Children's Book Review: The bee who could not choose her flower

the bee who could not choose her flower

A truly delightful children's book that teaches children about learning how to trust themselves and the power of the choices they have. - Intentional Conscious Parenting



WINNER, Moms Choice Awards for Excellence Gold Medal; SILVER WINNER, Moonbeam Childrens Book Awards, Best Childrens Book Series.

This beautifully-crafted rhyming bedtime tale for kids ages 4 through 8 takes us on an adventure with Bee, a little hero who struggles with indecision. Bee must learn to trust herself to make choices which improve her life and her happiness. Imaginatively illustrated, this book, which is part of the Conscious Bedtime Story Club collection, is a sure-fire winner for parents seeking conscious parenting tools. This book will help children recognize and manage the process of making the many daily choices with which they are constantly presented. The book ends with Choosing Time, a set of questions to help young listeners and readers to recognize the choices they made each day, and to become more aware of and comfortable with that process.

Purchase a copy here. 

Experts: Infant Massages Can Help Babies Through Tough Times

Today, 82% of massage therapists say they started practicing massage therapy as a second career. Now, many of those massage therapists are suggesting infant massages to help parents bond with their child.

For many infants, parents find that it can be hard for them to relax and be calm in stressful, anxiety-ridden situations. According to Massage Magazine, massage techniques are being used by parents and in hospitals to help infants relax and fall asleep while they're dealing with stressful situations such as gas, colic, colds, and sleeping problems. Massage therapists are now taking steps to teach parents how to properly massage their infants at home, too.

Study Shows Link Between Smartphone Use and Lack of Sleep Among Teens

A new study found that teens are getting less sleep than they did before the rise of smartphones. This not at all surprising data is prompting concerns about health consequences of smartphones use and insomnia.

The study, published in the journal Sleep Medicine, looked at 370,000 adolescent participants. The two surveys were conducted over many years and included questions asking how many hours of sleep they got each night.

The researchers focused on the years from 2009 and 2015. These years were chosen because they were "when the mobile technology really saturated the market among adolescents," said Zlatan Krizan, a psychologist specializing in sleep and social behaviour at Iowa State University and co-author of the study.

There was a noticeable shift in the amount of sleep a typical teen got over the six-year period.

The data shows that teens were 16 to 17% more likely to report getting less than seven hours of sleep in 2015 than in 2009. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that is below the recommended amount of sleep for 13 to 18-year olds, which is eight to 10 hours per night.

Other factors considered during the study were working after school, homework, and watching TV. However, those numbers stayed relatively the same between 2009 and 2015.

The researchers emphasize that the lack of sleep does not solely rely on the use of phones at night. In fact, teens who used the technology for two or less hours a day didn't appear to have any issues with their sleep patterns. Those who had five hours of use or more each day were the ones who had their sleep patterns disrupted most.

With about half of all cell phone users in the U.S. having a smartphone, more and more people are seeing the impacts of the device on sleep, productivity, and even cognitive functions.

One study in particular provides preliminary research that shows smartphones are linked to reduced cognitive abilities. The researchers stated an intensive smartphone use was associated with a reduced math performance.

When heavy smartphone users were compared with nonusers, the researchers found that heavy users had a reduced excitability in the prefrontal cortex.

Avid Hadar of Ben-Gurion University, the study's corresponding author, said the findings suggest that “intensive smartphone usage can result in changes to our cognitive capabilities, bearing in mind that some of these changes may be disadvantageous and some beneficial.”


Kelsey R. is a writer and an avid world traveler. When she’s not writing or listening to 80s music, you can find her exploring different countries, taking selfies with her dog Lady, and in constant search for the perfect brownie recipe.

What kind of a parent do you want to be?

Guest post from Christina Fletcher

A child sees an ornament or beautiful item at a store, and in her own curiosity and wonder reaches up to touch it, to feel it, to know it.

As a parent, we see it from the other angle… will the ornament break, will the store person get stressed, will our child do something wrong… will we “get into trouble” or even just embarrassed?

The mirage of thought traffic that goes through our heads at that moment is almost bottlenecked, often resulting in a snapping remark of “Don’t Touch” or grabbing a child before fleeing out the door.

We then feel guilty or awkward, knowing within that we might have repressed our child’s own sense of curiosity.

As parents, we often forget that we are also still people as well. We carry with us baggage from our own childhood, from beliefs of how we should act, how our children should act and often we don’t pack light. From the moment we sit with our children in our arms for the first time, we can feel pulled in all directions, scrambling to uncover what we really think and feel: Who are we each in this role of a parent, what is important to us, what do we want our children to know for sure?

New Study Finds More Intense Physical Activity Reduces Death Risk Among Older Women

A new study from Harvard researchers found that just one brisk walk a week could cut an older woman's risk of early death by nearly 70%. The study concludes that more physical activity, especially at increased intensities, could lead to an increase in life expectancy among older females.

Previous studies have found that self-reported active people have about 20 to 30% lower death rates than those who were least active.