Food Waste & Family Dinners: Share your Insights!

Did your last family meal conclude with extras being scraped into the compost or garbage can?  Mine did. Now I'm haunted by last week's Science Friday, "Waste Not: The Ugly Truth about Food Waste in America?

It haunts me. They estimate half a hamburger wastes as much water as an hour long shower!

With young kids in the house, waste is practically unavoidable.

Learning to eat a well-balanced diet is a process - parents are told to try, try again when kids resist healthy foods.

And my little ones are truly poor eaters in between growth spurts. When they're growing, give them (almost) anything and it disappears. Between times, even much-loved dishes sit barely touched at the end of the meal.

I'm not a fan of waste, of course, so I save what I can for the next meal.

Often, those saved bits get tossed.

If this issues haunts you as well, check out Rethink Recycling and their article "How to Keep Food Waste out of the Garbage."

Most helpful was their List of Companies that offer food recovery services in the metro area. Given the vast impact of institutional food waste, I'm choosing to worry less about the small scale waste of my own learning eaters.

Instead, I'm going to check out the institutions around me. If I can help an organization or two redirect unserved portions to a local shelter, the impact on waste, and on the community will be significantly greater.

And by talking about this issue with my children, perhaps they will be more aware about what they leave on their plate at the end of a meal.

What's Your Hang Up?

Are any of you active on Pinterest? If so, are your harboring a collection of wonderfully creative pins you'll get to someday? Even if Pinterest isn't your weakness, surely you have a stash of fantastic projects to complete with your children or around your house that you'll get to someday.

And if you've been busy poking around our new Big-Hearted Families resources, I'm willing to bet you have a few plans to "do good" as a family someday.

I know I do.

My family has been talking about making contributions through Kiva since last January! Since last winter we've talked about making care kits for the homeless, so we always have something useful to give someone in need. I have an e-mail hiding somewhere in my inbox, waiting for a scanned signature to begin our participation in the Family-to-Family One Book at a Time Club.

All of these someday ideas clatter around in my head, jostling for attention between gymnastics and piano and the next camping trip.

I'm struggling to find efficient ways to turn these many good ideas into accomplished tasks.

So far this fall, I'm having good luck with three simple (I like the sound of simple better than the alternative... obvious) strategies:

1. Pick one thing & add it to the calendar: It's official. We're making care kits on Wednesday night. It's on the calendar. The whole family has been informed. My kids are looking forward to it, meaning I can forget, or claim I'm too tired.
2. Add ingredients to the grocery list: No need to make a special trip to the store for granola bars, lip balm, cozy socks and water bottles. We rounded it all up during the last routine errand.
3. Leave enough time to reflect! Discuss the good you're doing. Discuss how good that feels. And use this conversation to motivate one another to pick the next project.
4. Pick the next project... and add it to your calendar. Whether you pick a day next week, next month, or after hockey season, knowing you have set time aside time for the next event will calm that irritating feeling of being hung up by too many good ideas and not enough time.

How does your family get over the hang ups and begin doing real good?

Inertia is a powerful thing, and any suggestions are welcome.

Big-Hearted Gratitude: Sister Plants

This week's gratitude is a bit hard to explain. This week, we are grateful for our Sister Plants. Way back in May the girls and I mixed up two seed packets and planted them in a new flower bed. The sister seeds, as we called them, were moon flower, which blooms by the light of the moon, and morning glory, which blooms in the morning sun. And both plants are insatiable climbers.

My girls and I have checked them often all summer, watching as they wrapped themselves up around our deck. The soft, fuzzy stems of moon flower hugging tightly to the sleek, smooth morning glory vines.

They were slow to flower, but in the last few weeks, both the bright blue and purple morning glories and the unexpectedly-large m, white oon flowers have put on a show for us.

For that, we are grateful.

And for the many opportunities to talk about how alike and how very different these sister plants are, I am grateful. What an excellent, ongoing demonstration of sisterhood (or brotherhood, or all of humanity as the case may be).

