Kids and Teens

Keeping kids happy and not pulling apart the house is always really hard. When they are bored at home on school holidays, it is even harder.

I always remember licking the beating sticks when Mom cooked cakes. It was one of the best times in my childhood. Buying cup cake mix is very cheap and easy. All you normally needs are eggs, butter and water.

Cooking with kids can be fun, but will always is very messy. Every Wednesday we have cake day with my 2 and 3 year old children. They look forward to it every week. Every time they see an egg now they say, “cake?” It is one of my favourite times in the week as well. Three weeks ago, we bought a new cup cake tray, that was in the shape of trains. The first cup cakes were great and the kids ate all of them in record speed.

Tips for cake making with kids:

Be ready for a big mess.
Have the kids on the another side of the bench and chairs so they can help.
Clean at every stage and sent kids to play when you are cleaning up.
Let the kids lick the mixing sticks and bowl.
Don’t charge clothes or clean the floor until they have finished.
It does have to be perfect it is for the kids not a cake baking challenge, let them do as much as they can

Health options Last week we tried something different. We made Risotto trains. Cooked the rice added flavour (onion, beef stock or other stock) three eggs and cheese. Put the mix in the train cup cake and cooked then ready. Kids had rice trains for lunch and ate everything!!! My 3 year old would not eat rice before we made them into a train. Now he has tried it he will eat rice and it has opened up more menu items.

Tips for healthy food:

If they make it, they will eat it no strong colours e.g rice with red capsicum etc. Kids will start saying that they don’t like it.
If it has eggs, get them to break into a separate bowl. It will make a mess and you will have to get egg shells out.
Know it will take 3 times as long and 10 times as messy but they eat it!
This will work well for other foods.
Most times it doesn’t even have to look like a train as long as they know it has come from that cup cake tray they will eat it.

Hi Kids- Jasper here to talk about getting a new kitten, and how you can easily make it your best friend for life.

Many of you may be thinking about getting a brand new kitten, or may have just got one. Well I thought you might like to know a few tips to help you enjoy having lots of fun with your new little friend.

Kittens are great cute little balls of furry fun, and if you give them lots of love & attention as they grow they will become your friend for life. That also means of course that you’ll have to give them a lot of care as well, and it may be YOUR job to feed them & clean their litter tray and so on, and this HAS to be done every day of the week. Remember, your kitten doesn’t know when it’s Saturday or Sunday & those may be days when you want to go to your friends place for some fun.

Remember also that your kitten may have just left his or her mother & brothers & sisters, and may be feeling quite lonely; so you need to be there with them to keep them occupied and their mind off of the big family they have just left behind. It would be better if you invited your friend round to your house to enjoy your new kitten with you.

Nursing and stroking them will relax them because that’s what their mother used to do. If you do lot’s of this in the first few days they will love you for it and will REALLY become your best friend. Playing with them when they are in a frisky mood is also great fun. For instance they LOVE chasing a piece of string if you trail it across the floor. You can also get lots of brightly coloured fluffy toys like mice, fluffy balls, and so on from your local pet shop. Generally they are not expensive, and will give Tibby hours of fun & just as important use up all that extra energy that they’ve always got when you’re feeling tired!.

Kittens are also VERY curious about everything they come across. Try this just for fun. Cut a hole in the side of a cardboard box big enough for your kitten to get through and turn the box upside down. Place your kitten’s head near the hole, and with your other hand scratch the OTHER side of the box on the outside, but don’t let your kitten see you do it. Chances are he’ll sneak into the box looking for those imaginary mice that he can hear and he’ll stay in there jumping around all over the place if you move your hand around the outside of the box whilst scratching it. Kittens will play for hours with things like cardboard boxes and balls of wool.

When feeding your new pet, at first just put down a couple of small spoons of tinned food in a clean dish, and a dish of milk. then just stand back quietly and watch. If they scoff-down the food rapidly and seem to be looking around for more (some kittens may even ASK for more by making a “MEWING” sound) try putting down a couple more spoons and watch again. This way you’ll quickly get a good idea of just how much to put down for them. Later, in a couple of months time as your kitten grows a bit you can put down another dish with some DRY biscuity things that generally wont attract flies and so on. Your kitty then can nibble whenever they feel the need during the day when you may be away from the house.

Later, as your kitty grows into a big cat try a dish of water next to their food.. WATER? Yes, you’ll be surprised how many cats prefer WATER rather than milk as they grow up. You have to remember that milk is a liquid FOOD, and not really a true drink, but don’t forget that we Humans put a lot of chemicals in our tap water and though most of US can’t smell them your Tibby certainly will.

The best way to deal with this chemicals problem is to half fill a container (ask mum for an old saucepan) and let it stand without a lid for 24 hrs. Most of the chemicals will go out of the water into the atmosphere, and most cats will then drink the water. Don’t forget though, when you use the water today you must refill the container for tomorrow and allow it to stand otherwise it’ll have chemicals in it if you use it straight from the tap, and Tibby will know!.

I always got surprised and frustrated when my children lied to me.

Now when I look back and think, I laugh at myself because how could I expect my children to be truthful when I could not master the virtue myself!

Can you remember the moment in your life when you told a lie to your parents? Well I do. I can still remember the shock on my father’s face when I told him a big fat lie for the first time and he knew that I was lying. He could not believe what he was hearing! Well I still remember what his thoughts were, no different to any other parent, frustrated and angry.

Many researches, surveys and trends show that parents place honesty and trust, at the top of their list of demands from their children. What some parents may not understand, is the root cause of lying and how, unintentionally they may teach their children to lie and the impact it can have on their relationship.

