Theresa from Rock On Mommies asked this week’s question: What was the best and worst parenting advice you got while you were pregnant with your first? Of course, I couldn’t remember a lot of advice, so I offer my best advice and then I remember the worst.

What was the best or worst parenting advice you received? Comment below, or join us in the VlogMoms linky this week. And take a few minutes to see what the other moms said.

© 2012, Julie Meyers Pron. All rights reserved.

Christmas and Chanukkah were only a month ago, but almost the day after, the kids were already begging for a ride to Target to shop. Their list was a mile long. It wasn’t just things that they didn’t receive from the holidays, it was new “must haves.” And every day, that list of “must haves” changed. I cringed each time because, no matter how hard we try to teach them, the children continue to need to learn to respect money and that they should never settle for less than their dreams.

We all know how frustrating that is as a parent. I griped to my husband, “why can’t they just appreciate what they have?” and to my mom, “didn’t they get enough!?” And to the kids, “look at the bucket of brand new toys! You don’t need more things! Save your money to save for your dreams.”

But the kids instantly responded, “but we got money for Christmas! And a gift card! We can spend it, it’s our money.”

True. That’s something we’ve always said to them. When you’re gifted money, it’s your money and you have the right to use it how you wish. But more Beyblades? Another pack of Pokemon cards? Really? That’s how you want to spend your money?! What happened to saving for something big? What will you do with all your cards when, in 2 weeks, kids are bringing a different trading game to school?

In an effort to teach the children to respect money, my husband and I tried a few new tactics. When driving through town Middle requested a stop at Toys R Us to buy another Beyblade. My husband asked how much money he had with him? “TEN DOLLARS,” Middle proudly announced.

“Ten dollars?” the Huz responded. “well, you know. I’m really low on gas. What would you do if you only had your ten dollars, and no gas in the car? Would you drive to Toys R Us and buy Beyblades? Or would you put gas in the car?”

“I’d drive to Toys R Us,” Middle responded. “I want Beyblades.”

“Right, but then you’d be stuck at Toys R Us with no gas in the car and no way to get home,” he explained. Silence followed as Middle realized that gas was more important than Beyblades.

The conversation taught Middle to respect money. It gave Middle the idea that you have to make choices with your money and that sometimes there are more important things to spend on than the toy you really want, but don’t really need.

So, what to do with the money they earned from the holidays? A few years ago, we offered Big the choice: he could spend $60 on souvenirs from his trip to New York, or he could come home, deposit the money in the bank and we’d double the deposit.

He reminded us of this recently, when we told him that rather than spend a $50 visa gift card on Pokemon Cards, he should consider holding onto it for a bigger gift. In turn, he reminded us of his bank account, where we had already deposited a good deal of money and he was earning interest. So, why shouldn’t he be able to buy what he wants?

While he had a good point, I reminded him that I really wanted an iPad case for the holidays and I could, in fact, go buy one. But I was also saving money so we could return to the Outerbanks this summer for vacation. I asked him, which is more important to me: A trip to the Outerbanks for our family or a fancy new iPad case? Without pause, he jumped on the Outerbanks option. “You already have an iPad case!” he reminded me.

“You already have Pokemon cards! Dozens of them,” I countered.

“Yeah. But you have more money in the bank just like I do. And it’s fun to sometimes go out and buy things.” He grumbled.

He had a point. So I offered him this. “It’s very true that we spend our money on things we want. But we can’t spend it all the time, every time we want things. We have to save for future expenses. Things we know we’ll spend money on. Things we don’t even want to have to pay for but we need to. Like water, electricity, our phones and taxes. You’re lucky you don’t have to pay for things like that, yet, but you will someday. And your dad and I are trying to teach you to learn about saving now, so you won’t be so used to spending spending spending that you don’t know how to save when you need to.”

I’m sure that I’ll be revisiting these conversations with my children for years as we encounter new wants and more opportunities to teach them to respect money. But I’m also continuing to teach them to reach for what they really want, and to choose never settle for less than their ultimate goals.

 Continue to Never Settle for Less by Filing online at H&R Block or in an H&R Block Office. Thanks to H&R Block and Technorati for sponsoring this post.

© 2012, Julie Meyers Pron. All rights reserved.

