Unlecturing

I love that I finally seem to have developed the ability to lecture my 14yr old daughter about life lessons in a way that is goofy and fun, and very UNlecture-y.

Just had a long conversation with her about the importance of routine....something I've struggled with for YEARS. At least since I became a mom...I was much better about it pre-kids.

Lately I've actually been getting my act together, thanks to the HomeRoutines app and good old fashioned determination. I think it's also helped that I'm learning to how to work WITH my weaknesses, instead of against them...and allowing for many SQUIRREL!s and falling off the horse.

So since I've struggled to get my kids to follow a routine, even though I have even gotten Maeven the same app on her phone and detailed out a simple routine for her to follow in the morning and early afternoon...very doable...it still has been a struggle because she just wants to do her own thing, in her own time all the time. Typical teenager, right? Well she's not usually a typical teenager. I tend to think that's part because of her being homeschooled and not around all the garbage the rest of the country is around daily as a teen, but also just because of who she is.

ANYWAY, I managed to convey what I was trying to convey in a light way and much smiles and laughter ensued. Pat on the back for me not to engage in a battle with my teen. :)  Now it remains to be seen if she now follows through on our discussion...but historically, she has been a very cooperative and helpful kid since she hit adolescence (NOT so when she was younger!), and usually reason and respectful conversations about the way things are tend to work wonderfully with her. Yelling and arguing do NOT. Like ever.

So I just am feeling pretty good about my new ability to deal with her....and the fact that lately I've been pretty calm and peaceful and not prone to yelling. VERY proud of myself for that!!

Next I have to talk to Tyren and he's a whole 'nother ballgame. He was always my super happy, cooperative child, but since about 8 he's turned into this beast who has to argue over EVERYTHING and NOTHING seems easy with him! Now, at 9, I've just got to stop myself from engaging in argument with him and stand my ground on issues that there is no negotiation on. (Yes, you ARE going to shower!) Using a respectful and firm but kind tone seems to work usually. He does give in and cooperate eventually, almost always....but it's a bear getting to that point. Wears me down.

But I KNOW that giving in is not the solution, and I've never been a mom prone to giving in and being permissive with my kids anyway, so that's not really an issue. Just exhaustion and lack of patience and calm tone. He pushes my buttons, oh this boy. But I know that UNlecturing works with him too...I just have to hold my ground and help him to stay focused on my reasoning and he usually concedes.

We'll see how it goes. :)

"the gift of giving"--sorta different perspective?

i mean "the gift of giving" in a little different sense. usually its used to mean that its a gift of giving something to someone, right? i am thinking of it in terms of giving my kids the gift of learning to give. its on my mind a lot lately, during this season.

i'd love to hear how other people instill this gift in their children...i'm sure we all want to have giving children...i'm sure we all have different ways of looking at this. right now i'm thinking about it as my little girl (9) plans out the rest of the gifts she's making for friends and family...and listening to her delight in planning it all out. and how excited she is to have them open them for christmas. she's so funny, she already has figured out that other kids aren't super interested in homemade things from other kids, but most grownups go gaga over them, LOL!

we've always encouraged out kids to give...since they were little, we've tried to get them to give something handmade...even if its just a little fingerpainted bookmark from a toddler. we don't necessarily do it every year for every person...but i try to somehow instill giving to my children each year in some way. sometimes its purchasing toys for a family in need.

a couple years ago we started giving maeven a little cash to purchase her own gifts for people...knowing that its very special to make your own gifts but sometimes there are things you want to buy as well. sometimes its supplies to put together, sometimes its a little item from a dollar store...they're all special. and dollar stores are great for this purpose, i tell ya. you can get a lot with very little and its all so exciting to little gift buyers. :)

maeven's been working extra hard this year on presents for loved ones that are homemade. and she also has things in mind to spend the xmas money on gifts for family as well. i talk to her about planning out who all she wants to purchase items for...and divide it up accordingly. she's done great with this in the past. and whether or not the gifts mean something to those that receive them, they mean something to her, and that's what i'm going for.

i hope i'm doing a good job at it. i am making it up as i go along, but she seems to be getting it. and tyren is still only 4, but he's slowly getting the idea some as well. this year i'm thinking of giving him a little xmas money to buy something for family members as well. and we'll do some homemade things as well.

