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Growing Up Social – Review

Growing Up Social: Raising Relational Kids in a Screen-Driven World – by Gary Chapman and Arlene Pellicane

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How has the digital age and technology affected our children? How does it affect my relationship with my children? How much technology is too much? What can I as a parent do to help my kids stay connected in real relationships?

All these questions and more are answered in this book. This is pretty standard Gary Chapman. He breaks the book down into sections like anger management (you’d be amazed at what research shows about screen time and anger) and shyness.

While there’s lots of research cited in the book about what is healthy screen time for you and your kids and how all this technology is changing our brains, Chapman also focus a lot on how to relate to your children and what skills need a little extra focus these days.

He gives great advice for setting guidelines for technology usage and what we as parents can do to set a good example for our children. Sometimes, something as simple as putting your phone away for dinner can make a big difference to your children. It’s important that my children know that they are way more important than my phone!

This book is great for if you’re just looking for some good guidelines or for if you need help to make some needed changes. Wherever you’re at as a parent, you’ll find some great info and suggestions for helping your kids use technology in a way that doesn’t interfere with their relationships with people around them.

I received this book free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

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Say & Pray Devotions – Review & Giveaway

This is a Sponsored Post.

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Bestselling children’s author Diane Stortz has sold nearly 300,000 books—Bible storybooks, devotionals for children, and more. This brand-new title, Say & Pray Devotions, is the perfect beginner devotional for little ones.

Parents who already know and love the Say & Pray Bible will love Say & Pray Devotions as it helps their youngsters continue to engage their faith in a personal way. Featuring the same fun style of artwork and the educational elements as Say & Pray Bible, this devotional for little ones will teach the basics of identification and comprehension while sharing biblical principles for life. Each devotion offers a topical message to help little ones learn and follow biblical principles.

This book is super cute and each page is really short. It fits the attention span of my 3yr old perfectly! He loves pointing out all the different animals and objects on the pages and likes to read it again and again.

He loves taking a book to bed with him and this has been his book of choice for the past week.

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I just love how simple and colorful each page is and how interesting it is to my little guy. We’ve had lots of fun reading this together!

You can get your own copy here and enter below for a chance to win a copy of this adorable book.

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“Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255:  “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”):  Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway.  Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation.  I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post.

Only one entrant per mailing address, per giveaway.  If you have won a prize from our sponsor Propeller /FlyBy Promotions in the last 30 days, you are not eligible to win.  Or if you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again.  Winner is subject to eligibility verification.

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Nexabiotic Probiotics Review

I received this product free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

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Probiotics, I hear that term tossed around but what exactly are probiotics? In the normal human gut there are over 100 trillion bacteria. As you get older, get stressed, or take antibiotics those normal good-guy bacteria die off. These probiotics do everything from helping to break down food, providing essential nutrients like vitamin K, and keeping the competing bad bacteria at bay. Sounds like a good thing to me.

Why do we need probiotics? Typical modern diets are too sterile, loaded with antibiotics, and not diverse enough to maintain optimal probiotic levels. Our food supply is now more processed, sterilized, and loaded with more antibiotics than ever before. Basically, we’re not getting enough bacteria and such in our diets, our food is too clean.

Probiotics supplement the gastrointestinal tract with those known, good, beneficial organisms. Probiotic supplements are one of the most popular health supplements because they actually work to help maintain digestive health. There’s a lot that’s not known about probiotics, but from what is known, we need them to keep our digestive system healthy.

Nexabiotic is one of the top selling probiotics on Amazon. It’s advanced formula combines 23 different kinds of probiotics into 1 small capsule. Or, for the kid’s version, one chewable, tasty, tablet.

All that to say, I’ve been wanting to try a probiotic so I was pretty excited to get to try some for me and for my kids for free!

I got to try the adult version, kid’s version, and infant’s version.

These adult pills are pretty small, but if you don’t like taking pills, the capsules can be opened and mixed in with foods. I personally would rather take a pill, so that’s what I did.

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It’s recommended that you take this on an empty stomach. Though, luckily not required. I could never seem to remember to take it before eating so I usually took mine about 30 minutes after a meal.

I eat pretty well – lots of fresh veggies and such – so I didn’t notice a huge difference. The big thing for me is it didn’t bother my stomach, which means it must be working pretty well. I’m usually pretty sensitive to supplements of any kind – even children’s vitamins can bother me – so to take something that is good for my digestion and didn’t bother me a bit is pretty good.

