MAGAZINE TEMPLATE LAYOUT 02 www.yourdomain.com Issue 02 - Spring 2012
Y O U R
LO G O
H E R E
08 Ways to Create a Happy Family
* Be Unique Your Mini Style Guide Inside -----------
How to fail The Common Modeling Healthy Craft IDEAS RELATIONSHIPS AS A PARENT Cookout Common crafts for kids to make on Father’s Day this year
10 ways fathers can mold realtionships with their children
Learning that sometimes the way we rationalize our children’s behavior is wrong
Simple ways for mom to deliver a mouth-watering steak PAGE
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Contents MAGAZINE TEMPLATE LAYOUT 02
Y O U R
LO G O
www.yourdomain.com Issue 02 - Spring 2012
H E R E
WHEN I WAS A KID...
THE MINI STYLE GUIDE FOR DAD
How you should apprach behavior
PARENTING ADVICE
MOM: FATHERS DAY
PUBLISHER’S NOTE FIt’s our
time Dads! We wish you a Happy Father’s Day and many more!
BY DAD Design: 10 Ways a Father can model positive and healthy relationships for their children.
FASHION FINDER: Get your sexy back with our Mini Style Guide for Guys!
WIFEY DUTIES: 8 things wives
can do to make their hubbies day spectacular!
HOW TO cook that perfectsteak? this Father’s Day, time to pull out the best
PARENTING ADVICE: Get
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HOW TO FAIL AS A PARENT
8 Ways to a Happie Family
10 04 06 08 10 12 14
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unstuck and stress-free with some uplifting advice.
16 18 20
BREAK OUT the paint! It’s time for craft fun for dad... What shall we make?
“WHEN I was a kids.” How to
break the comparison trap for families and find your own voice.
EPIC FAIL: When you make the
wrong decision- kids know. So how do you react when you fail?
MAGAZINE TEMPLATE LAYOUT 02
pages
www.yourdomain.com Issue 02 - Spring 2012
Full of absolute dynamic
Y O U R
LO G O
H E R E
Urban Parenting
creative content!
BY URBAN PARENTING MEDIA
COMMON CRAFT IDEAS
Create Beautiful, unique crafts for dad this Father’s day with these tips
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URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
Publisher
The
in his own humble words
Fathers day is HERE! For all the fathers it is an important day, because they expect some acknowledgement from their offspring about their fatherhood. A lot has been written about mothers and their role in raising her children. Some people compare Mothers with God. Well, what about dad? How are you supposed to let your father know about his value in your life? Before you think of acknowledging your fathers role in your life, please go back to your childhood. Think of all the instances, everything where your father helped you, taught you and made you feel safe. Think about what would have happened if your father were not there. Thank him in your mind for bringing you in this world and then begin selecting some special ways to thank your father.
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Fathers,
A Message to All From Urban Parenting Magazine children who knows where they would be, right? I am in no way condoning this approach as a father, but a sense of understanding should be the focal point of anything that we endure.
Send an ecard that will make your father feel good. Let him know by your selection of fathers day ecard about his true value for you. Let him feel the warmth of your love in the Fathers Day ecard. Choose a color that he likes. The Father’s Day ecard should make him feel that you are very near. That will depend upon the text you chose. Select Fathers Day ecard with heat touching text. Send your father love and thanks on this Fathers Day with a lovely Fathers Day ecard. Let him know that he did something great by bringing you up.
I can laugh about it now, but I think about how as my own kids grow up, they tend to lean towards their mother and it is okay because I understand that in this stage of their lives they need her to be there and nurture them while I am always left to play “bad cop” and be the stern one. Does this mean I am affectionless, rough and mean to my children? ABSOLUTELY NOT! I kiss my children every morning when they wake up, every night before they go to bed and I constantly show them how much I love them, but I do believe that there is a balance that is needed in the household. A bit of yin and yang in order for children to truly thrive as future citizens of our society.