***

What is your family grateful for?

Routinely practicing gratitude is a wonderful way to pause and really notice the best bits of our everyday lives. A habit of gratitude is proven to make us happier, less stressed, and even physically healthier. Not to mention the increase in generosity that naturally comes from a feeling of contentment and thankfulness.

Join me each week as my family takes a moment to practice gratitude.

Good Intentions

I sat down to write today, only to realize the conundrum of the moment sounded awfully familiar. Sure enough, last year, at almost this same time, I was struggling with the same issue. How do I make time for all of the things I hope to do "more" of? You know, more good deeds, more family dinners, more connecting with friends and relatives, more interesting hobbies, a cleaner house, a better organized life.... the list goes on and on. I'm going to spend a little more time orienting this fall's calendar back to our family mission statement while I share this (still relevant) post with you. Your insights here are welcome! You see, now that I have a first grader,  and all of the attending scheduling possibilities  (piano, girl scouts, gymnastics.... you know the list), I'm struggling to put together a calendar that reflects our family's true values.

In the cacophony of modern family life and all of its obligations, how do we implement our good intentions?

It would be easy to sign up for too much, but by nature, I relish lazy, walk-around-the-park time and silly, family-pillow-fight time. Instinctively, I want to protect those moments. This means I must be choosey about the extracurricular activities that are inked on our calendar.

To help keep us on the right track, we've created a Family Mission Statement.

Okay, I can hear the snickers.... It sounds corporate, doesn't it? And as it turns out, there is no end to the resources you could purchase on line or in book stores to facilitate the creation of a mission statement, not to mention some really lovely free options (like the popular one over at Simple Mom).

Our Family Mission Statement is rather homemade, simply designed to get us thinking about our good intentions and move us closer to executing them. Like you (fellow fans of Doing Good Together), I love the idea of intentional living, of responding to the strong tides of peer pressure (from both adults and children) with the solid guidance of our own, clearly-stated goals.

We didn't use any fancy tools. My partner and I simply sat down together and talked things over. We asked ourselves a few obvious questions:

• how would we each spend free time if we could do anything,
• what do we value most,
• what are our top 10 priorities as a family,
• what activities support these values.

The immediate result was a simple statement clearly stating the life goals we had already talked about in one form or another.

Getting back to my calendar troubles, the mission statement - more likely the process of creating it - made looking ahead to the fall calendar a little simpler. Each activity reflects something of our values, and each of our long term goals is represented somewhere in our time spent.

In terms of Doing Good Together, this means we've set a few concrete goals for family volunteering. We hope to adopt a homeless youth again over the holidays; we want to host a sandwich making party for the hungry in our community; and we would like to get acquainted with the volunteer needs of our local senior center.

With these goals in mind, we can be sure that doing good, practicing empathy, and teaching kindness elbows its way onto the calendar right along with all the rest.

Sometimes it even elbows out the latest athletic whim.

So what scheduling challenges do you face, when you think about doing good? How do you hope to turn your good intentions into reality?

Talk about Bullying with 5 Great Children's Books

We've seen the horrible impact of bullying in the headlines. We all know how hurtful mean kids can be. Worse yet, we've all seen the capacity for mean-spirited play peek in our kids or ourselves from time to time. It's not pretty, and most of the time I'd like to blame it on a bad night's sleep, but it's there just the same.

For a reminder on the many roles we all play in bullying, as the unhelpful bystanders, the victims, or the perpetrators, check out Dear Bully: 70 Authors Share Their Story by Jeannine Garsee. These popular young adult authors beautifully bring this issue to life.

Many schools, nonprofits, and parent groups are working hard to teach kindness and the golden rule early, with the hope and expectation that this we can keep this problem from escalating.

At Doing Good Together, we've shared many tips for teaching kindness in a way that empowers our children to be part of the solution.

I'm eager to keep this discussion open in my own home. Because books are my preferred starting point for big conversations with my little ones, I've put together this list of our family favorites.

