Sex is not an act, it’s a pool. Stay in the shallow end for as long as possible. Have fun. Be safe. Be respectful.
15
Tragedy may occur in your life, but it does not need to define your life. YOU get to do that...through the choices you make. _______I know you’ll make good ones. xo
19
Have them sort change, and eventually to count it. It teaches them to gather things that are alike, it's an introduction to money and it occupies them for 15 minutes! Just make sure they're old enough to be past the point of putting coins in their mouth.
3-5
We feel best when we create. No amount of food, video games or any self-destructive habits will fill that hole. So why fight it?!? Create something, even if it’s as small as a little sketch or poem. Grow a garden, bake a cake. Start a business! Whatever your beautiful heart desires.
12, 15, 18, 21
Be a good guest. Never arrive to a dinner or a party empty handed. Bring a gift: flowers, food, drink, etc.
18
Look into a class for meditation for kids. I read an article on a Baltimore elementary school that replaced detention with meditation and had amazing success.
6
Blessing for the Brokenhearted: Poem by Jan Richardson ___________ "There is no remedy for love but to love more." – Henry David Thoreau ________________________ ________________________ Let us agree for now that we will not say the breaking makes us stronger or that it is better to have this pain than to have done without this love. __________Let us promise we will not tell ourselves time will heal the wound, when every day our waking opens it anew. ___________Perhaps for now it can be enough to simply marvel at the mystery of how a heart so broken can go on beating, as if it were made for precisely this— as if it knows the only cure for love is more of it, as if it sees the heart’s sole remedy for breaking is to love still, as if it trusts that its own persistent pulse is the rhythm of a blessing we cannot begin to fathom but will save us nonetheless.
20
You’re getting stronger by the day. Use your strength to protect, never to intimidate. Abusers and bullies are cowards and just the worst of men.
14, 17, 21
“Pay yourself first” means save before you spend. You never know when you’ll need to tap into savings, so build it up early and heartily.
18
Watch YouTube video on how to administer an Epi-pen injection. You have friends with allergies you may need to know how to do this.
11-15
“Things are not perfect, because life is not TV and we are real people with scarred, worried hearts. But it’s amazing a lot of the time.” - Anne Lamott
14
If you’ve never dressed a newborn before, an easy way to get the hang of it is to lay the outfit flat on the bed and then place the baby on top of it. Tuck her little arms and legs inside one at a time, then zip or snap them in. Done!
Infant
Shirts and pants don't go into the laundry inside-out. From now on, they will be responsible for turning their laundry right-side-out. Will help instill that laundry is not done by the laundry fairy.
4
Sit down together and write house rules on anger. We don’t hit or bite. Do we yell and slam doors? Name-call? Say “I don’t love you” ? Bad words? What’s appropriate anger and what’s unacceptable?
4-6
Pick an issue. One single issue, i.e. the economy or the environment or coverage of a certain event such as a crime or a sport season. Read at least one newspaper article on that topic every day. NYT, London Times etc.
14, 15, 16, 21
Painful or unpleasant emotions can’t grow if you stay in the present. (Easy way to do this is to focus on your breathing.)
10, 13, 16, 21
Read article about Digital Learning/ transitioning to doing homework on a computer. http://community.today.com/parentingteam/post/it-doesnt-have-to-stay-on-the-screen
10
Struggle is just part of the process. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong or you’re dumb. It’s a key element of how we all learn.
11
Men worry about getting laughed at or rejected by a woman. Women worry about getting killed when they reject a man. Let that sink in.
15, 21