Parenting Tip: "Do You Understand?"

When our oldest children were very young, we went through a parenting book called Growing Kids God's Way (GKGW) by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo of Growing Families International. They published a similar book for the secular market called Child Wise.

One of the suggestions given in GKGW was to teach your children to respond, "Yes, Mommy" or "Yes, Daddy" whenever you give them an instruction. While we liked that concept, it was just a little more than we cared to enforce. We noticed that most of the time we were giving simple instructions when the children were directly at hand. It was easy enough to be certain the child complied or to make an immediate correction when necessary.

However, there are definitely moments when we would like a response. Perhaps we are in another room, and we want to be certain the child heard the instruction. Or, maybe we are aware that the child's mind is elsewhere, and the instruction could be quickly forgotten. Sometimes we use this technique to place a special emphasis (e.g. "Do not ever chase your ball into the street. Do you understand?").

Requiring and receiving a verbal response from the child is beneficial in several ways. First, it helps him or her to focus on completing the task. Second, when responding in this manner, the child is affirming in his or her own mind the intention to obey. Third, the parent can be certain the message was heard and understood. Fourth, the child is showing honor to the parent and acknowledging the parent's authority by giving this polite, positive response.

When we are within line of sight, eye contact accompanies the parent's question and child's response. This helps to engage the child's mind and prevent an unthinking, rote response. Do not let them ever ignore your "Do you understand?" question. Not even once. Even as they have grown older, we have not allowed them to shorten it to "Yes." They still respond with "Yes, Mom" or "Yes, Dad".

We began teaching our children to respond in this way while they were very young--certainly prior to 18 months of age. They were not even speaking fluently, but it was being trained into their hearts and minds. At this age, the conversation goes like this: "Ross, pick up your ball and bring it to Mommy." Pause. "You say, 'Yes, Mommy.'" He responds with a beautiful baby talk "Yes, Mama." (And then you may have to repeat the instruction about the ball). This should quickly become a habit, probably by the time they are speaking fluently. They may go through stage here and there where they drop the response, and you will need to give them a reminder.

This simple technique has been a great parenting tool for us, and probably the thing that most stuck with us from GKGW. If you are interested in GKGW, you can take a look at it on the Growing Families International website or at Amazon.com:

Book Review: Family Driven Faith

Family Driven Faith
By Voddie Baucham

I loved this book. I wish every parent or potential parent would read it. Dr. Baucham is passionate about teaching parents to disciple their own children rather than turning them over to a youth pastor. This book is a thorough exposition of that topic.

I've had the privilege of watching Dr. Baucham speak on video twice, and I would love to see him in person. He also has a website and blog where you can read many of his thoughts.

For Sale: Crayola Vehicle Designer Light Up Tracing Desks

Crayola Vehicle Designer

Light Up Tracing Desk

*Brand New*

in Factory Sealed Packaging

$34.99 + $8.95 shipping

These Crayola Vehicle Designer Light Up Tracing Desks are perfect gifts for boys. They just love creating all kinds of vehicles and scenes that they can use in countless ways. What a great workout for the imagination! My 4-year-old can use this imaginative toy, and my 11-year-old still thinks it is great fun!

I recently went hunting for these great toys and found that they have been discontinued by Crayola. Fortunately, I have a small inventory available for sale to the public!

Included are:

• Light desk
• 12 short, colored pencils
• 10 vehicle tracing design sheets
• Tracing paper pad
• Tracing pencil

Requires 3 "D" batteries (not included).

Again, this item is brand new and hard to find. It is in its original factory sealed packaging!

I accept Paypal payments and ship via USPS Priority Mail. For Illinois residents only, 6.25% sales tax will be automatically added to the total. Just click on the box above to start the ordering process. Shop with confidence from the CommonSenseMom!

Did you know there is a Crayola tracing desk for girls? They can design fashions. You can buy it here.

For Sale: Crayola Fashion Designer Light Up Tracing Desks

Crayola Fashion Designer

Light Up Tracing Desk

*Brand New*

in Factory Sealed Packaging

$34.99 + $8.95 shipping

These Crayola Fashion Designer Light Up Tracing Desks are perfect gifts for girls. They just love creating fashions and scenes that they can use on notes, cards, or in countless other ways. What a great workout for the imagination! My 4-year-old daughter can use this imaginative toy, and my 11-year-old daughter still thinks it is great fun!

I recently went hunting for these great toys and found that they have been discontinued by Crayola. Fortunately, I have a small inventory available for sale to the public!

Included are:

• Light desk
• 12 short, colored pencils
• 10 fashion tracing design sheets
• Tracing paper pad
• Tracing pencil

Requires 3 "D" batteries (not included).

