6 items or less…apply this experiment to parenting

Posted on July 24, 2010 by viviankirkfield

Have you heard of the 6 items or less experiment? It is a global phenomenon that sets out to see if a person can “survive” for 30 days with only 6 items of clothing (or less) from their closet.

As I thought about this minimalist approach to life (and having just watched “The Book of Eli” where Denzil Washington says “people kill for things we used to throw away”), I realized that this 6 items or less theory had a lot going for it and could be applied to many different parts of our lives.

So, today I’d like to list the 6 items I’d pull from my parenting rules closet.

Help your child to master tasks and skills and develop individual responsibility.
Encourage your child to value her own strengths and qualities.
Help your child feel appreciated, loved and valued.
Encourage your child to express his feelings, both positive and negative.
Help your child to acknowledge and cope with her fears.
Encourage your child to respect his body and feel safe in his environment.

Just 6 rules. Follow them and you will be helping your child develop a positive self-image. You will also be building a life-long parent-child bond and creating balance and harmony for your entire family.

How many parenting rules do you have?

Dental visits: Pain or Gain?

Posted on July 20, 2010 by viviankirkfield

Yesterday I went to the dentist for my routine cleaning and checkup. Fortunately, everything looked fine. It made me think back to when our children were young and we tried to find a way to encourage them to take care of their teeth. My husband and I came up with an interesting plan: If their checkup showed no cavities, they got five dollars. If they had cavities, they had to pay fifty cents from their allowance for each cavity.

Needless to say, all three had very few cavities as they were growing up. I’m not sure if it was the incentive of receiving five dollars, or if it was having to part with fifty cents for each cavity that encouraged them to brush their teeth regularly and refrain from eating too many sweets.

Our children are all in their 30’s now…two of them have children of their own and are probably dealing with that same age-old issue of getting their little ones to properly care for their teeth. When I talk to my grown children on the phone, if they mention in passing that they have been to the dentist and have had a perfect checkup, I still send them a five dollar bill in the mail. Although five dollars can’t purchase the same amount of goods that it could 20 or 30 years ago, it still buys a good dental checkup.

Hey, where’s my five dollars?

I’d love to hear other parent’s ideas for encouraging children to take good care of their teeth.

Andy Rooney: Life is like a gadget drawer

Posted on July 19, 2010 by viviankirkfield

This morning I wrote a post about yesterday’s 60 Minutes segment with Andy Rooney. As the day went on, I began to think about how a kitchen gadget drawer is a lot like life and parenting. We accumulate “stuff” during our life…material things like cars, homes, appliances, clothing, lamps, and books…sometimes doubles and triples of items we don’t even use. We store up memories, both good and bad (the bad ones sometimes haunting us as we try to move forward with our lives). We hold on to feelings, even the negative ones (sometimes especially the negative ones). And, when it comes to parenting, we often repeat behaviors of our own parents we swore we would never do. Have you ever said something to your child and looked around to see if your mother was standing there, because what came out of your mouth was something you had often heard her say.

I think this happens to most of us. Maybe I can take Andy Rooney’s advice and dump out everything in the drawer (of my behavior, reactions to others, feelings, memories), look it over, and make sure I want to keep it before I put it back.

But I doubt it will be as easy as cleaning the kitchen gadget drawer.