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Parenting Press®Welcome to the September 2008
“News for Parents”
This electronic newsletter has dozens of ideas that we at Parenting Press hope you’ll find helpful and interesting. To suggest a story topic or to comment on article content or format, please use the link after each article; we welcome your feedback.
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If you write for a newspaper or school, extension, or child care newsletter, you’re welcome to excerpt or reprint our information, as long as you credit us and send us a copy. Advance copies of selected stories from next month’s issue (see “Coming Attractions”) are available the last week of this month for excerpts in print publications. Email our media contact.
IN THIS ISSUE
- WHAT’S NEW?
- FEATURES
- POTPOURRI
- COMING ATTRACTIONS
- ABCs + ACTs = $$$
- How to Talk to Your Child's Doctor
- Celebrate Parenting Press's 30th Year---All Year!
I. WHAT’S NEW?
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Quick Costumes: Your Ideas, Please!
How many times have you heard, “And tomorrow I need a [insert character or critter] costume for the. . .”? If you’re like the “News for Parents” editor and the Parenting Press publisher, too many times!
One of us recently found herself in that quandary, and we shared the situation via e-mail with author Eileen Kennedy-Moore, who as a mother of four had instant help to offer from her years of experience. We’d like to combine her tips with yours for a future newsletter article that we can all benefit from, so if you have ideas for rat costumes (that Parenting Press staff member’s recent challenge), Latin class festival attire (another recent issue) or general suggestions, please write us using the comment link below. We welcome recommendations for those who sew as well as those who don’t.
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Kid-Made Fun for National Grandparents Day Sept. 7
Did you know that Grandparents Day is national? And it was the inspiration of a West Virginia woman who got President Jimmy Carter to recognize it! That means it’s been a special event since before some of today’s moms and dads were even born.
At grandparents-day.com, you’ll find some suggestions for observing this day, which the web site recommends should be a family day and a day to remember the elderly in nursing homes who are unable to be with family or have no family. Older family members can use this as an opportunity to share stories about their youth and families, and to introduce grandchildren to hobbies, skills and special interests.
Especially if your extended family has been scattered during the summer, this could be an opportunity for a potluck picnic before everyone is busy again with sports and homework. As entertainment, let the kids present skits: they can act out scenes from their grandparents’ youth, or how they imagine life was when their parents were growing up. What fun the 10-year-old cousins may have pretending to impose curfews on their moms or give driving lessons to their dads!
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Family Story-Telling
As family members share their stories, they build a bond. Storytellers and listeners alike can learn tolerance, compassion and acceptance, and they can develop an appreciation and respect for diversity in all parts of life.
That’s just one of the reasons the National Institute on Media and the Family (mediafamily.org) encourages families to turn off the television, the DVD player and the computer screen and to tell each other stories. The Institute, which offers a free downloadable guide, Whoever Tells the Stories. . ., also points out:
“Hearing, learning and telling stories patterns language and builds vocabulary. It also builds self-esteem and confidence. Stories give families a sense of who they are, where they came from, and what they value. Sharing stories in the family context creates joy, laughter, and connections, and opens doors for better communication.”
There’s other reasons to tell stories to each other:
- You’re creating quality family time.
- You have an opportunity to share values in a nonthreatening way, as you describe how you or others have handled dilemmas.
- You and your family members can use your imaginations, making all of you more creative thinkers.
You don’t have to be a professional to tell stories. You don’t need to use special voices or theatrics. You can read stories, tell stories from your own life, or make up stories. Even stories from books can be a little different each time you read them: you can emphasize different characters or voices, or add details. Encouraging your children or another family member to add details will keep everyone engaged. If the story starts out, “Every morning Susan pulled on her jeans,” try pausing after “her” and then surprising your audience with, “polka dot pantaloons.”
Stories can be as short as the few minutes you spend waiting in line. You can provide the beginning and let your children add information. You don’t need a formal plot and a neat conclusion. When you’re standing at the school bus stop, for example, you can talk about each vehicle that goes by, whether or not you know the people in them.
“There goes the milk truck. Can you imagine how early the milk truck driver has to get up to load his truck to make his deliveries? What do you think the family in that house will make with the cream he’s delivering?”
“Look, there’s the family that owns the Dalmatian. Where do you think the mom and dad are going to work? And they must be taking the baby to child care. Where do you think Spot is? In his crate? In the backyard? Lolling on the couch watching cartoons?”
