Parenting Tips: What Arguing with Your Teenagers Really Means

By: Deborah Pace Rowley

By now, you know that I love the book Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merriman. One of my favorite chapters is called The Science of Teenage Rebellion. I was fascinated to learn that when our teenagers argue with us, these arguments are actually positive. The chapter describes an extensive study that found that honesty was correlated with conflict. If teens are not arguing, they are pretending to go along with their parents’ wishes, but are actually going behind their parents’ backs and doing what they want to do anyway. “In families where there was less deception, there was a much higher ratio of arguing/complaining. Arguing was good---arguing was honesty.” (Page 148)  

Parents didn’t recognize this fact. Mothers were surveyed and most felt that arguments were destructive to their relationships with their daughters. 77% of daughters, on the other hand, felt that fighting strengthened their relationship with their mother. “They saw fighting as a way to see their parents in a new way, as a result of hearing their mother’s point of view articulated.” (Page 149)

The key is how the arguments are resolved. Teenagers need to feel heard and when reasonable, parents need to budge a little. Kids need to feel like they can win a few arguments and get small concessions as a result of others. “The type of parents who were lied to the least had rules and enforced them consistently but they had found a way to be flexible that allowed the rule-setting process to still be respected.” (Page 151) The book gives this example as a guide: Imagine a child’s normal curfew is eleven p.m. and the child explains to their parents that something special is happening on a certain night. The parents listen to the argument and accept that it is a reasonable request. Ultimately, the parents say, “Okay, for that night only, you can come home at one a.m.” This encourages kids not to lie and to respect the rules. 

After reading this chapter, I know that I have looked at conflict with my teenagers completely differently. I hope this post has given you something to think about as well. 

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Elementary Activities: New Ways to Play with Sidewalk Chalk

By Deborah Pace Rowley

Drawing with sidewalk chalk is an essential summertime activity at our house. Here are some new ways to play with sidewalk chalk that your children may not have tried before.

• Use chalk to write cheerful messages on the driveway of an elderly neighbor or on the porch at Grandma and Grandpa’s House. Try not to get caught!
• Create a City. You can draw the perfect place for Little People or Matchbox Cars to hang out. Include the school, the grocery store, the police station, the hospital and everything else that your chalk city needs.
• Bug Race Course. Create a start and finish line then round up critters to try out the course.
• Play paper games such as Tic-Tac-Toe, Bingo or Dots and Boxes.
• Play Scrabble. One person writes down any word. The next person has to write down a word that connects with that word in some way. For added fun, choose a scrabble theme like Girl’s Names, Toys, Foods etc.
•  Write in Secret Code. Put the code key next to the secret code on the driveway or sidewalk so that anyone who comes along can decode your secret message.
• Finish the Scribble. One person draws a scribbled line. The next person has to complete the picture by turning the scribble into an object such as an animal or a person or a thing.
•  Play Pictionary. One person draws while the other person tries to guess what they are drawing.
• Create magic chalk art like in the movie Mary Poppins. Draw a scene you could imagine jumping into and visiting for the day.
•  Lead someone on a sidewalk chalk trail. The path you draw could include instructions to “Stop Here and Do a Dance” or instructions to “SKIP” or “GALLOP” to the next place down the road. Make sure that your sidewalk chalk path leads to a fun treat or other reward.
•  Draw a sidewalk chalk treasure map. Create a map on your sidewalk that shows where buried treasure is hidden in the backyard. Be sure that X marks the spot for a fun snack or surprise.  
• Come up with your own fun sidewalk chalk ideas. 

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Preschool Activities: Fun With Color Tubes

By Tiffany Rudd

I remember doing activities with these simple color tubes as a child. They are about as easy and cheap as it comes to make, and there are so many different options for playing and learning with them. 

To make your set of color tubes all you need is a collection of empty toilet paper rolls and some construction paper. Just cut a rectangle of construction paper the correct size and tape it to the roll. Done. See, I told you it was easy! Now let's talk about a few activity options.