Pretend play allows young children to try experiences that don’t exist in their every day lives. Somewhere between ages 2 and a half and 4, most toddler to preschool aged children will begin acting as favorite characters, reliving, recreating and creating scenarios and trying to live out lives different than their own.

Children pretend as they are figuring out who they are, and who they aren’t. They give themselves new voices, carry conversations with “friends” and dress up as people they dream to be. Here are 5 toys that encourage pretend play, allowing your children to act outside their lives and use their imagination endlessly.

Doll houses encourage pretend play and enacting for girls and boys

A castle or dollhouse offers opportunities for children to play with characters in a real-life (or fairytale) setting. Children often enact characters through regular home-style routines. Boys play with houses and castles as well, which helps them to explore their feelings and real-life scenarios. For boys try Bigjigs Heritage Playset King Arthurs Castle or the Educo by Hape International Park n’ Go Garage.
For girls: Bigjigs Heritage Playset Princess Palace (pictured) or the Fisher-Price Loving Family Grand Dollhouse.

Puppet shows allow kids to perform experiences as they learn who they are

As the children get older and their hand eye coordination is stronger, they’ll love pretending through puppetry. The Melissa & Doug Deluxe Puppet Theater is a favorite for kids to perform their shows. We love making puppets, but if you’re looking for a starter set for children, try Plush Happy Kids Hand Puppets Set – 8 pc – Multi Ethnical Collection. Our favorite puppets are Melissa & Doug Deluxe Fuzzy Make – Your – Own Monster Puppet but I just noticed Melissa and Doug makes Melissa & Doug Make Your Own Princess Puppet which may end up on a future gift wish list of a our little girl.

Costumes help kids “become” someone new

I used to think kids would wear Halloween costumes once and then they’d go to waste. Just one toddler into parenthood and I learned different. Kids love costumes. We have two overflowing boxes of past Halloween costumes, birthday present costumes and costumes that we purchased at consignment stores, post-Halloween sales and hand-me-downs from friends. There are a few key times to buy costumes at lower prices, primarily the beginning of November and late winter, when the last thing parents are preparing for is a Halloween costume. If your child is starting to show interest in dressing up and living lives different than her own during off-Halloween season, CostumeExpress is offering 15% off all kids’ costumes, including clearance, with code IMAGINE15.

This post contains affiliate links. Thanks to BigJigs for providing a sample product.

© 2012, Julie Meyers Pron. All rights reserved.

Do your kids say bad words? There are days when I hear something that draws my attention and I turn and am shocked to see it was my child who has the dirty mouth.

image credit: Photostock

Makes me comment under my breath “ohnoyoudi-nt.”

It certainly doesn’t help when you’re at Homegoods and your 2 year old daughter says “Oh. My. G-d. Look at that picture!” and the entire training staff starts laughing and commenting on her cuteness.

Or when your Kindergarten son shouts out “oh CRAP!” when he falls and 6 people run to his rescue.

And all the while you’re trying to figure out where he picked up “crap” and where she first heard “oh. my. G-d” because you know that you always say “goodness.”

Why is your child saying bad words?

What gives? And what should we do?

The honest truth: this is a test. Whether she’s testing you to see how far she can get, other people to see their reactions or her own mouth to see how things sound, she’s doing a test.

She heard it, somewhere. Whether you slipped and dropped the f-bomb (oh, come on. You know you dropped it last Friday night when you dropped your glass of red wine on the tile floor) or she heard a bad word on TV or from peers at preschool, she heard it. Perhaps she overheard two people talking at the table next to you at Chili’s (that, my friends, is a whole other parenting post to come); she had to hear it somewhere to know how to say it. So. Admit it. Somewhere along the way your beautiful peanut’s ears were tainted. She likely learned the word “listen”  in the same way she learned the phrase “what the Hell?”: because she learned to listen.

In fact, generally, a child needs to hear a word three times to understand it’s meaning* and use it in her own vocabulary. So. There’s that. Someone likely said “bullsh!t” a lot over the past few days for her to shout out “Mom! That’s bullsh!t!”

How do we stop our child from using bad words?

