15 Ideas to Help Protect your Children when they use the Internet

Violence, sex, nudity, and explicit language, pornography, online gambling, online predators, viruses, spyware, and adware; these are some of the threats that your kids can encounter while using the internet. And since you can’t monitor them all the time, you need to find ways to protect your kids from these threats. Here are some of those ways:

1.    Teach them to stay secure. Talk to them about personal security while using the internet. Tell them to refuse giving any personal information to people they meet online. Avoid filling out membership and survey forms that would entail them to state their personal information.

2.    Place your computer in a place where you can monitor your kids’ use of the internet and not in their bedroom.

3.    Set up house rules to limit your kids’ internet access.

4.    Keep your kids’ computer account “limited. This will keep you in control over the significant access to the computer.

5.    Discourage them from making personal profiles using online networking websites that can be viewed by anyone. Sites like MySpace create venues for online predators to access different personal information for their predatory purposes. If your kids already have profiles posted on the web, make sure that you know what pictures and personal information they post. Also, view their personal blogs.

6.    If your kids are young enough to use the regular web browser, download web-browsers that are made for kids. They filter bad websites and limit your kids’ access to pre-approved webpages.

7.    Tell them to avoid peer-to-peer file-sharing softwares. This is because viruses, spyware, and adware can freely enter your computer through these softwares.

8.    Use internet filtering software to block bad websites from your computer.

9.    Use internet monitoring software to secretly track the activity of your kids from websites visited, chat rooms entered, downloads, conversation, and IMs.

10.    Attend to your kids immediately if they report any uncomfortable online exchanges they have encountered.

11.    Share a common email address so that you can monitor their messages.

12.    If they use instant messaging, make sure that you know who are on their list.

13.    If they enter chat rooms, tell them to stay in the public room so that the chat room administrator can monitor your conversation. Tell them to ignore private messages.

14.    Tell them not to meet personally with strangers they only met online.

15.    And, teach them to approach you whenever they have any doubts on the emails and messages they receive, window popups that appears, and forms they were asked to fill-out.

Many of these ideas are simple by themselves, but the main point behind all of these ideas is communication.  Almost every idea is a talk about, teach, and prepare children to use the internet properly and as parents we have the ability to help our children be save.  Talk about it with your children.  I have never heard a parent say “boy that talk about internet(or anything else) safety was a waist of time.”  You will be better for it!

9 Facts of Fiber

If you’ve been looking for a way towards a high octane diet, you’ll find fiber to be exactly what you need.  Even though research has shown fiber to be powerful, many people aren’t taking this nutrient seriously.

To help you fuel your health with fiber, here are 9 interesting facts to help.

1.  Fiber fights diseases.  A diet high in fiber can help to prevent colon cancer and heart disease.  High fiber helps the body to eliminate cholesterol by  binding it in the digestive tract.  For thousands of years, fiber has been used to stop constipation.

2.  Fiber can actually help with overeating.  All high fiber foods will take longer to chew and digest, making you feel satisfied longer

3.  Most popular foods don’t have enough fiber.  If you like the more popular foods, you probably need to increase your intake of fiber.

4.  Grains offer the most fiber.  Dietary fiber is actually plant matter that we cannot digest.  The best sources are whole grains and concentrated grain products.

5.  Kids need fiber as well.  Children that are older than 2 years of age should consume a daily intake of fiber.  Kids are most receptive to fiber found in fruits, vegetables, and even fortified breakfast cereals.

6.  More fiber needs more water.  In order to keep fiber moving through your digestive tract, you’ll need to consume a lot of water.  With your diet of fiber, you’ll need eight or more glasses of water every day.

7.  Fiber cannot be cooked out.  When you cook your fruits and vegetables, don’t worry about cooking the fiber out, as it stays.  The fiber found in fruits and vegetables aren’t just in the skin or in the peel.

8.  You can get enough fiber.  If you eat more than 50 grams of fiber in a day, you can get diarrhea and bloating, which can interfere with your body’s absorption of other key minerals.

