Carnival of Family Life Posts

The Carnival of Family Life posted at All Rileyed Up. Looks like there are tons of good Christmas craft ideas. Gifts for Grandma, anyone?

Awesome Show About African American History

My husband and I had just turned off the DVD player from our nightly viewing of The Tick and caught a few minutes of African American Lives 2 on PBS. Well, we were totally hooked and spent the next two hours watching it, despite plans for an early bedtime.

It traces the family lines of 16 people, including Maya Angelou, Chris Rock, Tina Turner, Morgan Freeman and Peter Gomes (one of my favorite religious writers) plus the show's host, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. In addition to looking into old records, they do a DNA test and are able to tell people what their racial percentages are! That was pretty surprising, I can tell you.

Gates, who considers himself black and grew up black, ended up being 50 percent European! He was pretty shocked. Turns out, he's related to some Irish king. There's a great scene where he goes to Ireland, meets some Irish people and introduces himself as this king's relative and then - how's this for a stereotype - the next scene is him in an Irish pub, drinking ale with the locals. It was awesome.

There was also this segment on how African Americans tend to think they have Native American ancestors, but in fact, only a small percentage do. Tina Turner just knew she was Native American, but it turns out no. Not even a little bit. The same with Morgan Freeman - who noted the Choctaws in Oklahoma were going to be upset when they learned he'd misrepresented himself. As it turned out, the features they attributed to being Native American were, you guessed it, European.

Which makes me wonder about the traits white people attribute to Native American ancestry.

There was also an interesting bit about indentured white women who had children by black (and, they assume, slave) men. That's a story you never hear about - but it turns out, that was the situation in Gates' family. (I think it was Gates; they skipped around a lot.) And they'd always figured the woman was ... you guessed it ... Native American.

They were able to tell several people which one or two tribes they would've decided from, as well. Experts helped Gates actually narrow down to about seven ships his African ancestor may have been on for the middle passage.

I'd love to have some of the DNA work they discussed in the series. Apparently, there have been lots of country-specific DNA studies that make it possibly to really pinpoint people's genetic origins now. Fascinating stuff.

We were in tears during some of the stories and it was just so powerful, watching these people learn about their past through slave records and DNA.

I'd definitely recommend this series. There's also a teacher's resource on the site.

This site says it's sister company, AfricanDNA.com, was used in the show.

Tips for Adopting Parents on Writing Profiles

I found this great post via the Carnival of Family Life (see the sidebar for recent links).

It's by Lori Dowd of Best Light Adoption Profile Reviews and is for those who want to adopt and need to write an adoption profile, which I believe are more frequently used for U.S. adoptions.

It's a top 10 tips for writing your profile. Basically, the profiles are read by those seeking to place their unborn children at birth. The mothers read the profiles and pick which families they like.

I skimmed a lot of profiles when we were considering adoption, because I wanted to scope out the 'competition,' and see what we'd have to write. I have to say, I'm a professional writer and I still find the concept intimidating. Basically, what you write will be responsible for finding the birth mother of your future child.

The article includes feedback from real mothers who used the profiles to pick their children's future home.

Family | Adoption

Another Approach to Ending Hunger

Earlier, I shared how Harvest's Backpack Program is feeding children who might not get enough food over the weekend.

Mark Winne, the former director of the Hartford (Conn.) Food System and author of "Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty," offers a very different take on food and programs like Second Harvest. In a recent Q&A with the Washington Post, Winne answered readers questions about his apparently controversial position about food banks:
What I am saying is that we cannot end hunger unless we end poverty; food banking as well as other antihunger programs do a good job of managing poverty by alleviating its worst symptom, hunger. While antihunger programs remain necessary for the time being, they have strayed too far from, and in some cases never acknowledged the need to end poverty.

From what he's saying here, I don't see that he's against food banks, per se. He - and others - just feel that food banks aren't the only answer, but too many people view them as the answer. Food banks were never designed to provide a long-term solution: They're to combat emergency needs, but increasingly, they've become the only solution.

Winne doesn't offer easy solutions, but he tackles some tough questions and he's raising touch challenges about what it will take to end hunger in our more-than-wealthy nation. He argues that it's going to take public policy - not just private handouts.

This piece doesn't yield itself to easy action steps, but here are the action steps I saw in the piece.

