Thread: Parenting

25 Ways to Ask Your Kids 'So How Was School Today?'
Without Asking Them 'So How Was School Today?'
Posted: 08/29/2014 4:12 pm EDT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/liz-ev...b_5738338.html

This year, Simon is in fourth grade and Grace is in first grade, and I find myself asking them every day after school, "So how was school today?"

And every day I get an answer like "fine" or "good," which doesn't tell me a whole lot.

AND I WANT TO KNOW A WHOLE LOT!!!!

Or at least get a full sentence. So the other night, I sat down and made a list of more engaging questions to ask about school. They aren't perfect, but I do at least get complete sentences, and some have led to some interesting conversations... and hilarious answers... and some insights into how my kids think and feel about school.


2014-08-29-25ways.jpg

1. What was the best thing that happened at school today? (What was the worst thing that happened at school today?)

2. Tell me something that made you laugh today.

3. If you could choose, who would you like to sit by in class? (Who would you NOT want to sit by in class? Why?)

4. Where is the coolest place at the school?

5. Tell me a weird word that you heard today. (Or something weird that someone said.)

6. If I called your teacher tonight, what would she tell me about you?

7. How did you help somebody today?

8. How did somebody help you today?

9. Tell me one thing that you learned today.

10. When were you the happiest today?

11. When were you bored today?

12. If an alien spaceship came to your class and beamed someone up, who would you want them to take?

13. Who would you like to play with at recess that you've never played with before?

14. Tell me something good that happened today.

15. What word did your teacher say most today?

16. What do you think you should do/learn more of at school?

17. What do you think you should do/learn less of at school?

18. Who in your class do you think you could be nicer to?

19. Where do you play the most at recess?

20. Who is the funniest person in your class? Why is he/she so funny?

21. What was your favorite part of lunch?

22. If you got to be the teacher tomorrow, what would you do?

23. Is there anyone in your class who needs a time-out?

24. If you could switch seats with anyone in the class, who would you trade with? Why?

25. Tell me about three different times you used your pencil today at school.

Dear Girls, Life Is Too Short for Crappy Friends
Aug 28, 2014, 12:05 PM ET
By ANNA LIND THOMAS

Dear lovely girls,

have a secret. Being popular, liked and included by your peers is totally overrated. I can see your eyes are glazing over. Hold on, let me put on a One-Direction T-shirt so I can get your attention. OK, let’s try that again.

Don’t get me wrong, friends are important. We are wired to long for community. You’ll desperately want to be in one when you’re in school. I hope you develop friendships that allow you to be your true self. Friends who care for you, support you and make you feel good about who you are. But if you can’t find these special friends, don’t panic. And please don’t get desperate.

There isn’t much I’m going to say here that you’ll probably believe. Hearing someone say popularity is overrated when you’re in the lonely abyss of being unpopular is like me telling you that one day you might be a little embarrassed by your Justin Bieber bed sheets. Right now, your Bieber Fever won’t allow you to hear me. I understand.

Let me just tell you what I know to be true. Maybe someday when you feel sad, lonely, jealous or excluded, you’ll remember little snippets of what I said and take courage.

Life is way too short for crappy friends.

We just don’t have time for that nonsense. Each one of us has a purpose for being here. Some might tell you that it’s all random and you have as much eternal relevance as a cup of dirt, so just have fun while you can. But I hope you won’t believe them. You have gifts and talents, activities you enjoy and fill you up. Maybe you like to draw or write stories. Maybe you can sing or play an instrument. Perhaps you’re a wiz at math and love architecture.

Maybe it’s none of those things, but there’s something. I know it.

Now is a wonderful time to cultivate these talents. To practice, play and explore everything that lights you up; all the gifts you can give to make the world a better place. Now is the perfect time to start to discover who you really are.

A good friend worth keeping will support you and what you love to do. They’ll celebrate your talents and they may even share them. A good friend brings out the best in you, loves you and even forgives you when you’re in a real salty mood and tell them their artistic portrayal of Katy Perry on the back of their Five Star notebook looks like the school librarian with a lazy eye.