Now it’s time to teach your child that she just failed her first test. That it’s not acceptable to say bad words and that you absolutely won’t stand for it. (Unless you will. And then you must be reading my post for humor, yes?) How? Like always, be firm and honest. Hide your smirk (turn away for a millisecond to get that giggle out), get on her level and tell her that words like “crap” are not acceptable and you don’t want to hear it again. Tell her it isn’t nice. Tell him there are other words to use and help him come up with acceptable words. 

Long ago, our family called these words “NTWs” (meaning Non-Tapawingo-Words–Tapawingo being the overnight camp I attended in Maine). In our house we call them “NPWs” for Non-Pron-Words. We have a mental list of NPWs and anytime someone utters or shouts a new one, we add it to our mental list. Even dads can be caught saying an NPW. And, let’s be honest, it’s really fun to scold Daddy for saying a bad word, right?

Be firm, but don’t punish your child unless he knew he was doing wrong

Remember the person at Chilis who said “bullsh!t”? Was he punished? Did someone get down on his level and tell him he wasn’t acting nicely? Probably not. In fact, it’s likely that the people at his table were listening intently, or got a good laugh out of him when he was talking. In other words, he commanded attention and received it. So, your child’s experience with the word “bullsh!t” does what it’s supposed to: it garnered positive attention.

While you’re explaining that the word shouldn’t bring positive attention and that you don’t like or approve of the word, make sure you don’t punish your child for the first or even second offense. Be sure to explain that it’s not a nice word to use and then tell the child that the next time he uses the word, he’ll be punished. Of course, by the fourth (maybe third) offense, punishment is necessary, because now you’re pissed angry.

Positive attention: good; Negative attention: not good

This applies to so much more than foul language. Some kids will do anything for attention, as long as they receive it. It’s a classic case of need. And after a while of not receiving a lot of good attention (really? do you ever applaud your child for saying “well, will you look at that picture!?”), he’ll turn to negative attention (“Oh. My. G-d! That picture is a piece of crap!”) just to get something. Here’s where being firm and standing your ground comes into play. Do not overdo the attention you give to the bad word. Calmly, sharply tell him that it’s not acceptable, and then move on. Because if saying a bad word brings more attention than necessary, then you becoming excited and going on and on saying “we don’t say that” might make him want to say it more.

There’s a line in the middle somewhere, between ignoring and overdoing. Find that line. Be firm. And say “no.”

*Somewhere along the road I learned this in one of my education courses. Sorry. Can’t find a citation. But it makes sense, right? The more repetition, the greater the understanding.

© 2012, Julie Meyers Pron. All rights reserved.

Another big weekend for Big, as he lost a tooth on Friday at schoool, and not the one he expected. Sadly, upon waking on Saturday morning, he found the Tooth Fairy hadn’t visited. He guessed a reason: “I bet the snow was too thick for her to fly here.”

I countered with, “or she didn’t come because she thinks that you’ll lose another tooth for sure today. I hear she’s been really busy and is trying to not visit the same house two nights in a row.”

All of Saturday we tried to get Big to pull out his tooth. It was attached only by the gum that was stuck to it. “Just pull!” we prodded. Middle offered to punch it out, but we didn’t think that was a good idea. But when Little asked to touch it, Big said sure.

And that’s when our two-year-old babydoll lover punched him in the mouth. Hard.

© 2012, Julie Meyers Pron. All rights reserved.

For a few years now, I’ve been weaning our family onto organic produce. But with that wean has come an increase in my grocery bills and a few questions of “really? must we buy everything organic?” While my husband and I are convinced that organic is the way to go for milks, I’ve come to realize that not everything I buy has to be organic, every time at the grocery store. So, I found “The Dirty Dozen”: a listing of 12 produce products you absolutely want to buy as organic produce because of the likelihood of contamination from pesticides in the regularly farmed produce. [Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 lists are created by the Environmental Working Group. The lists change, so it's important to keep an eye on the EWG webpage.]

My issue has become remembering what’s on the Dirty Dozen list, and what’s not. Because I rarely remember and I’m often in a rush, I’ve found that I err on the side of caution and just buy it all as organic produce, lightening my wallet each week. It occured to me that what I needed was a credit card-sized card that I could slip into my wallet and carry with me, and I found a .pdf pocket guide.