Make It Happen:

1. Support food banks and other emergency programs, but realize they aren't an end in and of themselves. It's time the U.S. looked at long-term, real solutions, such as giving a living wage to all workers.
2. If you work or volunteer for a food bank or soup kitchen, examine what government policies you can support that will create long-term, sustainable change for your clients. Winne recommends the Oregon Food Bank as a model.
3. If you're involved with any charity, make sure the group empowers those it helps to be part of the solution.
4. Winne urges that we "support community economic development strategies that will bring good paying job to poor communities."
5. Winne also suggests communities work to establish new supermarkets in low-income communities. Local markets give people access to lower-priced and healthier foods, plus they create jobs.
6. He also suggests supporting health care for the uninsured.
7. Do what you can to establish or support job training programs for the unemployed.

Public Policy | Hunger | Mark Winne | Living Wage

How to Join the Backpack Program

As promised, I emailed the national coordinator for the Backpack Program, Dave Blair, and he very kindly replied with instructions on how to find out more about programs in your area. If you've just joined us, you can learn more about how the Backpack Program helps feed hungry children when they're not in school.

Here's what he said:

America’s Second Harvest is a membership organization, and all of our national programs and services are provided through our Member Network of food banks and food rescue organizations. I recommend that you readers contact their local food bank and they will have more information about what is happening on the local level. Please advise them to follow these steps to identify the nearest America's Second Harvest Food Bank:

• Go online to www.secondharvest.org
• Enter your zip code in the “Find Your Local Food Bank or Food Rescue Organization” section of the homepage

You can also email him.

A Backpack Filled with Food and More

Since I've become a parent, any story about children suffering causes me to cry. It's just unfathomable that we as a society should tolerate children being abused, neglected or hungry.

Okay - it makes sense to cry about something sad. So would somebody tell me why I teared up when I read this beautiful Shreveport Times story about a Louisiana program that makes sure children don't go hungry over the weekend?

No doubt you've read that for many children living in poverty, the only real meal of the day is often their school lunch. This is a real problem for schools, families and communities. Any parent can tell you that there are two factors certain to bring about a melt-down in any child, at any age:
1. If they haven't eaten in a few hours.
2. If they didn't get enough sleep.

If my daughter starts crying and throwing a tantrum, without fail, I can trace it back to one of these two things - and, most frequently, it's because it's because she didn't eat enough or has skipped a meal or snack.

To help, the Food Bank of Northwest Louisiana also offers dinner for children in the Ingersoll Elementary School after-school program four days out of every week. According to the article, approximately 96 percent of Ingersoll's students receive free or reduced-price lunches.

But teachers soon began to notice that children were returning to school on Monday too irritable and tired. They were pretty certain those children weren't being fed adequately over the weekend.

The Food Bank obtained a $10,000 grant from America's Second Harvest to start a new initiative called the BackPack Program. Each Friday, 85 children are given a backpack filled with seven to 10 healthy food items - all kid-friendly. They return their empty backpacks on Monday morning.

The school immediately noticed the students behaved better - decreasing behavioral problems for the school - and were more attentive Monday morning. The Shreveport Times quotes program coordinator Kimberly Page:

"If a child is hungry, you can't keep their attention. The only thing they're thinking about is what time is lunch? They're just acting better."

The Food Bank also has a unique partnership with the Shreveport Job Corps that ensures an additional 120 children are fed each day through another America's Second Harvest program, the Kid's Cafe.

Unfortunately, the grant - as many grants are - is only for launching the program. To keep it going for another year, the Food Bank will need to come up with $150 per backpack.

The article doesn't mention this, but this is a national program that originally launched in Arkansas, according to America's Second Harvest. It's offered in 39 states, plus Washington, D.C.. The program distributes up to 35,000 backpacks each week nationwide.

Donate to America's Second Harvest. Charity Navigator, which rates charities on their financial effectiveness and efficiency, gave America's Second Harvest four out of four stars. It also notes that only half a percent of their money goes to administrative expenses, 1.3 percent goes to fundraising, with a hefty 98 percent going to fund programs.

Make It Happen:

1. Here's what David Blair, who runs the Backpack Program, had to say about how to make this happen in your community or how to support a local program.
2. If you know of a child in need, help the child and family connect with these services. Remember, too, that behavior and attention problems could be an indication a child's nutritional needs aren't being met.
   
