Warning Signs That Your Child is Being Bullied

As parents it is our job to make sure our children feel safe and can grow in the environment they are in. Part of raising excellent children is knowing the different ways our children express themselves. Some children will openly tell you if something at school or church is bothering them. Others will internalize their emotions causing them to act out. It is our job, as hard as it is, to unlock their hearts and get them to feel comfortable opening up to us. There are signs that even your child may not really understand that let you know something is wrong. Today we will concentrate on bullying. What are the signs that your child may be being bullied?

1. They seem anxious or nervous to go to school. We are not talking about first day jitters or test anxiety here. This would be a child who enjoyed school, or looked forward to seeing friends at school that suddenly or over a short period of time becomes an anxious child. This should be a warning flag. If your child will not speak up, or maybe they don't understand themselves, it's time for you to talk with their teacher. Remember it's not always children who bully. If you get an answer you feel is weak, it's okay to go higher and talk to the principal.

2. Suddenly losing interest in school or activities. This child was always eager to get to school or church or after school activity. Now they waste time, start moving in slow motion or otherwise drag their feet, often arriving late. This should be a big warning sign. When a child's personality changes over a certain activity or all activities it's time to step in. Again if your child will not open up to you, you will have to either stay and observe or start talking to the adults in direct supervision of your child. This is not just becoming a teen and mismanagement of time, this is purposeful forgetting or stalling.

3. Eating inconsistencies should be another huge warning sign. This seems to happen over a short period of time where a child's eating habits show a significant change. Eating to sooth and comfort themselves, or not eating because they are nervous and nauseated. If left to itself it could turn into an eating disorder. If you are concerned talking to your family doctor may help. Children go through growth spurts and odd eating tendencies frequently. However, if your child's personality is also changing, or they seem consistently ill it's time to get it checked out.

4. Trouble sleeping or having nightmares should raise your flag again. These symptoms are often related to anxiousness and nervousness. This could be the result of bullying at school.

5. If your child starts becoming sick often or seems to have an unusual amount of headaches these should not be ignored. Sit down with your child and have a heart to heart. If your child will not open up to you, it is time to step up and look around. Talk to other adults in the child's life. If your child has a huge resistance to this it's time to put down an ultimatum. Either your child talks to you, or you will talk to friends and teachers to find answers.

Being bullied by a teacher, adult or child is not acceptable. Just because it was in school when you were, or the saying "there is always a bully deal with it" does not make it okay. Yes, bullies have always and will always be around. Bullies have problems too. They should be looked upon with sympathy and helped too. This however does not give them a free ticket to hurt other children so that they may feel better about themselves. If your child will not open up to you, you must step up and take measures to find out what is going on. It is your duty as a parent to let your child learn and grow in a healthy environment. Nothing is ever perfect, but an ongoing issue should be addressed quickly.

Bedroom Makeovers in No Time

Do your kids hate cleaning their rooms? Do you find it difficult to be inspired in your own room? One day a month take some family time to clean each others rooms. There are two ways to go about this. Every one pitches in and cleans every ones bedroom. Together go to the bedroom needing help and every one has a job. Change sheets, Make Bed and Arrange stuffed animals. Put all toys away in proper places, and wipe down furniture. Hang up clothes, take down dirty laundry. Garbage duty, pick up garbage and empty garbage cans. Vacuum and dust. Before you know it every ones room will be clean and you will have worked together to achieve this.
The second way to go about this, if your rooms are too small or you just would like to change it up is to have every one in the family clean someone else's room. Meaning, mom and dad, one of the kids cleans yours. Now you can have rules that say beds, toys, garbage only. This keeps older kids from feeling their personal items, clothing and desks will be taken out of their unique way of sorting things. Sometimes it's easier to clean someone else's room then your own.

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

If this doesn't effect you, I don't know what will. This generation of children we are raising is on it's way to becoming the first generation of children that will not live as long as their parents. Pretty scary thought if you ask me. Why is it? With the U.S becoming number one in highest percentages of heart disease, obesity and diabetes our diet is destroying us.
Jamie Oliver is well known for many things, but his number one goal was to change the way children in Britain ate. He succeeded and now he has come to the U.S to take on the school lunch programs and the towns restaurants and homes.. He has started with Huntington, West Virginia - which has been called the unhealthiest city in America. Jamie's show Food Revolution will take you behind the scenes of our school breakfast and lunch programs to see what we are really feeding our children. It will open your eyes, break you heart, and hopefully cause you to stand up and make a difference. He has a petition you can sign on his website that says "I support the Food Revolution. America's kids need better food at school and better health prospects. We need to keep cooking skills alive." Show your support here. If you need more information watch Jamie Oliver's Trailer here.

