The Robi Comb – Amazed And Stunned
Sep 15 2011

I get many people asking me to blog about their products.  Some even offer to pay me.  Most of the requests I ignore as I don’t feel the products are relevant or I don’t have much to say about them.  But when the PR guy for the Robi Comb reached out to me, it piqued my interest.  My kids got head lice for the first time last Spring and it was icky, tiring and awful.  It seems like more than half the kids in the school got them.  We did environmentally friendly, non-toxic treatments that took 4 hours and they had to sit around in caps until late into the night (i.e. past their bed times and past mom’s patience).  Then my son got them again in summer camp.  I was less mortified but still very annoyed.  I remember getting them as a kid when I went to visit Sri Lanka and the stuff they put on our heads was kind of like kerosine.  This is America, not a third world country, so as any American full time working mother would do, I freaked.  The non-toxic treatment stuff they have these days smells like a caramel frappacino.  I was tempted to make my kids smell something nasty so they could experience the same need to run around outside without stopping until the treatment was done, but I let them enjoy the smell of eucalyptus spray and coffee smelling gunk.

They sent me the following write-up (in italics below) and a free Robi Comb.  I was hoping that I’d never have to use it as certainly my kids were done with that craziness, but lo and behold, it happened again recently.  After asking my son who the heck he was hanging out with (because my daughter escaped them) and they take a bath every day, I used the Robi Comb on him.  It had been sitting on the counter for several weeks and they were curious about it. My son said his head was itchy and I figure he just wanted to use the comb so he was making it up.  I told him that he simply could not have head lice again.  My daughter and I looked in his hair fairly thoroughly with a flashlight and saw pretty much nothing.  Even the things we thought could be nits weren’t.  He has brown hair so it’s easy to see nits and I figured I’d see any stupid lice crawling around.  At his head scratching insistence, I used the comb and I was shocked to discover it found 7 lice.  I swear I saw nothing and everything in my being did not want to believe him when he said he thought he had lice. I guess it was a good thing I listen to my kids most of the time because after running it through his hair several times and changing the sheets, he can go to school without a 4 hour treatment followed up by multiple combings and daily hair spray-ings because 7 lice do not constitute an infestation.  But I decided to use the Robi Comb for a few days just in case and no more were found.  I still sprayed his head with eucalyptus spray and made him use lice shampoo to repel them.  I was impressed with how easy it was to use and how quickly it found them!

As back to school time approaches, so does the head lice boom. Lice, the ultimate creepy crawler, will find its way onto millions of children’s heads this fall. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that an estimated 6 million to 12 million infestations occur each year among children 3 to 11 years of age. However, with the recent increase in head lice breakouts this past year, it’s imperative that all parents be prepared to tackle this common nuisance. This increase has even prompted the American Academy of Pediatrics to amend their “No Nits” policy regarding withholding children from public schools who might still have nits, otherwise known as head lice eggs, present on their scalp. The amended policy says that children with nits do not necessarily pose a risk to the rest of the schools population.

This amended policy has many parents nationwide scratching their head, as they do not want to put their children in any “unnecessary” risk by sending them to schools recently affected by an infestation. As evident by this policy’s amendment, head lice is not so much of a health or hygiene issue; however the way these pests are commonly treated is of greater concern. In the past, the only way to effectively treat head lice was with dangerous toxic shampoos, chemicals, gels or oils; many of which use Pyrethrum or Permethrin, the same pesticides found in household bug killers. Today more than ever, there is a growing concern of the health effects of putting toxins and chemicals such as these on a developing child’s head and the negative long term effects these poisons may have. Aside from being toxic, many of these “traditional” treatments have also been widely reported to not even work, as the lice, in most cases, have built up a resistance to the pesticides used rendering them essentially useless.