3. Contact your local food back to see if there's a Kid's Cafe. These cafes often need volunteers to serve food or just help with the children. I found a local Cafe by just googling my city, state and "Kid's Cafe." My local cafe also needed donations of paper plates, cups, napkins and dinnerware, so you may be able to make a donation if you can't volunteer.
   
4. Find out how many children are living in poverty and considered "Food Insecure" in your state by checking America's Second Harvest's Child Food Insecurity Statistics Map. Publicize these numbers by sharing them with friends, posting the information on your blog, writing a letter to your state and federal representatives, sending the stats to your clergy, a local columnist or reporter, or even putting them in your family holiday letter this year. While you're on the site, join the Hunger Action Center.
5. Support expanding the bi-partisan "Simplified Summer Food Service Program."
   

Carnival of Family Life Up

The new Carnival of Family Life is up at On the Horizon. It includes a recent Time for Family post, "A Community Makes Time for Family."

I particularly liked the section on Holiday gift ideas, including a list of lead-free toys. Check it out.

Christmas: Time to Heal?

Given my humbuggery about Thanksgiving, I suppose it's only karma that I stumbled onto this article, "The Purpose Driven Christmas," by Rick Warren, author of the Purpose Drive Life and similar titles.

One of the ways Warren suggests we add meaning to the holiday is to "Make It a Time for Personal Growth," which has a very specific meaning for him. He challenges us to look at who we need to forgive and of whom we need to ask forgiveness. He writes:

Resentment always hurts you more than the person you resent because bitterness keeps you emotionally stuck in the past. Let go of those hurts and remember this: The most valuable and significant gift you can give anyone this Christmas is your forgiveness, because it will allow you to grow.

Obviously, I've got some forgiving to do. The question for me has always been how? To tell you the truth, I've never found that real forgiveness - where you can give as you did before the injury - happens easily or often. People forgive in that they let go of the anger, but they don't give up the fear, the mistrust or the pain. I think if you're really going to forgive, you have to do that as well. And that's damn hard to do if someone keeps hurting you by doing the same thing.

Here's a little secret: I'm trying a new form of therapy that's supposed to help you do exactly this. It's called EMDR, and I started going for post-traumatic stress disorder from the Oklahoma City bombing.

I'll be honest with you: If I'd walked into a therapist's office and she tried EMDR, I'd probably walk right out or never go back. But I have a psychiatrist friend who's been using it with his patients, and he reported nigh-miracle results: People off their medicines, completely different, happy and well-adjusted in a very short time. Then a friend tried it and it seemed to work for her.

After years of struggling with depression, always being on medicine and never getting very far in therapy, despite three therapists and years of work, I thought I'd give it a try.

And it seems to be working. Really, really well. Even my husband agrees.

So far, I have been able to 'let go' of a lot of pain and anger. What's nice about that is I can come from a place of strength and resolve without feeling all ick inside about it. You know what I mean: The nervousness, the anxiety. No, in the situations where we've done EMDR, I can just be myself and feel okay and not have to worry about it. I remember everything - but it's all clearer and in perspective.

Sometimes, like over Thanksgiving, I still get knocked down, but so far, it's always been in an area where we're still doing the work or a new area I've never tackled. It turns out, some of this depression stuff goes way, way back. Surprise. Maybe when we're finished with the EMDR, I won't have to write posts about 'subtracting' family members. Although, you know, after EMDR, I really have no guilt about cutting off some very dangerous, destructive family members. Previously, it was very hard for me to opt out - I felt guilty, as if I should make it possible to see them over the holidays, even though they didn't respect our requests, our rules and even potentially were a danger to my child.

If you're really struggling to forgiveness, depression, anger or anxiety, why not find an EMDR therapist and try. Be prepared to give it at least two months before you see results. And realize that you'll actually get worse before you get better. That's what happens when you dig up bones.

Hopefully, by Christmas, I'll be able to manage some forgiveness under the tree.


Family | Family Problems | Holidays

A Better Way to Make Family Goals

I read a lot of self-help and advice books. Stuff about money, organization, goals and so forth. I guess it's sort of a sick hobby.

There are tons of interesting ideas that pique my interest. And I try most of them, but by and large, the recommended actions are very hard to sustain.

But very rarely, I'll read a book and think, "Wow. I can do this. This is really going to change how I live my life."

I happen to be reading such a book now: Goal-Free Living: How to Have the Life You Want NOW! by Stephen M. Shapiro.