I swallowed mine with water. It has no aftertaste or anything like that. So, all in all. These are easy to take and seem to be working well for me.

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The kids have little citrus flavored tablets. They’re not very sweet. The kids like them. They’re pretty small. Dissolve quickly. Not highly flavored but they taste ok.

Keeping up with the kids diets can be a challenge. So every little bit helps. It’s nice to know that they’re getting good things that will help keep their digestive system healthy.

Allergy warning, on the back of the bottle it says that these probiotics are processed in a facility that may process milk, soy, wheat, egg, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish. We’re not allergic to anything, so I was comfortable using these. But if you or your child has any of these allergies, this may not be the best probiotic for you.

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The baby version is more complicated to use. I have to mix it in with food or drink. My youngest is 3 and he felt that this was an unacceptable way to serve him probiotics. Mainly, he doesn’t like me mixing stuff in his food. It had nothing to do with the taste – which I didn’t notice a taste when I tried it.

My older kids thought it wasn’t fair that I mixed stuff in his food and not theirs, so if he really doesn’t want it, the older kids are more than happy to eat it for him. I think for a younger child who’s not really that opinionated about the precise details of their food, this would work pretty well.

For more info check out Nexabiotic on Amazon or on Nexabiotic’s Website.

I received these products free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

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P is for Play

I can’t tell you how many studies I’ve read this year that say that our kids need to play more. Or how many articles I’ve read this year telling me how much more play kids in the Neatherlands and France get than kids in the US. If you believe everything you read, lack of playtime has caused every childhood ailment that our children experience. From being sick more often because they aren’t getting dirty to getting poor grades in school because they can’t focus. I’m not saying that there’s no credibility to any of these. What I am saying is that there’s so many studies and articles out there it’s next to impossible to figure out actual fact from fiction, and reliable study from something just thrown together.

I do think play is an important and integral part of childhood. And that children should be encouraged and free to play, explore, and create with minimal rules.

1. Play is an important part of social development – Watch children play. They learn how to interact with each other. How to handle disagreements. And in pretend play they even act out (practice) making decisions in real life. It’s always interesting to me to watch my children play things like store and see what they’re choosing to buy and what they’re doing with it. Without play, where else would children learn these skills in a stress free, child led environment?

2. Minimize your handling of play disputes – I will interfere if the kids are being mean to each other (like the older girls squirting their younger brother with the garden hose), but for many play disputes I encourage them to work it out. Arguing over a toy? Well, they can either give it to me for safekeeping or figure out who’s going to play with it. It’s important for them to learn to work through problems like sharing, considering other’s feelings, and being polite to friends.

A lot of actions have their own consequences. If you won’t share with your friends, most likely, they’ll just decide to go play with something else. And that’s not fun for anyone. I try to allow them to see and experience their own consequences. I do draw the line if it’s a safety issue or I see that a child is just simply being unkind and needs a minute to chill and redirect.

3. Play is important for physical development – I remember climbing on top of the monkey bars and balancing across, jumping off the swings, and that awesome merry go round thing they used to have at playgrounds. It’s in play that I watch my kids try new things. We just pulled the slip and slide out for the summer and the first day they very carefully sat themselves down and tried to scoot down the slide. By the middle of the second day, they’re getting running starts and just flying down the slide (and by flying I mean that they are making it from top to bottom in one try which is quite a feat because the biggest hill in our yard is really pretty flat).

The important thing is that they’re learning their own limits. They’ve learned that no one can stand all the way down the slide – though, they keep trying. The fastest or preferred way down seems to be on their knees – there’s a pool of water at the end that no one wants to put their head in. And running starts are the fastest way down.

Play is the best way to learn how high you can leap, how fast you can run, and when to stop.

4. Please, don’t hover – There is nothing more amusing to me at a playground than watching some other mom hovering behind my almost 3yr old as he climbs up a slide. I just want to walk up to her and say, “lady, he’s been doing this since he was 18 months and hasn’t fallen yet, I think he’s ok”. But, no, I just watch, amused as he climbs to the top, changes his mind, and backs back down the steps, to run off and try a different slide. All the while this poor, paranoid, parent is standing ready to catch him if he falls.

