Monthly Archives: December 2007

The first snow of this winter

homeschooling

We had our first snow of the year last night, and it’s just beautiful out.  I got an early morning call from another mom asking me to take over carpool for our high school boys for her, since the school opening time was delayed to 10 am (because of the snow).  I said okay, but at 9 am, got another call saying that school was cancelled because of problems with the heating system.  Hooray – I didn’t have to do an extra carpool and most importantly, we get to have ds14 home with us today!

The kids are building an igloo.  And I don’t mean an eentsy weentsy one, either – it will fit several children inside when they’re done (or one 6 ft adult lying down).  When the kids want to do something, they really do it!  They’re packing snow tightly down into a plastic box, then stacking the ‘snow’ blocks in a staggered pattern.  So far they’ve made three rows high.  I don’t know how they can stay outside for so many hours in the cold, but I guess it’s because they’re staying so active.  Bit by bit they’re trickling in – the third child has just come in, and each of them are soaked through.  Their coats and gloves are going directly from their hands into the dryer!

I initially planned for everyone to follow our regular schedule, but after breakfast, I told them to just go out and enjoy the snow.  What’s the point of having the flexibility of homeschooling if I don’t take advantage of it sometimes?  Whatever work they have to do will wait, but the first snow of the year is only here once. 

Avivah

Kids puppet show

homeschooling,

I decided recently to change the way I’m posting to make it easier to categorize and for people to find in the archives.  I often hesitated to post about things that were happening because it made for too long a post when I put a bunch of things together, and then I ended up not posting about lots of things that were on my mind.  So if you’re wondering why I’ve changed the format and there are now several short posts in one day, that’s your answer! 

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah, and we’re having a homeschooling family of 10 that we met last year on a shopping trip to PA (we were both families of 9 then, and since had babies within three weeks of each other).  Since the first time we met (I mentioned it in passing the day we met them here on my blog), we’ve gotten together several times.  My kids are really looking forward to having them, and so am I, of course. 🙂 

My kids built a beautiful wooden puppet theatre several weeks ago, and have been working intensely on writing a puppet show (Chanuka theme), making the puppets, decorating the theatre and this last week, practicing for the show.  When they began, I had no idea how much effort they would be putting into it, but they’ve all put in hours to get ready for it. 

Tonight will be the first night they perform it, for our guests, and then tomorrow night my mom and dh’s parents will be here for the second show.  They want to invite another large family we’re friendly with to see it, so hopefully we can have them over for one afternoon this week.  I haven’t yet seen it – they expressly want me to be surprised, so they are practicing in the basement where I can’t hear them. They showed my husband the script and he thought it was great.  I’m looking forward to seeing the result of all their hard work!

Avivah

Great kids storybook

homeschooling,

The kids picked up a picture book at the library that I took a quick glance at and approved, but didn’t get to read until yesterday –  Cinder Edna, by Ellen Jackson.  It didn’t look like much by the cover (and you know what they say about judging a book by its cover – but I do it anyway), and I personally wouldn’t have picked it up without knowing what it was.  Fortunately, one of my kids chose it, and wow, what a great book!  You know a book is good when everyone in the family, including the parents, enjoy reading it!

It’s a modern day version of Cinderella; it portrays the typical Cinderella and simultaneously shows Cinder Edna, a spunky modern day girl who doesn’t complain about her life and instead uses her opportunities to better herself and takes responsibility for what she can.  I often tell my kids that they are the ones who choose their attitudes and thereby determine to a large degree how happy they are going to be in life, and this book highlights that message beautifully.  It’s very fun and had me laughing out loud when I read it to the kids.  Definitely put this on your list next time you’re at the library, and let me know if your family enjoys it as much as ours!

Avivah

No bake cookie recipe

recipes

I’ve had an ongoing challenge with mornings for months now – I wake up in the earlier hours of the morning, too early to feel like waking up, but feeling really awake.  I finally get back to sleep, and when I wake up again, it’s much later than I like.  This morning when I woke up the first time, I decided to just get up.  It’s not even so early, it was 5:30 when I fed the baby and it was after 6 by the time I got out of bed.  But since at this stage of my life I’ve become a night person, this is early for me!

