Tag: parenting

family

What’s For Lunch?

Andi

If you’re anything like me, you have probably worried about your kids getting all the nutrients they need to thrive and grow. How do I get them to eat healthy stuff? I’ve actually been surprised by some of the things they will eat, all I had to do was present it to them. Like peas for instance. I don’t like peas, so I never bought them until they were called for in a recipe and my kids ate every last one. Who knew?

I like formulas and structure, so I made one for their lunches. Breakfast is usually a light meal, fruit or scrambled eggs or something such. Dinner they eat whatever my husband and I eat, which is sometimes a big hit and sometimes not so much. Lunch is the meal focused around them and their likes. So of course I hyper focused on it for a while and panicked about their food groups. I had to come up with something that put my mind at ease.

They get a protein, a fruit, a vegetable, a grain, and on occasion a sweet with every lunch. Dairy is usually covered in one of these categories, as would be fats and carbohydrates. Sugars are in lots of other foods we eat so I don’t think they need their own special place on the plate. This covers the food groups pretty thoroughly. We don’t eat exclusively organic, or gluten free food, or stick to a strict diet. For everything in our kitchen I try to buy as close to the source as possible. For instance I only buy meat sourced from farms in the state I live in. This is pretty easy for meat and produce, but I do also buy noodles and canned tomato sauce. I’m nowhere near the point of making my own. We try, but again, we are not a perfect family.

The protein is generally the main course so to speak. Be it a grilled cheese, or chicken nuggets, or a bean burrito. This of course has a lot of variety and options that can change according to what they are into eating at the time. I have not had a problem yet (big YET here) with my children insisting on one specific meal and refusing any other food. Right now, my oldest loves alphabet soup, so we eat that more often. A few weeks ago it was hotdogs. So we mix it up, and they get the variety.

Fruit is pretty much straightforward. I give them a handful of fruit with their meal. I let them pick out the fruit at the grocery store, and they always eat all of their fruit portions. This will change by season and what is available. Bananas though are a staple. We always must have bananas.

Now vegetables are a big variable I am more lenient with. By that I mean I let things slide by as “veggies” when I know they really aren’t. Potatoes are not actually a vegetable, neither are cheese sticks or tomatoes. Corn is a veggie so popcorn totally counts right? My son likes black olives and pickles. So yes, I will serve him cheese stuffed olives and he loves them. They also love hard boiled eggs, and I will serve them an egg with their lunch even though an egg would be a protein. Some actual vegetables they like are peas, like I said before, carrots, green beans, and edamame. My oldest likes peppers and I will feed him those jalapeno poppers, which probably isn’t the healthiest way to eat jalapenos but it’s an excuse for me to eat them too. I still haven’t gotten them to eat broccoli though, so we are definitely a work in progress.

Grains usually come in the form of crackers. Sometimes cornbread or toast, maybe a roll. Nothing fancy by any means.

Now sweets are only for special occasions. Those occasions are I suddenly got an urge to bake 😜 I’ll make cupcakes or cookies and they’ll get a dessert with their lunch for a couple days. This isn’t often as I find sweets addicting, unnecessary and unhealthy. But even I can’t resist cupcakes all the time.

So an example meal I’d serve my children would look something like this: mac & cheese, strawberries, a whole grain roll, green beans, and if it was the occasion, a chocolate cupcake cut in half.

This big thing here is variety and exposure. Keep giving them lots of healthy options, even if they seem stuck on one food. So if your child is stuck on eating alphabet soup every day, serve their soup with some green beans and grapes. Try to get them involved in the food process. Allow them to choose the fruit they want, or the crackers they want. You might be surprised by what your kids will enjoy eating, I know I was!

family

Mister Rogers

Andi

So many adults grew up with Mister Rogers gently singing to them and reminding them they were perfect just the way they were. I was a kid in the 90s, so I got all the reruns, but he was still prominent even then. However, he has impacted me more as an adult than he did when I was a child. With the new film coming out this month, I think talking about him is appropriate.

Fred Roger’s was a musician, an artist, and an ordained minister. His ordination was to minister to children through the medium of television. He apparently was witty and slightly snarky as well if you listen to his family and work mates. He was creative and driven, and worked hard to make his vision come to life. The documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” contains many of these first hand accounts of his gentle character and clever humor.

