Month: February 2023

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“Where’s The Mom?”

We live across the street from our local post office. It’s amazing. 

My oldest child (5 years old) is the type of kid that absolutely needs her independence. She thrives when given opportunities to do things by herself. 

Recently I’ve had several packages to ship off to friends and family, and getting to the post office with three kids in tow can be extremely challenging, even if it’s right across the street! 

So I let my 5-year-old take another independent leap by sending her on the errand for me, by herself. 

With the package addressed and ready to ship, she walks across the street alone, $5 tucked safely in her purse to pay the shipping fees.

She’s been on enough errands with me that she knows what to do. She knows how to wait in line and ask for help at the counter when it’s her turn. She’s pretty good at exchanging money and keeping receipts safe for the travels back home. 

The first time I sent her I watched out of our family room window for the entirety of her visit, just to make sure everything was okay. But as time went on, I trusted her more and more with her abilities and didn’t pace by the window waiting to watch her walk back home. 

One day after coming home from her post office errand, she told me the lady working at the counter asked her where her mom was. I asked my daughter what her response was and she said, “I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.”

It got me thinking, what would the correct response be? 

Her mom was right next door. 

Her mom was observing from afar.

Her mom was teaching valuable life lessons. 

Her mom was providing an opportunity for independence. 

Her mom was showing a high level of trust not only for her daughter but also for the postal workers and other patrons in the building. 

I don’t think the worker meant any malice when asking the question. I’m certain after assessing the situation, she realized my daughter was there to run an errand for me and was in no way distressed or neglected. It takes a village to raise a child and our sweet postal worker was only making sure my daughter was okay. 

But we’ve also transitioned into a more stressed and scared society, causing us to be wearier of letting our young kids do things for themselves. 50 years ago no one would have thought to even question her. This pushes me to allocate opportunities for my children to find independence throughout their young lives so that they can grow up to be contributing members of our society. 

By sending them on errands by themselves, within a reasonable distance from our home.

By letting them go into the library alone to return and check out books while I wait outside. 

By picking out and buying their own ingredients and supplies at the grocery store for the cupcakes they’ve been wanting to make. 

“Independence is not a static condition; it is a continuous conquest, and in order to reach not only freedom, but also strength, and the perfecting on one’s powers, it is necessary to follow this path of unremitting toil.”  

-Maria Montessori

Photo by Matheus Bertelli

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We Failed At Achieving 1,000 Hours Outside This Year. But in the End, We Still Won

In December of 2021, I came across an Instagram page called @1000hoursoutside. A mom started the account while living in a townhome without a yard and was set on making a better attempt to focus her time and energy on spending time outside with her family. The whole idea behind the 1,000 hours spent outside came from a study done on screen time in children saying the average child spends about 1,000 hours on screens a year, she was trying to flip the narrative and spend this many hours outside instead. While I dislike blaming screens or writing them off completely, I too have found immense value in spending time outside for myself and my children. 

I started tracking our outside hours come January 1st. My youngest son was born at the beginning of January, so during the first week or so of the year we were not able to clock many hours. But once we were home from the hospital, even he got in on the action at only a few days old! 

One of the benefits of tracking our hours for us was the motivation behind it. If we knew we could add more hours to our tracker app to earn badges and see how far we’ve come, it made it more motivating (especially in the colder months!) to get out a little more. Even spending 20 minutes outside adds up eventually! 

Tracking hours may seem arbitrary, and to some, it may be. To us, it gave us motivation and a starting point to see how far we had come. For example, in the month of January, we spent 22 hours outside, but in February we were able to jump to 24 hours outside for the month! It may have only been a 2-hour difference, but it felt like such a big win to us. By March we were up to 36 hours and in April we spent 82 hours outside!! 

In the end, we didn’t end up getting a full 1,000 hours outside. We finished off the year with around 890 hours. But did we fail? 

If we’re only talking numbers, then yes. 

But did we also win? 

We won more family time. 

We won the development of gross-motor skills. 

We won the time spent being curious over snow hills left over in the spring. 

We won more fresh air. 

We won afternoons with friends at the park. And evenings gathered around a fire roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. 

We won a balmy spring day by the river, and a hot summer’s day lounging out by our camper. 

We may have lost the number game, but in the end, I think we ultimately won. And next year, we’ll shoot for higher. Not to meet a number from a random statistic in a study, but because time spent outside is never wasted. 

You don’t have to read a blog post or Pinterest quote to see the benefits of spending time outside. You just have to get outside and the benefits will show themselves tenfold. 

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Ideas On How to Support Our Community’s Teachers

It’s no secret that teachers within public schools (and even private and charter schools) struggle to find the resources they need. How can we as parents and community members help support them? Here are a few ideas! 

