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Teaching Your Kids Friendships and Romantic Relationships

December 30, 2019 by

A significant part of a person’s life is spent in maintaining friendships and romantic relationships. Despite this fact, little to none is contributed in this direction by the schooling system. This is another one of those really important aspects of life, which is expected to be taught and taken care of by elders and parents.

Although it is a parent’s job to teach their kids about friendships and relationships and how to handle them. A lot of these relationships are formed at schools. Kids meet people their own age, learn with them, play with them, and even fight with them.

How To Balance Work And Play When You Homeschool Your Kids

They spend a lot of time together with strangers their own age, which in turn turns that time spending into something more substantial, and they became friends from classmates. You can easily tell which kid has been taught to respect others and take other people’s feelings into consideration.

Teachers can easily see the pattern, and if a kid seems to lack social skills, we tend to isolate them. They are punished for being a nuisance, for troubling other kids, and for being difficult to be around in general. A lot of our teaching strategies revolve around punishing for the wrong but we tend to forget to correct the wrong.

The constant breaking of relationships nowadays is proof that people need to be taught how to respect others’ space, learn to trust, overcome bad times, share feelings, and communicate. With social media making connecting with people easier, it has made making real connections difficult.

Dating, romance, and sexual urges are frowned upon and ignored in certain countries, which ironically ends up worsening the situation as children grow up learning from wrong sources. Be open with your kids, be open to answering questions. Coming to you with anything shouldn’t be scary for your kids, even if it is a question in regards to sex.

It is high time this is acknowledged as a fact of life, and schools try to lay down a foundation from the beginning of a person’s life. Some schools have taken that up by introducing sex education into their curriculum. 

But, that being said, there is only so much the education system can do. They can tell them what to do, but with a population of kids with different learning abilities and different backgrounds, they can’t make sure that every kid understands.

As parents and elders, it then becomes our responsibility to be there for the kids while they explore things, while they learn the meaning of friendships, companionships, and relationships. 

In times, when it is so easy to connect but so difficult to understand the difference between what’s real and what’s not, there is more need than ever to be there to guide the kids.

Let them make their own mistakes, but be with them at every turn, teaching them and guiding them.




Taking the Financial Sting out of Family Flu Shots

December 24, 2019 by

Flu season has officially arrived. Is your family prepared? If your answer is a big “no”, could money be to blame? Without insurance, flu vaccinations are expensive, potentially costing as much as $50 per person.

doctor

Skipping these shots may seem like a good idea for your wallet, but it leaves you and your family vulnerable at a time when germs spread like wildfire. 

If you’re worried about how you’ll afford to balance your budget and your family’s health, check in with these tips. 

Use Credit Carefully

Coming up short of what you need, you may reach for your line of credit to help bridge the gap. But is this the best use of your credit?

Financial institutions like CreditFresh recommend a personal line of credit acts as your financial parachute in unexpected emergencies. 

With flu season arriving at the same time every year, getting a flu shot should be an expected winter expense. And for most relatively healthy families, it’s not an emergency. 

Budget Early for Your Family’s Shots

Although it may not fit the definition of an emergency, a flu shot is an important part of your family’s health — and your finances.

Getting sick is expensive. Between doctor’s visits, prescription medicine, and time off work, the flu can do a number on your budget. 

Creating a cushion in this spending plan may be cheaper than the cost of getting sick. By putting aside some cash towards a health fund each month, you may afford the shot and any wintertime illnesses without the help of a personal line of credit. 

Use this spending plan to spot other expenses you can cut out or eliminate, so you can free up cash for your family’s health. 

Enrol in the Vaccines for Children (VFC) Program

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers no-cost vaccinations, including flu shots, through the VFC. 

It’s available to eligible children under 18 whether they’re insured, underinsured, or Medicaid-enrolled. 

If your child fits the bill, they may get a flu shot for free from a VFC Program provider. Just keep in mind providers may apply an administrative fee.

Check with Your Local Health Department

Some state and county health departments provide free flu shots to residents. Check in with yours to see if they’ll help vaccinate your family free of charge. 

