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.

How to Keep Safe While Riding Bikes

Wear Helmets

Make sure your kids have a helmet that fits snug around their head. Not too big or too small. Make sure the strap is always buckled and pulled tight so it can’t fly off.

Keep Your Bike in Good Repair

Make sure the breaks work well and you have good air pressure in the tires. Prevent the chain from becoming worn out by oiling it regularly. Mount reflectors to the back and front of the bike.

Ride a Bike That Fits

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, when standing over your bike, there should be 1 to 2 inches between you and the top bar for a road bike and 3 to 4 inches for a mountain bike.

Wear Fitting Attire

Dress your kids in bright colors that can easily be seen. Avoid pants that can get caught in the chain and always have them put on their shoes. Sandals and flip-flops don’t have a good grip, so lace up the sneakers!

Tell Them When and Where

Inform your kids about where you want them to be riding and how far you want them to go. Avoid areas with busy streets and stay on the sidewalk. Always walk your bike across the street and don’t ride at night.

Teach Them Why

Make sure your kids understand why they need to take precaution when riding their bikes and that it is dangerous to ride without doing these things.

Make it Fun

Get your kids excited to wear their helmets by letting them decorate them however they want. Teach them how to care for their bikes, so they feel like they can do it themselves.

How do you keep your kids safe when riding their bikes?

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 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.

Recently, we sat down with Tammy Walsh, a mom and advocate for drug awareness. She is a member of the Five Moms Campaign for StopMedicineAbuse.org, which provides tips for monitoring your kids’ online activities. They say: “Parents often find it difficult to balance between keeping a watchful eye on their teens and invading their privacy. Some parents may shy away from proactively monitoring their teens’ online behavior because they don’t want to be overbearing, ‘uncool,’or untrusting.” StopMedicineAbuse.org says definitively: “IT’S OKAY!” Here’s how:

• Monitor what your teen searches and where they go online. Keep tabs on the list of websites visited and items searched on your computer by reviewing your internet browser’s history. You can do this by opening your internet window and using the shortcut Ctrl+H. Look for suspicious sites or search terms related to dangerous behavior, such as terms like “robotripping” or “dexxing” and pro-drug use sites like GrassCity.com and Erowid.com.

• Address online behavior offline. If you see your teen using their Facebook page in an inappropriate way, or if you see red flags for dangerous behavior, address it offline! Don’t use their profile as a way to communicate your concerns. Instead, take it as an opportunity to talk to your teen offline. For example, if you see friends referencing drinking or drug use on their wall talk, to them about the risks of this dangerous behavior.

• Friend away! According to a recent study by Lab42, 92% of parents are Facebook friends with their children and more joining to monitor their kids’ interactions, with 40% citing safety as the top reason for looking at their profiles. This will allow you to keep tabs on who your teen is interacting with and will allow you to identify any red flags for risky behavior, including dangerous teen trends like robotripping, surfing, and 30 seconds.

• Bring Internet use out from behind closed doors. Insist that your teen uses the computer in a communal space rather than in their bedrooms.

There are, in fact, ways to be hands-on without hovering.

How do you teach your teens to act responsibly online?

Feature photo courtesy of Flickr.

Then, the exhaustion settles in. It seeps through your bones and takes over every ounce of your body. It fogs the mind to the state of delirium, and if you were granted with a colicky baby like I was, you’re willing to try almost anything for a moment’s rest. You hear about SIDS and it never leaves the back of your mind, but older generations and other experienced parents tell you that they slept their babies on their tummies to ensure more sound rest. I reasoned with myself—SIDS is so rare and it could never happen to me. I didn’t smoke during my pregnancy and had great prenatal care. I needed sleep. I caved.

In the early morning hour of August 7, 2009, I put my five month old son Brody back in his crib for what felt like the hundredth time during the night. Frustrated, I put him down on his tummy, in his beautifully adorn crib which was meticulously decorated with a picture-perfect bumper and crib set. When I went to check on him a few hours later, I found my son in the corner, on his belly, with his face completely up against the bumper. I frantically tried to breathe life back into his cold lips, refusing to accept what had just happened. It took making the call to my husband and a flood of paramedics, doctors and nurses, family and friends for me to realize that my nightmare was my reality. A huge piece of my heart stopped with Brody’s that day.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the National Institute of Health (NIH) both recommend babies under the age of 12 months to be placed on their backs, in a crib, and on a firm mattress with only a tightly fitted sheet. The AAP encourages room-sharing (sleeping in the same room but on separate surfaces) in its policy statement regarding SIDS prevention, but it recommends against bed-sharing with infants. Since AAP’s launch of the “Back to Sleep” campaign in 1992, SIDS has declined by 50%.

