Ditch the serving bowls, plates, tablecloth and utensils. Cover middle of table in tinfoil for the food. Give each kid a tinfoil placemat in lieu of a plate. Let them eat with their fingers. (Works great with spaghetti, chicken, ribs, shrimp, etc. Try it with ice-cream and cake for a birthday party!


3-6



Play to win but play fair. Be a gracious winner. Someone has to lose. Sometimes it will be you. Don’t whine.


10



vaccinate! Science is good.


0, 1, 2, 3, 5



Read Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson together.


17



Practice “going without.” Talk about how nobody gets what they want all the time. We should learn how to just choose to go without something we want. Get them in on the discussion and pick something every day to do without.


5-9



Universal Studios


12-18



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



Sometimes the only thing you can do is to show up. Be there.


13, 15, 17, 21



Read poem “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver. (“...You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves...”)


17



Read Moth by Amber McBride. Young adult fiction in verse about grief. Twists and turns.


15



Plan a trip someplace where we can see the Northern Lights.


15



Summer concerts at Wolftrap- get good seats so they can really get a sense of the experience.


13-16



Whatever you choose to do, do it well and there will always be a demand for you. (Quoting Adam Schiff from his book “Midnight in Washington.”


16



Sometimes I think the best way to take care of them is to teach them to take care of others: Littler kids, sick or disabled, those who’ve been left out.


5-7, 1Infant-12



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



Make sure they have resources other than us. Hotlines for teens such as Boys Town National Hotline, National $@!#% Prevention Lifeline, etc.


12



An exercise in assumption. Have them answer “Just because I _______” doesn’t mean _________”.


10



Life doesn’t have to turn out like you imagined it would in order to be AMAZING.


19



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



Read Big Magic by Liz Gilbert. Re-read every 5-10 years.


19, 21



Watch the news together. Local and national. Today Show has both of mornings are easier than evenings.


12, 13, 14, 15



Uplift your friends and surround yourself with friends who uplift you. In person and online. Encourage each other to let your lights shine brightly. Never bully or steal someone’s joy.


11, 15, 18, 20



My worst fear is that I will be unable to reach you when you’re in pain. All I want as a parent, what my whole job boils down to, is to be there when you need me. How can I help you?


13



Speaking truth to power is important but should be done carefully. Before you speak remember this: Is there anything self-serving, mean-spirited, or ego-driven? If you’re sure your feedback isn’t tinged with those things, then I’d say you can be comfortable telling it like it is. Note: when you’re young (less than 30) WAIT to be asked before you spill your guts! Always be kind, professional and consider what you want to say carefully.


21



“It’s alright to be yourself. There ARE people in this world who will love you.” -Fred Rogers


12, 14, 17, 21



Go as a family to local high school musical productions.


7-18



Beautiful girls don’t exist for your pleasure. They’re not there for you. They, like you, exist to find out what it is to be alive in their body in this lifetime and to learn what makes them feel most like themself. They’re here, like you, to grow into themselves, to enjoying being alive, to marvel in creation with all its beauty and tragedy, injustices, banality and thrills. No one, friend or foe is an object for your experience


14, 16, 19, 21



Sometimes the job will require you to do menial tasks. Do them enthusiastically because nothing is “beneath you.” If the good Lord can wash people’s feet, you can make coffee at the office. Get over yourself.


16, 21



Honestly I think all religions are at least fifty percent bull pucky and none of them come close to reflecting the loving nature of God, which is broader and deeper than our little brains can grasp. So pick your poison. Whatever religion feels like home, like a place that can provide context for you to explore the goodness and beauty at the heart of the universe…that’s the religion for you. And if no religion fits the bill, that’s fine too. Either way, always remember and keep coming back to the knowledge that you are so very loved.


16, 21