But why stop there? Do more for dad this year! I do believe that father’s tend to get a raw deal whether we’d like to admit it or not. I should say that before I even continue, I am not being biased since I am a father myself but this is just an observation of sorts. We look at our father’s and most will say “Oh he was really tough on me”, or maybe some will say “My dad has never shown any type of emotion/affection”. Or maybe you are one of the lucky ones that can say that “my dad was the best dad EVER!” It is my dream that one day it will be the latter for the majority and not the former as it is now for most.
This Father’s day, if you take the time to understand why Dad was the way he was maybe, just maybe you’ll begin to appreciate him a bit more. I truly believe that being a parent is not for the faint at heart. But being a father is more complex than you could ever imagine. Think about it. Today there are father’s playing both mom and dad to their children but get no recognition like mom. There are good men out there taking care of their responsibilities, yet all we as a society focus on are the negative ones. A couple of bad apples shouldn’t ruin it for the rest of the bunch who are doing right and for those special father’s, I say salute!
Sometimes we look at our fathers and don’t take into consideration that the person that they are showing themselves out to be was almost necessary. Now, before you begin writing me off, hear me out. Had some fathers not been as tough and “rough around the edges” with their
Respectfully, WIlson Manigat Publisher
URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
The Garage: A Man’s Best Friend
The garage is the man’s “treasure house”. A place of solitude where men can spend their time alone, build bonds with their sons... they sky is the limit!
I
f a woman’s place is in the kitchen, what is the man’s place in the home? If a woman loves to work with her hands and create beautiful meals for her family, where does a man like to work and keep busy? For some men, it is the home office, but for most men, their place is in the garage.
A garage is a man’s treasure house. It is full of the things a man loves most. Walls are lined with row after row of tools. Most men know exactly where every tool in their garage is even if they haven’t used it for years. Men also keep shovels, lawn mowers, and a variety of other outdoor equipment for lawn maintenance and family recreation organized somehow in their garage. Most men are always looking for new and better ways to show off the prized possessions that adorn their garage walls and fill their cabinets. The garage is also the place that holds what for many men is the most prized possesion of all: the car. And we all know that men love cars. They love to wash them, detail them, and they certainly love to talk about them. ones and restore old ones, they love to go to car shows and compare their vehicles with the vehicles of others. And the garage is the starting place for all of this.
In the garage is where men spend hour after hour working on their cars and making improvements on them. Many sons learn to love cars like their fathers after an afternoon or two spent with dad in the garage. Many men love to gather in the garage. It is not uncommon for a gathering of many families to end up with the women in the kitchen and the men huddled in the garage. There men share beer, cigars, and stories. They talk about their jobs, they talk about their favorite sports, and they talk about their latest adventures. They encourage in their manly pursuits and catch up on who is doing what to improve their homes, cars, and other possesions. The garage really is a place of friendship for men. So, the next time your husband or father cannot be found when dinner is on the table, look no further than the garage. It is almost sure that he can be found out there, fixing something you didn’t know was broken or trying to make something he has a little bit bigger, better or faster. Everyone says that dog is a man’s best friend, but I disagree. For many PAGE men I know, the garage is his best friend.
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URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
10 Ways Fathers Model Healthy Relationships for Their Children Your children learn how men should behave in relationships by watching you. Even if you do not live with their mother, they are keenly aware of the way you interact with her. Most divorce and domestic violence happens to men and women who grew up without a father modeling healthy relationship behavior. Here are 10 tips to help you model the way you want your daughter to be treated in her adult relationships, and the way you want your son to treat the woman he loves. 1. Value their mother: Children value themselves and others more when they feel that their mother PAGE
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and father value one another. 2. Perspective-taking (seeing things through someone else’s eyes): Show your children the importance of respecting the perspectives of people they love, even when they disagree with them.
Never stop trying to make things better. 6. Motivation to improve: Approach disagreements with the attitude of making them better, not worse.
