We’re sending 30 Days of Tween Parenting Encouragement out today, as a gift, to ALL of my blog newsletter subscribers.

Lee Felix of Like Minded Musings, did an excellent job compiling this book, with contributions from 30 different bloggers, who are all parents of tweens, including yours truly. Visit Lee’s blog, and give her a follow or a Facebook Like!

I wrote chapter 16 of this book, 2 Must Read Character-Building Books for Tweens. Be sure to look for me in there. I was so honored to be a part of it.

Here are a few of the many topics covered in this free e-book:

-Social Media Responsibility

-Giving Structure without Being Overly Strict

-Helping Your Tween Deal with Pressure

-3 Steps to Loving Your Tween with Purpose

-How to Connect to Your Tween Boy

-Anxious Tweens

-Tween Girls and Body Image

-How to help your tween set up a quiet time

and much, much more!!!

Ready to download your FREE copy?

The post 30 Days of Tween Parenting Encouragement E-book appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Alan said, “Caleb, what’re you doing? Are you writing the tooth fairy a letter?”

“Huh? Did she miss a tooth??” I asked, possibly panicking a little bit. Oh no! Had I messed that up again?

Alan explained, “He lost his tooth, so she had no idea because he didn’t put a tooth or a letter under his pillow,” halfway talking to me, halfway talking to Caleb.

Caleb looked at us silently. Caleb is loud when he plays, but when he is not playing, he is Mr. Nonchalant Straight Face.

Joshua looked at me, and he said in a flat, informative voice, as though he is always the narrator of this house, “Caleb was looking in your drawers yesterday for the 3DS, and he found all his teeth. So now he knows the tooth fairy isn’t real.” Then Joshua gave us a little shake of his head.

Whomp Whomp Whomp.

Caleb just looked at us.

I hugged them both, and reminded them that when you go snooping around in other people’s drawers you often find things you don’t want to know.

Then I asked Caleb if he’d like a dollar for his tooth.

He would, but my wallet didn’t have a single dollar bill.

So he settled for a big note on the board, “Caleb lost a tooth. Pay Caleb.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Caleb said.

It was all very non dramatic.

“Hey, Mom, so does this mean from now on you can just give us money, and we can skip the pillow thing, since, you know..” Joshua asked eagerly.

Sigh. So this is how the tooth fairy dies.

I looked at Caleb’s napkin on the table. He wasn’t even writing a tooth fairy note in the first place. He was practicing his math. Weird. I’m pretty sure I’ve never voluntarily done that in my entire life.

The post And so goes the tooth fairy… appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Joy.

This is my picture of the year for 2015. This totally sums up what I’m wanting this year to be like. Last year was all change, change, change, and more change. It was WORK. It was learning to teach again. It was so much learning I thought my brain would bust.

Nothing against work and learning, but I’m still exhausted.

Let’s make work and learning a little more fun for all this year, especially me.

This year we will not:

1. move

2. change schools

3. Go whole weeks without leaving the house.

4. give birth

5. wean a baby

6. Say good-bye to all of our friends.

This year we WILL:

1. Go to the beach more often.

2. Have lots of guests!

3. Keep on home schoolin’.

4. Potty train J.D. (later this year…not now)

5. Finish our first year of home schooling.

6. Go to Legoland.

7. Visit the San Diego Zoo. Oh yeah, baby, that is so happening soon!!!

8. Have my lesson plans done BEFORE the new school year starts. That’s a benefit of being a second year CC’er. I actually have some clue as to what is going on. That statement is probably something only a Classical Conversations family could understand. It’s just a whole other method of schooling that will shake up your brain and fill it with tons of new information and ideas.

I’ve captured a few of our recent 2015 adventures on camera:

Batman went to Joshua’s basketball game with us.

My friend Jennifer showed me a ‘meme’ online that had a picture of a Batman mask. It read, “Always be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.”

Daniel is following in Caleb’s steps of costume love. We often hear Caleb ask Dan, “Dan, do you want me to go dress you up in a costume?”

They have quite the super hero collection.

Do you know what else Caleb likes to do? He makes up math problems on the board. In his free time! Never have I ever.

Did you know that we sometimes call John David “Joshua #2”? It feels like raising Joshua all over again–a more aggressive version. Anyone with three older siblings will come out kickin’.

What makes him like Jman? So many things! He loves books. He’s allergic to nuts. His face is very similar. He’s the same size that Joshua was. He’s high maintenance. They have all been high maintenance, except for Caleb.

Let me take a moment and thank God for the one low maintenance child….

haaaa! Of course, Caleb is a wild card. You never know when he’s going to take some freak notion to try to walk to school by himself, like he did in Kindergarten, BUT I will say that I’ve never seen a more self-reliant child. He almost never asks for help.

JD LOVES books. I think most kids do.

I already wrote about Jennings’ visit, but I didn’t share pics from beach day #2. We were much better prepared. All boys had on swim gear. Caleb wore very little, and I really don’t know how he didn’t freeze to death, but he didn’t.

Sometimes I wonder why we don’t just go to the beach every day.

