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A father, who suffered from a heart condition, dies suddenly at home while caring for his two young children. Even worse, his 10-month-old daughter winds up trapped beneath his body for days.

However, the man's 5-year-old son managed to alert neighbors, saying he thought his father was dead. Authorities were called, and the baby was rescued — worse for wear, but alive and recovering. She is a small, sturdy survivor of what had to have been a horrible experience.

The children's mother was serving time in jail for a misdemeanor charge. Louisiana dad Jason Fields was only 43 when he passed away from cardiac arrest, somehow rolling over and onto the small child before his death. The home doesn't have air conditioning, and the temperature inside the home was around 100 degrees F — a bad combo anyway, but even worse when there has been a death. Authorities estimate that the baby remained there, trapped by her dad's decomposing body, for around three days before they rescued her.

She was dehydrated and had a blistering skin rash when she was discovered. She also sported an indentation in her forehead from being squished between the headboard and the body of her dad. But she was alive, breathing and responding, and is recovering in a hospital. Her mother was released from jail to care for her kids and to hopefully ease their trauma.

And trauma is what they both experienced. I can't imagine what the baby went through, wedged under her dead father and screaming for someone to help her. And I also can't imagine what the 5-year-old boy went through either. My youngest will be 5 in just a couple of months according to their mother, and I don't know how long it would take her to realize she had to reach out and get help if I died while I was caring for her alone (and she had no older siblings). She knows she's not allowed to go outside the house without permission, so it'd take a lot for her to muster up the strength to leave and get assistance.

I'm so glad the baby lived through three days of being trapped under her dad. This situation could have easily gone the other way, because three days without fluids is really pushing it — and the 5-year-old himself could have gotten into trouble roaming around without supervision. I hope the kids will be able to recover from their horrible experience.

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The problems associated with physical punishment are well known, but even parents who would never dream of hitting their kids may still resort to shouting at them when they are pushed to the limit. Verbal discipline is a slippery slope and one mistake can have lasting, irreversible consequences.

Harsh verbal discipline (HVD) is defined as "psychological force with the intention of causing a child to experience emotional pain or discomfort for the purposes of correction or control of misbehavior." Simply put, we yell at our children to try to get them to stop doing things we don't like by making them feel bad about themselves or what they are doing.

HVD can take several forms: Parents may use verbal intimidation by shouting or yelling; or try to get attention by swearing or cursing at the child; or they may use humiliation, calling the child names like dumb, lazy, mumu (for the kpakos) or st.upid, Idi.ot, It shall not be well you etc...

When parents act with hostility towards a child, the child tends to become angrier, more irritable, and more belligerent. Rather than feeling nurtured, he frequently becomes suspicious of his angry parents, feeling the need to defend himself, which often leads to bad behavior.

Harsh verbal discipline also increases depression due to the child's belief that they are "useless," "worthless," or "inferior," as their parents' harsh criticism might suggest. In turn, a child can become overly self-critical, experience low self-esteem, and exhibit a pattern of poor choices regarding peers and behavior.

Sometimes, harsh parenting and positive parenting styles occur together in families. Positive parenting means that parents express warmth, comfort, concern and affection towards their children and are responsive to their physical and emotional needs. Children interact more with their parents and to reciprocate the feelings of warmth and love. While this parenting style is associated with fewer behavior problems, researchers found that even positive parenting is unable to decrease the negative impact on harsh verbal discipline when they occur in the same relationship.

Yelling doesn't help. Harsh verbal discipline not only isn't effective, it actually makes things worse and creates potentially long-lasting psychological problems for the children and damages parent-child relationships.

Unfortunately, being the warm parent you want to be after a verbal blowout can't undo the damage. Verbal punishment eats away at a child's willingness to trust his parent.

Parents who want to change their child's behavior would do better to communicate with them on an equal level, explaining their worries and rationale to them.

The origin of anointing was from a practice of shepherds. Lice and other insects would often get into the wool of sheep, and when they got near the sheep's head, they could burrow into the sheep's ears and kill the sheep. So, ancient shepherds poured oil on the sheep's head. This made the wool slippery, making it impossible for insects to get near the sheep's ears because the insects would slide off. From this, anointing became symbolic of blessing, protection, and empowerment.

