We've had a good summer this year, with some wonderful opportunities and some fantastic family bonding time.
Here are some of my favourite moments this summer:
I know summer isn't over yet. But I'm back at work and it's difficult not to feel like it's over when you're working every day. We've had a good summer this year, with some wonderful opportunities and some fantastic family bonding time. Here are some of my favourite moments this summer:
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I love using Pinterest. I like to collect ideas...recipes, homeschooling ideas, craft ideas, party themes, family fun ideas, horse ideas, etc...... We went on a vacation last week. We didn't expect to get to go on one this summer, but the opportunity came up and we did - yay! We have mastered the art of fitting in so much fun stuff, without feeling too busy during our vacation, that by the time the end of the vacation comes, we feel like we've been there forever. Such a nice feeling. One of the things I love about learning, is that you can learn (or teach) anywhere, at any time. And Stealth Vacation Education is a sneaky way of teaching your kid when they least expect it. And they will never suspect a thing! :) While we were in Ontario on our vacation, we took a trip to Niagara Falls for a few days. And just for this one mini-trip-in-a-trip, my daughter learned so many little things, especially while we were driving.
We had conversations about: shipping containers trains the CN Tower in Toronto the career of architect the design of buildings earthquakes and glass buildings fault lines landing airplanes the Great Lakes and how to memorize the names the differences in attitude between Ontario and where we live Niagara Falls One of my great loves, is to teach my child and to watch her learn. And this was a fantastic trip full of fun and learning. Ever since Jaymi was probably around 6 or 7 years old, we have had a tradition called "Truth Mat".
It used to take place on a little flower-shaped mat, hence the name "Truth Mat", but it has since evolved into a random bedtime ritual, in the dark, usually with Jaymi facing away from me and me scratching her back. It is a time for an open, no-holds-barred conversation between us. It is a time when she can tell me absolutely anything, or ask me absolutely anything, in a completely safe place. Now that she is older, I think the darkness and her need to be facing her back to me makes it easier to talk about possibly uncomfortable topics. The rules for Truth Mat have always been the same: You HAVE to tell the truth. You can ask anything that you can think of. Anything. No matter what. And it goes both ways - we take turns asking each other questions. I also remind her once in a while, that the coolest thing about being mother and daughter is that, I am a girl! I have been through the same stuff that she is going through or will go through. And I get it! And I can possibly help. No one is allowed to say, "I don't know." You HAVE to come up with an answer, even if it means thinking for a bit before answering. No one is allowed to get mad. No one is allowed to judge. No one is allowed to laugh at the other person. This is a time to ask uncomfortable questions. This is a time to ask advice. This is a time to talk about problems with friends. This is a time to ask that question you have been wondering about. This is a time to confess things. And because of the truth clause, it is also my chance to find out things that I want to know. Some of the topics that have come up with our Truth Mat sessions, have been: - puberty - friends being mean - trustworthiness - peer pressure - struggles in school - feelings about ourselves - cell phones & iPods - inner voices - thoughts of the future - worries - thoughts about God I LOVE Truth Mat. We have had amazing conversations in Truth Mat. And Jaymi loves it too. She often asks to do it. And sometimes it can begin with a silly, non-important question, but it always leads to a great talk, and often the solving of a problem. I have decided to start up my blog again. Life just got too busy and complicated and I never seem to get around to composing a new entry for my blog. But so many great thoughts come up and I want to share them, especially to other parents of tweens (or any age, really).
Lots of great things have been happening lately, in our mom/tween world. Jaymi has had to adjust to me working full-time, she is thriving in horseback-riding, she is dealing with peer pressure and girl drama in Gr.7, and we are working with a new chore system right now as well. I'll tell you all about it soon, so stay tuned..... Yesterday I had a fantastic talk with Jaymi about selflessness. Lately, she is good at having an idea to do/give something for someone else, but it often includes something for herself at the same time. For example, she will offer to buy Tim Horton's for us, but she'll get herself a snack while we're there. Or she'll offer a backscratch and then ask for one in return.