You’re only human. You probably didn’t mean librarian with a lazy eye in a bad way, necessarily. Just be sure to say sorry, though, just in case.

Our desire to be liked (or have our selfies literally liked on Facebook) is normal, but it can outweigh our desire to truly be ourselves. This is where the real trouble begins.

If we live our life seeking other people’s approval, we’ll never actually live our life. And we only have one shot at this, so let’s not screw this part up.

There are obvious signs you might be in a friendship you shouldn’t be in. Obvious signs could include that the person makes you feel bad about yourself, you’re constantly paranoid about losing the friendship or the person blatantly uses you and may even be mean and verbally abusive toward you from time to time.

But there are subtle signs, too. They don’t outwardly treat you badly, but there’s just something about the way they interact with you that makes you feel inadequate. Sometimes you decide to hide certain aspects of yourself because you’re not convinced they’ll like or accept all of you. Sometimes you’ll start compromising your values to have something in common. Sometimes you find yourself acting like the person you think they want to be friends with rather than just being the precious being you are.

Sometimes, even though you’re surrounded by “friends,” you start to feel lonely and insecure. They’re your friends, but the friendship has limits. Maybe your feelings don’t matter if they inconvenience them or if you ever share that they have hurt your feelings, they decide you’re a little too exhausting to keep around.

Did I mention life is too short for crappy friends?

Here’s something else you probably won’t believe: If you stop worrying about being liked, popular or even having someone to sit with at lunch, and start focusing on becoming a better you, sharpening your skills and talents so that you may be a good friend to others, amazing people will start to gravitate to you.

I know, too much hocus pocus, right? But the truth is, we attract exactly what we put out. If we’re pretending to be someone else, all we’ll attract are other people pretending to be someone else, creating fake friendships with a bunch of people who will probably make us feel bad about ourselves by lunchtime. No thanks, sister.

Sometimes you’ll find that some people just aren’t able to be a good friend to you, even if they want to be. Their traumas, insecurities, anxieties, health issues or life circumstances can make it difficult for them to give you much of anything, let alone a friendship you can rely on. It doesn’t mean they’re nasty or they don’t like you (well, sometimes it does) it simply means they can’t give you what you need: a friendship worth investing time in. So stop investing time in it.

Either way, to be our true, authentic selves takes real courage and it may mean we won’t always have a surplus of friends. For a season, it may seem we don’t have any at all. Many people will grow old never finding that courage.

But I can tell you this, they’ll spend their last days wishing they spent more time focusing on becoming their best self and giving their gifts to others, rather than worrying if everyone is at Applebee’s laughing hysterically without them.

Although your life and priorities will evolve into adulthood, I’d like to tell you these problems with friendships will go away completely. Maybe with you, they will. But for many of us, our desire to be liked, to have good friends and to be included still resonate loudly well into adulthood. Whether the person next door invites the entire neighborhood except our family to their party, or all the “cool people” huddle together like an impenetrable army at a professional conference, grown women care about this, too.

Why? Because we all want to be loved. So badly, at times, we’ll settle for the superficial bullcrap when we all deserve the real deal. Your ego wants to be liked at any cost. Your true self wants to love others and trusts it will eventually be returned without fussing too much about the details.

It’s hard to be our authentic selves; it makes us vulnerable It’s hard to give and love without the expectation of getting anything in return. We typically give what we so desperately want to receive. It’s hard to accept that friends worth having are actually quite rare, when there’s a void, we want to fill it fast.

But it’s easy to care about what other people think. It’s easy to pretend to be someone you’re not. It’s easy to focus our lives on things that don’t matter, sacrificing everything that does.

One good friend who loves you unconditionally is far better than 100 superficial friends who really don’t care all that much about you, trust me.

If you’re feeling lonely in study hall at 14 or in your cubicle at 34, I hope you’ll try to rally your courage. I hope you’ll put your energy into living your life as your authentic self, with purpose and excitement. I hope you’ll turn your focus from being uninvited, toward your talents and gifts, cultivating them to make the world (or someone’s day) better.