Sign up for a Sponsored Flu Clinic

You aren’t stuck getting your shot from your family doctor or local clinic. If these health providers charge to vaccinate your family, look beyond these clinics for help.

As the flu season gets underway, schools, community centers, and churches will organize temporary flu clinics. Many of them give the shot for free. 

Check with your child’s school to see if they plan on running one this year. Otherwise, reach out online to other parents to see if they know of any anti-flu drives in your community.

Look out for Vouchers

Many of the country’s biggest pharmacies offer vouchers for free flu shots to uninsured and underinsured families. Plan a trip to Walgreens, CVS, or Target to see if there are any free flu shots left. These vouchers are available on a first-come, first-serve basis while supplies last, so make sure you hurry.

Plan ahead and Get Vaccinated 

Generally, you should get inoculated before Thanksgiving. This gives the vaccine time to work before the flu season hits its peak in December. 

(Don’t worry — the shot still helps even if you get it in the new year!) 

This proactive approach will also help your finances. Between tweaking your budget, hunting down VFC providers, and cashing in on limited vouchers, planning ahead will help you take some of the sting out of your family’s flu shots.




Simple Eco-Friendly Lifestyle Tips For Families

December 24, 2019 by

77% of Americans want to learn to live more sustainably, Forbes reports. Families are interested in becoming greener largely due to issues of climate change, biodiversity loss, and plastic pollution. However, some parents don’t know where to start or doubt they’d make much of a difference. The good news is making just a few, small changes to your family’s lifestyle is enough to lower your carbon footprint and help the environment.  

eco tips

Start recycling 

The current U.S. recycling rate is roughly 34%. Getting that number up to 75% will have the same effect as removing 50 million passenger cars from U.S. roads. Introducing recycling bins for plastic and paper into your home can get your family into the habit of recycling. You can then use your city’s curbside program or local recycling drop-off centre to empty the bins. Scrap metal like aluminium, copper, and steel is another important material to recycle. Recycling scrap metal conserves natural resources and reduces greenhouse gas emissions produced during manufacturing new metal, Gardner Metal explains. For example, recycling aluminium rather than making it from virgin ore results in energy savings of up to 92%.

Conserve energy

Conserving energy at home will lower your energy bills and help the planet. For example, encourage your children to turn off lights and electronics when they’re not using them. This is a simple way to teach them about the importance of energy conservation without nagging them about using their devices too much. Additionally, start using power strips. Your electronic devices actually continue to use power when they’re plugged in but turned off. So, plugging all your devices into one or two power strips makes it easy for you to unplug the whole thing in one go and save energy. 

Grow your own food 

Growing your own food helps you save money, reduces your environmental impact, and lets you enjoy fresher better-tasting food. It’s also a fun way to get your kids outdoors and teach them a valuable life skill. Cherry tomatoes, snap peas, and strawberries are easy to grow and fun for children to watch grow and pick and eat once they’re ready. You also don’t necessarily need a big space to start a garden. Vegetables can even be planted in pots or hanging baskets.  

Making a few small lifestyle changes can end up making a big impact on the environment. These green living tips can help your family become more eco-conscious. 




The Importance of Teaching Kids Basic Life Skills

December 16, 2019 by

We have all laughed at memes and experiences online on “If only I learned this in school…” We often say that our education system needs to change, we need to teach kids more real-life skills than algebra, and so on. What we don’t focus on is that, it isn’t the sole responsibility of the educational institute to teach things, parents have the same responsibility toward their kids.

Skills like cooking, repairing, and swimming, are all life skills that might not necessarily be vital in life, thanks to modern advancements, but they are some of the basic survival skills that make a person independent and confident to live alone. 

kids active

Children learn by watching us. Involving them in various healthy activities is a great way to cultivate good habits in them, and teach them things that will help them survive independently. Start doing chores with them so that the tasks become more of a bonding moment between you and your kids. When we do things together with them, instead of asking them to do stuff, they are more accepting of learning the skill that is required to do the task.

You have to learn to be persuasive and influential to push your kids in the right direction; it is more like nudging them in the right direction and then watching them grow. Let them make mistakes, just be there to help them learn. If we don’t teach them basic things, then life will, and life might not be that kind to them.