there really is something so powerful to that feeling when you are able to give to someone else. its a feeling that i am very proud to share with my children. good heavens, i'm no saint. i don't give to every homeless person i see (and i see them every day)...i don't go out of my way to do wonderful things for people every day. i do what i can, when i can. and perhaps i could do more, but what we're doing seems to be working as i see the spark in my daughter's eyes as she talks about the special things she's making for her daddy and grandmas and grandpas and such. hopefully tyr will follow suit, as he gets older.

what do you do with your kids to help them experience the gift of giving? i really want to know! maybe you have some ideas i've not thought of that i might want to "steal"! :)

Violence is not child's play

have i ever posted about the lion and lamb project?

i can't remember.

from their website: "The mission of The Lion & Lamb Project is to stop the marketing of violence to children. We do this by helping parents, industry and government officials recognize that violence is not child’s play –and by galvanizing concerned adults to take action."

i got involved with the project when daphne white, the founder of the organization, did a chat with me on mommy chats. this was when i was doing mothering magazine sponsored chats. this is a subject that is near and dear to my heart, so i really was happy to learn about daphne and her organization.

during the chat, or after, i can't remember...i learned that daphne was shutting down the organization (the fight was getting too hard, and she wanted to move on with her life) and that the website would disappear as well. that site is a wealth of wonderful information. i couldn't let it disappear. so i offered to keep it up for her. and i still am. i did some original tweaking to fix some of the gobbly gook code, and fixed a mess of broken links. but i haven't really done anything since. i would like to actually go back to it when i find time and clean it up some more. i'm sure there are more broken links now.

anyway, i was just thinking about this recently...since my son is at a very impressionable age. i have always been very adamantly against violent play for children. violent games, violent toys, violent shows, etc. i've kept it out of my children's lives as much as i possibly can. i seem to be in the minority.

i feel like a minority among minorities. i'm already a "freak" in that i am pro-natural birth and homebirth, and exclusive breastfeeding and extended breastfeeding, and cloth diapering, and being a family bedder, and anti-cry-it-out for my babies, and VERY anti-circumcision, and anti-spanking, and i believe in delaying academics and homeschooling and unschooling, and no soda for my children, and i'm sure there's more that i'm leaving out...

and trust me when i tell you i take NONE of those issues lightly. they've all come from a LOT of reading and learning and research and asking questions and spending time talking to so many people and on and on and on...and coming to my own conclusions on things.

add to that list my anti-violent play stance.

i already had this belief before i became a mom. i was raised by a preacher and his wife (my dad and mom) that were anti-violent play and didn't even allow us to pretend to shoot with our fingers, much less have toy guns or weapons of any kind. (i distinctly remember for my brother's 6th birthday, i think, that he got a cannon game that my mom made a big point of returning to the store.) so i was raised this way.

but as an adult, studying child development at CSU Sacramento (later getting my bachelor's in Child Development), i learned even more that sold me on the belief that "violence is NOT child's play." at least it shouldn't be. this was a big part of my college education. and its why you won't find any quality preschools that will allow war toys in their programs.

so finding daphne and her organization was a godsend.

on that site is a wealth of research and proof of all the things that i had been taught as a child as well as taught as an educator. violence does not belong in childhood, even pretend violence.

i firmly believe this.

but, i am a minority on this. even among my vegetarian and peace-loving anti-tv hippie-esque friends (i'm not sure what hippie really means anymore, since its meaning has greatly evolved in the 2000s, i think, but some would think that the circles i hang with are hippies. i don't necessarily agree...some yes, but not all of them.) sure, some of them are similar minded, but i am finding even among all these alternative lifestyles that i'm in the minority. so many people i hang with are fine with their children playing war or having toy weapons or watching violent shows or playing violent games, etc.

i am not trying to say that i would want to change them...because i wouldn't want anyone trying to change MY ideas on things, so i certainly am not on any mission to change anyone else's! they are all very intelligent and loving parents, so i don't doubt that this is something that they just don't have a problem with, just like i don't have a problem with some of the stuff i let MY kids do that they wouldn't dream of letting their own kids do. we all have our things we feel strongly about.

i just find it interesting, that's all.

i read a book awhile back that really cemented these beliefs in me:

i own a copy of this book and intend to read it again soon...tyren is going into this age where i fear he might get drawn into this type of play. i've seen hints of it already.

