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Why Young Kids Should Learn to Use Dangerous Things
A friend recently posted on Facebook a picture of her three young children helping their dad build a deck. The seven year-old boy was using a power drill to sink a deck screw. Another woman posts a picture of her two kids 6 feet high up in the branches of an old oak tree. One…
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Mean Moms
Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a parent, I will tell them, as my Mean Mom told me: I loved you enough to ask where you were going, with whom, and what time you would be home. I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover…
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Healthy Adults, Healthy Kids
Being healthy as an adult will yield both direct and indirect benefits for the kids in your care. Take care of yourself, for their sake. This video is thought-provoking and interesting, even if you think you know everything about being healthy. Here’s proof that we need help in this area: Super-Fatty Menu Items
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Avoiding Alcohol in Adolescence
The following is an excerpt from “A sobering time for parents” by SHEILA WAYMAN (printed in the Irish Times 9-01-09) “Our approach to drinking in Ireland is not normal; we drink to get drunk,” says consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Bobby Smyth, who specialises in addiction. Every day, through his work at the Drug…
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Training Up Independent Kids
Embracing Mistakes; Developing Problem-Solvers Thomas Edison believed that failure was not a bad thing; it merely directed him closer to success. He embraced his mistakes as opportunities to learn, and he ultimately succeeded as the greatest inventor of all time. The truth is that you want your children (or students) to learn from their mistakes,…
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The Power of Choice
Children lack power. They can control very little in their lives, until they get a license to drive and the keys to the car. So, when they don’t get choices, they seek power; they just find ways to push our buttons, in the hope that perhaps we will give them choices. You can’t blame them…
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Don’t Baby Them
BENEFITS OF STRUGGLING “A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as…