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Taking Young Children to Restaurants
Can you survive a restaurant meal with a baby? Maybe. With a toddler or preschooler. . .well, actually, with a child of any age? Dietician Beverly Pressey says yes, and she provides dozens of tips from other parents in Simple & Savvy: Strategies for Creating Healthy Eaters. Here’s a few:
Choose noisy restaurants.
Avoid restaurants with tablecloths that a child can pull off.
Choose restaurants designed to entertain: those with fish tanks, fireplaces, ceiling fans, open kitchens and other babies.
Carry in whatever you expect to need: portable high chair, bib, sippy cup, wipes, snacks to eat while you’re waiting for the child’s meal, toys on a ring for babies and small games, puzzle books, paper and crayons for older kids.
Instead of ordering off the children’s menu, consider feeding the child off your plate or ordering an appetizer for the child’s meal (the “News for Parents” editor’s daughter loves steamed mussels and clams and even as a preschooler wanted that appetizer as her meal).
In a fast food restaurant, order your meals “to go” even if you’re eating in: the packaging will help prevent spills.
Check the stability of any restaurant-provided high chair.
Move knives, forks, water glasses, salt shakers and other table setting items out of the child’s reach.
Check the temperature of the plates.
Check the temperature of the food before offering to your child.
Tip generously, especially if your child is messy.
An additional tip from the “News for Parents” editor: if you have fed your children before going to the restaurant and are ordering only ice cream for them, ask how the dessert will be served. Young waiters and waitresses in a more formal restaurant may not warn you that ice cream is presented in long-stemmed or fragile glass dishes that are inappropriate for a young child.
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From Here to Freshman Year
Getting from the first day of ninth grade to move-in at the college dorm may feel like “from here to eternity,” especially if your kids are still in middle school. . .but as the Parenting Press crew can attest, navigating high school and preparing your children for college applications is a complex process.
That’s why we were delighted to receive a review copy of From Here to Freshman Year: Tips, Timetables, and To Dos that Get You into College. Produced by Kaplan, a test-prep company, this slim guide (150 pages) includes lots of quotes from high school and college students about what they’re glad—or sad—they did as in high school.
Some points we found particularly valuable:
During eighth grade, determine if your child is having difficulty in any subject and arrange for tutoring or summer school before high school starts, to allow your child to catch up. (The authors don’t mention that some low-cost options exist: your child’s middle-school counselor, or the high school counseling office, may know of free or sliding-scale programs.)
Before your child registers for ninth grade (which may happen in mid-eighth grade), the two of you should check both high school graduation requirements and college admission recommendations and plan a four-year course schedule. This provides a framework so that you both understand prerequisites and if there are conflicts.
Encourage your child to develop relationships with his or her favorite teachers. “Not only will they help you through your high school career, you’ll feel very comfortable asking them to write the recommendations for your college applications,” say the authors. Kids also need such teachers to write recommendations for scholarship applications and as references for their first jobs.
Create a file (“Things to Brag About,” the book calls it) and an activity resume where you (or your child) keep track of information that will be needed later for college, scholarship and job applications. Some examples:
Honor roll and other academic awards
Activities, school, church and community
Athletic participation and awards
Volunteer work
EmploymentThe Grade 9 chapter also lists more than a dozen awards and contests high school freshmen can enter to earn recognition and college money. It also reminds both students and parents about contest and scholarship scams. (Red alert: any program that requires a credit card or bank account number for any reason.)
You’ll find similar advice in the chapters for Grades 10, 11 and 12, including preparing for the first semester of college.
Two obvious omissions:
Students are advised to get jobs or internships during the summer between Grades 10 and 11 grades, but the tips for the summer after ninth grade don’t mention researching requirements for those jobs. In Seattle, for example, the city parks department provides an eight-week lifeguard training program for 15-year-olds; this prepares kids for well-paid jobs as soon as they are 16.
There is no reference to driver training, which in many states is a significant time commitment, either during the academic year or summer. Whether your child is licensed to drive also may affect job opportunities.
Overall, this is a good introduction to college-prep courses, college admission and scholarship lingo, and timelines. We recommend that both you and your kids read it and discuss what makes sense, and for what events and items you need more information.
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Reduced-Fee Lunch Eligibility Reduces Other School Costs
If your child or a foster child living in your home qualifies for the Federal Free and Reduced Lunch/National School Lunch Program, it’s worthwhile to enroll the student even if he or she does not want to participate in the lunch program. Being enrolled makes the child eligible for reduced fees for many other academic programs, including Advanced Placement exams (which now cost more than $80 each), and the SAT and ACT college admission exams. In some districts, a child who qualifies for the reduced or free lunch program can pay a reduced fee for field trips, tutoring and other valuable programs.