And here’s an idea: be a good friend to someone else and see what happens. I know, I’m a genius.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to change out of this One Direction T-shirt. I don’t want to betray my one true love, John Stamos.

http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/dear...inglePage=true

The Parent's 'Last Call' List for Senior Year
Posted: 09/23/2014 3:26 pm EDT

It is the beginning of senior year. 365 days out from the empty nest. The temptation is to spend the year more than a little sad about all of those "lasts." The last first day of school, the last birthday at home (trust me, this one is the real killer) or the last varsity game. But I am going to try and resist the pull to be maudlin and instead create a Parent's Bucket List for senior year in high school, perhaps better thought of as the Last Call List.

1. Pay a professional photographer.

Try for that one perfect set of family pictures that no amateur can capture. It seems like the kids are grown, that the need to document their gorgeous faces has lost its urgency as the transitions slow. Wrong. That just-finished-childhood-not-quite-adult look is fleeting. Get someone who knows what they are doing to capture it.

2. Talk about failure and tell them of your failings.

Tell them why you failed and how you recovered and how, for some period of time, you thought you might not. We loom so large in our children's lives as the people who once held superpowers. Let them know how those powers have often failed you as both an adult and a parent.

3. Buy them one beautiful thing.

This moment, these last days, are worthy of commemorating and do not let them slip by unmarked. Jewelry and watches are traditional choices for senior year, but beauty and meaning, not expense, are the salient factors in this purchase.

4. Tell them secrets.

Disclose what they just might not know, things about your life that you, perhaps, glossed over, but now realize that they are old enough to understand. You will be letting them know that things are not always as they seem, and that they are a trusted near-adult confident, worthy of sharing family secrets. Talk to them like the adult that they will soon be; it will fill them with the confidence to get there.

5. Let them go before they are gone.

I kept my kids on an insanely tight leash senior year. I monitored their every movement and made them check in constantly. In short, I drove them crazy. And then I didn't. Once they were on the downslope of senior year, once everything they could do for college admission had been done, I let them take some victory laps, the well-deserved privilege of senior year. They broke curfews, went out on a few school nights and had a taste of freedom to come.

6. Have those painful talks.

Sit down and have the discussion, the one you will wish you had had if, God forbid, anything ever goes wrong. Sure, you can tell them where the wills are and how you hope to see your possessions disbursed. But this is not that talk. This is the talk where you recognize that you are speaking to a near-adult and you tell them why you love their other parent, what makes a good marriage, how shocking it was to find yourself a parent and yet how marvelous, what kind of wife/mother husband/father you hope they will one day be. It will feel sad, and poignant, but while you are still in that day-to-day high school routine, take a step back and talk about the really big things in life.

7. And just for a minute, grab them tight and hold them close.

Give them the morning hug that had slipped out of your routine and the kiss on the forehead that was, for years, a nightly ritual. Sit by their bed with a hand on theirs because this is the time to try and capture that feeling forever. This is the moment for that final squeeze, the brief moment when we clench them even tighter, hold them close enough to take our breath away and then let them go.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/grown-...b_5864430.html

12 ways to be the meanest mom in the world

When your kids tell you you’re mean, take it as a compliment. The rising generation has been called the laziest, rudest, most entitled kids in history. Don’t give up. They may think you’re mean now, but they’ll thank you later.
Megan Wallgren

Once, I walked out of the store without giving into my child’s tantrum for a cookie. A woman stopped me in the parking lot and told me I was the best parent in the shopping center. My daughter wasn’t so sure. When your kids tell you you’re mean, take it as a compliment. The rising generation has been called the laziest, rudest, most entitled kids in history. The stories about spoiled rotten kids scare the best of moms. Newsflash: it's not just the kids, it's the parents. It’s easy to want to throw in the towel with your own kids. After all, don’t we all want to be the cool mom? Don’t give up. They may think you’re mean now, but they’ll thank you later.

