Parenting Tips

I was doing really well to post for you all once a week. That has since not been realistic. This week, here I am on post two, so maybe I will just do these as I have the time, or maybe I will schedule them so they are spaced out some. If you have a preference or suggestion on how often you would like to read my musings, comment and let me know please. Today though I am going to talk about the title of this blog post, family values. What exactly is a value? Google gives a long

As we enter the month of December with huge household changes, I am STRESSED. I made and kept my therapy appointment last week and am still going to try using my coping skills to avoid triggering me too severely, but I also asked about medication, because in this busy time I want to have something as a safety net. I am trying to avoid needing the medication, but I am seeing that I am struggling, and I have reached out for help. Over the Thanksgiving holiday more than one pers

There are so many topics I could touch on this week. I could tell you about the personal increase of chaos in our lives over the last week. I could talk about what I am thankful for. I could tell you what my therapist said my homework is this week. I could talk about what Thanksgiving looks like for my family. I could keep it completely light and tell you our menu and how to cook each dish.  I think I am going to briefly touch on several of these things, but in the context of

The holidays are quickly approaching, and if you are anything like me, you have been stressing many aspects of that for a while, but now have to make a plan. I make things easy on everyone and keep an ever changing Amazon wish list for every member of my household. I browse when I have time and add things they need and work with them to add things too. Then, when it is close to their birthdays or a family member asks for a Christmas list I have it on hand and they can order q

One day I noticed that asking my kids about their day got really frustrating. They would get home and say, "Good." or "It was school." or "Meh." Even when I asked about what they did that day, it seemed to be the same things, "Not much." or "Read stuff." or "Math." I would try to probe deeper only to be met with, "I don't remember." or "Same thing we've been working on." I would get frustrated, they looked bored. I read somewhere online once a list of better open ended questi

As I have said time and time again, no one, even those with extensive experience or degrees, would I ever consider a parenting "expert." I think that there are those of us that have been doing it long enough and have good enough kids a majority of the time to share what works for us on some things. What works in my house with my feral hoard of five may not work for your one calm little angel or three terrors. Every single child is different. Every single parent and family dyn