Back Talking Cure

by Nicholeen Peck 

Question:

“How do you stop children from back talking?”

Answer:

Children talking back, or sassing, to their parents seems to be a behavior many children experiment with.  At different phases of development feelings of independence and intelligence emerge causing kids to talk back. 

Ironically, parents spend lots of energy reinforcing the intelligence of their children, and teaching the children how to think for themselves.  If we spend so many years moving our child toward self-governing thoughts and behaviors, why do we care so much about back talking children and back talking teenagers? 

Respect

Respect is a vital part of learning self-government.  Without an attitude of respect the child or teenager is doomed to fail in life. 

Successes in life are built upon successful relationships.  Any sales person can tell you this.  If a person trusts you and feels appreciated and respected by you, then they will give you more trust, more money, more affection, or more opportunity. 

Respect is a feeling of trust, acceptance, mercy and love.  Families are built on feelings like these.  When a parent feels respected she will happily serve a child more and be more willing to sacrifice for the happiness of the child. 

Likewise, if a parent feels disrespect from the child, she will naturally become more controlling and negative toward the child. 

Naturally, children offer similar positive and negative rewards to parents who treat them with disrespect.  It is imperative that we understand there is a difference between good traditional strict parenting based on solid principles and calm communication, and disrespectful parenting manifested by feelings of disapproval, contention, superiority, and lack of understanding.

Respect is a feeling!

Aesop Knows Best

“The Blind Man And The Whelp”

A blind man was accustomed to distinguish different animals by touching them with his hands.  The whelp of a wolf was brought him, with a request that he would feel it, and say what it was. He felt it and being in doubt said, “I do not quite know whether is is the cub of a fox, or the whelp of a wolf; but this I know full well, that it would not be safe to admit him into the sheepfold.   

The Heart Of Respect

At the heart of all behavior problems such as kids talking back, there is a selfish heart.  This heart can be felt,even if the child is trying to deny the problem.  Just as the blind man could feel the danger of allowing the pup he held in his hands into a sheepfold, we also feel the selfish heart of the child talking back and know the home environment is not safe. 

Since a selfish heart is at the heart of the back talking problem, that is the first place to focus our energies in order to stop the back talking. 

This issue with back talking is never about what is said, it is about what is felt.  So, as a parent, the first thing to remember is that when a child is talking back, never acknowledge the words being said.  The child is attempting to initiate a power struggle, which means you need to have enough self-government not to power struggle back.  Hearts rarely change in the middle of an argument. 

Before you say anything, make sure you check the way you feel.  Focus your energy on letting your heart speak to their heart.  Practice speaking with love, understanding, and truth. 

How To Stop Back Talking

1. Focus on your tone, and on reaching their heart
2. Never talk back to a back talker
3. Have negative consequences for back talking and do a proper correction
4. Teach your child how to disagree appropriately before back talking is an issue (proactive parenting is always better than reactive parenting)
5. Praise your child for choosing to disagree appropriately.

Disagreeing Appropriately

Stephen Covey says, “Seek to understand, then to be understood.”  This principle, if understood in childhood, can create an assertive person who is likely to have many leadership positions and successful relationships. 

To properly disagree appropriately to parents, a child should announce his intentions by saying, “May I disagree appropriately?” 

Understanding parents always say, “yes” to such an inquiry. 

Then the youth proceeds to say what he “understands” about what the other person is feeling.  After he shows he respects the parent enough to understand where they are coming from, then he shares his perspective of a decision or situation, and his desire for a different decision to be made by the parent.

This straight forward, yet humble, approach to disagreeing unites parents and children instead of engaging them in relationship destroying power struggles like standard, selfish disagreements tend to do. 

The Positive Consequence

After a child sees that when he disagrees appropriately he often gets his way, he sees there is an attractive positive consequence for choosing to respect his parents; increased personal freedom.  Getting your way is a kind of freedom which shows that the parent trusts the child. 

When a child feels real trust he is more likely to repeat the respectful behavior which helped him earn that trust.  Then the beginning of a respectful relationship is born. 

It is important that parents remember the point of parenting is to build a long lasting respectful relationship.  The point isn't how many cookies a person has had, or what time they go to bed.  So, if you take the time to teach your child to disagree appropriately, then make sure they see it often works.  This positive consequence will encourage self-government.  Which, after all, is what we work so hard at teaching our children each day of their lives. 

There is no greater gift we can give our children than an environment where self-government is taught, because the greatest battle any of us fight in this life is the battle of choosing to follow the heart over following the body.  People who learn to master themselves, can lead others to do the same; which is the essence of greatness in this world. 

