Sudden-onset upset stomach. A vague headache. Sort of sore throat. Any one of these may be minor (or maybe not?!) symptoms, which leads to the pressing question: Is she too sick to go to school?

The hardest part about outdoor winter fun is that it can take almost as long to get ready as it does to actually play outside. Sometimes longer. Getting out the door quickly doesn’t always happen with kids, especially when you factor in drives.

They say, there’s no bad weather as long as you have the right gear. And this is true with kids, too…you just have to decide on your own threshold for winter fun.

This year, my family decided to head out west to South Dakota.  My kids are older, so we packed in the activities on each day.  

A quick Pinterest search will show you how to spend hours of your time making personalized teacher gift tags to attach to buckets of candy or recreate your child’s classroom photo using stick figures and colorful buttons. But to find out what teachers really want, I went straight to the source:

Education systems vary not just within the United States but also worldwide. The importance placed on homework, high-stakes testing, and parent/family involvement differs significantly from one country to another.

Restraint collapse is the idea that they spend so much of the day holding it together that when they get home, they kind of “collapse” into temporary deregulation.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reports that, on average, children ages 8-12 spend four to six hours a day watching TV or using screens, while teens can spend up to nine hours a day watching a screen.

We are doing all the “lasts” with him, stirring up so much emotion. Recently, we were at his last high school wrestling match, and it all boiled over. I started thinking about everything the sport gave him. He has learned leadership, loyalty, teamwork, and so much more.

Being raised by a single mother was the most significant life lesson I have ever had. At a young age, I learned how to take care of myself and how to take care of others. I also learned how to take care of a home.