My kids rarely watch TV. They get their entertainment from YouTube, and they aren’t the only ones. Dubbed The YouTube Generation, one estimate puts them in league with over one hundred trillion other young people who feel the same way. On a family trip to Cedar Point Amusement Park this summer, the park broadcasted YouTube compilations to entertain people who were waiting in line for rides. This was my view of YouTube—funny fail videos and cat compilations. I was wrong. #1 … [Read more...]
7 Books to Get Your Kids to Stop Fighting All the Time
One of the things I want most for our family is a loving family culture, where unkindness and fighting isn't part of the daily makeup of our lives. But with three children all fairly close in age (they are each about two years apart), this can be a tall order. Probably just about every parent can relate to those moment where you can't take the bickering and teasing any longer and you just want to scream, "Can't you all just get along?!" I know I'm not alone in that because there are … [Read more...]
Kids’ Responsibility & Money Management Printables Pack
Happy September guys! It's the first week of school for my kids and that means I've got our morning and afternoon routines on the brain. If you're in the same boat, I've got a great deal for you today! For two weeks only I'm offering our readers... 30% off our Kids Responsibility & Money Management Kit Just use the code: BackToSchool What would you say if I told you that my 4 and 5 year old get up, get dressed, and even make breakfast on their own every morning - … [Read more...]
How to Set Up a Healthy Serve-Yourself Snack Station
With school beginning soon, and a couple of my friends recently welcoming third babies to the family, helping the older kids to learn to prepare their own meals and snacks has become a hot topic of conversation. It all started when one of my friends sent me this facebook link and we all started to chime in on how the system would or wouldn't work for us and what we might do differently. Today we're starting off with snack stations. Hope you get some great ideas and we'd love to hear from … [Read more...]
Parenting Styles: Should I Stop My Kid’s Weird Habit?
Little kids have weird - sometimes super gross - habits, and any parent will tell you so. A lot of them are pretty standard. At one point or another over the last eleven years, I’ve asked my kids to please stop biting that toenail, or to get their finger out of their nose and use a tissue, or to stop sucking on the collar of that shirt or that chunk of hair. But over the last six months or so, I’ve repeatedly asked our almost four-year-old to stop twirling. Sounds like no big deal, right? But … [Read more...]
Parenting Styles: My Son is Starting High School as a 12-Year-Old and I’m Not Scared at All
OK, maybe I’m a little scared, I can’t lie. But overall, I’m a lot more comfortable with the idea than I ever imagined I would be. I hadn’t planned on grade-skipping my son. My son’s September birthday meant that he was already young for his grade. Here in Ohio, the cut-off date for kindergarten varies by district—anywhere from August 15thto September 30th —so many kids in his class were already a full year older than him. But when we switched from a self-contained gifted school … [Read more...]
How to Survive Meltdowns, Panic Attacks, Delays & 2nd Degree Burns at the Airport
photo via Pillow Sew Cute's Etsy Shop Hey guys, I'm working on a very cool summer offering for you all this week- stay tuned! In the meantime, though, I've been thinking a lot about family summer travel and I wanted to share one of my earliest blog posts on the topic- all the way back from 2011. Enjoy! A few weeks ago my family took a much needed vacation to my in-laws Montana lake house. The time away was pure bliss, the getting there and back... not so much. It was the … [Read more...]
Parenting Styles: Should You Send Your Ex A Father’s Day Card?
This will be our tenth Father’s Day since the divorce. Like every other year, I’ll take my two sons to the store and help them pick out gifts for their father. Some years I’m surprised I didn’t get lock jaw from forcing myself to smile as I helped them wrap their presents, and I can’t say I’ve never stooped to passive aggressive gifting. (Please don’t ask me about the garden gnome.) It wasn’t always a joy to spend money on my ex-husband, particularly since I was mothering on a … [Read more...]
Parenting Styles: When You’re the Last One Standing
We’ve been hammered around here lately - pneumonia, a broken arm, miserable weather and the start of our kids’ insane new sports schedule. As we all know, moms aren’t allowed to get sick, or maybe my obsessive hand-washing and frantic hand waving gestures whenever someone coughed their infectious germs right in my face actually did the trick. Whatever the reason, I got stuck running this pneumonia-and-broken-bone-ridden show solo, after my poor husband wound up sicker than he’s been probably … [Read more...]
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