscle, try setting a schedule of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for workouts. When doing exercises, aim for 5 to 12 reps per set to build muscle. Aim for working through each exercise until you're just short of the most you can give. You don't want to go all out because that can hurt your muscles. However, you do want to push yourself each time.[5]
- You can try rotating through the 4 types of exercises 3 times, so you hit 12 different exercises. Do each exercise for 30 seconds each and then rest for 30 seconds. Do all 12 exercises again, repeating 3 to 5 times.
- Change up the speed of an exercise to work your muscles in a different way. For example, perform a squat by lowering yourself slowly for a count of 6 and then burst up to standing. Explosive muscle contractions work your body differently than slow and steady movements. This is a great way to add variety and intensity to your workout.
EditBuilding Muscle through Cardiovascular Exercise - Tighten your core. When you're doing cardiovascular exercise, make sure you are tightening your core muscles, as if bracing for a punch. That will help you strengthen muscle throughout your core. This will help build your muscle fibers for endurance.
- Run your way to muscles. You don't have to lift weights to gain muscle. For instance, walking or running every day can help you build muscle in your legs, core, and arms. It can also burn fat to make your muscles more visible.
- Start out with sessions that are 30 to 45 minutes long 3 to 5 times a week. Alternate between quicker runs and slower, longer runs for the best results.[6]
- Try swimming. Swimming is a great full-body workout, so you're going to gain some muscle while doing this exercise. Try swimming 30 to 45 minutes most days of the week to start building muscles throughout your body.
- Start slower and build up over time. For instance, you might start with 15-minute sessions if you're very out of shape. Add 5 to 10 minutes to the session each week to slowly increase over time.
- Choose other exercises based on your preferences. Most endurance exercises will help you build muscles. Try cycling, for instance, or cross-country skiing. Rowing is also a good choice. Exercise for at least 30 minutes most days of the week to help build muscle and endurance.
EditSubstituting Other Things for Weights - Fill containers with liquids. Liquids are relatively heavy, so you can use anything with liquid for a weight. For instance, you can use milk jugs filled with water, laundry detergent bottles, or water bottles as weights with your workout.[7]
- Lift with your kids. A silly, fun way to add weight to your workouts is to goof around with your kids while working out. If you're doing squats, for instance, give your kid a piggy-back ride while doing it. Of course, make sure you're being safe and have a good hold on your kid. Your kid will love it! You could even do pushups with your kid on your back.[8]
- Pick up some canned food. You can also use a can of food for weight-lifting. Just grab a can in each hand and continue on with your exercises as you normally do. These can add a pound or 2 to your strength training.[9]
- Put on weighted clothing. Another way to increase your weight while you're working out is to use weighted clothing. For instance, you can use weighted vests, a backpack loaded with potatoes, or weighted ankle straps. The added weight provides more resistance, helping you build muscle.[10]
EditMaking Lifestyle Changes - Increase the amount of (healthy) foods you're eating. It's difficult to build muscle without adding more calories to your diet. Rather than consuming excess calories indiscriminately, try to eat more protein and vegetables. Switching from refined carbohydrates to simple ones, such as fruit, can also be helpful.[11]
- Sleep your way to muscles. Make sure you're getting your 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night. Sleep helps with muscle recovery, and it gives you the energy to power through your exercises. Try eating right before bed, though, to help encourage muscle growth.[12]
- Drink at least of water a day. Water is essential to your muscles. It allows you to move and flex your muscles, and it carries needed nutrients to your muscles. You should be drinking at least of water a day, but you'll likely need more if you are exercising regularly or live in a dry or hot climate.[13]
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| How to Soften Hard Water Naturally Posted: 20 Jul 2018 09:00 AM PDT Hard water refers to the concentration of certain substances like calcium and lime in your water. If your water contains calcium, a quick boil may remove its funny taste. Other contaminants can be removed with filters. For better water throughout your household, consider installing an ion exchange system. Laundry water, on the other hand, can be softened with baking soda and vinegar. EditSoftening Drinking Water - Boil away impurities. If your water contains a lot of minerals, especially calcium, you can remedy the unpleasant taste by boiling the water before drinking. Fill a clean pot or kettle with water and place it on a stove burner set to high. Allow the water to boil for a few minutes.[1]
- If you aren't sure if your water is hard, or if you want more specific information about the minerals in your water, test it with water hardness testing strips. You can pick up testing strips at your local hardware store.[2]
- Transfer the clean water to a container. Turn the heat off and allow the water to cool completely. You'll likely see white sediment gather on the bottom of the pot or kettle. This sediment is made up of insoluble minerals, which can't be boiled away. Use a baster, siphon, or ladle to transfer the water to a clean container.[3]
- Although it's not harmful, try to avoid as much sediment as you can during the transfer.[4]
- Letting the sediment settle on the bottom first allows you to easily remove the clear water while leaving most of the sediment behind.
