TGIF-Weekend Reading….

Weekend Reading!

bicycle in snow...maybe not this weekend

My picks for weekend reading after another cold week here in Chicago. The weekend looks like we will get a January thaw, you just might want to get outside or read these posts?

Daphne Brogdon is a blogger, blogger who also does stand-up comedy. She now has a gig on the Food Network, Daphne Dishes. Here is post about some of my conversation with her this week.

 

Today, I had the pleasure of enjoying a conference call with her. She answered questions about how she combines both worlds of blogging and cooking and how she came to the place where she is now with her own show Daphne Dishes on the Food Network.

Friends are precious and good friends are few, at least that has been my experience. What happens when a friend’s spouse dies or their child dies? How does your friendship change?

 

Friends are mostly a source of joy for me but as I get older I am finding that the more joy a friend brings me the more difficult it is when a friendship changes or ends.

Ringing in a New Year after the death of a spouse…how does one move on when the beloved is still inside you? One woman’s perspective:

 

So many of the men I meet on Match — the ones who are widowers, not those who are divorced — are still mourning the love of their life. She, their late wife, the mother of their children and grandmother of their children’s children, laughed at his jokes, travelled the world with him, comforted and warmed his bed at night. Now she is gone, never to return. After a while he feels the pull of the body’s biology and the heart’s longing, as do we all. “She” is not coming back, one must move on, so who else might there be, out there, he wonders, in the world-at-large?

So how does one move on, when the love of your life is gone, be it your husband or wife or another soul mate with whom you shared a life for many years or for several decades? In truth, you don’t move on; the beloved is still inside you. You just make room in your life for a new relationship, internally and externally, grateful to have had what you had, and grateful as well for the opportunity to care romantically for another human being before you “shuffle off this mortal coil.”

 

Here’s to a wonderful, warm weekend! Warm is relative!

TGIF-Weekend Reading….

Weekend Reading!

My picks for weekend reading

After an arctic cold week here in Chicago, I am really glad to see Friday and the weekend roll around, with the sun shining outside my window as I write this post. I am not letting the sun fool me – it is only 7 degrees outside with a below zero windchill of minus 11 degrees! Yikes!

I am going to post a picture that you can use for some meditation or as just a reminder of a more comfortable summer day on the water-my personal happy place!

Weekend

A Day at the Beach…Martha’s Vineyard

 

Seeking women over 50! Do you want to make a big change in 2015? Read this, it might help you with your resolution.

 

Dear Readers,

We’re seeking 15 women age 50 and older who plan to make a radical change in their lives in 2015. Whether your New Year’s resolution is to strike out on your own, reinvigorate your marriage, get healthy — through diet, exercise or something else — start a business, adopt a child, overcome a fear or learn a new skill in 2015, we want to hear from you. The aim is to create an inspiring initiative that reminds us it’s never too late to change your life, pursue your passion, or prioritize personal happiness and wellbeing over traditional definitions

 

How do kids organize and control their world. There is no gray for them, knowing this just might help you understand their behavior.

 

In fact, black-or-white thinking helps kids organize and control their world. As they put things into one of two categories – like or dislike, fun or boring – they make predictions about behaviors and situations. Being able to do this shows they can understand two very different ideas at the same time.

 

How are you going to find social connections as you get older? Do you respect the Virtual Village concept?

 

Then he ran across the idea of virtual retirement villages, whose members pay a yearly fee to gain access to resources and social connections that help them age in place. Sold on the concept, Mr. Cloud joined with some friends to start Capital City Village four years ago.

I hope you all have a warm and wonderful weekend!

Another New Year…Another Chance at Full Catastrophe Living!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year

 

With the advent of a new year comes a new chance to do some of the stuff that I did not get to do last year. 

As a wife, mother, grandmother and blogger, my plate is mostly full. I love it that way.

It seems that as exhausting as my days are, when all is said and done, I enjoy them. This is especially evident when I fall into my bed at night and am asleep almost before my head hits the pillow.

We are lucky to have a full house, which includes myself, my husband and three dogs. With our daughter and granddaughter living nearby, unexpected visits make my day.

I like to think, I live what Zorba the Greek referred to as a “full catastrophe life”!