9.  Getting the right amount of fiber in your diet doesn’t have to be hard.  Even though you may think so, getting the amount of fiber you need isn’t very hard to do.  All you have to do is eat the right foods and you’ll be well on your way to a fiber
rich lifestyle.

As one of the key ingredients to healthy eating, fiber is something you don’t want to skip.  Fiber can serve many different purposes, which were covered above.  If you aren’t getting enough fiber in your diet – you should do something about now instead of waiting until it is too late.

Beginner Aerobics

If you are just getting started with aerobics, you might be feeling overwhelmed. It is true that there are many ways to work out, and that if you can manage to get a good workout you are going to be much more healthy. It is also true that you need to have a course of workout in which your body is moving fast and your heart and lungs are forced to work harder than when you are at rest. This is called aerobic exercise, and it is something that is very important that you understand.

Don’t think that you have to start at the top right away. Advanced aerobics can be something that you have to work up to. This includes running in place and doing a series of movements that you might find very intimidating to start with. And also, it isn’t safe to start anywhere other than as a beginner, because you might hurt yourself and you also might run into problems. Therefore, you have to start form the beginning if you want to be able to get the most benefit from your routine.

Beginning aerobics are very easy and they are something that you can do even from home. The point is to get your blood flowing, so beginning aerobics using start with walking in place and moving your arms and legs in order to get your heart rate up. Then, you gradually proceed to doing more and more movements and to doing them faster.

A great thing to do for beginning aerobics is to start by walking or jogging in place. You can then start moving your arms up and down. The point of aerobics is to get your heart going, and the best way to do this is to keep on doing movements, like jumping jacks, for as many repetitions as you can do. This is the best way for you to start with aerobic training, because you are able to work your way up from nothing and really get in good shape as you do this.

Something else that you should keep in mind is that aerobics often work better to music. The way that it works is that you can use the music to keep your tempo and to keep your working hard. You can also time your exercises to music – you can do one set for an entire song, for instance. Music can be your motivator and it can help you keep working out.

Savings Accounts are Important

There are many different reasons that prompt people to create a savings account. You may be looking to create a savings account to have some extra money for emergencies or to save up for a vacation. Perhaps you would like to save money for your children’s college education or simply provide them a security net when they enter adulthood. Some people may create a savings account because they want to save money for retirement. All of these reasons are typical for most people. There could be thousands of reasons that any one person opens a savings account. The problem is what type of saving account do you open? Well, first things first, you should know that the best benefit of a savings account is that they all earn interest on the money in the account. Typical interest rates are anywhere from .55% to 4.25%.

Banks usually have many different levels of savings account that all require different deposits and balances. These range from regular savings to what may be called platinum savings, money market accounts and retirement accounts. Each will have different fees, deposit and balance requirements. You will want to research different banks to find the one most suitable for your savings account needs.

The internet has made life easier for a great many people and it is no different when it comes to banking. The internet has opened the doors to many more options when it comes to a savings account. Thanks to the internet, it has never been easier to do comparison-shopping with different banks. You can shop and compare the different rates and other benefits, right in your web browser. Talk about convenience! What is even better is that the internet has now allowed people to do their banking right online, in the comfort of their own home. You should consider opening an online savings account.

By opening an online savings account, you will be able to have complete control over your money in an instant. You see, many people have turned to an online savings account because it sure beats going to the bank every time you need to check your balance, transfer money into a personal checking account or just see what transactions have occurred in your online savings account. You can have access to a statement prior to ever seeing one in the mail. In fact, many banks now offer the option of receiving your online savings account statement online or paper through the mail. The choice is yours.

An online savings account has numerous benefits. The first is being able to perform all of your banking duties right in the comfort of your home. Another benefit of an online savings account is that you eliminate or at the very least reduce trips to the bank. With an online savings account, you can check your balance, transfer money to and from another account and review your account history without ever having to leave the house. This saves you a great deal of time and money.

Common Deadly Eating Disorders

Three Deadly Eating Disorders

Healthy eating is very important for our everyday lives, but unfortunately, many people develop problems with body image with prevent them from this healthy eating lifestyle. Eating disorders vary greatly from person to person, but one thing remains constant—they are very detrimental to a person’s health. If you or someone you know suffers from an eating disorder, it is important to seek help as soon as possible.

