Setting up a Homework Zone

Mandi Ehman of Organizing Your Way

Do you have a homework zone set up in your home?

It doesn’t have to be a dedicated room, but having a dedicated space for homework time with easily accessible supplies helps children focus on their homework and complete it without being distracted by clutter or chaos.

For older kids and teens, this might be a corner of their bedroom with a desk and computer. For younger kids, it may just be the kitchen table or a corner of the counter.

The keys are having a space that is clear of surface clutter and keeping the basic supplies they need in a convenient location. If you’re not using a desk for the homework zone, you could fill a basket with extra lined paper and pencils as well as a ruler and any other supplies they need on a regular basis, or you could use a drawer in your kitchen or coffee table.

Help kids set up a system for completed school work. A lot of it will need to go in their binder  or a folder to take back to school. However, some of it can be filed away, and some may need to be kept in file trays or organizers on the desk for easy reference.

It’s important to consider the atmosphere of the area as well. While having kids do homework in the main area of your home may be convenient and seem like a good idea, it could also lead to a lot of distractions if your home is a busy one.  You might consider playing soft music or using aromatherapy to help them focus.

As with everything, it’s important to be flexible. You may find that your first setup isn’t working well for everyone and that you need to move things around to find a homework zone that will work. Don’t be afraid to try a few different things!

Do you have a dedicated homework zone for your kids? What’s the biggest challenge in setting one up? What’s the best thing you’ve included as part as your homework zone?

Mandi Ehman is a work-at-home mom to four spunky little girls. She believes that organizing only lasts if you do it your way - to fit your needs, your preferences and your lifestyle - and she shares organizing and time management tips at Organizing Your Way.

School Success: Planning Matters

Laura Rolands of My Attention Coach

With school around the corner or already started in some areas, families need to make their plans this week.  Especially if your kids have a lot of activities planned or have challenges such as Learning Disabilities or ADHD.  Help prepare your child with my tips below.  When you decide what you will do, decide when to do it and honor your commitment to yourself.

The following ideas and suggestions are at the top of my list:

• Talk to your child and ask how they would like to get ready for the school year. Involving them in the decision making process will build better success throughout the school year. Sometimes it may seem easier to make all of the decisions, but in the long run it is much easier on you to include them.
• Talk with your child’s doctor, therapist, coach, tutor and/or any other support person in their lives. Ask what they recommend to help your child start the school year successfully. Because they see your child from a different and specialized view, they will all have valuable recommendations.
• Ensure that your child has a planner that will work for them. View my Choosing The Right Planner article for some great tips and a handy checklist. Schools often provide planners, but I recommend that you make sure it will work for your child and with their learning style. If the planner provided by the school doesn’t work, use something that does.
• Look into a family calendar to help keep everyone’s schedules straight once the school year gets in swing. I love all of the options at Families With Purpose. I have recently started using Googles’ calendar application. If you are on your computer regularly, this could be a great option. To work best, I think you need to get everyone in the house using it. I’m still working on that at my house though. They do offer a print option if you need it.
• Develop a communication plan with your child’s school. Especially if your child has challenges at school with ADHD or learning, it is critical to have an open line of communication with teachers. You may want to write a letter to your child’s teacher, send an email or schedule a meeting.

I hope these ideas provide you with a great starting point for a successful school year.  Which of these ideas sounds good to you?  What will you implement?  Share your ideas in our comments and let me know if you have any questions.

Laura Rolands is the founder of LSR Coaching and Consulting, LLC. She is a coach whose passion is to support, lead and inspire independence and success for people who have either been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD or who are facing other attention-related challenges. Her clients include individuals with attention-related challenges and/or their parents. If you have any questions or more suggestions to add, please visit her website at www.MyAttentionCoach.com.

Back to School Fun

By Jenna Riggs
Mommy on a Shoestring

Help your kids ease back into “school mode” with these family fun games and activities.

1. Go on an Alphabet Nature Hunt

Have you ever found a rock that looked like the letter U or perhaps noticed a cloud that resembled the letter S?  Put the power of observation to work by going on an alphabet nature hunt.  Grab the kids and a camera and walk around your neighborhood, park, or forest preserve looking for letters that appear in nature. You’ll be surprised how many letters you can find in flowers, rocks, twigs and grass.  Be sure to snap pictures of each letter until you have all 26, which can then be turned into a nature alphabet book and enjoyed all year long!

1. Play Delicious Dominoes

Review numbers and counting with a game that is extra sweet!

