Here’s a great article I found from LifeHack…

4 Ways to Spend Time with Your Kids When You Have No Time

It was Dr. Anthony P. Witham who once said “children spell love…T-I-M-E.” He was definitely onto something. Unfortunately, if you are like most parents, time is a precious commodity that often eludes us. Whether we have a new job, a new baby, or we just need to make the coffee or strip the beds, we always seem to be wishing for more time. We need more. We want more. But we feel we just don’t have it. Does that mean we don’t love them? Of course not.

Spending quality time with our children is extremely important for their development and happiness. I have interviewed thousands of children around the world and they told me that time spent with them doesn’t need to be elaborate or long, but it must be “quality”. We must find ways then to slow down and slip in some memorable time that will let our children know that we love and care for them.

Many children will let you know in their own “subtle” ways if they feel that you are not giving them the attention that they need. Some will withdraw while others will “act out.” You might see it when a child gives “lip” to a teacher, fights with another classmate or resorts back to behaviors that once got your attention like increased crying, throwing tantrums or even bed-wetting. This is a way to capture your attention, albeit often negative, so that they can enjoy “focused” time with you. Essentially the thought process is, “if I can’t get her attention by doing something good, I’ll get her attention by doing something bad.” Nobody wants that!

So how can you find time when you feel you don’t have any to spend?

1. One-on-one time

Alone time with your child is best when you are doing something you both enjoy. With one family it may be the time when Dad takes the baby so Mom can spend time with the older child. This could mean going to a movie, going to the local theater to see Cinderella, or just sitting at the park on a bench and talking. The frequency of one-on-one time is up to you, but the children I interviewed said at least once a month is the minimum. If you are a single mother with more than one child you could arrange it so that each Saturday you spend quality time with one of your children and the last Saturday of the month you spend quality time as a family.

Marking your dates down on a calendar is a great idea and shows your children you make this time a priority.

2.Integrate Together Time into Your Daily Schedule

Children love to help. Do you have a mailing to do? Have them put the stamps on the envelopes. Need to go shopping? Make grocery shopping “fun time” with you. Need to make dinner? Let them help you by contributing to the preparation process. While it might be messier and it may time more time in the beginning, you will see that the children will become your greatest helpers and they will look back and remember that “before dinner” was always special time with you.

3. Phantom Time

Don’t have a moment to spare until about 3 a.m.? You can still let your children know that you care. Write notes and drop them into their lunch boxes. This was one of the top ten things children told me made them feel loved and cared for by their parent.  Other ideas would be to record a short video for them using a camera and leaving it for them at the breakfast table.  Be creative here!

4. Break time

Everyone is busy. Some parents are busier than others. Slide in a “break time” so that you and your children can spend 15 minutes or a half hour together. Set a timer if you need to so that everyone knows when “break time” starts and finishes. Give warnings to your children when 2 minutes are left so that it doesn’t come as a surprise. Don’t even have break time available? Wake your child up 15 minutes early so that you can spend a little extra time doing something fun in the morning. You might not think that 15 minutes is any significant time at all, but to a child, it is 15 extra minutes with you.

Spending time with your children provides them with opportunities to learn and to be heard. Most of all, it provides you and your children with time to connect. It’s these connections that make your children feel loved. So leave the beds unstripped for another few minutes and put the coffee on an automatic timer. Take those extra moments to spend with your children. When you look back, you will be thankful for the memories.

Image: cia de photo

Hey -

I wanted to take a sec to talk about Fresh Air…

THE FRESH AIR FUND, an independent, not-for-profit agency, has provided free summer vacations to more than 1.7 million New York City children from low-income communities since 1877. Nearly 10,000 New York City children enjoy free Fresh Air Fund programs annually. In 2008, close to 5,000 children visited volunteer host families in suburbs and small town communities across 13 states from Virginia to Maine and Canada. 3,000 children also attended five Fresh Air camps on a 2,300-acre site in Fishkill, New York. The Fund’s year-round camping program serves an additional 2,000 young people each year.

When you get a sec, check out their website here:

Talk to you soon,

T

…

I was recently thinking about living beyond definitions… and more specifically living beyond the definitions of our language.

