Avivah Werner

Author: Avivah

  • Transitioning from a crib

    Lots of parents wonder about when the right time is to transition their young children from a crib to a toddler/regular bed. I don’t think there is any right age for this, though most people say it was easier for them sooner rather than later. Personally, I think most of our kids have switched from one to another between 18 – 24 months and it worked fine for us.

    The hard things about switching your child to a new sleeping situation are: a) getting them to go to sleep; and b) keeping them in bed.

    A) You can’t make a child go to sleep, and it’s to be expected that they will find a new bed exciting enough to keep them awake – especially if they will now be in the same room as a sibling. I don’t mind if my kids talk after lights out, as long as they keep their voices down. Usually they wind down on their own, so I don’t find that they overstimulate each other so much that it gets problematic. But we also have a winding down routine prior to getting into bed. For us, we do nightly read alouds together (yes, even the older kids!), which everyone listens to and gets them to slow down and sit quietly, which is a natural lead in to sleep. Every family will find the rituals that they enjoy, but whatever it is, when done regularly, the kids will just expect it. So set up a relaxing evening routine – baths, stories, slow music – whatever works well for you.

    If my kids were keeping each other awake and I felt it was a problem, I would just sit in the room with them and immediately put my finger to their lips and make a gentle shushing sound the minute they opened their mouths to speak. When I first sat down with them, I would let them know that it’s time for sleep, and say something like, “I know you love to talk and tomorrow you will have plenty of time for that. I want you to have lots of energy for our fun day tomorrow and if you stay up late talking you’re going to be too tired to enjoy it.” By nighttime, kids really are worn out, and enforced silence for a period of time means that they will have the chance to relax enough to go to sleep.

    B) So how do you get them to stay in bed, once they realize they have the freedom to get out when they want? I remember my second child literally getting out of bed twenty times the first night she was in her new bed. Yes, that was very frustrating for me. I didn’t know how to appropriately handle it and prevent the situation from escalating in the first place. Now that would never happen, because I would stay close by, knowing that she will need help learning the rules of sleeping in a bed. The lights would be out, and as soon as she would move her leg to the side of the bed to start to get up, I would tap it gently and say, “No getting up now, it’s time for sleep.” Again, if you are right there, she is not going to be able to come out even once, let alone twenty times. And she will fall asleep relatively quickly once the stimulus of being able to independently explore her room at night is removed.

    Avivah

  • Making broth from scratch

    I’ve been feeling tired the last couple of days, and I’ve been frequenting parenting boards more than usual since it’s easier to be online than to be actually doing stuff when I’m this exhausted. Tonight I just have had enough. It’s like a huge ocean of lousy parenting suggestions. 🙁

    So I decided to shift mental gears and instead of writing about parenting I’ll share with you how to make chicken stock. Especially in the winter when kids aren’t feeling good, it’s great to have some germ fighting chicken soup on hand! Lots of people think that making chicken stock from scratch is hard and think that adding soup mix is necessary to give it flavor. I don’t know where this idea came from, since there’s nothing much easier than homemade stock. My kids make ours on a regular basis, and every time, it is delicious! I had a couple of turkey carcasses in the fridge today, and this is the perfect use for them.

    Put the chicken/bones/whatever you are using in the pot, covering it with at least a couple of inches with water. Some people like to skim it after bringing it to a boil, to make the soup clearer, but I stopped doing that years ago. Once it is boiling, add your veggies – onions, garlic, parsnip, carrot, celery, turnip, rutabaga, squash, tomato – use as many or as few of these in combination as you like. Personally, we use most of the veggies listed – they make for an incredibly rich flavor. Just peel the vegetables and pop them in the pot; don’t worry about chopping them up.

    Once the soup is boiling again, turn it all the way down and let it simmer, for hours. I sometimes start a large pot before I go to sleep, and leave it on the lowest setting overnight. When I wake up, the house smells amazing and there is a delicious pot of soup waiting for us. The long cooking time is really important in giving the flavors a chance to meld and deepen.

    If you want to put a couple of tablespoons of vinegar in when it’s cooking, that will help leach vitamins from the bones and adds to the nutritional value. I like to use Bragg’s raw apple cider vinegar for this. If you don’t, it will still be good for you. Some people also like to let it cool in the fridge once it’s finished cooking and then skim off the fat from the top so the broth is clear- I don’t do this, but just in case it’s something you want to try, I’m mentioning it.  Then you can put the fat that you skim off in the fridge and use it to cook with!