“Catastrophe here does not mean disaster. Rather it means the poignant enormity of our life experience. It includes crises and disaster but also all the little things that go wrong and that add up. The phrase reminds us that life is always in flux, that everything we think is permanent is actually only temporary and constantly changing. This includes our ideas, our opinions, our relationships, our jobs, our possessions, our creations, our bodies, everything.”

via Spirituality & Practice: Book Excerpt: Full Catastrophe Living, by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

 

To me, life is full of great happinesses alongside its trials and sadnesses, the yin and yang of what makes up all our lives. I am grateful that my days are not permanent or frozen in time.

Although there are definitely wonderful moments I would seriously like to last longer than they do, I know they will not. Another shoe will eventually drop. Always knowing that all moments are fleeting, my camera is never too far from me so I can capture and freeze frame a scene from my personal movie.

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Simply said, I love that every day is new and brings with it the expected and the unexpected. I love that each day has its own uniqueness. It makes me happy to know that when I go to sleep at night, the morning will dawn with a new sunrise and another opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those I love and those I come in contact with that day. My troubles of the past are one day farther away from me each and every morning. A wonderful thing!

Last week, over the New Year, I spent some time in my happy place, which is in Rhode Island. The spectacular views of the sunrises never cease to amaze me and make me smile. The ebb and flow of the tide makes me calm as does watching the ducks on their endless search for fish, along with the seagulls perched on the dock just waiting for a quick snack.

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The holidays are over and life is fast returning to the routine.

I look forward to setting my sails and living the full catastrophe life of the New Year 2015…what about you?

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Twenty Innocent Children…Don’t Forget Them

Have You Hugged Your Children Today?

children

Tonight, I am reminded by my friend and fellow ChicagoNow blogger, Sheila Quirke, aka. Mary Tyler Mom that tomorrow marks two years since the horrific and violent tragedy at Sandy Hook. Twenty innocent children lost their young lives along with their teachers and others at school that day.

I am thinking of their families, their parents, siblings, grandparents and all those who knew and loved these little ones.

It makes me cry.

I can’t even imagine the utter pain that these families have suffered over the past two years and how they will continue to suffer from such a tragic loss.

Nothing is more devastating than the death of a child.

What continues to scare me to the core is the everyday violence that we have almost come to expect when turning on the news. It seems that each day since that violent shooting, there have been more and more gun related deaths.

It breaks my heart when I hear about another child that is an innocent victim of a shooting. Children should be safe in school and in their homes…they should be safe walking to and from their neighborhood school…they should be safe in playgrounds.

But sadly, they are not.

I have been following and supporting the work and progress of Sandy Hook Promise along with reading the shared stories by Daniel Barden’s dad.  Mark Barden writes so beautifully about his son, Daniel, who lost his life that day as a first grader in Newtown.

Mark Barden lovingly writes how Daniel was such a sensitive child especially when it came to the needs of others, I feel like I knew his gorgeous little boy with the beautiful smile.

I keep reading Mark’s emails and his stories, hoping against hope that somehow, some way this nightmare will go away.

It will not.

This is a “living nightmare” for Daniel’s family. However, through his sorrow, Mark and the other members of Sandy Hook Promise are trying to make a difference with their work surrounding gun control.

I support Sandy Hook Promise and I pray that others will support their work too. It will not bring back their little ones but it hopefully will prevent some other families from suffering a similar tragedy caused by someone with a gun.

Sheila has written a post at ChicagoNow that I recommend reading. It is not easy to ponder the events of this horrible day but if we do not remember our past we will be forced to repeat it.

Thank you Sheila for your thoughtful words.

Two years ago tonight, twenty families in Newtown, Connecticut tucked their first graders into bed for the very last time.  These children got on their pajamas, some of them might have bathed, they brushed their teeth, complaining about it, I imagine.  Their moms and dads might have read them books and sung them songs.  And then, for the very last time, they turned out the light and said. “Good night.”

via Read This Before You Tuck Your Children Into Bed Tonight | Mary Tyler Mom.

Holidays and Indulgent Grandparents…

Grandparents and Gifts

grandparents

The holidays are almost here and gifts will be pouring in from relatives to your children especially well meaning grandparents. It can quickly get overwhelming for you as parents and your kids. This is not a good feeling.

What if anything do you do to control the amount and type of gifts your kids receive at Christmas and Hanukah?