The first kind of eating disorder that a person may develop is anorexia. Anorexia occurs when someone is overly concerned with weight and simply refuses to eat. Someone suffering from this disease usually tries to hide it by discarding the food without anyone knowing, cutting the food into small pieces to make it look smaller, or lying about skipping entire meals. Anorexia is dangerous because it does not allow a person to lose weight in a healthy way. Cutting fat out of a diet is fine, but not getting enough proteins, vitamins, minerals, water, and other nutrients can make your body lose muscle weight and weaken.

Another major type of eating disorder is bulimia. While you may notice an anorexic person losing lots of weight in a hurry, someone who has bulimia may or may not be losing weight. If a person has bulimia, he or she does not have the will power to give up foods, but instead vomits or uses laxatives after meals to rid the body of these foods. Like anorexia, this can rob the body of key nutrients, and it can also lead to problems in the digestive system, throat, and mouth, which are not made for regular induced vomiting.

The third main type of eating disorder is binge eating. This is a combination of anorexia and bulimia in most cases. A binge eater will, like a bulimic, not deprive his- or herself from food. In fact, someone who is a binge eater will eat enormous amounts of food in a single sitting, and often these foods are not high in nutritional value. Instead of vomiting, a binge eater will then refuse to eat at all and exercise rigorously for a day or two, but then slip into a binge once again. This leads to major problems with weight.

Eating disorders can effect bother males and females, as well as people of any race, ethnicity, or age. Most commonly, victims of eating disorders are teen and young adult girls. Many people die every year due to complications with eating disorders, but if you or someone you know suffers from this problem, help is available.

Why Keep a Postitive Attitude

You surely have heard about “positive thinking”, but why bother? Is there any reason you should make the effort to retain only positive thoughts? This article shares some ideas why you may in fact want to make this effort.

Higher Productivity

Maintaining a positive attitude may lead to higher productivity, whether in your career or personal life. When you are negative, you tend to give up more easily, get frustrated, get easily distracted, and drag your feet. A simple thing such as how you think can make a world of difference. W. Clement Stone spoke of this when he said “There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude.The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.”. Whether you want higher productivity is up to you, however consider the cause and effect of your attitude. Zig Ziglar also spoke of this when he said “Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.”.

Better Relationships

Who wants to be around a negative person? Do you? When you are negative, you are sending out signals to others to stay away from you, unless perhaps they are also negative and seek a similar mindset. Do you want to attract negative people, or positive people? Ken Keyes Jr. touched on the reality of this when he said “A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world; everyone you meet is your mirror.” Your attitude affects both personal relationships, and career relationships. While the impact of your attitude in a personal relationship is perhaps more obvious, in the workplace it’s often less obvious. It’s the relationships, trust, and rapport you build with others which contribute greatly to advancement opportunities, and should not be overlooked.

Better Health

Both modern medical providers and ancient practitioners have said that your attitude can affect your health. Your body takes queues from your mind, and negative thoughts can be disruptive to your internal body processes. Handling stress is a key challenge for us, to avoid stress-induced illnesses. The reverse is also true that having good health will contribute towards a positive attitude, so take care of your body! A holistic approach is to focus on your mind and body together, ensuring you are eating well and getting exercise.

Happiness

Happiness is perhaps one of the most important things of all, what good are the other things above if you aren’t happy? Financial success doesn’t necessarily equate to happiness, many wealthy people are quite unhappy. Happiness is really a state of mind, and we have complete control of our own minds. Unfortunately, many leave their thoughts and emotions on “autopilot”, never deciding for themselves how they want to think. Maintaining a positive attitude equates to a decision to be happy, it’s your choice! Buddha summarized how to remain happy no matter how bad things may seem when he said “Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.”. It’s also important to not miss the things that truly make us happy, which is not typically money, but often little things we take for granted. As Robert Brault said, “Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”.