Mister Rogers never wore a collar or said he was a minister in his show, but his faith drove what he did. He very firmly believed that God made you just the way you are. You didn’t need to change anything. You are worthy of love, because God loves you, and as a follower of God, it was his duty to love you. He believed children were very bright and able to grasp even complex concepts. That they have very strong emotions and should be able to not only express them but know how to process them. Talk about them. Understand them. Your strong emotions aren’t flaws to be subdued, but God made parts of you. So a homosexual was perfect and worthy of love. A child with a disability was perfect and worthy of love. A person of color was perfect and worthy of love. A person of a different faith than his perfect and worthy of love. He displayed this on his show and in his life in the way he treated other people. Always with respect and always with kindness.

He is one of the only people of faith I look up to and desire to imitate. The kind of faith he had is what the world needs. It doesn’t need the anger. It doesn’t need the hate. It needs the powerful love. And a person brave enough to show it.

He is also a model of good parenting in my eyes. Kids need to know their emotions aren’t bad, but they need to know what to do with those emotions. They need to know they are special, the way they are. As parents, we need to be teaching our kids how to process their feelings in a healthy manner. Children should also be given the comfort of knowing they have love for who they are.

It is beyond fathom for me to imagine any person on earth that disliked Fred Rogers, but they existed. He got questioned about his own sexuality because he was soft and talked about his feelings. People said he was evil because he told kids they were special without having to work for it. He was blamed for entitled children. Rumors started that he wasn’t actually a kind gentle man, he was a hardened Marine who was covered in tattoos and killed lots of people. None of these were true, but I find it interesting the worst rumor they could come up with was tattoos and military service. There were enough people that hated him that there were protesters outside his funeral. People said he was going to hell, not because he was gay because he wasn’t, but because he tolerated gays. He told them he liked them, and God loved them, and apparently that is abominable. That’s the kind of man this was. He was hated for loving people.

This shows me two things: that someone is always going to dislike you and how to respond to those that do. Even someone as magnificent and unproblematic as Mister Rogers had people calling him evil. The kinds of people pointing fingers at you may be different, but there will be someone who doesn’t like you. But despite knowing some mocked him or hated him, Mister Roger’s never stopped treating each person he met with kindness. It had to get discouraging at times, and his family has said there were times he’d get upset, but no matter what he’d process the emotion, and step out to the world with a smile and a hug.

He is an example to us of what faith should look like, how to teach children, and how to face with world with grace.

Additions:

I think Tom Hanks is probably the only person, on earth, that could portray Fred Rogers.

I’m sure some people wonder why I love Mister Rogers so much, but I don’t care for Daniel Tiger. Despite the fact the characters are named after Rogers neighborhood friends and his own tiger puppet. I am aware. But the trouble is Daniel Tiger is trying to be Mister Rogers. They are attempting to recreate the magic for a new generation, but they just can’t. No one can. And Mister Rogers Neighborhood doesn’t need to be updated in my opinion. His voice is captivating and his singing is charming. My overly active kids enjoy the original show and pay attention to it as much as any of their other shows. Daniel Tiger is certainly not the worst show, it has some good parts, but it is also lacking in some as well. Perhaps I’m just being biased as well.

family
Andi

We had an instance this morning that I thought perfectly exemplified our choice and consequence we do with our kids.
I got up to make some breakfast and my husband was already in the kitchen getting himself a bowl of cereal. The 3 year old hopped up and asked for some cereal. I told him, “I’m fixing to make eggs and toast. Would you like some cereal, or would you like eggs and toast?” He chose a bowl of cereal. So my husband gave him some and I made eggs for myself and the 1 year old. But when the younger and I were eating the 3 year old decided he wanted my breakfast. He tried taking Bubba’s plate. “But you chose to have cereal for breakfast” I told him.
He had the choice of cereal or eggs, and he chose to have cereal. Even after he changed his mind, he still had cereal for breakfast. He ate and he’s happily playing through his day. Nobody ever raised their voice, nobody screamed, nobody was spanked or disciplined. It was a calm interaction, and a learning experience.
Because we’re trying to teach him to make a decision, be confident in his decisions, and to handle the consequences of his decisions. (And yes, a 3 year old can begin to understand this concept) Right now, its little things, like eating the cereal he chose and not being able to swap with Bubba mid breakfast because he thought Bubba’s eggs looked good. But hopefully we are preparing him for future big decisions.