Here are 5 wonderful picture books that will get my family (and yours!) talking about bullying and taking action to prevent it

1. The Juice Box Bully: Empowering Kids to Stand up for Others by Rob Sornson and Maria Dismondy

Teach your kids how not to be a bystander with this story. One classroom has pledged to stand up for one another and to earnestly live by the golden rule. When the new kid starts to cause trouble, these classmates challenge one another to stay true to their pledge, ultimately teaching their new classmate what it means to be part of their community.

2. Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McLoud

I know this book pops up on every list. If you are wondering why, then perhaps you haven't read it in a while. The message in this book is so clear and so motivating, that even the youngest children will set at once to fill buckets. Perhaps even more remarkable, even the oldest readers find it inspiring too! Thinking of bullies as people with empty buckets is perhaps oversimplifying the issue, but it does help us all empathize with them.

3.  The Recess Queen by Alexis O'Neil

I'm a big fan of this book, because my instinct has always been to turn to humor in tight situations. It's fun, it rhyms, and best of all, this book gives you ample opportunity to discuss how bullying begins and how to shut it down.

4. The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi

What's in a name, Shakespeare asked. For a child whose whole world is changing, the continuity of her own name may mean an awful lot. And friends who are willing to take the time to learn her name may mean even more. This is a great book about acceptance, friendship, and change.

5. Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon by David Catrow

Teach your children (and remind yourself) to be true to their own idiosyncrasies, in spite of teasing. This book will have your whole family cheering one another on for much-loved quirks.

And if you'd like to take your discussion even further, take a few minutes to do this simple Crumpled Paper activity. Even the youngest of children will respond to this powerful metaphor. Mean words last long after an apology, just as the creases in the paper remain visible after it is smoothed out.

6 Tips to Stay Connected when Back-to-School Schedules Explode

Clearly, packed schedules get in the way of family time - or family volunteering time. But how do you find that line between over-scheduled lives and the reasonable pursuit of interests and skills each family member values? Even with the best of intentions, our weeks fill up, time flies by, and we find ourselves struggling to connect with one another as school, activities, and work pull us in many different directions.

Honestly, I'm not here to authoritatively answer that question. My oldest is only in second grade.

I do feel qualified to share our methods. Somehow this little second grade girl has told me, "No."

She is saying no to extra activities this year. She came to me worried that she might be too busy to play with her sister and her friends. Or too busy to do some of the big-hearted activities we've come to love as a family.

So the brownie sash is packed away in her keepsake box. I'll have to find my cookies elsewhere.

Anyway, here are my six tips for strengthening family connections and keeping your sanity during this busy, back-to-school season. Feel free to add yours in the comments!

1) Set priorities: Too obvious? Maybe, but we all overlook this most basic of scheduling rules. Spend your next family dinner talking about (or re-affirming) your priorities, your family mission statement. You can keep it simple, or you can use these wonderful conversation starters from Simple Mom to take it deeper. Whatever you come up with, write it down and post your priorities somewhere handy for future reference.

2) Set limits: Maybe you want to draw the line at one activity per kid or at least three unscheduled days each week. Find what you are comfortable with, and defend your limits!

4) Eat Together:  If it weren't for Family Dinner, we wouldn't have heard much about second grade. There is something about assembling tacos and chasing beans around with a fork gets a kids' mind to wander. By the time her plate is (more or less) clean, I feel like I've been to second grade!

5) Do Good Together: Make room in  your schedule to volunteer together. Check out our projects page and sign up for our newsletter or our facebook feed for ideas to get you started. Also, watch for the launch of a brand new resource early  next month!

6) (Re) Establish Kindness Rituals: Rely on at least one daily ritual to reconnect. Reading at bedtime can seem redundant once your child reads on her own. Let me tell you, it's not. My daughters and their dad are taking turns reading chapters from Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, without a doubt their favorite time together. Or you could share your daily gratitude at the end of the day. Or dance together.  What are the daily rituals your family enjoys? Be sure to leave time for them as often as possible.