Spiritual Growth

If you believe in a creator, or practice a religious belief, then you may also believe that remaining positive is part of a spiritual growth path. Many religions teach this basic premise, that we should remain positive and trust in our creator no matter how bad things may seem. Even if you don’t have spiritual beliefs, perhaps you feel something within your conscience that urges you to be positive, and thus have a positive impact on others in your life. Being positive makes others feel good, which is rewarding in itself.

You Are Your Thoughts

What are you but your thoughts? Mahatma Gandhi said “A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.” What do you want to be? Your thoughts have more impact than you realize, and define who you are, how others react to you, what comes into your life, and how you will be remembered when you are no longer here. What type of person do you want to be? Make sure your thoughts and attitudes support your definition of yourself!

How to Do It

How to maintain a positive attitude is a subject for a different article as there are many methods to achieve it. However, deciding you WANT to do this is a key first step, and can lead you towards pursuing methods which work for you. A good second step is to begin to simply recognize when you are not feeling positive, and pause to reflect on whether you want to CHOOSE to feel that way or not. Getting your mind out of autopilot puts you back into control, which is fundamental to changing your attitude.

We believe in you and want to help you in any way  that we can.  Please let us know if there is anything we can help with!

Benefits on Aerobic Training

There are more benefits of aerobics for your body that you could possibly count. All over the world today, people are talking about new and better ways to work out, because all over the world the health rates of people are falling into very dangerous territories. That means that doctors and other health care professionals have been talking about the benefits of aerobics for some time. You too can cash in on this get kind of exercise.

There are simply too many benefits of aerobics to mention quickly. However, there are a few that stick out as very important. For instance, the best way that you can make sure you are living a healthy life is to get your heart rate pumping, and the absolute best way to get your heart rate going is to find something that you can do like aerobics, that requires constant movement without any resting In order to be really and truly healthy, you have to be able to have a constant movement and to get your heart rate going for a length of time. Allowing your hear to keep going a higher rate than resting for a set amount of time is one of the best ways to get healthy, because this delivers blood and oxygen to each part of your body at an even faster rate.

There are also many more benefits of aerobics that you might not have even realized. Besides for making your heart and lungs strong, aerobics makes all of your muscles stronger because you have to keep them moving for longer periods of time without stopping. This means that no matter what part of your body you are concentrating your aerobics on working, you’re going to find that you are getting stronger and stronger as time goes on.

You should talk to a doctor if you are interested in getting a full list of the benefits of aerobics, but know right away that there are many. Before you begin an aerobics routine, however, you should be sure that you are talking to your doctor, because there are some people who need to work their way up to a full fledge routine because of other health issues. Be sure that you have the green light from your doctor so you can get started on getting the benefits of aerobics straight to yourself! You will never feel so healthy as when you are working out and taking care of yourself, and getting into an aerobics routine is the best way for you to accomplish this.

Another idea is to get a personal trainer or health coach to help you get started.  These people have have had special training on nutrition and fitness techniques if you are interested in either in your area please shoot us an email.

Thoughts on Why to Invest

Investing has become increasingly important over the years, as the future of social security benefits becomes unknown.

People want to insure their futures, and they know that if they are depending on Social Security benefits, and in some cases retirement plans, that they may be in for a rude awakening when they no longer have the ability to earn a steady income. Investing is the answer to the unknowns of the future.

You may have been saving money in a low interest savings account over the years. Now, you want to see that money grow at a faster pace. Perhaps you’ve inherited money or realized some other type of windfall, and you need a way to make that money grow. Again, investing is the answer.

Investing is also a way of attaining the things that you want, such as a new home, a college education for your children, or expensive ‘toys.’ Of course, your financial goals will determine what type of investing you do.

If you want or need to make a lot of money fast, you would be more interested in higher risk investing, which will give you a larger return in a shorter amount of time. If you are saving for something in the far off future, such as retirement, you would want to make safer investments that grow over a longer period of time.

The overall purpose in investing is to create wealth and security, over a period of time. It is important to remember that you will not always be able to earn an income… you will eventually want to retire.

You also cannot count on the social security system to do what you expect it to do. As we have seen with Enron, you also cannot necessarily depend on your company’s retirement plan either. So, again, investing is the key to insuring your own financial future, but you must make smart investments!