family

Don’t Limit Them

Andi

As you might imagine if you’ve read my life posts so far, my home life was very restricted and sheltered. I wasnt allowed to consume any entertainment that wasn’t Christian and because of the type of church we were part of, it had to be from another Independent Fundamental Baptist Christian source. I wasn’t allowed to listen to contemporary Christian music and certainly not secular music. We only had one small 13 inch TV that stayed in the parents bedroom, which was off limits to us. The books I read were monitored. I wasn’t allowed to read Harry Potter because it was demonic and so I convinced myself I didn’t like it. In middle school my mom actually had me removed from a literature class at my Private Christian school because she didn’t like the book. My mom would preview a book she hadn’t read before to make sure it was ok. I never saw the shows the rest of my generation grew up with, the songs everyone else loved or the books they were reading. Any form of entertainment I liked I had to hide, read only at school, watch at friends houses, listen to on the school bus. It defintely made me odd and out of place.

When I started showing an interest in video games, my parents of course went overboard with it. I had a laptop by that time I had bought with my own money and Halo I also bought. My mom got online and read all the backstory and read so deeply into it, she was convinced it was anti Christian and took it away from me. Not to mention it was uncouth and unladylike to play video games. I had to buy anything for myself, but I didn’t have money. So like everything else, it got limited to what I could play at friends houses.

My mother didnt like the “nerd phase” as a whole. She hated sci-fi movies because they gave her weird dreams, and the only reason she’d have weird dreams was because of the devil and she wasn’t about to let the devil into her house. My likes got squashed frequently. About the only thing I could get away with was Doctor Who and that was only because an old missionary friend said he’d watched it as a kid and loved it. So she rationalized it must be ok then.

After I moved out, I got a TV and an Xbox and two games: Halo and Bioshock. I bought Star Wars and LOTR posters and put them all over my walls. I could finally Express myself however I pleased. When I met my husband one of the things we had in common was video games. But he played Playstation, and I played Xbox. So there is proof the two can coexist peacefully 😛 We now have both, in addition to an NES and a Gamecube.

My parents still think it’s simply a phase I’ll grow out of, but it’s been over a decade, I don’t think its passing. I’ve introduced it to my children. One of the first words my son said coherently was Spiderman. So no, I don’t think its passing anytime soon.

Point is, don’t try to limit or shame your child’s interests because you don’t understand why they have them. Even if it is just a phase, they are growing into adults and learning along the way. Don’t inhibit their growth. Let them discover the world and decide what they like and who they want to be.

family

Choice of an Odd Cup

Andi

I think it’s important for children to have the freedom of choice. I think this for a couple reasons.

On one hand, they need to develop strong decision making skills and how to be confident in those decisions. They also need to understand that sometimes, their choices come with consequences, and that they can’t have everything. When they’re young this is as simple as you can only choose one toy to buy, you can’t have all of the toys. These are learning tools for them. They now have the toy they chose to play with and are confident it was the best. And I enforce that they made a good choice, without mocking it or telling them it was a dumb toy, all while encouraging them to remember that their choices have consequences now while the consequence is something tiny. Life is full of this choice and consequence sequence. They are learning how the world works in these scenarios.

Another part is that I want them to grow up with confidence in themselves. Giving them the ability to choose who they hug and kiss, what kind of clothes they wear, when they want to discuss something, tells them that they can proudly express themselves and they have power over their own bodies. Even as their parent, I ask to kiss them. I give them the choice to be rocked/cuddled to sleep or go to bed on their own.

This doesn’t mean I turn my kids loose in the world and tell them to choose whatever they want. For one, that would be incredibly overwhelming. That would overwhelm me and I have a grown up brain. Their prefrontal cortex is still developing so I do have to help them sometimes make good choices. In the arena of say, what they wear, let’s say they need new tennis shoes. I wouldn’t take them to a shoe store and just tell them to go pick something. I would take them to the tennis shoe section, and allow them to pick from that smaller selection. This teaches both limitations and decision making. They do have to make a choice from a wide range, but they also can’t choose a dress shoe either. Or say with bedtime. They don’t get to run wild all night, we have a set bedtime, but they get to choose whether or not they want to be rocked to sleep or not. Either way they still have to go to bed, they choose how.