I don't know about you, but that is what I want for my children.  

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Once There Was a Snowman...

by Krystal Swan

We’ve finally gotten some real snow, here in “Happy Valley”. To celebrate, the kids and I have been working on a snowman unit to practice our comparing words like “big, bigger, biggest”.



Our first project was a paper plate snowman. The kids received one paper plate for each letter in their name, plus one for the head. I had my four-year-old write his own letters, and my two- year-old traced letters that I cut out for him. And since I needed three snowman, for comparison purposes, I made one for my one-year-old as well. Once the letters were made, we hooked the paper plates together on top of each other to look like snowmen and decorated them with hats and scarves. Then we hung them up and use words like biggest, taller, smallest, shorter, etc. to describe the snowmen. We did sequences too, “Ivan’s snowman is tall, Adelia’s is taller, and Lincoln’s is the tallest of all!” 
  


Another day we did thumb print snowmen. We dipped our thumbs in white paint and pressed three thumb prints together on black construction paper to make snowmen. I let the kids do as many snowmen as they wanted. Then we decorated them with faces and scarves and arms. Then, using the opposite end of the paint brush, I had them dip it in white, and make as many snowflakes as they wanted in the sky. Then we used a piece of chalk to make the ground for the snowmen to stand on. Once our paintings were dry we filled in the blanks on the poem by counting the number of snowflakes and the number of snowmen. The poem goes like this: "______ little snowflakes fall into sight. While ______ little snowmen played all night." Then decide if you have more snowmen and less snowflakes, or the other way around. 


 

For a fun snack, we made snowmen-kabobs using bananas for the body, an apple slice and a grape for the hat, pretzels for the arms, a strip of fruit leather for the scarf, an orange sprinkle for the nose, and cake icing for eyes and mouth. I thought they turned out really cute, and they were tasty too! 
 

We made a marshmallow snowman, and talked about which circles had more marshmallows and which had less. We also talked about big, bigger, and biggest circles.

And our last big project was a yarn stitched snowman. This one was great for fine motor and concentration skills. You just take a big paper plate and a little paper plate, and punch out holes, then you use yarn to "sew" around the edges. My kids were most excited about gluing the buttons on. Once they were on we compared the buttons, "Are there more red buttons or yellow buttons?", “Are their less orange buttons than red buttons?", "Which color of buttons are there the most/least of."

And of course, Once There Was a Snowman, is a great song to use for this unit.

Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman
Once there was a snowman, 
Tall, tall, tall
In the sun he melted, melted, melted
In the sun he melted
Small, small, small.

Maybe tomorrow we can finish up the unit by going outside and building a snowman with all the fresh snow we're getting at the moment.

You can leave your thoughts, comments or suggestions here on my feedback page. Thanks!

- Krystal

It Keeps on Rollin’

It’s stuck in my head:  “Ol’ man river, ‘Dat ol’ man river… He jes’ keeps rollin’, He keeps on rollin’ along.” My dad used to sing this old Show Boat tune and I’ve been thinking of it a lot the past few weeks with the coming of a new year.  Like the ever onward flow of the Mississippi, time keeps rolling along, too, whether I’m ready to move on or not. 

Each New Year’s celebration brings mixed feelings.  Looking ahead with faith, hope, and excitement; grateful for the blessings of the past; I still savor, and mourn, what is over and only kept in memory--each fleeting year of my children’s childhood. I’ve loved every second of their lives and sometimes panic when I do the math and realize how much time has passed and how little time is left before they move on.

As sometimes happens, these emotions got the better of me one day. It wasn’t just any day.  It was the last day of a family vacation, and the last day I could say that my son had never been to public school; he was to begin his freshman year the following morning by taking a couple of electives at the junior high school. It had been a fabulously fun and luxuriously leisurely camping trip and I didn’t want to go home.  Even though the decision for him to take some public school classes had been made with much prayer and I knew it was right for him, I still didn’t want to let him go.  He, on the other hand, was eager and looking forward to the new adventure.  Our opposing emotions collided at the end of a morning hike; he was upset that I wasn’t happy for him and I was upset that he was so excited.  Then I said, much too loudly, “Well excuse me for loving you so much that I want to spend every possible second with you that I can.”  I burst into tears and ran to the dock on the lake. 

I sat sobbing on the dock and it didn’t take long for him to follow me there.  We sat there on the lake, mother and son, both in apologetic silence.  A quiet, confiding conversation emerged and we found a new understanding of one another.  Aware that the ticking of the clock of life would crescendo once we went home, I tried to breathe in those last few moments of summer, and essentially, the last few moments of my son’s innocent childhood, and store them forever in my heart.