In the event your child brings home more than just homework this school year, the Robi Comb from LiceGuard is an ideal product for ridding their scalp of lice without the use of harmful chemicals. The Robi Comb is a non-invasive electronic lice comb powered by a single AA battery that detects and destroys lice on contact simply by combing it through dry hair. When the Robi Comb’s metal teeth touch lice, the lice get zapped, die and then get combed away. Unlike chemical treatments, the Robi Comb can be used as often as you like and can be used repeatedly by the entire family. The Robi Comb lets you know by an audible signal whether or not head lice are present, so it can be used to detect an infestation as well as treat it. In fact, many school nurses are now using the Robi Comb for exactly that reason. School nurses report that Robi Comb is able to find lice which they have missed when checking visually. More than 3,000 school districts in all 50 states are now currently using the Robi Comb. This innovative product is available for purchase for $29.99 at major retailers such as Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid, as well as thousands of local pharmacies across the nation.

September 11, 2011
Sep 11 2011

Ten years have passed since that fateful day in New York City.  Many people have been born and many have died.  The 9/11/01 smashing of the World Trade Centers and attack on the American way of life is being talked about and shown on most news networks.  Today is 9/11/11 and so much has changed in the last ten years and yet so much is still the same.  When it happened, I had just been married 5 1/2 months and didn’t know I would be pregnant with my son a couple of months later.  I did a post back in May 2011 when the Navy SEALs killed Osama Bin Laden.

A decade.  A marriage.  Two kids.  A new school.   A family implosion/disruption.  A few jobs.  Money in.  Money out.  Baby teeth in.  Baby teeth out.  Love.  Loss.  Understanding.  Misunderstanding.  Tears.  Anger.  Fears.  Laughter.  Confusion.  Joy.  Pain.  Sadness.  Health.  Sickness.  Awakening.  Words.  Songs.

I wish you and your family lots of Love and Laughter for the next 10 years and beyond.  I think if those who orchestrated and conducted the attacks 1o years ago had more true Love and Laughter and less Sadness, Confusion, and Anger, we might not be celebrating the anniversary of such a horrible day.  I wonder, though, if we as a nation, species, and world have truly woken up yet.

Should You Let Your Son Build Legos At The Breakfast Table?
Aug 23 2011

My son got a Lego City Helicopter Transporter (Amazon) set for his birthday, and he really got into building it this past weekend.  He was so engrossed that he brought all the little pieces to the breakfast table one morning.  I told him to wait until we finished breakfast, but he said he simply couldn’t and that he had to finish building this one little section.  He got his sister to help him bring all the little pieces from the couch, where he was working on it, to the table.  I wasn’t sure what to do.  On one hand, he listened to me and came to eat breakfast when I asked him to, on the other hand he didn’t buy into my statements that he might spill milk on them.  His response was that he would be very careful and not spill milk on them.

I wondered if I should let him do it since we usually eat breakfast pretty quickly and that morning we were having cereal.  So after a few times of me telling him to wait, his excitement and focus on building the helicopter & truck, me rationalizing that he’s not going to be doing that when he’s 19 (well who knows what he’ll be doing or eating in college), and finally wondering if this wishy washiness on my part was going to do long term damage to him, me or his sister, I just let him do it.  It was all over in 10-15 minutes.  His sister was conspiring by handing him extremely tiny Lego pieces as if he was a surgeon and she his assistant because I think she was a bit curious to see if he would get milk on his tiny (did I mention how small they are and how easily they could drop into a cereal bowl?) Lego pieces (as was I). I secretly wished he might so I could tell him “I told you so,” but at the same time I wished harder that he wouldn’t so he could feel justified in his stand.  No pieces got lost and none got milk on them and both he and his sister were pleased they finished building it.  That poor lucky boy…he’s going to be one of the few who gets the best of his momma…or sends her to the funny farm. 🙂

Back To School – 2011
Aug 21 2011

Here in extremely hot Austin, Texas pretty much all kids go back to school next week.  I’m a founding parent of the Magellan International School (MIS), where my kids go, and they are excited to see all of their friends.  The school has more than tripled in size since starting 2 years ago.  They are even opening a new location to accommodate the growth!  It really is amazing what the team has accomplished in such a short time.

My kids have been going to summer camp at the Y for most of the summer except for 3 weeks when they went to MIS summer camp and a couple of weeks of vacation with family. I’m glad they go to different summer camps and meet different types of people with various backgrounds.  They learned a bunch of new hand games (e.g., older kid versions of patty cake).  According to my daughter, mostly the girls play those games at the camp.  It’s so funny for me to see my kids (boy and a girl) playing those games together at the house or reaching across the table at a restaurant.  It brings back memories of when I used to know those games but now I can’t remember even one of those rhymes because the ones they do are completely different than the ones I knew.  The one they were doing today had something to do with grandma losing her hair and the words “And that’s the way I like it. Uh huh. Uh huh.”  But it keeps them preoccupied and laughing so that works for me.

