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Tag: teaching children

  • Project HEAL – Raising Awareness for Eating Disorders

    Project HEAL – Raising Awareness for Eating Disorders

    About a year ago I came across Project HEAL. They had recently opened a chapter up in Utah, and I believe I saw it come through my facebook feed. I reached out to the Utah chapter to learn a little more and see if there were some volunteer opportunities. At the time I didn’t live close enough to get involved with any of their activities.

    Then we moved.

    So once again I reached out to them, in hopes of being able to volunteer. You may ask, why this group?  There’s plenty of other groups I’m sure I could volunteer with…and do, like the PTA.  Let me tell you why. Growing up I had a few friends that suffered from eating disorders, and since then I’ve known others close to me develop an eating disorder. I want to learn more and educate myself so I can help my friends and also my daughters.

    As the mother of 3 girls, it’s important to me to be aware of any issues they may encounter in their lives, and to be ready to help them through anything. My children have different body types, different personalities, and different ways they react to situations. When our 5 year old began making comments about her sister being skinny and herself being fat, I knew we needed to talk. She is by no means fat, but her body type is larger boned than her sister. Our 5 year old also has a great relationship with food of all types, while her sister is much more picky and unwilling to give new things a try.  Neither of these are bad, but depending on the message I send to them, it could morph into an unhealthy relationship with food and with herself.

    I’m a mom, and I have a responsability to my daughters to show them beauty and help them find the beauty within themselves.

    I know there are many different reasons women and girls develop an eating disorder, but I feel one of the main causes is poor self image. With places like Hollywood showcasing size 0 women as the “perfect woman” or the “most beautiful woman”, it’s easy to believe that you are not beautiful. That you must lose insane amounts of weight to ever look pretty. You must have plastic surgery, take botox, eat nothing but water and fruit, take diet pills, and the list goes on.

    Project HEAL is working on raising awareness of eating disorders. Their mission as seen in their logo is to “Help to Eat, Accept, and Live”.

    Isn’t that awesome?  It’s OK to eat food. It’s OK to accept your body for what it is. It’s OK to LIVE and enjoy living!

    I’m joining Project HEAL to help raise awareness, and educate everyone I can reach. Love your body. Love your curves, your imperfections. Enjoy eating food. Enjoy your body. Most of all Enjoy Life!

    You can find me on the Project HEAL G+ page sharing inspirational stories, educational information, and more!
  • The 6 B’s Lesson 3: Be Smart #FamilyHomeEvening

    The 6 B’s Lesson 3: Be Smart #FamilyHomeEvening

    I really enjoyed putting this lesson together for the kids. It had started with an idea to start the girls on a class from Craftsy, but I soon found they didn’t really have anything quite at my kids age. (Great adult classes though, by the way).

    So I got to thinking, and decided have a couple mini classes for our lesson.

    Opening Song: Teach Me to Walk in the Light. Childrens hymn book 177
    Prayer

    We began the lesson by reviewing the first 2 Be’s, and then asked if they could remember the next Be on our list. When I introduced the topic of Being Smart, we had a nice discussion on what it takes to be Smart.

    Princess C: Scientists are Smart!

    Yes they are. And how do they get to be so smart?   *crickets*  They had to study and go to school. They had to work hard and pay attention to their teachers. Would you girls like to be smart?  

    Yes!  

    The perfect lead in to our mini classes. Mark began as our first teacher in “Music Class”. He found these flash cards of all the music notes, and a “cheat” guide for the kids. They have done amazingly well at remember most of the notes, and with more practice they will have these down with no problem

    After the Music Lesson, we moved to the kitchen for baking class. I became teacher and Mark took over the camera and keeping Lincoln happy. For this class, I thought it would be fun if we made our FHE refreshments – a quick, though involved recipe for Peanut Free No Bake Cookies. 
    We talked about reading a recipe, and how when you are really smart you’ll be able to create your own recipes. Then we took turns adding, mixing and shaping the cookies.

    There were points during the baking lesson that some of the kids were a little bored waiting for their turn, or we had to wait for butter to melt, and liquid to boil. At these points Mark took one girl at a time for a Math Lesson.
    Math was real simple for Princess V and Princess C, and was more directed to helping Princess R.  Here I used our Teach My kit train number cards. See there was a train carrying numbers, but it crashed. We need to help put the train back together in the right order.