As parents prepare and nest for their soon-to-be new bundle of joy, it’s important to talk about Infant Sleep Safety and measures they will take to ensure the safest environment for their infant. It will help prevent desperate decisions made later as tired new parents if those important boundaries are set in stone prior to the birth of the child. As you prepare your home for your child, it’s vital to do your homework and research the recommended standards for safe sleeping habits for your infant.  Remember when you put your infant to sleep, every single time counts.

I believe that Brody had a physiological deficiency which combined with the environmental risks that I put him in, they created the perfect storm which took him from us. I never thought it could happen to me. It did. And I’m learning to forgive myself.

What precautions do you take to ensure your baby sleeps safely?

Sunny King is a wife and mother of three children: one son in heaven, a toddler boy, and one on the way.  She resides in Warrenton, Virgina and is a children’s photographer in the metro DC area.  Her profession allows her to share her story and information about Infant Sleep Safety with her clients.  Her husband Mike and she started a charitable organization, Playmates In Heaven Foundation, which raises funds to support a Sudden Infant Death (SIDS) research group at University of Virginia Research Hospital.  She hopes to spend her life continuing to write her late son’s story and to prevent other parents from experiencing the pain of losing a child to SIDS.

Executive Director of the Playmates In Heaven Foundation

If you would like to ask the author what he would do in a specific situation or would like the parenting perspective from a father of 5 children, then you will not want to miss this online chat. Treion will be ready and willing to share his fun and insightful approach to parenting with each of us. This is a great book for all parents. It would also be a fun Father’s Day gift.

Book Club Details

• What: Join us for an online live chat all about being a better dad or parent. We’ll be discussing the book, “Dad Rules: A simple manual for a Complex Job.” We are also excited to have the author, Treion Muller, join our book chat.
• When: Wednesday, May 30 from 2-3 p.m. EST (1 p.m. CT, 12 p.m. MT, & 11 a.m. PT).
• Where: Party with us in our very own Mom It Forward Chat Room. (Click here to go to the MomItForward Chat Room.)
• RSVP: Email jillgreenlaw@momitforward.com to receive a free copy of the book. We only have a few to give away and they are on a first come first serve basis.

Thanks goodness schools have dress codes that are mostly reinforced, but what about outside of school?  The mall? The movies? School sporting events?

Our girls are influenced by their friends, magazine models and celebrities when it comes to fashion. What are some ways we can help our daughters dress modestly, have positive body image and still own a wardrobe that is trendy?

How to Help Your Teen be Trendy and Modest

• Encourage her to be a trendsetter. New fashion trends are started all the time; do not be afraid to try something different. Just because all the girls are wearing short shorts, mini skirts and plunging necklines, does not mean you have to.
• Know your body. Try clothes on so you know what looks good and flatters your figure. We are all built differently.
• Set a fashion standard for yourself and stick to it. Others will respect you for your modest taste and choice in clothes.
• Exercise is good for us. If you can stand to lose a few winter pounds exercise and eat healthy. Avoid the starving and crash diets that bring on other issues.

We want our girls to be healthy, happy and feel good about themselves in clothes that are modest and trendy. For my own daughter these are the first four steps.

How do you and your children make decisions about fashion that you both agree on?

Robin Greene is a mom of a teen daugther and a teen son.  She is also Kindergarten teacher at her local Christian school. Robin enjoys trying to find ways to save money, spend time with family and freelance write for mybabyclothes.com. Your little one will be the cutest one at their next play date in their new Spring baby clothes or a beautiful baby tutu with a matching baby headband.