This printable lists the Dirty Dozen produce: the foods you definitely want to buy as organic produce, as well as the least contaminated produce products, the Clean 15. Print it out on a heavier paper, cut it out and slide it into your wallet.

Looking for this week’s menu plan? Check out the Meal Plan Calendar, which is now listed in the menu bar at the top of the page. 

© 2012, Julie Meyers Pron. All rights reserved.

As a former teacher who is active in education, I’m asked this question, a lot. There are several factors to consider, as each child needs to be considered individually. In-other-words, I can’t give you an answer for your child, only for mine. And I opted to hold both of my August-birthday boys back a year by placing them in pre-Kindergarten, aka “red-shirting.”

Questions to ask yourself when considering Kindergarten vs. Pre-Kindergarten

• will my child be the youngest or the oldest? How do I expect my child will do in that position? You want to think long-term here, as well as short-term. Yes, you’ll compare your 5-year-old to his peers currently (does he keep up with his peers? does he interact well?) but you also want to think of him going through puberty before or after others and how he’ll be at 16 or 17 when he starts driving (before or after others.)
• how does my child compare, physically, to his peers? I don’t usually advocate comparing your child against others, but socially, you need to consider if your child will keep up on the playground or in gym class. Alternatively, will he be miles ahead physically and, therefore, bored.
• is he academically ready to go to Kindergarten? There are questions , below, that you can ask your child’s preschool teacher, but there are also great resources for you to use at home. Family Education has a valuable checklist. Of course, it’s now registration time and 6-7 months before Kindergarten, so do note that your child will grow, a lot, during the next 6 months.
• how does my child compare maturation-ally with his peers. Is your child Leo the Late Bloomer? He likely will catch up, but will pushing ahead or holding back change his self-outlook?

Questions to ask your child’s teacher when considering Kindergarten vs. Pre-Kindergarten

• Start out asking a very general question. Remember that, ultimately, it’s your decision, but your child’s teacher sees your child in a different situation than you do. She also knows what his peers are like, and how your child responds to his school surroundings.
• Refer to the Family Education checklist (above) and see how the teacher’s responses compare with yours.
• Ask your teacher if she’s sent children who are similar to your child to Kindergarten or Pre-Kindergarten and how they’ve responded.
• What Kindergarten or Pre-Kindergarten program do you recommend for my child? Why? (Why is key here. You’ll learn a lot about your child when you find out why  she thinks a program is best for your child.)

Next steps

 image source: PhotoXpress

© 2012, Julie Meyers Pron. All rights reserved.

According to Digital Mom, there are over 3.9 million mom blogs on the internet. Add to that the infinite number of blogs, and it makes you wonder how some of my peers haven’t caught the blogging bug, yet. I’ve talked to a few friends who ask “how do I get started blogging? What tips do you have? What do I need to do to start my blog and get it moving?”

How do I get started blogging?

Um. You start. No really. If you want to blog to share favorite photos and stories of your family with family and friends, if you want to share more than Facebook allows, or have more details than you want to share on Facebook, a blog is your answer. So, get ready. You’ll be writing before your day is over. (Scroll down for more information).

If you’re planning to start a mom blog for the good of the world, as a resource, or to share your talents, you’ll have a few more questions to ask yourself before you start.

• Do I plan to, eventually, monetize?
• What do I want to share with my readers?
• How professional do I want my blog to look?

Okay. So I want to start a blog. Where do I go?

If you’re blogging for personal reasons

If your blog is strictly to share pictures and photos with friends and family, you can set up your blog at Blogger (owned by google) as a blogspot blog or at WordPress.com. Both of these will provide free blogs for you. They’re extremely simple to set up using their provided templates and, within minutes, you will have written your first post.

If you plan to make your blog bigger, buy a URL

If you plan to make your blog audience bigger than your family and friends, I recommend buying your own URL. Give it some thought and come up with a catchy, unique title. Be sure to search around a bit (do a google search) to make sure your unique idea isn’t already taken by another blogger. With 3.9 million mom blogs, it’s hard to be unique.