  • Give your time. Volunteer in classrooms, help out in the lunchroom, grade papers, put together class parties, or read with students in the hallway that could use extra practice. If you offer your time to the school, it’s almost guaranteed they’ll find ways to put you to work. 
  • Provide teachers with shelf-stable snacks. Oftentimes teachers are buying these for their classrooms out of their own pockets, so it can be helpful to provide them with some to keep around. 
  • Give them positive feedback on things you enjoy or notice about their teaching. It can be such a thankless job sometimes! So nice comments can go a long way for teachers that can use a pick-me-up. 
  • Provide Amazon or Walmart gift cards for their classroom so they can purchase needed supplies.
  • Ask teachers specifically what they need. Check-in throughout the school year to see if there are school supplies, snacks, or other things you can provide. Ask if they need help with classroom parties or if it would be a benefit for you to spend an hour or two in their classroom each week helping with things. 

As a rule of thumb, if you’re heart is in the right place and you’re trying to help, anything you do for your school and teachers can help them in some way. Don’t forget about the P.E., computers, music, and other extracurricular teachers too! They deserve and need help, too! 

If you’re a teacher, what would you add to this list? If you’re a parent, what is a way you like to support your local schools? 

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There’s A Lot of Learning For Kids In Traveling, And I’ll Prove It

Have you ever hesitated to pull your child out of school for a family trip? Well, let’s talk about traveling with kids. I know that even just reading this sentence can cause anxiety in some! To be honest, it does for me, too. 

But there is a lot of importance, development, and learning that can come from traveling with kids. And this can be any level of traveling! It could mean packing up and taking an airplane to the other side of the globe, and it could also mean taking a class to the next town over for a field trip. Traveling can be a far or small distance, a long or short amount of time! A few months back I drove my kids one hour to our state’s capitol city to visit the zoo and see the capitol building. We left home around 9 am and were home before dinner. That was still traveling with kids! 

Why is it so important? Because there can be so, so much learning and development when adventures like this are taken. 

Children learn about different cultures by traveling. It’s fun to read books about cultures and maybe even watch videos, too. But you know what’s an even more engaging and fun way to learn more about the Native American tribe in your state? By visiting them. 

Children become more empathetic and understanding of others when they are given chances to experience and interact with people that are not just like them. It is within our human nature to help those that are most like us, but when we spend time loving others, we are allowed to expand that empathy. And what better way to accomplish this than… visiting those people? 

It teaches them to go with the flow. Especially for our school-aged children that are set on a very consistent schedule every day (which is very good for them!), it’s also great to let them experience what it’s like to have to change and adapt plans as needed. 

It gives them the chance to see how the world works. A country-dwelling kid may marvel at the use of the subway system in NYC, while a city-dwelling kid may marvel at a field of wild horses in Idaho. 

They learn that they have a place in this world. In a culture that is very adult-oriented, it can be overwhelming to kids when they feel like they don’t have a place they belong. But showing them that planes, trains, and buses are for them, too, gives them the message that they have a place and role in each community that they are allowed to be a part of. 

There are all of these reasons and more why taking the time and effort to travel with kids can be incredibly beneficial. I will be the first to admit, it takes a lot of extra time, effort, and planning. But the payoff can also be incredibly worth it. And pulling them out of traditional school to learn in different ways isn’t the end of the world! In fact, it may just open up their world.

Do you travel with kids? What learning experiences have you found yourself coming across while traveling with them? 

Photo by Ivan Samkov

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Ways To Help Reluctant Readers

We have a reluctant reader in our house. She has been from the beginning! It’s very interesting though because she loves learning to read and work with letters to put them together into words. But when it comes to actually reading the books, she’s never very into it. Here are a few ideas on how to help reluctant readers love books a little more. 

Stop pushing it. Let the child come to the books, don’t push the books onto the child! 

Make it fun. Yes, interactive board books may seem too young for a kid in elementary school. But if they are opening a book and choosing to read or listen to words on a page, then it’s worth overlooking the suggested age range. Reading is reading. 

Take it at their pace. Yes, it may be frustrating to not completely finish a 10-page book in one sitting. But if halfway through they need a break, consider it a win that you made it through 5 of the 10 pages. 

Model, model, model. There is a lot of power in a child watching their parent, teacher, or other trusted adult pick up a physical book and read it. I listen to audiobooks on my phone every day, but once I started reading physical books, my daughter started picking up books and reading a lot more often. 

Let them choose. Allowing them choices in the literature they pick up instead of assigning certain titles can give them a lot more interest in books. 

Utilize TV or video game characters. Just because a book is based on a tv show, movie, or videogame does not make it bad. Books are books. If they are picking it up, taking it in, and reading the words, it’s reading. And reading is reading. It can be a big advantage for you to take a beloved character and change the setting from the tv to a book. 

Above all, accept the fact that not everyone has to love reading. We all have different interests, likes, and dislikes. Celebrate their reading however and whenever you can. You may have a child that celebrates reading 100 books in a year! Amazing! And you may have a child that celebrates co-reading a full chapter book with a trusted adult or peer. Also amazing! Reading is reading! 