Let’s assume that most grandparents are well meaning even though you may think that sometimes they have lost their minds when it comes to gift giving.

grandparents

If it is not too late, try to have a conversation with them about what your children would like for gifts and what actually might be some really great gifts. This is not always a comfortable conversation to have but if you sandwich your points between two positive comments, it can soften the discussion. You might begin a conversation by telling them how helpful they have been recently, being specific and then swing into the gift topic.

Always end discussions like this with another positive thought as it leaves the conversation with an upbeat feeling instead of a decree about how you are raising your children and what grandparents can and cannot give them as gifts. To me, it is a blessing to have a grandchild.

My motto here, is to be kind as you never know what kind of day your family members are dealing with…we all have our difficulties to negotiate each day.

 

TGIF-Some Weekend Reading

TGIF

TGIF

I love reading about the brain and all of the discoveries that have been made since I first began studying to be a nurse at NYU in 1970. At that time, we knew relatively little about the brain compared to the present. With the advent of MRI and the PET scan, we now know much more about the brain’s plasticity, how the brain works and changes as we develop and age.

Read about how “curiosity” affects how we learn…

 

“Curiosity may put the brain in a state that allows it to learn and retain any kind of information, like a vortex that sucks in what you are motivated to learn, and also everything around it“. This means that once the brain is stimulated via curiosity, it is much more effective at learning and memory functions.

 

TGIF

Vaccines are important, as is herd immunity, which has become a news item very recently since the outbreaks of pertussis in some areas of the country.

I believe it is important to understand all the facts about vaccination and community living before you choose to leave your child unprotected and susceptible to a deadly disease which has been under control for so many years.

We now have Ebola on our shores…I am wondering how many people would opt for a vaccination against Ebola if it were available?

And that’s where I feel like it’s legitimate for us to examine what they’re doing around vaccination. Because it is a question of citizenship. That can get forgotten as we get more and more isolationist in the way we approach parenting and families. There’s so much emphasis on making it a perfect world within the home, on making it non-toxic and sealed off from the world and safe in every way. It becomes this bubble we bring up the child within. And the more we bubble ourselves, we let ourselves pretend that we can create an alternate little world in the home. It lets us forget the ways in which we are essentially dependent on the community at large and what we owe the community at large.

 

TGIF

Is parenthood a type of religion? Are you afraid to criticize your own child even if it is “constructive” criticism? How does your own marriage fare compared to your relationship with your children?

All interesting thoughts to consider as we raise our children and grandchildren. How is our culture determining the future of our kids and our marriages. Remember, Amy Chua and her book about being a Tiger Mom? The reaction was fierce…it was a cultural difference.

Have a look at our own culture!

Another sign of the parenthood religion is that it has become totally unacceptable in our culture to say anything bad about our children, let alone admit that we don’t like them all of the time. We are allowed to say bad things about our spouses, our parents, our aunts and uncles, but try saying, “My kid doesn’t have a lot of friends because she’s not a super likable person,” and see how fast you get dropped from the PTA.

This week TGIF is posted late…but I sure hope you read it!

Related posts: https://parentingintheloop.com/2013/01/25/weekend-reading-2/

TGIF…Some Weekend Reading!

TGIF

 

TGIF

Fall Weekend

 

For too many reasons to list, I have been absent from ParentingintheLoop for awhile.

I missed writing and hopefully will be getting back into my routine.

This week there were so many things that caught my eye while looking through parenting posts. Back-to-school is always a time of year that has been a struggle for me. Getting settled into a routine and the shortening of daylight leaves me sometimes anxious for what the winter will bring. I am an optimist but Fall has its sentimental moments which are not always my favorites.

Cooking is my time to relax and lately I have been throwing my efforts into more healthy choices for all three meals of the day especially lunches. I have been drawn to some interesting recipes and since we have a nut allergy in our family that is something that keeps me looking for homemade food choices especially when it comes to snacks.

Here goes some of my choices from this week. TGIF!

I love granola and most are exposed to nuts in the processing or contain nuts so they do not have a place on my kitchen shelves. I haven’t tried this recipe yet, but it looks very promising and a great snack or something to throw in my bag to munch on while running the day’s endless errands.

In case you’ve missed the commercials and advertising that we have been inundated with since mid-July, it’s Back-to-School time! Parents everywhere are reluctantly turning their attention to that universally dreaded task—packing the lunchbox. While I am a well-known proponent of unexciting lunches, I do like to dazzle the children with a variety of homemade treats.