Here are 12 ways to be the meanest mom in the world: (Moms shouldn't have all the fun. Here are 13 ways to be the most annoying dad on the planet.)

1. Make your kids go to bed at a reasonable time

Is there really anyone who hasn’t heard how important a good night’s rest is to a child’s success? Be the parent and put your kid to bed. No one ever said the kid had to want to go to bed. They may put up a fight at first, but with consistency, they'll learn you mean business. Now enjoy some quiet me or couple time.


2. Don’t give your kids dessert every day

Sweets should be saved for special occasions. That’s what makes them a "treat.” If you give in to your child’s demands for goodies all the time, he won’t appreciate the gesture when someone offers a sweet gift or reward. Plus, imagine the dentist and doctor bills that may result from your over-indulgence.


3. Make them pay for their own stuff

If you want something, you have to pay for it. That’s the way adult life works. To get your kids out of your basement in the future, you need to teach your children now that the gadgets, movies, video games, sports teams and camps they enjoy have a price. If they have to pay all or part of that price, they’ll appreciate it more. You may also avoid paying for something your child only wants until he has it. If he’s not willing to go half with you, he probably doesn’t want it that badly.


4. Don’t pull strings

Some kids get a rude awakening when they get a job and realize that the rules actually do apply to them. They have to come on time and do what the boss wants. And, (gasp!) part of the job they don’t even like. If you don’t like your child’s teacher, science partner, position on the soccer field or placement of the bus stop, avoid the temptation to make a stink or pull strings until he gets his preference. You are robbing your child of the chance to make the best of a difficult situation. Dealing with less than ideal circumstance is something she will have to do most of her adult life. If children never learn to handle it, you’re setting them up for failure.


5. Make them do hard things

Don’t automatically step-in and take over when things get hard. Nothing gives your kids a bigger self-confidence boost than sticking to it and accomplishing something difficult for them.


6. Give them a watch and an alarm clock

Your child will be better off if he learns the responsibility of managing his own time. You’re not always going to be there to remind her to turn off the TV and get ready to go.


7. Don’t always buy the latest and greatest

Teach your children gratitude for, and satisfaction with, the things they have. Always worrying about the next big thing and who already has it will lead to a lifetime of debt and unhappiness.


8. Let them feel loss

If your child breaks a toy, don’t replace it. He’ll learn a valuable lesson about taking care of his stuff. If your child forgets to turn in homework, let him take the lower grade or make him work out extra credit with his teacher himself. You are teaching responsibility — who doesn’t want responsible kids? They can help remind you of all the things you forget to do.


9. Control media

If all the other parents let their child jump off a bridge, would you? Don’t let your kids watch a show or play a video game that is inappropriate for children just because all their friends have done it. If you stand up for decent parenting, others may follow. Create some positive peer pressure.


10. Make them apologize

If your child does something wrong, make her fess up and face the consequences. Don’t brush rudeness, bullying, or dishonesty under the rug. If you mess up, set the example and eat your humble pie.


11. Mind their manners

Even small children can learn the basics of how to treat another human with respect and dignity. By making politeness a habit, you’ll be doing your kids a huge favor. Good manners go a long way toward getting someone what they want. We’ve all heard the saying, "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."


12. Make them work — for free

Whether it’s helping grandma in the garden or volunteering to tutor younger kids, make service a part of your child’s life. It teaches them to look outside themselves and realize that other people have needs and problems, too — sometimes greater than their own.

With all the time you spend being mean, don’t forget to praise and reward your children for their stellar behavior. And always, make sure they know you love them. Here are 10 things a mom should tell her kids every day. With a little luck, your kids can turn the tide and make their generation one known for its hope and promise.

http://familyshare.com/12-ways-to-be...m-in-the-world

TIPS FOR A WORN-OUT MOM

1. Lower your standards for cleanliness and order.

2. Did that? Lower them even more.

3. Your house will never look like a magazine spread, period. Embrace that.

4. No matter how many baskets you buy to contain toys, they will always be visible. Embrace the Toys ‘R Us/ frat house-chic decor.