Once you’re in love with a blog title, snatch up that URL as soon as you can. I have friends who own over 50 URLs, so buying a few favorites isn’t such a bad idea. I recommend 1&1 for web hosting, where .info will cost you only $.99 to register and .com runs $8.99 (up to 5 domains). Do you need .com, .net, .info., etc.? That’s a personal thing. I don’t usually buy more than a .com, but if you intend to have a lot of competition, you’ll want to buy them all. Of course, most people still know .com as the most usual domain, so if you can get a .com, do! There’s nothing wrong with .net, .org or .anythingelse, it’s just not as readily remembered. Consider this: if I told you my website was Just-Precious.biz, would you be likely to remember it when you arrive home and go to your computer? Probably not. Out of habit, you’ll probably type in Just-Precious.com.

After you purchase your domain, you can either design your own blog, again using the free templates at blogger or at wordpress.org (this is the wordpress where you can monetize. There’s also more liberty to do more to your blog at wordpress.org.) There are other blog platforms, but these are the two most common in Mom Blogging.

I’ve used both and highly recommend WordPress. Blogger is easier, but WordPress allows for more opportunity in blogging.

Design

Some people like to have a completely unique and professional design on their very first day of blogging, others just want to jump in and get started. These days, there are plenty of options for free themes or templates available to you the day you start blogging. If you’d like to be more creative, I recommend hiring a designer. I have many favorite designers to recommend:

• Melissa at Eliza Grace Design
• Kat at eDesign-Pro (note: Kat is currently booking 5-6 weeks out)
• Erica at Techno Mom Designs
• Dresden at Plaid House Designs
• Cynthia at NW Designs

Start writing your posts and pages

Moving forward… when does the money come in?

Want more information?

• Read what Jessica has to say about starting a Mom Blog;
• The DIY Blog Critique eBook is a fabulous checklist book that helps you to analyze your blog, determining if it’s working right for your readers and you. Reading it last fall increased my interests in “fixing” my blog and gave me areas to grow. If you’re just starting out, read it to help you create in the right direction. Click here to visit Momcomm.
• Ready to be noticed? It’s time to understand SEO (Search Engine Optimization.) Mom Blog SEO eBook offers excellent step-by-step guidance to optimizing your blog.

This post contains affiliate links.

© 2012, Julie Meyers Pron. All rights reserved.

I’m always looking for great ideas to help moms make their lives easier. Many thanks to Beth Christian for writing this guest post, offering tips she learned while reading The Money Saving Mom’s Budget Guide. 

They’re here! They appear at this time every year. You know what I’m talking about: a better diet, more exercise, family dinners instead of fast food, or a new budget. This is the time of year that we come face to face with our annual resolutions. If the budget category is at the top of your list this year, Crystal Paine is here to help with budgeting tips and tricks from her new book, The Money Saving Mom’s Budget.

Crystal is the guiding force behind the popular Money Saving Mom blog. Her book is an engaging, easy to read outline of how to incorporate budgeting into your daily life. She weaves real life examples from her own life and the lives of her readers with practical, down to earth budgeting advice. Among the tips that she shares are the following:

Clear one hour in your schedule for goal setting

Write down where you want to be financially five years from now-then pick a short term, medium but do-able goal, and a seemingly impossible goal. Break down those goals into bite sized pieces. Suddenly, they won’t seem so overwhelming.

Get rid of clutter

Crystal talks about physical clutter elimination, as well as the time grabbers that steal hours out of your daily life. She also outlines how to create a time budget, a brilliant idea for those of us (in other words, all of us) who feel time deprived.

Give yourself a raise without working more by creating a realistic household budget

In the budget chapter, Crystal incorporates easy to use money saving tips (such as eating meatless dinners once a week) that will allow you to free up cash.

Go credit card free

Go credit card free (temporarily) and use an online or physical envelope system for tracking where each paycheck goes.

Basic and advanced couponing techniques

I consider myself to be fairly coupon savvy and have taught a couponing class, but I still picked up some great ideas from Crystal. (who knew that some Starbucks and McDonald’s locations have extra Sunday coupon inserts available if you ask for them?)

Twenty-five ways to lower your grocery bill without using coupons

Did you know that Target and Walmart will price match if you bring in a competing grocery or drugstore ad?

Have fun without spending a ton

Have fun without spending a ton by using resources such as Paperback Swap to trade paperback books or by going out for a dessert date instead of a full meal

Embrace today and cultivate contentment

My favorite tip? Embrace today and cultivate contentment.