If you do not introduce your kids to cooking, then they are only going to learn it if it is necessary or they have an interest in it. Because of this, when people move out of their parent’s house, eating healthy and home-cooked meals becomes one of their major struggles.

Repair work and swimming might not seem as important as cooking because they are not basic survival skills that everyone requires, but nevertheless, they are handy skills to have, in case something goes wrong. 

No matter how much we love our children, no matter how much we pamper them, they are going to move out as we did. Yes, we want to give them the best, we don’t want them to have to work for things, but they eventually will have to. Their situations CAN and WILL change, and we will be powerless to help it then. Change is an inevitable process, so you need to prepare them for the shift that is bound to happen in their lives.

To make the kids better equipped to deal with the reality of life when they grow up, we need to stop treating them like babies in their impressionable years and start treating them as transitioning adults.

Final Thoughts

Growing up is a combination of learning and getting a lot of things right, but seldom do we realize that what we teach our children is what is going to shape them into independent or dependent adults. Avoiding huge issues tomorrow is worth handling little tantrums today.




Does Everything Really Happen For a Reason?

December 9, 2019 by

Last time I was at a cafe, I came up with this blog about honesty and our relation with it. Months after, again a cafe trip has inspired another article. While sitting there, blowing my cappuccino so that I could drink it, I watched pigeons from the glass window.

A man who was feeding them stumbled and the coins from his pocket rolled out. He caught himself before he fell, dusted off his jacket, must be the shock of it, and then bent down to pick up his coins.

coffee

One of the coins rolled toward my window, while his shaky hands were trying to pick the coin up from the edge, the coin kept flipping, and then this thought struck me, about coins having two sides.

There are two very different sides to every coin. There are some who feel things don’t happen for a reason, and some say they do, that the universe is deterministic.

I watched a video once about how bangles are made and the condition of the workers. One of the ladies working in those glass bangle factories told the interviewer that people working in these industries were usually devoid of basic necessities and exploited both mentally and physically. 

She herself wanted to learn embroidery and get out of this ugly industry and life. But she had accepted her life as it was, saying, “God probably wanted it to be this way.” She then went on talking about why she believed that everything had a higher purpose to it that humans couldn’t understand.

There was another instance where one of her friends had a terrible breakup. She was heartbroken and kept crying for days. In these tough times, her guy best friend supported her. Eventually, she ended up falling in love with him. Things went so well with them that they even got married. 

After the wedding ceremony, her friend came to her and said, “I am so glad my ex went away from my life, I’m glad I found my best friend instead. Everything happens for a reason”

Things that happen have both causes and consequences. But people have always had a different meaning for the statement “everything happens or a reason.” They believe God predetermined everything according to a divine plan like the woman and her friend from the video.

Now let us suppose a situation. Consider a hard-working person, who has just got promoted to a senior position at his job. Later that evening, while driving back home, he accidentally gets hit by a truck, leaving him crippled for the rest of his life. 

Now the question is did the person deserve to get promoted? Of course, he did, he worked hard enough. But did he deserve to be hit by the truck? This is when people will be unable to give a clear answer.

There are reasons for things to happen. But sometimes they happen just randomly. ‘Everything happens for a reason’ is a good explanation for happy things. When bad things happen, this statement gives hope for a brighter future. As long as things are working out, what is wrong in believing in this?

Maybe not everything is according to the pattern. Maybe not everything in life is fair. Maybe

sometimes the universe decides to go random. Maybe not everything has a reason. Or maybe everything does happen for a reason. Change is the only constant that we can be certain of.

Either way, life is what you make of it. There are some situations where you have choices and some situations where you have none. Do what you can do the best, and the results will follow. Not always because of the grand scheme of things, but sometimes they just might because of it.




Healthy Activities to Do as a Family

December 2, 2019 by

Family time is something that helps us bond with each other and also helps us learn about each other. If we do not spend time together, then we are just strangers living in the same home, tied down by the titles of our relationships. Actually creating a bond is what makes a family.

