Helping Hands

It is good for kids to learn to help out around the house. It teaches them responsibility as well as to take ownership. My mom used to make it fun for us to help around the house. Once in a while (usually on the BIG cleaning days) she would get out 2 plastic bowls. Then, while my brother and I were playing, she would cut paper into strips. On the papers she would write tasks for my brother and I. His tasks went into one bowl, and mine went into the other. Each of us would end up with around 15 strips of paper. 15 chores would probably overwhelm a child, but not all of our tasks were "work." For example, we might pick something like refold the clothes in your 2 messiest dresser drawers, but then the next task might be to give mom a hug. Often our chores would include dusting a room or two, picking up our own things, vacuuming, getting hugs, or maybe running around the house once. But it was more fun because you made it into a game. (We called it the cleaning game.) The idea of not knowing what will come next kept it exciting. Sometimes, when we were almost done, my mom would slip in a paper that said, "Go to Taco Bell for all of your hard work!) We would race to finish up everything from our bowls so we could go out for lunch! My mom got a lot of help out of us, and we enjoyed it.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Since we are focusing on more laid back topics for summer time, I thought I would write some character teaching ideas too. Any teacher can tell you that children who cannot be kind and respectful are almost impossible to teach. Learning basic character qualities will prove to be very helpful in the classroom for your child, not to mention help solve many friend issues that they may come upon.

Kids need to learn how to respect each other. We have all met a lot of adults who never learned this important quality. They are hard to be around, aren't they? Talk to your kids about how everyone is different, but still valuable. To help them understand here are a few ideas:

• Think about the human body. Feet may not be your favorite part of your body, but try going without them. Even if your foot is just injured, it greatly impacts your whole body! Or maybe you don't really like the look of your ears or nose. Now try to think of what life would be like without one or both of them. People are the same. We are all different. We act different, we do different things, but every part is very important and all people deserve kindness and respect. If we were all the same it would be like having a whole body of just hands or eyes. It would not work!
• Build a basic block house out of legos or building blocks. What if you took out a few bricks? The heat or cold would get in. It would not be a nice place to live. If you see a brick on the side of the road, it would not look too important, but imagine that was a brick from your house. You'd want it back! People are like that. You may look at one person and not see them as very important, but everyone is important. If they are not there the world would not be the same.
  
• You can think of several other examples based on your kid's interests. Some could be: a sports team that is missing a member, a favorite toy with dead batteries, etc.