Teaching Children How to Love and Care for Pets

Here are some tips to help you teach your kids about taking care of your pets:

Assign Your Child Some Responsibilities

The first tip is to give your children some duties regarding their pet. You can ask your child to feed the pet. Or they can be involved in activities, like playing with the animal, taking them outside for a walk, or giving them a bath. Participating in their care will help to instill a feeling of responsibility in children. However, you should only assign activities that can be done easily by your child.

Set A Good Example

Another way to teach your kids how to be gentle towards animals is to set a good example. When children see the way you take care of your pet, chances are they will do the same.

Treat Them With Kindness

Parents should encourage their kids to bond with the pet. They can be taught to hold them properly; when and how to groom them; and depending on the animal, basic training commands. Never allow your children to tease or harass any pets or other animals; this can be dangerous for both parties.

Give Them Proper Care

All of our pets should receive good care. Always visit your local veterinarian for annual exams and vaccinations. When it is appropriate, spay or neuter your pet. Feed them nutritional pet food appropriate for their age, size, and weight. Your children will understand that it’s important to do things that are helpful and beneficial to your family pet.

It is important to teach children how to respect, love, care and be sensitive to animals. Parents should always guide their kids towards discovering that having a pet is a wonderful experience. It teaches children how to be responsible and how to care for another living thing.

What type of pet do you and your family have? How do you decide who takes care of your pets?

Featured image courtesy of Flickr.

Jane Warren is a pet owner, who enjoys helping others learn about the needs of their animals. Her website, www.pamperthepets.com, has tips for pet owners. She also provides reviews on important products like Frontline pet meds, which help to prevent fleas and ticks.

Did you know as recently as the 1970s, the average American belonged to half-dozen or more civic organizations that did volunteer work in their communities? Lions Clubs, the Masons, Rotaries, Chambers of Commerce, etc. Today, we’re lucky to be involved with even one. It’s no wonder everyone joins social media sites like crazy; we miss that connection, not to mention the opportunities for doing social good.

I’m one of those people who doesn’t have much outside organizational involvement, I admit. But when choosing a church for my family, one of the conditions for me was that the church “walked the walk,” instead of just talking the talk. My church does many outreach activities, including a monthly dinner at a homeless shelter. This outreach is particularly dear to me. As a recovering alcoholic, I know that the ranks of the homeless are filled with addicts who haven’t been able to find recovery, and reaching out to them with this dinner has helped me connect with them and serve as proof that recovery is possible. Helping the homeless has actually become a family issue; my husband does outreach and photography of the homeless here in Philadelphia as well.

But I haven’t stopped there. Because of my large social media footprint, I try to use that for social good as well. I help promote a variety of women and children related non-profit organizations, particularly those that focus on women’s health. It’s not the same as being hands-on, I realize that, but sometimes it’s better than nothing.

I want to instill social responsibility in my daughter; I’ve considered taking her to the homeless dinner but, unfortunately, the facility isn’t zoned for children. But I talk with her about helping people, about how important it is to reach out a hand and help whenever you can. One of the (very small) things I’ve done is helping her pick out (gently used) clothes and toys to give to our local battered women and children’s shelter. She loves knowing that her “stuff” is going to other kids in need. I’m not sure you can teach generosity, but I’m going to give it a shot.

I wish I could do more; as is typical today, time is at a premium. I work hard, and make my family a priority, and it can be hard to remember that there are plenty of families in need out there, too. One of the ways that I’ve managed to free up my time has been to make sure I keep myself focused and organized; it’s one of the great gifts that working with a startup (that happens to focus on organization!) has given me.

What are you doing to teach your children about social responsibility?

Featured image courtesy of Flickr.

Cecily Kellogg is the mom of near six-year-old daughter, a wife, and the social media strategist for AboutOne, an online family organizer that turns your phone into a remote control for your life, working with your existing calendar and contact tools so you can automatically organize, store, and share family memories and household paperwork. Through web and mobile apps, AboutOne guides you along the path to organization, rewarding you along the way for meeting your organizational goals.

All you need is sidewalk chalk and you can practice math and reading skills with your child all summer.

Reading Activities:

• Write out the letters of the alphabet and have your child identify each as he/she jumps from one letter to another.
• Have your child spell out common words by jumping to the correct letters in the word in order.
• Write out capitals and lower case letters and have your child match them. Your child can jump from one to the next to make a match, or throw a ball or bean bag (or even water balloon!) at the matching letter.