What are ways you support your reluctant readers? 

Photo by Min An

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The Many Reasons to Love Reading

My whole life I have been an avid reader. The amount of books I’ve been able to consume has varied my whole life, depending on how much school work or work I’ve had, or the ages and stages of my children. Recently, I’ve been able to read more despite being in the deep trenches of stay-at-home mom life, which has brought me a lot of joy. In 2022 I was able to read 53 books! 

There are so many reasons to love reading and books. One of those reasons is the sheer fact that reading is educational. It doesn’t have to be a textbook or self-help book to deem itself educational. Consuming words on a page is inherently so. Taking the time to read word for word a romance novel or thriller, or anything else, is exposing you to different writing styles, vocabulary, metaphors, similes, and so, so much more. You don’t have to be noting all of the foreshadowing and imagery in the book, because somewhere in your brain you are internalizing it. You can thank your English teachers for that! 

I love researching and learning as much as I possibly can. I would be content to take college classes forever! But reading a book every day is a cheaper alternative, instead. 

Reading takes you places. I know, I know. I sound like a cheesy poster hanging up in your middle school library. It probably has some fantasy-looking tree and weird bubbly letters, too. But if you can cut through all the cheese, it really is true. 

My favorite example of this was back in November when the weather here in Idaho started getting really cold and snowy, the good old seasonal depression started kicking in for me. Typically I combat this with some exercise, but we were on random virus #4 and I couldn’t stay healthy long enough to even think about walking around the house, let alone the block. My next solution involved spending a few days on the couch with a vitamin D supplement, some cold medicine handy, and an Elin Hilderbrand book in my hands. Elin Hilderbrand writes books set on the island of Nantucket. Reading about twin sisters on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard spending their days on the beaches and enjoying the sunny weather made me feel like I was there for a time. Elin brought me to the summer days on the islands when I couldn’t go myself. 

I’ve also enjoyed some time in Australia, Oxford, New York City, India, Europe during WWII, and many, many other places and time periods. If you give them the chance, reading really can take you wherever you want to go. 

For me, reading is also an escape. When life is overwhelming, noises are too loud, and I just can’t handle it all anymore, I always know that there is a book I can escape to for a time. I can leave my worries behind and completely envelope myself into a storyline until I’m ready to head back and face everything that lies before me. Reading really has become a great addition to my mental health. 

Books of all sorts have always been such a staple in my life. I could not imagine a world where I wouldn’t be able to pick up a good book and start reading! Instilling a deep love and appreciation for books in young readers is an important job as well, and a blog post will be coming in a few weeks talking more about that. Don’t miss it. 

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Kindness Begets Kindness

Kindness begets kindness. Those who receive service or kindness in any form are more likely to spread it further and show kindness or service to others. And this high school student applying for our 2023 scholarship is the perfect example of spreading love and service throughout her community after being on the receiving end earlier in her life. She writes,  

“In November 2021 I was diagnosed with Epilepsy. During my hospital stay, I received a blanket. At that point, I had been in the hospital for several days. Receiving the blanket really made a positive impact on me and cheered me up. Since then, my goal has been to create a project of my own to give other hospital patients blankets. After starting my project, it began growing rapidly. This project has really brought my community together as many people have donated materials such as fabric to my project. I have been able to give blankets to several community members who are suffering from cancer, including my mother who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer in September. In addition, I have approximately thirty-five more blankets that I will soon be donating to Nationwide Children’s Hospital.”

“Through The Little Ray of Sunshine project my goal has been to bring joy and comfort to people fighting various severe medical conditions. My long-term goal is to start this project up again in January and gather materials to continue making blankets for those in need.”

“Through The Little Ray of Sunshine project, I have gathered many different resources. I have devoted many hours to hand-making these blankets. They can take anywhere from two to three hours to make a blanket depending on its size. In addition to this, I have spent a lot of time uploading pictures to my Facebook website, “The Little Ray of Sunshine project” that I have created for this project in order to keep the community involved. Through the Facebook site, I have dedicated a lot of additional time to responding to texts and emails regarding questions about the project. Other time-consuming aspects of this project include picking up donations from people and teaching other community members how to tie blankets themselves. It has been a fun and rewarding experience to get involved with my community and get to know people while helping others.”

“My project has been up and running since January of 2022. My first steps in the project were to create a Facebook site informing my community about my goals. My initial post welcomed the community members, told them about my story in the hospital, and talked about the various supplies I may need to succeed. Everyone was very supportive of my project and began donating supplies such as fabric. Each time I complete a blanket I upload a photo of it on my page to show my community. Additionally, I give shoutouts to those who donate to the project. I hand-make tie blankets weekly to keep up with my page and get them ready to take to Nationwide Children’s Hospital.”

Photo by Kristin Vogt