Happy kids eating ice cream

5 Child-Friendly Restaurants in Plano, Texas

/in /by

As parents, we all understand how important it is to try new things with our children because it allows for more quality time. One of the best ways to do so is by trying different restaurants. Not only is going to new restaurants a fun pastime and great relationship builder, it also teaches your child how to act in different social settings, helps develop their social skills, and teaches them proper restaurant etiquette. Before you venture into a new spot, it’s important that you make sure that the restaurant you’re going to is child-friendly.

Here are 5 child-friendly restaurants you can take your child to near the Dallas and Plano area!

1.Paciugo Gelato and Caffe, 7201 N Central Expressway Plano, TX 75025

If your child loves ice cream but you want to watch their caloric intakes, Paciugo Gelato and Caffe is a great alternative. Although it might sound surprising, gelato is healthier and slightly more flavorful than actual ice cream. With inexpensive prices at Paciugo, you also get a bigger bang for your buck and way more options!

2. Hat Creek Burger Company, 3321 S Custer Rd McKinney, TX 75070

With several different locations throughout Dallas, Hat Creek Burger Company is a great restaurant with a family-friendly environment. Although they are known for their juicy burgers, the Hat Creek Burger Company stands out from most burger joints because of their distinctive Texas touch. The restaurant also offers an outside play area where parents can watch their children play for free while they’re enjoying a delicious meal!

3. Red Truck Café, 910 W Parker Rd #101, Plano, TX 75075

If you love home-style breakfast and want a more intimate environment, the Red Truck Café is the best option for you. This restaurant is the go-to spot for a cozy meal at a reasonable price. It’s open every day from 5:30 am to 2:30pm, and your child will love their delicious breakfast options.

4. Ferrari’s Pizzeria, 3949 Legacy Dr, Plano, TX 75023

Located in the shopping plaza off Legacy Drive and Coti Road, Ferrari’s Pizzeria is a family-owned restaurant that serves authentic New York style pizza. The restaurant offers a wide range of options from pizzas, calzones, stromboli, pastas, salads, desserts, and many more!

5. Regeneration Arcade, 17721 Dallas Parkway, Dallas, Texas 75287

Located in the heart of Dallas, the Regeneration Arcade Bar and Pizzeria is a family-friendly environment that combines both the pleasures of a delicious pizzeria and a fun arcade. The pizzeria serves authentic Italian style gourmet pizzas at great prices. The arcade also offers a wide variety of games, including favorites from the 80’s and the 90’s.

At Parker-Chase

At Parker-Chase, we encourage our parents to put extra time aside to spend time with their children outside of the house. We believe that children are just like adults and they need time to adjust to new people and different social situations. Eating out at kid-friendly restaurants in the Plano-Dallas area is a great opportunity to teach children valuable life skills such as learning proper eating etiquette, creating good first impressions, and using polite manners.

Cute siblings teasing

Things to Consider When Dealing with Sibling Rivalry

/in /by

As parents, it’s important to know that if you have more than one child, sibling rivalry is always almost inevitable. It’s normal for families to have problems because no family is perfect. The best thing to do when your children are fighting is to stay calm and neutral, minimize your yelling, avoid favoritism, encourage communication and understand and allow children to deal with their conflicts alone at times. Even though it can’t be prevented, it’s crucial to consider the key factors that can contribute to sibling rivalry.

Here are some of the key factors!

1. Parenting styles

Many parents underestimate the influence their parenting styles may have on their children. Children learn from what they see in their environment. If you, as a parent, have a more authoritarian style, your children are more likely to model your rigid and strict temperaments, which can result in more chaos, whereas an authoritative parent might have children with less aggressive behaviors. Parenting style also affects how your children might handle conflict due to the extent of how restricted they feel to express their feelings and emotions.

2. Birth order

As a parent, you may not think the birth order of your children might affect their behavior, but it does! Your first born is typically the more mature one, because they feel the pressure of responsibility for their younger siblings. Naturally, most first born children have also dealt with the most discipline. Your younger child is often more spoiled and babied than the others. They usually get their way and don’t feel as much familial pressure as their older siblings do because they don’t have as many responsibilities. Your first child was in a way your first shot at parenting, so after learning from experience, you will often change certain aspects for your next child.