• Write out common sight words and have your child find the correct one as you call them out, or have them read the words as they hop from one to the next.
• Have your child throw a bean bag and give rhyming words for the word they land on, or make a sentence using that word.

Math Activities:

• Draw a number line. Depending on your child’s age, you can have them write in the numbers.
• Practice number line math: start on 3 and take 5 steps. So 5+3=8. You can also do addition and subtraction or skip counting.

• Write out numbers and have your child count their way up or down as they jump to the next correct number.
• Toss a beanbag to land on an odd number or even number.

Your kids will see it as playing games with sidewalk chalk, but you’ll know that they are learning!

What other games can you play with sidewalk chalk?

Shell- known as @shellthings on Twitter- wrangles chaos and mayhem on a daily basis (otherwise known as raising three boys). When she’s not breaking up wrestling matches or ducking Legos, she spills her thoughts on her blog, Things I Can’t Say. Featuring the popular weekly link-up “Pour Your Heart Out” and a guest post series titled “Things They Can’t Say,” Shell’s blog is all about encouraging community and support among bloggers. In her free time (ha!), Shell is cofounder of Other Half Media, which takes on blogging and social media projects for bloggers and companies alike. She also team-teaches classes for bloggers on How to Rock Your Blog.

How to Teach Your Kids About Seeds and Gardening

One way to teach gardening is to plant seed starters together. Seed starters are planted seeds that start growing inside and are transplanted when they are large enough to plant outside. By growing your plants and vegetables on your own, you can save a lot of money by not purchasing plants that have already been started. Planting seeds teaches children to grow their own fruits, herbs, vegetables or flowers.

What You Need to Start Seeds:

1. Seeds: Planting herbs and vegetables are a nice summer treat. We like to involve the children in this process by allowing them to pick out a few seed packets on their own from the store.

2. Seed starter tray or small container: Seed trays can be purchased at your local grocery store or home improvement store for a few dollars. Small cups do the trick as well.

3. Soil, water, sunshine: Some experts prefer to use a soilless potting mix, but it really comes down to personal preference. Make sure the water can drain properly so the seeds won’t drown or get moldy. Direct sunshine outside may be too harsh on hot days, so setting the seeds in the window sill is a good protected place for them to soak up rays.

Other Teaching Ideas

After we planted our seed starters, we saved one seed from each and made a little poster using cardstock and some craft glue. We then labeled the seeds; it turns a family memory into a little science project.

Parents, baby-sitters or teachers can use gardening as an opportunity to teach growth principles:

1. We start as a seed

2. We need soil to sprout our roots.

3. We need sunshine & water to help us grow.

4. We grow and sprout leaves.

5. We see the fruit of our labors.

How do you involve your children in gardening?

Kathy is a marketing consultant and entrepreneur with a passion for social media and parenting on purpose.  She is also the CEO of Little Stinker, a natural skin care line for baby and moms.

Recognized as one of the 40 Under 40 by Utah Business Magazine, she was also a finalist in the American Business Association Awards and finalist in the Westminster Business Plan Competition.  Kathy has been featured in American Baby Magazine, Parents Magazine, Parenting Magazine and ABC.com. Currently, Kathy is writing a book Word of Mom.

Kathy blogs at Hello Hello Again and Danish Mama.

Tweet with Kathy: @kathydaltonslc // @helloagain

How to Build Strong Relationships with Your Kids

• Start when your child is young.
• Give your children privacy. They appreciate it when you knock instead of barging into their room. Or you could ask them about their day instead of sneaking to read their journal while they are at school. (A small amount of privacy is good for even younger children.)
• Show them respect. You are the parent, but that does not mean you should talk down to your child, embarrass your child or initiate an argument.
• Open lines of communication with your child. Show them you are trustworthy; don’t tell your friend, who will tell her friend, until it gets back to your child. Do not blow your top about everything; pick your battles.
• Spend time with your kids. Let them know they are important! It does not have to be all about spending a lot of money. Rent a movie, have family game night or family cooking night.
• Encourage your kids to invite their friends over, then get to know your kids’ friends. Reach out even more by allowing your child to invite a friend along on a trip or vacation. Make your home and family appealing to be around.
• Show your child you trust them. Give them responsibility and privileges appropriate for their age.