The transition to new schedules, new grade levels, homework, friends, and independence levels can be a stressful time for a family.

Remind yourself that less is more, in terms of scheduling. Even on the busiest weeks, build in a small moments of kindness. Connect with one another. You'll find these simple moments restore everyone's energy for the next big activity.

How do you keep reasonable control of your school schedule? How do you build in breathing room even on the busy weeks?

Collecting for a Cause

The start of the school year is the perfect time to establish or re-establish a habit of charitable giving. Here is a re-post from September 2010 to get you started! My family gave the change collected as a result of this post to a local food shelf. And then we let this habit lapse. Lately the kids have been hoarding change for their own amusement at the dollar store. I'm thinking it is time to repeat this activity!

This week in our effort to become a more giving family, we've started collecting our spare change for charity.

At 5 and just under 3, my girls aren't exactly money savvy. Still, they do have a stash of money in their piggy bank. When they raided those piggy banks to help our family become giraffe sponsors at the local zoo, I knew it was time to start saving for a cause.

Doing Good Together is a great resource for Charitable Giving. The girls and I spent an easy hour together decorating clean jars from the recycling bin. I cut the coin slot out of the lids while the girls went wild with markers and stickers.

We talked while we crafted about money. I learned that this is an intangible subject for them right now. To help them understand, we talked about all of the needs we have as a family: groceries, our house, water, electricity, and clothes. We talked about how these things cost money. We talked about earning money at a job. And how many people can't make enough money to pay for all of their needs.

I'm not sure how much sunk in, but they were certainly eager to start collecting for a cause.

Since their piggy banks were drained by our giraffe sponsorship, I contributed some from my own change jar. Seed money I told them.

Miss Kindergarten protested. "I don't want to buy seeds! I want to help the kids who don't have the things they need."

We had quite the conversation that day!

We have decided to wait until the jars are full before we make a donation anywhere. At that point, we'll find the right charity. For now, when they find wayward change around our house, they stash it in their jars. Their dad and I make contributions of our own. Thankfully, the jars are small, so they'll get the reward of giving soon.

Has your family made donations together? How have your kids responded?

Big-Hearted Gratitude: Siblings

This was our last week of summer. Expected to share a gratitude post celebrating the freedom and unscheduled joys of summer.

I'm certainly grateful for that.

But this week, more than anything, I have been grateful for the camaraderie between my kids. All three of them. Not that they don't fight now and then or tattle or drive one another nuts.

They do.

But they have spent so much time together this summer. Just the three of them, or just them and the neighbors. Now even Mr. Toddler is folded into their mixture of silly play and make believe.

It's a joy to watch.

Routinely practicing gratitude is a wonderful way to pause and really notice the best bits of our everyday lives. A habit of gratitude is proven to make us happier, less stressed, and even physically healthier. Not to mention the increase in generosity that naturally comes from a feeling of contentment and thankfulness.

Join me each week as my family takes a moment to practice gratitud.

Q & A Friday: Unexpectedly Unwelcome

Welcome to Q & A Friday! Where big-hearted parents like you need your help!

Join me in sharing your experience, suggestions, or additional questions in the comments section.

We'll all do our best to help each other out in the spirit of raising more compassionate, civic-minded kids in an age of cynicism.

My kids were so excited to deliver meals in our neighborhood. They even brought drawings to hand out with the meals.

But at one home the resident was quite upset by their intrusion on her regular schedule (though they never stepped inside - she seemed upset and confused when they tried to hand her some drawings).

How do I help them understand the situation from her perspective? And what's the best way for us to react?

~Stacy, Minneapolis, MN

Summer Bag of Tricks: Butterfly Birthday

For two summers now, I've led the girls through theme days to break up the (usually wonderful, occasionally monotonous) non-routine of summer. We've been ninjas and celebrated a bit of Japanese culture, we've been cavemen (um, cavegirls). Even pirates. We spent a few days last summer in character as the cast from The Magic Tree House.