4. Negotiation: Show your children how to work out solutions to problems that respect one another’s perspectives.
7. Compassion: This gut-level reaction to your wife’s pain, discomfort, or anxiety includes sympathy, protectiveness, and willingness to help but not control. It recognizes that your wife is different from you, with her own temperament, set of experiences, beliefs, values, and preferences.
5. Resourcefulness:
8. Good will: Learning a
3. Cooperation: Show how to participate willingly in work, problem-solving, or task-accomplishment.
positive attitude toward the people they love will greatly improve your children’s chances of having good relationships. Think good thoughts about your wife, and always give her the benefit of a doubt. 9. Affection: Showing affection toward their mother makes children feel more secure. 10. Relationship investment: Successful relationships require that people care about and occasionally do nice things for one another. Pretty Simple huh?
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URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
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Long Waist men need to do things the other way round when compared to short waist men. You should wear jeans as much as you can. You can wear contrasting color T-shirts and a double breast jacket to prevent people’s eyes from falling on your legs. You could also opt for belts with a high buckle.
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URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
8 Things a Wife can do for Father’s Day No, I am not talking about picking up the dry cleaning or filling the dishwasher. That “To Do” list will just have to wait for another day. Things for a wife to do on father’s day are special and celebratory of the fact that this man is your husband and the father of your kids. So, if you are ready, here are some of the many things for a wife to do on Father’s Day: Provide your husband with some “mad money” & Believe it or not, your husband puts off buying little things he needs for the good of the family many times, too. So, giving him some money specifically for purchasing what he wishes, he will feel okay about buying that new pair of khakis or the DVD he’s wanted for months.
Have him plan a “night on the town” that you pay for! Most times when couples enjoy a “date night”, the wife does the choosing of the restaurant and movie. This Father’s Day let your husband make all the decisions and treat him to it all! Surprise him with a vacation day & plan an outing to the beach, the park or a nearby zoo! Then, contact your husband’s boss and tell him he will be taking the Friday before or the Monday after Father’s Day off! To make it a real surprise, don’t inform your husband until he gets up for breakfast! Go get his car, truck or SUV cleaned and waxed, add an oil change for a total vehicle make-over. Since the men of the house are normally the ones responsible for car maintenance, this will not only be a surprise, but a truly appreciated gift. PAGE
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URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
Keep the Momentum Going, Make DAD Feel Speacial!
A Father’s hard work can often go unnoticed because we think that he “knows how we feel” but as the wife, it is your job to show dad he is just as important and definitely appreciated. Send him off for a weekend ñ Send him to a men’s retreat, out fishing with friends, or anywhere he can relax and rejuvenate. Put aside money all year so you can buy that really expensive gift he wants! Even if you don’t make much, setting aside a little each paycheck can really add up! Make sure this fund is strictly for Father’s Day, so you aren’t tempted to tap into it for groceries. Each year, a nice sum will be available to buy your husband that extravagant gift he really wants! Give him some “alone time”. Set aside a whole day that your husband can do as he pleases. Send him off to golf, play baseball, or have an all day poker party with his friends. Let him know you can hold down the fort and the kids while he
enjoys himself. Plan a night “in” when kids are in the picture, intimacy is not always on the top of your list. Make sure for Father’s Day you make romance the #1 priority. Send the kids to grandma and grandpa for the day and prepare a candlelight dinner,
followed by cuddling on the couch in of the year. The most important thing front of your favorite movie, followed by a is to show dad how much he matters! bedroom rendezvous. So often we spend time tearing down The options for things for a wife to do on male figures that we rarely have an opportunity to build the one’s who are Fatherís Day are limitless. Just ask your partner, lover, and friend what you can do doing right, up. Follow our guide and this to make that day the most special day of will be a Father’s Day to remember!
