Gina Ogden

teach our kids to stand up to bullying

Live Out an Attitude of Acceptance with Your Kids

The celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his civil rights accomplishments is coming up. While King’s actual date of birth is January 15th, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act has set certain public holidays to be celebrated on the nearest Monday. So we will celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday, January 17 this year (2022). There has been a good bit of controversy about the celebration of this day over the years, and some states have designated it as Civil Rights Day instead. But no matter where you stand on the celebration of this day, the idea of …

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Build Your Own Back-to-School Plan

Do You Have Learning Goals for Your Kids?

It’s the beginning of a new year, and so it’s time for setting new goals. January is the month where we tend to make big plans and work hard to accomplish them…for a short time at least. Do you ever work with your kids to set goals for the new year? Kids can set goals too, and they often are much better at sticking to them than we are. As you think through goals with and for your kids, consider going beyond habits or behavior. Think about setting some learning goals for your kids this year. In addition to it …

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know your child's personality

Do You Know Your Child’s Personality Type?

We are all thinking about January 1st and New Year’s Day. But did you know that tucked right behind New Year’s Day, on January 2nd, is World Introvert Day? Now, of course, we’re not all introverts, but this got me thinking about personality types in general. We each see the world through our own personality lenses. So as parents, it’s pretty important to know our children’s personality types. Knowing your child’s personality type helps you to know how they interpret the world around them. And when we understand where our children are coming from, it helps us to be better …

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holiday traditions are important

Holiday Traditions are Important for Children

Holiday Traditions are Important for Children As the holiday season winds down over the next week or so, it’s a good time to think through our holiday traditions. Your family may have age old traditions that you continue to celebrate. Or your family may have tried some new things to celebrate the holidays this year. Either way, it’s helpful to evaluate what works for your family, what traditions to continue, and what traditions to let go of. And in the process, let’s consider how holiday traditions are important for children. The Value of Traditions Are holiday traditions really important for …

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fun activities to celebrate winter

Fun Activities to Celebrate Winter Solstice

Can you believe that we’re halfway through December already? And winter will officially begin on December 21st, even though for some of us, it’s been around for a while already. Does your family celebrate the first day of winter, or the winter solstice? It’s a great day to help your children learn about the seasons and their changes. Since kids love any reason to celebrate, let’s think about a few fun activities to celebrate the winter solstice.  What is the winter solstice? On our calendars, it’s often marked as the first day of winter, but there is actually science behind …

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Choose a Focus for the Holiday Season

Fun Food Days to Enjoy This December

While we’re all focused on preparing for the big holidays of this month, there are still several special calendar days devoted to random things in December. We’re looking at two fun food days to enjoy this December, National Hot Cocoa Day and National Maple Syrup Day. During this month of sweet treats, these special days help us to enjoy them even more. Let’s think about a few ways to take a little time to enjoy some winter treats in the middle of our holiday craziness. National Hot Cocoa Day December 13th is National Hot Cocoa Day. And have you ever …

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make giving important

Make Giving Important with Your Kids

As we enter another holiday season, it’s likely that our children are in a mood of wanting, wanting, wanting. This is understandable, given our culture of gift-giving around the holidays. Even if we do teach that this is a season of giving, it really is a challenge for our kids to keep that focus. So how do we help our kids see the holiday season primarily as a time to give? Can we shift the focus from wanting to giving? Let’s look at a way to help our kids to make giving important this holiday season. Talk it up The …

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new ideas for expressing gratitude

New Ideas for Expressing Gratitude in Your Home

Gratitude is the topic at this time of year, especially with our kids. They are hearing about Thanksgiving and thankfulness at home, at school, and wherever else they spend time. We make gratitude trees, put thankfulness notes into a jar, or verbally express what we are thankful for. These are great exercises for our kids, and they can set up a habit of thankfulness, which really is quite important. However, we can all start to feel that this gratitude teaching is getting a little stale year after year. How many ways can we make gratitude interesting to our kids? Hopefully …

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celebrate world kindness day

Will You Celebrate World Kindness Day?

World Kindness Day is celebrated on November 13th, and what a great time it is to celebrate kindness! As we head into Thanksgiving season and the following holidays, would a focus on kindness help your family? I know it will help mine. So maybe we can use November 13th to kick off a season of kindness that can become part of our lives.  In 1997, Japan held a gathering of kindness organizations from around the world in an effort to start a global kindness movement. The World Kindness Movement was formed there in Tokyo, and then launched the first World …

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grow your family's reading habits

Enjoy Some Fun Thanksgiving Books with Your Kids

Here we are in November already! And so our thoughts turn to the Thanksgiving season. Our kids are focused on leaves and turkeys and gratitude exercises, and we begin thinking ahead to the rest of the year’s holidays. So as we enter this Thanksgiving month, let’s plan some time to snuggle up with our kids and enjoy some fun Thanksgiving books with them. We could learn some new signs to go along with those stories too! Reading Aloud It’s great for our kids to have their own stash of books that they look at. But it’s also great for them …

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