Holiday Giving: Our Surprise in the Mailbox

I wrote on my other blog a few weeks ago about how much I DREAD the arrival of the holiday toy catalogs in the mail.  The moment they enter the front door is the last moment I have any quiet until Christmas is over. The air is constantly filled with, "I want, I want, I want!!!"  Leading up to Thanksgiving, I try to help everyone in our family to focus on the blessing of things we have instead of things we want.  It is usually pretty successful, and if I try hard to carry that over through the Christmas season, the "I Want's" die down to a manageable rate.

Throughout December the boys and I  focus our thoughts and energy on the simplicity of giving to other people instead of the intensity of keeping our Santa lists up-to-date.  This has been one of our favorite activities...

The Recipients:  The people who live on our street

The Activity:  Make & Deliver a small treat 

The Goal:  Add a joyful surprise to the mundane task of getting the mail.

Here's how we did it:

First, we counted out 10 chocolate squares, & 10 candy canes, then glued the top of the chocolate squares...

 ...and put the candy canes on top...

Next we tied ribbon around the candy "package". I would advise making sure the ribbons are long enough for a new knot-tier and then trim them up.

 Always let the kids choose a comfortable place to work...

The last step in creating our mailbox surprises was cutting out the tags and tying them on top. I used these tags, but also really liked these ones...

NOW ON TO THE DELIVERY!!!

My boys understand the concept of doing nice things for other people, but still, they're young.   I did want them to feel the reward at the end and had promised they could have some after we'd made our deliveries.  Still they were whine and beg to eat chocolate and candy canes. My ears bleed with the racket and I almost always prematurely decide the activity was an epic fail.  BUT, the minute we walk out the door, their whole attitude changes!  They get giddy, running from mailbox to mailbox and wanting to make SURE they don't miss anybody.  They get sad when a mailbox is empty, because that means the neighbor has already picked up their mail for the day.  I've caught them peeking out the window the next day to make sure those people get their goodies!

 I'd love to hear how you help your little ones understand the joy of giving or have you share this post with someone looking to add more giving into their holiday season!

Mail from...North Carolina (Part 1-Friendship & Moving)

Recently my boys' best friends moved with their family to North Carolina to be closer to their grandparents.  It was a sad day for us all.  Driving home from their house the night before they would leave Beck and my husband had a tender conversation about how life changes from time to time.  It was one of those parenting moments when we wanted to wrap our arms around our little ones and protect them from all things sad that happen in the world.

The truth is, it was sad for me to.  You see, I am supposed to be the one who moves away.  I do the leaving.  Working in the seasonal hospitality industry, it was routine to move somewhere, make 2-3 close friends, and then wave good-bye as our contracts ended and we went on our merry way.  There are a few people I've kept in contact with over the years, but the reality of distance and time usually take their toll.  Thinking back on the wonderful people I've been blessed to know makes me smile and hold back tears simultaneously, but it's the life I had become accustomed to.

So when I tell you my boys' best friends moved away, I must also say that one of my good friends has moved away as well.  And it's a very new feeling to be the person left behind.  Not because there aren't other people to hang around with, and not because I needed that relationship to validate me, but because it represents everything new and changing in my life as mom of 4 settled down in American suburbia.

Beck, Peyton, and I of course have other friends.  Those old friends came into our lives when we joined their Joy School (which is where I first embraced Teaching Your Children Joy).  And now we've joined a new homeschool play group where we're getting to know a brand new group of people.  Our lives will go on, just not be quite the same.

How have you helped your children deal with a close friend leaving?    

Come back tomorrow to see our study

 of North Carolina and the history of flight!

You Want to Know What?

Today's Teaching Your Children Joy focus is on asking and answering questions.  Specifically, listening and being available for all the questions your child is going to ask you throughout the day.

