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19 Easy Things To Do To Keep Teens Busy Right Now
There’s no denying this has been a tremendously hard week for all. One of the hardest in our history. We had to postpone our family ski trip and March break due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. It was recommended here in Ontario, Canada last week that all travel be stopped, so we followed the health unit and Government of Canada protocols. But, that has not been easy. We are all genuinely disappointed because we had an amazing ski trip to Vermont happening. My younger girl has FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder) and she doesn’t cope with change well at all. So, her frustration leaked out at first in aggressive outbursts.…
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Karate Lunch Box Jokes
Karate Lunch Box Jokes are the cutest thing to add to your kid’s lunch when they go back to school in the New Year. I mean New Year new approach to lunch, right? Listen, if your kids are at all like mine they might need a bit of encouragement going back after Christmas. Oh, I know a lunch box joke set might not change the world but it is a nice little reminder that even when you are apart you are still thinking of them. Karate Love Most of you know that my kids are karate black belts. They’ve been at it for years now. My younger daughter has been…
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We Don’t Get That – Friendships and FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder)
“You know how everyone else has a best friend when they are small and they kind of grow up with them? Well, it’s like we don’t get that.” – my daughter, 15, who has FASD. Recently we found a peer support group for my younger daughter. This has been a long time coming. In fact, I’ve basically been looking since she was old enough to have been diagnosed with FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder) at 4 or 5. For years, we had nothing. No support. No local FASD parenting group. I mean, I had a loose group of online advocates and we connected on Facebook and Facebook Messenger occasionally when…
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Courage and Parenting a Child with FASD
I wrote this in May when we had a not so great month here at school and home due to FASD and explosive behaviour. Sometimes I day dream about where I could go if I just left. Maybe for the day, maybe longer. Sometimes I contemplate never returning. Yesterday was one of those days. I love my kids, my family, my husband. But some days the scale tips. This past May was a month of this. When the Scale Tips – How it Feels Parenting a Child with FASD. Do you ever have those days where the scale tips? Where how much I hate living with FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum…
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Practicing Gratitude – 85 Things I am Grateful for Today
Lately I’ve been having a hard time with a few things. It’s been a challenging year so far and there are a lot of moments when it’s easy to slide into a funk. A BIG ONE. The kind you can’t slip out of easily. When everything black and white that was pink, or red or blue yesterday is now grey and grossly misshapen. Parenting teenagers is NO fun some days. Sometimes they suck the air out of a room with borrowed drama, angst and mood swings. Occasionally you look at them and wonder where the cute kid went. There are days when you struggle to see the baby that slept…
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How To Cope With Teen Mood Swings Now
Teen mood swings and hormones can be hard to handle. That might be the understatement of the year. Of all the ages and stages of child development the teenage years can be the hardest. One moment your teen is engaging and strong willed and they have clearcut ideas and opinions and they can carry on great conversations with you on topics like social justice and politics. And then the very next day they are slamming doors, shrugging at every thing you say, seemingly incapable of more than one word answers. Parenting teens is a Jekyll and Hyde experience. You never know which one will show up at breakfast or after…
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11 Survival Tips For Raising Teenage Daughters
Raising teenage daughters is not a walk in the park. Your sweet little girl, that adorable baby you used to dress up in cute pink dresses, who insisted on reading Robert Munsch bedtime stories all snuggled up in her toddler bed for years, is now a teenager. Oh yeah, it happened fast too, didn’t it? Overnight, she’s a surly teenager with attitude, and you wonder how your relationship will survive this. Relax, the good news is you’ll both be fine…eventually. There are just some things that you need to remember. Chief among those is DO not take it personally. You were a teenager once. Try to think like your teenage…
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How Do I Answer Hard Adoption Questions?
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase via one of the links I receive a small commission. Mom, did I grow in your tummy? Why didn’t my parents want me? What was wrong with me? How come nobody gave them money or helped them? These are all hard adoption questions I have been asked over the years as an adoptive parent. And I have answered them all, sometimes precisely and sometimes in very young vocabulary for a five year old or even younger. Talking to your child about adoption doesn’t have to be scary. The scariest part of adopting is going through the actual adoption – so…
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80 Tools to Help You Succeed at the Hardest Job Ever
Raising kids is awesome and being a parent is a gift. Children can make you laugh with their hilariousness. They can make you melt with their cuteness. They can inspire you with their kindness. But raising kids is also really REALLY hard. Haven’t you often wished you had a parenting bible or toolkit? I know you have all joked about wishing that kids came with a manual. Friends and parenting resources are VITAL. Between temper tantrums, the constant noise and mess, teaching them all the life skills they’ll need as adults, and continually wondering whether we’re screwing it all up… well, raising kids can actually be one of the hardest…
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How My Word of The Year Became a Matter of Life or Death
“I wish Dad was younger,” my daughter said driving home from a play rehearsal the other night. “If you think about it he could be 70 when I am in my 20s.” Math is not usually our conversation on the drive home. Neither is life or death. But here we are. Often I have to wonder how their minds work. “I wish you were younger too. I mean if you think about it you could both be dead before I’m 40.” Oh my god my head hurts some days keeping up with this kid. But I get it. It’s a fear of dying and every child has that to a…
