But They Sure Are Worth It
Talking about death is one of those things that all of us are not comfortable with doing. It’s a part of our lives and yet our society wants to focus solely on life. At some point, there will be a death in your child’s life (even if it’s not until much later!) and it will be important to carefully navigate this subject. Here are some of the ways I have introduced death to my children and developed trust so that they know they can talk to me.
There are around 74 million children in the United States. If you’re reading this article, we’re willing to bet that you care deeply about some of the people that make up that number.
When we have children, we have in front of us a blank slate. That slate can either be filled with positive things that give them a great chance of living a full life or negative things that hinder a child’s path into adulthood.
As you prepare to send your kid to college, you appreciate there are myriad unique challenges ahead. The way these youngsters handle these challenges determines how successful they turn out in life. For this reason, you need to prepare them well. It is not easy for a parent, but you will find invaluable tips here and more at Mydissertations.com on how to prepare your kid for college.
According to an article on fatherhood.com, these challenges are just educational, but also emotional and social. While many parents blame the higher education system for failing children, a lot of blame also goes to the same parents for not preparing their kids well.
Here are some ways you can prepare your child for college and ensure they succeed in life.
1. Let your kid take more responsibility
According to UC San Diego Director of Admissions Mae Brown in an article published on Forbes, preparation for college should start at grade six [age 11]. As a parent, it is your duty to supervise your kid’s academic and social life and academic life and ensure they take on more responsibilities.
Image 1:The journey to graduation starts with early preparations
Thisprepares them for college life and the freedom that comes with it. By giving them more room to make mistakes and fail, you will prepare your child for the tough time ahead in college.
2. Talk Finances
College is an exciting experience for teenagers and things are even better because they now have control over money. As a parent, you need to sit down and talk about financial management with your kid. Many students have sunk into debt due to poor financial management and you can save your kid from the same pitfall through practical advice.
Talk to your kid about the importance of budgeting, tracking expenses, saving money, cost-cutting and avoiding impulse buying. Use recent reports to show the impact of student debt on households to make things clear.
3. Allow your kid to work
If you want to instill a culture of discipline and responsibility in your kid, you should allow them to work during summer. If you find any openings in your neighborhood, encourage them to apply and by working in a structured environment, they will learn crucial skills necessary for college.
4. Open up about social life in college
College is an important phase in an individual’s life as it helps in building new relationships away from the family and childhood friends. However, it is also a risky phase where many kids lose their way and never recover. As a parent, you have to sit with your child and talk about social life in college.
It is not an easy discussion but it might just save your kid. Talk about the vices, balancing life and academics, relationships, the importance of goals and any other pertinent issues.
5. Monitor your kid’s grades closely
You can only guide your kid if you understand their strengths and weaknesses. To do this, closely monitor their grades and GPA to ensure they get the best spot in college. Good grades also qualify them for financial aid and scholarships which will ease the financial strain on the family.
College life is exciting but also treacherous. With these tips, you can guide your child to complete their college studies and transition into adulthood easily.
Teaching our kids gratitude is one thing that is tops on the list of values to teach. Strangely, our brains are designed to focus more on negativity and survival rather than enjoying the moment. Thankfully, we can change that easily be showing gratitude and remembering the great things that have happened. A memory jar is a perfect way to focus on the moment and relive those later in life.
It happens more than we care to admit. Sometimes our lives are just not that exciting to our kids and they get bored easily. Or maybe it’s been raining for days on end and the kids are suffering from cabin fever. That’s it, we will just say that is what it is. When my kids announce loudly (it’s always loud and dramatic, isn’t it?) how bored they are, I have an activity jar of things they have to do. It doesn’t matter what they pull, they are committed to doing it. Here are suggestions of things you can put into the jar and save your own sanity in the process.
We all know that kids can be picky eaters. One day they like bread and the next day, they hate it. When we’re trying to appease them but also put a well-balanced meal on the table, we often forget about our own health and needs.
Good eating as a parent can be tough. If your kids won’t eat the same meal you’ve prepared for you and your partner, you may fall into the trap of just cooking what they will eat and you eat it too.
Kids food, in general, isn’t the freshest, most nutrient-rich food out there. It’s not doing your kids any favors and it isn’t giving you the energy you need to keep up with them.
Read on to learn more about healthy foods for kids and how to reinforce good eating habits, starting with yourself.
Bad eating habits are hard to break. In a world where you can order delivery on your train ride home and pre-packaged, processed food, makes dinner thoughtless, it can be hard to change up your routine.
How to start being healthy starts when your children are young. From their first bites of food, you can say no to the processed baby food jars and commit to feeding them, real fresh food. In turn, you’ll be eating them as well.
Some ideas for easy, first foods as a baby are bananas and avocados. You literally can just mash them with a fork and serve them to your baby. Taking out the fork actually takes less time than finding the jars of commercial banana and avocado baby food at the store and opening the lid. This can’t get any easier.
The sooner your baby is exposed to fresh fruits, vegetables, and meat, the better your whole family will be. As they get older, when you’re cooking recipes for the adults in your household, you can feed them whatever you’re eating.
It only takes a minute to make a taco night kid friendly. Giving them a serving of chicken with shredded cheese, tomatoes, avocado, and a tortilla, makes chicken taco night, something the whole family can eat. You’ll all be getting great amounts of lean protein and vegetables.
You’d be surprised what kids under the age of one will eat when you treat them as whole humans and feed them what you’d also like to be eating. Put down the cereal box and processed food jars.