Again, this item is brand new and hard to find. It is in its original factory sealed packaging!

I accept Paypal payments and ship via USPS Priority Mail. For Illinois residents only, 6.25% sales tax will be automatically added to the total. Just click on the box above to start the ordering process.

Or, if you prefer, you can order this item from me through Amazon.com by clicking on the following link:

Did you know there is a Crayola tracing desk for boys? They can design vehicles. You can buy it here.

Great Gift Idea for Toddlers & Preschoolers (Boy or Girl)

When my oldest was just over a year old, we spent $70 for a Little Tikes Junior Activity Gym for our living room. It is a 3-foot cube shaped plastic gym with a small slide sticking out the side. This has been, hands down, the most played with toy we have ever owned.

Unfortunately, it appears this great item is no longer available new, though you might find one used someplace. The trick would be finding one that has not been kept outside. The amazon.com link to the right is the best approximation that I can find currently available.

I had seen one of these things in my sister-in-law's very small house. Her son loved it, and so did our daughter when we visited. I figured if they could find room for it, we sure could. Little did I know that our kids would still be playing with it daily in my family room ten years later.

The activity gym has helped keep up our kids' activity level even on dreary days when they can't be outside. In the beginning, it was just a fun thing to climb on and slide from. Most of the kids learned to scoot up the slide before they could even crawl. As they have gotten older, the gym has acquired other imaginative uses: it has been a boat, an apartment building, a bus, and a judge's bench among many others. It has been so much a part of our family for so long that it is difficult for me to imagine what childrearing would have been like without one of these in the house.

Full disclosure: Our daughter fell off of the gym when she was 3 years old and broke her arm. But, she could've done the same thing falling off the bed.

My Kids Like Salmon!

The two older ones have liked to eat salmon for quite awhile, but the younger two (ages 6 and 4) have been less accepting of it. One night, they asked if they could put ketchup on it (we usually use teriyaki sauce). Fine with me. Now they love it. Woo hoo!

S'Mores Costume Idea

If you don't participate in Halloween, you can just skip this post. For anyone else who is interested, take a look at this great costume idea. You'll need three kids to make it work. One is the marshmallows, another is the graham cracker, and the third one is a Hershey bar. If you've got a fourth, I guess you could figure out how to make a campfire costume.

How to Knock Down a Cold

About 4 years ago, I was sick practically all winter. I would just finish one cold when another would start. I still have four kids ages 4-10, so colds are part of life around here. However, I am now approaching 10 months without having a cold. Woo Hoo!

Since my winter horriblus, I have stumbled upon a system for fighting off those nasty colds. This is my three-step plan for knocking down a cold that is threatening:

At the very first sign of a cold, start fighting it! Don't let it get ahead of you by even a couple of hours.

1. Gargle warm salt water if you have a scratchy or even slightly-sore throat. Salt water is the most potent weapon in your anti-rhinovirus toolbox. Use the warmest salt water you can stand. This is especially good to do right before bedtime, so the salt water can work uninterrupted for awhile. Repeat several times during the day. You may have to repeat for several days if your throat keeps twinging. If the cold is starting in your nose/sinuses, you can snort the salt water. I know it's gross, but it works.
2. Use Cold-eeze zinc lozenges. Three or four over the course of the day ought to be sufficient.
3. Drink a large (16 ounce) glass of orange juice. I can't comment about whether a vitamin C supplement would work or not, but I really think getting a bunch of OJ into your body helps. A second glass later in the day is optional if you feel you need it. The Cold-eeze package says not to consume citrus for 30-minutes before or after using a lozenge, so you may have to schedule your OJ & lozenges.

That's it. Make sure you go to bed at a good time, so you get a full night's rest to give your body a chance to finish off that virus.

On a related note, here are some other things that I think help keep those germs from gaining a foothold:

1. Purell! We keep it in the van. Everytime we leave a store or other location, we all use it.
2. As soon as you walk in the door after going somewhere, send everybody to the bathroom to wash their hands.
3. Change your kitchen & bath hand towels every single day, even when no one is sick.
4. Avoid the pediatrician's office. If you must go, take only the kid who needs to be seen. Immediately remove and launder the clothes you wore while there. Don't play with the toys or read the books and magazines there. Take your own books.
5. Don't touch any part of your face with your hands. This is especially hard for me, but I've heard that it works wonders.

Happy Winter!

Book Review: My Father's Dragon

My Father's Dragon
By Ruth Stiles Gannett

If you are in need of a short chapter book to capture the interest of a boy, My Father's Dragon is a great place to start.

