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Emerson Publications
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The Family First
Newsletter In this issue:
Save $400 on
School Lunches This Year
Good morning!
Have you been using ebay to get rid of some of your clutter? I used ebay for years, but have now switched to www.craigslist.org After trying to sell my phone for $200 on ebay and getting charged $7.00 without a sale, I did sell it on Craigslist for a flat $200 with no fees, no shipping. One thing I've had to get used to is starting with a price just a bit higher than what I want, because with Craigslist, it seems everyone wants to offer you a little less. Unlike ebay where you start low and hope for the best. Great way to sell large items that cost more than the item itself to ship. Spread the word.
If you haven't visited my smart daughter's www.freezersmarts.com site, check it out. The free recipes change every month, so even if you DID visit last month, there's more there today!
I am grateful for all of the blessings in my life, and I appreciate you! Please forward this issue to someone who may benefit from it!
Save $400
on School Lunches This Year! These days in
America, it seems that everyone is so busy that preparing school lunches is
liable to push a typical mom right over the edge. When you have to choose
between making school lunches or spending that extra 15 minutes in bed, it seems
like buying ready made lunches at the store is a no-brainer, but your budget
doesn’t agree. The average mom packs $2.00 worth of pre-packaged goodies into
each lunch she sends to school with her kids. (That works out to $720 for 2
kids.) What mother hasn’t wondered if those lunches are even getting eaten? Here
are some tips from LivingOnADime.com for things you can do in 30 minutes or less
on the weekend to make those school lunches a snap! Those snack
bags of munchies cost a lot! Make your own by pre-packaging chips, pretzels,
animal crackers and other snack items into sandwich bags on the weekends. (Have
the kids help!) Store them in a big container or basket and just throw them in
the lunch box in the morning. Let the kids
create their own Pizza lunch kits- Toast bread and cutout little circles
with a biscuit cutter. Add small containers of pizza sauce, cheese, and other
toppings. Make fruit
gelatin and pudding and put in small plastic containers for the week. Make a
large batch of granola bars, cookies, pumpkin bread, banana bread or muffins.
Divide them into zip top sandwich bags and freeze so that you can grab one or
two when needed. Brownie
bites are simple to make. Bake brownie mix in mini-muffin pans and put
three "brownie bites" in a sandwich bag for each child's lunch. They freeze well
too! Fill thermos
(not glass) half full with juice the night before and freeze. In the morning,
remove from freezer and fill the rest of the way. The juice will be cold when
the kids are ready to drink it and it keeps their food cold too. Clean
vegetables, slice into pieces and bag. Preparing a weeks worth of veggies at
a time for lunches and snacks saves money and time. Purchase
cheese in blocks, cut into pieces and put in sandwich bags. Save
napkins, catsup and mustard packets you get from take-out. Use in lunches. Before you make another peanut butter and jelly sandwich, check out www.LivingOnADime.com for more recipe ideas I make my car payment working from home. You can, too! www.familyfirst.fourpointmoms.com
Goal Setting for Kids – 2 Ways to Create Winning Feelings Goal Setting for Kids - With Feelings of Joy and Enthusiasm: When we accept tough jobs as a challenge. . . and wade into them with joy and enthusiasm, miracles can happen." - Arland Gilbert Children become winners when they approach life with joy and enthusiasm too. But when children's spirits are down, they don't feel like trying. Goal setting offers them a way to learn the magic of optimism. Here are two ways you can help them. Parenting Tips - 2 Character Building Ways to Create Winning Feelings: Let's say your Brad loves soccer but he's an average player. His last practice was a disaster. He's told you that he'll be sitting on the sidelines this season. Now he mopes around the house. Your heart goes out to him. You ask him if he'd like a way to create winning feelings. He smiles. Here's the next step: First Character Building Way to Create Winning Feelings - Pick it: Ask him to pick the feeling he needs to be a better soccer player. If he doesn't know, give him a choice of feelings to pick from. Perhaps you suggest energetic, determined, and enthusiastic. Brad says he likes focused better. You're not sure that's a feeling word. To Brad it is, so use his word. His word means something to him and that's just what you want. Second Character Building Way to Create Winning Feelings - Feel it: Tell Brad to imagine running toward the ball. Then tell him to feel what it's like to focus on running toward the ball. This may take some time. He'll probably need to close his eyes to get the feeling right. When Brad feels his chosen feeling, tell him to practice feeling it every night before he falls asleep and each morning before he rises. Goal Setting Summary: Goal setting with the right feelings helps your child learn a winning skill for life. Just remember to have him pick the feeling he wants and then feel it. You'll be teaching him to experience the joy and enthusiasm of tackling a challenge. In short, you'll be showing him how to be a winner. You'll be building character too.
Jean Tracy, MSS, publishes a Free Parenting Newsletter. Subscribe at
http://www.KidsDiscuss.com and receive 80 fun activities to share with your kids. If you like these tips, pick up our Free Parenting Tips – 21 of the Best at
http://www.KidsDiscuss.com Goal-setting is easy, fun, and effective with the Goal-Setting Kit. It's available exclusively at
http://www.kidsdiscuss.com/parent_resource_center.asp?pr_id=kd004 Pick it up today!