The world works that way for all of us, even as adults. We often have to make choices within certain limits, and no matter what, we all have to deal with the consequences of our actions. For a kid that may only be the short pain of a skinned knee after not heeding a warning from an adult, but it teaches them how to handle the world when they get older.

This becomes humorous sometimes when a kid chooses the oddest things. Like the hallowen cup my kid chose. He could’ve had a vampire, or Frankenstein’s monster, things that actually had brains. But no, he chose the pumpkin, the one cup that made no sense to have a brain lid.

So in a roundabout ancedote, when you give your kids freedom of choice, you get some interesting cups in your cabinet.

family

Pumpkin Painting

Andi

One of the most common Halloween activities many families like to do together is Pumpkin Carving. They go to the pumpkin patch, pick out the biggest ones they can find, take them home and carve Jack-o-lanterns. It really is a fun event, and the pumpkin patches love it too because most of them charge by weight or size. But when your kids are too small to properly carve a pumpkin, and you don’t like squash guts anyway, what are you to do? We do Pumpkin Painting instead.

Each year, we make a trip to the pumpkin patch. I look for one that has lots of activities included in the price of admission, and specific sections for younger kids. A petting zoo is always a big bonus, and if it has a bounce place, it’s a definite win. We spend most of the day there, and towards the end, we go out to pick a pumpkin. But the pumpkin we pick, probably won’t be the one we paint. This one is for my child to proudly parade around and show everyone. I’ll buy painting pumpkins later from the grocery store where they are much cheaper. The day at the pumpkin patch is definitely a seasonal experience for us. The focal point is to have a fun day. It also signals that its fall, and time for pumpkin season.

After we get home, probably the next day, we get out our paints and our painting pumpkin. If you live further south where it stays warm through the fall, you could keep your kid in just a diaper (or underwear if potty trained) and then give them a bath afterward to wash any paint off. I’d also only do this if you have a fenced in yard nobody can peep into. If you do not, you just don’t want your child outside in their underpants, or it’s already cold and snowing before Halloween where you live, my best suggestion is an apron. Paint is still destined to end up on your kids clothing though, so be 100% sure you got washable paint. Put them in worn out clothes you’re not worried about piant getting on.

I take my kids outside to paint, so the mess is not on my flooring. We had a few younger kids join us this year including my younger child, so I got some baby sized pumpkins for them. I aso let my kids use real paintbrushes instead of those flimsy plastic ones kids paint comes with.

This activity probably won’t last long. The older kids may be more intent on their painting, but even so, a pumpkin is only so big. As they get older it may become a longer activity when they start expressing creativity more. Right now it lasts 20-30 minutes at most, much less for younger children.

I still threw my kids clothes right into the washer afterwards and gave them baths because of course they still managed to get everything messy.

As you can see, kids are messy painters. They like to mix colors and experiment. But they are learning to be creative, as well as some hand eye coordination and dexterity. They are also usually very proud of their work, and feel accomplished.

If you want to do a family activity, but on a tight budget, this is also a good alternative. Like I said, the pumpkins we paint we get from the grocery store, off brand childrens paint, and a brush. Your cost will depend on how many pumpkins you need and how large. Those mini pumpkins came 6 in a bag for $3, making this craft less than $10. If you do want a pumpkin patch experience, look for one with a front gate admission. These usually include lots of things in the price. Patchs that are free admission will probably charge for each activity and spending a dollar here, 3 dollars there, accumulates cost very quickly. You get more for your money when the patch has a admission cost, and many have some kind of deal for purchasing tickets online.

So if you are looking for an alternative to pumping carving, look no further! Pumpkin painting is where its at!

family

TP Tube Bat

Andi

What can you possibly do with a toilet paper tube? Quite a bit it turns out. For Halloween, TP Tube crafts include monsters, witches, and bats.

My son made a toilet paper tube bat. This craft could easily be adjusted for a wide range of ages. For younger ages, you could find stick on eyes and mouth, and use crayons. For older kids you could let them cut out their own mouth and wings and glue them on. For my son I cut out the mouth and wings, but I let him glue them on and used paint.