This year we've celebrated the fire department, advocated for endangered species, posed as mermaids, created public art, and become kindness fairies.

Not all of our days have made it to the blog (I've been busy chasing Mr. Toddler). But they've all been memorable, recorded or not.

Our theme days usually begin with a costume. Always, we find a silly snack or lunch recipe to go with our theme. Often we make up a song. There are usually books, role playing games, and even the occasional field trip.

I always love passing the title of activity leader off to Miss Second Grader.

This week, she noticed that our monarch chrysalis, created by the first caterpillar she found on her own, was changing rapidly. It turned dark and then translucent, in the time it took us to eat breakfast. A final phase of the butterfly's transformation, telling us that the butterfly would soon emerge.

"It's butterfly day!" My second-grader exclaimed. "Let's have a butterfly birthday!"

And that's exactly what we did.

We read books about caterpillars and crafted butterfly decorations for our nature table. We wrote acrostic poems about butterflies, helping little Miss Not-Quite-5-In-Time-For-Kindergarten with her letter sounds.

And then, all of our waiting paid off. Miss Second Grader noticed a twitch. Then a crack.

"She's hatching!"

We watched in wonder as the wrinkly, soggy wings of our caterpillar-turned-butterfly emerged.

Of course, the snack was butterfly birthday cake.

(Nutritionists, please look away).

I actually allowed my children to feast on strawberry marshmallows topped with ready whip (left over from a neighborhood tea party) and sprinkles. In my defense, I felt reasonably sure that singing happy birthday to the butterfly before diving into our little sugar bombs indicated to everyone that this was a special occasion not to be repeated on any other random Tuesday.

While the butterfly's wings dried, we walked through our local park. Our plan was to hunt for other butterflies or caterpillars, but the call of summer lured us away to bike races and pool play.

The day ended when we let the birthday girl go. The whole neighborhood clapped and cheered as her brand new butterfly wings carried her over our garden fence and out into the wide world.

I look forward to the next child-selected, child-led theme day. There's nothing quite as satisfying as watching the kids take charge of their own curriculum and throw themselves into learning and play with such enthusiasm!

Kinder Book Club: Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun

This is a re-post from last fall. This book remains one of my kids' favorites (and spaghetti in a hot dog bun is one of their favorite silly meals). Check out the author Maria Dismondy's blogand website for excellent kindness and literacy resources. Just in time for the new school year, and the attendant social pressures, I stumbled across another great book.

Check out Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun: Having the Courage to be Who You Are by Maria Dismondy (author) and Kimberly Shaw-Peterson (illustrator).

This is exactly the sort of book that I once maligned (See Ordinary Mary, the very first Kinder Book club book). It's exceptionally sweet, it's message is the primary point, and it even comes with a list of "Be Kind" and "Be Yourself" proclamations in the end.

My appreciation for such books has grown in the last year (see Ordinary Mary's reappraisal), and this is an exceptionally well-done message book. As it turns out, kids, at least my kids, respond to this straight-forward, lesson-in-a-book sort of story.

Don't get me wrong, they love fabulously entertaining stories as well (check out our latest favorite, multiple Caldecott winner David Weisner). Still, we've had Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bunfor a couple of months now, and both girls often dig it out from their bedside book pile.

This simple story is about lovely, unique little girl who gets picked on by the class bully. When the bully finds himself stuck atop the monkey bars, our little friend is prepared to go tell him just how mean she thinks she is... that is, until she sees the tears in his eyes. She overcomes her own hurt feelings to help him out of his trouble, and in the end, she has made a new friend.

Though real life might not always unroll so easily, this story does, in fact, give kids the courage to be who they are. Whenever we finish this book, I try to ask a few pointed questions:

• How do you think Lucy felt when Ralph picked on her?
• Why do you think Ralph started teasing Lucy?
• What would you feel like doing if someone made fun of your lunch the way Ralph did?
• Lucy tried to tell Ralph how she felt. How did he react?
• Do you think it was easy for Lucy to help Ralph when he was stuck?

