TRY THIS: Get Your Family Eat Together, Bond AND Talk

Want to know how to strengthen the bonds between you and your children? Try THIS:

Schedule dinner at the time when everyone is home (hard to do but I know you can find at least one night a week that your family is all home :)
Plan one that takes a while to prepare (this offers the opportunity for you to ask for help in the kitchen and talk about life in general or allow them to talk/ask questions)
Make a meal everyone really loves (this way they will eat more, stay at the table for longer)
Make sure no one brings a cell phone to the table and take an extra measure: silence all phones in the house
Ask questions, more than once. Make sure they are open ended questions, not questions which will result in a Yes or No. That won't get enough out of your kids and you'll be dead in the water pretty quick and the silence... will have everyone cleaning their plates off in the trash and ditching you pretty quick.
NOW, try this: click on this link, print out the list of 101 Conversation Starters (SERIOUSLY) and cut them into strips and put them in a cute bowl, put it out on the table and at dinner, reveal the idea. Years ago, I used to sit with my kids at dinner and we would go around the table and share 1 good thing, 1 bad thing, 1 funny thing and 1 thing you learned! My kids still remember this but they recall it with joy. The funny things that happen to kids during their school day is sometimes just hysterical.

TRY 1 FAMILY DINNER A WEEK ANNNNNND TALK

~You'll Love the Results~

SHARE IF YOU LIKE :)

Come back tomorrow for a new TRY IT idea!
TOLD YOU JANUARY WOULD BE FUN!

Back to School Anxiety: Bullying

Download “School Boy Being Stressed” by David Castillo Dominici via freedigitalphotos.net I recently wrote about how to help your child if they’re struggling with going back to school because they were bullied. My biggest most important tip was to listen, because I honestly could not write a ‘How-to-make-them-not-afraid’ column. Frankly I thought that was absurd. Fear is sometimes real. Anxiety is sometimes truly there, and for a good reason. Our job as parents isn’t to try to make it go away, it’s to try to find out the true source of those worrisome feelings. If you’d like to read more, click here. And if you’re child is struggling to find excitement about the new school year, don’t deny it, just accept it and move forward gently. Here’s some more on bullying: Family Matters Links: A Touching Story/Song Bullying: A thing of the past A Peace Poem By My Teenage Daughter A Deeper Insight into My Thoughts on People Who Bring Harm to Others Other Links: Stop Bul

Green Punch Buggy....!!!!

Green Punch Buggy...No Punch Back! As I was writing this blog post, my son came to me showing off his Lego creation. And don't you know I got hit at least five times since on my computer screen was displaying at least five different punch buggies, of five different colors thanks to Google Images. (Bad timing I'm thinking...) How can we possibly have world peace with these silly cars in the world!? ;) Don't the owners of these cute-but-obnoxious-cars understand that driving these things around town promotes violence!? ;) Anyhow.... The original purpose of this blog was to ask parents everywhere this question: Do you find yourself saying 'PUNCH BUGGY *BLANK-COLOR*! ' to yourself, even when the kids are not in the car??? I do! Isn't it funny how those games we used to play as a child are still around? I bet our parents say the same thing.... HAPPY FRIIIIIIDAAAAYYYY! P.S. I got hit at least ten more times, since as my son stood beside

Good Customer Service At Home

Over the years, my careers have mainly been customer service based. I started in a family business and then moved on up through the rungs from waitress, to hostess, to sales associate, manager and eventually the GM of a hotel. In all my years, my training taught me that you should always do your best to take your customer all the way to what they need, make them happy, and never leave them until they are done with you. I pride myself on my customer service abilities. Though the other day, I think I failed at customer service in my own home! I was getting ready to cut my daughter's hair and because of how long it had gotten (she's been growing it out for a year!) I felt this time it would be best if instead of me spritzing it with water, she could wash and condition it real quick. She was fully clothed so I just suggested she run into the bathroom and wash her hair in the tub. She’s fourteen. I suppose I just assumed that she knew how to kneel over the tub and do it.

Search This Blog