You might think all was well from that moment, but it wasn’t.  And I don’t even wish I could say that it was, for as I continued to struggle with missing my son and the way life was before, I turned to prayer and pondering and was blessed with an epiphany. 

There is a place I like to go on my runs that is out in the fields in the country, where the only sounds are red-winged blackbirds, an occasional vole foraging in the brush, the wind in the grass, maybe a red-tailed hawk looking for the vole, and the running water of a canal.  I went there a lot the first few weeks of school that year, to pour out my heart, to cry, to listen.  One of those days, I sat quietly staring at the moving water, watching leaves come and go in the current.  Most leaves came into view on my right, passed in front of me, and traveled to my left out of sight.  A few of the leaves, on the fringes of the current, got stopped up by rocks or canal debris, their progress halted.  One of the leaves got stuck in a small whirlpool, only to circle and circle and circle the same 6-inch area over and over and over.  Suddenly, and yet with a slowly spreading radiance emanating from the deepest places of my soul, I knew that this was Heavenly Father showing me, plainly, unmistakably, beautifully, and lovingly the course of mortality.

The poet Austin Dobson said it this way:  

Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays, we go.

The leaves in the water were showing me that the intended path of life is one that “keeps on rollin’.” Birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, parenthood—growing up is traveling the current of mortality.  It’s right in this life for each person to enter and exit, to move through and on.  Just as those leaves passed through that section of canal, never to return to that particular place in their journey, their journey went on, and it wasgood for it to do so.  Those leaves that didn’t travel on were the ones at a loss; their progress was halted and they were left in stagnant waters, or they floated in futility in fruitless, pointless circles.  Neither of these latter scenarios could be what Heavenly Father intends for His children.  It was from this moment that I accepted the change.

I remember once telling my mother that I wished my kids would stop growing up, that they’d just stay little forever.  She smiled at me sadly and said, “I used to think that way, too, until it happened.”  You see, my brother died when he was 7 (I was 13). His was a moving on, just in a different current.

Robert Frost once said, “In three words I can sum up what I’ve learned about life:  It goes on.”  Thank God that it does.  I still have days that I’d love to have my kids little again.  Some days I look at photos from years ago and don’t know whether to laugh or cry.  But I love the people they’re growing up to be.  As much as I miss the delights of the past, I relish in the new enchantments of today.  And always, I’m grateful for every extra minute homeschooling has given me to spend with these amazing individuals.

You can leave your thoughts, comments or suggestions here on my feedback page. Thanks!

- Sasha

The Squirmy Days

A couple of weeks ago I went mountain biking for the very first time. I learned how to lower my center of gravity and sit far back from the handle bars. Last week I finally learned how to make a loaf of gluten free yeast bread. Over the last few weeks I have been learning how to care for our dog, which was recently diagnosed with diabetes. (A month ago I didn’t even know dogs could get diabetes!) I have been busy designing a new garden, figuring out how to use a new history curriculum, organizing a new home school group and entertaining a lot of family. Life has been full and busy, which is great except for one thing: I’m a writer (at least a wanna-be writer) and I am preoccupied by so many things I can’t write. The thought of sitting down for even 30 minutes and organizing my thoughts on a single topic is almost torturous.

My early bout of spring fever has given me some serious empathy for my squirmy, active children. Sometimes they are excited about our day’s written work, but there are other days when glares and moans of agony are all that meet my request to get out a pencil. So what’s a mom to do when neither she nor her children can sit still?  Here are a few things that seem to help with those wiggly days.

1. Establish a routine. At our house we try to start our seated work at approximately the same time every morning. When we all know what to expect it’s easier to settle into the day.
    
2. Take frequent breaks. Sometimes it is tempting to make kids sit until they’re done with an assignment, especially when they are stalling and droopy. However, I find that if I have them run a few stairs or spend a few minutes on the trampoline they come back energized and ready to get to work.
    
3. Work movement into the lesson plan. When I let my kids color or play with Legos while I read aloud it helps everyone focus on the material. Any project that doesn’t involve a pencil and paper is always met with enthusiasm. 
    
4. Encourage study and exploration of topics that are of interest to the kids. We are all better at focusing when we’re studying something that is interesting to us. 
    
5. Break up the routine. As important as routines are, life gets pretty darn boring when we do the same exact thing every. single. day.
    
