Parenting Tips: Setting the Table

Helping to set and clear the table is often one of the first family responsibilities parents teach. [Notice I did not use the C word. If you call it a chore it implies something very different than if you call it a family responsibility.] Here are two tricks I have found helpful and that my children and grandchildren have actually enjoyed. 

Starter Placemat:  For the younger set, try this trick. Buy a cheap plain color plastic place mat. Use permanent markers trace the circle of a small size plate in the center.  Now put a dinner plate on that so the spacing is right.  Next place trace a knife and spoon to the right of the plate.  Trace a fork to the left of the plate.  If you regularly use napkins, trace a napkin to the left of the fork.  Trace a circle for a glass or cup above the knife and fork to the right of the plate.  PRESTO.  You have a pattern guide that a young child can use to perfectly set the table. You may not use a bread and butter plate, as this image does but you can leave it out easily.

If you have more than one child... Make a pattern placemat for each and put each child's name inside the circle for the plate to mark their table place.  Perhaps the child can help.  It doesn't have to be perfect to serve its purpose.

Which side?  For kids who have trouble remembering on which side the utensils go... one of many tricks is to use the number... LEFT has 4 letters, so does FORK, forks go on the left. KNIFE has 5 letters, so does RIGHT.  Knife goes on the right.  SPOON has 5 letters so spoon goes on the RIGHT.  It seems cumbersome, but by the time they go through the process several times, it helps the placement become automatic. If you call your drinking item a GLASS, that makes it also fit on the RIGHT, but if you call it a cup or mug you are stuck! :-)

Image credits:  homeworkshop.com, goodtreemontessori.wordpress.com

Soapbox: Comfort Food Revisited

Is the comfort that food provides something that is hard-wired into our brains from earliest times, when a full stomach meant survival? Ask anyone what their family's comfort food was and the only time they hesitate is if they're trying to decide which family comfort food was the most used. What did mom fix when it was exam week? the first night home from college? when it had been a really rough week?  They even have whole cookbooks dedicated to comfort food recipes!

I'm overweight.  I'm working on it and I'm making progress, but I'm overweight. I don't think it's a coincidence that weight issues are exceedingly common among foster parents, and also among foster children.  Whether overweight or underweight, eating too much or eating the wrong stuff. It is sooo hard to treat food as fuel, not as the enemy, not as the friend, not as the feared, not as the comfort.  Fuel, just that, nothing more. They say that the nicotine in smoking is addictive.  I don't smoke,  but I think for some of us, food is every bit as addictive, and every bit as hard a habit to control. After all.. You can't quit eating. And you have years and years of being "trained" that eating x or y will make you "feel better."

Even now, I feel that baking a batch of cookies or brownies is doing something nice for my kids. I make an amazing peanut butter/chocolate homemade fudge. People's eyes light up when I bring it to the church fair, or to a sick friend, or mail it to a child at college.  My kiddos literally jump for joy when they see me gathering the ingredients for fudge. I know when I make fudge they will be excited and happy.  I admit sitting down to a family board game or going for a walk together doesn't give me that same feeling. I don't think it gives them the same feeling either. Maybe it does.  I hope it does.  It would be nice to break the cycle of using food for comfort. 


Image credits: fatkidsuit.wordpress.com, squidoo.com

Focus on Fostering: Mama Mania

I'm part of Mama Mania!  Now, I know, those of you who know me are probably saying... "Hey, we've known that about you for years!" But now it is official.  oops.... I am getting ahead of myself.

To my delight, tiny step by slow teeny step a few people are finding my quiet little blog.  Recently the host of another blog http://jointhelarksnest.blogspot.com  asked if I was willing to be part of a regular panel of foster moms for her blog.  I enthusiastically said yes and jumped into the group. Mama Lark poses a question for us, we each answer from our own personal experience as foster parents and she shares our responses on her blog.  She introduced the members of the panel on March 21st , posted our first responses on March 28 [about what made us decide to foster]  and yesterday [April 11] the second post [about our experience with the initial licensing process]. Her plan is to do a Mama Mania blog every 2nd Monday.

