by Sarah Hughes | May 30, 2014 | 2014, Family, Kids, Maternal Health, Motherhood, Parenting, Sarah Hughes, USA, Working Mother, World Interviews, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Sarah Hughes has been helping out behind the scenes at World Moms Blog. Read her interview to learn more about our newest contributor in North America! (more…)
Sarah grew up in New York and now calls New Jersey home. A mother of two, Derek (5) and Hayley (2), Sarah spends her days working at a University and nights playing with her children. In her “free” time Sarah is a Shot@Life Champion and a volunteer walk coordinator for the Preeclampsia Foundation. Sarah enjoys reading, knitting, sewing, shopping and coffee. Visit Sarah at her own blog Finnegan and The Hughes, where she writes about parenting, kid friendly adventures and Social Good issues. Sarah is also an editor, here, at World Moms Blog!
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by Mirjam | May 26, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Bedtime Routines, Being Thankful, Childhood, Discipline, Family, Girls, Kids, Life Balance, Milestones, Motherhood, Netherlands, Parenting, Sleep, Sleep and Children, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Long term goals versus short term goals.
(You have probably scrolled up and down to see if you’re at the right place. Yes you are. Continue to read.)
Short term goals are goals that you want to achieve instantaneously. There is immediate result and you benefit directly.
Long term goals are goals that you want to achieve in the future.
It will take you a while to achieve these goals and you have to be patient and persistent to achieve your goal.
Bear with me now…This is going to make sense, I promise.
Example. You are hungry.
Short term goal: I want to eat something.
Long term goal: I want to maintain my gorgeous figure. (ahem…Just go with me on this one…)
If you focus on your short term goal, anything will do: a snickers bar, ice cream, donuts, anything.
But if you bring in the long term goal, you will need to think about how you are going to achieve your long term goal, while keeping in mind your short term goal.
In other words:
how am I going to still my hunger without ruining my fantastic figure.
Got it? Simple, right?
So, why am I talking about goals?
Because they relate to parenting.
Parenting is a job where you constantly have to remember that it is about the long term goals.
But the present is so in our face, that sometimes we forget and go with the short term goals and eventually pay the price.
Example: You’re in the supermarket with your child.
Your child is tired cranky, difficult.
But you have to do this.
We all know that this is a scenario for a possible disaster.
And we all know how easy it is, to give the child some candy or a cookie and get the job done.
(I’ve done it, you’ve done it, I’m guessing we all have.)
But what is the long term goal here?
You want to be able to do your groceries in peace and quiet.
And possibly have a great time doing it, maybe even some skipping and singing.
Too far fetched? Okay, let’s back up..
How do you achieve that long term goal?
By NOT giving the candy.
By planning and repeating rules, by making sure your child is fed and well rested,
whenever you enter the supermarket.
By praising your child for good behavior,
by making sure you build up the amount of time you spend at the supermarket.
How do you achieve that long term goal?
By investing.
This is what I do all day, it is hard.
It requires an enormous amount of energy.
Sometimes I have to be patient, because I am somewhere in between the process of achieving my long term goal
and I just cannot see the end of it. Sometimes I’m tempted to go for the short term goal.
You want me to give your ten teddy bears, little blankets and little beds for the night?
And you want me to make sure they are all in the right bed with the right blanket,
and you change your mind about it every second? Sure kid. If I get to crash on the couch and you finally go to sleep after that.
Sure, I’ll do it.
But then I ask myself this question:
Do I really want to spend my evenings running around, taking care of dolls and teddy bears
and every other stuff that you seem to come up with just around bedtime?
Or do I want bedtime to be quiet and peaceful and efficient.
And I realize, that I want the latter.
So I take a deep breath, and choose the battle.
On my last nerves, desperate to choose the couch instead.
I explain to my hysterical screaming child that it is bedtime, not playing time.
She will lie down now and Mommy will go downstairs.
She screams, she cries, she stomps her feet. I go up and down the stairs four or five times.
She won’t calm down. I cuddle, but I don’t give in.
Finally she goes to sleep.
I throw myself on the couch, tired, discouraged.
Next night:
“Mommy I want the big bear and the little bear and my giraffe, and…”
“You can pick two stuffed animals and then you will go to sleep. It’s sleepy time, not playtime.”
She screams. I kiss and cuddle her and walk away.
Before I reach the couch it is quiet. Really quiet.
I sneak upstairs to see what she’s doing.
She’s fast asleep with three stuffed animals..
I am well on my way to reaching my long term goal.
Does any of this sound familiar? What are your long term (parenting) goals?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our writer in The Netherlands, Mirjam.
The picture used in this post is credited to the author.
Mirjam was born in warm, sunny Surinam, but raised in the cold, rainy Netherlands.
She´s the mom of three rambunctious beauties and has been married for over two decades to the love of her life.
Every day she´s challenged by combining the best and worst of two cultures at home.