I admit it: I'm what Shapiro calls a Goalaholic. You just have to read the December/January entries in this blog to see that. But like most goalaholics, I never reach most of my goals. Some, certainly, particularly the career goals, but no where near most, and particularly not those involving my family. It's very frustrating, ugly cycle. You don't make a goal, you beat yourself up and you set the goal again.

Living your life through goals is also a good way to miss the best in life, Shapiro argues. Even if you achieve your goals, you can miss out on things that you actually wanted more - for instance, he was so focused on career success, he missed the fact his marriage was falling apart. And once the marriage was gone, he knew he'd rather have had the marriage than the great career goal - which he did achieve, by the way.

So, if you don't set goals, what do you do? How do you make sure you don't drift aimlessly through life, accomplishing nothing but an encyclopedic knowledge of sitcoms?

You use a compass, not a map, as Shapiro puts it. This means instead of goals, you set a direction, a theme, if you will. And you change it - as needed, but certainly yearly.

Setting a theme helps guide your decisions in all areas of your life and challenges you to bring more into your life of what you want.

The book offers some examples of themes that various people have used for a year or for their lives:

• Shapiro's overarching map is "to make a massive and visible impact in the world." One year, his theme was flexibility - which meant creating a lifestyle that let him follow different paths. Another year, the theme was platform, meaning a place to express himself - he wrote this book.
• Mark Grossman's overarching compass has been to be part of something bigger than himself, but to be true to himself.
• Another couple followed the following themes: Year of Exploration (She decided to explore her potential as a writer and started a book); the Year of Adventure and the Year of Lightness, (for some calm time, after the year her book was published).

Shapiro explains how you can do this as an individual, but I think the theme idea would work wonders for family. And the idea of setting a compass - an overarching direction - for a family just strikes me as brilliant.

I'll post later with a few ideas on how this could be applied specifically to build family identity and bonding.

Family | Goals | Book Review

Where Can Kids Eat Free?

If you like free food - and who doesn't? - then check out the budding website, KidsEat4Free.com.

Right now, it's restricted to Louisville, Kentucky, but they are taking restaurant submissions from across the nation and hope to quickly grow the site to include other communities. If you know of a local (to you) restaurant that lets children eat free, you can help by clicking on "Recommend a Restaurant" on the left hand nav bar, and filling out the form.

Hey - family dinners are great for bonding and for - I kid you not - keeping your children off drugs. Nobody said these meals had to be cooked or served at home!

Family | dinner | Dining Out

Quick Tip: The Evening Stroll

Fall's easing into my home state, Kentucky. For my money, there is no better time to live here. Gone are the oppressive heat and humidity of summer, replaced by clear air that crackles with energy. The trees are nearly magical in their beauty, caught between the silver greens of summer and the early yellows of autumn.

With the temperature a pleasant 75-85, it's perfect weather for an evening stroll. We've always had plans to make an evening walk part of our routine, but struggled with it. Since I often work late, I usually nap as soon as my husband comes home. Then there's dinner, clean up, exhausted TV watching and, finally, baths and bed for everyone else, work for me.

But that's changed recently. My daughter has finally gotten up the nerve to hop on her bicycle - she was a strictly Big Wheel kid previously. As children will do when they're learning a new skill, she's a bit obsessive about getting out on her bicycle. So every night, we're outside, walking or, in my husband's case, slowly pedaling his bike, while she confidently rides all over the neighborhood.

We're not alone. Since summer's heat has subsided, the neighborhood is alive with families pushing strollers, bicycling with little ones, and fathers and sons tossing footballs.

It's fantastic. I know an evening family walk isn't the most original of bonding ideas - but I think it's also one of those things we realize we could do, but don't do.

It doesn't have to be long. Even a 15 minute outing will increase your health, raise your family happiness quota and remind you of why it's good to be alive. My guess is, once you try it, you'll find it's hard to go back inside.

If you're having a hard time starting the habit, dedicate one week to trying it. My guess is, after that one week, you may be surprised to find you've created a habit your child won't let you forget.

And if that doesn't work, I ran across this Zen Habits post, "Engineer Life: Set Up Habit Changes So It’s Hard to Fail." The writer points out that to change a habit, you need to do four things:

1. Increase positive feedback for the habit you want to form.
2. Decrease positive feedback for what you're doing instead.
3. Decrease negative feedback for the new habit.
4. Increase negative feedback for the old habit.