You will need:

• “Bean Sprouts Healthy Flour blend“ (½ cup whole wheat flour, ½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour, ¼ cup wheat germ, 1 tablespoon of ground flax meal)
• ¼ cup cocoa powdered
• ½ cup, plus 2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of ground cinnamon
• 3 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• White icing
• White chocolate chip cookies

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.
• Combine dry ingredients in a bowl.
• Add butter and stir until well combined.
• Add honey, water and vanilla and mix until dough is sticky.
• Press the dough on cookie sheet and place in the freezer for 5 minutes.
• Roll out dough to ¼ inch thick.
• Use a butter knife to make 1 x 2 inch rectangles.
• Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown.  Allow time to cool.
• Once the cookies have cooled make your dominoes.  Use white icing to make a vertical line through the halfway point of each cookie.  Then add dots first with icing then with white chocolate chips.
• Let the games and eating begin!

This recipe comes courtesy of Shannon Seip and Kelly Parthen of Bean Sprouts Café.  To learn more about Bean Sprouts visit www.beansproutscafe.com

1. Make Edible Crayons

This recipe puts the old saying, “don’t eat the crayons” to rest.

Edible Crayons

You will need:

Pretzel rods

Colored Candy Melts (available at most craft stores and large grocery stores)

Crayon Paper Labels

Directions:

• Break pretzel rods in half.
• Melt candy melts (one color at a time) in the microwave on medium heat for about 1 minute. Stir and continue cooking at 15-second intervals until melted.
• Stir melted candy well and place in a small bowl.
• Working quickly, dip both ends of the pretzels in the melted candy and allow them to dry on waxed paper for a few hours.
• Print out crayon labels on colorful paper.
• Secure label around each crayon with double stick tape.

Thank you to Mandy at www.gourmetmomonthego.com for this wonderful recipe idea!

Jenna Riggs is a native Northwesterner, who went to sunny California to study graphic design at the University of the Pacific, spent some time in sunny Colorado, and eventually missed the rain and moved back. Jenna’s design and illustration work has been in almost every category of visual materials from children’s books to marketing pieces, identities to advertising, websites to annual reports, and children’s themed home products.

Jenna is also part of Mommy on a Shoestring with Beth Engelman, their website and weekly radio show are chocked full of ideas on how families can live creatively and large on a small budget.

Back to School Planning Tips for Families Experiencing ADHD

I am honored to write a guest article for Families with Purpose which is a wonderful company with an equally wonderful website.  I hope you find it informative and useful.

Summer is a great time to reconnect with our families.  Hopefully, all of you have been able to relax and spend time with those most important to you.  Spending time with our children is one of the most valuable gifts we have.  As we are enjoying these special times, it is hard to believe that the school year will quickly arrive.  You can be ready without any frantic effort with some simple planning and time management techniques.

The first thing I recommend is to start a “to do” list.  It doesn’t have to be anything fancy.  In the beginning, a simple lined piece of paper is all you need to start brainstorming.  For a final version, you can use the Back to School Checklist from Families With Purpose or a simple list with room for a due date and a place for your completion check mark.  The important thing to do is to keep track of what you need to do and what you have already done.

Next, talk with your children to find out what they are both excited and anxious about for the coming school year.  If they are nervous about having all of their supplies together, you might want to move school supply shopping to the top of the list.  If they take a daily medication and haven’t needed to take it over the summer, they might be nervous about remembering to take their medicine.  Let them guide your discussion.

Third, brainstorm on your own and with others.  Talk with your spouse, your child’s doctor, coach, tutor and/or any other support person in their lives.  What do they recommend doing to help your child start the school year successfully?

You won’t have a problem developing a list, but here are a few of my favorite suggestions.

• At least two weeks before school starts, start moving your children’s bedtime closer to their regular time.
• Make time to purchase school supplies at least a week before school starts. Look for sales and make time to go somewhere else if the first store doesn’t have what you need.
• Ensure that your child has a planner that will work for them. Their school may provide one that works, you can customize a teacher’s lesson plan book, check out the blog a mom’s view of ADHD for a customized planner, or visit your local office products store.
• Look into a family calendar to help keep everyone’s schedules straight once the school year gets in swing. I have been very impressed by the family calendars and mom’s planners at Families With Purpose.
• If your child has attention challenges or ADHD, check out tips from websites like Attitude magazine’s site and About.com.