She used to be an elementary school teacher but is now a stay at home Mom. In her free time she loves to pick up her photo camera.
Mirjam has had a life long battle with depression and is not afraid to talk about it.
She enjoys being a blogger, an amateur photographer, and loves being creative in many ways.
But most of all she loves live and laughter, even though sometimes she is the joke herself.
You can find Mirjam (sporadically) at her blog Apples and Roses where she blogs about her battle with depression and finding beauty in the simplest of things. You can also find Mirjam on Twitter and Instagram.
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by Natalia Rankine-Galloway (Morocco) | May 23, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Childhood, Communication, Girls, Kids, Life Lesson, Milestones, Motherhood, Parenting, USA, Womanhood, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Last month’s Atlantic Magazine featured a cover page story on the “Confidence Gap” between men and women. For a variety of reasons both biological and environmental, women drastically underestimate their own competence. This, the article tells us, is a big obstacle to women accomplishing the success they are due.
While it was interesting to me that womankind as a whole seems to value themselves more meanly than mankind, it was all the more interesting to know that I wasn’t alone in feeling anywhere from out of my depth to outright fraudulent in many situations. Apparently many other ladies in the room were likely feeling just the same.
But more than anything else, the article left me examining a gap within myself. The gap between where I feel my confidence ought to be and where is actually is. And where it is, quite frankly, is way….way behind. Let’s say…1994 behind. (more…)
Natalia was born a stone's throw from the Queen's racetrack in Ascot, UK and has been trying to get a ticket to the races and a fabulous hat to go with it ever since. She was born to a Peruvian mother and an Irish father who kept her on her toes, moving her to Spain, Ireland and back to the UK before settling her in New York for the length of middle and high school. She is still uncertain of what she did to deserve that.
She fled to Boston for college and then Washington, D.C. to marry her wonderful husband, who she met in her freshman year at college. As a military man, he was able to keep her in the migratory lifestyle to which she had become accustomed. Within 5 months of marriage, they were off to Japan where they stayed for a wonderful 2 and one half years before coming home to roost. Baby Xavier was born in New York in 2011 and has not slept since.
A joy and an inspiration, it was Xavier who moved Natalia to entrepreneurship and the launch of CultureBaby. She has loved forging her own path and is excited for the next step for her family and CultureBaby.
Natalia believes in the potential for peace that all children carry within them and the importance of raising them as global citizens. She loves language, history, art and culture as well as Vietnamese Pho, Argentinian Malbec, English winters, Spanish summers and Japanese department stores...and she still hopes one day to catch the number 9 race with Queen Liz.
You can find her personal blog, The Culture Mum Chronicles.
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by Sisters From Another Mister | May 9, 2014 | 2014, Communication, Kids, Older Children, Parenting, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Small acts of kindness, a word or a gesture, making a difference … or simply connecting with others. Do you keep your eyes averted when walking down a street? Or do you smile at the people you pass by? Do you avoid contact with strangers, or do you catch their eye and hand out random compliments? My girls roll their eyes sometimes when I compliment a passerby on their sweater, or a nice hair cut. “That color looks lovely on you” never fails to give someone a smile. A little feel good moment. (more…)
Sisters From Another Mister ...
A blog born from the love of 'sisters' around the world who come together to lift eachother up no matter where they are on their life journey.
Meet Nicole, a transplanted British born, South African raised, and American made Mom of two girls living on the sunny shores of South Florida, USA. A writer of stories, an avid picture taker and a keeper of shiny memories.
Sharing the travels of a home school journey that takes place around the globe - because 'the world truly is our classroom'. Throw in infertility, adoption, separation, impending divorce (it has its own Doom and Gloom category on the blog) and a much needed added side of European humor is what keeps it all together on the days when it could quite clearly simply fall apart! This segues nicely into Finding a Mister for a Sister for continued amusement.
When not obsessing over the perils of dating as an old person, saving the world thro organisations such as being an ambassador for shot@life, supporting GirlUP, The UN Foundation, ONE.org and being a member of the Global Team of 200 for social good keeps life in the balance.
Be sure to visit, because 'even tho we may not have been sisters at the start, we are sisters from the heart.'
http://www.sistersfromanothermister.com/
https://www.facebook.com/SistersFromAnotherMister
https://twitter.com/thesistershood
http://pinterest.com/thesistershood/
Global Team of 200 #socialgoodmoms
Champion for Shot@Life and The United Nations Foundation
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by Maureen | May 8, 2014 | 2014, Communication, Kids, Parenting, Scoops of Joy, World Motherhood
It was the horrific news of sexual abuse at the Jakarta International School in Indonesia that spread the nation like a wild fire.
It was every parent’s nightmare.
It raised safety issues in school.
My son’s school is installing security cameras outside of the children’s toilets and carrying out special program called “Personal Body Safety” to teach children as early as first grade about it. And most importantly, it opened up discussions between parents and their children and that’s what happened between my son and me.