Family | Time | Exercise

Carnival of Family Life

If you've never checked out a blogging carnival, you'll be pleasantly surprised. I submitted a recent post on playing with your child and it's included in this week's Carnival of Family Life, hosted by Mother Approves.

Fun Blog, Good Advice

Not long ago I stumbled across a relatively new blog, Millionaire Mommy Next Door. She uses treasure maps as a means of growing her money, which sound kooky, but I've used it and find it's a very effective tool for bringing money or whatever into your life. I make no claims as to understanding how it works - I suspect it's because it focuses your brain to look for opportunities, but some people view it as a form of prayer.

Anyway, I wanted to point out an excellent post titled "How to Make Money Management a Family Affair." The title is a bit too broad, since it doesn't really talk about getting the whole family involved in financial decisions so much as it focuses on teaching your child about money.

She mentions you can make a five-year-old a millionaire by 65 with a one time contribution of $9875 OR a monthly contribution of only $57. She provides a link, which also says you can achieve it with a $98 monthly contribution through age 18.

Right now, I put aside $30 a month for a college fund. Not enough, probably, but it should be about $7200 by the time she goes to college, at 8 percent. I'd love to make my child a millionaire, but I also would love to retire. So, maybe I'll focus more on the other tips so she can make her own million!

Family Finances | Money Management | Teaching Children About Money

Plans Gone Awry

Since I'm thinking about a five year plan for our family, I reviewed some of my early posts on New Year's resolutions. I have to say, I didn't get very far with them. For instance, I said I wanted to have Soup Sundays and invite in family and friends to dine with us.

I'm sure I wanted to do it at the time. And then we got the flu. And then spring came. And now, I can't imagine why I'd want to tie up myself to my house on Sundays when I could be outside doing something fun!

I also said I wanted us to volunteer and be more active in the community. To some extent, I tried this by volunteering more at our church - with disastrous results. (We're looking for a new church.) Otherwise, we never started volunteering - though I did make efforts to do so. It seems people aren't eager to have a four year old join their volunteer squad. So, that had to wait.

As I start the strategic plan for our family, it's going to be important to remember the idea isn't to create more goals. The point is to create a mission or values statement that will guide our day-to-day and year-to-year choices. That may lead to new action plans and goals may ensure, but the trick is: Goals can change and action plans can fail. A mission statement - which I translate as having an idea of where you want to go and what your values are - should be a more enduring statement of direction.

I think that's part of the reason I didn't achieve many of my resolutions: I didn't have a clear direction, except to spend more time with family and friends. Plus, I didn't ask Hubby to participate in the process. So, while the resolutions are fine in and of themselves, they couldn't stand up to competing interests that better reflect what I wanted to do - or even needed to do - with my life.

Sure I want to see friends and family. And Soup Sundays would be a great way to do that. But it's only one way, and when I really examine it, it's not particularly fun or effective and it actually would compete with other, more important goals - like spending more time with my immediate family and taking care of my own health.

While I haven't had a lot of success with resolutions, my family and I have had success with strategic planning. That's because strategic planning starts with the most important thing first: Define your purpose.

Here are some free online resources we'll be using as we begin this process:
Family Goal Setting: Ready, Aim, Achieve!
Setting Goals: You Can Achieve Any Dream You Desire
Dr. Phil's Five Factors for a Phenomenal Family (good fodder for what to cover and how to achieve your goals)

Family Goals | Strategic Planning | Families

Family Therapy Helpful for Bulimic Teens

If you've ever been to therapy - and particularly if you've ever had weight issues - you probably won't be surprised by a recent study, reported by Reuters, that found family therapy is more effective than solo therapy for helping teenagers abstain from binging and purging.

I know I wasn't.

I love my family, but no one can drive me to overeat quite like they can.

Sadly, this is the first time U.S. researchers have evaluated treatment plans for bulimia nervosa in teens. The family-based therapy was broken into three phases:
Phase one: Patients and parents meet weekly for a therapist tot ry to help the parents stop their children from engaging in binging and purging. This phase lasts 2-3 months, according to the article.
Phase two: Begins only after success with stage one. In this stage, the family meets with a therapist every other week and the goal is to put give control over 'eating issues' back to the teen.
Phase three: Therapy is moved to once a month and they attempt to address how the eating disorder affects development processes.