I will admit, I did stand behind him at 18 months until I was sure he could do it. But these days, he’s climbing the jungle gym so I’m not concerned about his ability to handle a slide.

I’m not saying, don’t supervise. I’ve seen plenty of that too. You know, the kids who’s throwing sand at all the other kids and there’s no parent to be found to intervene. If your child is going to hurt themselves or another child, by all means, do something.

But, there’s no need to stand behind your 3yr old while he climbs a slide, especially if you’ve seen him do it thousands of time before. It’s a lot of work for you and does nothing to enhance your child’s play.

For me the point about play is that my children get the chance to play, create, and imagine without me giving directions. I want to see what they come up with, what they think, and how they choose to handle life. All those studies aside. Play is a very important part of childhood. Because what is childhood without play?

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8 Simple Tools for Raising Great Kids – Review

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8 Simple Tools for Raising Great Kids by Dr. Todd Cartmell with a foreword by Jill Savage. This book has super short chapters. Each chapter is a couple of pages long. And each chapter ends with an action item.

Each of the 8 tools is broken into smaller action points. This book is so easy to read. And because the chapters are so short it’s easy to pick up and read a chapter here and there around whatever the kids are doing.

The topics are simple and to the point. They are also very practical. You don’t have to go out and do anything grand to raise great kids. This book is all about how to engage your kids, speak into their lives in a way that they will listen, and build a lasting relationship with your children.

One of my favorite sections was the chapter on learning together with your kids. His points really hit home, because I spend a lot of time teaching my children or watching them learn, but very little time learning with them. And there’s this perception they get that I’m doing everything perfect. When I’m really not, I’m just doing the things I’m good at. And that’s all they see. They never see me learn.

It’s a great challenge and one that I’m going to have to find a way to implement in my family. Plus, learning something new is always fun!

If you’re looking for simple, practical ways to engage and encourage your children, this is a great book! And, it’s only $10 at Amazon!

I received this book free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.

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F is for Friends

One thing I’ve never understood is why homeschooling gets a bad rap for socialization. I think for my generation (when I was a kid) this was a big concern for people. And I’m happy to see that as much less of a concern for my kids. I almost never get asked “do your kids have friends?”. And I remember my mom being asked that many, many times. Or maybe it’s just the “bubble” that I’m in. I know a LOT of homeschoolers these days!

Or maybe no one asks me about my kids socialization because my kids are doing all the talking. They like to talk. To everyone.

So, how do my kids make friends? Well, first of all I live in a city that I would describe as very homeschool friendly. You either homeschool, or many of your friends homeschool. Because there are so many homeschoolers, my kids have lots of friends (both homeschooled and non-homeschooled) and no one expected kids to act different based on where they’re going to school.

Church – We live in the Bible Belt and while religion is an integral part of our lives, Church is also a major socialization group in this area of the country. It’s totally normal and acceptable for people to attend one church and participate in activities (such as preschool, AWANA, women’s groups, sports, etc. in another church). And there are a lot of Churches that host a lot of different events. So, not only do my kids get to see their friends Sundays, they’re also meeting other kids during the week.

Homeschool Groups – And there are lots of these in my town. There are groups that meet just for parental support. Groups for kids classes. Educational groups. Facebook groups – used for forming your own sub-groups for activities and such. You name it, there’s probably a homeschool group for it. We’re in a Classical Conversations group so my kids see the same group of kids on a weekly basis.

My Friends – No surprises here, but my friends have kids around my kid’s ages. So, playdates, museum trips, etc. are a fun way to catch up and let the kids have fun.

Extras – And then there’s the extracurricular activities like dance and sports. It’s not uncommon to keep running into the same people at these activities. My kids have friends that they know from church, dance, and the museum class. We just keep running into them. It’s always fun to sit with someone that you already know.

My kids have lots of friends. And because I also know most of their friends parents, we get to hang out and have fun with friends way more than we would if my children were not homeschooled.

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Valentine Hearts

IMG_20150302_142241017Valentine crafting with kids is always fun. For this project, I decided to keep it simple. I went to Hobby Lobby and bought some felt hearts and some felt heart stickers and the girls made their own valentine creations.

I just dumped all the stickers out on the table and let the girls create whatever they wanted. They got pretty creative, even making a smiley face heart!