I often wonder how they will look back on this time in their life and how what I do or don’t do will positively or negatively effect them.  I think as parents if we thought about that too deeply, we’d freak out.  I think of how my parents played a big role in my life whether they were paying attention or not, but at the same time my friends seemed to play an even bigger role at the time.  Right now, I can’t remember many of the kids I played with when I was their ages.  The few I do remember, I have no idea where they are or what they are doing but I know they had an effect on me at the time.

So now they go start another school year, see old friends and make new ones.  I wonder if when they are my age they will still be friends or at least know how to get in touch with the friends they are making in school right now.  Who knows!  Our kids were born knowing about facebook so maybe they will be.

Life Is Like a Box of Chocolates
Aug 7 2011

Hot Chocolate

OK, so we’ve all (well most of us) have watched Forest Gump and can appreciate the title of this post: Life Is Like A Box of Chocolates.  Although we know we will often bite into a chocolate with something we don’t like inside, we still seem to be taken by surprise if we don’t get what we expected.  Thank goodness for chocolate maps/legends in real boxes of chocolates!  I got some Lindt dark chocolate with orange flavor yesterday and was disappointed to discover it had almond slivers in it when I bit into it after dinner.  My kids didn’t care for it either.  I like nuts and I like chocolate but just not together.  I recall Cadbury used to make a chocolate with orange flavor without nuts (or maybe I blocked the nuts from my memory) that I used to enjoy but I could only find it in England or Sri Lanka.  I’ll tolerate a Snickers bar occasionally and I do like Reesus peanut butter cups, but I don’t like peanuts mixed with my chocolate.

I’ve lived an interesting life and sometimes I’ve had to tolerate the nuts in the chocolate of life.  In the past, the flavor of those “nuts” has annoyed me so much that I had a hard time enjoying the chocolate.  I’ve been known to spit out actual chocolate or brownies with nuts.  I think with age and possibly loss of brain cells and taste buds, I’ve come to better appreciate the chocolate flavor in between the nuts and have done a better job of picking chocolates with fewer nuts inside.  In real life, it’s virtually impossible to avoid nuts all together.  However, in the grocery store it’s easier to find chocolate without nuts if you are paying attention and don’t have young kids demanding your attention such that you don’t have the time to read the fine print!

I have recently made a choice to pick a new chocolate from the box of life and it looks pretty and oh so delicious.  I’m a realist so I know that when I bite into that gorgeous looking chocolate that I might happen upon some nuts.  I’m anticipating a lot of gooey, yummy caramel inside and when I bite on the inevitable nuts, hopefully they will be tolerable, I can spit them out without anyone noticing, or simply avoid them… 🙂

Biting into this chocolate can quite possibly allow me to help change the world….

Time Keeps On Slipping…
Jul 26 2011

Where does it go? Time Keeps On Slipping Into the Future… (you tube).  So much going on but so little time to write about it.  My daughter lost her first tooth when she was almost a year older than when my son lost his and the tooth fairy came to visit.  I know this because I did a blog post about it and if I hadn’t, I’m not sure I would have remembered when he lost it.  Thank goodness for blogging!  She was in Mexico when it happened visiting her cousins and apparently instead of a tooth fairy, the tooth mouse visits and she got pesos instead.

Check out Beat the Heat Happy Hour – July 20 and Sales & Business Development Lunch & Learn – July 13, 2011 for posts written by the Austin Technology Incubator marketing intern, Kirsten Frazee, on two recent events I coordinated for our member companies.

Check out our highly non-publicized facebook page called Metaphor Mania for info on our songwriting endeavors that are moving at the snail like pace of the silvery, slimy trail in between our busy lives.

The kids are in summer camp with varying degrees of happiness depending on the day and if there is a cool field trip involved.  They are learning social survival skills, and I’m learning skills on how not to worry when I leave my daughter in a room full of unknown kids with teenage camp counselors.

