Personal Chutes and Ladders

15
Mar

Thrift stores are a treasure trove, especially for those things families outgrow like books, toys, sports equipment, and games.

Fun for Everyone

I walked out of a local thrift store with Boggle Jr., Clue Jr., Sorry, and Chutes and Ladders, in addition to a new green splinter-less butterfly net, a hot commodity at my house.

You probably grew up playing Chutes and Ladders but this week was my first time. My whole crew sat around and played it together; I think my kids are at the perfect ages since they are five, seven and nine years old.A quick refresher on Chutes and Ladders; you spin the…spinner (is there another word for it?) and move your piece on the game board. The great twist to this game is the addition of chutes or slides, and ladders. If you land on a chute, it takes you back a bunch of spaces. If you land on a ladder, you get launched forward a bunch of spots.

They could have stopped there, but the game creators took it one more step. They incorporated drawings to indicate cause and effect. If you mow the lawn, you are rewarded with a trip to the circus. Pull the cat’s tail, slide down the chute to the picture of you with all sorts of Band Aids and the cat licking its paws. Do this, and that will happen.

I don’t think that every moment in a child’s day needs to have a moral lesson, but this game makes it SO easy. The next time we play I plan to use specific, real-life examples from my kids’ lives to illustrate the cause and effect lessons.

Wouldn’t it be great if it was as obvious for us adults?

Many times it seems like there aren’t the immediate consequences of childhood, positive and negative.

Pad the books, and you will probably get away with it for a while before anyone notices.

Stay late and help out your fellow workers, and it can take a superior a long time to pay any attention to your extra efforts.

The cause and effect is delayed.

I really believe the strength of character required to do the right thing makes it worth it because of the internal reward. However, it is important to weigh our motives, because even something that can sound like a good idea, if not done with the right motive, can be less than noble.

Allow me to give an example:

My sister and brother in law and my parents hit a rough patch about a year ago. They’ve been working to make things better, but there have been moments of tension. At one point my sister and my mother were both talking to me about the situation, from their respective points of view. This was a tricky position for me, as I usually tried to maintain the peace as much as I could.

That’s the background. So then when I learned there was a potentially volatile issue that was probably going to come to a head in the next month, I felt compelled to bring it up with my lovely sister. My excuse? That I wanted her to be aware of the opposing point of view (that of my parents) so she wouldn’t be caught off guard when they were upset.

The real reason?

I wanted to talk to my sister about it so that when it blew up, I could say I had tried to do my part, had fulfilled my role as peacekeeper, to head off the impending storm. Upon further reflection, however, I came to a different conclusion.

Basically I was trying to cover my butt.

Luckily, there was no storm and things remain amiable. But sometimes the things we do that are good, are only good insofar as they don’t cause harm but the motive behind the action is sketchy. I don’t really enjoy examining my motives, but as I get a little older and my behavior is less obviously “bad” I find that the purpose behind my actions is important to consider.

Enough of all the heavy. Here’s a hilarious (and mostly clean) version of a super fun song, to round out this post. Enjoy! http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/macklemore-and-ryan-lewis-thrift-shop/n33498/

Helping Kids Deal with a Pet’s Death

4
Feb

We’ve had bad run of luck here with animals. But before I can tell you about it, I have to tell you about the transformation that’s been happening since we moved to our house two years ago.

We acquired our dog first, nothing unusual about that. Here he is (and yes, despite the scarf and painful cuteness, he is male):

Don’t I look sassy?

And then this past spring we got chickens.

Two of our chickens prancing around the coop.

The chickens did well and after a few months we started to get eggs from them each day. We settled into a good pattern.

Then somehow my husband talked me into getting a kitten. It was going to stay in the garage and be an outside cat. We kept her out of the house (except when she snuck in), but I didn’t manage to keep her out of my stupid heart. I don’t even like cats! But she was irresistible. She ended up being fun all the way around for everyone; she had a great personality. The kids loved and hated the way she attacked their feet when they went out into the mudroom for their coats or backpacks. Even when she tripped us on the way out the door, it was because of love.