National No TV Week April 21-26th

A great event that wasn't running when I was a kid is National turn off your TV week. Of course maybe when I was a kid I wasn't watching as much tv as kids today either. So, why do we have a national no tv week? In todays information overload and technologically rich society many adults forget that they didn't grow up with all the screen time. There were no computers, video games, and endless cartoon networks. If you got up early on Saturday you might be lucky to catch a few cartoons, and then you were off to run around the neighborhood or entertain yourself with your imaginary army. When everyone sits in front of the TV to be entertained it cuts in to social interaction with family members and friends. Now, movies once in a while are fine, but they should be a treat, not the norm. National No TV Week is doing just that. Helping today's families see that there are many things you can do with your family and friends that do not involve the TV.

Will you participate?

Check out some great ideas at the Screen Time - Turnoff Week website. This website also several different links to some pretty hard to swallow data. Check out the Screens and Young Children article. While this site seems to be a little outdated, the forums are still going strong so check them out while you are then and chat with other parents about No Tv Week ideas.

Target Stores Working On Making A Greener Place for You to Shop

In honor of Earth Day, many store have been publishing what they are doing to go green. Our recent find was Target. Here are a few things they are doing to lessen their carbon footprint.

Reduction of overhead lighting from 4 lamps to two in over 500 stores.
LED lights are now being used in store signs resulting in a 40% improvement per case.
20 Million miles and 3 million gallons of fuel were saved in 2009 by loading the Target trucks smarter
21 stores in California and Hawaii have solar panels that generate 15-20% of the store's energy needs.

When it comes to conserving water, Target is right there leading the way.

By using ultra low flow hand washing faucets in their new stores they are using 80% less water.
Using Smart Irrigation reduces the amount of water needed to maintain landscape
270 acres of storm water retention ponds have been created to capture the runoff from their stores nationwide.

Also be in line this week to receive a free reusable bag at Target stores. 1.5 million will be given away. Not able to get to the stores? Send in 5 target plastic bags and receive a coupon for $1.00 off a reusable bag making it less then $.50 cents.

Head over to Target.Com/Eco-friendly to find out more about Targets bid to go green.

Free Starbucks today April 15th 2010

Join the movement. On April 15th, bring a reusable travel mug into your local Starbucks and get a free brewed coffee.

One person can save trees, together we can save forests.

For the good of the planet, Starbucks is encouraging everyone to switch from paper cups to reusable travel mugs. One day in March thousands of New Yorkers made the switch. Join them now by taking a pledge to do the same.

Check out Starbucks Website Here The Big Picture and see what you can do to make a difference.

Slider or Zipper? What food storage bag is better?

It's no secret people have their favorites. Depending on what you use your food storage bag for, I bet you have your favorite brand too. While I have used many different brands the only difference I have found was how well the seal worked. I have used my food storage bags to seal up cheese, store spaghetti sauce or hold messy berries.
I love food storage bags for other things too. In our craft drawer I have little googly eyes, ribbons, stickers and patches stored in them. I even have used them to store my sewing notions in instead of letting them float around my sewing basket. While it doesn't really matter what brand or style I choose for things like this, I have found that the zipper bags work much better then the slider version. In many name brand and store brands I have broke many sliders before I even got anything in the bag.
Another non-food way of using the storage bags is for traveling. I love knowing that if my perfume spills, it won't get all over my toothbrush. On the same hand, if my toothbrush is not dry, it won't make all the make up containers wet. Just recently we packed some liquid benadryl for the kids along with a few other medicines. The lid was not tight enough and leaked all over the other contents. Thankfully it was in a separate bag and didn't get all over the clothing. I love my zipper bags. What have you used yours for? 

New BPA warning for Families

The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) recently updated their position on Bisphenol A widely known as BPA, which is used in clear plastic bottles and in many linings of food and beverage cans. They now say their may be reason for concern about the health risks BPA poses to  unborn children as well as infants and young children.
Consumer Reports resident toxicologist Urvashi Ranagan Ph.D. believes they have enough proof to ban all products that use BPA.
So if your a cautious mom or dad, what bottles and drink containers are safe?  Evenflo makes glass bottles that have never contained BPA and are easy to find in many stores. Gerber also makes a clear plastic bottle that is made out of polypropylene, which is BPA free. For yourself and your older children check out this article from Good Housekeeping. They tested 32 water bottles and brought you the results. It available on line here.
I found the article helpful. Not only do they give you the pros and cons of all bottles but choose bottles in all price ranges. When your on a budget, and who isn't nowadays, having these helpful reviews gives you the knowledge you need to purchase the safest and most functional bottle for your family.