    When it’s finished, I take out the carcass, and take all of the turkey meat off of it. Then I use it in a turkey pot pie for another night’s dinner. I end up with so much soup that we have soup as a first course for one meal, and then later in the week, add rice to whatever soup is left for a hearty lunch meal. Amazing how much good eating can come from a turkey carcass that most people would throw away!

    Avivah

  • Reinforcing your requests to your child

    I thought I had posted steps for how to handle reinforcing your requests to your child, but just checked the archives and realized that I’ve written it on parenting boards and in private emails but not here! So I will give an example of my general approach here. (For the person to whom I promised to post about transitioning to a crib: I wrote the post yesterday and my system froze so it was lost – I will rewrite it and post it in the next couple of days. Please forgive the delay.)

    I’ve already said how important it is to be clear about what you want your child to do. This means that you need to be crystal clear in your own mind about what you want – don’t skip this! Once you’ve decided what kind of behavior is acceptable and not acceptable in your home, and your child crosses you, what do you do?

    Let’s take the example of a child hitting a sibling, since it’s so common and makes parents furious! Usually what happens? You don’t do anything until after the child has hit his sibling. Instead of waiting for your child to hit the sibling, and then responding to the incident, you want to preempt the behavior from the beginning. That means you are going to stop him before he hits his baby brother.

    How can you stop him? Make sure he stays in your presence – and I don’t mean only the same room. Glue him to your side if necessary. When you wash dishes or cook, have him busy in the kitchen with you. When he is playing with his cars on the floor, you are sitting close by on the couch. You want to catch him as he is about to do the behavior you have forbidden, and the only way to intercept him is to be there.

    The idea is not only to physically prevent him from hurting his brother all the time, but to help him learn that you won’t tolerate it and change how he thinks about his actions. In the first case, it will only work when you are there to stop him, and your eventual goal is to help him develop an internal awareness of what is acceptable behavior, not just the short term goal of stopping the hurting. You are waiting for him to reach his hand out to hurt the baby, and when you see him start to stretch his hand out, you will swiftly catch him hand and strongly tell him, “No hurting!” No yelling will be necessary, and you will be feeling calm because you know you are taking steps to address the situation proactively instead of just reacting to what is already done.

    You will need to do this regularly and consistently so that your child gets the clear message that he’s not going to get away with this. His behavior should improve quickly. Remember, though, that you don’t want to be the punitive parent, always looking for your child to do something wrong. What are you going to be doing with your child so close by, for all of that time when he isn’t about to misbehave? You are going to be actively building the relationship. Play, talk, read – this builds the bonds of love between you both, and gives you a solid platform to discipline from. This is really, really important – don’t skip building the relationship and make your child feel you are like a policeman, watching him every second for any tiny misdeed. That would be a total misunderstanding of what I’m suggesting.

    I know that most moms will say that it’s too hard for them to keep their child close by for so long. Here’s something to think about: would you rather spend your time working on prevention or putting out fires? I’m a believer in prevention being worth more than the cure. Wouldn’t you rather not get sick in the first place than need to have any kind of treatment for it, even if the treatment is relatively pleasant?

    By taking this kind of action, you are eliminating the need for extensive discipline further down the road. Whatever action you want to correct, you are basically going to swiftly and firmly let him know isn’t going to go over with you. I don’t want to share too many specifics because I know people get hung up on the exact how (I’m often asked what exact consequence to give), and it’s the process that I want you to understand. (Some general suggestions of things we have done: remove him from the area, take away what he is using wrongly, have him sit/stand for a certain period of time, have him practice the kind of behavior you want to see for several times.) Once you understand the approach, you can tailor the exact response to your personality.

    Avivah

  • Testing limits (continued)

    Sometimes a child will be really well behaved for a period of time, and then starts to misbehave. The parent doesn’t understand what has happened to her perfect child. What has usually happened is the parent is initially consistent in her reponses, and the child acts accordingly. Bit by bit she slacks off in her supervision of the child since she feels he doesn’t need that kind of oversight anymore, and they start to act out more and more, seeing that their mom isn’t doing anything about it. They want to see if you are going to loosen the reigns, or if you are going to stand firm on what you claim are your standards.

    Sometimes moms are too ‘nice’ and their children learn quickly that they can manipulate them and take advantage of them, by acting out to get what they want, knowing mom isn’t going to respond strongly. This is especially common with moms who have ignored small incidents of testing, thinking they are too insignificant to respond to.