With our work and other commitments, we often neglect our family and children. I agree that being responsible is hectic, but what is the point of earning things when the people you are doing it for will miss you the most.

Health is another one of the important aspects that are often neglected. Why not combine it both and do activities together that will help you bond with your family and also help you stay fit.

1. Turn Chores into Games

Teaching kids chores is our duty, it helps them transition into fully functional adults. Knowing how to do things around the house is important for surviving independently. Why not turn doing chores into a game that you can all do together.

Who can fold more clothes fast or who can put the CDs back in the covers fastest, etc. can be the little competitions you hold. Cooking food together is another of the activities that will let you bond and gives you enough workout if you are making something from scratch like making pasta.

2. Host a Dance Party

dance party

Dancing is something that the majority of people enjoy. What better way to have fun while also working out. Dancing is my favorite way to get in a workout. Host a family dance party, put on some music, introduce each other to your favorite tunes, teach each other your signature dance moves.

Dancing together will leave you laughing in stitches and will help you work up quite a bit of sweat. It is one of the best exercises that you can do together as a family.

3. Plan Scavenger Hunts

You can make a day your treasure hunting day. Hide things around your home, your background, or involve your friendly neighbors in it. Give a list of clues to your kids so that they can reach the final treasure of the treasure hunt or give them a list of items to find. Whoever finds the most item wins. 

The competitive nature of the game makes it fun and makes all the participants go scrambling to find things that will help them win. It gives a great workout because everyone is running around for hours on end, and the adrenaline has us pushing forward to win.

Final Thoughts

No matter what activities you choose, the goal should be having fun and spending time together as a family. If you can work in activities that teach the children new things, helps you learn about them, inculcates good habits in them, etc. then that should be a bonus. Spending time together is the key here because no bond was ever formed merely by being born in the same family.

 

Additional resources: 
 
 



Change is an Inevitable Process, Learn to Embrace It

August 19, 2019 by

Nothing on this planet stays the same throughout. Change occurs whether we are ready for it or not. The universe doesn’t wait for us to get comfortable. Darwin proposed that the life we see now too arose through a series of variations in the environment and hence fluctuations in the genes of the populations all starting from a common species of life about a million years ago. From single celled algae to a multi celled human being. When almost every day the nature is adjusting to a million little changes, why do we fuss about not being able to cope up with the constant changes in our lives? 

change

You change. I change. We change every day, every moment. To say a person is a happy or unhappy person is ridiculous. We are a thousand different variations of ourselves every hour. A year changes you a lot. You cannot even imagine how much things would change in a year. Have you wondered what you would be or who all would be around you next May? 

“It’s funny how day by day, nothing seems to have changed, but looking back, everything changed.”

While we are all cribbing about how fast everything is changing, how people change when they leave to settle in a new place, how your favorite TV show has just ended, how your school has ended, how things are simply ending, we are losing out on the new beginnings that come along with every ending. 

We have built a wall around ourselves, as a defense measure for our comfort zone. We are living in a place where we are content with our daily routine. We are scared or change and constantly try to recover from or get things back to normal (what we deem normal) as quickly as possible from even a little change dumped upon us. 

This is because we are not confident about our capability to deal with an unexpected change, so we put on a fake smile and wait for things to get normal. Even though the technologies have developed, man has mastered in almost all fields, our societal mindset still remains stagnant.

People have this perception that changes are bad. They feel that a man is supposed to stay the same throughout his life. If he is trying to adjust to a new personality or lifestyle, he isn’t supported by the majority for his new endeavor. This impulse to get back on track is responsible for our failure to sense and interpret the changes and develop healthy strategies to deal with it.

Instead of learning from our mistakes and taking note of the circumstances, we are busy trying to bury feelings and pretending to be just fine. For example, ageing is a natural phenomenon. But as soon as we notice some wrinkles or dark circle, we rush to get ourselves an anti-aging cream. We lose someone, we do every possible thing to keep our mind off them, and engage ourselves in some job or the other. 

Yes, changes are confusing. Confusion immediately thrusts us into a world which makes us feel hopeless about ourselves. But what we really need to remember is that “change is not a sign that we’ve failed. It’s a sign that we’re still alive.”