5. You can never have too many Popsicle in the freezer. How many bad moods have been fixed by a simple Popsicle?

6. If you can’t change them, change your perspective. For example I read recently – probably on Satan’s website Pinterest – that toothpaste is great for cleaning things like faucets. So now when I go into the bathroom every day and see toothpaste splatter all over the bathroom faucet I think about how my children have done half the chore of cleaning for me. How considerate of them! Then I wipe it off while cursing.

7. Those chores that no one ever wants to do. Decide if you would rather do it yourself, badger your child to it, or let it go. If you are confused about what to do, see Number 1 on this list.

8. No one cares what is stuffed under your child’s bed, why should you. Unless it is old food. In that case, you should get a dog.

9. If you have boys, your bathroom will always faintly stink like pee. Invest in some Febreeze and count down the days until they move out and you can go visit them and pee on their bathroom floor.

10. Don’t buy white furniture. Unless you enjoy screaming at your children every time they go near it.

11. However bad a situation might seem, one day it will be funny. I have a few for which I am eagerly awaiting for the funny to kick in. Any time now….

12. When your child is a young teen there will be nothing more embarrassing than your very existence. Use this to your advantage. Start planning early.

13. Do not paint any walls in your house with flat paint.

14. Be okay with letting your kids stumble sometimes. Whether that is turning in an assignment late because they didn’t do it or wearing an outfit so hideous you have trouble looking at them without laughing.

15. Noise cancelling headphones are great for blocking out whining, bickering and the endless episodes of Sponge Bob.

16. Socks do not have to match. Every day is Crazy Sock Day at my house, which is infinitely better than Crazy Mom Day.

17. The crayons will break and it is okay to throw them away rather then save them to make some sort of craft that involves the hair dryer. In fact, I give you permission to not feel guilty about all the crafts you know you will never do.

18. Your children will not die from eating the occasional hot dog or frozen pizza. And by occasional, I mean more than you are really willing to admit.

19. If your children are driving you crazy arguing with each other, start an argument with them. Then your children will bond over their mutual hatred of you and be quiet.

20. Children do not appreciate top sheets or high thread counts. Buy neither.

21. Homework time is the worst time of the day. Help your kids and yourself by having a designated time and a quiet place to do homework. Preferably in a neighbor’s home.

22. Just say No to ironing.

23. Last, but not least, some chocolate and some really bad TV makes everything seem a little better.

The Thing About Raising Teenagers That No One Says Out Loud
by Kerri Jackson Case 11 comments

During the past few of years, I’ve noticed a trend. As more of my friends’ children are becoming teenagers, the parents begin to feel more isolated. It’s a concerning situation.

It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with location. Friends from every part of the country are expressing this. It doesn’t seem to have to do with gender. Parents of boys and girls feel the same. It doesn’t seem to have to do with religion. Those of every faith and no faith at all say similar things.

It seems that when you have young children, you get to confess openly your mistakes, your struggles, your fears, all of it. When you search your toddler’s pockets for contraband, that’s funny. Everyone giggles about the odd things sticky fingers managed to pick up and squirrel away when no one was looking. You get support. You get reassurance. You get the magical words, “Me too.”


When you search your teen’s room for contraband, people may or may not judge you as a parent, or more importantly, think your kid has some sort of moral failing. No one is laughing. No is reassuring you. Everyone one is uncomfortable and averting their eyes.

I don’t know if there is any objective evidence on this, but it feels like the stakes for teenagers are much, much higher than when I was younger. Some say the record social media leaves creates a longer memory for what would have been otherwise forgotten moments. Maybe there’s some validity to that. Others think we are in a time and culture with very little grace. I think that’s definitely a piece of it.

I don’t know about you, but I am not even close to the same person I was at 17. Thank God for that. But I didn’t feel like adults around me thought I was fully formed. I got the message that there was still a lot of time in front of me to grow up. Today, I’m not sure that’s true. I hear the sentiment a lot that teenagers are “old enough to know better.” And yes, they are. But they may not always be grown up enough to choose better.