- Pour the boiled water back and forth between 2 containers. Boiling water can cause it to taste flat. Pouring it back and forth between 2 clean containers for a few minutes will restore oxygen to the water, improving its taste.[5]
- Remove impurities with a drinking water filter. If you drink water straight from the tap often, boiling it every time may become a nuisance. Instead, try using a drinking water filter to purify your water before drinking it. Some filters attach directly to faucets, while others act as filters for pitchers. Water treated with a filter often has a better taste.
- These filters can be bought at most grocery stores and general retailers.
- Look for systems that have a secondary filter, like one made from carbon or that uses reverse osmosis, to ensure contaminants are being removed from your water.[6]
EditUsing Ion Exchange Systems - Install an ion exchange shower head filter. A shower filter is one of the best ways to remove chlorine and lead from your water. Shower filters are also effective at neutralizing unpleasant smells. They are specially designed to work with high temperatures and flow rates.[7]
- Shower head filters can be found at hardware stores, home centers, and online marketplaces.
- To know exactly what minerals your water contains, try testing it with water hardness testing strips. You can pick up testing strips at your local hardware store.[8]
- Install an ion exchange softener for your entire water supply. These kinds of softeners are usually installed by a professional. Water coming into your home is run through resin to pull out the contaminants. Purchase these kinds of softeners at hardware stores and home centers.[9]
- Home ion exchangers are ideal for hard water rated medium to very hard. They are one of the most common choices for improving household water.
- You may want to run a hard water test first to note the kinds of minerals in your water. Some softening systems may be better at removing certain contaminants than others.
- Prices will vary according to model and region, but these kinds of softeners generally run between $500 and $1,500.
- Maintain your softener system. Many softener systems are straightforward and require little upkeep. Some filters may need to be regenerated by adding salt, while others may have a replaceable cartridge.
- Always follow the directions that came with your softener system to keep it running in the best condition for the longest time.[10]
EditSoftening Laundry Water - Put in 1/2 cup (118 ml) of baking soda with your laundry. Pour the baking soda into the washing machine, then fill it with clothing and detergent as you would normally. Set the washing machine for your desired cycle and run it.[11]
- Baking soda doesn't filter the minerals out of hard water, but it makes it softer to the touch. Softened water cleans and rinses better.
- Baking soda is also mildly abrasive, so it helps to more thoroughly clean your clothing.[12]
- Add 1/2 cup (118 ml) of distilled white vinegar to the laundry. Keep an eye on your laundry and add the white vinegar before the last rinse cycle. If your machine has a fabric softener dispenser, you can fill this with the vinegar before you start the load and it will be released automatically.
- Vinegar, which is a natural acid, helps to neutralize hard water with a lot of calcium in it. Calcium is a very alkaline mineral.
- Even though vinegar has a strong smell, this will be completely washed out by the rinse cycle.
- If you want to turn vinegar into a scented cleaner, mix 1.5 drops of an essential oil, like lavender, with it before adding it to laundry.
- Only use white vinegar for softening your laundry water. Other kinds, like apple cider vinegar, won't do the trick.[13]
- Dry clothes as you would normally. Move the clean clothes to your dryer and run them on a suitable setting. When dried, you should notice that the baking soda and vinegar have reduced the hardness of your water, resulting in softer laundry.
- Reverse osmosis could be considered slightly more natural than an ion exchange softener. However, reverse osmosis units may have special needs, like a consistent operating temperature.
- Smaller reverse osmosis systems can be installed in-line to provide softened water to strategic areas of your home, like high-use sinks.[14]
EditThings You'll Need EditSoftening Drinking Water - Pot or kettle
- Ladle (or baster/siphon)
- 2 clean containers
- Drinking water filter (optional)
EditUsing Ion Exchange Systems - Ion exchange softener for shower head
- Full ion exchange softener system
EditSoftening Laundry Water - Measuring cup
- Baking soda
- Vinegar
- Essential oils (optional)
EditSources and Citations
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