Is it Okay to Lie? How Honest Should We Be?

August 12, 2019 by

I was sitting at a cafe, sipping my latte, when I heard a kid ask his mom why was honesty the best policy – something about what his teacher said when it came to lying and being honest. Listening to their conversation got me thinking.

“Honesty is the best policy.” Is it always though? 

Is being completely honest and open with everyone always a good idea? Are we never supposed to lie to anyone, even if it is to make someone feel better? 

honesty

If a child comes up to you, asking if her drawings are pretty or not, would you mock the little girl because she couldn’t get the tree right? Or would you simply smile at her, and encourage her to draw more? I believe that it is ok to lie as long as the intention is good considering that the person cannot perceive the truth. It is acceptable to lie whenever that person doesn’t have the maturity to understand the truth.

‘The truth’ itself is an individual concept. There are a lot of differing opinions, different backgrounds, and different perceptions of the same fact. What may be true to you may not be the same for me. Everybody will appreciate your honest, straight-forward nature as long as you don’t give them one of your truth doses. 

Let’s take an example of the most common situation: ‘Do I look fat in this dress?’ Somewhere in the back of your head, you know that you are looking fat, but just when someone else points it out to you, you hate it. But if you like yourself in that dress, others’ opinions cannot bother you. Your perception is your reality. 

The amount of honesty depends upon our relationship intimacy levels. How close are we to the person? Because we are no one to trouble random people with our honest opinions and thoughts. Not everyone is going to acknowledge our radical honesty. If you are honest with everyone, people won’t trust you to keep their secrets.  

Ironically, this means they won’t be honest with you. The closer you are to the person, the more truth you must tell. But, the most intimate connection you have is with your own self. Never, ever lie to yourself. Tell yourself the whole truth, nothing but the truth. We all occasionally engage ourselves in the self-lie-denial. We are sometimes so afraid of the truth that we refuse to accept it; we chose not to recognize the reality, a defence mechanism we all use to erase uncomfortable memories and situations. Sometimes our heads need to admit what our hearts already know.

We can’t build relationships on the basis of a lie. But, white lies are harmless. Small untruths told to spare someone’s feelings or from politeness are just fine. Even if we are to tell someone some harsh truth, we should go about it calmly, making sure that we don’t upset the other person. 

So, is it okay to lie? Yes, ‘everybody lies and everybody dies.’ The truth is that not everything is black and white, grey is what we need to learn to embrace.




Mom Comedians Taking Over The Comedy Scene

August 8, 2019 by

Motherhood is beautiful, but there are a lot of daily struggles that come as a package deal with that beauty. Recently, a lot of moms have started sharing their motherhood struggles – from sleepless nights to the perks of having to deal with poopy diapers. This has brought on an influx of mom comedians, and trust me, even if you are not a mother, the way they talk anecdotes and laugh over the most ridiculous of things their babies do will have you laughing.

It is one of the most relatable forms of comedy to not only new moms but also others because we have all experienced those things at least through others. Honestly, it is better to laugh at the difficult journey while you complain, than complain and be sad about it, which is why many women are turning to shows that are focused around women and especially mothers. Things toddlers say – is one of the most hilarious parts of these shows that people in every age group enjoy. They are bizarre, stupid, smart, and adorable at the same time.

Mom comedians like Kristin Hensley and Jen Smedley, Ali Wong, Christina Pazsitzky, Natasha Leggero, to name a few – have taken over the comedy scene with their sometimes in-your-face and sometimes subtle humor. It works because it is good to see people, especially women, open up about their bodies, crack jokes to lighten the mood when nothing seems to be going right.

standup comedy

Motherhood comes with a lot of questions and worries – new mothers go through the constant struggle wanting to do the best and sometimes failing to do the best and beating themselves up for it. This helps them regroup themselves sometimes through dark humor and sometimes through absurdity.