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URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
Father’s Day Steak: Tips for Cooking a Mouth-Watering Steak for Dad It’s a trite, but often repeated saying: The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. So why, when Father’s Day rolls around, do we buy endless ties and “message” T shirts? Is the way to his heart through his clothes? Not likely. It’s the stomach, people, and that means good food. For many men, good food comes in the form of a great steak. So what if you’re not a steak eater, or you eat it only in restaurants and the thought of purchasing a raw slab scares you to death? Fear not. It’s not that complicated, really. Even a caveman can handle this job. It’s important to know your cuts of meat before planning the menu. You don’t want to cook the dad in your life a tasteless, tough piece of leather. You might not notice the difference, but let’s face it - he will. Since you’ll likely be grilling, it’s important to know the best cuts of meat for the grill. You want to choose the most tender portions of meat for grilling. Experts generally consider these cuts of beef to be the best for grilling: PAGE
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URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
choose a steak. Don’t just grab the first package that looks good to you. Look for some good marbling in the steak. Yes, this is another word for
glass, and since the butcher is a dying breed, you could certainly go that route if you have a neighborhood butcher, but if not, a good quality grocery store will provide what you need. Finally, it’s important to know your grades of steak.
It’s a trite but often repeated saying: The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach... Good food comes in the form of a steak... fat. But we’re not cooking for the dieter in the family on this special day, we’re trying to give dad a good steak, remember? Those little bits of fat scattered about the steak will essentially melt while the meat is cooking, giving the meat a rich and more tender flavor. - Rib Eye - T-Bone - Porterhouse - Strip steak (like New York steak) If there is the word “loin” on the package, you’re in good shape, though most grill experts agree the T-bone is the most superior cut of beef for grilling. It stays tender and juicy, and is thick enough to withstand a fair amount of time on the grill without overcooking. Stay away from top round or anything with “round” or “chuck” in the name. These will not cook well on the grill. Flank steak and London broil can also be tough. Next, it’s important to know how to
In that same vein, don’t trim the fat from your steak before cooking. It might be the diet book author in you coming out, but that thick layer of fat around your steak is what will give the steak a wonderful juicy quality and rich flavor. You can cook the steak, and then trim the fat, but cook the steak while it’s still dressed in its fat clothes. It’s worth it. Do you need to buy a “name brand” steak? Experts say it’s not necessary, even though branded meat is a new commodity and becoming more widely available. Nor is it necessary to choose a steak from a butcher shop or from behind the glass window in the meat department at your local grocery store. Usually the pre-packaged steaks are the same you would get from behind the
- Prime is the top grade, and it features the most marbling and is the most tender, but most of us don’t have access to this grade in mainstream grocery stores. This is often what you get in a restaurant. - Choice is the best grade most of us can get in the grocery store. But choice does not guarantee high quality as this grade encompasses meat that can be almost as good as prime, or almost as bad as select, our next grade. - Select beef is the most lean and least expensive beef and is the grade of beef most commonly found in your grocery store meat case. Since this is Father’s Day, try to find choice and splurge a little. If you are unsure about your ability to pick up a good steak locally, consider ordering online and having fresh, highquality steaks delivered to your door. At OmahaSteaks.com, you can buy a large variety pack of meat, grill some for dad, and then send him home with a few spares for another day. KansasCitySteaks.com offers prime quality steaks for a restaurant-quality dad’s meal.
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Advice
URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
latest ideas • what’s new • keep up to date • parenting
8 Ways to Create a Happy Family Finding Happiness in Your Family Regardless of the Situations You May Face. Urban Parenting Uga. Et ut quoditi utet earum quis mo omnimi, ne quam rectum quodign imporit que solupid modipsum rehendi ditatecta conse et harum iduntium harcipsunt doloreriaest premquam fugiasi ncienim usdaere lam liquistem eum doluptatem ea sunt facere rerem de nis dollorrum, ut magnatus, nonectatur resequis eatem. Sequae volorem. You might disagree and say, “what are they writing now?” But hear me out on this. I believe finding happiness and success are more than just money. If you are not finding happiness in your family, this
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is to remind you that you have the power to improve your life within your family.Here are Urban Parenting’s 8 ways to create (or re-create) a happy family: 1) Start with yourself. Finding happiness starts by deciding that you will
create the loving spirit that can create a happy family. Develop an energy and personality where simply your spirit and presence will heal others and rejuvenate your family. 2) Look at yourself. Ask yourself this question and
give yourself a true answer: ìAm I contributing to family happiness or unhappiness?î 3) Heal within any feelings of mistrust or anger. This can seem to be an impossible task. But it is achievable and vital to finding happiness and success.
URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
Family Comes First People make mistakes. Some make them only once. Others repeat their mistakes over and over. Each person is doing the best they can at the emotional intelligence level they have achieved. If someone is being hurtful, blameful, angry or attacking, they are living at a very low emotional intelligence level. That doesn’t mean you need to live in this painful place with them.
With some wisdom and insight, it is easy to see how peopleís personalities have developed. Even if you are repulsed by someone, it is possible to see why they act as they do. When the development process and history of their personalities is respected, even the most difficult people
For some healing will seem effortless, others will need to hit rock-bottom before they begin. For some letting go of harmful beliefs, hurtful thinking and destructive prejudices happens gradually, sometimes only after personal pain or disasters. Pray their healing will be a safe, loving and wonderful experience. The most important element is that someone must start the healing. It will pick up for others from there. 7) Believe in assistance from a Higher Power. This is a non-religious, nondenominational, spiritual step. Miracles can and will happen for those who ask for help from a Source of 100% pure light and love. Choose actions and options that are 100% pure light and love. 8) Intend only the best for each family member. One person using their power of intention by sending energy of 100% pure light and love to other family members, though he or she may do it without others knowing, will in time see others are motivated to improve their lives. When the intention of 100% pure light and love becomes a family practice, members will grow deeper in spiritual connection and have an easier
Practice treating everyone in the family with love. You may not be able to be around them because of their chosen personality or behaviors. You can pray, intend or send loving energy to them. They will receive it and the power of love will heal them in remarkable ways, often better than we could have dreamed. 4) Choose to live in the upper six levels of your Life Guidance System. You have 21 emotional levels. Fifteen create what you don’t want and six emotional levels create what you do want. People ask us how can I live in the emotional levels that create more of what I want and result in finding happiness?î Don’t be a part of family problems. Heal yourself and become a cure. Don’t tell your
lighten up. When people feel understood, they no longer feel the need to defend. Love and acceptance of each personís history will create the feeling of goodwill and real understanding. 6) Have no certain expectations chiseled in stone. Rather, expect the best and be open to what that manifests as. When we expect something certain we are often limiting the outcome by our own limited thinking. Do not expect everyone to change at once or that it will come easily. For some the change seems immediate, for others it can take time.
time finding happiness. So here is what WE believe. Ultimately, you can change even the toughest family situation for the better. You can help family member experience success and help yourself in the process of finding happiness.
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URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
in the Fast Lane Father’s Day Crafts
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Young children don’t understand the concept of gving... but they love to make things.
URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
Common Craft Ideas for Father’s Day Inexpensive Ways to Get Your Kids to Show They Care
R
eally young children just don’t understand the concept of giving on particular holidays. Buying dad a tie or a coffee mug just doesn’t mean much to them. Young kids love to make things, though, so here are some common crafts that kids make for Father’s Day that you could try.
Dough Handprints - Using ordinary flour dough, which you can make at home your child can press their hand print into the soft substance. Put a name and a year on it, and then bake for several hours. Now you have a great gift for dad for Father’s Day that symbolized that particular year in his childss’ life.
Dough Handprints - Using ordinary flour dough, which you can make at home your child can press their hand print into the soft substance. Put a name and a year on it, and then bake for several hours. Now you have a great gift for dad for Father’s Day that symbolized that particular year in his childss life.
Print and Color Cards - Definitely the easiest craft for kids to make is a card. You can just use construction paper folded in half to create your card, or you can print out pictures from your computer, glue them onto the card and color. A nice Father’s Day gift that kids can be proud of.
Print and Color Cards - Definitely the easiest craft for kids to make is a card. You can just use construction paper folded in half to create your card, or you can print out pictures from your computer, glue them onto the card and color. A nice Father’s Day gift that kids can be proud of.
