Journeyer’s Chronicles

I initially saw Screamfree Parenting: The Revolutionary Approach to Raising Your Kids by Keeping Your Cool, by Hal Edward Runkel, a licensed marriage and family therapist and relationship coach, in a New York Times bestseller list. I passed over the book at first, as I don’t read a lot of parenting books. I have my tried and true favourites and tend to feel that reading the latest fad parenting techniques only confuses things for me.

I came across the book again later on and decided to give it a go, as it was still in the bestseller list. I have to say I’m glad I picked it up. It was a lot different than I expected - lots of common sense, with only one section that seemed initially fadish (later in the book it made more sense to me).

What was really surprising was the focus of the book. It wasn’t, as I had expected, about changing or moulding the behaviour of your children. The focus was fairly and squarely on the parents’ behaviour. This is something I haven’t come across before.

Why do we scream?

In Screamfree Parenting, screaming (or withdrawing or whatever negative behaviour is exhibited when situations escalate) is described as a loss of control, both of ourselves and of the situation. The philosphy behind Screamfree Parenting asks

How are our kids supposed to cope with a situation, when we’ve lost control of it

The author explains that when our kids make mistakes or break the rules, they look to us for guidance. Instead we often blow our tops, stressing out ourselves and the kids. Then kids then react to our behaviour, on top of trying to figure out what went wrong initially. This leads to a vicious cycle of arguments, yelling and other anti-social behaviour.

The Screamfree mantra

The following words are repeated a number of times throughout the book:

You are not responsible for your children. You are responsible to your children.

Runkel explains that when we feel responsible for our children, we tend to see their mistakes or misbehaviour as a reflection on ourselves. We tend to focus on fixing things or doing things for the child which can also be detrimental to raising an adult who can fend for themselves in the real world.

When we change our approach to being responsible to our children, it is easier to take a step back from potentially angry confrontations and put some of the methods from the book into practice. It also stops our children from feeling they need to behave a certain way just to make us happy. Instead, in theory, the good behaviour comes intrinsically.

The book

Topics covered in the book include:

• Focusing on yourself and discovering why you react the way you do
• Recognising what parts of parenting you find challenging
• The impact of labels on both parents and children
• The creation of space and place for family members
• Implementing strategies to make consequences meaningful and consistent

Each chapter finishes with a series of reflection questions that help to reinforce the thinking behind the methods described in that chapter.

Scattered throughout are case studies which help to expand on the theories put forward. All seem to be realistic and what the average parent could expect to be dealing with, making the content even more relevant.

My opinion

Who doesn’t want a screamfree relationship with their kids? The book, on the whole, makes a lot of sense and I’ve decided to give the methods advocated by Runkel a go.

A couple of chapters into the book, I thought that the Screamfree approach would fairly easy for me to implement. I like to think I am a reasonably calm person, able to take most matters in my stride. I was in for a shock, however. The book made me more aware of my reactions to the kids’ behaviours. I realised I don’t always act in a calm manner, and doing so in the heat of battle is a lot harder than I thought it would be.

I have noticed, when I am screamfree, that situations don’t escalate. You know the story - you start yelling at the kids, they yell back, you yell louder. The whole episode is calmer, which is a good start

I have one major question of Screamfree Parenting. What happens to the anger that is suppressed by the parent? Once the method has been used for some time, the initial response is less likely to be anger. However, initially and for more serious misdemeanours, there is bound to be some anger felt by the parent. Runkel provided advice regarding a support network for parents, however I feel this may not always be a practical solution at the time a “blow up” is happening.

I recommend this book to parents looking for a way to reduce anxiety in their relationships with their kids. As Runkel suggests in the introduction, you may not take on board the whole book but there’s plenty to make you think. This is a parenting book that will continue to provide relevant advice from when your kids are preschoolers through to teenagers. It is one that I will be referring back to a number of times.

Image via Wikipedia

Last week, I began to think about what we could do during the school holidays. I figured planning some activities would help keep the kids (and me) from going stir crazy.

Then I was reminded of my childhood holidays - totally unplanned, unscheduled and great fun. I honestly can’t remember doing one planned activity in my school holidays, apart from when we went on family trips.

When I was a girl I used to spend a lot of time with my cousin over the school holidays. She lived just down the road and we would visit each other almost every day. Some days we would ride our bikes around the town, others we would practice our “gymnastics” at the local footy ground.

I remember she had the best dressup box ever. I thought so because it had her mum’s old bridesmaid’s dresses in it. They were gorgeous and we thought we were real princesses when we put them on.