Materials you will need include a TP tube, construction paper, googly eyes, and paint (or crayons) and glue.

So I cut the construction paper and let my child paint it, however he wanted. After he was finished, I glued it to the TP tube and we let it dry. We went on to a different activity and came back to it about 2 hours later. From there on, it was mostly his doing. He glued on the eyes and mouth himself. They needed to be that way so it was smiling when it was hanging upside down. 🤷🏼‍♀️

It was really a rather simple and quick craft. But with the attention spans kids have, it was a perfect length. I enjoyed watching him happily glue on the pieces in the odd way he thought they needed to be. Good idea, great craft 👍🏼.

family, My Story

Vacations with Kids

Andi

My vacations have changed in adulthood. For one, I now have bills to pay, and responsibilities. After we had kids, planning a trip got much more complex, and more costly. Some might think our trips got boring, or I’ve stopped travelling, but I find neither to be true. They may be farther apart, but they still happen. In some cases I’ve been forced to find unique places near home, but that’s also shown us some absolute gems. Some of them may be focused around visiting family, but they’re still full of adventure. And as the kids grow, we’ll be able to make the same exciting memories with them that my grandparents made with me.

Did you know Arkansas had mountains? Because I didn’t. I guess I didn’t pay close enough attention in Geography class. For my Grandpa’s 90th birthday we took him camping on Mt. Magazine which is in AR. I was shocked by how beautiful it was. We went in the Fall, right as the trees were starting to change. It was all outdoors and the kids could run and run and keep running. The park staff was wonderful, and the park itself was clean and cared for. I love mountains and find them majestic. Mt. Magazine was no exception.

I could show you a picture of the main street of Eureka Springs, or the haunted Crescent Hotel. But I’m sure most people have already seen those. The Crescent Hotel is famous, even being featured on ghost hunter shows. I do reccomend the ghost tour if you are ever in the area. It was so creepy! Which equates to a good ghost tour. No, I’m going to show you a picture from Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge, a big cat animal rescue located just outside Eureka Springs. The huge majority of big cats in captivity are NOT in zoos or refuges. They are in people’s homes attempting to be kept as pets. As with any wild animal, it is not a pet, and is very dangerous to try to keep it as one. All of the cats and bears at this refuge have beven rescued from roadside zoos (not the same as a legitimate zoo, never pet a wild animal or animal cub, places who allow this are not caring for their animals) circuses, or private homes. The cat pictured I chose because I love love black cats. My cat is black. When I get another, it will also be black. Black cats are very rare, and that makes them even more special. I could not recommend supportng and visiting this place more. Another wildlife refuge I recommend visiting is PAWS (performing animals wildlife sanctuary) in California. They specifically take in animals from circuses, most of which are elephants.

This is also Eureka Springs, but a different quirky place I loved. Really, if you like oddball things, Eureka Springs is the place for you! This is at a place called Quigley Castle and it caught my eye because I wasn’t aware of any castles in Arkansas. And it’s not in a traditional sense. It is a house built entirely by a woman and her husband with rocks they collected from the river. The walls of the house looked like these benches pictured. The wife decorated her garden with glass her husband found and liked. 3 of the 4 interior walls were bare dirt so plants could grow up the walls. On the ground level, the wife had an aquarium built into the floor. The top level had her butterfly collection covering the walls instead of paint or wallpaper. The family still lives in the home and despite my thinking that the rock would wash away in storms, the home still stands firm a couple generations later. This house screamed eccentric at me and I loved the sound it made.

Want to visit a random, hole in wall place? Got you covered. This is Brown Mansion in Coffeyville, KS. This is one of the most interesting eccentric mansions I’ve ever toured. (Aside from Quigley Castle in Eureka Springs. I just like odd homes) The Brown Mansion is fitted with almost exclusively Tiffany glass. Plants displayed everywhere, a working elevator, and a full ballroom. The original owners operated a spa and some of those pieces are also featured, such as a vibrating chair to help relieve constipation. All the light fixtures are fitted with electric and gas, as the house was built right at the rise of electric lights. President Taft even visited this home on his campaign trail. If built today, it would cost over 4 million dollars to build. Definitely worth a stop and a gander.