So, I explained that she is great at doing nice things for others, but MOST of the time it includes something for her, and a few times it doesn't. I told her that she needs to practice doing truly selfless things for others, in order to balance it out a bit more. I told her that a truly selfless act is one where you're giving to the other person, and you're getting nothing out of it for yourself. She liked the idea and agreed that it was something she wanted to get better at. Then last night, we were all watching a tv show together (Mork & Mindy - we're going through each episode right now, from the premiere right through) and she began scratching Mark's back. She did it for quite a while. Then, she surprised me by asking me to move a bit so that she could scratch my back next. After that, she didn't ask for a thing. She just sat and watched the rest of the show with us. After the show, I gave her a big hug and told her that I was very proud of her and I asked her how it felt to do something selfless. She said it felt good. When my daughter turned 11 last October, we presented her with a 'big girl' new system for money. I got this idea from a fantastic book called "The Entitlement Trap". Read this book - it has such awesome, wise ideas about getting rid of that sense of entitlement that so many kids have. So, our new system was this. We talked to her about how she's getting older and can handle more responsibility. We told her that there were some exciting changes for her when she turned 11. We told her that she will be able to be more in charge of what she wants to buy and she will have her own money. She was excited. We told her that from the time that she turned 11 years old, we will no longer pay for certain things. Extras. Luxuries. Things she wants but doesn't need. For example: We WILL pay for shoes and boots and outdoor clothing. We WON'T pay for extra shoes/boots and outdoor clothing, if she has what she needs already, and just wants an extra, really cool new jacket or pair of expensive boots. We WILL pay for birthday/Christmas/Easter presents (for her). We WON'T pay for anything she wants to buy for her friends, including birthdays and Christmas. We WILL pay for school supplies and any other fees for school. We WON'T pay for Scholastic items that she wants or hot lunches. We WILL once in a while, still take her out for a snack, drink, or meal, just as anyone would. She WON'T be able to ASK us to take her out for something to eat. We WILL pay for books. We WON'T pay for toys. The exciting part is that SHE gets to have her own money to buy the things she wants, when she wants them, and without having to come to us to ask for things. Do you see how it works? Okay, where does she get the money to buy any of these things that she wants? Well, she has a paper route, and of course, gets money for birthday and Christmas, and she can also sell some of her own things at a garage sale when we have one. But if she didn't, "The Entitlement Trap" discusses a fantastic points system where she would earn points by doing certain tasks each day (morning duties, homework, cleaning an area of the house, bedtime duties, etc.) and once a week, she would earn a pre-determined amount of money. The amount directly relates to the amount of points she has earned because of the work she has done. So she has this newfound sense of freedom (which all tweens need) and responsibility. She now has the freedom to buy what she wants to buy. Of course, there still the same rules as there have always been. She knows that she cannot buy something like a new pet. She cannot buy something that isn't allowed, like something violent (not that she would want to). And she also knows that even though she buys something, doesn't mean she can use/eat it whenever she wants to. For example, if she decided to buy 2 packages of chocolate cookies (this is a real example - she has done that a few times - she just LOVES the freedom to be able to buy her own food), she still won't be allowed to eat a whole package at once, or to eat a bunch of those cookies right before dinner or right before bedtime. The same house rules still apply. This system also gives a sense of ownership. When a child has bought their own item with their own money, they realize how much work it took to get that money, and they have a more realistic sense of value for that item. With this system, it has been amazing how well it has worked so far. I've heard comments around the house like, "Hey, that cost me a lot of money, I don't want to get it ruined - be careful!" "Hey, I just swept those stairs! Take your shoes off!" "Mommy, I want to take you out to Tim Horton's - I'll pay." "I shouldn't have spent that much money on this new phone case. I regret it." Also, when she has an item in mind that she wants but it costs more than what she has, she will now automatically say, "I need to save for that." She'll add up paychecks in her head to figure out how long it will take her to save. Another VERY important part of this system is NO BORROWING. None. At all. That means when your child is at a store with you and sees something they like and want to buy, but forgot their money at home, you say, "Aw, I've forgotten my money at home sometimes too." They'll either have to give up on that item or go home and get their money. You CANNOT lend it to them. Why not, you ask? Because that is the beginning of teaching them that it is okay to spend money you don't have, and pay it back later. Borrowing. Credit. I don't know about you, but I don't want my daughter to learn at an early age that borrowing is okay...and then one day when she's older she'll already be in debit like so many people. We're very strict about this one. Even if her money is in the car, she has to go back to the car and grab it - I WON'T pay for her. The only exception is with a garage sale or thrift store. These are places where, if you see something today, it won't be there tomorrow. So I'll sometimes buy an item I know she might like for her friend's birthday or something, and she won't get it until she pays me for it. I don't treat it as borrowing - we call it my "store". This system has worked so well, that shortly after we began it, a friend invited us out for lunch. He said, "Do you want to go for lunch at *****, my treat?" I accepted the invitation, thanked him, and as Jaymi and I were walking back to the car, I said to her, "That was so nice of him. Do you realize what 'my treat' means?" She said no and I told her. With a sigh of relief, she said, "Do you mean I don't have to pay for my meal? Yay!" I smiled, realizing that she had thought she would pay for herself! Right now with this system, our rule is that she has to tithe to the church 5% of everything she earns, and the rest, she can do whatever she wants with. When she turns 12 in October, the tithing amount goes up to 10% and we will be choosing a monthly amount to save. We allowed her to go a full year without enforcing any saving, waiting to see if she chose to save or not. She hasn't. She loves to shop and spend. So saving is something we're going to enforce in order to teach her what it's like. It will be tough. She says, I KNOW how to save, I just don't like doing it!" ;) I've been busy with life for the past little while, and haven't the motivation to write in my blog, but this morning, my daughter left for a fantastic fun overnight trip with good friends, and I have time to write for a bit. One of our favourite pasttimes (by "our", I mean my daughter and myself) is going to garage sales and thrift stores. We love getting good deals and finding the unique things that you often find at these places. It is is one of the bonding activities for myself and my daughter, and it teaches her a lot as well. She learns about managing money, negotiating, patience, navigation, reusing/repurposing, etc. Here are some of the great finds we have come across in the past. For this, my 3rd edition, of Fun Fridays, I have decided to focus on food. I have always tried to feed my daughter healthy food options. Now, in the past year or two we have been going through a lot of financial difficulty, so unfortunately, it is a lot harder to eat healthy on our limited budget. But anyway, I have always loved the idea of having fun with food. Especially when I can keep it healthy and make it fun to look at & eat, for my child. Here are a bunch of ideas that I love. Some I have tried, some I haven't. I would love to hear any of your ideas as well. Bread Cones Edible Teacups Valentine iPhone-Shaped Sandwich Traffic Light Snack Mini Monster Cheese Balls Edible Necklaces Homemade Ziplock Bag Lemonade Ice Cream Bar Edible Serenity Stones Grape Caterpillar Kabobs Lego Jello Breakfast Sundae Edible Spoons Magic Message Bananas Edible Fruit Cars Glitter Stamped Fruit Palm Tree Snack Butterfly Snack We had a fun week - not much planned for this week, so I had the chance to spend some time with my favourite girl and do fun summer stuff. For the first couple of days of the week, she was camping with friends. Being away is good for both of us. It gives her some independence from me, gives her time to spend with friends doing totally fun things, and gives her a chance to miss me. It also gives me a break, allows me to get things done around home on my own schedule, and allows me to miss her. She did fun things like go-karting, riding some little rapids, tons of biking, campfires (surprisingly, they were allowed where she was, even though they aren't allowed here at home right now), riding on a monster truck, and lots of swimming. She did miss us and her cats of course, and was happy to be back home. On Thursday we had planned a horse-themed day. Jaymi has been begging for horseback-riding lessons and we finally registered her for her first one. She did amazing! She is such a natural with animals and I think it is right up her alley. She did everything that the instructor told her to do exactly the right way the first time, and the horse listened to her beautifully. She learned so much just in the first lesson. I'm loving this place, because they teach the whole experience - reading the horse's body language, communicating with the horse, riding the horse, grooming the horse, and cleaning up after the horse. There is a lot of work ethic taught at this place and what parent wouldn't love that? So after the lesson, we hung around with the horses and then discovered a couple of the barn cats - they needed a cuddle, of course - and then headed over to a couple of places to look for the rest of Jaymi's gear that she needs for riding.
The whole day's meals HAD to be centred around "Horse Day", so we ate things like oats, apples, eggs (apparantly horses eat eggs), sugar cubes, etc. Jaymi did some word searches and code puzzles that I found on the internet, as well as a dot-to-dot. We re-learned the story of the Trojan Horse and learned how to draw one. At the end of the night we watched a show called Saddle Up and then the movie "Amazing Racer". Here is my Pinterest page about horses, in case you want to take part in any of the fun stuff we did. On Friday we returned some bottles & cans (I let Jaymi keep the dollar we earned from that), we visited a friend of Jaymi's & mine to chat, we went to Tim Horton's for a treat, Jaymi did her paper route...did a bunch of errands like that, and then after having a quick bite to eat, gathered up two of Jaymi's friends that we had invited to head out to a baseball game. Jaymi and her friends know nothing about baseball and I hadn't been to a game since I was young, but we won some tickets and I thought it would be a fun summer event to go to. And it was! It was fun explaining how baseball works to the girls. It was hilarious, hearing the questions and comments: "What's a batter?" "Why are they wearing white uniforms? They're getting all dirty!" "I'll just cheer when I hear people cheering." "Is that good or bad? Is THAT good or bad? Do I cheer now?" Here is a bit of one funny conversation with one of the girls: Me: "Do you see that guy standing on the base?" Girl: "What's a base?" Me: "That white block that he's standing on - there, that guy in the blue. Do you see him?" Girl: "Yes." Me: "He's on first base. He's on the other team. We don't want him there." Girl: "Can we just shoot him?" Really? So, they loved the mascot, especially when he came over to give them high fives and hugs. They had a lot of fun whenever the little bits of music would play. They liked it when the game got exciting near the end and the crowd was cheering like crazy. And they liked the food of course - we HAD to have hot dogs - it's a baseball thing. |
AuthorI am a West Coast mom with a wonderful husband and a beautiful 12-yr-old daughter. Archives
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