The Importance of Play

How much time do you set aside each day for play? No matter what your age - or the age of your children - play is vital to your health and longevity. With technology and medical research helping people to live longer than ever before, staying young at heart is just as important as staying physically fit.

Six types of play are outlined in the PsyBlog article that I recently discovered:

1. Unoccupied Play
2. Solitary Play
3. Onlooker Play
4. Parallel Play
5. Associate Play
6. Cooperative Play

"Through play children learn and practice many basic social skills. They develop a sense of self, learn to interact with other children, how to make friends, how to lie and how to role-play."

According to Mildred Parten, from the Institute of Child Development in Minnesota, "Learning to play is learning how to relate to others."

Read more on play and how children learn to work together.

ParenTeam: Stay-At-Home-Dads and Their Working Woman

Millions of dads are saying NO to corporate life and opting to stay home with their children.

Dual-income, stressed-out families are taking back their lives and embracing an alternative that provides more balance, control and happiness.

ParenTeam is devoted to making life easier by offering the best advice, inspiration and tricks-of-the-trade to help the stay-at-home husband work together with his working wife as a parenting team.

The work-family balancing act takes on new meaning when a stay-at-home dad is at the helm. At ParenTeam, you'll get a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the daily life of a successful SAHD and see how he handles kitchen duty, household chores, discipline, shopping, schlepping around town, bedtime/naptime hassles and how he sprinkles everything he does with hugs & kisses.