Thanks to Steven Helmick, a principal of a school of over 1000 and an educator among the top eight Arkansas’ 2014 teachers of the year, for lending his expertise to this list.
Confession: In the past, I have personally known Lent is almost here when fast-food signs start advertising fish sandwiches. So maybe your kids ask, “Hey, what’s Lent?” around Ash Wednesday (PSA: today is the start of Lent!). But if it isn’t something your family typically observes, you might be scrambling for answers that don’t include “Filet-O-Fish.”
So allow me a brief rundown of lent for kids, in language they (/we) can understand—and some tips to help it sink in.
Anyone else–after Thanksgiving away from family–feeling a little sad?
My kids have cousins and grandparents they won’t have seen for a year. Though I obviously hate this pain on a number of levels–I love that my kids (including three teenagers!) were visibly bummed when Thanksgiving was canceled with their grandparents, and cousins half their age.
Happy almost-Thanksgiving!
I feel like this year, my family needs a day of gratitude even more.
So for a lot of the world, boredom is real. I read in a meme that pandas can eat 13 hours a day…hence calling this a “pandemic.” Need a couple of fresh ideas while you’re bored in quarantine?
Try these jigsaw puzzles from White Mountain with icons from the 80’s and the 90’s–serious conversation starters. (“Dad, who was Michael Jackson?”)
My daughter’s headed to winter camp soon, which she adores. This morning, over an increasingly plain-looking Greek yogurt parfait, she gushed about camp’s breakfast buffet. She loves the free time, the reconnecting with old friends.
But in light of her anxiety issues, and apparently a night last year when she laid awake till 2, she’s already nervous about getting to sleep.
(All those suggestions in the Help! My Kid Can’t Sleep post? Those are hard-won, peeps.)
I loved sharing with you last week a little snapshot of my life.
Alas, my manuscript is due MONDAY to Zondervan, so my little heart has been written out. Tonight I wanted something calm and pretty and open and blue, like an ocean.
I’ve shored myself in tonight for something I’ve looked forward to for a month and a half.
For my birthday, my husband got me a personal retreat. And the timing is pitch-perfect. (Well, save the fact that my body seems to have been anticipating the drop of adrenaline, welcoming in a cold.)
Happy Thanksgiving! I love that we still celebrate a day of gratitude. I don’t want to hop over it in my scurry on to Christmas.
I’m hoping for more than a quick, compulsory burst of gratitude tending to last five minutes over some corn muffins. I’m thinking about how to make lifestyle of Thank you, God–over and over, thank you for us as a family. Because naturally over here, we lean toward patting ourselves on the back.
We’re working on covering a window with sticky notes of things we’re grateful for. (You can grab more you-can-totally-do-this gratitude ideas for families in this post. Threw some free printable thank-you notes for kids in there.)
At dinner each night of November, see if your family can collectively think of 10 more things you’re thankful for. Keep a running list.
A vase filled with your list written on slips of paper, or written scrawled on kraft paper doubling as a Thanksgiving tablecloth—complete with Sharpies or crayons prompting guests to add their own.
Print polka-dot thank you notes here.
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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