    It’s not irrelevant where the behavior is coming from, but it’s a lot less important than most parents think. Many parents analyze themselves and their children, questioning and doubting themselves, worrying that the child is acting like this because of inner turmoil or emotionally challenging times. It’s generally true that parents will see more testing behavior at times like these, since that’s when a parent is preoccupied with other things and therefore inconsistent – before or after a baby is born, when moving, etc. Especially at times like this, children need the stability of you being there, knowing that you aren’t going to blow with the wind. As someone said to me years ago, “A child needs to know when he leans on the wall that it’s not going to fall down.”

    Avivah

  • Four year old testing limits

    There is a point where every child is going to test you, and see if you really mean what you say. This happens with older infants, toddlers, young children – all the way up through the teenage years. How much of an issue this is in your life throughout your years of parenting will depend on how clear and decisive you are in your day to day responses to the way your child behaves. Episodes of testing should only happen rarely, and if it’s happening more often than that, then you haven’t been clear in communicating that you are serious about your expectations to your child.

    Lots of parents insist that they have let their child know very clearly what they want, but the truth is, if your words aren’t followed up by action, it won’t mean much. If you say you’re on a diet, and your kids watch you eating chocolate all day long, they know that your words and actions aren’t lined up. Similarly, when parents tell their kids, “No yelling” but then do nothing about it when the children yell, they’ve shown that what they say isn’t meant to be taken seriously.

    A child who is testing you is a child who is asking you to clarify what you really mean when you tell him what you want. Every child needs to see that his parent is going to consistently reinforce the standards he has established in the home. It makes a child feel both powerful (in an unhealthy way – which is scary for him) and unsafe to be the one who decides what he can do. He wants you to be in charge – with love and respect for him, of course – but he doesn’t want to be the boss. He knows he is just a kid (this is especially true of older kids who seem to want to be in charge), and it’s a relief for your children that you are acting like the parent. They need to know that they can trust you to respond reliably and predictably.

    Here are a few basic guidelines:
    – Be clear in letting your kids know what appropriate behavior in your house should look like.
    – Be immediate in your response to something that you find inappropriate.
    – Be consistent – if you respond the same way every time, you are going to drastically reduce the amount of testing in your home. Don’t constantly doubt the way you do things; your ambiguity will come through loud and clear to your children. Think about what is is that you want, and then follow through.

    Are you giving warnings or reminders instead of actively responding to the behavior, hoping that she will do what you say so that you won’t need to deal with it? Sometimes we let things slide, figuring that is isn’t a big enough deal to merit doing anything about it. I see this all the time in public – parents giving their children repeated warnings, and it’s clear to even me, as a casual bystander, that the parent isn’t going to do anything except continue repeating his demand that the child act nicely.

    Anecdotally, a few weeks ago, my kids went somewhere with their grandparents, and when my ten year old came back she told me, “There was a little girl there and her mother told her to stop acting up or they would go home, and then little girl did the same thing, and she actually took her home! I couldn’t believe that someone except you actually disciplines their children!” I asked her why that was such a big deal, and she said, “Because I’m used to seeing kids who don’t listen to their parents.” Even young kids on the outside looking in can see clearly the difference between a parent who means what she says and one who doesn’t.

    I’ll continue with this more tomorrow – I fell asleep early in the evening for a few hours, so I am up later than usual, but now I need to get to bed!

    Avivah

  • Preparing for birthdays

    Food prepared with love has an amazing power to give a special message, to say I love you and I care about you. Home cooking really is better lots better than store bought stuff, and it doesn’t take nearly as long as people think to cook from scratch, especially when you are organized. And you don’t need to cook with lots of sugar and unhealthy fats to make things taste good!

    Today we are getting ready for my mom’s birthday. Our family custom is to make a special meal for the person having a birthday, and this will be her first birthday she is spending with us. Sometimes we make a breakfast, sometimes a dinner, sometimes a cake – it depends on the kind of food that the person we are surprising likes.

    We will be making creamy vegetable soup, biscuits, baked fish, salad, and lemon meringue pie for a family dinner together. She is dieting so we don’t want to make food she wouldn’t want to have. Not that lemon meringue pie is exactly dieter’s fare, but it’s something that she will enjoy enough to make it worth her ‘points’ (she does Weight Watchers). A friend from overseas will be in town for a couple of days, and is making time in his busy schedule to come by, so we should have some yummy leftovers to serve him when he gets here.