i don't worry about maeven. its really true that girls are drawn to different things than boys and she's just never had any desire to pursue violent play. plus she's older and past that impressionable age where she's wanting to mimic everyone around her. tyren is smack in the middle of that stage. i am very concerned about what and who i expose him to.

he's turning 4 in about a month. this is where i've seen violent play explode in the little boys i used to teach preschool to. so far its not happened with him and i hope i can handle anything that comes my way in a way that i can feel good about.

i'm trying not to go completely overboard and ban things. but i don't want it in our lives. i don't want him playing violent computer games (daddy plays his at night after the kids are in bed, deliberately to not expose them. and the kids know that daddy's games are not for children. i treat it the same as alcohol and coffee and soda. not for my children. when they grow up, they can choose for themselves. for now its our choice for them.) i don't want him having any violent toys, i don't want him being around children who obsess with violent play.

he is my little mimic. he picks up everything around him. so i try to surround him with what i WANT to influence him. so the children we hang with are children who don't go around pretending to kill each other all the time. its worked well so far. the only violent play i've seen with our weekly play dates are occasional sword play, which seems to mostly be very rare. and i just distract him when it happens. so far its worked.

if it comes up, i try to distract him casually...but if its something that it would be a big deal for me to get him away from, i try to stay back and look for an opportunity to distract him away from whatever it is (a tv show, a game, a toy, violent play, whatever)...so i don't flat out ban it for him because i think that would just make it more appealing to him. i figure if he gets a little exposure here and there it won't be the end of the world because he's not going to have that in his home life, which is the major part of his life, so hopefully that will be enough to keep it from becoming an obsession. and i do see children who literally obsess on this sort of play. this is why i avoid these children.

yes, i'm picky. but i'm ok with that. i know that what i feel is right for me and my kids. my husband understands and agrees with me. he doesn't want them exposed to this stuff any more than i do. probably he doesn't feel as strongly as me, since he did have plenty of violent play as a child and turned out to be quite a kind and caring husband and father. so obviously just because a child engages in this sort of play they don't ALWAYS turn out to be gang bangers and thugs.

but that doesn't mean i'm ever going to be ok with letting my child play that way. just because its not a given doesn't mean its ok. just because some smokers don't develop lung cancer doesn't mean its healthy to smoke. just because some alcoholics don't pickle their liver doesn't mean its healthy to drink excessively. you get the point.

its not ok with me and it probably never will be ok with me to have children that play violent games and play with violent toys or watch violent shows. sure there will probably be a time later in childhood where i'll be more ok with things because they will be mature enough to handle more. but that doesn't mean i'll ever be really comfortable with it. heck, i don't like that my husband enjoys hacking up monsters either! i'm not ok that my brother is drawn to really dark and twisted books and movies. it is really sick and bizarre to me and i don't get it. probably never will.

i am working hard at just keeping this out of my children's lives as much as i possibly can, but not to the point where i feel i'm going really overboard. i know it doesn't feel right to make a big deal in front of my children's friends...so i just play each situation as it comes and try to calmly deal with it when it arises. during the toddler and preschool years, i found it fairly easy to take my kids into another room to play when family members would put on games or shows that i felt were inappropriate for my children to watch (no small feat, but doable)...and i continue to do this as i feel is needed, and adam does as well. thankfully he agrees with me on this and so he notices inappropriate things as much as i do.

and now that maeven is older and just the personality she is, she knows when things are inappropriate and covers her eyes or walks away. she isn't drawn to it anymore than i am. and i suspect she feels about it the way i do, sometimes physically ill by what some people find entertaining. she's so much like me in so many ways. she also works at helping to shield her little brother from things. sometimes i have to tell her to relax a little because she goes overboard sometimes...but i really appreciate that she's on my side with this. she knows when to take her brother to play elsewhere because someone is doing or putting on something inappropriate.

it does get harder and harder as tyren gets older though. because before he was pretty oblivious. now he's getting more aware of things. hopefully he'll be like my brother, and not really care that much about what mommy and daddy are distracting him from. tim never seemed to care much about the banned war play. neither did i. some kids, i know, would make it a continual battle. hopefully it won't come to this. if it does, i may have to compromise my principles a bit to avoid the battles...but i won't compromise them completely. if tyr turns out to be a child that its a huge battle to keep him away from these sorts of things (and i am of the mindset that some is taught, but some IS innate. i'm not totally hard core.) i will have to figure out some ways to make it ok with both of us. not sure what that will look like, but i'm open to it if it comes to that.