We have networked with fee only planners look at just one of their websites.  Let us know if there is more that you would like to know and information we can give you!

Be Happy Now

Are you still waiting for your circumstances to change before you’ll allow yourself to be happy?  Most of us have preconceived ideas of what would make us happy, and we refuse to be satisfied until those things happen.

The problem is that even once specific things happen in our lives, we’re rarely satisfied with them!  Instead, we shift our focus to something even bigger and better, believing “it” will make us happy (or happier).  We never allow ourselves to reach a point of contentment.  Have you done the same thing to yourself?

The good news is that you can decide to be happy NOW – even if not everything in your life is perfect.  Below you’ll find 3 easy ways to do so:

1)    Be grateful.  Gratitude is one of the most powerful states of mind that you can adopt.  Not only does it make you feel good, it shifts your focus from what you don’t have to what you DO have, and keeps it there!  As you focus more on what you are grateful to have in your life (even the really small blessings!), you worry less about anything that may be lacking.  The result?  A more pervasive sense of happiness!

2)    Take time to smell the roses.  If you spend most of your days feeling rushed and scattered, it’s hard to feel happy and content.  In order to be truly happy, you need to make time for yourself to relax, dream, and take pleasure in life’s simpler moments.  Beginning today, make sure to spend time doing things you love on a regular basis.  Read books that stimulate your imagination; listen to great music; take long walks, and generally make an effort to enjoy your life as it is right now.

3)    Love the journey.  Many of us make the mistake of pinning all of our expectations on some vague, far-off result, like the completion of goals.  We believe that once we “get there” everything will be perfect and we’ll finally be happy.  However, there is much to be gained from enjoying the journey TO your destination!  Make it your mission to revel in every moment that you’re working toward higher goals.  Enjoy the sense of self-mastery and accomplishment you gain with every goal you achieve.  Make it a worthwhile journey and you’ll savor the end result that much more!

Just some things to think about as you are going about you life and hopefully these articles are helpful for you.  Our goal is to help everyone have a better life and hope that others will contribute.  Please feel free to comment on any of the articles if you want to add to any or make suggestions please fill free.

Reduce Stress will Help Lower Anxiety

Anxiety disorders are often a product of stress. From GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) to panic disorder, you can cut back on the anxiety in your life simply by reducing stress. Stress is normal in daily life no matter who you are, but if you let your stress take control of your life, serious problems will arise. Fortunately, ongoing stress is easy to overcome, but it is important to know the steps to doing so.

Stress is an internal reaction triggers by external factors, like pressure. One of the best ways to overcome these reactions is with plenty of exercise. Daily exercise can help you learn to physically deal with stress by improving your tolerance to stress during exercise. During a panic attack, most people feel short of breath and a pounding heart. A hard workout gives you these same experiences, but in a healthy way. AS you exercise more and more, you push your body to accept these conditions without panicking.

Getting a good night’s sleep is also very important to reducing stress. Stress can physically wear out a person’s body, and without sleep, you will feel the effects of stress much more readily. This can lead to anxiety disorders very easily. To get enough sleep, make sure that you schedule at least 8 hours for sleeping. Don’t eat or drink lots of sugar or caffeine products before bedtime and try to do relaxing activities in the few hours before bedtime. If necessary, see your doctor for help with sleeping problems.

Another key to reducing stress is to schedule time for non-work related activities. Take vacations or at least days off in order to have fun. Work is a major cause of stress, and with that stress comes worry about money, health, and many other things. By setting aside specific time to enjoy yourself with loved ones or on your own, you can physically and mentally set aside the stress for at least a few hours. Try to have at least an hour to yourself every day and an entire long weekend every few months to purely enjoy fun activities.

Lastly, work to reduce stress by learning to think a bit differently about life. Some of the most stressed-out people are perfectionists. While this can be a good trait, it can also go too far. Know when to let something go. Also, think positively about your life. When you worry that you aren’t good enough or are upset about little things, they really add up to hurt you. Managing your thought process is just part of the battle, but if you work at reducing stress, you can avoid developing anxiety problems.