 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I do not and simply cannot make everything from scratch… with my schedule this is impossible . As much as I would love to do scratch cooking there are some shortcuts that I do take. As a grandmother, I have learned to accept my limitations albeit sometimes not so gracefully. Limitation is not something  to which I willingly succumb, being limited makes me feel old but on the other hand I have to be realistic and acknowledge that I cannot do everything. It is better to prioritize what is truly important and let the other things take care of themselves. This post from Yummy Mummy Club Canada made me think about some of the convenience foods that although they sound healthy their ingredient list belies their nourishing label.

See what you think. TGIF.

 

But when I do buy packaged foods—after all, they do come in handy now and again when you’re a busy parent—I rarely read the nutrition facts table. Instead, I skip right to the ingredients list, which is the most important bit of information on the package or box. The shorter the list, the better, and ideally you want to see real food ingredients instead of fillers, stabilizers, and additives.

 

One of my favorite cook books Homemade With Love is from Jennifer Perillo. She is an exceptional scratch cook and I love her recipes. A few years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting her and actually enjoying a luncheon she prepared at her hotel her in Chicago. I credit Jennie with bringing me back into the kitchen after being an empty nester for several years. If she could prepare such a lovely lunch in a hotel room kitchen I should be able to return to my kitchen easily with her cookbook in my hands.

Jennifer just announced yesterday that her first issue of Simple Scratch Cooking : A Homecook’s Journal for Making Easy, Everyday Meals will be out in October. I am beyond excited to receive my copy soon…in time for the winter when I find the most comfort in cooking a lovely meal at dinner time. TGIF

 

I’m leaping, and my heart is beating out of my chest as I do so. Finally taking a little control of my professional destiny with this project. So, here it goes…
The first issue of Simple Scratch Cooking: A Homecook’s Journal for Making Easy, Everyday Meals is available for preorder. If you believe in me, and my work, please share with everyone you know. I’m offering a 10% special discount for orders placed by 10/15/14 (use code SSC1015 at checkout). I plan to spend what would’ve been our 10th wedding anniversary on 10/16 packing, and shipping, the inaugural issue.
http://injennieskitchen.storenvy.com/products/9951769-simple-scratch-cooking-a-homecooks-journal-for-making-easy-everyday-meals

 

Here’s to a wonderful weekend. TGIF everyone!

 

“Up and Away” for Grandparents

Are you an Up and Away Grandparent?

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Becoming a grandparent has been the greatest highlight of my life.

I always knew the grandparent-grandchild relationship was a powerful and special one, from my own close relationship with my maternal grandmother.

grandmother and granddaughter

She and I were very attached, in fact, my mother, brother and I lived with her.
As I recall, she was very careful to explain to me that I must always ask before I ate anything, whether it was candy from her special candy bowl, cookies from the cookie jar or food from the fridge. I learned her rule early on and knew, most times she gave her permission for treats if I simply asked her. Hers was a simple rule. I guess it made me realize that I mustn’t eat things unless I asked first.

In the 50’s when I was growing up, medicine containers did not have special lock caps on them, children’s medicine always tasted like some sort of candy and adult pills looked like M&Ms. Except for today’s lid lock containers not much has changed.

As I recall, in my childhood home alll medications were kept very high up on a shelf so I could not reach them. When I had my own kids I kept the same habit of putting bottles up high, I took care to refrigerate medication on the highest shelf in the back of the fridge, as inaccessible as possible.

During my work as a pediatric nurse, I had personally seen what improper use of medications could do to both adults and children.  So even aspirin was off limits to my teenagers since there is a connection to aspirin and a potentially life threatening illness known as Reye’s Syndrome.

Today, I guess you would call me a helicopter grandparent when it comes to medications in my home where my grandchild is a frequent visitor. She spends time with us and has her own room so she feels very comfortable going to cabinets, getting snacks and raiding the refrigerator at 6 years of age.

Just as any good grandparent, I worry about her safety. You see, she has a nut allergy as well. So at a very young age, she was made aware of her need to stay away from any and all nuts.

As a nurse, I am a consistent medication label reader and with a nut allergy in our home, I now had to carefully read food labels as well. To be on the safe side, I choose not to buy food items that are exposed to nuts in their processing so I do not have to worry about nut exposure from contamination.

For many “older adults” medications are a fact of life. Some of us take medication on a daily basis so it becomes imperative for these medicines and other over the counter medications to be stored “up and away” from “little hands” and curious “little fingers”.