Bullying has been all over the news, thick in our state legislative discussions, and headlining teacher training conferences all year. Find some additional resources to help your child understand and address the issue of bullying as it arises this years.

• StopBullying.gov- This website offers a very simplistic message to both the bullied and the bully, but as I've seen, kids often respond to the most straight-forward approach. There are also helpful resources for teenagers, parents, and educators.
• Education.com - This website offers more extensive tips and tools for parents.
• National Bullying Prevention Center - This is a project of the PACER Center, whose helpful resources are distributed to parents and parent educators on every parenting topic you can think of.  Some of their classroom activities and songs would be useful for those of us who spend a lot of time at home with our kids, including a downloadable color book.
• Alarms.org - This site offers an excellent, simplified exploration of cyberbullying and what parents can do to prevent and address this growing problem.

Have you read Spaghetti on a Hot Dog Bun with your kids? How do you address the issue of bullying with your family?

Q & A Friday: Boring!

Welcome to Q & A Friday! Where big-hearted parents like you need your help!

Join me in sharing your experience, suggestions, or additional questions in the comments section.

We'll all do our best to help each other out in the spirit of raising more compassionate, civic-minded kids in an age of cynicism.

We've tried to set aside time for an easy, at-home kindness project.

My (6-y-o) daughter's reaction to decorating bags for Meals-on-Wheels was "that's boring."

How can I inspire her to participate?

~Andrew, St. Louis, MO

Our Favorite 5 Big-Hearted Election Books

There is no avoiding it. The political season is heating up. The observer-of-human nature in me is wishing for a Rip van Winkle-style sleep elixir that could carry me through to November (or December ?) when the result is finalized and we can all attempt to move past the vitriol. Instead, I simply remind myself over and over again that beneath our varying opinions on the way this country should be run, the vast majority of this country shares the same hopes for our children and our grandparents.

The mother in me is looking for a way to make sense of this process for my children. Nothing sets the stage for a thoughtful discussion with a 4 to 8-year-old quite like a good storybook. So here are our families favorite 5 election-related books. Feel free to add your favorites in the comments!

Duck for President, by Doreen Cronin:

This is one of our favorite books! This nutty story can be a starting place for teaching big ideas or for silly giggles. And as a parent, you'll find yourself making your own list: "at the end of each day he was covered with grass clippings, coffee stains.... "

If I Ran for President by Catherine Steir:

Six children discuss what they would do if they were running for president, describing the election process all the way from making the decision to run to being sworn in on Inauguration Day.

Grace for President by Kelly DiPucchio

Sure to be in nearly every classroom this fall, this book is my favorite combination of great storytelling with a lasting message. When Grace discovers that there has never been a woman president of the Unites States, she decides that she will run for president one day. Her teacher encourages her by holding a school election.

We the Kids by David Catrow

Though it is meant of an older audience, Little Miss Four enjoys the pictures and the whole family learns a little something. With laugh-out-loud cartoony illustrations, and the actual words of the Preamble as the only text, Catrow depicts a camping trip taken by a diverse, bumbling group of friends, demonstrating the rights and responsibilities the Constitution places on all Americans, young and old.

My Teacher for President by Kay Winters

This book is a perfect way to teach kids about presidential responsibilities, elections, and the power of writing a letter to the editor. If enough of us read this one, Oliver's teacher just might win with a write-in vote this November!

What election-related books does your family enjoy?

Q & A Friday: Reflection and Family Volunteering

Welcome to Q & A Friday! Where big-hearted parents like you need your help!

Join me in sharing your experience, suggestions, or additional questions in the comments section.

We'll all do our best to help each other out in the spirit of raising more compassionate, civic-minded kids in an age of cynicism.

We volunteer as a family monthly, but I have a hard time getting my 9 year old to have meaningful conversations about what we've seen and learned. He usually answers my questions with the obvious "here is what mom's looking for" answer and an exasperated tone....

How can I get him to be a little more thoughtful?

~Elizabeth, Broken Arrow, OK