These are just a few ways that we, as mothers, can build a happy, healthy relationship with our children that will last.

What do you do to strengthen your relationship with your children?

Robin Greene is a mom of two teenagers and has enjoyed watching her children grow and mature.  She enjoys spending as much time with them and their friends as possible.  Robin teachers Kindergarten and is a freelance writer for mybabyclothes.com.  Get your little ones dressed in the most unique baby clothes, beautiful baby tutus and dapper baby hats this Spring.

How to Enjoy Family Road Trips

As a family, we regularly drive to Florida (about a 14-16 hour road-trip) and here is a list of tips that work well for us:

• The month before we travel, I buy four new reading books and four new coloring or sticker books and crayons. I pack  these in my backpack and bring them out as surprises during the trip. Diapers, wipes, paper towels, and a spare outfit for each child also go in my backpack.
• The day we travel, each of my boys packs his own backpack with:
• two of their favorite DVDs
• their favorite handheld games (I really like the educational games that come with the LeapFrog Leapsters)
• two reading books
• two of their favorite toys
• some snacks and a couple of drinks (small bags of goldfish or Envirokidz bars work well because they aren’t too messy in the car, and I like Honest Kids juice as well)
• Around 5 p.m. of the travel day, we bathe the children, brush their teeth, and put them in their full length pajamas. Around 6 p.m., we start to drive. In the car they take turns choosing DVDs to watch, or they choose to play with one of their backpack items. We rarely have any trouble with them arguing once we put in the DVD rotation rule.

My husband and I take turns driving through the night. Usually the children are asleep by 8 p.m. and stay asleep until we arrive the next morning in Florida. My biggest challenge on these drives has been feeding my children healthy meals. We always tend to stop at fast food places. This has been easier in the last year as McDonald’s added healthier choices to their menus.

It’s really important for me preserve the memories associated with family vacations, so my children will have those memories when they are older. I want them to remember how hard I tried to be a good mom.

 What are some of your family’s favorite vacations?

Joanne Lang is a mom of 4 boys, a wife, and the founder and CEO of AboutOne, an online family organizer that turns your phone into a remote control for your life, working with your existing calendar and contact tools so you can automatically organize, store, and share family memories and household paperwork. Through web and mobile apps, AboutOne guides you along the path to organization, rewarding you along the way for meeting your organizational goals.

Photo from Flickr

How to Plan a Party When You Have No Time

This is what I’ve learned about planning parties when I’m pressed for time:

• I always ask my children what they’d like to do and whom they’d like to invite. I’m often pleasantly surprised by their creative ideas. Over the years, I’ve found that it’s really nice to invite all their classroom friends so we can get to know the parents and the children all in one go, but this does make the party quite large—usually 25-30 children.

• Because we often end up with large parties, I’ve found hosting them at a venue other than our home is much less stressful and easier on the budget. To date, my boys’ favorite parties have been:
• Ages 4 – 6: Chuck E. Cheese, BounceU, and pony riding parties
• Ages 6 – 8: laser tag (They just LOVE Laser Tag!)

• Being organized is critical, even when you’re hosting at an outside venue. Besides creating the guest list, sending out the invitations, planning games, remembering to bring the party supplies, and being prepared to record the memories made, I always make note of our guests’ allergies as well. The new release of AboutOne will make all of this easy to do.

• Party favors can be a frustrating and expensive topic. Children love them, but I’ve found that the items are often thrown away, so I try to make our favors educational or useful activities that occupy children’s time. Some of our more successful/popular favors have been bubbles, play-doh, small boxes of Legos, or coloring books and markers. I recently stumbled upon Target’s dollar section (Who knew?!) and it’s been a great source of packs of coloring books, crayons, and other nice favors.

• As my boys have gotten older, parents have started to drop their children off. Since I’m then responsible for taking good care of all the children, I always make sure we have enough adults present—usually at least one adult to eight children. Because I don’t always know the children or their parents, I use sticky labels to make name-tags when the children arrive and I include the parents’ names. I also bring a guest list, so I can check their names at drop off and pick up and I can keep track of the children during the party when they are moving between activities or taking a bathroom break.

Do you have some great party-planning tips? Please share!