You know, it’s so EASY to put things in a box and label them…

And while I’m talking about being open-minded, you don’t necessarily need to be open-minded to get this concept.

I wanted to discuss something today, based on the definitions but more importantly how we live our lives with it. It’s the idea of Choosing or Deciding….

I’d like to preface this by saying that this isn’t about you… it’s not about me… it’s about ALL of us. I am not judging the way you think and I certainly am not saying that either of these are “wrong”… this is just my take on the way these words are used and what they subconciously mean to us. In fact, I want to say that this might not even fit into the way you view the world… and if not, that’s okay too…

Okay, enough of my soapbox… Let’s get on with it.

When you look at the difference between Choosing and Deciding, you see vastly different things in the definitions of these two words… yet, somehow or another, society has lumped them together.

In fact, society at large has lumped these together to much that in our language they almost mean the same thing…

But in reality, they don’t… Let’s take a look…

The root of “decide” is “-cide”, like suicide or genocide… this means “to kill off something”.

So, when you decide that you want corn over snow peas, you’ve basically “killed off” snow peas!

This means that you aren’t happy with either of the options and have made the **decision** that one isn’t for you.

Okay, maybe not the best example, but you get the idea.

Let’s look at politics… If you were to look at both candidates who are in the running for President are you completely in alignment with one of them for ALL your views??

How about ones that are the “hot points”, like the “war in Iraq” or “abortion”.

Chances are, you don’t AGREE with them on ALL of their views.

In this case, you’d be deciding… you go with the candidate that’s the “lesser of two evils”…

When you are deciding something, you are killing off something in order to get something else.

Now, let’s look at the flip-side… what about CHOICE?

When you are choosing something, you are choosing it.

Not only is it the best option in your opinion, it’s what you WANT!

You might choose it based on your descisions from the past, how you feel now or how you might feel in the future, it doesn’t matter… you are choosing something because you want to choose it.

And regardless of the factors that led to that decision, you have chosen… And you’re happy with your choice.

This is just food for thought… and while on the surface I might be splitting hairs here, there’s alot of truth in what I’m talking about…

So, let’s keep making those amazing CHOICES as we’re in this together, learning lessons along the way!

Talk to you soon,

I got two articles published on the SingleDad.com website…

Here is an article I wrote called “No Kids on Halloween”… It’s all about me not having my daughter for this Halloween and the way I suggest thinking about it…

http://www.singledad.com/family-and-fatherhood/articles/No_Kids_on_Halloween_1222793332.php

And here is one that’s a “how to” for roasting Pumpkin Seeds… one of my favorite holiday treats!

http://www.singledad.com/home-and-cooking/recipe-how-to/Roast_Pumpkin_Seeds_1222792221.php

Enjoy these articles and check out SingleDad.com while you’re there… it’s a very cool website.

Talk to you soon!

It’s coming… That’s right… SCHOOL!

I know, it’s MID AUGUST and there are already commercials on TV and you can’t go to the grocery store without seeing ads that say “Get Ready To Go Back To School”… 

And while my daughter is slightly under the age to get ready for school we have a close friend who is starting second grade… He’s staying with us for the three weeks until school starts, so getting him ready for school has been a topic of conversation recently.

Over the last week, I’ve discovered 3 money and time saving tips for getting your school-age child ready for school… and I wanted to share them with you today.

1. Shop Alone - Yes, my first tip is to shop alone if at all possible… This way you don’t have kids screaming about the five dollar “purple” notebook as opposed to the one dollar “white” notebook. I know it might be a challenge to find a place that has daycare but this will help tremendously… Here in Portland we have Fred Meyers, which offers to let your kids play with other kids for about an hour… If you can find something like this where you live, you’re golden! If not, maybe help another Single Mom or Single Dad out by having them watch your little one while you go shopping.

2. Go In With Another Family - If you have other kids on your block, go talk to their parents and see if you can “go in” with them on school supplies… Why do I recommend this? I recommend this because often things like notebooks and pencils come in “discount” packs… So, say a four pack of notebooks is $6.00, but a single notebook is $2.00. If you cut the expenses in half (i.e. buying the four pack) and split the actual supplies with your neighbor, you’ll end up saving money.