The New Testament Greek words for “anoint” are chrio, which means “to smear or rub with oil” and, by implication, “to consecrate for office or religious service”; and aleipho, which means “to anoint.” In Bible times, people were anointed with oil to signify God’s blessing or call on that person’s life (Exodus 29:7; Exodus 40:9; 2 Kings 9:6; Ecclesiastes 9:8; James 5:14). A person was anointed for a special purpose—to be a king, to be a prophet, to be a builder, etc. There is nothing wrong with anointing a person with oil today. We just have to make sure that the purpose of anointing is in agreement with Scripture. Anointing should not be viewed as a "magic potion." The oil itself does not have any power. It is only God who can anoint a person for a specific purpose. If we use oil, it is only a symbol of what God is doing.

Another meaning for the word anointed is "chosen one." The Bible says that Jesus Christ was anointed by God with the Holy Spirit to spread the Good News and free those who have been held captive by sin (Luke 4:18-19; Acts 10:38). After Christ left the earth, He gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit (John 14:16). Now all Christians are anointed, chosen for a specific purpose in furthering God's Kingdom (1 John 2:20). "Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee" (2 Corinthians 1:21-22).

Source: http://www.gotquestions.org/anointed.html

Parents do have a lot of influence on their kids. Kids most times take what they see you do than what you instruct them to do. I noticed this vividly in a neighbor's son. The mother answers phone with aggression, you could clearly hear whatever she is discussing while on phone.

On this particular day, her phone rang according to what the husband recounted. She happened not to be close by but their 6year old son was. He picked up the phone yelling hello!hello!! In quick succession and with a loud voice. This got the mother irritated and she yelled at the boy only to be reminded by her husband that the innocent boy was only re-enacting what he has always seen his mother do. From that day, your guess is as good as mine. As parents, we are mirror to our kids and that's why many of us today could still appreciate those laudable character we may have inherited from our parents.

This is just pure and simple. Their colleague, Fintiri; acting as the Governor probably made available to
them unhindered access to the State Treasury. They are now steaming because the
change may have hindered the "flow", and could be denied the usual "ALERT". You could also notice that Fintiri himself was
struggling the leave the Government House when the news of the change got to him. Power sweet.

Most Nigerian politicians are basically selfish in nature. If they foresee any
impediment that could hamper access to their loot, they don't think twice to remove any
of such impediment.

BabaO2:
Chill..all, Netherland trailed to beat kazahstan 3:1 yesterday.

Those are the orange boys. This current Eagles most times not known to turn things around. It's mostly a 20/80 chance.

Eagles are making soccer look like Menial Job

Back in my teens around the middle to late eighties and even at the university, it was always cool to be labelled a bad guy by your peers, especially when you seems to have achieved or mastered one feat or the other; in class or in a relationship. This label of the 'baaaad guy' makes whoever is addressed by, begins to move with a certain swag, like he's ontop of the world like Tony Montana of the epic film: Scar Face.

On the other hand, if you're called a good guy, it some like sound and feel like you're been labelled weak and some like a sissy.

Am I the only one who have noticed this. This seems prevelent among guys, even the 'Big Boyz' in town are down with this. What's your take?

MabraO:
Me no know oh
Well said at the bolded
But still didn't pick from grandma or grandpa

I understand.

MabraO:
Don't even know must we pick something from our parents?

Lol Ok. What of grandma or grandpa or probably someone you look up to. May be ofcourse you didn't grow up under either of them. There must have been something that may have rubbed off on you from them.

aanumama:
Because the man in charge of the maintenance is busy embezzling the maintenance fund, and those that awarded the contract to them, care less so far their returns are remitted appropriately
Nigeria will always be a failed state in the hands of these people, they've ruined everything for this country.
P.s; Lagos stadium is more of an event centre now

This indeed is very annoying. I remember the National stadium back then while I was in Lagos. If the SuperEagles had any match scheduled say at 4pm, by 12 noon, the whole place had already been taken over by fans in a carnival fashion with lots of excitment. All those have gone with the wind.