Hopefully in the next few weeks, I can blog about another shift in my life…a very good one

Until then, I’ll be breathing deeply and trying not to drink too much red wine.

A Mile In Her Shoes
Jul 6 2011

What is it about kids wanting to wear their parents shoes?  It’s so adorable and funny at the same time.  My 6 year old daughter likes to wear my shoes and walk around the house.  She tells me, “I only have this much more to grow to fit into them, mommy.”  I tell her that it will take some time, but she just measures the difference with her fingers and says “No, it’s only this much.”  She does not understand that inches in foot size usually take years to achieve.  Sometimes my son gets silly and joins her and puts my shoes on too…mostly my flip flops.

I love her exuberance and excitement about wearing my shoes.  I don’t mind that she wears them mostly because my shoes aren’t that expensive.  Thank goodness for DSW!  I’m not a big shopper, but I like shoes.  In the winter time, my long boots take up most of her body!

If only it were so easy to walk a mile in another person’s shoes.  In my last post I wrote a little about what I think great leadership is about and I think the ability to proverbially walk a mile in another person’s shoes and put yourself in their place for a moment is a key ability for effective leaders.  Whether someone is a CEO or the janitor, they are still a person with passions, needs, fears, desires, and emotions.  When you can put yourself in someone else’s shoes (a.k.a., being empathetic), in my opinion, you can be there for them and help guide them in a way that’s most helpful to them and ultimately to your organization.  If you don’t stop to consider what they might need from time to time and help them get it, you will get less than their top performance at work.  This seems to hold true for personal relationships as well.

So the next time you don’t understand someone’s reaction or you wonder why they aren’t behaving like they should, take a moment and imagine yourself walking a mile in her shoes…

Time Flies When You Are On Vacation
Jun 21 2011

The kids and I just got back from a great vacation visiting family and friends.  Of course when you go on a vacation with little kids, you need a vacation from your vacation.  However, multiple flights and activities later, we all felt it was worth it.

There is so much to blog about that’s going on in the world of business, parenting, technology start-ups that I wish I had more time in the day to write about all of them.  But getting the kids settled into the summer camp schedule has been the priority since we got back.  So far so good since their camp has tons of sports, swimming, and creative activities to keep them busy all day.  Plus, I’m starting to wonder if the transference of knowledge from my brain to my fingers has slowed down a bit.  I think it has something to do with the record 100+ degree heat here in Austin!  This past week it got up to 105 degrees, which really should be heat you only read about in science fiction, but yet here it is.

Stay cool everyone…

Teaching Your Kids the Science of the Search Engine Search
May 17 2011

Following is a guest post by Taylor Laurents, a twenty something freelance writer from Lincoln, NE. She was bitten early by the entrepreneurial bug, selling Girl Scout cookies like many young girls, and hopes one day to run her own business and be her own boss.

Teaching Your Kids the Science of the Search Engine Search

It sounds like probably the most boring subject you could mention to your child, but perhaps nothing more vital to their well being is so easily bypassed during dinner table discussion than lessons on how to initiate a productive search for something on the Internet.

Think about it – we teach our kids to grasp other forms of information location: alphabetically, by way of reference, through the Dewey Decimal System, et cetera. But when it comes to how to use search engines effectively, undoubtedly the tool our children will be utilizing the most to get information, we seem to be in a kind of disinterested time warp, not nearly as focused on making sure our kids know how to execute proper research on the Internet. This is a generational gulf that needs to be crossed.

Children who use the Internet to garner information who don’t know how search engine optimization works, and we’re just talking the basic understanding of it, are at risk for falling for the deceitful tactics many online enterprises use to perpetuate desired information. For instance if your child wanted to do a research paper on the fat content of McDonalds hamburgers versus home made and wasn’t aware that typing “McDonalds fat content” would bring up McDonalds-sponsored websites, they could be easily manipulated into submitting a paper with inaccurate information, and worse carrying that inaccurate information in their head for the rest of their lives.