1. Jump Over The Color Stick! For this activity just stand your color tubes in a row. Then repeat the nursery rhyme "Jack Be Nimble" with a few substitutions.

(Your child's name) be nimble, 

(Your child's name) be quick!

(Your child's name) jump over the (color) stick!

Substitute a different color each time you do the rhyme to help you child practice the color names.

Oh boy did we have fun taking pictures of these activites! :)

2. As Fast As You Can! Just line the tubes up again (or spread them around the room) and call out a color. Have you child run to bring you that color tube as fast as he/she can. 

3. Color Stick Bowling! Just line your color tubes up like bowling pins and have your child use a small ball to knock them over. Have him/her name all the colors that were knocked over. Or, name them all as you line them back up. 

I'm sure you can come up with even more ways to use these fun and simple color tubes! In fact, share your ideas in the comments section. I'd love the hear them. :)

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Teen Activities: Magic Words Photography

By Deborah Pace Rowley

Recently I posted a super easy toddler activity that involved glow sticks in the bathtub. Just because your baby is now a teenager doesn’t mean glow sticks in the dark lose their appeal. You can use this activity to celebrate the 4th of July or a child's birthday or graduation but any occasion and a long summer night will do.

All you need is a camera that allows you to slow down the shutter speed. This works best with a tripod but you can set the camera on a table or hold very still. Complete instructions are found here. Find another great video tutorial here. You can use sparklers, glow sticks, or flashlights to write your magic words.  Be creative and get a team of teens to light up the night with words and celebrate together!

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Meal-Time Activities: Movie Quotes

By Deborah Pace Rowley

Did you see the second Avengers scene after the final credits that showed the banged up super heroes sitting down for a meal together? You can have your own super heroes participate in a “movie mealtime” with this fun activity. All you need to do is put a bowl of toothpicks in the middle of the table. One person begins by quoting a line from a movie. The first person to guess the movie gets the next turn. They share a quote and the game continues. If no one can guess the movie with one quoted line, that person takes a toothpick and gives a second quote from the same movie. They continue to take toothpicks and quote lines until the movie is guessed. The goal is to acquire as many toothpicks as possible by choosing an old movie or unrecognizable quotes. 

There are only a few rules:

• The movie must be something everyone in the family has seen.
• The quote does not have to be word for word but as close as possible. Mom and Dad’s memories are only so good! The quote cannot be paraphrased or purposefully altered to make it more difficult to guess.
• The quote must be more than three words.   

If you have lots of movie-buffs in your family, try this at your next dinner. Your loved ones will thank you because “true love is the greatest thing in the world except for a delicious MLT sandwich- mutton, lettuce and tomato when the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe!” And what movie does that come from?

Answer: The Princess Bride. “Good luck storming the castle!!”

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Parenting Tips: Character Journal

By Deborah Pace Rowley

I love the movie Little Men based on the book by Louisa May Alcott. My favorite character is Jo. She is the tomboy character from Little Women who is now all grown up and married to Professor Bhaer…not Laurie. (I know, I was devastated too! But that is a discussion for another time.) She and her husband run the Plumfield School for Poor Boys. She keeps a character journal for each of these young men and writes in it weekly. The journal is called a character journal because she writes about the character traits that she is seeing them develop. She records the times that they show great character and the positive traits that she sees in them. She also records the times that they acted without character and her disappointment in their behavior. I thought this idea was so powerful that I adopted it for our own family. I cannot say that I have written weekly but I do try to add an entry every so often for each child. I try to focus my short entries on the character traits that I am seeing develop in them.

I know lots of mothers write yearly letters to their children or keep a diary to record their children’s progress. They plan to give this special record to their child on their wedding day or at graduation or on some other momentous occasion. The thing that was different about Jo’s character journals was that she gave them to the boys each week to read. She wanted the journal to be a motivation to grow and improve for the future and not just a record of the past.

