“How Will You Entertain the Kids This Summer?”

School’s out and the kids are home. Even though they might be attending camp, VBS or playing organized sports there will come a day when you will hear those dreaded words, “I’m bored!”  Structured activities are good for kids but they need to be balanced with unstructured play time. Toys and materials that are open-ended and can be played with in a variety of ways encourage kids to be creative and imaginative. 

Head to your local dollar store and for less than ten dollars pick up a few supplies that will keep the kids busy this summer. I suggest the following: Sand buckets, sidewalk chalk, paint brushes, funnels, bubbles, a jump rope and a hula hoop.

Sidewalk chalk can be used to draw self-portraits or a hopscotch outline. Once the driveway is full of masterpieces grab a garden hose, and let the kids hose off the driveway. This is also a good time for them to wash their bikes and trikes. 

Fill a sand bucket with water and use an adult-sized paint brush to paint the sidewalk, the house or the lawn furniture.  Fill two buckets with water and use a scoop and funnels to move water from one bucket to another.

Make an obstacle course using lawn chairs, bikes, jump ropes and hula hoops. A fun physical activity can get kids away from the TV and video games and get their hearts pumping.  Have a contest to see how fast they can run the course. 

Don’t forget to take photos. On a rainy day the kids can put those photos into a scrapbook or album as a reminder of their fun and active summer.

Practical Advice for Parents About Bullying

Bullying is getting a lot of attention. There is so much information about bullying that it can be hard for parents to sort through it and make sense of it all. I was a recent guest during the 4pm news on KSDK offering insights and advice for parents about bullying.

It's important to have frequent conversations with your child about their day and what happens at school. If you keep communication open between you and your child they're more likely to come to you with their problems.

Watch TV and movies with your child and use situations presented to discuss the problems and how to solve them. Inquire if they've experienced something like this or have seen it happen to others. Let them know that if they're bullied or see it happen to someone else they should tell you, a teacher or another trusted adult.

Involving children in activities, clubs and organizations helps them build self confidence and provides opportunities for them to interact with their peers and develop friendships. Children who are self confident and have friends are less likely to become victims of bullying.

Rituals Give Hope, Add Dimension to Family Life

If you're a parent, I suspect you can remember saying, "If we can just get the baby out of diapers, things will be so much easier." Perhaps you were a stay-at-home mom who uttered to herself more than once, "I cannot wait until the kids are in school all day."

Fast forward fifteen years. Your baby turns 16 and he has a driver's license. You wish he were still driving his Cozy Coupe around the cul-de-sac.  

Fast-forward another five years. Your   daughter turns 21 and she stays out all night partying with friends. You get misty-eyed remembering when she used to toddle around the house and take afternoon naps.

You ask yourself where the years went. What you wouldn't give to sit in your grandmother's rocking chair and sing your son to sleep one more time. You rummage through a stack of old VHS tapes in search of the one with the footage of your daughter getting on the school bus for her first day of kindergarten.

Parenting is a journey full of momentous occasions. Some of them are happy, some are sad and some are bittersweet. Moments don't have to end. As a parent, you can keep these moments alive by establishing family rituals.

For my son's first birthday, I bought a personalized audio cassette of a space creature singing Happy Birthday greetings to him from the moon. Every year on his birthday -- he's now had 23 of them -- that audio cassette awakens him only now he hears it via phone instead of outside his bedroom door. He grumbles about how juvenile it is, but I suspect he would be disappointed if one year I didn't play that birthday greeting for him at the crack of dawn.

I always insisted my children eat dinner before they would go trick-or-treating on Halloween. I suppose the maternal side of me was convinced that dinner would cancel out the sugary treats they would be enjoying later that evening. The year my children were 2 and 4, I made Sloppy Joes and served them with barbecued potato chips and dill pickle spears. It was an easy dinner to prepare, and one they could eat quickly before heading out the door. I've made that same meal every Halloween for the past twenty plus years. My children are no longer around to enjoy it so I send them a text message with a photo attached of this year's Sloppy Joe dinner. 

 

Each year on the first day of school, I would position my children on the front porch. With their new lunch box in one hand and their new backpack in the other, I would snap a photo that would go into the family photo album. The day I overheard my two teenagers flipping through a photo album, talking and laughing about those first-day-of-school photos, I paused, smiled and told myself that this moment is what parenting is all about.

Rituals can be serious. They can be funny. Rituals build memories that last forever. In times of stress or sadness, they can provide hope. Rituals give us something to look forward to. By incorporating rituals into your family life you will be adding another dimension to your parenting journey. Now sit back and enjoy the ride.

Kids in the Kitchen

With the state of the economy many families are looking for ways to cut expenses and stretch the family dollar. One way is to eat out less and do more cooking at home. You’ll not only be saving money but you will be able to ensure your family is eating nutritionally healthy foods.