Joanne Lang is a mom of 4 boys, a wife, and the founder and CEO of AboutOne, an online family organizer that turns your phone into a remote control for your life, working with your existing calendar and contact tools so you can automatically organize, store, and share family memories and household paperwork. Through web and mobile apps, AboutOne guides you along the path to organization, rewarding you along the way for meeting your organizational goals.

Featured image courtesy of Flickr. Photo from flickr.

Several people who influenced me most through my childhood and teen years were teachers, pastors, a couple of really close friend,s as well as a few famous people who I feel have maintained their character and integrity unlike so many others today.

As for me, I want to be a positive influence for my kids, and hopefully by doing that, someone along the way will see me as a positive example. This is how I want to influence my children:

1. I want my kids to see me handle everyday life with a positive outlook. God blesses me with the breath to wake up in the morning, so I want to start everyday with a thankful and happy heart.
2. I want my kids to witness my kindness towards others. Showing sincere kindness, concern and love to everyone should be a habit, not something you force yourself to do. This is just as simple as saying “thank you” to the cashier when you are at the store. I want my kids to understand this truth.
3. I want to instill my moral standards and values into my kids. I want them to dress appropriately, act appropriately in public, stay pure until marriage, and stay away from harmful substances like alcohol and  tobacco.

These are just a few influences I would like to pass onto my kids. We are not all going to be famous and well-known but we can make a difference to the people around us on a daily basis.

What can you do to be a good example to your family and friends?

Robin Greene is a mom of two teenagers, a wife, and a Kindergarten teacher.  She enjoys her work and strives to set a good example for all of those around. Robin enjoys watching her children participate in their extra curricular activities, participating in church functions and writing for mybabyclothes.com.  You will find the perfect baby clothes, baby headbands and baby tutus for any baby shower gift that you may be in the market for.

I guess the first discussion my husband and I had was pretty typical—public or private? If we chose public, what school district do we live in and how does it rate? We poured over school stats, visited a couple of schools, and crunched our budget, too. It was a lot of information to process.

When we decided to choose public we really did a lot of research. Not only did we talk to parents in our neighborhood, my husband also talked to the bus drivers of the school districts we were considering to get a different perspective.

We are doing everything we can to give our boys a strong educational foundation, but I also believe in allowing them to use that foundation to build their own lives. Of course, I want them all to succeed academically and head off to college and great careers, and I’m here to help them reach their goals. But it all starts with a great primary school education, and I’m so glad we chose the school we did. Now we’re dealing with the usual challenges—balancing work while helping with homework, school projects and other activities, such as baseball, and trying to support our local school district to the best of our ability.

In the eighteen months since I launched my start-up, I feel all of this has been easier than when I worked for a large corporation. As CEO, I implemented a “Comeback Mom” program with a flexible working program for the AboutOne team. This means all employees (including me) can work flexible hours so they can be a homeroom mom or attend school events, and doctor visits without feeling additional pressure to take time off work. We implemented technologies such as Skype and Zendesk mobile support to chat virtually and do customer support from the park if we want to!

While working in a start-up means much longer hours, of course, our home lives feel less stressful and we feel that we spend more time with our families because of these programs. It turns out that founding a start-up was the best choice for me when it comes to helping my children have the best school experience possible!

What do you do in your family to ensure your kids are getting a good education?

Joanne Lang is a mom of 4 boys, a wife, and the founder and CEO of AboutOne, an online family organizer that turns your phone into a remote control for your life, working with your existing calendar and contact tools so you can automatically organize, store, and share family memories and household paperwork. Through web and mobile apps, AboutOne guides you along the path to organization, rewarding you along the way for meeting your organizational goals.

Picture courtesy of flickr

• Always takes place in Spring and usually, but not always, around the same time as Easter.
• Both faiths eat a lot of eggs but I am not sure that it is for the same reasons.
• They are both hope based: Passover celebrates the exodus out of Egypt, while Easter commemorates the Resurrection of Christ.

But that is where most of the similarities end.  The differences are truly interesting:

What Makes Passover Different from Other Jewish Holidays?

Passover is Celebrated in the Home

The celebration usually takes place at a meal, called a Seder, and therefore there is no need to go the Synagogue. Much of the family is usually congregated in one place—like the dining room table. All festivities and readings are done from a text called a “Haggadah,” which is read at the table.