     I didn’t get to see Mark teaching the girls this little lesson, but I could hear them having a lot of fun. Once the cookies were cooling, we moved on to our last lesson, and the one I consider the most important for lifelong learning – Reading.

    Again I pulled out our Teach My kit, and used Books 1, Book 2 and Book 7 for this lesson. Books 1 and 2 go through the letters and the sounds they make. Book 7 is a beginning reader. I handed this one to Princess V and had her read it to us. She struggled just a little, but really enjoyed being so involved in this lesson. After Princess V read it, we tried Princess C to see if she could remember the story, and learn to read in the process.

    Closing Song: I am a Child of God
    Prayer
    Refreshments before bed.

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  • Respect {Think About It]

    Respect {Think About It]

    R-E-S-P-E-C-T
    Find out what it means to me
    ~Respect, Aretha Franklin



    Today I want to touch on a very serious subject – Respect.  Or, more specifically the lack of respect.

    What is happening to our youth? Why is there such a lack of respect?  If a teacher tells you to do something, you do it. You don’t mouth off, and try to bring them down. When a parent tells you “no” you don’t beg and whine and complain until they give in.

    Unfortunately, this is the kind of behavior that seems to have become prevalent in today’s society. It goes hand in hand with the sense of entitlement that is also running rampant through society.  So how can we combat disrespect and entitlement?  Like most problems we encounter, the solution can usually be found in the home.

    Think About It!

    Some of the first words we try to teach our kids – after mama and Dada – are Please and Thank You.  Even before they were talking I try to teach the sign for please. When we are polite, we are showing respect. We are telling them we respect them as another human being, whether we like them or not.

    So parents – it starts at home. If you don’t teach respect, they won’t learn it anywhere else. How can you teach respect?  My absolute favorite way of teaching is by example.
    Let’s imagine for a moment….

    You’ve gone out to dinner with your family. After ordering drinks for 5, appetizers, and 5 different special orders, you enjoy a moment for your food to come out. But when it does, your steak is overcooked, and the onions were left on your picky childs burger. You get the waiters attention, and chew them out for not listening. You start telling them they must be stupid because everyone knows what a medium rare is, and this is not medium rare. Can’t they get anything right?
     
    OR
     
    You thank them for your meal. You scrape the onions off your childs burger, and set them aside. Your medium well steak really isn’t that horrible – or you could kindly ask for a new steak, using words like Please and Thank You.
     
     
    Have you ever been in this situation? Maybe you’ve seen someone else act out at a restaurant. Yes, it’s the waiters job to get your order right, but they are human. Let’s start respecting that simple fact. We are all human, and we will all make mistakes. When we respect each other under that simple notion, life would be a lot better.
     
    Let’s go back to my example. What are you teaching your child when you put that waiter down? What are you teaching them, if you just roll with it? Or if you use polite words?  I think we all know the answers here.
     
    Think About It!
     
    Awhile ago, I had a good sit down talk with the Princesses. I was noticing a lot of disrespect in our house. It didn’t matter what I would ask them, I was met with fighting, whining, and tears. Excuses were given left and right. My oldest also began talking to me with what I call a rude voice – or very sassy.
    One day, I had had enough. I don’t like rudeness, and her tone of voice really set my nerves on fire, to the point I would be rude back. I definitely wasn’t teaching respect in those moments. So we changed. I told my girls that I love them. That I want them to be happy, and I want to be happy. When we work together, when we listen to each other, we can all be happy. I told them if they would listen to me, I would listen to them. Princess V does not like to be called rude. She knows it’s not a good thing to be. So when she is acting rude, I tell her. She gets a little defensive first, but soon will change her attitude and apologize. She then tries talking to me again, with respect.
     
    Think About It!
     
    So onto this other topic I mentioned of entitlement. How many kids do you see running around being given everything they want? They don’t have to work hard for it, let alone work at all. They yell – you owe it to us, it’s rightfully ours.
    These thoughts are bred from lack of respect. Believing that you are entitled to anything you haven’t personally worked for, shows lack of respect for our elders, parents, teachers, public service workers, etc.
     
    I think I’ll stop there, before I pound too much of my thoughts out. I’d love to hear how you feel about Respect. Do you think kids are lacking in this area? How do you teach your children about respect?