Keep A Healthy Relationship With Your Child As A Weekend Parent

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Are you a weekend parent? Ultimately, it’s possible that your partner is the main care provider for your child due to your relationship ending. This means that you will likely only see your child at the weekends, some evenings or in the holidays. The reason for this is that courts don’t tend to provide equal custody unless you live close enough for the child to go to the same school while they are with you. This can be restricting because it limits how far away you can move from your partner and you probably don’t want to be close to someone that you have split from. 

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Keep Things Amicable 

First, you need to make sure that you work to keep things amicable between you and your partner. It’s important to ensure that your child doesn’t feel as though they are entering a battle ground when they see you or that they have to choose a side. This should start from the beginning because rather than heading to court for a divorce you can explore an option like family mediation. This will put far less of a strain on the relationship your child has with you and your partner. 

Make Your Time Together Count 

Next, you should think about the time that you spend together when they are in your care or at your house. It’s important that you make the time, however limited, count. This might mean that you should avoid going on your phone or another tech device when you are with your kids. It doesn't matter what you do as long as you are spending time that is focused on them or the both of you. 

Use The Tech At Your Fingertips

It’s important to use the tech at your fingertips when you are a weekend parent. You won’t always be able to see your child in person as often as you like. But there’s no limit on how often you can call them or speak to them. If you are comfortable with your former partner, then you can likely speak to them every day. That’s important as it ensures that you are a more active part of their life. It might seem unnecessary to ring them every day as very little is going to change in 24 hours. However, you can ask them about their day, make sure you keep up with their interests and be there if anything is wrong. 

Plan Activities 

Finally, you should think about planning out activities that you can enjoy together when your child is over or you are visiting. This will stop you from doing nothing for two days which can be dull for you and your child. Instead, you should think about engaging in lots of different activities. This could include everything from bowling to other sports or simple planning a movie night in the house. 

You might think that if you are only seeing your child on weekends or in the holidays then it could impact your relationship. The good news is that there are steps that you can take to guarantee this won’t happen. Here are some of the options we recommend. 

How To Deal With Problems Associated With Getting Older

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Unfortunately, it is inevitable that you will get older. There will always be issues associated with this and it is up to you how you tackle them. You are far more at risk of developing health related problems such as arthritis and dementia when you are over the age of 60. Here is a list of ailments you may find yourself worrying about and how to overcome them.

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Mental Health

This is vital to keep watch over, when you get to a certain age you are far more at risk of developing cognitive problems such as memory loss associated with dementia or Alzeihmers. It is thought that once you stop keeping your brain busy and active it simply starts to decline. Previously your brain would have been kept active through work or going out with friends. Once you get to retirement age this happens less often. You need to make a conscious effort to keep your brain healthy, this can be done through word and number puzzles such as sudoku and crosswords. 

Diet & Exercise

As you get older you may find it heartbreaking that you can’t eat all the wonderful things you could before. Once you are in your prime your body starts to need less calories, you may find that you need to eat little and often rather than three meals a day. This is due to your metabolism slowing right down, this usually happens around the age of 50. If you continue to eat as you did before you may find that you are putting on more weight around your middle, this is known as middle-aged spread but it can happen in old-age as well. 

You should also be aiming to complete at least 30/45 minutes of exercise each day to keep away any weight-related conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and strokes. Exercise should be gentle and not too strenuous on your joints. Swimming and yoga are great examples of this. 

Physical Health 

You may notice your physical health taking a turn for the worse as soon as you reach the age of 40, it doesn’t get much better. You might find that your joints are getting stiffer and it takes you that bit longer to get out of bed each morning. You need to be aware of various physical health complaints when you get older as they can be a sign of something more serious. One thing that will be slightly more noticeable is your need to pee more often. As you age your bladder and the muscles you use to hold your wee get weaker, this means you are far more susceptible to incontinence. This is nothing to be embarrassed about and it affects a high percentage of the older population. There are ways you can manage this, incontinence briefs and pads for example. There are more serious cases where you could consider surgery. 

We hope you found this article helpful and it gives you some top tips on how to deal with common ailments you may struggle with when you reach a certain age. Remember, to always consult your doctor if you are worried. 

4 Ways to Boost Your Self-Confidence

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The more confident you are, the easier it is to get through life. When you have high self-esteem you are far more likely to pursue your goals and dreams than you would be if you did not feel happy with who and what you are.

By boosting your self-confidence, then, you can make pretty much every area of your life, from work to dating, better, more fulfilling, and ultimately happier. But, how exactly do you boost your self-confidence? Here are a few ideas:  

1. Write down your positive qualities

We all have positive qualities, but if your self-esteem is low, it might not feel like that. Sit down with your journal and spend as long as you need to jotting down your positive qualities. Are you a hard worker? A good friend? A committed volunteer? Pretty soon your pen will be flowing and you will come to see that, actually, as a person, you’re not bad at all.

2. Improve your appearance

Many people feel better about themselves when they look good. If you are one of them, doing what you can to improve your appearance, whether it’s getting a new wardrobe tailored to fit you like a glove or booking teeth whitening sessions with your dentist, once it’s done, you will look great, and looking great will help to boost your confidence, even if it’s only just a little.