When small people steal brownies

Last weekend, we prepared Daniel a perfectly good lunch. Then we went upstairs, and left him alone in the kitchen to eat it.

We also left a pan of cooling brownies on the counter. So there you have it.

The young author needs lots of room to spread out his work.

Joshua has a new hobby. He writes and illustrates copious amounts of comic book stories.  I get a kick out of the way he spreads them all out on his bed.

beginning PreK 4!!!

I’m gradually easing Daniel into PreK4.

I love the Montessori preschool style, and we are also doing that with Daniel. I have a whole post that I’m working on about that.  Coming soon!

This pic is of Daniel enjoying an A Beka learning game. Every time he correctly says a letter sound, he gets to put an apple on the tree.

Believe it or not, Daniel will also be a Classical Conversations student in the fall. Too cute. My expectations for that are pretty low. I’ll just cheer on whatever he does learn and not spend a single second concerning myself with what he doesn’t learn. Entering as a K4 student, he will learn Cycle 1 memory work 3 times!

JD had a ball playing with Aunt Jennings at the beach.

Day 2: These two never did get wet.

Do you remember that pre-teen girls’ sleepover I mentioned? Well, they painted my nails. I haven’t painted my nails since about 2005, so now I have these horrible chipped, purple sparkly nails, and not an ounce of polish remover in the house. I am such a boy mom. Now I have to go buy nail polish remover.

I also learned that when it comes to modern pre-teen pop culture I apparently “don’t know anything at all!!!”

“What is BAE? What does that mean???”

“It means above all else…”

Wait…but wouldn’t that be AAE? Or maybe they said better than all else. I forgot already.

Then, of course, I had never heard of any of their bands/songs/singers. Also, did you know that many of these children have their own smart phones??

I cannot imagine giving a pre-teen unlimited, unsupervised access to the internet.

I’m sorry, but I think that is a terrible idea. Plus, it’s impossible to run any activities with people who are always looking at their phone.

The most startling realization from all of this is that our Joshua is only two years away from being a member of this ‘middle school’ crowd. He’s nine!  Does that mean that some kids his age are already getting their own smart phones??  Giving a kid a cell phone so you can call them is one thing. Giving them a smart phone where they can access porn, snapchat, and anything else in the world is totally different. I’m not talking about 17 year olds. I’m talking about middle schoolers.

Electronic time is such a new dilemma for my generation of fellow parents. Our parents had to deal with Nintendo time. We have to worry about what they might access on an iPad!

Alan and I have stuck to our ‘no electronics during the week’ rule. They can play video games on the weekend. This weekend they didn’t even get to do that, but no one seemed to miss it. We are also very strict about what video games enter our house.

I’d better run. Daniel and John David are ready to get out of the bath tub. When all else fails, baths are the greatest way I know to entertain small children.

The post Funny Stories Plus My Plans for the New Year appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

My favorite points from chapter 2 of this book:

1. The second chapter includes a quiz to help you evaluate where your child currently stands in the scheme of things, on a scale from off-course all the way up to healthy and right on track.  The quiz did give me some ideas for things to work on and reassurance for what we do right.

You’ll have to buy the book for that. 😉  Here’s the link to amazon. You’re welcome.

http://www.amazon.com/On-Becoming-Preteen-Wise-Parenting/dp/0971453241

2. A healthy marriage makes for a healthier family.

I know this sounds obvious, but it bears repeating. A healthy marriage offers the children a feeling of security. I’ve seen how important this is to kids with my children. Occasionally, Caleb will even pick up my hand, put my hand in Alan’s, during a church service, and then nestle in between us with a wide, wide grin on his face.

3. Don’t be afraid to admit when you’re wrong. No one can escape mistakes. Own up to them, even to your children.

4. Choose conflict resolution over conflict avoidance.

5. Make time for your family. “A child spells love T-I-M-E.”  (p. 42)

6. Watch how you speak to your children and how they speak to you. A bossy child with a sharp tongue is a problem.

*I’ve taken (just this week) to making my children, when they are taking the wrong tone, repeat every word they say in a nice tone, and it has helped immensely with this.*

And now for the part I’m still figuring out: Transitioning to Parenting by Influence, from Chapter 3

This chapter begins by reassuring us that we still get to keep our authority, which is of the utmost importance. “Well, yes, absolutely,” I’m thinking. You are not abandoning authority. You are just gradually using influence more.

The book also discusses finding the balance between over-using your authority or becoming too permissive, as those attitudes will deprive children of the skills they need to be healthy adolescents.

The key, according to Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam, M.D., is to move away from the “because I said so” sort of parenting to leading by life principles. Since these children are capable of understanding the why (and in the case of my children, desperately want to know why–), it should be explained to them as you see fit.

There was a good example story in this chapter about sharing. Instead of mandating that your child share their toys, at this age, leave it up to them. True sharing should come from the heart. If the child then decides to share, they will have joy in their good decision.