So check out her blog on Mama Mania day to get a cross section of views, and also on any-ol' day to read Mama Lark's posts.  And while you are at it, how about inviting any of your blog friends to come bisit me??? I would love to have my numbers grow some more!  Happy April...now I'm back to working on my taxes. [aarrgggghhhh]

Image credit:  jointhelarksnest,blogspot.com

School Bell: Nearing the Home Stretch

About a month ago, I recommended a mid-March check in with your child's teachers and setting of goals for the next month.  Well, the month is up, so guess what.... time to check in again and see how he or she did with their goals.  Did you see a difference at home with the homework time?  Did you see more papers coming home?, fewer assignments "left" at school?, better grades?, less stress?, less drama?  How did it go? In Maine we are rapidly approaching Spring break. Then comes the last 6-8 weeks of school. The home stretch.

NOW is the time to be sure your child is not in jeopardy of failing any subjects.  If they are you need to come up with a specific plan with the child and the teacher that includes frequent updates for you.It may not be a happy conference for your child, but chances are the child is already anxious about the situation. No one likes an F on a June report, especially if it comes as a surprise.  And if you wait until mid-May there might not be time to bring the grade up.  Most teachers will be more than willing to help you and your child work with them to come up with a plan.

Help your child by always focusing on this as a way OUT of a problem, rather than focusing on the fact that they are IN a problem. Same facts, different focus. Make a paper chain with a giant start at the end. Each link represents a step toward their goal. [Label them with assignments to be done, or 15-minute chunks spent studying, etc.]  Every few task links, put in a celebration link.  The celebrations can start out small and get bigger, the important thing is that you are celebrating every step toward progress that your child makes.  Every fifteen minutes of extra work, every makeup assignment completed.

NOTE: If you have a spring break coming up, meeting beforehand will give you a chance to jump start the catching up process during vacation by using mini-school sessions to work on back assignments with your child. If so: I recommend scheduling them for early in the day and having the completion earn afternoon privilege activities!

Image credits:  msnbs.msn.com, cpacinc.org, sites.google.com blogs.babycenter.com

Caring Heart: Defiance

 This meditation came from countless stories of foster parents I know.

Defiance

I can take it when one of them grumbles.  I can take it when they talk back or drag their feet.  I can take all that and more and still manage.  But this flat-out defiance is a real problem.  I can't force him to eat.  I can't make her go to school.  They are too big to pick up and manhandle.  And even if they weren't brute force is neither allowed nor is it useful, and none of that even matters because I won't use it.  Is brute force the only means of control they have experienced?  Are they trying to push me to that point to either prove everyone does it, or to prove they are that bad and deserve it?  I will not use the kind of physical or emotional force that put them here.  I won't even come close!  I will not use any kind of physical of emotional force! So... how am I going to get them to do the things they must do?  They don't care enough about me to be motivated by wanting to please me.  They have lived without so much that there is nothing I can take away or give to motivate them.  So how do I get them to do what they must?  Help me figure this out.  Help them figure it out.  Help us.    


Excerpted from "The Caring Heart Speaks: Meditations for foster, kinship, and adoptive parents" by Gail Underwood Parker    Artwork by Anna Parker David from the book cover. 

Quick Takes: Creative Rewards # 31-35

Today's quick take is five more creative rewards for your kids.  Examples are for a mix of ages and genders. [Creative Rewards #1-30 can be found if you search "Rewards."]

31. Go to a morning yard sale. 

32. Plant a window box.

33. Go bowling. [Take advantage of bumpers for the little ones.]

34. Go for a walk alone with mom or dad. [Let them take the lead on conversation.]

35. In honor of April Showers......

Give them a ride to school. [Or, maybe a ride to school pass they can save for a rainy day.] 

Don't forget that I'd love to hear what your kids find rewarding!

Watch for the next installment of creative reward ideas a month from now.

Image credit: breckenridgemountainrealty.com, yogini786.wordpress.com

Anything Can Happen: Vinyl Records Revisioned

If you are my age you remember the days of LP vinyl records.  Maybe you even remember when they came in three speeds, 45 rpm, 78 rpm. and 33 1/3 rpm.  [My dad even had some commercial recordings on 16 rpm but we only had one record player that had that speed!]

Years ago I learned a way to turn the old vinyl records into baskets and vases in a low oven. I have long since forgotten how and was wandering around the internet looking for the directions. What I found instead was this idea.

Any crafty people out there?
I have plenty of vinyl you could use!
For even more creative examples of this fun and funky wall art check out the website.


Image credits: www.thisblogrules.com/2009/06/art-made-from-from-vinyl-records.html