Up and Away

It is my honor to have been included in the Up and Away program to help grandparents like myself keep grandkids safe and healthy all year long.

 

UpdatedSafeStorage_UpAway_Infographic

Up and Away recognizes these important facts about grandparents and grandchildren:

  • 5.4 million kids of today are being raised in households headed by grandparents.
  • 1 in 8 grandparents in this country provide care to a grandchild on a regular basis according to SafeKids Worldwide

Our goal as parents and grandparents is raising a happy and healthy child. This can be challenging through all the developmental stages of childhood. Toddlers pose a special concern as the notoriously possess a need to explore their environment.

Facts to be aware of:

  • Each day 4 bus loads of kids are taken to the ER for accidental medicine ingestion.
  • Annually that is 60,000 kids, who have ingested medicines that belong to parents (39% of the time) or grandparents (38% of the time).

Education is a key factor in the prevention of accidental medicine ingestion by children. Do not leave grandparents out when it comes to baby proofing or child proofing homes and remember it is more than electrical outlets that should be of concern.

A Grandparent checklist priority should include:

  • Storage of all medicines and vitamins “up and away” and out of sight when young grandchildren are around. I would include all children including teenagers as well.
  • Keep purses, bags, and coats that contain medicines or vitamins out of reach and sight..
  • Never leave medicines or vitamins out on a table, countertop or sink.
  • Always make sure that caps are tightly locked and medicines put away after every use.
  • Weekly pill reminder kits usually do not come with locked tops so these are of particular concern. They must be stored out of reach.
  • It is a good idea for grandparents to set a reminder to take medications, since the  pills will be safely out of sight and therefore perhaps out of mind.
  • Program the national Poison Help number 1-800-222-1222 into your phone and post it in your home in case of an emergency.

Grandparent to do list:

  • Take inventory before babysitting or traveling to a grandchild’s house or before grandchildren visit your home.
  • Share Up and Away‘s grandparents’ medicine storage tip sheet with readers and friends.

Grandparents and parents who are reading this blog post, it is meant to be shared.

This is grandparenting in the digital age.

We are so fortunate to be able to educate each other through e-mail and social media. I know personally, I have learned a tremendous amount from my online virtual friends, some  are professionals in healthcare and child growth and development, others are moms, who are not afraid to share personal experiences in order to make the world a little safer for each and every child.

Please join me and…

Log in to Up and Away and Take the Pledge – ask your friends to do the same.

You may save a life!

 

 

Disclaimer : Up and Away is an educational program to remind families of the importance of safe medicine storage. It is an initiative of the PROTECT Initiative, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Consumer Healthcare Products Association Educational Foundation. I am being compensated for this blog post but my opinions are all my own.

Do Maternal Grandparents Have it Better?

Since I wrote this post my feelings about maternal grandparents have not changed much.

I am really interested in what others think… especially, moms, dads, grandmoms and granddads, themselves.

Grandparents

 

Do maternal grandparents have it better…maybe, is all I have to say.

It truly depends on the relationship that a mom has with her daughter. If the relationship with your daughter is marginal then I believe the relationship with your grandchildren has a greater chance of being marginal. As a grandmother, you will have to make more of an effort at your relationship with your grandchildren as well.

Relationships are work…grandparent-grandchild relationships are no different in many ways than relationships with other relatives or friends.

Grandchildren should not, in my belief, have to “kowtow” to their grandparents. I have said this in other posts.

To me, it is nice to have grandchildren who respect you, but if you want to have them visit, call or talk to you, then you will have to be the engager.

Sorry to say, but I remember being really bored by my paternal grandparents…even though I loved them dearly…they just were not fun and to top it off, most of the time they spoke Italian which I did not understand. I remember thinking this, was kind of rude.

Since my parents were divorced, my paternal grandparents were visited only on weekends with my dad. It was kind of an obligation of his and he brought me along for the ride.

Since I lived with my maternal grandmother, I loved her like she was my mother and sometimes, she was my “stand in” mother. She taught me to cook and do things around the house like ironing and making hospital corners on the beds. All girls need to know these things…Right?

Divorce or any rupture in a family does nothing to enhance the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. Of course, it does depend upon the age at which the rupture takes place and to how extensive is the animosity between father, mother and family members.

