Recently, I visited my dad, who is now 71 years old, for the second time in 9 years. The other time was 18 months before, around the time my mom died. Living by himself, he has braved household chores to the point of mastery, including some excellent cooking, which makes him really proud.
Wonderful Things to Say to My Daughters
Amanda and I sat together and wrote 100 things she could say to her daughters in a positive way. The first step to saying good things to your kids is to start with yourself. Take a sheet of paper and write 100 good things about yourself. Yes, I know it is not easy, especially if you have not heard it from your parents, but remember, you need these thoughts in your tank if you want to easily say them to your kids.
Parenting for Tomorrow
Here is a typical scene in many homes these days: you come in the door, pass by the living room and see the TV on and one or two kids holding something in their hand, with a wire leading to just under the TV. They kids are totally absorbed in what is happening on the screen and ignore you completely, while pressing buttons and pushing little levers on the box in their hands.
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When Your Mom is a Chef
When I tell people my mom is a chef, they look at me in respect. It is natural. As a daughter to a chef, people think you have the advantage of knowing all the trade secrets. In the old days, knowledge went from parents to children and special knowledge in cooking was a woman’s way of finding a match. My mom always said to me that the way to a man’s heart was through his belly. This worked well for her, because my dad loves her cooking.
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Our Baby Is All Grown Up
Despite parenting being a mixed bag and sometimes downright challenging, the presence of your child in your life is a constant. At the end of most days, your child comes home for dinner, shower, change of clothes, sleep and possibly some quality time. Even during their teens, when they come home later (or earlier, because it is already the next day ;), their haven is where you live.
But there comes a time, when kids leave home.
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Staying with his family or hers?
I remember it from the time I was young. We loved celebrating the holidays with my mom’s side of the family, where there were many kids and lots of space. Grandpa and Grandma gave us candy and we slept on the floor and stayed awake until late at night, sharing silly jokes. Dad’s side of the family was not as much fun and every year, when the time came and dad said we were celebrating with his family, we were counting the seconds for the holiday to end.
60 Tips for a Stress-Free Lifestyle (printable)
This post contains a downloadable and printable list of the 60 tips for a stress-free lifestyle to make it easy for you to follow them and share them.
Personal Power is Remarkably Better than Fairness or Justice
As a parent, I’m sure you’ve heard the whine “It’s not fair!” more than once. I would venture a guess that your response on some occasions was “Well, life isn’t (always) fair”. But have you ever stopped to think about the idea of fairness and how it affects your life and the life of your kids?
For me, there are some issues with this idea of fairness. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and here’s how I see it.
The expectation that things will be fair is based on some external entity running things and making sure everybody gets their fair share.
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Are Motorcycles Worth the Risk? What You Need to Consider
Occasionally, the question “Are motorcycles worth the risk?” comes up when someone wants to buy one. It’s rather topical in our family, so I wanted to share a story for the benefit of other families having this discussion.
It was Monday morning and I had just taken my 7-year-old daughter to school. On the way back, I passed my son’s high school. As usual, the high school intersection was full of parents dropping their kids off.
I turned left after a motorcycle. A parked car started making a U-turn and hit the motorcycle! The rider flew in the air over 30 meters and his motorcycle dragged on the ground after him.
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100 Exciting Activities for When Your Kids are Bored
Many parents struggle with keeping their kids busy. One of the things parents hate hearing the most is “I’m bored”. Parents are very busy nowadays and feel they need money to give their kids what they want.
Weekends and holidays are the main stressful times for parents and many of us need a holiday after the holidays to recover, because keeping the kids busy can be hard work.
But in fact, there are many fun and exciting activities you can do with your kids with little or no money at all. You just need to look around a bit.