6. Recognize that there truly are times and seasons. It is normal for interests to ebb and flow. All I wanted to do all summer was write. I wrote and wrote and wrote. Now it’s like pulling teeth. So I’m going to cut myself some slack, learn and do things that are more in tune with my current energy levels, and recognize that not all learning has to be done with a pencil and paper.

You can leave your thoughts, comments or suggestions here on my feedback page. Thanks!

- Lisa

Would Life Be Easier?

The last few years have been busy ones for my family. My husband was medically retired from the military after several years of medical challenges. We moved across the country into a house that needs a lot of work. I started working part time. I have a calling with heavy time commitments, etc.

In addition, I work with both local and national homeschool organizations.  Add to that all the comings and goings of my older children and it can get crazy trying to keep track of everything and everybody. It can make homeschooling seem pretty low on the to do list!

A few weeks ago, a well meaning friend and I were trying to coordinate some activities. She doesn’t homeschool. As we struggled to find time to make things work, she said, “If you are so busy, why don’t you put your kids in public school? After all, you live in a better school system now.” She must have seen the shocked look on my face, because she quickly apologized and we went on with our conversation.

That conversation stuck with me and I asked myself, why do I continue to homeschool? I am tired. I have been doing this for 25 years now.  I have 12 more years to go before I send my last child out into the world. Isn’t it enough that I have graduated 6 from my homeschool? Can’t I call it good and move on?

The answer to my ponderings has been a resounding NO! I know 4 reasons why I will continue to homeschool to the very end.

1. Homeschooling has become a lifestyle. We just do it! We have moved from bringing the public school home, where everyone sits at desks and listens to me lecture, to more independent learning and more one-on-one as needed. My kids know that we have a schedule of the day and we follow it. School is following mom around if they need help, but at a certain point in the morning it is Mom Reading Time. Education has become more than text books and more about following your passions with a little “must do’s” thrown in. Much easier to do.
    
2. I love the time with my kids. I love learning new things with my kids. I love reading to them. I love working with them and living with them. Not that there aren’t days when the bus passes by my house and I don’t think "a day to myself would be wonderful". I know that I would miss more than I would gain.
    
3. I know what my kids are learning and what they are not. There are things my kids struggle to learn and things that are easy for them. I know what they are. When they need the help, I can find creative ways to teach them. When something is easy for them, I don’t have to waste a lot of time with busy work. We move on quickly until it gets hard, then we slow down again. Individualized learning. I love it!
   
   I also know what they are not learning. There are many who are trying to educate our children with things that are not part of our value system or are just plain wrong. We can choose to address those things in age appropriate ways or decide it is not worth our time. Our choice!
    
4. And last but not least - because the Lord has told me so. I have a sure witness that homeschooling is best for my family. With that witness I know that, even with all the time challenges, that things will turn out, if I put my children first. The Lord knows my challenges and my children. If I am prayerful and follow the promptings I receive, all will be well. What a comfort that is!

I recommend that you ask yourself why do you homeschool. If you don’t know the answer to that, you better figure it out! Life and school will be enhanced if you know why you do what you do.  You can stand strong and not be tossed about by the winds of public opinion. Especially when that public opinion is a family member who thinks what you’re doing is crazy or worse! You will know better.

You can leave your thoughts, comments or suggestions here on my feedback page. Thanks!

- Dana

I’m Home

I have been thinking a lot about home lately.  Not just these four walls in which I live but what a home means.  What makes a home?  What is it about the biological makeup of women that we feel such a desire to have and make a home?  To be always working, tidying, arranging, scrubbing, fixing, changing… And what is it that makes all of humankind long for home?  That pulls old and young alike to gather at “home” for special occasions, long weekends, reunions and the like? 

“Home for the Holidays”

“Home Sweet Home”

“All Roads Lead Home”

“I’ll Be Home for Christmas”

“Home is Where the Heart Is”

I think of the places that I have lived over the years.  They aren’t many and they aren’t far apart.  There are moments that stand out in my mind from each dwelling.  I remember beauty pageants enacted on our front steps by my sisters and I in the home I grew up in.  I remember a summer family project in which those front steps were replaced with a beautiful white front porch worthy of “Gone with the Wind”. 

I think of the little basement apartment in Logan, Utah.  The home where I became a wife.  The home with walls so thin we could hear the fighting (and later the making up!) of the landlords who shared the house.

I remember the little white county house that became our home after I secured my first teaching contract.  The home where I became a mom.  I remember the first time I bathed my own new baby in the kitchen sink of that home.  He was so wiggly and slippery.  And, when I dried him off, much of his hair came off in the towel!  And he smelled so scrumptious and yummy as I snuggled him in the fluffy towel with sunlight streaming through the kitchen windows and little soapy puddles on the floor. 

