Families are so unique. What works in one family or for one child may or may not work for another. If you're a parent, you've already figured this out. The good news is, you aren't alone. No matter what the situation you're going through, there's guaranteed to be at least one other, but probably more, who have gone through what you're going through or are going through the same thing at the same time. Below are resources I've found extremely helpful, and hopefully you will too. As stated in the main page, most of the resources I provide are free! Also be sure to check out the SAHMs n WAHMs store, where you can find my recommended books for these topics.
Parenting
Focus on Your Child is a great site for parents who have children in the home. Resources for new parents, single parents and all other parents. Musings of An Ordinary Mom is a column within Focus on Your Child that gives me a source of laughter and relief at times in my life.
Focus on the Family is a wonderful resource for families and couples at every stage of development. Any person, child or senior, single or married, can find great information and inspiration for life at this site. Great resources like books, videos, music and more are also available for every stage of life.
BabyCenter is one of my favorite sites! And it's free! I've been a member since I was pregnant with our first child, who was lost in a miscarriage. Belonging to a community of parents at BabyCenter during my time of crisis helped me tremendously. There are groups you can join and talk with others for every stage of life, whether you just lost a baby, you're pregnant with complications, have a newborn, toddler or adolescent. You can even join groups for the exact month and year of your child's birth. If you have an older child, then their ParentCenter is where you belong. You can even shop for great products for pregnancy and beyond. See their store: BabyCenter store
Click here to join ClubMom is a great group (free!) for mothers of all types and ages. Not only are there forums, but it's a place you can voice your opinion as well as get awarded. If you do online shopping at all, ClubMom is a must. You can get points that add up and equal very good prizes. After being a member less than a year, I was eligible for some significant gift certificates to some of my favorite stores, such as Bed, Bath and Beyond, as well as many other great prize choices. It's a club to celelbrate moms, and they do a good job of it. Also, there is always some type of sweepstake(s) going on exclusively for members. You will also get great coupons in the mail from Bed, Bath and Beyond, and homebasics, a magazine absolutely filled with recipes, fun ideas for family and GROCERY store coupons! Best of all, it's all free!
MOPS International is a group for moms of preschoolers. Great site, with lots of useful information and resources!
Great Potty Training Site here!
Potty Training Solutions also has some wonderful tips and products!
I have found charts to be effective with my oldest as she turned 4. I tried them at 3, but they only worked sometimes. Now that they are more effective, I've found this site especially helpful: Chart Jungle. You'll find charts and other ideas for nearly anything!
I found this site recently when I was looking for book recommendations for holidays (the real story behind Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day, for example). It was created for teachers, but I think parents will find it helpful as well: Apples for the Teacher.
Enchanted Learning provides some wonderful educational tools, print-outs and more (you'll have to pay the $20/year for full access to all the printouts, but it's worth it!).
Also, check out my Pregnancy and Baby page, where you can find other valuable resources, as well as breastfeeding information.
Family
As I've stated above, Focus on the Family and the other sites are great ones for aspects of family life. Here are some other resources:
Don't have a will made up? Don't worry, you're not the only one. But it's very important that you get one done as soon as possible. The following are a couple of sites I've found that can help you out. (Hint: one of them has all sorts of legal forms that you can view and copy and paste onto your computer for free. Trying to adhere to their user guidelines, I've only provided links for the main pages of these sites. It's up to you to find what I'm talking about. But when you do, I don't think you'll be sorry. I copied and pasted into my computer very easily and it's perfectly fine with them, as long as you follow their guidelines.)
Internet Legal Research Group
USlegalforms
Are you or someone you know going through hard times in life? There are people who want to help. troubledwith is an excellent site that provides advice and encouragement for all of life's problems. You can even talk with a counselor, absolutely free!
If you are a work-at-home parent or want to be one, then WAHM.com is the place for you. This is the best resource for work-at-home parents as far as job opportunies and how to make life work. There are even message boards so you can talk to others who are making it work. For more on this topic, please also see my financial page where there's a "wealth" of information!
Have an opinion about something that needs change, or want to support or reject something that our government is considering? Contact information for your United States Representative or United States Senator below.
U.S. House of Representatives Contact
U.S. Senators
If you love taking pictures of your family, and want to share them but don't know how, then Snapfish is the place for you. It's free to join, store and share photos via the Internet and e-mail! I even use them for all of my film developing needs. (20 FREE prints with your first upload and everyday low pricing of just 12-cents for your prints! ) I've been using them for years, and love them! You can even make gifts out of your pictures and send them to family and friends. It's where we get our holiday photo cards every winter, too!
Have you seen ads mentioning something called Upromise but didn't know what it was? It's an organization, free, that helps you save some money for your kids' college, or pay off your own student loans. We don't make a lot of money at it, but we so far we do get about $50 a year in an account. Multiply that times 18 years and that's a significant chunk of change to pay for books! It works by registering your debit and/or credit cards and whenever you shop with a Upromise merchant partner, that merchant gives a percentage of your purchase to your Upromise account. You can even have it emptied into a 529 college savings plan. I tend to be a cynic, and somewhat of a conspiracy theorist (I prefer the term realist!) and was uncomfortable with joining for a while, so we didn't. I was thinking it's just another way for the government and whoever else to know what we are purchasing. But once I started realizing that unless you pay cash for EVERYTHING, they already know. Checks aren't even safe as far as that's concerned. So then I figured, we may as well benefit since they know anyway! If you join and do any online shopping, then you should install their RemindU onto your computer. It doesn't really take any space, takes just a second or two to download, and it automatically registers your purchase with Upromise if you are on a partner site, so you don't have to worry about remember to shop through the Upromise links first.
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