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3. Be kind to yourself

You’re probably kind to everyone you meet from friends and family members to co-workers and the people you meet in line at the store, but are you kind to yourself? If you are the kind of person who never has a good word to say about yourself, it will obviously knock your self-esteem. 

If you want to be confident, you need to start being kind to yourself, so every time you think a bad thought, whether it’s I’m too fat or I’m useless at work, think about what a good friend would say and tell yourself that. This will require your brain to think more positively about yourself and you will see a vast improvement in your self-confidence if you keep it up.

4. Set yourself a challenge

If you have no self-confidence, you will probably hate the idea of setting yourself a challenge because you will probably feel worthless and ineffective. However, doing so is a really good way to turn things around.

If you set a challenge that is not too easy, but also not impossible to achieve, and you work on meeting your goals, you will have lots of little successes along the way that show you that you are useful and you can do things if you put your mind to it. This will build up your confidence better than almost anything else, and when you achieve that ultimate goal... well you’ll be absolutely beaming with confidence, that’s for sure!

You deserve to be confident, and high self-esteem can really open doors for you, so do whatever you can to feel better about yourself today!

Three Things To Check Before You Put Your Home Up For Sale

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Have you been thinking much about putting your home up for sale? It’s something that every homeowner is going to do throughout their lifetime, but it doesn’t mean it is easy. Selling a home is not a simple task as you have to wait for the right buyers to come along. There are at least three things that you need to check are in the right order before you can put your home up for sale, and we’re going to be talking about them down below. Keep reading if you would like to find out more.

The Roof Isn’t Leaking

The first thing that you need to check is that the roof isn’t leaking at all and that there is no damage to the roof whatsoever. Of course, we entirely understand if getting up on the roof is not your thing, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be checked. As such, if you don't want to head up yourself, then you need to hire someone who will, or get a family member who will. They should go around and check that there are no issues with the roof so that you can put it on the market knowing it is in good condition.

Sometimes the problems are small and haven’t become issues on the inside, so if you can catch them before they do, it’s going to be a huge help to your life.

Everything Is In Good Condition

Another thing that you should be making sure of is that everything is in good condition. You can’t put your home on the market if there are parts of your home that are broken, unless you are intending to sell it as a fixer-upper. We doubt it though as you get less money for this, and people only tend to do this with generally run down properties. You want to go through your home and know that you are leaving everything the way it should be for the new person to come and get their stuff in. 

If there is an issue though, make sure that you are honest. Some buyers won’t mind having to do the odd job.

The Windows Are Secure

The final thing that we are going to say is that you need to make sure that the windows are secure. The last thing that you want is for the elements to come crashing through and into your home, or worse, a person. It’s for this reason that we heavily recommend looking into hurricane windows, especially if you are in an area known for hurricanes. If you don’t. It’s just going to come up on the survey anyway, which could impact your ability to sell.

We hope that you have found this article helpful, and now see three of the things that you are going to need to check before you put your home up for sale. You absolutely should not put your home on the market until it is ready to sell, as if someone decides to come and look around the property before it is ready, it could impede your ability to sell the property. We don’t want to see this happen to you, so make sure that all of these things are sorted before the for sale sign goes up.

Online Considerations For Your Business In 2022

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It does not matter what sort of business you run or what industry you operate in, the importance of making sure that you have a great online presence cannot be underestimated. After all, there are billions of people around the world who access the Internet today, so if you do not have an online presence, you are only going to end up getting left behind. With that being said, below, we are going to talk you through some of the different online areas you should be considering when it comes to moving your business forward and achieving more online in 2022.

• Consider building an online community - There is only one place to begin when it comes to your online presence in 2022, and this is by building an online community. You can use the likes of Disciple's community engagement app to do this. This is a great way of interacting with your members and building a loyal community for your brand. After all, the importance of having a loyal following that will advocate for your business cannot be underestimated in the current day and age. This gives you a great way of growing your business and taking your profit levels to a new height. 

• Re-think your approach to social media - Aside from building an online community for your business, we also recommend that you re-think your approach to social media. There are many benefits associated with social media. This is a great way for you to engage with your customers and get closer to them than ever before. At the same time, you do need to make sure that you are concentrating on the right social media platforms for your brand and that you are engaging in a meaningful manner. You cannot expect people to follow your brand and take notice if all you ever post are promotional messages.

• Think about captailizing on influencer marketing - The third area that we recommend you consider in 2022 is influencer marketing. A lot of people mistakenly believe that influencer marketing costs a fortune because it involves getting celebrities to advertise your products. However, you do not need to work with celebrities for influencer marketing to be successful. You simply need to team up with someone that has influence in your industry. Their following should represent the sort of customers that you are looking to target. This is a great way of tapping into an engaged and readymade audience. 

As you can see, there are a number of different online areas that your business should be focusing on if you want to move forward in 2022. After all, it does not matter what industry you operate in today, it is critical to make sure you have some sort of online presence. With that being said, spend some time contemplating your approach to the three areas that we have mentioned above, and we are sure that you will notice some positive improvements for your business over the months that lie ahead.