Many new parents are understandably nervous and apprehensive about introducing a new baby to their dog, but with the right preparation such a meeting can be happy and free from problems. The time to begin preparing for the meeting is long before mom and baby come home from the hospital, and it is important to get started as early as possible.

The arriving of a newborn baby can bring many changes to a family. Parents spend lots of energy on preparations, and after the baby arrives, lots of the family's attention involves meeting the newly born’s basic wants.

Regardless of how sweet your child is or how good a parent you are, meltdowns are a fact of child life. So try and remember that your child's tantrums are not a mirrored image of your parenting abilities: they just mean that you have a frustrated little child on your hands.

Thumb sucking

This is an innocent habit, not a sign of emotional insecurity. It gives pleasure to one-third of young children; the other two-thirds never suck their thumbs. The average age that children stop is three and a half years, though many continue until they're five and two per cent are still sucking at thirteen years.

Sleep problems

By school age most children sleep through the night. The main sleep problem they have is a difficulty getting off to sleep. This comes from one of three reasons:

There are specific behaviors that have serious repercussions on a social level when modeled to your child. We are speaking especially of substance abuse. Drug addiction is a serious problem that affects children at all socioeconomic levels. The one most consistent cause of drug addiction or substance abuse of any kind by children is the model parents provide. Drinking is certainly one way parents influence their children. Parents who smoke can expect their children to try cigarettes by as young as age six, when parental behaviors have become internalized. The same is true of most other addictive habits.