If your child is in middle school or high school, give him or her the opportunity to make their own list.  Help them brainstorm and review the list, but it will be very empowering to have them make their own list this year.

Finally, after you have finished your brainstorming, prioritize your list and assign a due date.  Spread out the activities so that you can enjoy the rest of your summer.   When you are planning, the most important aspect is to take action and start well enough in advance so that the process is not overwhelming.  Decide when to start and honor your commitment to yourself.

Laura Rolands is the founder of LSR Coaching and Consulting, LLC. She is a coach whose passion is to support, lead and inspire independence and success for people who have either been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD or who are facing other attention-related challenges. Her clients include individuals with attention-related challenges and/or their parents. If you have any questions or more suggestions to add, please visit her website at www.MyAttentionCoach.com .

How to Choose the Right Extra-Curricular Activity for Your Child

As a parent we all want our children to try new things and explore interests and talents, but at the same time it can be a real challenge trying to manage children’s extra-curricular activities with family life, family needs, and financial constraints.  So to minimize the disruptions and toll that too many extra-curricular activities or poor choices have on your family life, use these tips to focus your decisions and help you choose the right extra-curricular for both your children and family.

Watch Your Child Play - Do they consistently go back to the same activities?  Do they continually do these activities without prompting or suggestions from you?  Then this is a sign that they may have a real interest and you may want to explore it a bit further by signing them up for a class or lesson.

Look for Natural Talents - Some kids are just natural athletes, artists, or musicians and parents can usually spot these talents early on through the child’s play and interests.  Encourage them to try something that will focus on their natural talent.

Give it Some Time - If you child requests to take lessons or try a certain sport, give it a little time before rushing out and signing them up to be sure their interest is for real and not a passing fancy from something they picked up on TV or from friends.  If after a couple of weeks, they have made multiple requests or have continued to talk about it, then you probably have a child with genuine interest and would be worth exploring further. 

Minimize Your Investment - Extra-curricular activities can be expensive so minimize your initial investment by using rental or used equipment, asking for trial classes, and letting them watch classes.

Ask Why - Push back a little with questions like “what seems fun about soccer?”, or “what about dance classes do you like?”  By taking the time to explore their interests and reasons helps both the parent and child make better decisions and choices.

Good luck!

Conquering the Chaos Part II – Organizing Your Life into Buckets

Now that you have gone through Part I of our Conquering the Chaos segment and have a time inventory of a typical week, it’s time to begin to understand what all that means by sorting the activities and tasks that occupy your days into buckets, so you can more easily understand where you spend your time, where you want to spend more time, and things in your life that are just right.

Begin this exercise by printing off the life bucket printable and begin sorting all the tasks and activities from your family life inventory into one of the appropriate buckets:  School, Extra-Curricular, Household Cleaning, Laundry, Household Maintenance & Repairs, Lawn Work, Volunteer Commitments, Faith Commitments, Administrative, Meal Planning, Household Finances, Fun Stuff, Personal, Auto/Transportation, Family Commitments, and Other.

For example, let’s say you look at your family life inventory for Sunday and found you did the following things (click picture to enlarge):

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You would then go through this list and sort each of these items into the appropriate bucket making sure to include the time as well so that your bucket list looks something like this (click picture to enlarge):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go through your family life inventory day by day and add each activity to the bucket list.  For tasks you do every day, for example making dinner, enter it once in the Meal Planning and Prep bucket with an average time from the week it took you to plan and make dinner. 

Once you have gone through your family life inventory and added everything to your bucket list, then go through and add anything you didn’t do the week you took your family life inventory but know you need to do.  For example, you may have done a family life inventory during a week in which you didn’t need to mow the lawn, but you know it is something that is typically done, so go ahead and add it to your bucket list along with a time estimate.  You want to have as complete a list as possible.

Understanding What It All Means

Now that you have your life divided into buckets, it is time to understand and analyze what it all means.  To do this, go through your bucket list and ask yourself these questions:

What buckets or activities are taking the most time?

On what buckets or activities should we be spending more of our time?

What buckets or activities are causing the most stress?

What buckets or activities are the most enjoyable?

What buckets or activities are the least enjoyable?

 

Starting With the End in Mind

Now that you have a good picture of what your current family life looks like, it is time to spend some time on what you WANT your family life to look.  This is a mental image or written expression of what you want your family life to look like most of the time.  The point of this exercise is to articulate how you want your family life to be by asking yourself these questions:

What things do I want to spend less time doing?