The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests a menu of eggs, meat, vegetables, cheese, and fruit for kids as young as one.
When you’ve exposed your kids to healthy eating from the start, you’re already way ahead of the game. With older kids, it may be harder to break old habits but if you stay committed, so will they.
The toughest place to start is with a purge. Purge all of your horribly sugary foods, desserts, and go-too frozen meals. Replace these items with fresh fruits and vegetables that are easy to grab and go.
The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion puts out a dietary guideline for Americans that can be a great resource for what you should be eating.
Don’t be too hard on yourself and chop vegetables and fruit for hours every day. Start easy and buy baby carrots that are ready to eat or fruit such as apples, bananas, and blueberries that you don’t have to do any prep with.
If you make it too hard on yourself, you are less likely to stick with it and your kids will lose interest too. When they can grab pre distributed containers of carrots, and apple slices to put in their lunch, they will. If there are bags of chips still in the house, you know what they’ll choose.
Next, look at recipes that have very few steps and can be thrown together quickly. Again, keep it simple here. After a long day the office, you’re not going to be cooking Thanksgiving so don’t set yourself up for disappointment.
One easy thing to do is choose three or four vegetables and two proteins that will go into every meal that week.
Once you’ve chopped, marinated or halfway prepared them, you can mix and match them for the meals all week. This makes it thoughtless when you get home. You know you already have broccoli, asparagus, and chicken cooked and prepped.
You can use those ingredients to throw into penne. Kids get their comforting carb and you get some much-needed vegetables and protein. If one kid picks out half of it, at least they ate half and don’t beat yourself up. Stay strong and don’t offer them a frozen pizza.
For a quick way to enhance your weight loss results with these changes, check out the HCG diet. This may help you see results faster when combining it with your new healthy changes.
To help kids get on board, get them involved in the process. Good family eating should start with the whole family. This can be as simple as taking them to the grocery store. If the thought of bringing four kids under the age of four to a grocery store alone is terrifying, do it when both you and your partner can go and make it an adventure.
Let kids touch and feel the fruits, vegetables, and ingredients. Ask their opinion, talk about recipes and let them decide what to have on hand at home. Once you get home, you may be surprised how excited they are to cook with you.
Recipes kids can actually make themselves are even better. Let them run the show and feel empowered instead of forced at mealtime.
Give your kids tasks like chopping for older kids or putting away items. You can have them stir, throw stuff in a bowl or read directions. Now a meal prep and a grocery run on Sunday becomes a family-friendly activity instead of a chore.
While this doesn’t need to happen every weekend, doing it once a month will keep their interest and help keep you all on track.
When you have fresh, healthy food available at home for good eating, you’re less likely to grab a bag of chips or order take-out. When you’ve prepared really easy meals with a few ingredients, you don’t have to ask yourself what’s for dinner when you’re tired from the day.
Give kids the motivation to help you and keep them involved. The healthier your kids eat, the healthier you’ll eat.
Change all of your lives for the better and start simple. You’re not aiming for hours spent in front of the stove or a Michelin star here.
If you offer your kids frozen chicken nuggets, you’ll end up eating them too and we all know what happens.
For more healthy eating tips, living green, and ideas on being healthier as a family, check out these fun posts.
Day camps are a summer staple, but sometimes our household needs more. I found myself low on finances for one year, and I couldn’t even plan for a summer vacation. I had to do some quick digging around for free and nearly free things my kids could do so that they had some fun experiences without breaking the bank. Here are some free and cheap things to do this summer with the kids. [Read more…]
Things have certainly changed over the last few decades when we look at how we care for our pets. As a child, I remember that we took our pets to the vet for rabies shots and if they were sick. That was it. Now perhaps my parents weren’t the most caring pet owners, but it seemed like that was commonplace in my little circle in the world. Now people do routine wellness visits and sick visits in the same way that one would do with their children. Is pet insurance worth it?
Kid’s ain’t cheap, and it gets worse as they get older. Nothing hits harder than when your child learns to drive, and when they are ready for college. For me, adding my child to my car insurance was filled with “my baby is growing up” emotions stabbing my heart and “how on earth are we going to afford this” on repeat through my head. They are normal, but you’ll need to find ways to tackle these thoughts. Here are some ways I learned to save some extra cash on car insurance for teens.
It’s not exactly a secret that Americans love their coffee. Surveys have shown that more than 60% of Americans gulp down at least one cup of coffee every day.
Not everyone has caught on to the butter coffee craze just yet, though. Butter coffee—or Bulletproof coffee as it’s also called—contains butter loaded with healthy fats in it. It can provide you with all sorts of incredible health benefits.
Check out 5 of the most amazing health benefits associated with butter coffee below.
When it comes to feeding our babies, we want to make sure they are getting the best nutrition possible. At around 4-6 months of age, babies are often ready to have cereal added to their diet. It should not be fed to them by a bottle, a spoon is best. However, you should check with your pediatrician if you feel like you should start cereal sooner or if your baby struggles with spoon feedings. Since we are more informed about diets and ingredients, shopping for cereals can be a bit scary. I have compiled a list of the best cereals that my friends and I have fed our children and were pleased with. Knowing exactly what you think will be best for the baby is very helpful before heading down that grocery aisle.
Mother’s Day is around the corner, and if you have been celebrating a few years, you might be stuck on what to do this year. Breakfast in bed, lunch out, and spa days are wonderful and are a bit too common to use every year. Rather than sticking to a boring routine, here are some ideas for unique Mother’s Day activities that I have used over the years.