The results beat solo therapy: Thirty-nine percent of the 41 patients in family-based therapy were completely abstaining from bulimic behavior, according to the story. Only 18 percent of the 39 bulimics who tried solo therapy had stopped binging and purging.

This family-based approach, called the Maudlsey approach, has also been used effectively to treat anorexia. You can find therapists who specialize in this approach online at Maudsleyparents.org.

Bulimic | Family Therapy | Mental Health | Weight |

New Autism Resource for Families

If someone in your family has an autism diagnosis, there's a new online resource you should check out. The Interactive Autism Network was created by the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore to connect families with other families and researchers, according to a recent article in the US News & World Report. You can fill out forms detailing your family member's treatment plan and find out more about how effective others view the treatment - though information is kept confidential unless you agree to have it released to researchers.

There's a community section , as well, where you can chat with other families. Within a month, the site has attracted 13,000 members - that's a lot of people who can give you feed back.

I have a friend whose child was diagnosed with autism. This child has a long medical history - she was born a micro preemie, and that means a lot of health problems and developmental uncertainity. She's had surgeries, is legally blind and is developmentally delayed. My friend handled these issues so well, I thought she should've been named Mother of the Year.

But the autism diagnosis was very difficult for her. It took her several months to process it and, more and less, accept it. (Everyone who knows this child has a lot of questions about the diagnosis, including me.)

My point is, autism is a frightening diagnosis because there's so little we know and we associate it with a child turning into some sort of robot that can't love us. But it's more complicated than that. Maybe this website will help doctors and families learn more about what autism is, what it means and what helps.

Monday Quick Tip: Judging Movies

Ever wonder if a movie is really appropriate for your child?

I mean, every child differs. You can't really say that what one five-year-old loves won't scare your five-year-old into week-long nightmares. And movie ratings are so general, they're useless, particularly since nothing gets a G rating anymore. Almost everything is filed under the ubiquitious PG or PG-13.

Personally, I need a lot more information before I decide whether a film is okay for my child. And I hate those conservative sites that just issue blanket commands about what's good for kids and what's not. Personally, I don't mind my child watching Bugs Bunny. But a lot of fundamentalist and peaceniks do.

Here's what I do: I check out the movie on Kids-In-Mind. It's tag is "Movie Ratings that Actually Work." What I love about this site is that it lists exactly what it means when it says there's cartoon violence or crude language. I mean, down to the actual lines and scenes. It's great.

Thanks to Kids-In-Mind, I can screen for what I think is appropriate, not what some unknown critic with a child-raising agenda thinks is okay.

Monday Quick Tip: Tax Tips for All Ages

The IRS posts a tip each day about taxes. This newsite has gathered all the tips in one place. You can scroll and skim for the tips that apply to you and your family.

I always review family finances in general around tax time. I can do this because hubby generally prepares the taxes. This year, I'm investigating 529 college savings plans. Here's a quick tip from Money magazine: Check into your state's 529. Does it offer deductions for contributions to its 529 plans? Mine, and many others, do not. Oh, sure, they'll tout that they "don't put income tax on earnings used for qualified expenses," but that's the very definition of a 529 - nobody taxes the earnings if they're used for qualified expenses.

If there are no tax benefits, then investigate another state's plan. It doesn't matter where you invest - you can use the benefits in any state, at any college. If there aren't tax deductions with your state, you may be better off going elsewhere. The key is to look at the expenses in managing and opening the fund.

Money suggests the Utah 529. I looked into it and thought the Virginia 529 plan also offered similar benefits, so I'm looking into both. Either plan offer great management, low expenses and are top picks.

You can research 529 funds at SavingforCollege.com.

Family Backyard

Lately I've been reading about how to make your backyard into a lush, child-friendly garden.

Right now, when I look at my window, I see a metal shed that's falling down, a stark, uneven yard, a big metal swingset and my neighbor's garage. Ick.

I grew up in the country and spent about half my childhood talking to trees and cows, and making little flower sacrifices to the creek. My family grew vegetables and my grandmother had a whole green hand that she used to grow anything and everything green.

I can grow vegetables. And I could grow tobacco. Otherwise, I'm useless when it comes to gardening. So, I'm not sure where to begin when it comes to create a beautiful backyard that will give my child a place to play, a place to hide and the sort of wild freedom I had growing up - all within the confines of an fenced 50-feet by 50-feet backyard, (roughly).