It was all going so well.

Two weeks ago, our kitty met an untimely demise in our garage. She darted across the garage as my husband slowly entered, and she misjudged her own speed and agility. Her death was quick, for which I was grateful.

When it happened and we realized there was no saving her, it was a study in child development to watch how my kids reacted. After about five minutes, my first grader and preschooler asked when we could get a new cat. They wanted to pet her and say goodbye, but it was more of a scientific observation. “Here is a dead cat” type of thing. However, my third grade son retreated to his room, where he asked if he could watch a video or read his book. His eyes were watery and he was upset.

I felt the same way. I wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened, and my first reaction was to find something that could distract me from being sad. I’m a happy gal usually, and feeling sadness is…well, a bummer. I noticed again that when dealing with a difficult situation, my gut reaction is to retreat.

When my son felt the sadness of loss, I didn’t want him to have to feel those emotions. I wanted to cheer him up (and myself too). However, rather than ignore or dull the experience, I took a different approach.

When children feel pain, it is important to assure them it isn’t the final thing they will feel.

Feelings can be scary and overwhelming. Parents can help them walk through the intensity.

Here are a couple suggestions:

If you can, try to keep your own emotions somewhat in check. It can be scary for a child to see his parent openly distraught. Sharing some tears is healthy; asking your child to bear your grief is not.
Assure your child that it is okay to feel sad, that it a strong feeling, much the same as anger (which my son and I have talked about in the past).
Kids don’t need to hide from their feelings even though they were kindof overwhelming. The feeling “sad” is not a permanent emotion, and “happy” will return.
I told my son it was good to be sad because he had loved the kitty and when pets we love die, we feel sad and will miss them.

We got through it. We aren’t getting another cat, even though my first grader seems to have one picked out in his mind. In another blog post, I plan to talk about the difference between the way we handle life and death with animals that we have for food production versus pets.

Was this helpful to you? I sure hope so. How do you deal with strong emotions and life lessons with your kids? I’d love to hear about it. But in parting, I’ll leave you with a photo of our kitten (almost cat) climbing up on our windshield:

Fuzzy pic but still cute

So Much More than “Just a Mom”

29
Jan

We can be so dismissive. Here we go around all day trying to build up our families, build up our children, and yet we often describe our own role as one of little value.

“I’m just a mom.”

“I just stay at home with the kids.”

Why all the “justs” in these statements?

We are important. We help keep things together. We are what makes it possible for the family to sit down to dinner together, to not get yelled at for making personal calls during work hours, to go to bed before midnight since some of the tedious jobs required have been taken care of. We are important.

It is 100% fine if mothers want to work outside the home. They are just as important to their families and no less mother-y. And it is 100% fine if mothers want to stay home and not leave for a job. Lord knows there’s enough to do around the house just to keep things under control, kids in school or not. There is nothing “less than” about being a mom. Until people have done it, they can’t really understand how all-consuming it is, how much work it really is, and how wonderfully rewarding it can be.

Let’s agree that not everyone can stay at home with their kids. Some would if they had the choice but the economy of their family make-up dictates they produce an income. Some don’t because they have a desire to engage in their field of study or expertise. Admit it, you know there are some people who would go nuts if they stayed home with the kids. It’s just not the way they are wired.

We as women have an important choice – we can criticize one another or we can acknowledge that there are days when those of us who stay home wish we had a job to go to; staying home can be hard. There’s no reason for us to tear each other down. Women who came before us worked hard to see that we have the right to hold jobs and get equal(ish) pay for that work. And now we have the right to choose to stay home, even if it is only for a season.

Many times we think there is a commentary being made by someone who has not made the same choice we have. But what we don’t consider is that the reverse is true as well. Maybe we can all agree to think the best about one another, that we are doing the best we can for our families and for ourselves.

TC Larson

Stories and Mischief

Personal Chutes and Ladders

Helping Kids Deal with a Pet’s Death

So Much More than “Just a Mom”