The business behind search engine results is really not that difficult to get across to the mind of a child. If your kid can grasp how your own small business works then the moneymaking methods of search engines shouldn’t be hard. If you have a problem relating the issue to your child though, try and focus their intention on the power of “number one”: Number one in line gets lunch first, picks the first playground toy, et cetera. If they can understand why a company would view being in first place on a search engine as a top priority, they’ll begin to understand.

The information that encompasses all of human knowledge is one day, if not already, going to be accessed exclusively through the Internet. “Don’t be evil” is the self-guiding model of search engine ethics, but more times than not it’s the good intentions by companies trying to be found that leads to the propagation of disinformation, which can easily find its way into the heads of our kids if we don’t give them a heads up first.

Note: I was compensated to review, edit and post this article.

Random Watering and Benign Neglect
Mar 21 2011

I mentioned in my Parenting Epiphany #1 post, which surprisingly got more comments than I expected given comments on my blog have declined since my decline in posting frequency, that I would post about my plant growing epiphany.  I have house plants that are fairly old in dog years.  An 18+ year old ivy that has survived 4 moves.  A 14+ year old ficus that has survived 2 moves.  A 6 year old palm.  An almost 10 year old bamboo plant.  All are green (non-flowering) plants.  I usually accidentally kill the few flowering indoor plants I’ve received.

So here it is: I randomly water them and I benignly neglect them.  I was telling someone my theory behind plant growing success and he told me that most plants die from over watering so I guess there is some credence to my plant growing insight.  I figure in the outside world, they never know when they will get water and people/animals don’t pay much attention to them except when they are eating them.  So my busy, hectic schedule actually plays in favor for the plants.  Somehow, I always seem to know or sense when they need water but I’m one of those people who sort of believes in the connectedness of things so maybe they send their vibes out to me so my brain triggers a thought that says something like “Darn, I need to water those plant things again.”

It’s a good thing we don’t have any pets because I’m pretty sure I could not apply the same method to them. 🙂  I mostly try to do the opposite with my kids.  I try not to over water (i.e., over parent) them but sometimes I do ignore them so they can figure out stuff on their own and so I can get things done.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Mar 20 2011

My best friend of 23 years is an English professor.  We met during my first day in the dorm before starting my freshman year in college.  I was a business major who didn’t know much about English other than writing seemed to come easily for me even at a young age.  I can trace my interest in creative writing back to a 5th grade teacher I had the first year I moved to Lubbock, Texas.  I would make A’s and A+’s on my English papers in high school for creativity but practically fail grammar until my freshman year in college when grammar all of a sudden made sense to me.  Or maybe I should say I quit trying to make sense of grammar and accepted it for what it was. My best friend is a grammar guru and maybe the combination of taking freshman English and typing her papers for her, because I typed faster than she did, somehow helped me get the practice I needed to improve my grammar and punctuation.

Our professional worlds rarely collide, but when I’m facing a situation personally or professionally, she often has a reference to literature (sadly, my knowledge of great literature is not deep or wide given my business degrees) to help me try to make sense of what is happening.  Fiction is fiction but as a writer I have come to appreciate that really good fiction is based often times quite heavily on the author’s direct experience or observation of others.  A book that my friend suggested I read a while back when I was going through my personal family transition is called The Awakening by Kate Chopin (wikipedia) [The Awakening (Norton Critical Editions) – Amazon link], but she didn’t think it wise for me to read it while in the middle of my turmoil since the main character kills herself and she was concerned about me.  Not that I ever had suicidal tendencies, but it was probably wise I wait to read it because I’ve come to realize that the state of being one is in when they read certain words has a huge impact on how they receive and interpret those words.  So I read it this weekend.

The book was banished for decades after Kate Chopin wrote it in 1899 for it’s scandalous depiction of Edna, a married woman with two young boys, and her behavior.  I find it scandalous even today given her dramatic moves, an affair with not one but two men (one physical, one emotional), feeling no remorse, shame or guilt, and then killing herself when she can’t be with the man she loves thereby leaving behind two young children.  But it was back in the late 1800’s, when most women had no means to support themselves and they had to remain in situations they did not want to be in. The man also loves her but knows he can’t be with her because of the rules of their society and withdraws himself from her life. Since Edna is not able to pursue other opportunities or escape her current life, she resorts to killing herself (you’ll have to read the book to see how she does it) rather than live in a despondent world “without the vibrant colors of love.”