With mom comedians becoming more mainstream, women are getting more comfortable in their own skin. Men have started realizing the positive effects it has on the women, and they have started being a part of the conversation as well. Through humor it is sort-of educational to men because it tells them more about what women go through with the pregnancy and early days of motherhood and then throughout. Ladies, on the other hand, find many humorous tales of womanhood, some light-hearted chatter, and learn to laugh at themselves and their mood swings that they were always taught were problematic.

buzzfeed

A BuzzFeed initiative has many women feeling good about themselves. This show revolves around Hannah Williams a.k.a. Wine Mom, who has two children and is on the quest of being the world’s okay mom. Honestly, the normalcy of the activities is like a reality check punch in a right way. It is relatable and funny. While it is not entirely comedy, it shows where comedy stems from for the mom comedians.

Us learning to laugh at our struggles makes it easier for people to understand it better. Mom comedians are not only taking on the comedy scene with their humor but are also helping open discussions that are considered taboo or uncomfortable like sex, periods, menopause, orgasms, breastfeeding, etc. It is “woke” humor, and I am all up for it!




Four Signs you are Dealing with a Troubled Teen

August 5, 2019 by

Teenage years are among the most difficult ones during our whole course of life. The relationship with parents typically worsens at this time as a teen feels like their parents cannot possible understand them. What is more, there are lots of problems at school, no to mention the fact that it is time to start thinking about an undergraduate degree at college or university. In case a child or his parents have chosen homeschooling instead of a traditional schooling program, the lack of socialization can have its negative impact on the way a teenager views themselves and makes friends. Here are the four most obvious signs you are dealing with a troubled teen. 

teen

The first sign to mention is the desire of a teenager to be the center of attention all the time. In order to achieve this goal, they typically do everything they can to remind everyone around them about their persona. In most cases, it results in doing something completely stupid. Even though it is hard hard for a teen to talk about their feelings, the actions speak louder than words. Thus, what they are trying to say is that they need to spend more quality time with their parents. In other words, they want their parents to pay more attention to their life. Having some pedagogy skills might help when dealing with a student teenager but a lot of knowledge on the subject in required in order to assure a teenager that you care and are ready to listen. A teacher who has got specific training in this field might be able to help. What a student might need in a difficult situation is somebody to talk you without any kind of judgment. They need to feel the support. Teaching others how to talk to troubled teens is of vital importance as well. 

The next sign to mention is the loss of self-esteem. As a result of that, it is very hard for a teenager to believe in their own success. So, some of them stop trying at all. In case one is constantly required to deal with a hectic curriculum while the learning process does not bring any fruitful results, it is not surprising one stops believing they will be able to achieve any goals in life. For example, one get the task of writing an architecture essay and cannot quite understand everything that is specified in the instructions provided by their teacher. Well, architecture paper writing has never been easy. In case you are that troubled teen who is currently trying to complete the academic writing task of writing an essay about architecture, keep in mind that the majority of students feels the same way. 

Studying at college leads to dealing with tons of problems. No matter whether a student has got a scholarship for learning personal finance or is paying tuition, being able to to do in the academia plays a vital role. Speaking about architecture paper writing, it has never been easy. In case you are that troubled teen who is currently trying to complete the academic writing task of writing an essay about architecture, keep in mind that the majority of students feels the same way. What you need to do in such situation is to go to your teacher and talk to them about all those aspects which are not clear in regards essay on architect. Surely, googling something like what is architecture essay writing help will be helpful as well. However, searching for write my architecture paper information will not help you in any way. Thus, simply ask your teacher or your classmates to help you figure out how to write an essay on architecture. This way, you will be able to submit a well-written paper with an impressive conclusion architecture essay part. 

A constant fight for self-affirmation is another sign a teen is experiencing some difficulties at the moment. Thus, doing various things to prove something to themselves or to the society is another way of making certain they are worth something. The only problem is that some teens unfortunately resort to abuse, bulling and violence to demonstrate their self-affirmation. Doing others physical or emotional harm, as well as the desire for revenge is another element of dealing with a troubled teen. Because of the fact that teenager is unable to process their emotions, they resort to such ways to express what they feel. The most useful thing to do is give a teen an opportunity to talk about it with a person they trust, as well as to demonstrate them how wrong it is to be violent and to wish for revenge. 




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