Some of our best vacations have been the peaceful, quiet ones. The ones where I’m able to sit in nature with my feet in the water. Its calming to just sit in nature. Life can get to flustered and hectic. Your mind going 90 different directions at once. It’s good to have a few moments of simple silence and peace. This is rural Oklahoma, close to my Grandpa’s lake house, where I was able to slip away from the family and have few serene moments of silence.

I have family in Missouri, so driving through Kansas City is not a rare occurance for me. Despite that, I’ve never been to a lot of places in and around MO. This is the World War I Museum and Monument in Kansas City, MO. Unintentionally, we went on Memorial Day weekend, which meant the place was more crowded than usual. It was still a well designed musem, simply full of information and artifacts. I don’t think my kids were quite old enough to appreciate what the museum was about. They were mostly interested in the cars and airplanes. I’d suggest waiting until late elemtary, middle school age before taking a child to this museum.

I understand having small kids can limit vacation possibilities. But really, the the importance is not necessarily the extravagance of a trip. What is important is that you are with the ones you love and building life long memories with them.

family

Halloween Shirts

Andi

Walmart is stepping up their game in the clothing department. I get themed holiday (Christmas, Halloween, sometimes St. Patricks) shirts each year for the family. Previously Walmart’s designs were mediocre and the fabric was stiff and uncomfortable. The kind of fabric you have to wash 20 times to make it soft enough to wear. So I almost exclusively bought holiday shirts from Target because the quality was just better. I was already at Walmart though and figured it wouldn’t hurt to look. I was pleasantly surprised!

The design is cute, the fabric is lightweight and soft to the touch. They had several different options to choose from (something I’ve run into at both Walmart and Target) and plenty of sizes in stock.

These are the kinds of shirts my kids want to wear because they look cool and they’re comfy. My child was so excited about the dinosaur shirt that had teeth. He wants to get dressed if he loves the clothes he’s putting on and I don’t have to explain to him how its not appropriate to go out in your underwear. I’ll put these on my kids again and again, even after Halloween. Well done Walmart!

family

The Montessori Toddler

Andi

I have had an interest in the Montessori method for a while, but on the whole, was still rather ignorant of all it entailed. So I found the book The Montessori Toddler by Simone Davies and started gathering information.

Many of the methods used in Montessori are things I already implement in our home to some degree. In some areas, the author takes things to a further degree than I have or to a more involved level. So in some areas I thought, this was simple, I already basically do that. But in others I thought, goodness no, there’s no way we could do that.

As with any parenting book, you can take the pieces that will work in your family dynamic and mold them to fit into your life. For instance, I can’t completley redesign the set up of our home to emulate a Montessori style room. For one thing, we don’t have the money to buy everything I’d want. But I can take the idea of learning activities displayed in a simple manner for the child to choose from and put them on top of the kid’s bookshelf. This didn’t cost me extra money, I just reorganized how our learning tools were kept.

There are 4 principles that jumped out to me and one element we couldn’t implment I’ll touch on briefly. If any of them piques your interest, I suggest grabbing a copy of the book and giving it a read through. It’s probably available at your local library and is sold on Amazon.

I’m going to get the one unsustainable element out of the way first. In a Montessori classroom they do not have any fantasy for children under the age of 6. The reason for this is because young children cannot usually distinguish between reality and fantasy. While this is true, we could not enforce such a rule in our home. There was already an enormous amount of fantasy and fiction in our home before we had children and they have been exposed to it from the beginning. In addition I have already seen a positive effect fiction has had in my child’s life. Exposure to a fictional robot triggered a strong fascination with space. Because Mars rovers look like robots, he eagerly soaked up all knowledge about them, and the planets, and astronauts, and space shuttles. He will tell you he’s going to the stars if you ask where he’s going. We’ve built rockets out of boxes, out of building blocks, and out of legos. So many crafts and activities that use dexterity, hand eye coordination, concentration and imagination were accomplished because of his love of a fictional robot. If this exposure means he really thinks lions can talk then that’s a hurdle I’m willing to jump. He will learn magic isn’t real soon enough. But there is no one size fits all approach in parenting. So if no fantasy works for you, go with it! That’s part of unique family differences.

Now moving to the amazing things I drew from this book. First is the principle of freedom within limits. Second is child involvement in everyday life. Third is the use of consequences instead of punishment and fourth is preparing the parent.

