Parenting Myths: Fact or Fiction?

Over the years, I have heard many parenting myths and have probably adhered to some of them too which not only sound weird but probably are totally made up. Us as parents though, want to do right by our children and bring them up best as possible so when we hear these weird myths, we feel like we need to believe them 'just in case'.
I remember my grandma saying all sorts of weird things to me growing up about what I should and shouldn't do and the consequences if I didn't follow them. Just some of them are:

• If you eat your crusts you will get curly hair. Well that didn't happen with me as crusts were my favourite part of the loaf of bread and I have straight hair.

• If you have heartburn when you are pregnant your child will have thick hair when they are born. Against, totally false as I suffered really bad with heartburn when I was pregnant with Thomas and he was born with a minimal amount of hair.

• Children should be seen and not heard. Really? Are you being serious? That's probably what you would have believed if you'd raised a family 100 years ago and yet I still hear people saying it nowadays. Why should children bee silent? They are children. They should be shouting, screaming, singing, playing, getting dirty and having a great time because those younger years don't last long and eventually they'll be grown up and those years will have passed them by.

• Carrying your bump high means that you are having a girl if it's low then you are having a boy. Although I don't usually believe myths, this was actually true for me as both my pregnancies I had very low bumps and had boys so I guess this one is correct for me. 

Like in the video above, a big myth was that if children wear shoes, it will help them to walk earlier. I am sorry but I don't agree with this at all. I actually hate seeing babies and small children wearing shoes because they can affect the way their feet grow and can cause lasting damage, especially hard soled footwear, and so my tip is to always let children under 2 go shoe-less or wear soft soled shoes that wont bring on any bad effects.

So, where can you go to get the real facts about parenting and bust those myths. Well CANparent are a new government initiative that are providing high quality parenting classes which will help to support the parenting skills of both mums and dads. The classes can cover things like routines and why they are important for children, why play is important, behaviour solutions and many more interesting topics that are great for parents to know. You can also like them on Facebook to see all of their upcoming classes and get advice too.

Don't believe everything you hear and go on your instincts. You are the parent at the end of the day and you know best.

Now, before I go, let me leave you with my favourite 2 urban myths that my mum use to say to me:

If you play with your bellybutton, your bum will fall off!

Stop pulling faces, if the wind changes it will stay like that!

Isn't it weird that I actually find myself saying these now too!

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