When I'm doing this, paying attention that is, I'm really really good at answering Beck and Peyton's questions.  That's how we ended up studying and learning about motorcycle sidecar racing.  I like to take their questions and interest-of-the-day and find activities and learning opportunities.  The days when I'm not doing it-when I'm preoccupied with cleaning (or shopping or the radio or the computer or a book or just myself) are always the days when I let myself be annoyed and the kids get bored, having taken my cues perfectly.

I'm trying harder each day to listen to the questions my kids are asking me.  Step into my world today:

"Mama, how are seals and walruses the same?"  
"Where do they live?"
 "Can I go see them?" 
 "And what about polar bears?" 
 "Why do they swim in cold water?" 
 "Can't they swim in warm water?"
"Do hospitals use red and white?" 
"So, then, that helicopter is going to the hospital?"
"Can I have strawberries?" 
"Can I have the mango things in the freezer?" 
 "Can I have a banana?" 
"Can I have a graham cracker?"
"When is Daddy coming home?" 
"Does he know I miss him?"


And finally,

"What are capers?"  I needed them for a recipe, but then decided not to buy them when I saw the price.  Two aisles further through the store Beck was picking up everything at eye level asking, "Is this capers?"  After explaining that he was holding jalapenos or salsa or tuna fish, I realized I needed to take him back to the aisle with capers and introduce them to him.

It was inconvenient.  I was a little annoyed.  But it was an important moment where I could choose to be a grumpy lady shopping with a boy or I could be my son's mom, teaching him something he wanted to know. We're having capers tonight for dinner.

What questions did you answer for your kids today?

1st of the Mental Joys: Interest & Curiosity

I'm here!  

Wow, what a struggle it has been to get re-motivated after the holidays!

Over Christmas break, Beck and I finished up the Earth chapter of Teaching Your Children Joy.  That also finished up the focus on Physical Joys.  We're moving now into the Mental Joys, beginning with Interest and Curiosity.

Kids are, of course, incredibly curious about the world around them.  The activities in this chapter help us to continue encouraging that in them, but also to teach them that they have the ability to magnify their interest and curiosity into creative and intelligent activities and accomplishments.

It has me reflecting back to the first focus my kids and I worked on with this blog: Spontaneity.    Today's activity helped me do that as well.  Here is the activity, and then how it's worked for me...

Watch your kids from afar.  What are they watching?  Watch that.  

Resist the urge to pull them out of their world.

First off, I'm 100% guilty of the latter part.  Over and over I will be aware that Beck is creating some imaginary story with the toys he is playing with, but I see a dirty sock on the floor beside him and insist that he pick it up.  Or he and Peyton will finally be playing together nicely, but I'm getting antsy and decide to load them in the car for a pointless day of errands or shopping to satisfy my own need for mind-numbing.  I interrupt their world of fun and creativity with my impatience and boredom.  

Sitting back and watching was a hard hard thing but absolutely worth it!  At McDonald's I let Peyton take FOREVER eating because in between bites and chewing he was watching every single person that walked by.  He saw the lights and the paintings on the wall.  He saw what was happening outside.

I finally figured out why my bathroom is always soaking wet, too!  Beck and Peyton have discovered the sink drain also fits onto the faucet.  It cracks them up to see it spraying.

After a day of watching and observing, the activity wore off on me.  In the morning Beck and Peyton were pretending a blanket was a boat on the open sea.  I remembered we had some sea-theme stickers and so for school I pulled them out for Beck to make a picture.  While I was still watching instead of interjecting, my son became a poet...

and then an author/illustrator...

Try it and find out what you've been missing!

Learning Through Games

I discovered the PERC (Parents Education Resource Center) at my local library yesterday.  It's a small room in the basement of the library crammed FULL of toys, games, and educational materials.  I really mean crammed and I really mean full.  It was overwhelming.  I'm quite certain they've saved decades of educational materials and I'm extremely excited to dig around for flannel boards and file folder games to fit my lessons perfectly (and those just to get started...).