I had almost forgotten about the fun my cousin and I had during the long school holidays. Earlier this week I was reminded of those times by my own girls. They were playing outside when Cinderella came in asking for some bowls. She also grabbed a saucepan and spoons then ran back outside to where Little Mermaid was busying herself.

Curious as to what they were doing, I had a peak out the window. The table was strewn with flowers and herbs from the garden. The pot and the bowls were filled with water. Each girl took a flower and pulled the petals off, putting them into the pot.

Really beginning to wonder what was going on, I went outside to ask. Making perfume, came the matter of fact answer.

Making perfume! How could I have forgotten about making perfume! One of the favourite activities of my cousin and I was to gather beautiful smelling flowers from the garden, grind them to a pulp and try to come up with a perfume to match the original scent. Of course, we never made anything that smelled nice but we had great fun. If something smelt particularly awful, we would declare it a magic potion and sprinkle it on our brothers while uttering a spell.

Cinderella and Little Mermaid spent a good hour with their perfumes. It was lovely to watch their imaginations at work while they experimented.

It made me realise that kids don’t need to have their days organised for them. Perhaps a little direction every now and then. But provided with a few basics and given a free range, their imaginations take over and they can quite happily amuse themselves without our help.

The more opportunity the kids have to explore by themselves, without strict directions, the better they become at it. They gain confidence in their own abilities to make decisions, try new things and work as a team. Often they will choose to do something more active.

How about trying an unplanned activity or two for the kids these holidays and see what wonderful direction it takes you.

It’s time to report in and see how well I’ve done in achieving the goals I set for June. I have to say that knowing I’d be writing about my goals here, for all to see, has really made me focus.

Blogging

• Write a series of posts to schedule if I am away. I’m into the brainstorming phase, but no further.
• Grow the Journeyer’s Chronicles community. There are certainly more visitors and subscribers this month. As a thank you to all my visitors and subscribers I’m running a Christmas in July competition.
• Learn to tweak my blog code. As luck woud have it, a day or two after I wrote down that goal I realised my blog looked dreadful on some browsers. I did a rushed redesign job and learnt heaps about Wordpress and themes in the process.

July Goals

• Write two posts to schedule if I am away.
• Continue to grow the Journeyer’s Chronicles community.
• Continue with blog redesign.

Family

• Finish Screamfree Parenting. I finished early last week. Unfortunately I was tied up with committee duties and didn’t get to write the review. It is now scheduled for this Friday.
• Help The Engineer with the MS Readathon. Well, he got lots of reading done. I was very keen for The Engineer to get the sponsors himself, to help him develop a bit of confidence. He was a little uneasy about doing that and only asked immediate family. As a result, he didn’t reach his target of raising $250. It was a good experience for him though and one we’ll probably do again next year.

July Goals

• Do something fun with the kids during the week, that doesn’t involve after school activities.
• Establish teamwork in regard to household tasks.

Finances

• Monitor our grocery spending. I have been keeping on top of our groceries really well. One week we went way over budget. That freaked me out a bit because there wasn’t anything I could have cut back on. However, the next week, we were well under budget so it evened out.
• Pay down our credit card balances. Right on target with this goal. The credit card gets paid along with the other bills, rather than getting the left overs as was our previous habit.
• Stick to our budget. Generally we have been doing well. As happened last month, we had to take from some budget categories to make up others. On the whole though, we are still in the black.

July goals

• Continue as for June.

Health

• Walk where possible. This is getting tougher. Winter is starting to set in and the weather has been less than pleasant. Generally, I’m getting a walk in every second day. I have been walking to appointments where I can.
• Use the exercise bike for 15 minutes every day. I have failed dismally at this one. I haven’t even taken the bike out of storage.

July goals

• Get the exercise bike out of storage!
• Set aside some quiet ME time each day.
• Write regularly in My Happy Pages.

Productivity

• Continue with Getting Things Done. I’ve been doing well with this goal. You can read my monthly GTD review here.

July goals

• Organise an housework schedule and stick to it.
• Listen to/read two books.

Simple Living

• Keep my container vegie garden alive. I have peas! The wind is doing it’s best to destroy my little crop, so I may have some emergency work to do over the next few days.
• Help The Thinker build a new vegie garden. The Thinker has completed phase 1 of our new vegie garden - moving the sandpit.
• Make some reusable shopping bags to put in my handbag. I never made any shopping bags. I did, however, buy two. They were $2 at the Reject Shop and fit perfectly in my handbag. And yes, I have been using them.

July goals

• Complete the vegie garden.
• Have another go at making yoghurt.
• Make some bread.

