Ignorant or what?

Today I was at the park with my 3 1/2 year old and my 19 months old. We were playing around having a good time. My oldest daughter, 5 1/2 year old, was taking French lessons and therefore, my middle daughter was caring the role of protector of the little one. She helped her down the slide and pushed her away when she thought she needed a turn, a very normal day in our lives.

After a little while 2 small children come over to join us (we were in a small playground that was fenced in) and I didn’t see their mother around. I asked the older girl where her mother was and she points over to a group of people playing volleyball about 150 feet away. Then I ask how old she and her sister are and she says ‘6 years old’ and ‘14 months’. I am a little puzzled, since I would never let my almost 6 year old go 150 feet away from me in a park with my almost 2 year old, especially not when I would be playing ball in a public park and not be able to keep an eye on my kids.

Anyway, I didn’t see it as my concern, but decided to keep an eye on these small girls, just to make sure they were okay. My youngest daughter then goes under the playground structure with the other little girl and suddenly I hear my daughter scream… the little girl, 14 months old, is pinching my daughter’s cheek so hard and do not want to let go!! I immediately tell her to let go and my daughter escapes with a red cheek. A few minutes later, my little one is standing looking over the fence and this little ‘monster’ comes over again and starts pinching her AGAIN!! For no apparent reason!! Once again I tell her off and take my daughter away. She is by now having a hard time calming down.

While calming down my little one, my older one goes over to the girl and tells her not to hurt her sister. It is very loving to see her defend her, since she normally think it is okay to take toys away from her or slap her around a little bit for some amusement of her own.

Then I take both my daughters over to the swings, so they are not close to the little girl anymore but she comes over again… immediately my little ones starts crying, so I pick up her and walk away.

Children are children. But why aren’t their parents around to teach them how to behave? Are they so ignorant that they think that a 6 year old can deal with a 14 months old? Or do they not care about disciplining their children? I am very surprised by some people’s behavior.

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Spend more time with the kids and stay fit.

Most of us parents know that feeling guilty is part of the job of being a parent.  I am not so sure this goes as much for men as for women, because my husband doesn’t have the guilt-gene very often, but I guess that is a good thing. Because it is horrible always having to feel guilty…. am I spending enough time with the kids? Do I/we teach them the right things? Should I spend less money on clothes and more on toys? And the guilt goes on and on….

Well, while hitting the gym the other day, I thought about it all. Why was I here and isn’t there be a better way of staying fit and still be with my kids? I see my 5 year old jumping around like a maniac for the better part of the day and she has stomach muscles as hard as a piece of metal. Why am I walking around with this big lump of fat around the middle? (Of course, I should maybe mention that I have had 3 kids all 2 years apart). But then I started thinking. What if I would start doing a lot of the things that my daughters are doing, wouldn’t I be in a much better shape? It would also give me the opportunity to spend more time with my kids.

It is so easy to say ‘Ohh pumpkin, mommy is tired, why don’t you jump and I will sit here and watch you’ or something like that. But actually, if you have tried it, you already know that working out and staying active gives you more energy and actually is much better for your brain. It is a win – win situation. Your kid will have much more fun if you are jumping around with them AND you will be fit. And, of course, there is the added benefit of saving the gym membership fees that can run quite high!

Many of the mothers that I know do not like to work out, but they like spending time with their kids. Having fun with them, while being active is just perfect. If you have a kid that would prefer sitting in front of TV… try to convince them coming out of a walk to the mail box (no, not your own, but the one down the road or 10 blocks down). At least it gives them a goal and it will give you and your kid time together.

Check back in a while and I will report on the progress…

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Teaching our kids to save.

I don’t know about you but in these times of financial crisis I can’t help but to think that our educational system did not teach us enough about the economy.  Of course, growing up we learned about logic, math, reasoning, etc. However, the emphasis was never placed on things that directly affect our everyday life.

Questions like: What is credit? How do loans work? How much savings should we have? In fact, why should we save? are never addressed in school. The unfortunate thing is that our entire life is based on those.

Think about it. The house you (will) buy, your kids education and so many other things in life are all linked to your understanding of these basic questions. Still our kids are not taught any of it in school and a big majority of adult Americans do not really understand them.

Granted, my kids are very still very young (the oldest is 5) but I decided it is never too early to start teaching. So I started with savings. The concept is simple: “put aside part of what you ‘earn’ and use it later to buy something that you really want”.

Simple concept indeed…but for a young child things need to be fun. Picking one item she wanted was relatively easy and fun (we still had to eliminate ten’s of other choices that were on her which list). Where it became a little bit more difficult was to keep her engaged day after day.

Very quickly she lost interest. The final gift was replaced by other things in her mind and the money did not catch her interest (duh…what was I expecting).

After talking with my husband we came up with a plan. Make it personal. The idea was to find something that would motivate her and would remind her of her goal. After some research we found a site that sold personalized piggy banks.

That was perfect. She loves animals, we can personalize the piggy bank with her name (which she loves to spell and write everywhere) and “saving” became feeding the piggy.

So far it has been working pretty well. When she receives ‘pocket money’ she happily runs to her pig and feeds him. In fact she became quite attached to the animal. She plays with it and talks with him.

It worked so well that Sophie (our 3 year old daughter) told us she “wanted to start to save”.

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