So far, my favorite book is Home Landscaping Southeast Region, because it gives me various garden designs in two versions - shade and sunny - and tells me what will live in my area. I actually recognize some of the plant names. It's full of gardens that will provide a rich, very treed-look to a backyard.

I also like A Child's Garden: Enchanting Outdoor Spaces for Children and Parents. While I couldn't reproduce what's in this book - many of the gardens are large, public spaces with lots of space and money - it does give me plenty of ideas about how to make gardens more fun. It also has inspired me to try to put in a pond.

As for online resourches, Better Homes and Gardens offers lots of great stuff, and it's mostly free, including a Family Backyard plan I found that I'm using as a loose model for what I do in my backyard.

Here's what I plan to include in my backyard:

* A wooden fence (currently, it's chain link)
* A sandbox - preferably sunken into the ground with a cover.
* Lots of small trees and bushes
* Some hiding spots for children - perhaps amidst the bushes or under some small trellises with bean vines. A weeping mulberry tree for hiding.
* A pond. And eventually, a waterfall. I actually found plans for creating your own creek! I'd love to do this - and the plans are based on a yard about my size - but my yard's flat and I'm thinking it wouldn't work too well.
* Lots of decorative grasses
* A few fruit trees (already have a peach tree, although I may have killed it)
* Place for growing vegetables.
* Lots of cute little garden decorations that kids would like, such as a flower whose petals spin, a yard gnome and colorful butterflies.
* Perhaps a compost area.
* A better shed - perhaps something very cottage-looking
* Eventually, a playhouse made of wood.

We have a huge deck for sitting already, so I feel like the adult part is pretty well taken care of.

It's a lot for a small yard. But I think it's doable. It'll just be very...busy. I don't know. I'm going to start planting and digging and see what happens. I can always cut things down.

Book Review: Chores Without Wars

I admit it. In previous posts, I may not have been fair to this book.

I'm not repenting of my previous comments, mind you. It does drive me crazy when parenting books suggest you turn into the parenting of the Stepord Wives.

But, nonetheless, I hadn't finished the book. And as it turned out, there's a lot of redeemable information if you can ignore the overly-pristine examples and press through the first 37 pages.

What's truly fabulous about this book is it addresses one of the most oppressive aspects of being a parent, but especially a mother: The feeling that you're ultimately responsible for everything.

And I've seen this worsen as the family grows: My friends have to harass their children to finish chores, homework and basically act as the administrative assistant for the whole family.

Micro-managing people will create stress, nagging and resentment on all sides. Plus, we're not raising our children to be functioning adults when we manage their lives, are we?

Chores Without Wars authors Lynn Lott and Riki Intner offer the only possible solution for this dilemma: Stop. Absolutely stop.

Of course, you tell them you're going to stop first. And here's the smart part - you offer to help train them, help them come up with solutions - but you don't force solutions on them. But you do stop doing it for them.

Lott and Intner offer you alternative tools for helping your family become functioning, autonomous adults. The tools are:

• Family Meetings
• Training
• Joint Problem Solving
• Family Routines

As I read on, I saw how their approach would free you by allowing you to detach emotionally from the issue. After all, it isn't your problem or your job as a parent to make sure children do what they've promised. It's your job to help them, to teach them, but it's not your job to do it.

Instead of the family secretary, you become the coach. You set up routines that will help the family train and learn to succeed. You bring up problems that the family needs to solve. You formulate the game plan - but you let them do the work and play the game. Brilliant!

Besides chores, the book discusses three other major issues for families today:
Allowances. The authors do not want you to use allowances as a reward for chores. Instead, they see allowances as a way to train children to manage money responsibly.
Blended families. It discusses how you can use the methods to integrate stepchildren and grandparents into your household.
Dealing with grown children who move back or refuse to leave.

So who should read this book? I'd recommend this book if you feel like:

• No one does anything around the house except you.
• A nag or b**ch around your family.
• Your stepchildren aren't helping out or your spouse expects them to do too much.
• Your mother, who just moved in, expects everyone to live their lives around her needs.
• Your teen refuses to help or take any responsibility.
• Your school-age child isn't expected to do any chores.
  
• Your children don't understand the value of a dollar.
• Your 24-year-old lives in your basement and won't get a real job.
  

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