As I watched my younger son walk through the school’s front doors, I could feel the words not leave my lips. I usually yell “Take care of each other!” to him and his brother as they walk into school together. But that morning, his brother had a doctor’s appointment and wasn’t with us. It felt strange telling him to take care of someone who wasn’t there. But it was strange not saying it as well.

While some of the strangeness came from breaking my habit, some of it was because the words I say to them each morning encompass so much of what I want to teach them in life: “I love you” and “Take care of each other.” While these are simple phrases, they hold so much meaning.

Smearing sunscreen on my face at the pool, I realized it was just me and my older son. My husband had already taken our younger son to the water.

“Hey, how does my face look?” I asked him. Rather than giving me a silly answer, he looked thoughtfully at it and said, “There’s some near your hair.”

Now, I could have looked at the selfie setting on my phone, but I’m glad I didn’t. That’s because I don’t want to teach my children independence. I want to teach them interdependence.

Continue reading →

My kids love video games. Really, really love them. In particular, my older son is intensely into Mario Bros games. Classic, new – if it’s Mario, he loves it.

I like video games. I enjoy them and was hard-core into a couple of computer games as a kid, but I’d usually prefer to read a book or watch a movie.

But one thing my kids and I all have in common is a love of music. In fact, a need for music. None of us do well with silence. If things are too quiet, the kids will drive each other (and me) to despair by competing to make noises or sing loudly.

Continue reading →

“I just wanted to thank you,” said an unfamiliar voice beside me. Looking left, away from the informational plaque I was reading, I saw an older woman standing next to me. “I was behind you and heard you explaining all of the information to your kids and they were so interested. I heard other kids saying that they were bored and I knew your kids weren’t. I even learned a lot!”

“Uh, thanks!” I responded, very flattered. We were at the Whydah Pirate Museum in Cape Cod, a very good historical museum with a wealth of information and artifacts. I had been guiding my kids through by summarizing the informational plaques and connecting the information to concepts my kids were already familiar with. They seemed to be genuinely interested until the very end when my five-year-old understandably began running out of steam. I was too busy carrying on my patter and keeping my kids entertained that I hadn’t even noticed the woman behind us.

Continue reading →