I remember our first home that came with a mortgage.  I insisted on painting it yellow upon moving in.  If I had my way, every house we ever lived in would be painted yellow.  I remember Mrs. Duncan, the little old lady who sold us her house and went shopping with me for carpet and paint.  That home was nestled in the middle of the best neighborhood ever.  Sunday afternoon walks took hours as we stopped in driveways and on front steps to chat with wonderful friends. I grew my first garden all by myself at that home and practiced canning to fill up my tiny pantry with one diaper-clad helper. 

And now, I sit in my home surrounded by five beautiful children and all the “stuff” that comes with such an entourage.  There are crumbs under the kitchen table.  Laundry is hanging to dry and overflowing from hampers, waiting to be folded.  There are dishes to be washed.  There is also laughter.  And hugs and kisses.  A family picture hangs framed on the wall and, under it, the words “Happy Hearts, Helping Hands”.  Admonition or recipe?

As I look at the clutter that makes up my home, I hear the words of a good friend in my ear, “It’s clean underneath”.  A mantra of sorts.  And I realize, as I look back on my memories of home over the years,   I don’t remember cleaning the toilets, sweeping the floors, washing the dishes, although I am sure that those things happened.  I am certain that I even did them.  Instead, I remember swimming pools, swingsets,  long walks, reading stories by the light of tiki torches on the back patio, naps in the sun, food and games with friends… I guess ‘clean underneath’ can be enough. 

Thinking of places that I have called home makes me wonder about the future.  What other homes will I decorate, rearrange, clean and care for?  What memories will be made there?

“When I leave this frail existence, when I lay this mortal by, Father, Mother, may I greet you, in your royal courts on high?”  What house am I earning there?  And can one have red walls in a heavenly mansion?  Is such a bold, unforgiving color allowed?  And do I have to clean my toilets in heaven, because really, who would it be heaven for if that person had to clean toilets? 

I sincerely hope that having my home and my life “clean underneath” will be enough to buy me a mansion there.  With red walls.  Because that is a homecoming I am really looking forward to. 

But I have a few more houses to paint yellow first.

You can leave your thoughts, comments or suggestions here on my feedback page. Thanks!

- Kresta

Christmas Coupons! ... more fun for Christmas ...

Christmas Coupons

Make Christmas gifts a little more personal with "Do-it Yourself Christmas Coupons". 
Grab the markers and print these out for the kids and watch the fun begin. It is always good to brainstorm some coupon ideas and spell out ideas on paper. Remind kids that spelling and handwriting DOES count on this one! They can cut coupons apart and then staple them into a booklet, or keep them separate for giving individually.

Merry Christmas and happy giving!

You can leave your thoughts, comments or suggestions here on my feedback page. Thanks!

- Kari

Relaxing Into Christmas

As wonderful as family Christmas traditions are, I have to admit that I have stressed over them too many times.  This year I am relaxing into our family traditions. I am welcoming them into my life and embracing them for what they are:  a way to transmit to my children what Christmas means to me.  In years past I have stressed over getting the traditions done.  I’ve resisted them and thought “Oh no, here comes Christmas, again!” 

You might ask, “Why the perspective change?”  I have some ideas.  Maybe sending my first missionary out did it.  Maybe it was facing a potentially life-threatening condition with a younger son.  Maybe it is my oldest daughter nearing her 18th birthday or my youngest daughter approaching her 4th.  Maybe it was the result of a lot of personal introspection or maybe it was God who helped me to see what really matters.  Whatever it was, I am changed this year.

One of our family traditions is that in December we take a break from our normal school schedule.  We maintain a remnant of “school” but for the most part we embrace the season with Christmas projects and activities like making gingerbread houses, hanging lights on our home, secretive gift making and giving, caroling, and watching our favorite Christmas movies.  During December our family becomes an even more tight knit team working together to create the experience of Christmas. 

Another tradition we have is to read Christmas stories as a family.  We snuggle around our wood burning stove and lighted Christmas tree and munch on a fun snack while the stories are read a loud.  This is one of my favorites.  I want to invite you into our family room to enjoy the glow of our hearth and a good Christmas story.  It’s a personal story, but one I think you’ll like.

The year my mother passed away, it was my turn to give to my youngest brother, Darrin.  Of our eight siblings he was  the only one not married.  In the two years since an honorable return from his mission, he had made choices that alienated him from our family and church. He told us a few months after our mother’s death.  Always a close family, this and the death of our mother tried our relationships and tugged at our very core. Some of my siblings wanted nothing to do with him.  He was disconnecting from us and we were struggling with how to love and accept him in spite of his choices. 

