Electronic Entertainment

In all of my reading and research I have made the rule in our home that there is one hour of television watching per day and one hour of video game time on Friday's and Saturday's. I have read nothing positive about video games (only the seeming old wives tale that it improves hand-eye coordination, bah!) and only about the harmful effect they have on kids. One author even noted in his patients the improvement in homework, attitude and decreasing ADHD tendencies when video games were removed from the home. With that said, my therapist passed along the results of a study that was done on whether or not fast-paced television shows has an immediate influence on pre-school children. The results were not surprising but very interesting: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/09/08/peds.2010-1919.full.pdf They are saying these days that kids under two should not be watching television. I have to admit that I have not yet slipped any shows in for my little guy (nine months now!) and planning on keeping it that way for awhile. Happy reading!

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Ah The Joys Of Summer!

Life is nuts isn't it? And we all know that it never really calms down - the challenges simply change. School's out. Yay!! (No - that's not me talking, that's my kids). My two youngest are fighting like the world might end tomorrow and they need to let each other know how annoying and despicable the other one thinks they are. The toddler manhandles Preston's Lego car and Preston throws it in anger yelling that the toddler ruined it - and not just the Lego car - his LIFE! "This is the worst day of my life!" Sigh. I suggest a simple and relaxing game of Candy Land. They show up to the game table with their best of poker faces and they are not going to let anyone or anything steal away their chance at sweet victory. Accusations of cheating and board-manipulation fly, all the while the toddler simply moves his piece from one spot to the next which is simply just too much to take for the real players. The game is over and nobody is ever playing again. My mi

Gratitude and Re-Committing

I didn't get the 'memo' but it looks like people are doing a 22 days of gratitude type of deal in lieu of the Thanksgiving holiday. Despite it being a little cliche, there's never a really good reason to not jump on board a gratitude wagon. Aside from that, I was also inspired by the lesson in one of my church meetings yesterday, that was simply on kindness, to re-commit to a few very important goals. 1. I am grateful for all four of mine, his, and our children. Parenting and step-parenting has proven to be one of the greatest ongoing challenges of my life. Not one of my kids is like the other. They all have unique stuggles, quirks and personalities that make me want to sometimes either squeeze them like crazy with happiness or frustration. ;) They are constantly reminding me (unverbally) of what my priorities should be and they are constantly teaching me patience. If I can keep calm and carry on (thanks Mr. Churchill), I think I might actually be okay at this parenti

The Plan

I guess I should first make a big disclosure about little Preston and what ADHD looks like for him so we all have a better gauge on if the Mars Venus approach works for him. Oh, my little Preston. He has a good heart and a sweet spirit, truly. I know the 'true' Preston wants to help, is empathetic and wants to succeed. I only get glimpses of that Preston when he is having an 'on' day and his brain is doing a better job producing what it should be. These glimpses of the 'true' Preston are hard because it makes him seem like he is capable of, well, being a pretty normal eight-year-old. And that is the hardest part about ADHD is that these kids on most levels appear to be totally normal. But they aren't. Preston's psychologist mentioned to us once a conversation he had with a teen that had ADHD. He said that if there were two things he could tell parents of kids with ADHD it would be 1) Don't give up and 2) Don't judge them by their 'good'

The Secret In the Sauce

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