    We actually have some other good leftovers from oldest dd’s bas mitzva party on Sunday night. We don’t make yearly parties, and this was a very special event for her – it was a huge success and everyone had a great time. Dd really felt loved and was so happy about how it all went. She spent hours with me in the kitchen preparing for it – we made macaroni and cheese (I have a recipe that her Girl Scout troop raved over several years ago), lasagna, veg. platter with dips, and garlic bread. We made more desserts than we really needed, just to have a nice selection – the visual centerpiece was a chocolate cherry trifle, then pumpkin doodles, peanut butter diamonds (tastes like peanut butter cups), chocolate truffles, and a huge bowl of fresh strawberries. We also had a drink section with flavored seltzers, sparkling juices and a couple of kinds of punch. Actually, everyone helped with getting ready – the cooking, cleaning the room, decorating (she chose a purple and white theme). I love watching my kids work together to do something nice for each other.

    We had also put a lot of thought into what activity they girls would do at the party. We wanted something fun but something that would channel all of their energy into doing something productive. I put out a request for suggestions on a homeschooling board I’m on, and someone emailed me offlist with the idea that we used – washcloth bunnies. They were simple to make, but there were lots of potential ways to decorate them, and the girls loved knowing that they will be donated to a local children’s hospital, for the kids to use as toys and for bathing. I have to make some calls to the hospitals this week to set up a time for the kids and I to go and deliver them in person.

    We have another birthday for ds coming up in a few days, so we won’t have much of a breather before beginning to prepare for him! Isn’t it nice that there are built in times of the year that we can focus on one person exclusively for a day?

    Avivah

  • A Busy and enjoyable day

    I often think at the end of a day what a wonderful feeling it is, knowing that your day has been productive and your time well spent. Today was another great day – not only did we get lots done, but we had fun, too!

    I’ve been working on varying breakfasts more – I’ve gotten into a boring routine of cooked breakfast cereals, which my kids have been finding tiresome. This morning I made raisin oatmeal scones – sounds elegant, doesn’t it? My kids really liked them, and I liked getting something healthy into them.  I made them with whole wheat flour and oatmeal (of course!), but for the first time I soaked the flour overnight to remove the phytic acid, which binds with the nutrients and keeps the body from utilizing them properly. I learned about this from Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon – a great book, filled with recipes and info. Then in the morning I just had to add in the other ingredients, pop them in the oven, and served them fresh and hot. The raisins added sweetness – there was no added sugar. I also made a couple of large pans of banana bread while I had the mixer out, and that will be for tomorrow’s breakfast.

    After breakfast I had a ping pong marathon at the community center with one daughter. I usually reserve the mornings for homeschooling, but she wanted to use her gift coupon (I mentioned them here already) for a session of ping pong with me, and the last two days things kept coming up. My husband was home this morning to hold down the fort with everyone else while I was gone, so we were able to go, and had a great time – we played five games, and she won the last one. She really loved that!

    We got back and I did academic stuff with everyone who still needed help. Afterwards, some of the kids took advantage of the unusually warm day and roller bladed and biked. My oldest son did a major reorganization of the garage – he worked really hard and it looks fabulous now. He had to move at least 50% of the stuff that was in there to a different part, but now the things we don’t use much are to the side and the workbench is in the center, with lots of room to actually use it. One daughter cleaned the oven while another prepared the pizza dough for dinner. I decided to do my own major reorganizing of the kitchen cabinets. I had been planning to replace all of the kitchen cabinets, even though they look fine, because I needed more cabinet space and I can’t buy cabinets to match what we have since they are ten years old. Today I moved a bunch of things around, and have managed to use the space so efficiently that I don’t think we need to replace the cabinets any more (which is really good, since I like my kitchen as it is for the most part)! The space wasn’t efficiently organized, which is important to me, but I used my frustration about the current inefficiency to think about the space differently and find a good solution. We now have a baking center, where the mixer, bowls, flours, sugar, etc. are all in one location, so I won’t have to go back and forth anymore from one end of the kitchen to another. This is so helpful since I do a nice amount of baking. For a while this afternoon, when we were all working in the kitchen, it looked pretty disastrous, since I’ve often found that things look worse before they look better (eg, I emptied the contents of a number of cabinets onto the counter, but was then able to clean the inside of all the cabinets and reorganize). But now it looks great.

    Then I took one daughter to her piano lesson, then took my son to his tutor, and after I picked him up, decided to do some quick shopping after taking care of business at the post office. I enjoyed shopping with him – I love being with all of the kids as a group, but it’s really nice when I get time with each one. We stocked up on a bunch of baking supplies, which are always good to have around here, especially with the bas mitzva for dd coming up. Fortunately while I was doing this, my older girls were on the ball and had the pizza in the oven while I was out (although I hadn’t told them to, since I hadn’t planned on shopping then) so we were able to eat dinner on time.