What things do I want to spend more time doing?

I want our family life to be less………?

I want our family life to be more…….?

I personally want to be more…..?

Here is an example to help better understand:

I want to stop rushing and having to yell at my kids to hurry up.  I want to have time to exercise a few days a week and to sit down in the evening and spend time reading to my kids, playing games with my kids, and enjoying my family rather than running around getting things done.

I want a clean house, but minimize the amount of time I spend cleaning.  I want to have all the clutter, toys, and stuff picked up every night before bed so that I don’t have to look at it in the morning.

I want to know in advance what I am making for dinner and I want the dinner to be healthy.  I want to spend a maximum of 90 minutes each day making and cleaning up after dinner.

I want to find more time on the weekends just spending time with my family rather than running to soccer games and sports events.  I want to find time to do the things we say we want to do, but never seem to find the time.

I want to stop paying bills late and want to spend a maximum of 60 minutes each week doing bills and financial work.

I want the kids to be in bed by 9 PM every night.

I want to be in bed by 10 PM every night and get up an hour before the kids every morning

I want to find more time for date nights with my husband and nights out with friends

I personally want to be less stressed, less worried, and more fulfilled.

Remember no family or family life is perfect.  We all have good days, bad days, and points in our lives where no amount of planning analyzing, or preparation can make better.  The point of this exercise is to articulate a vision and goal not make yourself perfect.  Sometimes things are out of our control but that shouldn’t be a reason to not try at all.

Once you get through this exercise save all your notes along with the notes from Conquering the Chaos - Part I for next month’s segment - Conquering the Chaos Part III - Creating a Family Schedule that Works. 

Good luck!

How To Avoid the Competitive Parent Trap

Ah, the beginning of a new school year, marking the end of the summer boredom blues and the return of structure to our days. A time when parents rejoice, teachers cry, and the sport of competitive parenting begins.  Competitive parenting for those of you unfamiliar or new to parenting is the terrible sport started by parents to give their children an upper hand, while making themselves feel successful as parents and other parents insecure and guilty.   Every school and neighborhood has them, the parents who make it their job to ensure their children are the best at everything.  They sign them up for every enrichment activity available, hire math tutors and French teachers, and make it their business to keep tabs on the achievements and failures of every child in the class.  They are constantly measuring the achievements of their children to other children and seemingly will stop short of nothing to make them the best or at least keep up.  And leaving in their dust, parents who really don’t want to compete, but not sure how to avoid it. 

So to help every parent who is ready to stand up to the competitive parenting pressure here are some tips to help you survive the new school year.

Stop Measuring Your Success as a Parent by the Achievements of Your Child 

Believe it or not, but your success as a parent has NOTHING to do with the achievements of your children and has EVERYTHING to do with how emotionally strong and prepared your children are to lead their own lives.    Your job as a parent isn’t to make sure they get into Harvard or become the next Bill Gates, but rather your job as a parent is to nurture, inspire, and teach your children to define their own success and happiness while giving them the skills and tools necessary to make it happen.

Surround Yourself with Supportive Likeminded Friends

Nothing will make a parent more insecure and nervous than having a friend who lives in the competitive parenting trap.  So to make sure you don’t fall prey to the trap and all the drama that comes with it, distance yourself from others who are living in it.  Instead, surround yourself with parents and friends with similar goals and parenting techniques so that you are uplifted and supported. 

Believe in Your Child

Children are born with an innate realization of who they are as individuals.  It isn’t until parents start getting involved that their natural instincts get over shadowed and this understanding loses focus.  So to protect them from forgetting who they are, teach them from an early age to trust their instincts and pursue their passions.  Children can and will do amazing things with their lives if we give them the space and tools to help them.

Do yourself and your children a favor this new school year and stop competing.  Believe in yourself as a parent, stop measuring your success through your children, surround yourself with supportive friends, and most importantly let your children dream their own dreams.

Good luck!

How to Help Your Child Get Great Grades

When parents ask me to coach their teenagers they inevitably want their child’s school grades to improve and seem a little shocked when I say, “Yes, that’s easy.”

Like Susan, who sent her 13-year-old to me, Grace was doing OK at school however her parents wanted to get her into a better school and to do that her grades needed to improve. Grace was enrolled in one of my coaching programmes and by the end of the programme her predicted C grades had become A and B, with a 100% pass rate in science a previously disliked subject.