Suzanne and friend/business partner Ria

She writes on her blog’s About page, “I am a mother of nine, four here on earth and five who got their wings before birth.” She has survived the loss of five children through miscarriage, and now mothers her and her husband’s nine-year-old, seven-year-old, and two-year-old twins. It was while she was helping a friend who was in labor with her first child that Suzanne met Ria Sharon, who was also waiting out that mutual friend’s labor, that a new friendship was born, and from that was born their blog MyMommyManual.com. It is a place of instruction, without the painful experience component. It’s instructions pertain mainly to yoga parenting, helping babies sleep better, and providing infant massage and other products and events for moms. It’s also a place for a little bit of healing, where other women who’ve experienced miscarriages can post videos and chat in its “Hopeful Miscarriage” section.

The common theme of what she does in her “ZenMommy” persona is to help others be at peace with themselves. She says, “Facing my demons, loving my light, embracing the chaos and accepting the unacceptable as a parent has led me closer to what I understand to be my life purpose: to know and love myself. I breathe in, I love myself. I breathe out, I am enough. The very same things I’ve bumped up against my whole life, things like guilt, belonging and acceptance in motherhood, take on new meaning and a sort of urgency.”

To help others face similar demons, she and her contributors write about and teach real-life classes on centering and soul-to-soul parenting. She is also a physical therapist, vice president and co-owner of a holistic health center in St. Louis, Missouri. And she moonlights as a parenting coach and an Infant Massage Instructor. When asked what parenting product she uses most and most highly recommends, she responds, surprisingly, that it’s an iPhone. Because, she says, “If you are feeling isolated, you have to talk to someone. Community is essential to parenting. Essential. You know the saying “It takes a village”? Well, it’s true.” That village today is called the blogosphere, and MyMommyManual is a good hut to visit.

“What better place to ‘grow’ special family memories than in a garden? Gardening with your kids or grandkids at home or at a community garden not only provides the tangible benefits of exercise and fresh food, it also fosters communication, builds strong relationships, and offers an opportunity to work towards a common goal.” — KidsGardening.org

3 ways to Build a Strong Relationship and Garden with Your Child

Grow Baby Vegetables

Debra at The Harried Mom does this with her kids, aged four and two. She says, “I like to grow baby vegetables with the kids, kind of like their size and we also give them their own area in the garden to plant how and what they want.” According to the Texas A & M Horticulture Extension, most baby vegetables are fully ripe miniature vegetables cultivated for perfection. Others are immature vegetables picked before fully grown. They are as nutritious as regular-size vegetables and most offer a more tender and delicate taste. There are about 45-50 types currently marketed in the United States, which include baby corn, baby zucchini and baby carrots, among others. Buy vegetable plants at your local home store or online.

Plant a Butterfly Garden

KidsGardening.org recommends including at least six hours of sunlight, colorful flowering plants, and leafy “host plants” that attract egg-laying butterflies and provide food for the larvae. Not sure what to plant? Go for perennials, such as aster, sunflower, milkweed/butterfly weed, lilac, and purple coneflower. Annuals are good, too—think petunia, annual aster, marigold, and verbena species. Butterfly gardens are excellent learning tools for kids, because they are allowed to experience the developmental process of a butterfly! You can download a sample butterfly garden plan and pick up tips for creating a homemade butterfly feeder, too.

Start With a Pot

Michele, mother of 6 grown children and grandmother of 5, suggests starting with container gardening. “Children respond better to projects with immediate results, so planting potted flowers is perfect for them.” Container gardens offer the advantage of changing your garden with every season. The choice of plant material is limited only by your climate and your imagination. Another advantage is that container gardens give you the chance to experiment and try different plants. If you don’t like it or a plant is under-performing, it is easy to correct.

P.S. As you are gardening with your children, remember to teach them how to weed, too. It’s a skill you can take advantage of later on in life when they need a few bucks for going to the movies with their friends.

More resources on gardening with kids:

http://communitygarden.org/docs/10gardening_with_kids.pdf

http://www.forsmallhands.com/yard-garden 

Do you garden with your kids? What items do you grow?

Photo courtesy of Flickr. Featured image courtesy of Flickr.

Desiree Allen is a thirty-something single parent with two children. A native of Denver, Colorado, she lived there until 2009, when she moved across the country to northern New Jersey with her kids. She is doing her best to avoid ‘picking up’ a Jersey accent, but she’s not making promises that she won’t eventually start sounding like some of her new friends. You can find her blogging at Writing to Sanity and tweeting @writingtosanity.