    We haven’t made pizza for dinner for ages – I used to make tofu pizza, but then stopped using tofu when I learned about the hazards of soy. For many years I avoided dairy almost entirely, using it just once in a while. About a year ago we changed that, and for tonight’s pizza we used cheddar cheese. A couple of nights ago I discussed the new menu plan I was preparing with the kids, and we decided to have a weekly pizza night. Tonight was the first time – they loved it!!! We made 4- 9×13 pans, and it was just the six older kids eating it – and they still all wanted more!

    I also spent some time researching the craft activity for my daughter’s upcoming bas mitzva. We really wanted it to be something that could be donated to charity, and got some good suggestions from a homeschooling email list I am on. One of the suggestions in particular appealed to my daughter, so tomorrow we will go shopping for all of the supplies.

    After dinner, my almost 8 yo son asked if he could go with me to my Toastmaster’s meeting. Toastmasters is a public speaking organization, and I go twice a month. This son had accompanied me for the first time several weeks ago, and apparently enjoyed it because he really wanted to go again! So then we got to enjoy the night out together. He voted along with all of the adults for the best prepared speech, impromptu speech, and evaluator.

    When I got home, he headed straight for bed, while I took the opportunity to chat with my mil, who had come over while I was out and stayed talking with my mom. We haven’t had a chance to talk in a while, so it was probably 11 or 11:30 before we finally said goodbye. As soon as I post this, I will be very ready for some sleep!

    I’ve often found it’s not the days we go out on trips that fill me with a sense of peace at the end of the day, but rather the days that we stay home, enjoying one another and making our home a place we feel good to be.

    Avivah

  • Fun with oobleck

    A few days ago we went to the library and one of my younger kids chose a book called A Hatful of Seuss – it is a collection of Dr. Seuss stories. One of the stories is Bartholomew and the Oobleck, in which the kingdom in invaded by sticky slime. The kids loved the story, and when we found a recipe for homemade goop that we made up a couple of days later, we decided to rename it oobleck, since it resembled the Seusslike stuff.

    This is a fun and easy activity to do with kids. I remember stuff like this being sold in little plastic balls from the vending machines in the front of supermarkets when I was a kid – they probably still do. It’s almost magical for kids to see it created in front of their eyes! The recipe uses just a few common household ingredients – I bought a box of Borax quite a while ago and now have it on hand for recipes like this (it’s useful for laundry, too :)). Here it is:

    8 oz white glue
    3/4 c. water
    food coloring (optional)
    1 t. 20 Mule Team Borax
    1 – 2 T. water

    Combine the first 3 ingredients in one bowl; combine the last two ingredients in a different bowl. Add borax mixture to the glue mixture, stirring until a blob forms. Remove the blob from the mix, add a new batch of borax and repeat until glue mix is gone. Knead all blobs together; store in airtight container (we use ziploc bags).

    My kids discovered that they could blow bubbles with it, which was really fun – until my youngest daughter (with hair almost to her waist) had the bubble pop right into her hair. Supposedly this doesn’t stick to anything – but when I saw her, with orange slime entangled throughout her hair on each side of her face, my first thought was to just chop it all off. It looked like a wad of bubble gum that had gotten smooshed in. She looked ready to cry, so I got to work on one side while I told her not to touch the other side – but unfortunately, I was so focused on getting it out that I didn’t realize she was rubbing it in more on the other side as I worked (trying to help get it out). It was a painstaking job, getting it out tiny bit by tiny bit and I finally thought of using a brush to get it out. That worked really well, and I was able to brush it all out pretty quickly (it fell out in lots of crumbles all over the floor).

    Now you’ve been cautioned – don’t let your kids eat it or rub it in their hair, and they will have an amazing time with it (and so will you)!

    Avivah

  • Resolutions for the new year

    There probably isn’t a person on the planet who hasn’t noticed that around this time of year, every one gets busy thinking of all the improvements they want to make in their lives. I tend towards self-reflection a lot of the time, but this year, my musings on what I could do to improve the quality of my family’s life coincided with everyone else!

    In making resolutions, don’t bite off more than you can chew. Take one small step – as the saying goes, ‘By the mile it’s a trial, by the inch it’s a cinch’. Just do it for today, or for an hour. This is the approach that I took when I stopped eating sugar, flour, wheat, or sweeteners of any kind over 18 months ago. At first, I couldn’t imagine going for even a day without it. I didn’t think about a lifetime without doughnuts, I just focused on one meal at a time. And then the meals turned into days, which turned into weeks, and then months. And now eating the way I do is just normal to me – it’s become a habit.