The main character, Edna, was 28 going on 29 when she began the awakening process.  I was 38 going on 39 when I started to realize I was waking up to a different perception of myself and the world around me.  I remember words I read in an email, I remember my response, I remember the place, the person, the drink, the conversation, the expression, a twinge that when placed together triggered a shift in my being that resulted in my songwriting, journaling, poem writing, emotion laden emails to co-workers, family and friends (i.e., gushes from my writer’s soul that had been behind an enormous dam for a long time).  I sought understanding through courses like Landmark (Transformation in Process and Who I Was Being Was Not Exactly Who I Am) and Search Within that both guided the participant to live an authentic life and not what Henry David Thoreau writes in Walden – “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”  That was a quote my best friend reminded me of this past weekend.  I couldn’t go to the grave with the song still in me, and I hope I don’t die (mostly for my children’s sake) before I release the songs based on my lyrics that I’ve been working on with my songwriting partner.  I also hope I don’t die before I find what some people call their soul mate so I can sing him my song, and he’ll understand it just as I will understand his song.

Here are some interesting quotes from the book written by an author who was 32 years old, widowed with 6 kids:

“In short, Mrs. Pontellier [Edna] was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relation as an individual to the world within and about her.  This may seem like a ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul of a young woman of twenty-eight –perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased to vouchsafe to any woman.” p. 17

“She [Edna] is not one of us; she is not like us.  She might make the unfortunate blunder of taking you seriously.” [This was said by Edna’s friend to the man, known to Edna’s husband, who eventually became the object of her love.  Edna was not Creole but apparently it was common for young, unmarried men to cater to the needs of married women and flirt with them in that society.]

“Edna began to feel like one who awakens gradually out of a dream, a delicious, grotesque, impossible dream, to feel again the realities pressing into her soul.” p. 41

“He [the doctor] observed his hostess attentively from under his shaggy brows, and noted a subtle change which had transformed her from the listless woman he had known into a being who, for the moment, seemed palpitant with the forces of life.  Her speech was warm and energetic.  There was no repression in her glance or gesture.  She reminded him of some beautiful, sleek animal waking up in the sun.” p. 92

“Yes,” she [Edna] said.  “The years that are gone seem like dreams — if one might go on sleeping and dreaming — but to wake up and find–oh! well! perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one’s life.” p. 147

How to Raise Young Entrepreneurs: Teaching Tips for Parents
Mar 17 2011

The following is a guest post by Alexis Posharo. Alexis is a stay at home mom, freelance writer and representative for Home Security where she writes about security cameras, wireless systems, and other methods to keep your family safe and sound.

As you read about and experience the current economic crisis, it’s hard not to worry about the future and what your children will be able to do with it. Some analysts say that our country’s economy is suffering from a “creativity crisis” – the absence of new, marketable ideas and products. Wall Street needs a breath of fresh air. Will your child be the one to provide it?

If your child is old enough to be in school, he or she is old enough to start learning how to be a successful entrepreneur. Teaching your child how to implement good business skills and creativity will be immeasurably helpful in the future, where these skills will be valuable resources. Of course, not all children will be interested in entrepreneurship, but giving your child the opportunity to discover the world of business early in life is a wise and lasting gift.

You don’t have to know everything about entrepreneurship in order to teach your child the basics. Starting a business requires an individual investment in the process of figuring out the best way to do things for a specific idea. You can provide the tools to do this, but it will be up to your child to do the rest. The following tips will help you stock your child’s entrepreneurship toolbox with valuable skills that will be applicable in the world of business and beyond.

Earning Allowances: How to Use a Chore Chart

If you want to teach your child the reality of personal finance, it’s a good idea to require him or her to earn an allowance rather than simply giving it out each week. To do this, you can set up a chore chart by date with the specific work involved in each chore, the amount you’re willing to pay, and a blank for your child’s initials. For example, next to the date column, you might write “empty the dishwasher” with “compensation” at $0.50. If you have more than one child, this is likely to incite competition – but that’s a part of entrepreneurship.