No matter what you think about the age of accountability, we trade in a judgment economy. We’re practically required to have an opinion on everything and everyone. And that creates a culture of silence among teen parents.

No one wants to raise their hands and say, “I tossed my kid’s room looking for drugs because he was acting strange,” or “My kid bought prescription drugs from another kid at school so he could stay awake to study,” or “My kid was out till 2 a.m. I’m pretty sure I believe the perfectly innocent story she told, but I just don’t know.” Because if you tell another parent at the PTA that you’re not sure if you’re making that right choices or if the values you taught your kid are sticking, exactly how long do you think it’s going to take for your child to get labeled in a way they don’t come back from?

But this silence breeds paranoia. Everyone else seems to be doing just fine, even though absolutely no one is doing OK. Everyone is second-guessing and worried and holding on as tight as possible to survive. And I don’t care what you believe about God, everyone is praying to some kind of higher power to just get their kid to adulthood without needing more therapy than insurance will cover.

Since I’m not into any of this yet, I’ve become the “safe” friend to tell these stories to. Parents of teens don’t seem to really talk to each other much, and they have to talk to someone. So I’m breaking the confessional seal to tell you all this much: This is happening to everyone. Yes, even that “good family” you’re thinking about right now. Everyone feels scared and unsure and worried. No one is confident. Everybody is just doing the best that they can.

What I hope more than anything for the next few years is more grace for our kids. I feel bad for high school students right now. This is really hard. It always has been. But the expectations today seem unattainable, and there is just no room for error.

As I recall, that’s when I made a lot of mistakes. That’s when I was supposed to make mistakes. I was shown grace for those screwups because people seemed to understand that. I hope to see that understanding, that so important mercy, return.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep rumor-mongering, like a good high school girl would. My big piece of juicy gossip: You are not alone.

http://www.scarymommy.com/club-mid/t...says-out-loud/

MESSAGE TO MY TEENAGER ~ (author unknown)
1. Yes, your freshman AND Sophomore years count towards your GPA for college entrance. Screw it up and you’ll work for crap wages your whole life.

2. No means NO. In every possible circumstance.

3. Join every sport, every club, every after school activity no matter what the cost. It’s cheaper than bail.

4. Repeat after me: I am never in that much of a hurry…I am never in that much of a hurry. Now say that every time you get behind the wheel. It will save your life and that of your best friend in the seat next to you.

5. Don’t do drugs or drink - it is so not worth the trouble.

6. Don’t get a credit card. You earn it or you live without it.

7. If I yell at you, it’s because I love you. And also, because you pissed me off. To avoid the latter, don't be an idiot. And don't disappoint me. More importantly, yourself.

8. Make a vivid picture inside your head of every great moment of your childhood. You’ll need those to get through adulthood.

9. Make snow angels as often as possible. Make a bucket list. Check it off!

10. Stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves.

11. Be always benevolent. Yes, that’s a word. Look it up.

12. Call me for a ride even if you are so drunk you barely know my number. I’ll probably be mad for a while but I’ll respect you for calling and I won’t kill you. Riding with someone who is drinking will. (PS - remember #5?)

13. Be a leader, not a follower. Unless you are following the kid with the highest GPA and (s)he is going to a study group, then by all means be a follower!

14. Love your siblings, even when you don’t like them. Some day you will be trying to get them to take care of me in my old age. If they are mad at you, you are stuck with me.

15. I’ve been there, done that on more things than you can imagine. I’m not stupid and I know what you are doing. I was once you (times ten).

16. Work hard at everything you do. Anything worth doing is worth doing well.

17. Cover it. (Enough said.)

18. When I tell you to clean your room, do not point at my messy room and raise your eyebrows. I’m trying to raise you to be better than me.

19. Learn to type; to budget; to spell correctly and to pray. All are equally important.

20. Never be sedentary. Someday soon you will no longer be able to move like that. Enjoy it.