In these situations, grandparents may find it difficult for various reasons to remain in contact with their grandchildren, because of loyalty to their child, conflict with daughter-in-law or son-in-law and the trickle down effect that all of this has on the grandchild.

Even if there is a seemingly amicable situation, there will be unspoken feelings that a child may sense, which will interfere with a developing relationship between them and their grandparents. Grandma and grandpa will have their work cut out for them in this family scenario. But hopefully the work will be worth it in the end.

Being a grandparent is the best thing that has happened to me. I cannot imagine any thing better. Being a mom was great and yes, I definitely had more energy but not more wisdom or patience…those I have acquired with age and life experience. For me, being the maternal grandmother has been a perk because I had and still have a good relationship with my daughter.

Do I have to walk on egg shells?… sometimes, certainly… will my relationship with my grandchild continue to be as wonderful as it currently is…well that will depend on me now won’t it?

 

Do maternal grandparents have it better?
Posted on October 8, 2012
Like I said: Its complicated.

via Do Maternal Grandmothers Really Have It Better? – Grandparents.com.

Related posts:

https://parentingintheloop.com/2012/07/25/grandmothers-discuss-among-yourselves/
https://parentingintheloop.com/2012/07/26/grandparents-in-the-loop/

Commentary: July 2014

Grandparents when it comes to you, there are boundaries just as in any relationship . If these boundaries were not established with your own children first, you may have a hard time establishing them with in-laws and even with your own grandchildren.

 

There is no entitlement that goes with the status of grandparent…just like every other role in life it must be earned. Your place in the family genogram or family tree is fixed but your role is not…

 

I would like to go back to Jackie Kennedy for a moment…she said, “if you bungle raising your children, nothing else matters much.”

 

So grandparents, if your relationship is not what you would like it to be with your grandchildren …. maybe you need to look at your relationship with your own children and see if you did “bungle” somewhere. Then look at the relationship with your grandchildren’s parents.

 

Remember, it is not about you and what you want, it is about your grandchildren and their parents.

 

Life is not easy…

 

 

My Weekly Review

Weekly Review

week in review

Each week, so many interesting reads come across my feed that I want to share. It is truly impossibly difficult to sometimes choose which ones to include here.

Right now, my day in brief review so far, I am in the midst of doing laundry and there are six minutes left in the last cycle so, here I am blogging.

I have managed to complete some morning chores, making beds, straightening up, grocery shopping and dish doing along with some phone calls while driving.

This week, the news has been horrible particularly the last 24 hours. A commercial jet blown out of the air without warning is a horrendous tragedy for the world and especially for the family and friends of those killed while simply flying from Amsterdam to Malaysia.

Washing machine has stopped…gotta go…temporarily No iron shirts in the dryer.

How do you answer your grandchildren and children’s questions about things they are hearing on television concerning various tragic stories and serious world events. The Mother Company offers some suggestions:

 

Many of us keep the news away from our young children, though those with family and friends directly affected by tragic events don’t have that luxury.   None of us want our children to live in fear, but we know they need to be prepared and have some understanding of how the world works.

 

Are we experiencing a modern parenting crisis? A British nanny believes that we are and she suggests 5 reasons for the cause of this crisis.

I generally am quite an optimistic person. I tend to believe that everything will work out for the best unless the evidence is overwhelmingly to the contrary, and anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not prone to drama. That’s why when I say that modern parenting is in serious trouble — crisis, even — I hope you’ll listen, and listen carefully. I’ve worked with children and their parents across two continents and two decades, and what I’ve seen in recent years alarms me. Here are the greatest problems, as I see them:

 

Wrinkle Guard is warning me…gotta get those shirts out and on hangers.

 

After reading Emma Jenner’s 5 Causes of the Modern Parenting Crisis, I wrote a response on Today’s Grandmum over at ChicagoNow

The parent-child relationship is so much more complicated than it looks. The five reasons that the British nanny discusses are just part of what goes into raising children.

5 Reasons Modern-Day Parenting Is in Crisis | Today’s Grandmum.

 

These are my top three selections for review this week.

There are many more fascinating family, parenting, kids, and food articles to name just a few topics that I enjoy. It seems I cannot get enough time to read all of them

I hope that you get a chance to click on at least one review, if not all and you enjoy reading them.

What are some topics that you love to read about on the internet?

Each week, I will try and select some good articles that relate to parenting, kids and various other topics.

Look for “My Weekly Review” each Friday!