i just hope it doesn't come to that. i can't see me ever fully relaxing about violent play. like i doubt i'll EVER be ok with him having a toy gun. squirt guns, sure, we already have those because they are fun and none of the ones we have even resemble a real gun, if my son even knows what one is. and when we play we don't pretend to shoot each other, we squirt with water. and we call them water squirters, which they are. i'm ok with that. and there might be more things i'll be ok with...but i don't ever see myself ok with him having ninja turtles or g.i. joe or power rangers. probably won't ever be ok with that.

but i've learned a lot of things from being a parent...and one of the biggest is never say never. so i try to keep a somewhat open mind...and keep steering my children in the direction i want to see them go.

i just hope i can handle it as well as my parents did and have it be a non-issue like it was in my childhood. times are really different now, so we'll see.

good lord but parenting is HARD!

i know i am growing and changing all the time...loosening up on some things and perhaps strengthening my convictions on others. there are things i feel strongly about today i probably won't a year from now. things come and go and life changes me, as it does everyone.

i was just having a conversation with adam about how i feel about our kids associating with other people's kids. this is one thing that i've loosened up on over the years...as would be expected. first time parents are certainly not going to do things the same as they do 5 or 10 years later. that's just natural. and i don't think that most of what i did back when i was a new parent was wrong, at the time, for me or our family. i have learned to not be so extreme on some issues...and some issues have just become not so important to me...and i'm sure that will continue to happen til the day i die!

i will admit that in a perfect world i would wish that my kids would associate only with kids that embodied the behaviors i wanted my children to learn. and since i value these behaviors and ways, i of course will tend to gravitate towards like-minded families, hoping that that will make it more likely to be present. hence, my wanting to stick with attachment parenting and homeschooling families. BUT just cuz a family is AP or HS, doesn't guarantee that they have children i want my children to associate with. i could list quite a few families that are in these circles that i DON'T enjoy and do not want my children being exposed to to any great extent. and on the flip side...there are non-AP, non-HS kids that do act in the desired fashion. so its not a perfect method. but i still feel more at home with families that value the sort of things that i do. and right now in my life that means i prefer to be with AP and HS families (often families that are both). i don't know what i'm getting otherwise. i worry with someone that i don't know their parenting philosophy whether i'm going to be exposing my children to a parent that slaps their kids around or bullies them into submission. mainstream parenting tends to be much more accepting of this behavior where AP is not. that said, i do know of APrs that don't talk to their kids in a respectful way either and i do not enjoy being around...but in my personal circle they are still few and far between.

i don't know, its all so friggin confusing. i am not saying that i don't want my kids to ever be exposed to other ways. but right now, while they are little...it is important to me that they are saturated (as much as possible) in like-mindedness and hence their compass is programmed with this as "normal", not the alternative. i like to limit my children from being around parenting that i disagree with because i don't want them to think that THAT is normal or in any way acceptable, by our standards. i have had conversations with maeven (and will with tyren when he's old enough to warrant it) about things we've seen and heard in public...things we don't agree with...and i always make sure its clear: "they get to decide how to parent THEIR kids, and we get to decide how to parent OURS...its not our right to tell someone else how to parent their kids." i have said that many times to maeven. and also "they think its ok to hit their kids...your parents don't." (or whatever else we witnessed, belittling or name calling or screaming obscenities at, whatever...luckily this hasn't come up that much.) i am trying very very hard to not teach my children to judge, but just to know that everyone decides for themselves how they live their lives ...as do we...and everyone's different and different isn't bad. different is just different.

anyway, i'm getting distracted by what sounds like a child screaming outside (not mine...neighbor, presumably), and maeven and tyren are both chomping at the bit to get on the computer so i guess i better digress for now. having a time focusing anymore anyway and forgetting where i was going with this.

what do you REALLY want for your kids?

i just got this wayne dyer video from the library. its REALLY old, he's got hair in it! LOL! not much, but some...and he only has 5 kids in it and i'm pretty sure they went on to have 8 total.

anyway...here's the key points from the video:
(his words, not mine, but i totally agree)

I want my children to value themselves.
I want my children to be risk-takers.
I want my children to be self-reliant.
I want my children to be free from stress.
I want my children to have peaceful lives.
I want my children to celebrate the present moments.
I want my children to experience a lifetime of wellness.
I want my children to be creative.
I want my children to feel a sense of purpose.


