Well I am back from my camping trip now, and back to my computer.  I wrote a post that suggested taking a week off of the computer.  I hope some of your took me up on the challenge.  It is easier said than done, I realize.  Someone left a great comment about the post.  It [...]

“Help! I’ve been browing your website for a couple of days. Trying to find some answers- If I had the $ I’d be sending for the cd’s. But it’s not in the budget right now. I’m totally at my wits end with my 6 yr old.
I don’t know what else to do. He is ADHD- [...]

Two days ago my son set up all of his little army figures in army formation and came to me and said, “Mom, will you play army with me?” 
The first thought I had was, ‘I can’t right now, because I am trying to get this canning done.’
The second thought I had was, ‘maybe I can [...]

We usually only watch a movie every Friday, on family movie night, for our TV time.  But, for the next two weeks the rules at the Peck house change.  Tonight is the opening ceremonies to the Olympics.  During the Olympics, and two other weekends per year, we break our family TV rule. 
The Olympics are just too [...]

“With young children like my 3 yr old, I am very tempted to give at least one reminder, another chance, before they get a consequence.  So if he starts to whine and say no to an instruction, I remind him of each of the steps and encourage him to do them.  Is this teaching him [...]

“Coming up with rationales that matter to my kids is very difficult for me!  Do you have any tips on this?”

Today I did some canning.  This is a messy project, as well as a time consuming project.  I could have done lots of things with my day (and night), but I chose to preserve food [...]

 ”I just thought I would mention that our meetings often go over 20 minutes but my kids still look forward to them. They love picking the family activity, they like problem solving too. I’m not saying we should disregard the advice to limit it to 20 minutes (we do lose my son if it goes [...]

1. at what age do you start training the 4 basic skills
2.  How do you do the training?  How does it differ between ages 1-8?
Another issue:  Our oldest is 8 years old and is dealing with some self esteem issues and will say things like “I can’t make my bed, I’m just no good at [...]

“Do you have a way for your kids to earn money?  Could you elaborate on that?”
There was a time when we paid our children an allowance of sorts.  Each child had a calendar.  Their consequence for a minor offense was an X on the day of the calendar.  After 5 Xs in a day, they [...]

A wise friend of mine sent me this in an email.
“It is amazing how staying away from friends makes all the difference with children.  WE had a week like that last week, and now the children are getting along much better.  Wow, life is ever so interesting.”
I think it speaks for itself, but it is [...]