These are such cute little hearts, perfect for including in teachers valentine gifts or giving to friends instead of paper valentine cards!

A tad more expensive than paper valentine cards but by the time you buy candy to go with the cards, these end up costing about the same.

I will admit though, we did still end up giving paper cards and candy to friends – because the girls just had to give candy – and special friends and teachers were given the felt hearts.

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The Thing About Little Boys

Remember those old rhymes about what girls and boys are made of?

Sugar & Spice and Everything Nice for Girls

Snakes & Snails and Puppy Dog Tails for Boys

I had two girls and then a boy, and boy are they different!

My girls are very girly, glitter, sparkles, dresses. If it’s girly, they love it. They don’t like getting dirty, and they sit still and quiet in Church. They want to have tea parties (with sugar and milk). They want to wear makup and have their hair fixed up. They talk a lot, but they’re really not loud.

Then, along comes the boy. He’s oh, so different. And I’m loving all of it.

1. He just won’t sit still – The girls have no problem sitting through a 1hr meeting (with snacks or something to color of course). The little guy? Sitting is always optional, anywhere. And sitting through a meeting is just out of the question.

I remember moms with boys commenting on how well my girls sat still and quiet, and being polite I would always reply with something along the lines of “it’s just easier for girls to sit quietly”. I’m so glad I said that!

It really is true. My Father in Law tried to take my almost 2yr old boy to the Church service with him the other Sunday. He didn’t last long before he took him to the nursery. He apparently wanted to talk the entire time and wanted to explore instead of sitting still. Yup, and that is why there is a nursery. For all those active little boys.

photo_1581_200605172. He loves to get dirty – really dirty. A real conversation between me and my husband.

Husband – “what does he do outside?”

Me – “gets dirty.”

Husband follows son into the yard and watches what he does.

Husband – “it’s like he wants to get dirty.”

Yes, he wants to get dirty. What fun is the outdoors if you don’t come inside covered in it?

My girls on the other hand, refused to go down the slide the other day because it was a tad muddy at the bottom. –

Girls, don’t let your brother know…

3. He loves sticks – I’m still teaching him that “we do not hit our sisters with sticks”, and he does pretty good about it. So he is allowed to play with sticks.

Every time we go out the door he feels compelled to get a pile of sticks. He brings them in the car and when we get home my 6yr old throws them out in the yard.

Sticks are great for a variety of things. Stirring puddles so that they become mud puddles, banging the swingset, running around the yard with one in each hand – also very effective for clearing a path as everyone wants out of the path of a stick-wielding child, and of course they’re just great to have on hand.

Football Equipment4. He also loves balls – and he can identify them all, football, baseball, basketball, bouncyball. And all round objects are balls. He thought baked potatoes were awesome until I cut one open, then I had ruined his ball. The same thing with tomatoes, he loves to play with them but he wouldn’t dare destroy a ball by eating it.

5. And cars – before he came along my house was filled with dolls and barbies, now we’ve added hotwheels and thomas trains. I keep a couple of hotwheels in my purse for emergencies. It’s amazing how calming a tiny car is to a little boy.

They’re also great for plopping into your sister’s tea cups if you want to join their tea party, and they’re just the right size for dropping in the Children’s Hospital donation box at the grocery store – yes, he dropped his favorite car in there while we were checking out. They were really nice and got a manager with a key to come up and rescue it for him.

And it’s not just the little cars that he likes. He wants to play with the big ones. He would like to run out in the street and he’ll actually run towards moving cars in the parking lot!

Yellow toy race car6. He’s an explorer – The girls stay with me, if I’m more than half an aisle away at the grocery store they come running. Not the little guy, he’s pretty certain that getting lost is just a state of mind. Nevermind that the fish tanks at the pet store are at the opposite end of the store from mommy. Fish are awesome!

7. He’s oh so sweet – As full throttle as he is about just being a boy, he’s also so very sweet. He likes to snuggle way more than the girls ever did and if anyone starts crying he has to be right there to give a hug and tell them it’s ok.

He loves hugs so I’m going to enjoy them while I can because I know that in just a few short years he’ll be all grown up and won’t be quite as interested in hugging his momma.

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Why Does Every Child Get a Prize?

Have you ever wondered, why is it at children’s Birthday parties, the Birthday child gives away goody bags? I’ve definitely wondered. Those bags and everything in them can end up costing as much as all the food at a party! They didn’t do this when I was a kid.

