“You can miss a person every day and still be glad that they’re no longer in your life.” — Oprah Winfrey
19
You don’t have to go to college, but whether you do or not, I implore you to read. If you’re like me a slow reader, pace yourself but keep at it. Read bestsellers and classics. Fiction, biography, history, art, every damn thing. A big regret of my life is that I never tried to love reading as a kid. Do yourself a favor and carve out time to read every day. Even if’s it’s just a few pages. Your mind will sharpen and your heart will be full and your soul will be fed.
10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 21
Institute a “Wall of Fame” for accomplishments and victories, big and small. AND a “Wall of Shame” for minor infractions such as not changing the toilet paper roll, etc. We have to be willing to put ourselves on the wall of shame too - and that’s the lesson: We all make mistakes but we own up to them, fix them if possible and learn from them always. Also good fun. Start our with actual paper version but transition to a shared iCloud album to post wall of shame pics once they are old enough for phones. Maybe even continue through adulthood if they “shame” themselves!
5-15, 18, 21
Have them practice making trade offs based on their financial priorities. For example: Pedicure or movie?
9
“When you are not fed love off a silver spoon you will learn to lick it off of knives.” Lauren Eden (poet)
0, 20
You don’t have to be friends with people you don’t like. But you can’t decide you don’t like someone unless you get to know them. (Rather than a look or a reputation or a difference, etc.)
10
In social situations it's better to talk too little than too much. Don't over-share with people you're not close to.
15
Girls forget a good bit of compliments they receive but they remember every single insult. Speak gently, remind them they’re beautiful. Never qualify it.
12, 14, 17
“Take the risks. Make the big moves, even if they’re small moves. Forge ahead with your lives in any and every direction that moves you. I’m asking you to be fearless.” - Rebecca Pearson (character from NBC tv drama ‘This Is Us’)
21
Read poem “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver. (“...You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves...”)
17
Watch YouTube video on how to administer an Epi-pen injection. You have friends with allergies you may need to know how to do this.
11-15
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
Clip nails after bath. It’s easier to do when they’re softer. (Teach them the same thing when they’re old enough to do it for themselves.)
1, 10
“Pick a problem - any problem,and do something about it. Because to somebody who is hurting, ‘something’ is everything.” -Oprah Winfrey
12-16
Some people have more money than sense. Just because u can afford something doesn’t mean you should buy it.
15
Paint rocks with pictures or kind messages and find public places to leave them where they can hide in plain site. See RockOurWorldArt.
8-11