I just saw this beautiful Akwa-Ibom 30,000 seater capacity stadium with lots of excitement, but my excitement was cut short when I remembered, I had similar excitement when that of Calabar was unvailed few years back, but it seems the pitch has been contracted to a certain farmer to make ridges for yam seedlings.

Various Nigeria government, past and present either at the Federal, State or Local levels, had contracted and constructed various beautiful edifaces around the country.

The list are endless; from stadias, high risings office and residential blocks to hotels.

These edifaces in the hands of government officials suffers decay and abandonment, but the moment it changes hands to that of a foreign company to manage, the story changes.

What exactly is the problem because these same foreign companies use Nigerians to do this same work and acheive success.

Ceasar1:
Awesome cleanliness and personal hygiene from my Mum. And humility from my Dad. That's sums it Up.

Got this one from my dad. Whenever he does the washing of the convinience area, he practically deeps his hand with the sponge and scrub inside of the the tiolet sit. It would take us some few hours as kids before we can begin to collect anything eat-able from his hands. Lol. Kai! Good old days. Bless your soul dad, you're the best.

Ekiseme:
Their truthfulness is what i wish i could inherit

Ah! Am with you on this one. My mum will look you in the eye in tell you straight no matter who you are. (Chai like arrow straight to the heart).

RIP! My condolences to my inlaws.

Thinking back when I was a kid under the care of my parents brings a back rush of mixed feelings of excitement, joy, grief etc.

Now as an adult, I see myself carrying out similar or exact qualities I gained from my dad to my own family. My dad (God bless his soul) was a military man, so you could say I was a FULL TIME Barrack boy (the experience gained cannot be bought from the market)

For instance, my dad was a family man. No matter how little an item he was offered in his various outings, especially if it has to be something to eat, he developed an attidude of ensuring that we the kids at home have some peice of the action. He just knew how to get across to his family, no matter how small. This has rubbed off on me to the extent that I normally losses apetite anytime am presented with those packaged foods served at meetings and the urge to get home and share with my family increases. I will be dropping other of such qualities from time to time, but in the mean time for those of us reading this piece, can you confidently tell us any such quality(ies) you may have inherited from either of your parents? And if you are now a parent, what would you want your own kids to take from you and improve upon?

Actress Julianne Moore made headlines recently when she admitted stalking her kids online, arguing that “You don't get to have privacy when you're only 16!” While many parents applauded her for being a good digital parent, others accused her of helicopter parenting and ridiculed her attempts to shield her kids from the big, bad web.


Should you monitor your kids online?

If so, how, and to what extent?

Or if you are in your teens, how will you feel knowing you're being stalked by either of your parent?

The issue isn't one that parents can ignore. Not only are kids online, but they're carrying the web around with them in their pockets, making the logistics of keeping tabs on their behavior challenging, to say the least.

What Thinket Thou?

dapsy4u2:
The baby grows up to hear such word in his/her immediate environment, the baby then gradually and subconsciously learn to start saying such word(s).

My exact thought. Such words are echoed to the hearing over time. The child naturally learn to assign nana and dada to mummy and daddy.

My wife works and keep her salary. I take care as I should as the husband and father of the house. We have gotten to know ourselves to the point that she steps in to make her own contributions by assisting in taken care of some very essential expenses from time time.

Marriage is not a competition between the wife and her husband, but rather two loving individuals who have agreed to come together to build a home. The man should understand he is responsible for the upkeep of his home, irrespective of whether his wife is working. He should not enforce it that the wife will have to contribute to the upkeep of the home. He should just focus doing his bit and take his nose off his womans purse, trust me majority of wives that are respected by their husbands need not be told, they know when to come in from time to time. It works for me.

The key thing is mutual respect. Especially as it relates to a woman, if she feels loved and respected, trust me, the man can sing Hossana.