Today we played one of our newly borrowed games. It was educational for both Beck and me.  Here's how:

The Dice: My instinct was to shout out the number immediately after Beck rolled.  I started thinking about how I look at the dots and automatically recognize the number by their alignment, but he hasn't learned that yet.  I started making a conscious effort to stay quiet and let him count each dot individually to determine how many spaces he could go.  As we neared the end of our second round I noticed that there were numbers he was starting to recognize by shape without needing to count.

The Spaces: My husband and I have never been too strict about how Beck moves spaces when we're playing games, but today it felt right to let him know there are actual rules and ways to know how far he's supposed to go.  I guess it was really getting him to understand what "spaces" actually are.  He learned how to start counting at the very next space from where he landed last time and that each box represents one number or "space".  When we started he was scooting his piece random distances, but when we ended he was counting spaces just as well as he was counting dots.

The Creativity:  This is what Beck is continually teaching me.  At the end of our first game he wanted to play again and he wanted us both to have two playing pieces.  I assumed he meant we would each take two turns and move our pieces individually.  But just like when he taught me playing Candy Land, he had his own ideas again today.  Yes, he wanted us to both have two pieces, but he wanted them to travel together.  I got a little more excited to play another drawn-out round when I realized it was going to take us twice as long!

Also on my mind while we played was last night's episode of NBC's Parenthood.  (If you've never watched it, you definitely need to catch up on the back episodes and catch up.  It touches home every single week!)  In the episode one of the family's was confronted with the need to teach their 6-year-old how to lose graciously. I was glad today when I made it to the finish line first both times and Beck took it in stride.  The second time he kept playing and even enforced his own lose-a-turns.  He's pretty amazing.

Today's Teaching Your Children Joy activity:  

Look at photos of people in varying degrees of fitness

 and talk about what things help us to stay healthy and in good shape.

The Puzzle of Praise

"Lavish praise for each right move...(But be careful not to tell children they are doing good if they are not; if they can't do it yet, they can't feel the joy yet.)

-Teaching Your Children Joy, p. 40

This is the instruction that came along with our hand-eye coordination activity today.  The principle is simple enough, but it got me thinking about how I encourage my kids in general.  The news hot topic that came to mind immediately was the argument for/against giving every participating kid a trophy at sporting events. I'm staying out of that topic until my kids are older and taking part in organized activities.  What I was thinking about today was the best way to praise my kids for what they're learning. So I did a little research and reading.  

What I came across was the term "descriptive praise."  Basically it takes the bare "good job" or "You did great" and replaces them with more specific recognition.  On my end, it seems like a lot more work.  On the child's end, however, it helps to build confidence and gives them thoughts to fall back on when they're struggling.

Here are a few of the points that struck a chord with me:

When we use descriptive praise with our children we paint pictures of their accomplishments and capabilities...“You can take away ‘good boy’ by saying ‘bad boy’ the next day. But you can’t ever take away from him the time he cheered his mother with a get-well card, or the time he stuck with his work and persevered even if he was very tired. These moments, when his best was affirmed, become life-long touchstones to which a child can return in times of doubt or discouragement. In the past he did something he was proud of. He has it within him to do it again.”  -ParentingSimply.com

Praise the Effort, not the outcome. -WebMD

With descriptive praise a parent describes what a child did to deserve praise, then the child describes to himself what he did. It helps them see their strengths by seeing it, hearing it, and then feeling it...For example, if your preschooler makes you a get-well card, instead of saying “It's beautiful,” you can describe it: “I love these yellow balloons and red hearts. They cheer me up. I feel better already, just looking at them.” -University of Minnesota

Eventually, in my final stage of praise withdrawal, I realized that not telling my son he was smart meant I was leaving it up to him to make his own conclusion about his intelligence. Jumping in with praise is like jumping in too soon with the answer to a homework problem—it robs him of the chance to make the deduction himself. -New York Magazine

It makes sense.  My husband already seems to have a pretty good grasp on this style of praising our boys.  I  know with a little effort on my part this will be a great character-building parenting skill. 

