Kids can often teach adults some important lessons. For example, 11-year-old Ruby teaches compassion, consideration, and generosity of spirit. She saw residents of a nursing home who were sad, missing the little pleasures in life, and she did something about it. Read about what she did, why, and the results at 11-Year-old Girl Has Been Granting the Simple Wishes of Nursing Home Patients.
Gotta love those funny TV commercials! How about the ad where one guy hits another in the head with a cell phone, twice, or where a woman bounces a cue ball off the forehead of an obnoxious man? Then there’s the guy who breaks down a wall to be allowed to answer a quiz question. We’re supposed to laugh, of course. If we do, though, what we’re telling our kids is that violence is both an acceptable response to minor irritants and funny. It’s time to change this way of thinking. We start not by laughing at the aggressive scene but by using the ads as a chance to talk to our kids about violence against our fellow humans. Our discussion will likely bring out stories of similar antagonism on the playground or among their friends and give us a chance to offer guidance in how to handle such situations.
It’s drizzly weather, but the kids need something to do. Show them a thought-provoking classic movie. Afterwards, talk about what they saw–what went on and why–and relate it to real people in real situations today. Encourage questions and reactions. “Could some kid I know face going to prison for killing his dad?” (Twelve Angry Men). “But poor people today can get jobs and not have people disrespect them” (Grapes of Wrath). “How dumb! People can’t be accused of stuff just because of their color!” (To Kill a Mockingbird). Find these films at the public library. Scan the television guides, Netflix, Hulu, On Demand, etc. for others: Ox Bow Incident and Diary of Anne Frank show up often. Check video rental stores for The Hiding Place or Schindler’s List. Your friends who are movie buffs probably have a film they’d recommend and even lend you. Gather the kids and start the movie.
Now, where did I put that bowl of popcorn?
Tomorrow is “Giving Tuesday,” a holiday designed to balance out the self-absorbed madness of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. On this day, business, charities, communities, and families enter into the spirit of giving. EVERYONE can participate. If not with our wallets, then with our excess food in our pantries or the second Buy-one/Get-One-Free item. With that like-new clothing we loved when we bought it but know we’ll never wear. With those toys our kids opened Christmases ago but sit in their boxes, un-played with. With blankets and rain ponchos for the homeless who are about to be caught in what promises to be a harsh winter. Or simply with the gift of our time: to help at a shelter or soup kitchen; to visit a lonely elder in a nursing home; to comfort a grieving family; to be with a troubled child. I hope Giving Tuesday expands to Giving Everyday. Besides, the spirit of this day turns the madness into a loving anticipation of a Christmas season packed with all the meaning it’s supposed to have.
Not according to the latest American Academy of Pediatrics policy-change. The Academy now urges parents NOT to spank, hit, slap, threaten, verbally abuse, shame, or humiliate their kids when they misbehave. New evidence shows that such actions lead to aggression and depression in kids and shrinks the grey matter in their brains.
Corporal punishment, says the Academy, can cause injury to under-18-month-olds, make preschoolers behave more aggressively, increase the chances of kids’ being defiant as they get older, and lead to mental health and cognitive disorders. Moreover, “spanking alone is associated with adverse outcomes, and these outcomes are similar to those in children who experience physical abuse.”
They suggest using other methods of correction: quiet talk at their eye level; restricting their Internet and video games; reinforcing their positive actions. They offer age-specific methods of discipline, as well. Babies should be distracted or moved away from the site of the problem. Preschoolers should be given time-outs. And older kids should have natural consequences.
Read the report. In today’s violent society, it makes sense–for our kids and for our future–to think about discipline for children.
Remember playing out in the yard just about every day when you were a kid? Sixty percent of parents answering a survey said they did. Yet, today, only 30% of kids aged 3 – 12 have daily playtime outside. And they have five structured, mostly indoor activities per week rather than free play.
Experts say that the fresh air, opportunities to experience nature, and unconfined freedom of being outdoors is healthy for kids. Other experts say that unstructured play stimulates the imagination while helping kids learn to make and keep friends, keeping kids healthy, and fighting obesity. As a 2013 American Academy of Pediatrics article said, such activity offers kids “cognitive, social, emotional and physical benefits.”
So let’s take our kids back to our own childhoods, to the park, the playground, or the trike or sandbox in the back yard. Or just into the yard and let their imaginations come up with a game, because they will.
Help your kids avoid respiratory problems as adults by having greenery around your home now. So says new research. They’ve discovered that children who grow up playing in and around green space are less prone to asthma and wheezing during adulthood. Read more about this at https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180918180504.htm
[For more easy, money-saving, Earth-friendly tips, download a FREE copy of Green Riches: Help the Earth & Your Budget. Go to www.Smashwords.com/books/view/7000 or your favorite e-book seller and download to your computer or e-book device. Totally free, with no strings attached.]
LOOK AT WHAT SHE’S WEARING! I’ve said this to myself often, impressed by colorful ethnic dress. But because I haven’t gone up to the person to compliment her, I’ve missed a chance to get to know someone new and probably learn something about a culture I’m not familiar with. Too often we miss such chances. People from ethnic backgrounds different from our own are all around us. We can grab the opportunity by sitting with them at church or asking to join their table at the Fellowship that follows. We can engage them in conversation at a party, during work breaks, before and after meetings. Where we are gathered gives us subjects to talk about (the meeting topic or a critique of what the boss said or a new place to shop in the area). Our kids have been doing this since 2002 nationally and locally at “Mix It Up at Lunch Day.” If we follow their lead we’ll enrich each other’s lives and build a stronger human community.
Do you have a Family Giving Tree in your area? If so, please support it with a box of crayons, a notebook or two, a soft pencil pack, a ruler, or an entire backpack filled with these things and other items kids need to start the school year. You can even donate a backpack online. How easy is that? AND some stores will either sell you a filled backpack or give you one when you buy one for your own child.
There are other organizations who do this: Kids in Need Foundation, Operation Backpack, A Precious Child, etc. All are needed if this gap is to be filled.
Why give to programs like this? Because educated kids can change lives, in their families, communities, and the world. Yet 16 million American kids arrive at school the first day too poor to provide their own necessary supplies.
I don’t normally ask for donations in my blog, but I’m making an exception this time, because it’s something most of us can easily afford and–here’s the important part–IT’S FOR THE CHILDREN!
They’re just kids from a small country that has no real influence in the world. But we came together–from many countries–to save them because of one universal belief: everyone’s child is MY child. Our feelings are stirred because that could be our biological child, or a relative’s, or a friend’s. At that point, nobody cares if the child lives in a nation that’s hostile to us or whose government or ideology is opposed to ours. We don’t care about the color or religion of the child. We just…care.
The Thailand cave rescue of those dozen kids and their soccer coach deeply moved me. And it reminded me that we don’t need to be at each other’s throats in this world, that we can come together. I hope that spirit lingers and spreads throughout the world.