If you’re like most parents, you’re determined to start the school year in such a way that your children get into a good routine for the year. Here’s a slightly different way to approach homework:
“Most families tend to rush through dinner, especially the kids. They can’t wait to get back to their computers and cell phones and iPods. But they’ll stick around if the conversation is interesting. And the biggest determinant is YOU. If you see yourself and your life as a crashing bore, your kids will see the same thing. But if you see your life as an endless succession of miraculous and fascinating events, your kids will be transformed by it.” — Shmuley Boteach
Hopefully you’re carving out some time with your children for unstructured fun. Here are a couple of no-cost, no-prep activities kids love.
Pooh Sticks. There’s a wonderful scene in one of Milne’s stories where Pooh and Piglet simply drop sticks off a bridge over a little creek and dash to the other side to see whose appears first. Once my children had tried this, I don’t think we passed over a little bridge with out playing Pooh Sticks for several years! Find a park with a stream and a few twigs and play away. No bridge? Set a start and finish point and see what happens!
When did you last play? As Linda Stone pointed out in her blog A More Resilient Species (http://boingboing.net/2013/01/15/a-more-resilient-species.html) , self-directed play (experiential, voluntary and guided by one’s curiosity) is essential for developing resilience, independence and resourcefulness, let alone creativity. She quotes scholar Brian Sutton-Smith, “The opposite of play is not work. The opposite of play is depression.”
Just a couple of months before our daughters started kindergarten, Kim and I were sipping tea while the children painted with watercolors in the kitchen. Suddenly they appeared, their hands covered with colored soap suds. “The paint spilled and it got foamy,” they declared.
Allison is a Kidtelligent parent who used the Kidtelligent system to get a better understanding of how to parent her daughter. Allison’s daughter tended to have attributes more like her father than herself. Interestingly, Allison was able to better understand her husband in the process!
Read more on Allison shares how Kidtelligent gave her a better understanding of her daughter…
Ah, spring break. If you aren’t going out of town and aren’t signing your kids up for a week-long day camp, here are a few ideas beyond field trips and play dates (both of which are great ideas in themselves, incidentally!)
My children didn’t always like playing together. Shocking? I hope not! Occasionally, siblings are a perfect match for each other, but mine had very little in common other than parents! Extravert, introvert. Boy, girl. Mr. Rogers, Barney. See what I mean?
It’s Saturday morning and it’s sleeting outside and the power is out inside. Could your children entertain themselves? I’d suggest not waiting until such a messy weekend to find out! Here are three ways to prepare—and to avoid the “I’m bored” whiners on more normal days as well!!
Parents, teachers, students…it’s hard to tell who is more nervous about those conferences. They’re seldom long enough, and often not private enough, for deep conversation. So how can you get the most out of them?