I'd love to hear any insights you may have!

Veering Away From the Lesson

I never want to be that blogger who portrays life as one peachy world where everything goes as planned and nothing ever goes awry.  And to give you a perfect example of that, I'll tell you that today's Teaching Your Children Joy activity was met with absolutely no enthusiasm by my boys or the friends they had over.  None.  At all.

We were supposed to listen to different styles of music and encourage expressive dancing and movement based on what we were hearing.  I found the CD channels on my tv and gathered them all in to our small living room.  They pretended to care for about the first 15 seconds.  Then they were all bumping into each other and complaining that the song was boring.  Beck insisted he could be a car that was dancing and started running all over "vroom-ing" loudly.  He knocked Peyton over.  Peyton started crying.  The younger of our two friends disappeared into the bedroom to find more toys.  The older friend stood staring at me like I was crazy.

Today nobody in my house wanted to be dancing.  This is what they did want to be doing...

 

And so that is what we did.

I love this artist I found on Pinterest.  Click the image to see her portfolio.

Today's Teaching Your Children Joy activity was actually for us as the adults.  The instruction was to happily talk about the activities you're doing.  Ask questions like "Isn't it fun to...?" and  "Wasn't it great to...?". The idea is that anytime we interact with our child we should be helping them recognize what they're are thinking and feeling so it becomes a habit for them as they grow.  

At first I thought, "Of course.  Isn't that common sense?"  Initially I was thinking about it in terms of needing to teach them what they are feeling.  But, after I contemplated it a little while I came back to the thought that children are born with inherent joy and happiness.  I'm encouraging it in my teaching, but I'm not introducing anything new.  

My role as parent is to show them that all these activities, indeed anything I do, is making me happy.  In other words, teach by example.  Children live in the moment and exude joy in their total attention to what they're doing.  As they grow, if they see me enjoying the little things all around me and the activities I'm involved in, that interest in life will continue growing with them.

New Surprises In Old Things

Today's Teaching Your Child Joy Activity was to "put new surprises into old fairy tales."  I wasn't going to do it (are you sensing a theme here?).  After an afternoon playdate I was prepared to call school off for today.  With Peyton taking a late nap, I hoped Beck would just entertain himself while I finished the laundry (or checked my email).  What Beck wanted to do instead was play a game.  I put down the dirty clothes, turned off the computer, and said, "Sure, why not."

I AM SO GLAD I DID!

Beck wanted Risk, but we compromised with Candy Land.  He chose the blue and green guys because they match and gave me the red and yellow guys because they match.  He laid out the board and I removed the rubber band from the cards.  This is the point where student became the teacher and Beck surprised me.  Grabbing the rubber band, he wrapped it around all four playing pieces and exclaimed, 

"Now they can move together and we'll all get to the King's Candy Castle together!"

 He amazes me.  I amazed myself this evening...

Eating out as a family, Beck got a little antsy and then just quit listening.  After enticing distractions quit working I gave appropriate warning and then stuck to my word.  Beck and I went to the car with his food still on the table, my husband and Peyton staying to finish their meal.  I was irate!  Beck was horrified.  We sat in the car with him crying and me trying not to scream.  Then today's activity came back to mind.  I let Beck crawl into the front seat and started telling him "Goldilocks & the Three Bears Meets Little Red Riding Hood."  With a few last tears running down his cheek, he started listening, threw his head back, and started laughing uncontrollably!  We finished that story and then moved on to "Hansel & Gretel Meets Three Little Pigs."  And when we were rejoined by the other half of our family, we re-told our hybrid stories again.  (Warning:  Your little ones will remember your new story in far more detail than you will...Pay close attention to the tale you're spinning.)

The point I'm trying to make today is that in this little project I've started, it's my behaviour that is beginning to change.  My boys are perfect creations of their Heavenly Father who just need guiding and time to reach their divine potential.  While teaching them, if I also allow myself a little growing and learning, we might just all turn out okay.