Summer School

Ahhhhhhhh - hear the sound of summer time lurking right around the corner? Most of us are really looking forward to it. However, the millions of parents who are faced with the impending possibility of summer school, we are constantly wondering about how to make sure that our kids who will be replacing a failing grade, can accomplish this goal...especially without us constantly nagging.

Teachers recommend summer school for many reasons. Some are to help students sharpen their skills in various subjects, but if it’s mandatory, keep in mind that it is a shorter and more intense class specifically focusing on the "meat" of the academic subject.

With this thought in tow, find out who will be teaching the class your children need. If it's the same teacher who taught the subject in the regular school session, it might be a negative experience, though it could be a positive one.

If the former holds true, think about registering your children at a different school where the same class is being taught. Another reason to possibly sign up at a different location is that if you know some of your kids’ friends will be attending the same class, and your kids are social butterflies, having them attend a summer school session at a different school might help them focus better.

In fact, they might even take a keen interest in it and quite possibly enjoy it. Either way, as long as they get their homework assignments done, hand them in on time and asks questions on any part that they don’t understand, they will more than likely do well.

According to Susan Kruger, author of, SOAR® Study Skills (Grand Lighthouse Publishers, First Edition, $24.95), it’s a good time to help your kids learn strategies for studying efficiently. For great tips, see her site, www.soarstudyskills.com, study tips and download her FREE Homework Rx® Toolkit, that features 25 Ways to Make Homework Easier...Tonight! Just click on FREE Stuff.

Remember, the key is to limit their extracurricular summer activities while they are in summer school and to adhere to a regular semester school schedule. Having a daily schedule for bedtime, homework and morning ritual will help.

Learning From Our Mistakes

I thought since I had gotten my first blog up pretty easily last week, that trying my hand at a new one would also follow a similar pattern. As I quickly registered it and sent it to my webmaster, she noticed I had added an extra letter in the url.

In reviewing what she was pointing out, she was totally correct. Good eye - that gal!

So, I looked it up in the help menu that "blogger" offers and found others, who in their haste, had done the same thing. That always makes a person feel better.

However, instead of the suggestion another blogger offered, I simply went into the SETTINGS page and took out the extra letter and saved the updates. Within minutes, maybe even seconds, it was corrected. YAY!

WOW! Wouldn't it be great if every mistake in life could be this easy? Just delete it -- and it's fixed?

Guess what came to mind? The not so old movie, Click, with Adam Sandler.

Have you seen it? If not, it's now out on DVD. He finds a universal remote control and soon the magic of it becomes a might weapon in his hands...clicking through this and that, like real life challenges with family, parenting, work, etc. It's pretty cool.

Nevertheless, the remote's internal database becomes molded and programmed from previous "clicks" and skips forward anywhere from 6 to 12 months, and so on.

What ends up happening is that the sometimes negative daily hassles are skipped -- which is kind of sweet. On the other hand, the things in life that matter, spouse, kids, family, etc., also get bypassed, (which could also be *cool*), but the bottom line reflects a negative one, i.e., missed birthdays, anniversaries, family meals, kids' activities, illness, relationships with one's parents and spouse...sharing and growing with one's family.

Anyway, not to give the whole movie plot away, it ends on a happy note.

My comparison is just that while I was able to delete one letter and save the url with one strike of the keyboard, it's best to learn from our mistakes (even though we don't want to all of the time).

Get my drift?

Raising Your Child's Self-Esteem and Promoting Good Behavior

Raising Your Child's Self-Esteem and Promoting Good Behavior


Ever want to do something to make your children feel better about their self-esteem and promote good behavior? Add a little zip to their day and add mini successes.

1. Make up TV money. As the child does something worth recognition -- he/she gets TV money. On a specific night of a favorite program or at other various times -- the child can buy more TV viewing time with the money. Money can take on the form of play coins and various bills that you and the children make together.

2. Put me in the hat! After discussing vacation spots with family members - everyone gets to write down several places that they wish to go. It makes the kids feel like they have been heard and are important.

3. Let them earn the right to put a suggestion in the hat by raising self-esteem and "giving a pat on the back" for a job well done: setting the table, cleaning up home office, going to the potty, feeding the pet, cleaning up their room, etc. The child gets to choose one of his "Put Me in The Hat" slips with his favorite vacation spot. Of course, the place with the most slips is the vacation that wins - so be sure to say, "These are only suggestions and we may not get to go to each one - but, let's have fun getting ideas."

4. Vacation spots can be homemade with various fruits, rocks, animals, boats, etc., to represent the place of vacation and to make it more fun and educational for the kids. Depending on how much time you'd like to put into this project, it could go into more complicated detail with beads, feathers, ribbon, etc.

5. "You've Got a Date With Me!" -- similar idea. Pick out favorite restaurants or activities and write them on slips of papers. For every good deed, a "Thank You" slip gets to be pulled out of the jar and the child writes his favorite place to go or something to do. At the end of the day, week, etc., slips are tabulated to see which restaurant or activity has won. Save the really neat ones for grades or other special occasions. "You've Got a Date With Me," slips can be made into various veggies, music notes, bowling balls, whatever represents the restaurant or activity with the name printed in a bright color with markers.

Two people can go together or the whole family - choose that ahead of time. If at all possible, try to honor the winner. Limiting or offering suggestions for the activity, restaurant or the TV program might be a good idea if a work schedule has become tight in a specific week or month. As the time draws closer and it appears it cannot happen, let the kids know that you will try to honor their suggestions but that sometimes things can come up to prevent it. If an event or activity cannot be worked out, it can always be rescheduled. Follow through on previous plans on keeping your word and responsibility as a role model.

Life is full of lessons -- try to teach valuable ones.

©2007 Jodie Lynn

Jodie Lynn is an award-winning internationally syndicated family/health columnist, best-selling author and radio personality. Her syndicated column Parent to Parent (www.parenttoparent.com) has been successful for more than 10 years and appears in newspapers, magazines, newsletters and throughout the Internet. She is the host of Inside Parenting Success Radio Talk Show and has written four books and contributed to three others, one, was featured twice on Oprah, and has appeared on NBC in a three month parenting segment. Her latest books are Mom CEO (Chief Everything Officer)TM - Having, Doing, and Surviving It All! (June 2006) and Syndication Secrets - What No One Will Tell You! (March 2006).