Flickr photos by Fabio Pinheiro, ChezDeniseeLaudalino & Tambako the Jaguar

Image by leah1201l via Flick

Christmas time in Australia is often hot. It’s not unusual to be celebrating in 35°C (that’s around 95°F). As a result all the yummy, hot Christmas food is mostly off the menu - unless you want to spend a sweltering day in the kitchen.

But we don’t miss out! Many families have a Christmas in July. This is not about the religious significance of Christmas, however. Nor is it usually about gift giving and receiving. Instead, it’s a chance to get together with family and friends while enjoying a traditional hot Christmas style lunch or dinner.

July is also a good time to start thinking about getting organised for the coming Christmas. It might seem like forever away, but a little early preparation can save a lot of time, stress and money later in the year.

Each Tuesday in July, I’ll have a Christmas themed post covering things like recipes, getting ready for Christmas and gift ideas.

To celebrate Christmas in July and my three month blogiversary I’m giving away a $20 Amazon voucher! To enter just leave your Christmas tip below. As a thank you to my subscribers, they can get an extra chance to win. Details are at the bottom of your Journeyer’s Chronicles feed subscription (I hope I’ve set it up correctly!).

If you aren’t a subscriber yet, just click here or on the green subscribe button at the top of the page and you can get your extra entry.

The Christmas in July competition runs from 1 July - 23 July. The randomly selected winner will be announced on 25 July (of course). Good luck everyone

Today is the last day of the financial year in Australia. That means it’s time to start thinking about taxes. Ugh. Do you have all your paperwork ready to go for this year? Is it a simple matter of grabbing a file and handing it to your accountant or plugging in some numbers yourself? No?

What you can do if you haven’t prepared for this year’s tax return

It’s not too late to do a little bit of organisation for your 2007/2008 tax return. The first thing is not to panic. You have plenty of time to get things together in some sort of order. Try not to wait until the last minute though. Bear in mind, the sooner you get your return to the tax office, the sooner you get your hands on any refund that’s coming your way. And the more organised you are, the more deductions you may be able to claim.

• Get a folder. Size depends on how much paperwork you anticipate having. If you don’t have many deductions a manilla folder will probably do. Label it 2007/2008 tax information.
• The easiest information to lay your hands on will probably be your PAYG summary. Start by putting that in your folder.
• Scout around the house and at work for any tax receipts you might have stashed. Remember, to make a claim for a deduction, you need to have the paperwork to back it up. Put them in your folder.
• If you’ve kept copies of your bank statements pop them in your folder. If you haven’t kept them, you can likely download them from your bank’s online banking site.
• Gather any paperwork for investments and other income and put that in your folder as well.
• If you have the time or inclination to be particularly organised you could group all your paperwork into like sections to make it easier to sort through.

By putting paperwork in a dedicated folder as you find it, there’s no need spend hours trying to find everything at once. You’ll know exactly where to go when you’re ready to file your return.

Use a tax agent or prepare your return yourself?

Next decide if you’re going to use an accountant or tax agent to prepare your return, or do it yourself.

Tax agents

If your financial situation is complex or you are uncomfortable working through the numbers, the best route to take is using a tax agent or accountant. You can hand over your folder that you prepared and they will work through it and lodge your return on your behalf. The only downside is they charge for the service (of course).

Prepare your own return

We have a fairly simple financial situation so I do ours myself using eTax (for Australian residents). eTax can be downloaded from the ATO website for free.

eTax has a comprehensive help section if you’re a little concerned about all the ins and outs. It uses a question and answer system to guide you through preparing your return and gives an unofficial estimate of any refund (or payment) once completed. To use eTax you’ll need a copy of last years tax return to verify your identity.

I submit our returns online and usually get our refund within a week.

A note on preparing your own returns: Ensure that any deductions you claim are legitimate and that you have the supporting paperwork. It’s a good idea to check eTax’s help section at each question, just to make sure the rules haven’t changed from last year.

What do I need to keep and for how long?

Preparing a folder with all of your tax paperwork makes it easy to store once you have submitted your return. Everything is together and easy to lay your hands on should the tax office ever have a query. This section of the ATO website has a comprehensive list of what you should keep and for how long.

Preparing for 2008/2009

Being organised at tax time makes it so much less of a chore. If you collect all your paperwork in one place during the year, it can be a matter of an hour to have your return completed and submitted. Starting on the right foot now, can make tax time 2008/2009 so much less, dare I say, taxing (yes, I can hear you all groaning).

• Get yourself an A-Z expanding file. This might seem excessive, but everything money related is going in here. It’s easier to cull the paperwork at the end of the year than to find it. