Parents dream of the day their child can accomplish independent play. Being constantly on call to “Watch this, Mom!” or “Help me build this, Dad!” can exhaust any parent. Encourage your child to entertain herself, because a child playing alone gives parents some down time, develops the child’s coping skills, and can be (relatively) easily […]
Of course you want your child to learn to read. Reading is essential to life. Children read textbooks at school and adults read training material at work. Even when we are not in an educational environment, we need reading for basic things like traffic signs and restaurant menus. But reading isn’t just for navigating through […]
Kid’s Free Playtime Encourages Creativity ~ Playtime for kids used to mean playing in the mud and digging holes in the backyard with a spoon. Fortunate children lived near woods or an empty field. Either of these provided space and materials for building a fort or just playing with sticks. Bad weather just meant indoor […]
I’ve been baking Christmas cookies with my grandson since he was three years old. I never dreamed that I was teaching him adulting skills. Evidently, kids need essential life skills before they are ready to leave home. These include: doing laundry; balancing a checkbook; and mowing the yard. Yes, even baking cookies is important (or […]
Story from “Mom, The Hamster’s Dead, Can We Get a Dog?” My daughter, Carrie brought home a caterpillar and put it in a jar. I didn’t want its death on my conscience, but hoping she would learn from it. I let her keep it. The next morning it looked dead. She said, “He’s only sleeping.” […]
Marriage takes work. We make efforts every day to please our spouses. A wife makes roast beef and veggies for dinner every week because her husband is a meat and potatoes kind of guy. A husband does the laundry on Saturdays because his bride is worn out from two kids when the weekend comes. But […]
Should Grandparents Care About Toilet Training? Many of you reading this are grandparents. Do you need to know about toilet training? Yes, especially if you are the main caregiver after Mom and Dad. You will be on the front lines of training and need all the help you can get. But even if you only […]
Teaching your child to use the bathroom can be a daunting task. I’ve spent the last ten months potty training my grandson, and we are just now seeing consistent success. No one likes to change diapers, but it does make life easier when your little one wears a portable containment vessel and you don’t have […]
We’re into the fourth month of potty training my two-year-old grandson. When we started, I fantasized that he would be completely trained in a few weeks. I pictured myself lounging in my chair while he excused himself to go potty. If called upon, I could stroll to the bathroom and help with a wipe or a […]
I’m a perfectionist. That term is a misnomer. It implies everything I do is completed with no mistakes. What it really means is I have a lot of experience completing a small amount of a task with precision while leaving the remainder of the task undone. A variation on the theme is finishing an entire […]