Picture Frames - Using picture frames from discount or dollar stores, kids can use various paints and glitter glue to make it unique and special. Messages like “Happy Father’s Day” or “#1 Dad” will always make the frame a treasured gift. Hand-print T-Shirts- Using a plain t-shirt, all the kids in the family pick a color of fabric paint and put their hand-print on the shirt. Mom or older siblings can write special Father’s Day messages on the shirt, as well as put the kids’ names under the prints.
Colorful Coupons - What could dad need more than an hour of quiet? What would he enjoy more than breakfast in bed? What would he like more than a clean car? Well, he can get all that and more with homemade Father’s Day coupons! You can print them off your computer and have the young children color them. Just remember don’t make a coupon that the kids couldn’t actually do! Original Neckties - Why go buy dad a tie with a silly design on it? Just let your kids make one for him! With puffy fabric paints, kids can have a ball making dad his new neckwear. Crafts for dad are easily found in books and on the internet. If you’d like to find crafts that kids make for Father’s Day, those are good places to start looking.
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URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
WHEN I WAS A
Why this old adage is no justification for our own actions versus our own children.
KID... We must understand that we must have sound judgment when dealing with our children and their choices
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et us, as parents become their (Our Children’s) teachers and give them some good solid reasons to choose to adjust their behavior in a positive and productive ways simply because it makes sense to them...
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e must eliminate from our minds a few phrases when we are making decisions about how we will be raising our kids. They are the sayings like: “When I was a kid...” and “If I had done that when I was a kid, my dad would have...” or “Back when we were in school they used to...” Now, this may sound odd to you but we need to “recapture the sound of our kids among us just like we used to up at old Fairview Hall.” There is an important distinction here. As parents we must never allow ourselves to fall into the trap of using “because it was done before,” or “it has always been that way,” or “that was the way my parents did it,” as the sole justification for our actions with our kids. It is imperative that we have a sound behavioral, moral, spiritual, ethical, or legal justifications for the actions we are teaching to or demanding of our children. We must be able to explain to our kids in a very logical way, why we are asking them to behave in a particular manner. In essence, we must not only decide: 1) WHAT it is that we want our kids to do but we must also decide, 2) WHY we want them to do it! “Because it was done to me,” is never a good enough reason to repeat it with our children.
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here have been a ton of mistakes made n the past and we are doomed to repeat hem if we are not careful to think long and ard about the justification for duplicating hose actions with our kids. Following are a ouple examples to demonstrate what we re talking about.
wo historical events demonstrate the bvious problems with doing what has lways been done before. Slavery was ommon in early America. We certainly would not advocate the continuation of hat practice today simply because it was one before. Neither would we teach our hildren that women should
e second-class citizens in the United States even though they were not even legally recognized nder the Constitution until the 19th Amendment was adopted in the arly 20th century. Simply saying that women should not vote only because hey never had in the past was a udicrous idea.
ikewise, it is foolish for us to tell our hildren that they should wear certain ypes of clothing simply because that as been an appropriate style in the ast. The same goes for hairstyles and many other standards and customs or behavior. Let’s look at establishing ress codes for kids.