 Last night ds8 and I made a no bake cookie recipe that we tried for the first time on the weekend.  I recently copied this one into my notebook, thinking it sounded vaguely familiar, and then found I had already copied the exact same recipe down another time from somewhere else!  I guess it shows that I have an idea of the kind of thing that I like, since I don’t copy large numbers of new recipes.  🙂   It’s a great recipe to make with your kids, and so I’m sharing it here with you:

No Bake Oatmeal Cookies

  • 2/3 c. maple syrup (I used honey)
  • 1/4 c. coconut oil (butter would be fine, too)
  • 4 T. cocoa
  • 1 t. cinnamon
  • 1/2 c. peanut butter
  • 2 c. rolled oats (I used organic)
  • 1 t. vanilla

Melt maple syrup with cocoa over low heat, then pour over other ingredients and mix well. Drop onto wax paper in small teaspoon size blobs.  Refrigerate 30 min.  Keep stored in fridge or freezer.

This recipe was so delicious (and healthy!) that it immediately made it onto the list of ‘must make again very soon’.   Last night I decided on the spur of the moment (at 9:30 pm) to make them with ds8, who I decided needed some extra mommy time.  It’s a quick and easy recipe since there’s no baking and you basically just mix everything into the pot that you heat up the sweetener and cocoa.  Because I have a large container of blackstrap molasses, which is lots less expensive than honey, I decided to try substituting it for 3/4 the amount of honey, still using honey for the other 1/4.   It came out….well, they’re okay.  Blackstrap molasses has a strong and distinct flavor, so it didn’t add much to this recipe.  I won’t do it again next time (I will try using regular molasses, though), but I still think that the kids will be willing to eat it.  I’ll see when they wake up.  I’m having a few of these for breakfast while I write this; it’s a good high energy breakfast, with good healthy fat, fiber, and iron.  

Avivah 

Rickets on the rise in US

nutrition

Do you remember years ago learning about rickets?  I seem to remember hearing that it was found most in children living in dreary tenement buildings in the early part of the last century who suffered from malnutrition because of poverty.

 Well, now it seems that rickets is on the rise right here in the US.  What causes rickets?  Lack of vitamin d, found in fortified milk but naturally absorbed by spending time in the sun.  We now have a generation of children who are spending most of their days inside on their computers, game boys, and watching tv.  They aren’t getting any sunlight and they aren’t getting exercise. There are plenty of concerns I’ve had about this, but the concern about rickets  is one that never occurred to me.

What is even more concerning is that many children who aren’t in bad enough shape to be diagnosed with rickets are still suffering from softer than normal bones – hence the increase in broken bones among kids nowadays.  Since strong bones are formed as children and that’s what we take with us into our adult years, we should be concerned if a large number of children aren’t building their bones up when they are young. 

 Interestingly, I was just thinking about if broken bones are becoming more common last week – a 10th grader in my carpool just broke his foot playing basketball, and my son told me that it’s not uncommon in school for kids in his high school to break bones while playing.  As a parent, I found this very alarming. I don’t remember it being common at any point in my childhood for my agemates to break a bone.  In the article that I linked to, they state that exercise and good nutrition are strongly linked to strong bones (obvious, but a good point still), and that kids nowadays are significantly more likely to break a bone than in past generations.  This also points to why in some families breaking a bone is common while it others it rarely occurs – because the nutrition and lifestyle practices of the families are very different and thereby support different kind of outcomes.

Check out this recent article on the topic of rickets.

Avoiding rickets and building strong bones isn’t rocket science – give your kids good quality food to eat and make sure they get outside regularly for some sun and exercise – how much easier could it be?  Obviously for lots of parents, not easy enough.

Avivah

Mom asking for help with anger

parenting

A mom asked how to handle her anger when her 3 year old didn’t listen to what she said.  She said that she felt her problem was her anger, not the child’s behavior (though the 3yo was disobedient, threw tantrums, and ignored her mother whenever she told her to do something). 

My response: Please, please look at the post I just wrote about sibling issues – you will see a loving, firm approach that will keep you from getting angry and ensure your daughter clearly gets a sense of her boundaries.  In my experience, I have seen that this is probably the most common issue for moms, not knowing how to effectively discipline, and then feeling guilty because they feel angry/hateful towards their child.  But it’s very exciting when you see what a major change it makes in the home environment to get this aspect of things under control; you’re happier, your child is happier, and you can enjoy each other lots more.