When I write in one child’s journal, I place it on his or her bed to read before I collect it again. I never say anything about the journal and most of the time my children don’t comment on what I have written but I have seen the quiet impact certain entries have had on their behavior. My oldest daughter has now left for college and I sent her completed journal with her to Virginia. She has told me several times that the words that I had written throughout her life strengthened her and helped her to believe in herself when she was feeling discouraged and overwhelmed and a little small. What more could I want for my Little Women and Little Man. 

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Elementary Activities: Make Your Own Word Games

By Tiffany Rudd

Recently I had a few days where I was sick and stuck in bed. My cute niece, Katie, came over with the sweetest homemade gift. It was a collection of puzzles she had created online and printed just for me. There were word searches, crossword puzzles, mazes, sudoku...you name it! What a sweet gift and a great activity for older children.

There are all kinds of great websites for creating puzzles online. One of my favorites is the FREE PUZZLEMAKER from Discovery Education. Just on this one site your child can create word searches, crossword puzzles, double puzzles, fallen phrases, math squares, mazes, letter tiles, cryptograms, number blocks, and hidden messages!

I also found THIS website where you can print sudoku puzzles and even learn how to create your own.

This would be a great activity for a rainy afternoon, or for a vacation or road trip!


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Writer's Workshop Movie

This is the awesome video that the kids in our Writer's Workshop produced this morning. Just had to share.

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Preschool Activities: Seed Soar

By Deborah Pace Rowley

Recently we have been inundated with cotton from the cottonwood trees that dot our yard. I love to watch the cotton float lazily through the air like some incongruous snow storm on a summer day. Watching things (and making things) fall to the ground is fascinating stuff for preschoolers and it makes a great science lesson too!

On a summer day when there is a light breeze, take your preschooler to the park or backyard. Talk about how plants spread and multiply when their seeds are carried by the wind. To illustrate this, see if you can find a dandelion with its white head and let your child blow the spores to places unknown in an effort to spread and conquer the planet through their weedy destruction! (Don’t do this while your lawn-obsessed neighbor is watching!) Explain that every spore that lands then has the potential to become another dandelion if it gets the proper sunlight, rain, and dirt to grow. Seeds don’t always travel by the wind. You can also discuss other methods of transportation. Birds can carry seeds to other places. We can pick up seeds or burs or other plant life on our shoes and carry it to distant places where it can grow.  

After your brief lesson, see how many types of seeds or leafs or pods you can find. Then climb onto the top of the playground equipment and send your collection of seeds soaring to the earth one at a time. How does each seed float? How fast do they fall? Which seed traveled farthest from the place that it started? Make predictions and test your predictions together. Just think, you may have helped a baby weed get its start in the world.

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Toddler Activities: Foot Parade

By Deborah Pace Rowley

As a young mother I worked at Parent Cooperative Preschool in Salt Lake City. One tradition at this popular preschool was a favorite of the two-year-old class. It was the annual Foot Parade. You can have your own foot parade at home or with a playgroup of friends. This activity works best outside for reasons that will soon be made clear. It is perfect for a long summer afternoon. All you need are some shallow containers (disposable cake pans work great) and a variety of items your toddler can walk on or step in. 

Line up your items in a row and let the foot parade begin. Mom or Dad should help their child step in each container and cross each surface in the parade. Ask your child which surfaces she likes to feel on her feet and which ones she doesn’t. Be sure to have a camera handy to capture all the funny facial expressions. 

Here are some ideas to get you started in creating your own foot parade. Think up some of your own.

Textured Surfaces:

Grass

Cement

Plush Carpet Square

Silk Throw Pillow or Silk Scarf

Quilt Batting

Fuzzy Scarf or Sweater

Square of Artificial Turf or Rough Door Mat

Piece of Plywood (Step carefully to avoid splinters)

Cool Marble Cutting Board

Big Bubble Wrap

Items in shallow containers:

Feathers

Wood Chips

Cotton Balls

Jello

Warm water

Sand or Salt

Potting Soil

Paint

The tray of paint was always the last item in the foot parade. The children would step from the tray of paint onto a roll of paper and then march down the paper, leaving a set of darling footprints as a priceless memento of the day. Be sure to add the date and age of your child. 

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