Mini Methods • Well Fed: My kids are always "starving" when they get home. So I have made a habit to have food for them right when they get home. Sometimes it's dinner sometimes a snack. This serves a couple purposes.
1) There is something mentally soothing to people when they walk in and smell something cooking. 2) Hunger is a great motivator and they automatically know and are put at ease that they are going to eat. Their needs are met timely and they are more grateful for their food. It's not a perfect science but this is how I generally do it. Days I am going to be gone all day I put something in the dutch oven to be done when we all get home. Otherwise I either prep something in the morning or an hour before they're due home. On emergency days, something unexpected happens, those are cereal days. They don't get cereal often so they love this too.
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This is my Basic Pattern for managing my kids -
Well Fed + Well Rested + Well Moderated = Well Tempered (temperament = an child's disposition and tendencies revealed in his/her reactions) Well tempered children have developed habits of maintaining a self-controlled, calm character. Take one of those elements out of the equation and a child (or even teens and adults) are prone to crankiness, anger, and outbursts. If they are continually revisiting their basic needs (because they are continually hungry, tired, or left unattended) it's tough for them to go to the next level and work at trying to master other social sensibilities (sharing, sadness, sacrifice) that we want them to learn. Meeting the Basic Pattern helps the child move forward in their self management of emotions. Next time something comes up with your kids see if the equation is adding up. I read this comment and it made me think. First I was pleased. Then I got worried. "We catch people's emotions the same way we catch colds. It's called Emotional Contagion. It's said that we become the average of the 5 people that we spend the most time with, that we associate with." Marci Shimoff, author - Happy for No Reason on the show The Big Idea After reading this, I thought, Who are the 5 people that I "spend most of my time with, associate with"? That would be The Boyfriend and my 4 youngest children. I thought great, I like these people. Then I thought about it more and realized that 4/5 of the people I spend most of my time with are people who are 1) still developing themselves (learning to navigate life, going through frustrations, finding who they are...) and 2) that I have a major part in the type of people they are becoming. Is it a (vicious?) circle? Do I create my own problems? It goes something like this - A mother can enrich, encourage, embrace and educate. Or she can deplete, depress, defer and dumb down. Either way we are contagious. I just wonder now how much of my attitude I have brought upon myself through my 5 people.
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