We are not proposing abandoning all tandards of dress for young people ut rather, we are saying that we ught to make the standards logical nd explainable in a reasoned sort
URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
sort of way and not just on the “If I had dressed that way my Dad would have killed me,” sort of Many of those same people are in a position to an explanation. control the circumstances of your life or pass judgments about you that have a huge impact We can have dress codes... but why do we have upon your life. For the same reason that it would them is the critical question. Nobody, in their be a bad idea to wear a ball cap to a funeral, right mind would say that we scrap any sense it is a bad idea to dye your hair blue... most of awareness of how our kids dress themselves. people would interpret it wrongly. A ball cap However, dressing in a certain way because a at a funeral would be viewed by most as being previous generation did is rather silly to impose extremely disrespectful of the person being upon our kids (unless, of course, we would honored by the funeral. Blue hair would likewise like to go back and begin dressing like our be interpreted by most people as a sign of forefathers who wrote that Constitution did, disrespect for others.” simply because “that’s the way they used to do it in this country.”) Hey, let’s get a few pictures
ourselves as teens and we can readily see that even we had some rather strange ways of dressing by today’s standards. The issue is “why?” Why are we asking our kids to dress in certain ways? Here is a possible discussion: “But Dad, why can’t I dye my hair blue (wear spandex shorts to church, wear this provocative Jennifer Lopez top, use four letter words at the mall like the other kids, etc.)?” “Well, my child, you probably could do that and in a perfect world it really wouldn’t matter. But, we do not live in a perfect world. We live in a world that has a few flaws: one of them being that most people in this world make a ton of snap judgments based upon some rather narrow preconceived ideas. It is a fact that most of the people you meet will not be able to see beyond the blue hair (or loud dress, etc.) to get to know you.
Why not distinguish yourself by being truly excellent at something? Or why not try to undo some terrible wrong done by society? Why not distinguish yourself by making the world a better place? I’d love to help you. What is the cause that you would like to choose? If the only way that you can come up with to make yourself different is dying your hair, I would be disappointed in you because you are such a unique person with so much to offer.” Let us, as parents, become their teachers and give them some good solid reasons to choose to adjust their behavior in positive and productive ways simply because it makes sense to them.
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URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
BEING A PARENT One of the most rewarding and tiring, selfless jobs anyone could ever have but someone has to do it, right?
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URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
FEATURE taking it one step at a time
How To Fail As A Parent ... After you became a parent I bet you wished that there was some type of “owner’s manual”, right? Being a great, or even good parent isn’t as hard as you think but there abre definitely ways you can fail as a parent without knowing it.
A
nyone who has kids is immediately besought by many questions, and the weight of responsibility may lie heavily upon your shoulders. The fact is, there are many, many ways to fail when it comes to parenting, but the good news is that there are also many ways to succeed.. The definition of failure as a parent will depend on many factors, including your culture, your hopes for your children, and the circumstances you find yourself in. In other words,
one parent’s successes, such as Donald Trump having both his children incorporated into his business and television show, may seem to another parent to have been failures, the failure of a parent to spend enough time with and thinking about his offspring. Failing as a parent, therefore, will be dependent on your goals.
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URBAN PARENTING MAGAZINE
How To Fail As A Parent... There are still areas in which it is easy for us all to fail as parents, no matter what our goals for our children may be. The first way many parents fail is by putting their children ahead of themselves, especially during their very early years. More and more research is showing that the most important time in a child’s life, in terms of development, are the preschool ages, including infancy. Your child needs you around at this stage, mothers and fathers both. It can seem impossible with the pressures and responsibilities of work to make the time necessary for the kids, but it is an important consideration nonetheless. This may be a time when you have to let some of those promotions pass for a time in order to serve the best interests of your family. Another big mistake many parents make is either expecting too much or too little of their children, at any age, logically speaking. This applies to parents of teenagers as well as babies- the human brain is still developing right into the twenties, and even teenagers will not think of matters in the same logical way as adults. On the other hand, you do not want to underestimate your offspring’s powers of perception- as with many issues in parenting, there is a very fine line to walk, and you must base it on your knowledge of your child. This brings us to the final area that will bring about failure when it comes to raising your children- by listening to everybody else. It seems that these days, everyone has an opinion as to how your children should be raised. There is a lot of conflicting advice, and lots that will just not work when it comes to your own children. Again, you know your children best and the final decision in matters will be up to you; base your decision on what has worked on the past. If this approach does not work, then it is time to try the alternatives suggested by someone else (and start with someone with a proven track record with their own children!) Again, this is a fine line- do not ignore your doctor’s advice when it comes to medical needs. For more advice, to-do’s and NOT to-do’s please continue to visit www.UrbanParentingMagazine.com
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