Plus more in the book

No matter what your financial circumstances are, you are likely to pick up some great tips from this book. Best of all, it is written with busy moms in mind. Each chapter is broken into smaller sections (so if you have to mediate a sibling dispute, it’s easy to pick up where you left off). After reading this book, you may find that budgeting is one resolution that you may actually keep this year (unlike the resolution that suggests laying off chocolate chip cookies).

The Money Saving Mom’s Budget: Slash Your Spending, Pay Down Your Debt, Streamline Your Life, and Save Thousands a Year is available for pre-order at Amazon where it is currently priced at $11.09 (21% off) and other local book retailers. The title will be released on January 10, 2012.

Disclosure: Beth received a pre-publication copy of the book for review purposes.

Beth Christian is an attorney and food blogger from New Jersey. She blogs about food, wine and travel at Jersey Bites, as well as health care developments at the NJ Healthcare blog. Beth’s RSS feed is full of blogs that she loves to read, including Just Precious and Money Saving Mom.

© 2012, Julie Meyers Pron. All rights reserved.

Are you sitting down? Because I’m about to reveal a fact that will shock you: In the first 18 years, kids earn, on average, $25,000 in gifts and income. That’s a lot of money. But I bet you’re like most adults and are now looking around saying “$25,000?! Where did that go?” And then, about a minute later thinking “waitaminute. I need to do something to help my kids get their hands on that money.”

Sadly, most people see the $25,000 go right out the door. The value of the hundreds of products kids play with is astounding. And all those plastic and wooden toys they love so much for 2 weeks? They add up. Sadly, they add up to a lot more value than putting them out with the garbage at the end of their welcome stay in your home.

image credit: David Castillo Dominici

And I’m pretty sure that that welcome stay isn’t too long, right?

So. What can we do?

Well, I’m not about to tell you to stop getting your kids toys, nor am I going to tell you to stop accepting gifts for your kids. Remember when you were young and you had your first Christmas without a toy? It was awful, right? The tears. The jealousy of your sister playing  with her new Barbie Townhouse while you kicked at your sweater and VC Andrews book… (what? That wasn’t just me, was it?) 

You don’t want to do that to your kid.

But what you can, and should, do is teach your child to analyze their wants and needs. Help him to prioritize what gifts are most important to him and to show him that you can put a value on these gifts. By teaching your child to focus on things he wants over time, and not the latest trend of plastic, he’ll learn the value of saving and earning.

How?

It starts in an honest conversation, one that should reflect on your personal life in a story. Perhaps you’re considering a big purchase like a TV, or you remember saving your bike route pennies to buy a favorite pair of Air Jordans–share that with your child! Tell him how inspired you were with a goal that you set. Engage with your child. Ask him if there’s something he really, really wants to have and discuss how he can save. Share ways you saved. Tell him about the struggles of saving versus spending on smaller things. Share how you set challenges for yourself.

I bet you had a wallet or an envelope or an underwear drawer to stash your cash. I bet you shared your goals with your Grandmother. I’m sure it wasn’t easy, either. Telling Grandma not to gift you that awesome neon sweater for Christmas because you really, really needed to save for your Senior Class Trip. Or your prom dress. Or a new bike.

Remember how hard it was to save? Think how much you learned about making choices and saving money, creating a “nest egg” may have come later, but you had the foundation in learning to save so that when you got to college, you understood balancing your funds, right?

Maybe you were lucky. Maybe you got it. Maybe you didn’t.

Either way. Now that you’re on your own with kids, you get it. You understand the importance of saving up and making choices. You know the value in learning, early, how to prioritize.

We made our goals with words and cash stashes. Maybe, if we were super-organized, we created savings spreadsheets on graph paper. Eh. Probably not most of us, though, right?

This time of year, everyone’s making goals. So why not teach your kids to make goals, too? How about helping your child to learn to save for something they really want?

If your child is ready to set a goal and save in 2012 help him make that spreadsheet, a goal chart, or use interactive software like Kidworth. Your child won’t learn wtihout your help, and often your guidance. And the time to start guiding? Today.

As a Kidworth Ambassador, this is a compensated post.

© 2011, Julie Meyers Pron. All rights reserved.