It is a fanciful tale of a young boy, Elmer, who is persuaded by a stray cat to travel to Wild Island to free an enslaved baby dragon. The animals of Wild Island are notoriously vicious, and the cat warns Elmer that no explorer has ever returned from Wild Island. Undaunted, Elmer packs a backpack full of odd necessities and stows away on a ship to begin his journey. Once he has arrived at his destination, he uses his sharp thinking skills and the contents of his backpack to outwit animals on the island one by one.

The ten chapters are short and can each be read aloud in about five minutes. To further stimulate the imagination, the book includes a number of whimsical black and white illustrations.

I recently read this book to my 6 1/2 year-old son and 4 year-old daughter. Purposely, I chose to read them only one chapter per day. This kept them on the edge of their seats begging for more. As with any wonderful tale, they enjoyed it so much that they were sorry it had to end. The good news is that My Father's Dragon is the first book in a trilogy, so more literary adventures await them.

Here are the remaining two titles in the trilogy:

Simple Sanity - The Family Cleaning Hour

About two years ago, our family started a new habit that has been a wonderful blessing.

We have a weekly "Cleaning Hour." Everyone participates: Dad, Mom, and all the kids including the four-year-old. We vacuum all the carpets, mop the floors, dust the furniture, clean the bathrooms, empty the trash cans, etc. We pretty much just cover the basics in one hour. To tell the truth it usually ends up with being closer to 70 minutes than to one hour, but it helps to think of it as only an hour.

Cleaning Hour is for serious, basic cleaning. We work quickly, but thoroughly. It is not a time to deep clean, but it is OK to be on the lookout for some cobwebs to knock down. It is also not a time for teaching the kids how to do their assigned chores. We train them at another time so that we are free to spend the whole hour doing actual cleaning.

Before the hour starts, we make sure the house is picked up. It is too hard to vacuum and put toys in the toy box at the same time. We start off with a family huddle, put our hands in the middle, and chant, "Clean, clean, clean!" Then everyone scurries to get their dusting rags sprayed with Endust so they can start on their rooms. As soon as we're done cleaning, we re-gather our huddle and chant, "Done, done, done!"

The kids all dust the furniture in their rooms. Then most of them have vacuuming chores with a small canister vac: the stairway, hardwood floors in the hallway, and louvered doors in front of the laundry area. The six-year-old and four-year-old empty all the trash cans and replace the liners. The older girls have more dusting to do in the main areas of the house. And, they all act as vacuuming assistants. They move chairs, toy boxes, etc. out of the vacuum's way and then replace them after that section has been done.

As the kids have gotten older I try to think of neglected chores to add to our list. Our almost-11-year-old is about ready for more Cleaning Hour responsibilities, and I'm thinking of having her dust the light fixtures. By giving the kids a chore that is currently neglected, I don't get so uptight about the job being done perfectly. At least it's being done, which is better than it was.

Dad and Mom do things that involve major chemicals like the shower & toilet. We also do the carpet vacuuming and floor mopping to ensure a thorough job.

When we first started Cleaning Hour, it was always on Saturday morning. That worked well, but it was a drag to spend our precious weekend time on cleaning. Cleaning Hour has since migrated to Thursday evening most weeks. There are so many times that we really don't feel like doing it. But, once it is done, we are so glad we went through with it. It is so nice to have the house all clean and picked up. It helps Mom's sanity, too! And, the work of cleaning is easier if it is done faithfully every week.

Do we miss a week here and there? Sure, we do. Life happens. People get sick, the calendar gets crazy, etc. But, we try to miss as few weeks as possible, and we make this a priority in our schedules to ensure that it happens.

The final benefit is teaching the kids that there is no free ride. We all have to contribute to the household chores to make our home a nice place to live.

Use Your Breadmachine to Knead Play Dough

You can use your breadmachine to knead your homemade play dough!

First of all, did you know that homemade play dough is way better than store bought? It is so much more cohesive, and you aren't left with colorful little crumbs all over your kitchen floor each time the kids play with it.

Here is the recipe I use:

1 c. flour
1/2 c. salt
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 c. water
2 T. salad oil
Several drops food color

Mix dry ingredients in heavy saucepan. Next, add all liquid ingredients. Cook over medium heat until dough pulls away from sides of pan (about 3 minutes). Immediately remove from pan and place in the breadmachine to knead. Allow it to knead until it is all one even color. Store in an airtight plastic container (I use ready-to-spread frosting containers).

If you do this very often, the cream of tartar could get expensive. I buy mine in bulk at a health food store. Much cheaper than those little jars in the spice aisle of the supermarket. Make sure you use a 1/2 cup of salt (not 1/2 teaspoon). I made that mistake once, and we ended up with a moldy glob within a couple of days.