1. Believing Everything You Hear

During the first weeks with your newborn, you'll seek advice from everyone who's been there, done that. Even if you don't, they'll offer suggestions anyway. One acquaintance advocates sleeping with the baby. Your best friend warns against it. Your sister-in-law says it's okay to let the baby suck her thumb. Your pediatrician prefers a pacifier.

"The only opinion that matters is yours," says Alvin Rosenfeld, M.D., a child psychiatrist and author of Hyper-Parenting. "If you follow everyone else's advice, you give up the most creative role in your life."

2. Overestimating Your Free Time

Whether you're planning to take weeks, months, or years off from your job, don't kid yourself into thinking that being home with an infant is a holiday. Instead, you're starting a new job, with a tinier, more vocal boss who's so demanding that she won't even give you time off on the weekends.

Your plans to work out, catch up with old friends, and cook dinner every night just may not coincide with your baby's schedule.

3. Neglecting Your Spouse

After a long day of feeding, rocking, soothing, and diapering, you may feel like telling your just-home-from-work spouse to take a hike --a perfectly understandable reaction.

"There's nothing abnormal about having marital troubles and personal stress and feeling blue when your kids are little," says psychologist John Friel, Ph.D., a marriage counselor in St. Paul and coauthor of The 7 Worst Things (Good) Parents Do (Health Communications). "Making the transition from carefree twosome to parenting an infant is the biggest challenge to many marriages."

4. Putting Yourself Last

Making time for yourself after your baby is born is a necessity, not an indulgence, says Elizabeth Silk, a New York City psychotherapist who works with new mothers. Find time to talk to friends on the phone or go to a yoga class. "You need to nurture yourself so you don't become mechanical or joyless," Silk says. "The happier you are, the better parent you will be."

5. Not Sharing the Load

The learning curve is steep for new moms and dads alike -- so don't shut out your spouse. Let him find his way around the nursery. You may feel proprietary about the baby and you may initially diaper her faster or bathe her with more confidence. But your spouse needs to master these tasks too. Caring for a newborn is simply too much work for one person to do alone.

6. Assuming the Worst

Some babies have real health challenges or develop serious ailments that cause legitimate worries or concerns. But even a healthy child can exhibit all sorts of symptoms that trigger parental anxieties-blotchy skin, a cough, colic, diarrhea. Don't worry too much. "In today's society, we're trained to think we can control everything," says Martha MacCallum-Gregory, a Ridgewood, New Jersey, mother of two. "Accept the fact that you can't, and let go a little bit. Things are going to happen, and it's not because you didn't think to prevent them."

7. Comparing Your Baby with Others

Is she sleeping through the night? Smiling? Trying to sit up? Don't focus too much on developmental charts (they're averages), and don't let other parents make you feel as if your little darling is somehow slow because their child is already solving complex equations.

Babies develop at their own pace, and as long as yours is within the normal range, relax. A baby who crawls early isn't any more advanced than another; it just means more chasing for Mom and Dad.

8. Not Napping

According to psychologist James Maas, Ph.D., author of Power Sleep, new parents lose between 400 and 750 hours of sleep during their baby's first year.

You should snooze daily, if possible, or take at least one long nap on the weekend. Without adequate rest, it's hard to enjoy what should be a very happy time in your life. Sure, you'll have to sacrifice other things that could be done during naptime, but getting enough rest right now is more important than putting away the dishes.

9. Not Preserving the Moment

There are many ways to preserve your child's stages. Keep a journal, take photos, or videotape the simple everyday things -- you'll want to relive them for years to come.

10. Spending Too Much

"Everyone tells you the baby is going to change your life," says Alan Fields, coauthor of Baby Bargains and a father of two. "But no one tells you how parenthood will affect your pocketbook. You get sucked into Babyworld, and there is no escape." Like going to the grocery store when you're hungry, shopping can be risky for new parents. Fields estimates that a baby's first year will cost parentsat least $6,200 for diapers, clothes, food, strollers, and other essentials. His tip for avoiding overbuying: "Take an experienced parent with you when you shop, someone who knows what you really need and can cut through the hype." Go easy on clothes -- your baby will outgrow them in minutes.

glitest: Sit tight!...Let me go get her; BrB.