Some of my notes from the video:
You are what you choose to be in your life. (Teach kids this!)
Nobody likes to be told what to do.
Nobody likes to be criticized.
Catch them doing things right.
Criticism makes people not want to do it.
You become what you think about all day long.
You become what your thoughts make of you.
Your life is really what you think.
Imagery is mental practice.
You begin to behave or act based on the images you have in your mind.
Constantly reinforce the positive image, and after a while they start acting on that image.
You help them create the image that they have in their heads...which they act on in their lives.
Confidence comes from taking risks.
Praise and self worth go hand in hand.
Self-worth comes from a belief that you are worthy. You are worthy because you say it is so.
Confidence comes from practice.
Your uniqueness as a human being is the most important thing you have.

E.E. Cummings:
"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you just like everybody else, means to fight the greatest battle there is to fight and never stop fighting."

Mommy and Daddy do not love you because of your successes in life, we love you because you ARE.
Risk-taking and confidence go hand in hand.
There are doers in the world and there are those that are afraid, those that are critics.
You've got to be willing to take risks.
Everything you learn, you learn by DOING.

I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.
And not one moment before.
The only way to understand is to take a risk.
The only way to have success in life is to fail.

You can't raise them to be relying on you...if you do, you do them a disservice.
3 out of 4 people will blame something/someone outside of themselves when things go wrong...those same people, when wanting to be up, will look outside of themselves to get themselves up (joint, drugs, booze, etc)
If you raise your children to be inner-directed, to take responsibility for themselves, constantly putting the focus on who THEY are, rather than what other people are doing to them...then when the drugs come along they won't need something to get high outside of themselves.

Learning to be self reliant means constantly having parental interjections which put the responsibility for what you are on yourself rather than on something or someone outside of yourself.
The job of discipline is to help children to discipline themselves.
We don't want our children to grow up believing they only need to be disciplined when someone else is around.
There's ALWAYS a better way than hitting.

I want my children to be free from guilt, anxiety, stress.
Celebrate the present moments of your children's lives.
Get rid of this notion that they are apprentice people...that they're on their way to becoming a person.
See them as whole and complete NOW.
They don't have to get ahead of the other guy to be happy.
Imagine being a person that always knows how to enjoy life...no matter what comes down the pike.

"Sparky Anderson, manager of the Detroit Tigers told me, 'I wouldn't put any child in organized athletics under the age of 15.'"

Teach them: Don't tell yourself the wrong things about the events in life...nothing in life can upset you, its only what you tell yourself about things in life...

"We don't hit each other in this family, we love each other."
Having an environment of fighting all the time raises children to fight.
If hitting children worked, then you'd only have to do it once in awhile.
We need a generation of children who hate hitting. "Spanking is awful."
Are you inclined to behave when treated angrily? No, you are inclined to strike back.

Raising children on love, not hate...You can't give away what you don't have. If you don't have love inside you, you can't give it away.
Everytime you're angry at someone else, you're saying "If only you were more like me then I wouldn't have to be mad at you right now."

The greatest understanding you can have is that you don't understand, and that its ok.
When you stop needing to make somebody else wrong, you stop needing to make yourself right, you can have anything you want for yourself in your life.

Celebrate present moments--not always be heading somewhere else.
Each child you bring into the world, has only got now...the past is over, the future is promised to none of us. All they have are these moments.

The highest functioning people are those that make peak experiences out of everything. If you want to know who does it the best...unspoiled children!

Wellness...you look at life in terms of your magnificent potential for health instead of being sick.

My beliefs about my health are a lot more significant than whatever disease process is out there.

What does it mean to be creative? To apply your matchless self to anything you're doing in life.
It takes one creative person to make a difference in the world.

Its a way of living, not a place that you get to.
Let them see a model of a human being who is living what I'm talking about.
Let them see someone who looks and feels good about themselves.

"You're children are not your children...They are the products of life's longing for itself. They come through you but not for you."
Khalil Gabran


Powerful stuff!

fantastic series on teaching your kids to work

i am so glad i found this!! what a great series!

Part I, Whose Job is It?
Part II, Getting Rid of the Clutter
Part III, Let Them Help
Part IV, It Takes Time
Part V, Work Together
Part VI, Learn to Practice
Part VII, Make it Easy
Part VIII, by the Gallagher Boy