Freedom within limits is an idea that I love because the child is safe and learning boundaries, but still has some control over their lives. That doesn’t mean they can run willy nilly wherever they want or they do whatever they want whenever they want. That means they have a safe boundary inside of which they have the freedom to explore as they please.

Allow all feelings but not all behaviour

That’d be the difference between asking, “what do you want to eat for lunch?” And “would you like to eat macaroni and cheese or alphabet soup for lunch?” Or instead of giving them a full closet of all of their clothes and asking them to choose what to wear, only put out weather appropriate clothing and allow them to choose from that. They still get to choose, but from within a set boundary of choices. It allows the child to express their feelings and process all their emotions, but keeps them from harming themselves or others. So instead of preventing them from crying about being buckled into the carseat, you can acknowledge the emotion but they still have to be buckled in.

Letting the child be involved in daily life will encourage them to be involved later on. Kids love to do things and mimick what the adults around them do. My son gets angry if I put his dirty diaper in the trash and don’t let him do it. Instead of trying to distract them so you can clean the house, get them involved in the cleaning. It may take longer than it would’ve taken you, and it may not end up as precise as you would’ve done it, but it helps kids learn to help around the house and is good for their overall developement.

If we start to feel frustrated when it is taking too long, rather than get irritated we can acknowledge that this time we are going to help them, and try again tomorrow.

The author suggests toddlers can do even more than I’d already let my kids do and giving them child sized materials to use. Such as a small broom and dust pan. I have a toy vacuum that has a roatating brush inside that spins when its pushed. It goes in the closet with the big vacuum and comes out so they can vacuum when I do. One area for instance she suggested that I was not already doing was with the laundry. Constantly moving the kids, telling them to get off the bed or go play got tiring. So I tried letting them help fold their own clothes and put them away. The laundry did not look as pretty, but it wasn’t as stressful as times past. Of course supervise, but let them do as much as you are comfortable with them doing around the house. It will not only make them happy at this young age, but establish good habits as they grow older.

Using consequences instead of punishment is not a new idea, but maybe it’s new to us because it may not have been the way we were parented. I had already decided not to use threat and force to make my children comply with me out of fear, so this more gentle approach to discipline fell right in line with what I was doing. This section was more of an affirmation for me that I wasn’t crazy for parenting in this manner.

The word discipline comes from the Latin word disciplina meaning “teaching, learning”. So we should consider what we are teaching our children and what our children are learning from the way we discipline them.

The discipline should be directly related to the issue. Don’t take ice cream away because they were screaming for instance. It would look more like having to put a ball away and not play with it anymore because they were asked not to throw it inside the house and they continued doing it.

Lastly is the preparation of the parent. This section really spoke to me. I often find myself irritated and strung out and snappy with my kids over menial things a then feeling guilty about it immediately after.

It is difficult to be respectful to our children when we allow them to go beyond our limits.

If we aren’t respecting ourselves and our own limits, we won’t be able to respond kindly to our chlldren. We need to mentally prepare ourselves each day, and in the long term be doing things to fill our emotial tanks. So if that looks like waking a little earlier to have some alone time in the quiet before the kids wake up, or sitting down to crochet, or picking up a good book to relax with in the evening then make those part of your daily routine. You need some time set aside for yourself as well. Whether that means your partner keeps the kids so you can get a coffee or go to Target alone, or you going out to an art exhibit with your partner or friends, set that time aside and take it. We all know the phrase you can’t poor from an empty glass because it’s true.

Another tidbit from this section was that only you are responsible for filling your tank. Other people may be able to fill it, but they are not responsible for it. They aren’t inside your head. Only you know where your limits are and when your tank is running on fumes. You have the responsibility to recognize when you are close to losing your temper and stepping away to cool down. You need to take the initiative to say, I need some time alone and going on a bike ride.

This book was helpful, clearly written, and very well put together. This is such a small tibbit of the information it offers. I couldn’t begin to recount everything that is discussed. I liked it a lot, and would suggest it to any parent.

I did draw a few quotes from the book to try and give you a glimpse of what it entails, but of course if it interests you, I suggest finding a copy.

If you would like to purchase this book to read for yourself, I have provided a link directly to it on Amazon. It is worth buying for the wealth of knowledge it contains!

https://amzn.to/3548dtA