I feel very passionately about this because I really struggled with this issue earlier on in my parenting. I’ve been very fortunate to learn better ways to deal with things, but have continued to see the same mistakes I was making be made all the time – and the same ineffective suggestions continue to be made to parents in how to deal with it.  I also see many people with older kids who have gotten out of control. Effective discipline is crucial to the short and long term relationship between the parent and child.  It’s interesting but sad to note that many of these parents were so concerned about gentle parenting that they didn’t want to even say ‘no’ to their children now have hostile and strained relations with their resistant teenagers.  It’s hard to enjoy being around undisciplined children, even (especially?) if they are your own.

I’m not saying mine is the only approach that works well, and if someone finds something else that works for them, then that’s great. I haven’t, and I’d read just about every book out there at some point! But I do have enough years of parenting behind me (my oldest is 14) to really see the fruits of using an approach like this. I spend all day, every day with my kids (we homeschool) and love it. I rarely get angry (annoyed, yes, but angry, no) and it’s not because I’m super patient, because I’m not at all. I’ve just taught my kids that when I say something, I mean it, and I’ve invested the time and effort into really building relationships with them.

It’s reasonable to get angry when what is important to you is regularly being trampled on. I really don’t think the answer to being a calmer parent is to try to understand your child more. Yes, it’s really important to be respectful of her and to think about her feelings, but at the same time, justifying her bad behavior isn’t helping either of you.  You should to respect your own boundaries and emotional needs as much as you respect your child’s!

Avivah

4 yo being too rough with baby

parenting

A mom of a 4.5 year old and infant asked how to handle the following situation: the 4 yo was repeatedly roughly stroking the baby’s face and body, regardless of being redirected or having it explained to him why he shouldn’t do it.  My response is below:

Having had a 4.5 year old son as well as a 9 month old, I can relate to this issue as well.

My first thought is that he knows exactly what he is doing, and it’s not to show affection. He wants to do something hurtful but not look like he is being hurtful. So he’s doing something that looks nice just a little too much. 4 year olds understand a lot more than most parents give them credit for, and the need to be gentle with someone much younger than them is well within their understanding and abilities. The way he is doing it shows he is being purposeful.

Practically speaking, as soon as you see his hand reaching out to do something, catch his hand in yours (before he can hurt her) and in a firm voice, say “No!” Obviously, this means you need to stay very close by when the two of them are in the same area (which is pretty important for many reasons for any kids this age :)). Intercept him every time. Let him know that you will not tolerate any hurting in your home. Then show him how to show the baby he loves her when he tells you he is doing it because he loves her.

By dealing with it like this, you will be able to deal with him from a position of calm and firmness, not anger, because you are preempting the situation instead of responding after the fact. He will learn very quickly that it’s not going to get him anywhere to try to hurt her. It sounds like you are already giving him lots of attention in a nice relaxed atmosphere. If that’s the case, it’s not because he’s not getting attention that he’s upset, but just because she is getting attention that bothers him. I think he’s old enough to talk with about this, that sometimes he will get attention, and sometimes she will get attention, and her getting attention doesn’t make him any less. When a child is filled up inside, he doesn’t feel threatened by someone else having something nice, and it seems there’s some insecurity going on inside of him. If you can identify where that is coming from, by addressing that you will get to the root of the issue.

I don’t think you need to worry that it’s because of his sister that he’s getting a negative reaction from you – it’s a result of his actions. I think that dealing with this right away is the most loving thing you can do for him and the entire family – it just keeps getting worse if it’s not dealt with. Someone called me last week for help with her ten year old, who is out of control now because she never taught him to control himself when he was young, and excused his behavior as normal, something he would grow out of, and felt bad that he must be missing something inside to make him act like that. The measures she needs to take now to teach him to have consideration for someone other than himself are really hard and could have been dealt with so easily when he was young.

Be consistent and don’t give up; change won’t be immediate, but it will definitely happen, and you will enjoy being with him lots more until then!

Avivah