Ok o! Well sitted with pen and paper to take note.

blank: I know of one. It was so painful. The baby was 5 days old and they had just returned from the hospital. She put the baby to sleep on her tummy and then when she returned 30mins later to check on the baby, the child was face down and unresponsive. They rushed her to the hospital while performing CPR. Sadly, she was on a ventilator for 2 days but didn't make it. This happened in Ibadan, in my uncle's church of which i happened to be a member at that time.

I cannot ever forget that experience.

Ah! How sad. Can't even imagine the grief of the parents of the child.

glitest: Well; such never worked for my mom.

How does your mum do that? We all would like to learn.

raphy: so na now all of una de,know .me i nefa marry but i know how to take good care of babies when they r crying i know hw to make them .sleep am just gifted i know i will be a great ,dad when am married

Your children & wife are indeed lucky then.

glitest: " Baby sleeps when they are ready ke?.......U wan tell ham to a working mother?....My mother will agure your points ..op!...The woman created a sleeping schedule for us since she popped us out of her womb, and we all got used to it.....She's also given other working moms the same advice, and have gotten good surprising reviews, over the years.
Not laying baby on her tummy?...Really?....That might be for the white folks, but not for us.

Applying the sleeping schedule could be very difficult to enforce especially within baby's first month. New Born tends to sleep more during the day and when mummy and daddy are hoping to catch sleep at night, baby keeps them awake

mileskiyo: Another myth - Pulling a thread from ur baby's comforter and placing it around d anterior fontanelle will stop hiccuping...

Hey! You just strucked a cord there. I experienced these with so many mothers, i also ended up applying it on my daughter whenever she experience hiccup, and surprisinly it seems to work most of the time, or probably because I believe in it..

Yomieluv: so true,but women too abuse men psychologically,and emotionally. Where can we classify a nagging woman?

Abuse in marriages could go either way. It's just that, most time the man engages physical strength while the woman engages her mouth. But seriously, that mouth own dey pain die. You will told what you dont want to hear and if you take it to heart, you will loose your self worth and if you happen to be a man without self control, the dentison of the woman will be on the floor or she ends up with a black eye.

If she is the type that nags, find out what makes her nag (there has to be something she is not comfortable with), and if you make affort as a man to adjust and the nagging continue, then know that is her hobby, that one na to hand am over to God or (OYO)

We all have different hormones. While some grow hair on body or face as early as 15, others could wait as long as 20. Some are hairly, some are not.

Bottom line: love yourself and be bold for who you are, with or without beards. It is what you present to others they accept you for. If you see yourself as incomplete without the beards; you are, if you stand out inspite of beards or not, they take you like that.

Leave bearbear and be yourself.

Yomieluv: Op,your topic is myopic,why use "ladies",when men too are also in an abusive relationship.

If you read it again, you will realize i talked about men going through similar situations ( I even know of one), but compared to that of the ladies, the ratio is higher, probably because theirs are most time reported and seems believable to say a woman is abused than a man, but it does happen, men too are also abused in a relationship.

Several women/ladies (married & unmarried) at this time are going through several traumatic, abusive relationships yet choose to remain. I equally know a few who wont take this sh.........t. Am sure some even wont hesitate to 'forget' scissors in the stomach of any man that tries that with them. Some men are sufferring similar faith, but the ratio of the women tends to out weigh that of the men. Even some of these ladies go to the extent of confronting other ladies to stay off this same woman 'panel beater' of a man.

I used to have this couple (not married) as a neighbor when i was single. This couple battle....I mean, BATTLE. I could visibly feel the fibration of their fight on the wall in my room. You dare not intervene, that would be your undoing, they will both pounce on you.. The next day, you will see the lady all dressed up heading for work with a black eye only to re-enact similar or worse 'war scenario' in just some few days ahead.

Ladies, what's the driving force?

francleanflexy: this thread is very informative esp the number 1 cause i have seen a lot of women who put the babies to sleep by their side or by the stomach

True! Lying our daughter on her stomach was the favourate position my wife and I normally engage.