    There are lots of things that I could work on now, but I know that by committing to just one area, I can focus my energy on that and have a chance to really change my habits. If I make a long list of things to work on, my energies will get scattered, I’ll lose my focus, and end up discouraged because I haven’t been successful across the board. But one positive change can make a real difference to lots of other areas. The area that I am currently working on is becoming more disciplined about my sleep. I tend to stay up late to get things done when the house is quiet, and very often, stay up way too late! It’s challenging to wake up perky and positive when you just want to turn back over and sleep for a couple more hours before facing the day. On the other hand, when I get to bed early, I wake up feeling energetic and on top of the day. By the time I go to wake up the kids, I’ve had time for reflection and prayer, breakfast is ready, and I feel relaxed and upbeat.

    Despite knowing what a huge qualitative difference this makes for me throughout my entire day, I really struggle in maintaining an early bedtime. In the past, I’ve usually lasted for about a short while, and bit by bit, I go to sleep later each night (always staying up to take care of something important). And after a month or two, I’m back to my late nights. I decided that this time, instead of trying to go straight to an early bedtime (which was probably too extreme a change for me), I’ll try to get to bed a little earlier each night, so that over the course of a few weeks, I’ll be getting to sleep much earlier than I do now. Hopefully, it will be easier for me to maintain something like that.

    I have a tendency to beat myself up if when I don’t live up to my plans that I think lots of us share, and since we often set the bar so hight, falling short sometimes is inevitable. I have to remind myself that any progress in this area is also good; even if I’m not in bed at my ideal time, midnight is still better than 1:30 am, and 11 pm is even better!

    Bad habits can be broken, good habits can be changed – so don’t get discouraged if you aren’t 100% successful. Pat yourself on the back for the progress you’ve made, and get back on track when you see yourself slipping. When it’s hard, think about the difference establishing this new habit will make in your life. Experts say that it takes about 3 weeks to establish a habit, so be persistent and don’t give up!

    Avivah

  • Great gift idea – coupons!

    I thought some of you might find it interesting to hear what a poular gift in our home is for our kids. Coupons!

    When I was a kid, I remember giving my mom coupons for services or a certain amount of kisses and hugs, redeemable by me. She always loved them, but never redeemed them! Much more recently, I thought about how to give our kids coupons, something that they would love and something they would use. Here’s what I do:

    I spend some time thinking about the kind of thing each child enjoys doing, in order to make each coupon something that will really be appreciated. I make about 10 – 12 coupons for each child, and compile them into a coupon book. Most of the coupons are for small things that I know they will appreciate, with one bigger coupon for the older kids. Some of the small coupons are for things like: 1/2 staying up late after bedtime (or an hour, for older kids), picking a favorite video, playing a game with me or dh, reading an extra story, a trip to the dollar store (to pick up one item for the youngers, two for the olders), a trip for pizza or doughnuts and cocoa (we eat a pretty healthy diet, so something like this is a rare treat :)) with one parent. I find that the idea of a special outing with just one child and one parent is really appreciated by the kids. The one on one time makes whatever outing that much more special. One child may love swimming, so a coupon for her would be a swimming trip to the local pool with mommy. Another child will enjoy raquetball or a catch with daddy, or a mother-daughter workout at the gym, so that’s what they get. For the older kids, the coupons included a concert ticket to a favorite singer (accompanied by dad), a series of weight training classes given at our community center that enables kids under 16 to have access to the workout area without a parent’s supervision, and a session at a local pottery studio (which includes buying a ceramic piece and then several hours of studio time).

    Then I type up each list in a nice font (a different font for each child), with it written twice on each line. I photocopy the list onto a sheet of colored paper (bright, so it doesn’t easily get lost!), then cut the list into long strips and staple all the strips together at the end. When a child wants to redeem a coupon, he rips off the half of the coupon on the right, leaving him with a copy of what it was he did. That way, even once the coupon has been used, they still have a printed stub as a reminder of what they received.

    It is amazing how much the kids love these. They look forward to seeing what not only each of them gets, but what all of their siblings get. It’s a unassuming looking gift, but they each love getting so many ‘presents’ all at once, and love being able to control when they use the coupons.

    Get creative, and you’ll find you can think of some pretty fun stuff for your kids, too!

    Avivah