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Google Us for Savings!
Parenting Press is one of many companies which offers money-saving coupons on the Google search engine. If you type our name (“Parenting Press”) in the Google.com search box and then select “Maps” in the search categories at top left, you’ll reach the listing for our home page. Click on “Coupons” to see a variety of online specials.
II. FEATURES
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Tips for the month
Each Saturday, Parenting Press posts a new parenting tip and the previous week’s tip is moved to the archive. The topics planned for September are:
September 6 — Helping Babies Feel Secure
September 13 — What Kids Can Do to Manage Intense Anger, Part I
September 20 — What Kids Can Do to Manage Intense Anger, Part II
September 27 — A Few Thoughts on the Parent-Child Divide
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Family Fun Ideas — Celebrate Indian Summer
Pig Palace photo courtesy of the Puyallup FairSchool’s starting, and so are soccer games, but it’s still summer, and most of us will have a few more weekends of Indian summer weather. How can you take advantage of these sunny days? Visit a petting zoo or county fair and give everyone in the family a chance to pat the bunny or pet the sheep. In Maryland, there’s the Calvert County Fair; in North Carolina, the Avery A & H Fair; and in Texas, the Washington County Fair. Farther west, Oregon and Washington both wrap up their fair seasons with the Oregon State Fair in Salem, and the Western Washington Fair in Puyallup. (On the way home, sing “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” in honor of the anniversary of its publication!)
Another way to celebrate the season: visit the library for a book on folk artist Grandma Moses (it’s her birthday this month!) or see a few of her paintings at www.grandmamoses.com/moses.html. Then sit down outside with paints, markers or crayons and create your own outdoors scene.
In honor of Miniature Golf Day, hit the “links” at your favorite Putt-Putt course, or set up a backyard fairway with tin cans to putt the balls into. You can build obstacles like bridges with Legos and Lincoln Logs or cardboard boxes.
Read “James and the Giant Peach” and eat peach pie to celebrate author Roald Dahl’s birthday. . .and then wrap up the month’s fun with National Chocolate Milkshake Day. (Little kids can learn the basics about cows and farm life when they click on “Farm and Family” at the Dairy Farmers of America web site, www.dfamilk.com, and on “The Story of Milk” at MooMilk, www.moomilk.com. You’ll find recipes for all sorts of milky drinks at www.gotmilk.com.)
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Community Service — Mock SATs Spell C-A-S-H
Our goal with this column is to suggest ways that you can model the concept of sharing and giving back to your community. There are other practical advantages to community service, too. Kids can use these projects to meet school or youth group requirements for community service and to start building resumes that they’ll use when applying for first jobs or college.
A couple of years ago, a PTSA not far from Parenting Press’s office decided it was done struggling to raise dollars with bake sales and car washes. Instead, a committee contacted the local office of a SAT prep course company and made arrangements for the company to offer a mock college admission exam to any interested high school student. Publicized through the parent newsletters of other city high schools, the half-day event attracted 200 students. At $20 per student, that generated a lot of cash for the PTSA. The only cost: janitorial and security staff for the Saturday morning when the test was administered in the school and for the evening when the test-prep company presented and explained the scored tests. The test-prep company did the test and scoring for free, in return for the opportunity to pass out brochures about its service to students.
Your parent group—or a student service club—may be able to organize a similar fund-raiser, which we particularly like because its purpose is central to education. Here’s what is involved:
Find a test-prep company with access to mock SAT or ACT exams and scoring
Find a location that can accommodate a large number of students
Determine the address where checks will be sent
Require prepayment so that you can determine approximately how many tests and seats you’ll need, and reduce the number of no-shows
Publicize the event to the parent newsletters, student newspapers, career centers, and advisers of local high schools
Publicize the event to the calendar and education reporters of your local weekly and daily newspapers, and ask local radio stations to announce it
Ask permission to put up posters in student hangouts
Provide whatever help the test-prep company requires, such as proctors for the exam period
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Raise funds with a Parenting Press Book Fair
Would your school or group like a new fund-raiser?
For years Parenting Press has been offering its carefully written books on child guidance, problem-solving and dealing with feelings through preschool Book Fairs. Now our Book Fairs are being expanded to schools, churches, child-care programs, parenting groups—any organization that can use parenting and children’s books.
More information about our Book Fairs is posted online. You’ll find a copy of the brochure, an explanation of how much you can earn with a Book Fair, a step-by-step guide to make Book Fairs easy and fun to organize, and downloadable promotional materials.
III. POTPOURRI
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Special of the month — Celebrate our 29th anniversary!
This special has expired.
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