When your child works for his or her allowance, it’s more likely that he or she will develop good personal finance skills, which are essential to learn before embarking on entrepreneurial efforts. Your child might start comparison shopping without even understanding the concept, simply because it makes money go further. This kind of self-discovery is one of the best ways to learn what it means to be an entrepreneur.

Playing Disney’s “Hot Shot Business” Game

In this online game, you can help your child learn the basics of entrepreneurship. The premise is that when a comic book company leaves town, the local kids are worried that jobs will be lost. They’re eager to solve the problem, but are unsure what they should do – until you come onto the scene. Your first decision is to either start a comic book business to replace the first company or to start another business that would utilize the same resources and keep the same jobs filled. The game is entertaining for kids and it causes them to ask questions, think about potential solutions, and make decisions based on their own knowledge of the situation and predictions. It’s a great way to teach your child how to think like an entrepreneur at a young age.

Playing the “Just for Clicks” Business Game: Online & Offline

The innovative website TeachingKidsBusiness.com has a variety of resources and games for young entrepreneurs, but its “Just for Clicks” game teaches the most real-world skills. Kids from age 8 to 18 can play it both online and offline, and the “game” is to create a business that stands up to peer scrutiny. Your child can start by developing a business name, creating an information product, and naming that product. The game then progresses into assigning a price to the product, creating an advertisement for the product, and “playing” with others to find out how the new business stacks up. Kids can let each other know what they think of business ideas and products, giving feedback and making suggestions. It’s a very basic formula, but it can spark creativity and inspire your child to learn more about entrepreneurship.

Parenting Epiphany #1
Feb 21 2011

I’ve had more than a few parenting epiphanies in the last several years.  I’ve tried to stay away from posting advice on parenting since parenting style depends on the parent and the nature of the child.  There are very few right and wrong ways to parent, but those few are very important.  For example, don’t physically abuse your child or do give your kids lots of love and encouragement!  I have published baby tips and things to try in the past but most of those were pretty basic, but I thought I’d share an observation I’ve noticed with my kids and other kids and that is:

You have to say “yes” enough times to a kid, that they respect when you say “no.”

If you are always saying “no” and don’t let them experiment or try new things or play the Wii, then they get discouraged or find ways to work around you.  If you say “yes” to the right amount of things at the right time, when you tell them “no,” they seem to listen.  They somehow seem to get that you are respecting their individuality to try different things and in return respect you (even if it might not make sense to them at the time) when you put limits.  I believe it’s important to have limits so kids know where their boundaries are and they feel safe.  If you say “yes” to everything, then you end up with a spoiled kid.  The trick is finding the right balance  of “yes” and “no” given our hectic, highly scheduled lives of work and school.

Anyway, take that epiphany for what it’s worth.  It may very well be documented in all the child psychology books out there, and I have no idea.

Stay tuned for my recent plant growing epiphany.  I’m lucky with house plants and have a couple that are over 15 years old and still alive.

Race To Nowhere
Feb 14 2011

This past weekend, I saw the documentary called Race To Nowhere.  It was screened by the school my kids go to called Magellan International School.  It was a fascinating documentary about the pressures put on kids in the public school system and in school in general.  They interviewed many parents and teens about the amount of homework, studying, extra curricular activities, etc. that they all felt compelled to do in order to be able to get into a “good” college.  It depicted the stress levels of these kids, and highlighted one really smart kid who committed suicide because of the fear of doing badly in school.

Honestly, it was crazy the amount of homework these kids had to do.  I don’t remember having 2 to 3 hours of homework every night of the week when I was in middle or high school!  I also don’t remember requiring a parent to help me with my homework.  I agree with their premise that less homework is better and kids should spend their time learning in school and after school they should have downtime.  I don’t think you should eliminate homework all together as some experts suggested in the movie, but I think expecting elementary school kids to have homework every night is excessive.  They need time to be kids and have unstructured play with their friends or siblings.

I like the homework schedule at my kid’s school.  They usually get homework on Friday and it’s not due until the following Thursday so you can help them learn to pace working on their homework during the week.  Apparently, the country who has the highest amount of homework is Turkey and they perform the worst in tests when compared to Finland which has the least amount of homework and their kids out perform the kids in most of the rest of the world.  But then again, the social structure in Finland is different than most places.  They have liberal parenting leave, flexible work schedules, etc.