For this reason I wanted my gift to really mean something and I labored over what to give him.  I called him and asked what he might like.  We chatted casually for a few minutes and he gave me the title of some books he wanted and the idea of a gift card.  I wasn’t convinced these held the meaning I was looking for, but purchased them anyway.  I had no clue what else to give him.  I was at a loss for ideas, but I knew there was something else.  So I simply asked Heavenly Father, “Please help me to know what to give Darrin.  I want him to feel our love for him.  I want the gift to touch his heart.  Please help me.” 

Weeks passed and the day of our family Christmas party arrived.  I still hadn’t had any other ideas for Darrin’s gift.  That afternoon I was in my kitchen making our traditional family Christmas cookies—two kinds—called half moon and punch bowl.  These cookies come from my Grandmother Linnebach.  She was orphaned as a young woman and went to work in a wealthy home to support herself.  The woman she worked for taught my Grandmother to make these fancy cookies.   After my Grandmother married she made them part of her family’s Christmas traditions.  My mother, Gwen, and her sisters grew up with them.  They each married and continued to make these cookies in their own homes.   Every year I not only enjoyed them on Christmas eve at my Grandmother’s home, but I also worked along side my mother making these special cookies.  Together we made trays and trays of them and they were always on the goodie plates we gave to our neighbors.  These two kinds of cookies were part of my childhood Christmases—a small but important part of the meaning and experience of Christmas I learned from my mother and grandmother. 

So I was in my kitchen that afternoon making these traditional cookies with my little children. We were a mess of flour and powdered sugar and sticky hands.  Amidst the confusion I suddenly knew what I needed to give my brother.  I could see it clearly…a gift basket with the books, the gift card and a tin each of half moon cookies and punch bowl cookies.  Finally, I was excited and at peace about his gift.

That evening Darrin didn’t show up at our family Christmas party.  He called my Dad to say he was sick and that he wouldn’t be coming.  After so much anticipation, I felt disappointed.  As it came time to go home, I knew I needed to take my gift to his apartment.  This was a stretch for me.  My husband was sick that evening and hadn’t come either.  So I had traveled the hour to the party alone with my six children then ages 12 and under.  To take the gift to Darrin’s apartment,  I would have to travel another hour out of my way, in the dark and cold of a snowy December night with 6 tired children.  I would have to find an address I had never been to before and I would have to take my children into my brother’s apartment and I was uncertain what that would be like.  Still I knew I needed to do it.

I managed to navigate the unknown dark streets and house numbers as well as a crying toddler and found his apartment.  I knocked on his door, a child in one arm, and two clinging to my legs.  My oldest son held the basket.  Darrin’s partner opened the door and kindly invited us in.  We clumsily made our way to the small front room and sat down to wait.  The room was cheerfully decorated with a beautiful Christmas tree and other small items.  I noticed the tree and remembered.  Darrin, the baby of our family, had been the last one to leave home.  He loved Christmas as much as my mother did.  For five  years it was the two of  them who had decorated the house for the holidays.  Together they carefully placed nativity sets, and mother made Santas,  Christmas villages, the lights and garlands and the Christmas tree.  It was Darrin and my mother who had rolled and shaped the half moon and punch bowl cookies and greeted the rest of us when we came home for Christmas Day.  My mother and baby brother.

Just then Darrin came into the room.  He greeted each of us with a hug and we talked for a time.  I mentioned his tree and his eyes lit up.  Then I gave him the gift basket.  He opened first the books and then the gift card.  He was appreciative of both.  Then he opened the tin of half moon cookies.  For the longest moment he just sat there looking at the cookies.  Finally, he looked up at me.  He really looked  into my eyes and with tears running down his cheeks said, “Thank you.”  He felt it. Through the simple tradition of a cookie, even if just for a few moments,  he was drawn once again into the love and meaning of our family and Christmas.  He was touched.

This Christmas you can be sure the Baker Family will be making half moon and punch bowl cookies and I will tell my children stories about their Great-grandma Linnebach and Grandma Cottle.  We’ll be relaxing into Christmas with a variety of projects and family traditions.  This year I’m joyfully embracing them for what they are:  a way to transmit to my children what Christmas means to me.  This year it’s not about doing the traditions but about living them.  You can be sure a package will reach my missionary son in Oklahoma and in that package he will find a tin each of half moon and punch bowl cookies.  I am certain they will convey the love and meaning I so want them to. 