Spending Quality Time with Your Children

A great way to carve out some time with your children is to start a garden with them. This garden does not need to be huge in any sense. A small 3x3 raised garden bed planted with tomatoes, strawberries, carrots and squash will provide hours of enjoyment for both you and your child. All of these items are easy to grow and with the exception of carrots can be found at your local gardening center already started and ready to plant.
Teaching your child to pull out the weeds that can choke out your growing plants is a great lesson in protecting their own growth from things that can hurt them. Depending on the age of the child you can include talks about how drugs or smoking can damage your body in a way such as a weed takes away from the plant that bears fruit.
If you set aside one hour a week to spend with your child in the garden, you will instill a love of nurturing a plant and of continued communication between yourselves.

Get Paid To Recycle

I ran across an article in the paper about a company that gave money incentives to their garbage customers that recycled more. I ran off to the Internet to Google this company and find out if they were in our area. After all who couldn't use a few more dollars in this economy.
 

Recycle Bank  is not available in my town, but it may be in yours. News is they are expanding every day. Bad news for me, they started on the East coast and I am on the West. Good news, they pay you in points to redeem for gift cards to  Starbucks, ACME, Target, Petco, Bed Bath & Beyond and smaller business in your community. The more you recycle the more you get paid. A special monitoring system on your personal recycling can measures how much you have recycled. They don't stop there, shop greener and earn even more points. Choosing greener products for your home will boost your point levels even higher.

Check out the website and put in your request. Maybe soon it will be here so I can use it too. I know it would encourage me to be more conscientious in recycling.

Easter Recipes

Do you need to gain 10 pounds? I didn't think so. I stumbled across this awesome website from Duncan Hines. Full of amazing dessert recipes and baking tips and even a club that will save you money you can't go wrong checking this out. Just looking at this site caused me to gain some weight.

My favorite I found here was their Extreme Fudgy Peanut Butter Brownies.

Ingredients Baking Instructions

* 1 box Duncan Hines® Milk Chocolate Brownie Mix
* 2 large eggs
* 1/4 cup water
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 1 cup milk chocolate chips
* 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
* 3/4 cup peanut butter
* 1/4 cup butter, softened
* 2-4 tablespoons cream
* 1 tub Duncan Hines® Creamy Home-Style Milk Chocolate Frosting

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 13x9 inch baking pan; set aside.
2. Prepare brownie mix as described on box using eggs, water and oil. Fold in 1 cup of milk chocolate chips. Spread evenly into prepared pan.
3. Bake in center of oven for 25 to 28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out almost clean. Place on wire rack.
4. Add peanut butter and butter in a mixing bowl and mix thoroughly until combined and smooth. Note: You will get a much taller filling if you whip this with an electric mixture to incorporate lots of air.
5. Slowly add powdered sugar, mixture will be a bit crumbly.
6. Blend in cream until mixture is fluffy and reaches desired spreading consistency.
7. Spread evenly over warm brownie.
8. Melt Duncan Hines Milk Chocolate Frosting for 30 seconds in the microwave. Stir and put back in for another 10 – 15 second. Pour over peanut butter spread on the brownies. Use a knife to spread the chocolate evenly.
9. Put in refrigerator for an hour to set.
10. Take out and let the brownie sit in room temperature for about 15 minutes before serving.

Ideas for Spending Quality Time With Your Kids

I realize that when I was a child we always sat at the dinner table together. Mom was always working away in the kitchen late in the afternoon. We knew it was time for dad to be home when our mom asked us to set the table. My children today have no idea what setting the table really means. Back in my childhood, setting the table required table clothes, centerpieces, proper table settings, plates and salad bowls. Such a far cry from what I require of my children. We're lucky to get forks all the same size. It's a really good day if they remember the paper napkins plopped down in the middle of the table.

A year ago I got very "susie homemakerish", yes I know that is not a word. I decided that we should teach our children how to set a proper table, and enjoy it. Wow, what an eye opener for all of us. It took us a good hour to prepare the table, put all the food into dishes and find a center piece worthy of the 1940's. All of that preparation and we were done in less then 15 minutes. Another hour to clean up and I wasn't sure I appreciated doing all that work.

One thing I did learn, is that spending time with my children to build those family dinner memories is worth the effort. My table may not be a Better Homes and Garden cover page, but you can bet we will try to bring back dinners together, where we talk and listen and enjoy each other.

Easter Activities with your Family

I got my Family Fun Magazine in the mail the other day. I always love this magazine because it is full of great looking families spending time together doing everything from reading, biking to creating.

With Easter just around the corner, how about checking out their website http://familyfun.go.com/easter/ for some great Easter crafts, games and foods. Spend some time hanging out with your kids this year. Remember it's not about being able to get tons of candy. It's about spring and growth and also a perfect time to share your creations with the neighbors.

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  Easter Desserts Gallery

  Hop to it with this collection of cakes, cupcakes, and other sweet treats that will make the Easter Bunny proud.

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