Since my kids aren’t yet in middle or high school, I can’t really say from first hand experience how stressed out those kids are these days.  However, if they are taking lessons from their overworked, stressed out parents who are trying to do everything without much of a family support system, then really we should look at the entire social system in the US.  Many of us are so used to working all the time, that we sometimes miss the forest for the trees.

The movie was a good reminder to pay attention to our kids and their signals about what’s going on in their life.  We all still need to live in the existing academic infrastructure so we need to make sure our kids know how to navigate that system but at the same time make efforts to begin changing the system by looking at different ways of educating our kids like they do at the Magellan International School.

Happy Valentine’s Day! <3

Helping Young Moms Go To School
Jan 22 2011

Here’s a guest post about getting your degree when you still have kids at home by Lisa Darling.  Lisa is a twenty something internet consultant and freelance writer.   She has two degrees in marketing and creative writing.   She loves watching sports, golfing, traveling and supporting the arts.  In her free time, she designs jewelry and spends time with her family.

There Are Options For You!

An article about helping young mothers earn a degree.

As a busy mother I totally understand the obstacles we face when deciding to continue our educations. If you are a working mother like me, you are probably asking yourself, how will I find the time? Who will be with the kids? Can I afford school, plus full time daycare? There are tons of questions that come to mind when you are trying to decide if you are ready to continue your education. These questions aren’t only difficult to answer, but they require you to map out your future life. We, as busy moms, put many things on the back burner, education being one of the main things. It can be a really big step to make.

Now for the good news!

With the advances in not only distance, but online educations as well, we as mothers can now get our education on our terms, in our free time! Sounds too good to be true, huh?  I will admit, I was skeptical, but I have done my research and am here to share my findings.

When my daughter was younger I attempted a campus education and managed to make it through one semester. It not only took me away from all of her newborn moments, but also made me feel like getting things done at home was impossible. It was a stressful situation and adding work on top of that was almost unbearable. So, after that experience I decided to better explore my options and check out what other opportunities were out there for working mothers. What I found was a great outlet and opportunity that I believe every working mother should take advantage of.

Being the skeptic I am, there were plenty of questions that I had. I wanted to know if my degree would hold the same value, what are the requirements, are the prices the same, etc. I’m sure some of you have the same questions, the great news is I have answers!

First is the value of the degree or certification that you receive when earning your education through an online or distance program. This really all depends on the school you choose, which is a very important aspect of earning your education. Finding a school that is nationally recognized and accredited should be first on your check list. You can find tons of information online and can even contact the schools if you have more questions. I always checked the FAQ pages and a lot of my questions would be answered there. When you choose your school, if you choose an accredited school your degree will hold the same value, some well known institutions are even offering some of their programs online. What is so important is that your degree will be just as recognized; the only difference is in the way that you earned it.

Something else that is so important, and is sometimes the reasons that we as mothers don’t take the next step towards a continued education, is the price of tuition. The tuition prices can be more than overwhelming, and trying to find not only the extra time but the extra money is hard. With online and distance education you will save a ton of money. Not only on the schools tuition itself, but also on the money you would have spent traveling to and from. Most online educations are much cheaper because they don’t include some of the campus fees, for recreation and organizations, or even on campus eating. Not to mention, of course, the gas money and other traveling expenses. I was pleasantly surprised at the difference in price between a traditional campus education and an online education.

There are many advantages to earning your education at an online university, and some disadvantages as well. Finding the school that suits you depends of course, on your own personal requirements. I was excited by my findings and wanted to share them with other mothers who may have had the same issues as me. I have since started a distance education program and thoroughly enjoy it! I work at my own pace, on my own time and that is something as a busy mother that is crucial. I hope that this information answered some of the questions you may have had, and sparked your interest in a continued education. In today’s working world it is coming increasingly important to have a college education, and we as mothers deserve the same opportunities as everyone else. Taking advantage of these new opportunities was an easy decision for me, but may not be as easy for you. I do hope that you will find a school that suits your needs and take your education to the next level. Do some exploring and find the education path that is right for you, you are sure to be surprised at all of the opportunities!