Family traditions are worth the effort year in and year out.  They are how children learn the meaning of Christmas, of home and family, and of life.  They have the power to communicate love and testimony over the years, across the miles, and even through the veil of death.  Traditions, even as simple as a half  moon cookie, can communicate what words cannot. The Lord can show us how to give gifts of meaning that touch hearts, ease the pain of grief, and connect us in love.    May we let Him show us how, this Christmas time and always.

A Christmas to Remember

One Christmas a number of years ago, my family had the opportunity to feel the true meaning of Christmas and make a small difference in a family’s life.

My husband was in the military and we were stationed up in cold, snowy Alaska - far from family and friends - but we had managed to make new ones with homeschool families we met in the co-op we joined.

One family we were particularly close to had children the same ages as my seven and we did lots of things together and our children became great friends.

Just before Thanksgiving the father of this family was suddenly laid off. This was a blow to the family and money was tight. My friend confided in me that there was no way she and her husband would be able to purchase any presents for their kids this Christmas and she wasn’t sure how to tell them there would be no Christmas. 

At our next family counsel I told our kids about the situation that our friends faced for Christmas. We talked about ways we could help and finally hit upon a plan. We would take one of our family traditions and do it for our friends instead of ourselves.

The family tradition is for our children to purchase gifts for each other. We put the names in a hat and each child buys a gift for the sibling whose name they drew. We take a Monday in December to go together to the store to purchase the gifts.  We divide into 2 groups, one group with mom and one group with dad and we have fun helping each other choose the gifts. We exchange these on Christmas Eve. 

The kids decided this would be a great way to help our friends, but that we needed to do it in such a way they would never know who helped them.

So for our next Family Home Evening we headed off to the store, this time to work as a team. The kids enjoyed finding just the right gift for each of the kids in the family and the parents too!  We even threw in some must have Christmas goodies. Store bought of course, so they would never know who it came from! 

We then went home and wrapped everything. On Christmas Eve we all piled in our van and drove over to deliver the gifts. Included in the gifts were two sleds. We pondered how to deliver our stash without our friends knowing who left them.

We decided to leave the box of gifts on the porch, but we couldn’t get the sleds up on their porch without being seen so we left a note in the box that told where the sleds were buried in the deep snow. One of the kids rang the doorbell and ran into the woods and met us up on the main road and we hurried home. We enjoyed our warm-hearted feelings for the rest of the evening as we celebrated our Christmas. There was an extra spirit in our home that night. 

The next morning, bright and early our friend’s children called to tell us of the miracle that had happened the night before and how cool all the gifts were. What really touched my heart was not one of my kids, not even the youngest ones told them where those gifts came from, tempting though it must have been. We continued to live in Alaska for 2two more years and though their friends mentioned that Christmas occasionally, our children never once betrayed our family secret.

We remember that Christmas years ago as the Christmas we shared true Christ-like love for another family.  It is one of our most cherished memories.

Oh, the joys of Christmas memories. If you have some Christmas memories to share, send them here.

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Biscuits, Biscotti, and Brownies: Cookie Coaching at Christmas

Americans enjoy over 2 billion cookies a year or an average of 300 cookies per person annually.1   Not only are there countless cookie cookbooks—books dedicated solely to cookie recipes—there are countless Christmascookie cookbooks.  Besides delighting taste buds, however, cookies can serve as a delightfully educational unit of study. And what better time to study it than at Christmas?

The English word cookie comes from the Dutch koekje, which means “little cake.”2   These treats that we use as snacks, or stand alone desserts and consider a destination, were once just a small part of a journey to something else.  Cookies began as oven regulators, literally little cakes to test temperatures.  The earliest “cookies” are thought to date back to 7th Century Persia A.D. when luxurious cakes were being made in one of the first countries to cultivate sugar.  These were merely test cakes, as it was better to use a little batter to check an oven than to waste an entire large cake.

Begin your unit learning about the history of cookies through the years.  (The websites cited below are great places to start.)  You’ll find that America’s favorite cookie, the delicious and infamous chocolate chip cookie, came about through an accident at the Toll House Restaurant in Massachusetts.  As you learn about this happy accident, it would be a good time to add some geography to your unit with the book All in Just One Cookie by Susan E. Goodman.  This book takes children around the world to learn where the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies come from.  Add a small journaling assignment where children think of a time when they experienced a “happy accident,” when something didn’t go as planned, but turned out to be good anyway.