The world in which we live in does not help either, the media, television, internet and especially the things children witness in the playgrounds, are the places where children pick up dishonesty. However, the first lesson of lying is usually taught at home.

I remember being very frustrated and angry when my children lied and surprisingly even more frustrated and embarrassed when they were blatantly truthful!

I remember one occasion when our neighbour came to see our newly refurbished kitchen which was so clean and sparkling with that “new” smell. They were saying how clean and tidy our house was especially the new kitchen, even with three children, however mid conversation my five years old piped up “Mum and dad say that your house is dirty and smelly”. We were so embarrassed as was our neighbour but managed to get away with some explanation that he was talking about the previous neighbour who had lived in the house and due to them being elderly were unable to take care of the house. We managed to get away with this as this neighbour had only moved in six months ago. The new neighbour had two dogs and four cats and lived in a small two bedroom house. My wife and I had discussed a few times about the distinct smell that came from the house but unfortunately this happened in front of the children. Boy oh boy we managed to get out of that one but it made us realise how careful we had to be.

Teenage daughter……..
“I hate you!
I wish I was dead!
There’s nothing to eat in this house!”
Sound familiar? That’s common language from the average teen age daughter.

Teenage son……….
No emotion, no communication, No response to a question.
Eg.. “Joseph. where are you going? ”
“Ummm, I don’t know.”
“Then how do you know which way to turn when you go out the door?”
“Oh.. Tommy’s house.”
Or…
“My sister’s a puny brat.”
“I can’t stand her! ”

Why do they act this way?

Don’t worry about it. It is the nature of the beast.

There is a quote attributed to Plato, the Greek Philosopher…..”What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?” Hasn’t changed much, has it?

I was driving my seventeen year old daughter to High School one day. She was a senior. ” Dad, I am seventeen years old. I should be able to stay out as late as I want!”

I gave her the answer you would. She didn’t like that. Five minutes later she said,

” I don’t have enough clothes.”

“Well”, I told her, “I go the Mall and I see signs all over the place, Help Wanted. Why don’t you get a job there on weekends so that you can buy the things you think you need”?

She answered indignantly, “You want me to work? I am only seventeen!”

There it is. They are neither fish nor fowl. That’s why they are on the phone or on their computers all the time. It is a perfect compromise. Comfortably in the nest and out with their friends at the same time.

Teenagers will drive you crazy because they are selfish, narcissistic, immature and inconsiderate.

But don’t worry. Cream rises to the top. If you give them love and example and pray hard enough, they, and you, will survive.

I would say to that daughter, described above, “Margaret, your room looks like a landfill. Please clean it.” It would go in one ear and out the other. Years later she had her own apartment. We would visit her and it would be immaculate. I sat on her couch one day and she admonished me, “Dad, you’re crushing the pillow.” There was a little throw pillow behind me. This was the same girl I would plead with not to jump on my couch like that. That it wasn’t a trampoline.

So, the little devil grew into an angel I am proud of today with her own teenagers to contend with.

However, these are dangerous and difficult times. It is getting more and more challenging. Teenagers are subjected to temptations and dangers I never experienced. When I was a teenager life was so simple compared to now. Movies, television, computers, music are all sending messages that are morally unhealthy and tempting. My role model was John Wayne, there is Madonna and countless celebrities, sport figures and actors who give permission for drug abuse, promiscuousness, immodesty, alcoholism, adultery and divorce.

As a parent, you must be vigilant and involved constantly. Parents tell me, “I would never violate my child’s privacy.” I say, “Baloney!” It is a war you are in. Check their computers. Read their diaries. Listen to their phone conversations. Look under the bed, follow them, check up on them.. they have no rights. If they foul up you have to take the consequences. So you have every reason to be on their backs at all times. Believe me, they won’t like it. But there will come a time when they will thank you for it..

Perhaps I am generalizing too much. I am sure there are many kids who stay out of trouble and act civilly and responsibly. I say God Bless them. If you can say that about your children you are blessed too. Count your blessings.

As we watch our teens struggle through their challenges, we as parents want nothing more than to jump in and fix everything. We want to help them. We love them. But this is where it gets really tough. Even though intervening on their behalf may be a relief and solution to the current problem, we know in our hearts that to do that is not really helping them in the long run.

The teen years are a time of transition from childhood to adulthood. They are a time for our children to learn and fine tune the skills they need to enter adulthood prepared to create a life that will be happy and fulfilling. Anytime we interfere and handle their problems we are robbing them of an opportunity to gain these necessary skills and confidence in themselves.

As hard is it might be to resist making their pain go away, that is truly the most loving thing we can do.

Being a successful parent raising a teenager requires us to shift our role to one more like a coach on the sidelines. We need to have faith in what we have taught them in the first 10 to 12 years of life and learn to let them go little by little, letting them stand on their own finding their own ground. This is the only way they will be able to become successfully independent.

There are important life lessons to be learned during the teen years that will be with them for the rest of their lives. Problem solving is probably the most important one.

That doesn’t mean they no longer need us. It means they just need us in a different way. Often I hear parents complaining about how difficult it is being a parent. Typically they are in conflict with their teens because parents are trying to exert themselves into their child’s life and instinctively their child knows they need to and can do it for themselves.

What we can do is to be sure they know we are there for them and beside them ready to support and guide and offer unconditional love. The key is to promote healthy communication and allow them to decide and choose when they need us. All we have to do is leave the door open, be ready to listen and prepared to offer guidance when asked!