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just a conservative girl
Zilla of the Resistance
“Our kids need to live life beside us”
While we’re on the subject of taking responsibility for raising our children (see below), don’t miss Kathryn Jean Lopez’s interview with Dr. Meg Meeker, author of The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers. I posted on it here.
A bit of the interview:
Lopez: Another impossible one seems to be your mandate to live simply. School. Lessons. Homework. Birthday parties. Never mind the unavoidable and routine and mundane errands. Who has time to live simply?
Meeker: Those mothers who have no time to look at how to simplify their lives are in the greatest need of doing so. The best thing that we can give our kids is time with us. They need card games with us more than they do more ballet lessons. Teen boys need to wash their cars with their fathers more than they need another video game or football practice. Our kids need to live life beside us and they are drifting further away because of the glut of electronics in their lives. They need face-to-face time with us, not more texts. They need more touch from us and they need to be in the same room with us as we work out our disagreements so they can learn to solve problems.
It’s a little long but worth the read.
just a conservative girl are discussing. 
just a conservative girl 10:45 AM on 04/13/2011 Permalink |
I am big believer in the family dinner table. I think it is important to sit around the table every night and talk about your day. Sometimes the conversation is a little mundane when a five year is talking about what he did in school that day, but the alternative is that he doesn’t talk to mom and dad at all. My mom was very insistent that we eat dinner at home. We were not allowed to have dinner at someone else’s house. I didn’t appreciate it then, but I realize now why she did it.
pjMom 8:56 AM on 04/14/2011 Permalink |
I loved the interview with Meeker, Jill, and agree fully. I try to blog at naptime and in the early morning so pjT doesn’t see me glued to the computer. A la Montessori, she cooks and cleans with me, and it’s been fun to watch her skills progress so quickly.
JACG: I agree re the family dinner table. Sometimes we have to have special “picnics” in the family room when it looks like my husband won’t be able to come home for dinner. The picnics have evolved into a special time, too, one that I cherish.