Japanese multiplication (counting lines.)


8



Before a play date or sleepover ask the parent “Are there any unlocked guns in the house?”


6-9



Bring Christmas cookies to local fire station and police station. (Annually)


6



1

You’re not obsessed with that person you’re just hyper fixating. It’s ADHD.


12, 16, 19, 21



None of us should ever have to apologize for being who we are.


10, 14, 21



Go to Planet Word and do the Lexicon Lane puzzle experience.


12



Learn about current trends in social media. Figure out where you draw boundaries, what platforms are allowed and not. Teach them how to stay safe, be positive and kind and always respectful.


9



Talk about how to be a good houseguest: Always bring something (food, wine, gift, etc) Make your bed, keep area clean. Enthusiastically accept your host’s hospitality but don’t make extra work for them. Contribute and pitch in where u can. Send a thank you note - or at very least, an email!


18



If car breaks down, if at all possible, avoid pulling over on the highway. Get off the highway and pull to safety.


16



Technology doesn’t remove the expectation of good behavior. Be mindful of your manners (and all of our collective humanity) when posting on social media. And no anonymous trolling. If you’re not prepared to sign your name to what you’re putting out there, that’s a good indication you shouldn’t be doing it.


13, 20



Try out Petra Lingua online language courses for kids. (Ages 3-10)


4



Read "You Can’t buy a Dinosaur with a Dime" by Harriet Ziefert. Teaches kids about earning money through work, making choices, even paying taxes!


9



Action is the antithesis of anxiety.


18



If you’re anything like the rest of your family you will have a lot of opinions -and that’s OK! Just remember a couple of things: First: you have a right to your opinion but you do not have a right to your own facts. facts matter. seek the truth even if i it means you are proven wrong. And second, with regard to opinions ...it’s better to not express them so much if you can help it! You may be the first in the family to get this concept and put it into practice!


13-15



Be kind. Be brave.


5-10



YouTube Randy Pauch The Last Lecture. Watch together.


14



Enroll in cooking lessons. We'll need to find you someone who knows how to cook. (Don't tell mom I said that.)


14



Check into Brilliant.org for STEM activities.


12



Hand out tulip bulbs (or some sort of bulbs) at my funeral and ask people to plant a few in their yard. But NOT daffodils. I hate daffodils. And lilies, hate ‘em.) So tulips then.


21



Alcoholism and gambling addiction run in our family. Be very, very careful around booze and gambling.


14,16, 18, 21



Blessing for the Brokenhearted: Poem by Jan Richardson ___________ "There is no remedy for love but to love more." – Henry David Thoreau ________________________ ________________________ Let us agree for now that we will not say the breaking makes us stronger or that it is better to have this pain than to have done without this love. __________Let us promise we will not tell ourselves time will heal the wound, when every day our waking opens it anew. ___________Perhaps for now it can be enough to simply marvel at the mystery of how a heart so broken can go on beating, as if it were made for precisely this— as if it knows the only cure for love is more of it, as if it sees the heart’s sole remedy for breaking is to love still, as if it trusts that its own persistent pulse is the rhythm of a blessing we cannot begin to fathom but will save us nonetheless.


20



Drunken shenanigans are part of life when you’re in college, etc. but it gets old fast. That kind of behavior as an adult is just sad. Drink responsibly. Don’t make an $@!#% out of yourself. I recommend this rule: Don’t have more than one drink at a work function.


21



Talk about how choices become habits. Habits can become addictions. Describe how pathways are literally dug into the brain and it's very hard to change them once those paths are made.


13-16



You will never be good enough for the wrong person. This truth is profound and one I wish I learned a lot earlier in my life. Stop tripping over yourself to please someone who doesn’t get you.


21



Just love them. With all your might, them for who they are, and where they are. Forget about the other stuff.


15



Talk about how to speak up for themselves and others.


1Infant-12, 16, 21



Mackinac Island trip


10



Don’t worry about finding your person. Focus on finding your people.


15, 21



Work on developing a “no shortcuts” mode. Looking for a faster/easier/bare-minimum option isn’t always bad. People get paid a lot of money for creating efficacy. But there are times when that approach is wrong. Anything you want to grow from (relationships, school, work, wealth, health, knowledge, etc.) those things deserve your full effort, focus and dedication. Play. Definitely play! But don’t f*ck around.


12, 14, 15, 18, 19, 21



The opposite of addiction is connection. Genuine connection can take lots of forms.


14, 17, 19, 21