3. Age

The more years apart there are between your children, the more likely they are to have differences. For example, let’s say you have a preschooler and a child that just started first grade; they’re likely to butt heads because both are in two different developmental stages of their lives. Keep in mind that your preschooler is fresh out of the terrible twos stage, which is a period of tantrums, oppositions, and mood swings, while your first grader might be starting to develop a sense of maturity and wanting to follow certain rules.

4. Gender

Children with siblings of a different gender are more likely to fight than those who have the same. Girls tend to be calmer and more sensitive, while boys are more aggressive and rowdier.  Girls also often feel that their boy siblings have more freedom and flexibility than they do, which may cause them to act out.

Most parents unconsciously treat each gender differently, due to preconceived notions before each child was born. For example, as a parent, you might have wanted to have a girl or boy as your first child but ended up with the opposite. It’s normal for your parenting experience to turn out differently from what you expected because you already had specific things in mind.

At Parker-Chase

At Parker-Chase Preschool, we encourage harmony in all our students of different ages and genders. We believe that teaching your preschool child how to effectively communicate with their peers teaches them how to maintain better relationships outside of the classroom environment. Children are encouraged to socialize with each other and form lasting friendships with their peers.

Friends

4 Tips To Establish A More Active Lifestyle With Your Children

/in /by

Whether you’re an adult or a child, it’s important to maintain an active lifestyle. Exercise helps us release the stress and tension that we face in our daily lives. An active lifestyle has many benefits such as improving both your physical and mental health, alleviating the symptoms of certain mental illnesses, and furthering mental development. Sports alone increase focus, reduce behavioral problems, and improve cognitive functions.

Because their brains are not fully developed, most preschoolers haven’t fully experienced and lack an understanding of their emotional development. Children naturally have a lot of energy and because they’re at an age when they want to take advantage of moving around, they can sometimes be harder to control. As a result, most children act out due to boredom, so it’s best to redirect that animosity towards being more active.

Here are 4 tips to establish a more active lifestyle with your children!

 

1. Prepare healthy snacks and meals.

An active lifestyle is more beneficial when it is combined with the proper nutrition. A balanced diet is key to a child’s development because it provides children with the nutrients, they need to grow.

Incorporate more fruits and veggies into your child’s diet. Starting these lifestyle habits earlier in life helps set the tone for healthy habits as an adult. It’s also important as parents that we model the right behavior and make smart food choices, because children learn by watching us.  However, don’t completely throw away the unhealthy snacks; allow your child to have one every now and then as a special treat.

2. An ample amount of sleep.

The amount of sleep a child gets is crucial to their daily routine. Sleep is an important part of being active, just as much as diet and exercise are. Toddlers should be getting no less than 10-13 hours of sleep a day. Children who get the correct amount of sleep for their age have a lower risk of health problems. Sleep improves heart health, promotes growth, helps the body maintain a healthy weight, and supports the immune system by protecting it against germs.

3. Participate in sports.

The benefits of sports are plentiful. Sports provide children with regular exercise, builds their self-esteem, and makes them better communicators. Sports also have many different rules, which can greatly help foster a sense of discipline because they teach children time management and respect for others. Believe it or not, sports are also a great way to foster creativity in your child. It’s no surprise that most students who are enrolled in sports have been reported to perform better academically than those who aren’t.

4. Plan more outdoor outings than indoors.

The generation your child is in is heavily attached to technology, causing them to be more sedentary than past generations. Instead of planning movie nights or letting your child spend all of their time on tablets, make it a priority to plan mores trips to the beach or the local park! Children love to engage in physical activity where they’re free to run around, dig up the ground, ride a bicycle and much more!

At such a developmental stage in their lives, it’s crucial for your child to be active and also be getting as much sunlight as they can. Keep in mind that we need the sun to get vitamin D, which helps our bone development and protects our immune system.

An Active Lifestyle at Parker-Chase

At Parker-Chase Preschool, we prioritize time outside of the classroom just as we do indoors because we want our students to be as active as they can be. We believe unstructured time outdoors can really be beneficial to a child’s learning and development. We also make sure that our students are properly fed and get many of the nutrients they need through our chef-prepared meals.