Jean Tracy, MSS may be contacted at http://www.KidsDiscuss.com
Make your freezer cooking easy and fun.
www.freezersmarts.com
Middle School. Oh Boy, er, Girl! Here it is. End of July, and school beckons from around the corner. Just like every summer, the months race by, and we're back to the same old school routine. For us, this year, it's going to be a little different, and it won't be the same old school routine. Our daughter Kathryn will be entering middle school. Her anxiety level is rising, and she's reading all sorts of books like A Smart Girl's Guide to Starting Middle School (American Girl) and How I Survived Middle School: Can You Get an F in Lunch? Her biggest concern? How to open her locker, of course. To me and my husband, that seems to be the smallest of concerns. We don't discount that a locker combination seems to be an impossible mechanical device. We just know that she'll conquer the technology behind the locker combination pretty quickly. Other issues, though, won't fade so fast. She's going to have to deal with cliques and mean-spirited people. Boys may become more of a fixture in her everyday thoughts and conversation. (Chris, my husband, is not too happy with that one.) Homework will be more challenging. She's in Math 7, as opposed to Math 6, and she's wondering how hard it will be. She won't have the attention of a single homeroom teacher; instead she'll have seven different teachers whom she'll have to get to know and learn their particular styles. While Kathryn is the type of person who can feel anxiety over anything she can't fully define or control, we're doing what we can to allay her fears. I told Kathryn we can go up to the school and tour it every week in August if she likes, before her half-day orientation. My husband has an old combination lock that we're letting her practice on. We're trying to get her in the habit of acknowledging her fears and accept all her feelings, even the "bad" ones (her words), as part of who she is. We're talking about middle school and not just brushing off or avoiding her concerns. The one thing she'll have to learn, however, is just to deal with it and feel positive that it will turn out just fine. Our favorite words for Kathryn are "Go with the flow." She needs to be able to accept what's happening now and not to try to figure it out ahead of time or control it. I suspect that when the first week of school is over, she'll laugh at her anxieties over the locker. She'll get used to the routine of changing classes. She'll happily reunite with old friends and meet some new ones. She'll be able to traverse the corridors of her new school with no problem. Most importantly, she'll have this experience of being scared, preparing for something new and unfamiliar, talking it through, and working through her fears. As Kathryn put it at Six Flags last weekend: "I want to ride every ride at least twice: once because I'm scared, but at the end I enjoy it; and the second time so that I can enjoy it from beginning to end." Now she can't go through middle school twice (is that a nightmare or what?), but she can try to get a handle on her angst so that she can fully enjoy middle school from beginning to end. She'll get through middle school, high school, college, dating, and beyond. Although her father and I will gleefully ignore those particular milestones. No need to worry at this point. We'll save that for future summers.
Dawn Goldberg is the Chief Writing Officer of Write Well University, COO of Assist University, mother, community leader, and former teacher. Her vision is to create a resource that helps parents find ways to enjoy valuable, constructive time with their children every day. Sign up for the After School Snacks newsletter at
http://www.afterschoolsnacks.com for inspirational, helpful articles on parenting as well as fast, healthy, delicious snacks for any time of the year.
Dawn Goldberg may be contacted at www.afterschoolsnacks.com or articles@afterschoolsnacks.com Don't leave your loved ones guessing...record
your information now.
Firm Up Your Discipline with This Helpful Tool!
Why is it so hard for parents to be consistent when disciplining children?
Many factors come into play. How tired are you?! How persistent is your child? How were you disciplined? What kind of parenting style do you have? Does the other parent agree with you on discipline methods and follow-through? We hate being the "heavy" . . .
One secret that can be highly effective in overcoming these obstacles that comes from the "7 Effective Parenting Skills for Effective Parenting" class is to develop Family Rules and Consequences. If there's just one thing you do to improve your discipline practices, I would recommend this! Follow these step-by-step directions.
How To Develop Family Rules and Consequences
Step #1- Have a meeting with your spouse/partner/other parent. The two of you should sit down and talk about the rules that are most important to you. I recommend no more than 4-5 house rules.
Step #2- Brainstorm ideas for consequences that are appropriate for the "crime."
Step #3- Sit down with your family (even kids as young as 3 can participate) at a calm, quiet time and ask them their opinion. A question like this can get the ball rolling. "What rules do you think are important to have in our family so that no one's body or feelings get hurt?"
Step # 4- Write down the rules that everyone suggests. Make sure that the rules that you identified in Step #1 are included on the list. Use the words that your children are providing so the rules are kid-friendly.
Step #5- Refine the rules so they are clear and specific. Ie. "Be respectful" is vague. "No name calling" is clear.
Step #6- Next, you want to get everyone's input on appropriate consequences for breaking a rule.
Step #7- Finalize the rules and consequences if they are close to the rules that both parents agrees upon in #1. If not, the parents should meet privately to hash out the differences.
Step #8- Write the rules down, meet again as a family, review the rules, have everyone sign them which means they agree to abide by the family rules and post them in a prominent place.
How can this process help you to be a better parent and be more consistent?
* As parents you've taken the time to discuss what rules are most important to you (which many of us never sit down to do!). * You've reached a consensus within the family about what rules are most important to you. * The rules are crystal clear. * It takes the mystery out of what will happen when a rule is broken. * You and the other parent will enforce the same consequence for the same offense building in consistency. * When you're tired, you can simply look at the chart to remember the consequence. * The consequence is more likely to be a logical one if you've provided forethought on the behavior.
Byline: Toni Schutta, Parent Coach, M.A., L.P.,
has 11 years experience helping parents find solutions that work. For a FREE e-course on “How to Win the Chore Wars” and a FREE monthly parenting newsletter go http://www.familiesfirstcoaching.com.
Toni Schutta may be contacted at http://www.familiesfirstcoaching.com or mom_tonis@yahoo.com |
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