It’s like we’re compelled to give everyone something (other than food and a fun party) just for attending. I just don’t get it.

Now, before you panic, I’ve thrown my share of kid’s parties and we always give away goody bags. Though, for one summer water party, I gave away pool balls and a little plastic pool toy, each child got to pick their own. I had a few parents confused. Where are the bags?

And then it hit me, my 6yr old was reading me a story the other day. It’s an old Abeka 1st grade reader that I read when I was a kid, so I remembered the story the minute she started reading. It’s called “The Best Loser”. It’s about this little girl at a birthday party, who keeps losing every game. She’s told that at the end of the party there’s a prize for the best loser. She’s upset every time she loses, she loses at musical chairs, pin the tail on the donkey, and a guess what’s in the bag game. At the end of the party she expects the prize but it’s given to another child who had a good attitude about losing.

That’s how I remember parties, there would be 3 games, usually there’s a specially marked plate (which is totally NOT fair because picking the right plate is just chance there’s no skill required) and then two other party games like musical chairs or pin the tail on the donkey. The winning child for each game would receive a prize – most likely a bottle of bubbles or a jumprope from the dollar store. At the end of the party, 3 children went home with a prize and everyone else went home with nothing. No one thought this was odd or unfair. And the host parents didn’t spend a fortune on trinkets to send home with the guests.

Sometime between my childhood and having kids someone thought, “wow, this is unfair, my child is unhappy that they didn’t get a prize, at our party we’re going to give a prize to every child”. So, they gave out goody bags to every child who came. Other parents thought this was a great idea, and now it’s expected. Just try throwing a party and don’t have any goody bags to hand out at the end, and see what happens.

The strange thing is, it’s not the Birthday child handing these bags out saying “I’m so glad you came” and giving something meaningful to express their appreciation, it’s the child’s parents handing these bags out to every child at the party because it’s expected. Basically, at the end of the party all the kids go, “where are the goody bags, we’re ready to leave”. And these bags are filled with things that you, the parent, discard as soon as possible – tiny bubble bottles, stickers, pencils, tattoos, candy, etc.

When we get home my kids dig through their bags, discuss what they got, and scatter everything around the house. I have to ask a lot of questions to get a description of the party from them.

I think this is just another symptom of overprotecting our kids, we don’t want to let our kids lose or be disappointed because let me tell you, not getting the right plate so you can have a prize is just soul crushing.

I won’t be denying kids their goody bags at parties any time soon (let’s just say I would be considered a bad hostess), but I do think it’s worth considering that just maybe we’re not teaching kids to value disappointment and friendly competition. But we are teaching them to value all the junk that we get to bring home and throw away. Which one is actually going to help them in life?

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Love

As I sit here reflecting on soon to be 9 years of marriage, I think back to what started it all. Love. Yes, the warm, fuzzy, “I’m in love”, kind of love.

Nine years later, I’m still in love, there’s just a lot more than warm fuzzies to back it up. We’ve made it through 3 pregnancies and 3 births (the third one we delivered 5 minutes before the Midwife arrived), we’re in the midst of raising 3 little kids – some days the house is clean, other days it looks like I just didn’t care.

Not too much sickness, though there was that one time we were both sick with the flu at the same time. Never do that, especially when none of the kids are sick and you have a nursing infant. Apparently, my husband feels worse than I do when he’s sick, he got to lie in bed all day, I got to sit on the couch (or floor, depending on how many children needed lots of space on the couch) and watch kids tv shows all day. Yup, that was fun. Somehow I still love him.

The truth about love is you’ll do anything for it. You change your entire life for love, you marry someone, move in together, and make a gazillion changes to your life just for love.

Then, you add more kids to love. Speaking of adding kids, fun fact, our second child was born on our 5th anniversary. Good thing we celebrated the weekend before! She’ll never forget when our anniversary is.

So, nine years and three kids in, there’s so many things that have changed. We can no longer just go do whatever we want whenever we want to. Someone has to watch the kids. We’ve had to choose to focus on our marriage and on us. And we have to learn to agree on household rules so the kids know what’s a rule and what’s not.

The thing about love is all the hard work is worth it. It just grows the more you put into it, and the more you do for each other the more you love each other. So, after nine years of marriage, we’re more in love than we were the day we married.