Using the weekly grocery ads, have your child help you plan a weeks worth of menus and put together the shopping list. Explain to your child the importance of establishing a food budget and purchasing items on sale. Allow your child to select one item from the ad, of their choosing, to put on the list. If your child is not yet old enough to read, cut the food item pictures from the ad and glue or tape them onto a legal pad or into a spiral notebook to make a visual shopping list.

Your child can sharpen his fine motor skills by cutting coupons from the Sunday paper and magazines. Encourage your child to match the coupons to the items in the weekly grocery ad. Put the coupons into an envelope that can be attached to the legal pad or spiral notebook shopping list and you’re ready to go grocery shopping.

Allow your child to accompany you to the store and make a game out of finding all the items on your shopping list. Use this shopping experience as an opportunity to teach your child how to select fresh produce, how to comparison shop, and the importance of sticking to the shopping list in order to save money.  If you think your child can tolerate the crowds, do your grocery shopping on a Friday or Saturday when the store is handing out free samples or offering items to taste. Don’t forget to take along your reusable shopping bags. Once the groceries are purchased and you’ve made your way back home, enlist your child’s help in putting the groceries away.

Every good cook needs cooking tools and children are no exception. Buy your child a kid-sized apron or to save even more money, make one using an old bath towel. Lay the towel vertically and cut a circular hole a third of the way down. The towel will easily slide over your child’s head for wearing and it’s easy to wash. Assemble some kitchen utensils that will be specifically for your child’s use.  Make sure the kit includes pot holders, a wooden spoon, measuring cups and measuring spoons, a wire whisk and any other utensils that would be age- appropriate. Utensils can be extra ones you already have or they can be purchased inexpensively at a dollar store. Store the utensils in a kitchen drawer or storage bin that can be easily accessed by your child. Make sure teaching safety issues around kitchen equipment is a priority.

Talk to your child about his favorite foods and help him discover what foods he can make himself. Those foods might include cereal, a peanut butter sandwich, chocolate milk.  Ask him what new foods he would like to learn to make. Purchase a cook book for your child or better yet save the money you would have spent on a cookbook by doing an online search for kid friendly recipes. There are many web sites that offer simple and tasty step-by-step recipes for a beginning cook.

Children who help with meal planning, grocery shopping and cooking are more likely to be interested in trying new foods. Meal planning, shopping for the ingredients and cooking your own meals provides opportunities for you to spend valuable time with your child. It also encourages healthy eating habits in your child that will last a lifetime.

A Child's Behavior Has a Purpose

Most of the time children either get something or they avoid something by engaging in a particular behavior. Think of a problem behavior your child is currently displaying. What do you think your child is getting or avoiding by engaging in that behavior?

If your child uses a behavior to get something, try and identify what he is hoping to gain. It could be your attention, something tangible (candy) a preferred activity (watching TV) or control (power struggle). 

If the behavior is to avoid something ask yourself if your child is trying to avoid attention, difficult tasks (homework) demands (picking up toys) or activities (sports practice). 

Temper tantrums are something children often use to get what they want or to avoid doing something.Now take a closer look at what triggers the behavior. What happens right before, or what sets off the problem behavior. Also note any factors or events that set up the behavior. This could be factors related to home or family, social or environmental conditions, biological or medical conditions.  A child who is hungry or tired can display inappropriate behaviors.  A snack or quiet time may ward off inappropriate behaviors. 

Once you've determined the above, ask yourself the following questions:

1. When is my child most successful?

2. When is the problem least likely to occur?  Use the answers to these two questions to map out a plan to redirect the problem behavior. You may be able to eliminate the trigger(s). Make your child be a part of the solution by enlisting her help in coming up with a way to change the behavior. 

Helping Kids Deal With Anxiety

I was a guest this morning on Great Day St. Louis sharing strategies parents can use to help their children manage anxiety. My segment begins at the 1:25 mark.


If you could use some help with managing your child's anxiety or if you any other concerns contact me to discuss my child therapy and parent coaching services.

Benefits of Cooking Together

One of the things I encourage parents to do is to have a special one-on-one time with their child each week. Parents like the idea but admit it’s a challenge to find time to fit one more thing into their weekly schedule. 

That’s when I suggest cooking together. Everyone has to eat, every house has a kitchen and for parents who are concerned about their child eating a variety of foods it’s a good way to teach healthy eating habits.

For young children start with recipes that have fewer than five ingredients. A tossed salad or muffins would be good recipes to start with. Go over basic safety rules of the kitchen before you begin cooking.

Does your child struggle with impulsivity and following directions? Gathering the ingredients, following the step by step directions of the recipe and waiting for the end result teaches all of those valuable skills. Measuring and combining ingredients teaches math skills. Reading skills are enhanced when you ask your child to read aloud the recipe directions.

Keep track of the foods you make together and soon you’ll have a series of menus which will make weekly meal planning easier. If you have a phone with a camera feature snap a picture of the recipes and when you go to the grocery store your shopping list will be with you. 

Both parents and children gain something out of cooking together. First, there's the quality time you'll share preparing the food. Then there's the pleasure of sitting down at the table together to enjoy what you've created.