Continue your social studies and language studies by learning the words for cookie in other languages and cultures.  In England and Australia, they’re biscuits.  Italy has biscotti, Spain galletas.  Germans call themkeks, and they even have a name specifically for Christmas cookies—Platzchen.  Of course, bake, bake, bake! And eat, eat, eat!

For the most part, it’s up to you and your excited children which cookies you’ll make.  There is one batch of cookies, however, that I specifically suggest you make during this unit, and that is thumbprint cookies.  Prior to making the cookies, get an inkpad and let everyone experiment with their fingerprints.  Make little Christmas pictures by making people or animals out of your fingerprints.  Talk about how everyone’s fingerprints are different from everyone else’s.  Next take those fingers and thumbs to the cookie dough.  As you make the cookies, talk about how each person is unique, and how even with all the many people in the world, Heavenly Father and Jesus know each one of us personally.  President Ezra Taft Benson taught, “Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father and how familiar His face is to us.”3   And just like Jesus had a mission and role to fill that was specifically His, each of us has a mission to complete as well.  While there are certainly future events pertaining to each person’s life mission, many elements are in affect now.  Learn that our missions in life are now, with each person having a “unique set of gifts, a unique set of challenges, and there are specific needs in the world that the Lord wants us to respond to now.”4   When you’re done with the pictures and cookies, add a journaling assignment:  “What My Fingerprint Means to Me.”

Now, the act of baking cookies is automatically mathematical in measuring ingredients, but you can do more than the obvious.  This would be a good time to teach or review not only fractions but systems of measurement and conversions.  You can rely on learning by doing, or you can add some extra activities.  Get going with Gallon Man (or Gallon Guy or Measurement Man).  Make it a game using (or creating your own) materials like Merry Measurement and Cookie Sums, seasonally festive and educational, from Flap Jack Educational Resources.  You can even add music to the mix by choosing catchy tunes on YouTube about measurement.

Baking cookies also lends itself to a lesson in following directions.  If you can stand it, let your kids experiment with the order in which they add ingredients to see if it really makes a difference.  Try substitutions.  This is also a perfect time to let kids invent their own recipes.  Have a cookie creating contest, with the stipulation that all new recipes must be written out and part of the test is how clearly the directions are written.  You could also do cooking shows and practice speech and presentation.

Experimentation is science, and yes, there is science in baking cookies!  It’s called Chemistry.  You might want to learn about the chemistry of cookies before or after experimenting (or both).5 

And now for treasured reading.  Believe it or not, there are some fantastic cookie books out there that aren’t cookbooks.  Amy Krouse Rosenthall has written a wonderful series that teaches important concepts, traits, and characteristics through the medium of cookies.  Titles include Cookies:  Bite-Size Life Lessons; One Smart Cookie:  Bite-Size Lessons for the School Years and Beyond; Sugar Cookies:  Sweet Little Lessons on Love; Christmas Cookies:  Bite-Size Holiday Lessons.  These are brilliant!  Read them again and again around the table while you sample your cookies together.

Last but most definitely not least, is the lesson of the unit to tie it all up and make it meaningful.  Read together The Gift of the Christmas Cookie:  Sharing the True Meaning of Jesus’ Birth by Dandi Daley Mackall. Make your own Nativity cookies, either by purchasing cookie cutters, or by drawing your own silhouette shapes on paper to use as a stencil to cut out of sugar or gingerbread dough.  Let your children tell the story of Jesus’ birth with them and then take some to others to share the true meaning of Christmas.

Because of the saturation of senses, the smells and tastes of food leave distinct impressions.  Finish your unit with a final journaling activity exploring the importance of traditions and the role that food plays in it.  It would be appropriate for you to share your own childhood memories of cookies at Grandma’s or other fond recollections of traditions involving food.  Children could even contact extended family members and collect their memories, making a volume of “Family Christmas Traditions and Recipes” to give as a gift for this or a future Christmas.

Merry Christmas!  May your hearts be warm, your hands busy, and your heads full of newfound knowledge to ponder and bless.

1 Block, Stephen.  The History of Cookies. The Kitchen Project.  Retrieved December 6, 2011

2 Stradley, Linda.  2004.  History of Cookies.  What’s Cooking America.  Retrieved December 6, 2011

3 Benson, Ezra Taft.  “Jesus Christ—Gifts and Expectations.”  Ensign December 1988. 

4 Pinborough, Jan.  “Your Mission in Life is Now.” Ensign June 2010. 

5 See Vodrey, Catherine S.  November 29, 2001.  Cookie Chemistry 101.  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  Retrieved December 6, 2011

You can leave your thoughts, comments or suggestions here on my feedback page. Thanks!

- Sasha