Family & Friends Participate in the Service

The purpose of reading the Haggadah is to recall the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. Everyone has a job during the Sedar; in fact the youngest child has one of the biggest jobs: asking “The Four Questions.” The “Four Questions” are actually statements about how the celebration of Passover is different from other days. In my family, it is imperative that the child read the questions in Hebrew and not the phonetic pronunciations. To be allowed to read them means that you have started your Hebrew studies and are no longer considered “a baby” in the family. (On a side note: I didn’t learn how to read Hebrew until I was an adult and therefore have never had the honor of reading the Four Questions.)

The Seder Plate

The seder plate is the table’s centerpiece.  Each of the seven foods on the plate symbolize different aspects of the imposed slavery on the Israelites:

Vegetable (Karpas): It is traditionally dipped in salt water. The vegetable (usually parsley or lettuce) symbolizes an old tradition of beginning a meal by dipping vegetables. The salt water represents the tears our ancestors shed during their years of enslavement.

Shank bone (Zeroa) / Roasted Beet: Represents the tenth plague in Egypt, when all firstborn Egyptians were killed. The Israelites marked the doorposts of their homes with the blood of a lamb as a signal that death should pass over them.

Hard Boiled Egg (Baytzah): A symbol of mourning for the loss of the two Temples in Jerusalem. Hard boiled eggs were traditionally considered the food of mourners.

Charoset: A delicious mixture that is often made of apples, nuts, wine and spices. It is supposed to represent the mortar the Israelites were forced to use while they built structures for their Egyptian taskmasters.

Bitter Herbs (Maror): Symbolize the harshness of servitude. Horseradish—either the root or a prepared paste—is most often used. A small amount of maror is usually eaten with an equal portion of charoset.

Bitter Vegetable (Hazeret): This piece of the seder plate also symbolizes the bitterness of slavery. My family places a bowl of salted water as a representative.

Four Glasses of Wine

The Haggadah actually directs the adult participants to drink four glasses of wine during the service. As my family consistently tries to abbreviate the time spent recalling the Exodus, that’s 4 glasses in less than an hour.  Of course, after consuming that amount of alcohol in less than an hour, some of the family participants get a bit rowdy and decide to share some family stories that are better left in the past.

The 10 Plagues

Ten Plagues of Egypt

Because the Passover story is told at home, we are able recall (and even act out) our favorite parts including the recitation of the Ten Plagues imposed on Pharoah.  As each plague is called out, my family dips our little fingers in our wine and place a drop of wine on our plates.

No Bread (Or Anything with Leavening!)

I love bread! But it’s nice that once a year I have an excuse to throw out all of the old bread that has been lingering in the back of the refrigerator just waiting to be made into breadcrumbs. At Passover, it is customary that everything with leavening be thrown in the trash. In its place, we eat Matzah (flour and water) that has been baked for exactly 18 minutes. It’s amazing what can be made out of matzah with a little imagination and time. Crab cakes are DELCIOUS with a matzah meal base. (Yes, it’s true that crabs, by themselves, are not exactly considered kosher according to the Jewish Culinary rules, but I am just making a point about matzahs’ many uses.) Of course, by the end of the eight days of Passover, we are all a bit tired of eating it as our only form of starch but for most of the week it is a great alternate for bread, cereal, pasta etc.

Unleavened Bread or "Matzah"

Hiding the Afikomen

Like any Easter egg hunt, this tradition is really focused on the children participating in the Seder. At the beginning of the Seder, half of the middle three pieces of Matzah (called the Afikomen—which also means “dessert” in Aramaic) is hidden. The Seder service concludes ONLY when it is located by one of the children. The child may “sell” the Afikomen back to the Sedar’s leader. Usually the payment is a new toy or, in my family, five gold dollars. Allegedly, the custom aims to keep the children engaged throughout the entire service and interested in Passover traditions. However, having been the seeker and the one hiding the Afikomen, I find that it is really more rewarding to be one of the adults steering her favorite child towards the matzah before any of her bigger cousins ambush and steal it away from her. After explaining these seven customs to my neighbor, I was surprised to learn two things: first, she was actually still awake and listening to me and second, that she wanted to participate in a Seder. She explained that having listened to the yelling and singing coming from my home last Friday night, she wanted to be part of the party too. I can think of no better guest. After all, the Haggadah notes: “Let all who are hungry, come and eat.” The welcoming of guests to the Seder table is actually a central Passover tradition and in our neighborhood, that could be a lot of people at the table next year.

Featured image courtesy of Flickr.