It was the news that made me read as much information as I could about child sexual abuse. By reading some really helpful articles, I realized it was time to start introducing the ‘real words’ for body parts with my son.
Yes, I had read that one is supposed to use the correct biological terms when you teach your children about their body part but I guess my own personal upbringing prevented me from doing this before. When I grew up, I did not even know what my private parts were called. My parents and their parents’ parents never openly discussed this. Sexuality was a taboo discussion back then, and sadly it carries on into today’s generations, here, in Indonesia.
At first I was uncomfortable in teaching my son to say “penis” now instead of “pee-pee”, but once I realized how this was NOT about me and my uncomfortableness, but something more important, made it easier. This is about me teaching him the right words. We talked about private body parts and how no one should touch them other than doctors IF he is sick and his private parts needs to be examined. We talked about the PANTS and how he needs to avoid being in a situation where adults are getting too close to his private parts.
Such a fine line between educating them and not scaring our children but it is very important to teach them about the boundaries and about protecting themselves. The statistics are so disturbing that your daughter has a 1 in 4 chance and your son has a 1 in 6 chance of being molested before the age of 18. Other than teaching them about private body parts I think it is also important to teach our children to listen to their guts and trust their instincts. I pray hard that my boy and all the children of the world will never have to experience such a traumatic thing but I realize knowledge and awareness are power. So we sit and watched this short movie together, my boy and I.
He asked me questions and I answered them the best that I could. Discussions went on. Yet, I realized we will have to talk about this often to instill in him about the safety parts not to scare him.
How do you talk to your children about sexual abuse?
Here is a very helpful link from the NSPCC site.
This is an original post by our World Mom, Maureen of “Scoops of Joy” in Indonesia for World Moms Blog.
Photo credit to the author.
by Tinne from Tantrums and Tomatoes | May 5, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Being Thankful, Belgium, Communication, Cultural Differences, Culture, Eye on Culture, Family, Holiday, Husband, Inspirational, International, Kids, Motherhood, Tantrum and Tomatoes, Traditions, Womanhood, World Motherhood
These days, the internet is humming with all things Mother’s Day related: special brunches, crafts, gift ideas. All for that special person you get to call ‘Mom’.
Mother’s Day earned its place on the calendar thanks to the efforts of American Anna Marie Jarvis. She organized the first Mother’s Day to commemorate her own mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, who had helped organise the ‘Mother’s Day Help Clubs’ during the American Civil War. In 1914, Woodrow Wilson decided that Mommy Dearest would get her special day each second-Sunday of May.
Not here. In the rest of Belgium, yes. But not in the province of Antwerp. Here we wait until the 15th of August.
Not because we disdain the second Sunday of May, nor have a problem with holidays coming from across the Atlantic. No, as a matter of fact both the American and Antwerp traditions originated at much the same time.
For Antwerp and its surroundings it all began in 1913 when Antwerp born artist Frans Pieter Lodewijk van Kuyck started the tradition as a way of getting people to pay more attention to family values and social order. Modernisation and the industrial revolution, Mr. van Kuyck felt, had screwed society up a wee bit too much and it was time to take a stand, to defend traditional ways.
And since Mother is at the core of the family, when better to highlight her importance than on the 15th of August, the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. A Catholic feast already celebrated in Antwerp with a huge procession honouring the Virgin as protector of the city. There already was a party going on anyway, so why not add a little extra?
Mr. van Kuyck was not only an artist, he was also alderman for Culture and Fine Arts of the city of Antwerp. So in this official capacity he set up a propaganda committee, mobilised schools, companies and media into promoting the celebration of Mother. Children were to make a special gift and fathers were expected to buy flowers or jewellery. Brunch had not yet come into fashion then, otherwise I’m sure he would have made it mandatory too.
The rest of Belgium did not follow, but instead adapted the new ‘American’ version. Thus, during May when every other mother in the country smiles her lovely so-happy-with-the-macaroni-necklace smile and updates her Facebook status with pictures of her breakfast in bed/fresh flowers/chocolates/whatever…we trudge on and wait our turn until August.
Have no fear, thanks to the school’s Craft Hour, I too receive a pretty handmade gift from my daughters in May. But my husband still has to buy my flowers in August. Nah.
Does your country have a special Mother’s Day tradition? Or do you celebrate differently?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our writer in Belgium, Tinne, of Tantrums and Tomatoes.
The image used in this post is credited to the author.
Born in Belgium on the fourth of July in a time before the invention of the smart phone Tinne is a working mother of two adorably mischievous little girls, the wife of her high school sweetheart and the owner of a black cat called Atilla.
Since she likes to cook her blog is mainly devoted to food and because she is Belgian she has an absurd sense of humour and is frequently snarky. When she is not devoting all her attention to the internet, she likes to read, write and eat chocolate. Her greatest nemesis is laundry.
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