NEW Must Have Parenting App: Milestones from @lyfeline_corp

This post is brought to you by Lyfeline Corporation. All opinions are mine. This really is a great parenting app!

Even as a parent of three children, I still worry sometimes if my children are developmentally where they need to be, especially when my children are babies!

If you are like me and need a little reassurance or help knowing how your baby is doing in their development, then you have got to check out one of my new favorite apps, Milestones! I have been on it every day since I downloaded it learning new things about my little guy, getting advice how I can help him develop appropriately and learning lots of great parenting tips!

Milestones provides a first ever opportunity for parents to track their child’s development directly on a smartphone. Working with researchers and pediatricians from Stanford and USCF, Lyfeline Corporation has developed a solution that enables parents to analyze, track, and promote their child's development through their smartphone. In the 2 months since the invite-only soft launch, over 10,000 parents are using Milestones to realize their child’s full potential.

Utilizing an American Academy of Pediatrics recommended series of development questions, parents gain an in-depth look into their child’s fine and gross motor, language, social and self-help progression. Parents also receive percentile benchmarking relative to the child’s age group.

It was really interesting to see the results for my 19 month old son. He was right on track in some areas, ahead in others and a little behind in areas like verbal and small motor. But what's great is that the app then gives me great activities and tips on how to help my son develop more in these areas.

Utilizing assessment results, Milestones creates a targeted program tailored to the child’s developmental needs and forthcoming milestones. Derived from leading edge research and proven medical practice, parents are provided fun activities and information cards that encourage healthy growth.

I really enjoyed learning about and trying the hundreds of fun, age-appropriate activities created by pediatricians that were specifically targeted at promoting healthy development in my son. I have already seen them working and I love watching my son learn new things!

Plus, Milestones offers some FUN regular weekly contests where users can win Amazon and Target Gift Cards, just for using the app! So not only do you get to learn about your child and help them, but you get to have some fun doing it! :)

There's no denying it, Lyfeline's Milestones is a true parenting game changer. Make sure to head to your app store and check it out! It is FREE and is one of the only pediatrician recommended parenting apps that offers Personalized Child Development Assessments! Find out how your child is doing and even get the tools to help them!

Buy It:

You can purchase the Milestones app for FREE from the Google Play Store and the iTunes App Store ; in-app Monthly Subscription Premium feature package available

* This post is brought to you by Milestones. All opinions are mine. This really is a great parenting app!*

New Book Alert! Raising Kids to Thrive: Balancing Love With Expectations and Protection With Trust

This post is sponsored by the Role Mommy Writer's Network. All opinions are mine.

If you are a parent, one of your main goals in life is probably to raise healthy, responsible and loved children. But I am sure you have found that task isn't always very easy. It is definitely easier said than done especially with hormonal teenagers, terrible twos (and threes!), independent tweens and all the in between stages of childhood! Every day has new challenges and sometimes I don't know if what I am doing is good or bad anymore!

Am I raising children I can be proud of? Am I doing the right things as a parent? Those and so many more are questions I ask myself every day.

So I am so glad to now have a copy of Ken Ginsburg's new book, Raising Kids to Thrive: Balancing Love With Expectations and Protection With Trust. In this great book, renowned resilience expert, Ken Ginsburg MD, MS ED, FAAP, combines his experience with perspective from his teenage daughters and over 500 adolescents.

In this latest book, best-selling author, pediatrician and resilience expert, Kenneth R. Ginsburg, MD, MS Ed, FAAP, offers essential tips on fostering resilience in teens. He gently helps parents understand how they can meet the challenge to balance unconditional love, yet still hold high expectations for their children. Through his “Lighthouse Parenting Strategy,” he also helps parents recognize when to set boundaries and when to get out of kids’ ways.

This groundbreaking book includes two chapters written by Dr. Ginsburg’s twin teenage daughters, and interweaves opinions and input of over 500 adolescents who participated in the “Youth View” chapters. By combining the wealth of experience from Dr. Ginsburg and insightful commentary from today’s teenagers, Raising Kids to Thrive offers a fresh take on how to successfully parent teens in today’s complicated world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kenneth R. Ginsburg, M.D., M.S. Ed, FAAP is a specialist in adolescent medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and a professor or pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is also director of health services at Covenant House Pennsylvania. He has over 100 publications, including 30 scientific articles and 5 books including the award-winning / best-selling Building Resilience in Children and Teens (American Academy of Pediatrics). He drafted the AAP policy statement on The Power of Play and has been an expert source for several prominent parenting news articles and reports in media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, TIME Magazine, ABC News, Yahoo! Parenting, NBC News and CNN. He is working with The Boys and Girls Clubs of America to incorporate resilience-building strategies into their programming. He is also honored to be working with military parents and professionals to incorporate stress reduction and resilience building strategies into the lives of our nearly 2 million military-affiliated children. His greatest privilege is to be a husband and the father of two teenaged daughters.

Raising Kids to Thrive will help parents to raise kids who thrive for lifetime by:

* Balancing unconditional love with high expectations.

* Eliminate the need for helicopter or “tiger” parenting.

* Start meaningful conversations with their children by being a sounding board, not necessarily a dictator.

* Become a stable beacon so their children can turn to them for guidance and self-measurement.

* Understand and accept that people are uneven and the importance of expecting growth, not perfection from children.

* Reduce anxiety – for themselves and their kids – as they venture out on their own and move into adulthood.

* Holding our kids to high moral standards, while also being a role model for those standards.

If you have teenagers, up and coming teenagers or just want to be ready for this challenging stage, then Raising Kids To Thrive: Balancing Love With Expectations and Protection With Trust is a must have in your home library! This book will be released March 24 (tomorrow!) so you don't even have to wait to get this book in your hands!

Buy It: 

You can purchase Raising Kids To Thrive: Balancing Love With Expectations and Protection With Trust is available at bookstores nationwide and online from Amazon.com for $13.56; also available from shop.AAP.org/books, the award-winning AAP Web site for parents.

* This post is sponsored by the Role Mommy Writer's Network. All opinions are mine.*