“There is no joy in doing right when the actions required are always tied to my authority.”  (page 61)

My two cents:

So, you know I’ve been totally applying this sharing thing. I obviously don’t have this influence parenting concept down pat yet. I used the “You don’t have to share,” bit and saw it work, and on another day it didn’t work. Then on another day, I said, “No, you know what, those are the only ones in the house, and you DO have to share those with your brother. He is three, and that would just be too mean.”  Joshua totally understood and shared without complaining.

I’ll be looking for more ways to implement this and searching the book for more examples. Remember, this is a book review. I’m reading the book because we need help with this. I am not  saying we have it all together by any means!

I think the basic idea is: Teach the kids moral life principles.

Battle over a swimsuit?  Explain all the real reasons you think this swimsuit is a bad idea.

Battle over electronic time limits?  Explain the reasons and what research has to say about that.

Explaining what the Bible says actually works for a whole, whole lot of things. Pleasing God strikes a surprising chord with many children.

This last paragraph from chapter three is really important:

“You may feel a bit awkward as you begin the transition from authority to influence. However, this change is absolutely necessary. Understand that you will use far more of your authority with your eight-year-old than you will with your twelve-year-old. But by the end of the middle years, the authority exchange should be complete.”  (p. 63)

What do ya’ll think about this? I have no expertise in this area. My oldest is 8!

By the way, if you missed the review on chapter one, you can get all caught up here:  On Becoming Preteen Wise: April’s Notes.

“And they brought young children to him [Jesus], that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.”     Mark 10:13-14

The post Notes on Transitioning to Leading by Influence appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I had an unusually hard day at Pacific Christian Academy today with my handsome and intelligent tween, so I’m finally getting around to writing this post.

I came across this book this summer. Alan’s parents were moving, and Nonna let me go through the books she was going to give away. She has the best books! When I came across this one I stopped in my tracks.

“parenting your child from eight to twelve years,” the book reads, under the title….

Hold the phone.

Eight is a pre-teen!!!???

Well, that explains a lot.

I’m mostly underlining the high points for my husband. He has so much to read for school as it is. We’ll just call this “April’s notes.” You know, like Cliff’s notes. Do they still sell those? They were big when I was in high school.

Tonight we’ll really just be looking at Chapter One. There are so many helpful concepts in this book that each chapter warrants its own post. Not even exaggerating.

Chapter One

This chapter talks a lot about transitioning into the “middle years phase.”  (My dad used to call it the “middle school duh”. Oh, how I hated that when I was a middle schooler, but I TOTALLY get it now.)

No, eight is not middle school, but according to Preteen Wise, the hormones, they are already a changin’!

My favorite line of this chapter is this, from page 20, “So this chapter starts with you, Mom and Dad. Your moral growth is hardly an option.”

SO TRUE! Because these kids tend to test the boundaries, questioning right and wrong, and daring to ask WHY, our patience is PUSHED.

I dealt with this a lot today. Thankfully, I kept my calm, which is highly unusual for me. I am not naturally calm or easy-going.  I heard a new term tonight that fits me rather well, “stress ball.” Yes. That’s me.  Control freak–also applicable.

The thing is that in order to truly teach healthy reactions to stress, we have to model them.  Ah, therein lies the rub. Don’t expect your children to act any better than you act yourself.

Great take-aways from chapter 1:

1.  Back off.

Don’t expect to hug them at the front door of the school. “Wave good-bye from the porch.” (p. 22) This point really hit home for me. I had to make that transition last year, with my eight-year-old. He totally gets cranky if he feels I’m being over helicopter-mom-ish. He feels like, “Hey, I got this. Don’t treat me like a baby.” Those are valid feelings. We grown-ups don’t like being over-policed either. It can be very frustrating to be capable of doing way more than you are allowed to do. A kid that is allowed a little freedom/space (within reason, of course) is a much happier kid.

2. FYI: The first born has an increased need to be right about things.  Being fair is big at this age.

3. These kids are transitioning from imagination to reason.

The book says tweens should be becoming less afraid of the unknown.

4.  The moral environment in your home still plays a vital role.

Young girls brought up on MTV will behave much differently than pubescent daughters that do not have that in their home. (p.28)

5. “Endocrine changes awaken a sense of romantic sensitivity in girls much earlier than they do in boys.” (p. 29)

6.  Growing influence of peers!!

7. This is when “your child will strike deep moral roots–for good or ill–with or without your guidance.

Younger children live off Mom and Dad’s values. But during the middle years, children begin to take personal ownership of their values.”  (p. 31)

Oh man…..can I go throw up from the pressure!!???

If only I could make these decisions for them!!  But no, I can’t. I can only do my best to influence him for good–through modeling right behaviors and teaching moral truths from God.

8. Transitioning from being reminded to being responsible

I love this one. They already know what they are supposed to do, as far as household and classroom routines go.  No more reminding them. You should expect them to do what’s right. This book teaches the phrase, “Do you have the freedom to go outside?”  rather than “Put your plate away.” I’ve been using this, and it does work pretty well.

9. “The parent transitions from parenting by authority to parenting by influence.” p. 31

I’m still figuring out what that means exactly because we certainly still have to use our authority a lot. Thankfully, this is discussed much further in chapter 3.  Coming soon to this blog!!

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