How did we do it? The answer is to know your child’s learning style. When you do, you can help them to help themselves. Coupled with understanding what motivates them, what drives them and their perspective of the world you can motivate any teenager to improve their schoolwork.

So this week I thought I would share with you my guide to learning styles:

Learning style is the way in which you learn most easily, knowing this can make studying much easier. People learn in four ways, through reading, listening, doing or graphics and we will discuss each one.

Reading — these people learn mostly by reading and writing; this is predominately the style taught at school. When studying, they read and make lots of notes. This style is known as verbal memory.

Listening — These people learn most by hearing something spoken to them. In class they are likely to enjoy discussion where people are talking and get bored when there is writing to be done. When studying they may read and talk out loud or tape themselves and listen at a later date. They will also ask others to question them so they can speak their answers. This style is knows as tonal memory.

Doing — these people learn by movement in some way. These will be the students constantly fidgeting at school, they cannot sit still. In studying they are likely to walk around and make up rhythmic songs and poems. These students may benefit from studying with either the TV or radio on and also may hum or sing while they are studying. This style is known as rhythm memory.

Graphics — these people learn by seeing pictures, tables or graphs. When studying, they are likely to draw pictures and put information into tables and boxes, they also will enjoy using mind maps. This style is known as design memory.

Action

Think of a time that your child was studying recently and the methods they used. Which one of these four do you think they are and why? Ask your teen and see if you are right.

Write a list of 5 ways you can support your teenager’s learning style now you have discovered what it is. For example, telling your child to switch off the TV while studying may not be the right thing to do, depending on their learning style.

So, if we go back to Grace, she was typical in that her Mum made her do her homework in a room all by herself with no noise. Grace found this very hard and as we worked together we found that she was very high in rhythm memory. So we began to do things like introduce a radio into the room where she was studying, studying while walking around the room and making up songs and poems. The results were incredible. As for the science exam, she made up a song about the valence table while playing the guitar at the same time — it worked a treat and is just what someone with high rhythm memory needs. I should know, as this is my greatest learning style. When I was in the police force, I learned every piece of legislation to a song and I can tell you, it took me all my might not to sing the charges to someone as I was arresting them! In fact if you asked me now, I could still sing the Theft Act to you. You play it, I’ll sing it!

Sarah Newton is one of the world’s leading teen coaches. She enjoys a high profile and is one of the only Teen Coaches to have hosted her own eight part TV series ‘My Teen’s a nightmare - I’m Moving Out’. Her first book ” Help! My Teenager is an Alien - the everyday situation guide for parents” was launched in March 2007 by Penguin and rarely drops out of the top ten parenting teenager books. Sarah believes that parents can have great relationships with their teenagers and still get all the boring things done and to this end she offers everyday practical advice. To get Free access to Sarah’s “3 easy proven techniques to instantly reduce stress in your home and dramatically improve the relationship with your teen” go to http://www.sarahnewton.com

Back to School Guide

 

Use our back to school guide to help you take control of the new school year and make a great fresh start for yourself and kids.  Our guide is a collection of all our back to school tips, articles, resources, printables, and products so you can easily find everything you need.

Easing the Morning Rush

Back to school time is often a great opportunity for families to get a handle on their morning routines by minimizing the morning rush.  Use these tips to help you get started.

Make breakfast simpler and quicker by scheduling daily themes.  For example, make Monday’s egg day, Tuesday’s waffle day, Wednesday’s yogurt and fruit day, etc.  Breakfast schedules make grocery shopping easier, prep time quicker, and are a great way of teaching and introducing routines to kids. 

Set out all breakfast non-perishables and utensils the night before.  Things like cereal, vitamins, bowls, spoons, cups, etc can easily be set out on the counter and table the night before and make the morning breakfast prep calmer and easier.

For parents who can’t start their day without a cup of coffee, go ahead and make the coffee the night before and set the timer so it is ready when you wake up.  If your coffee pot doesn’t have a timer, go ahead and just add the water and coffee so that all you have to do is hit the brew button when you get up.

Teach kids to rinse their own dishes and place them in the dishwasher.  If they are too young to rinse their own dishes, try having them at least place them in the sink or have an older sibling help. 

Try and pack as much of the kids’ and your lunches the night before.  Sandwiches can be made the night before and placed in the refrigerator and all non-perishable snacks and fruits can easily be placed in the lunch bag the night before as well as napkins and milk money.

Last but not least, use a chore chart to get the kids involved as much as possible, and to seal the deal add all of these tips to your daily routines.

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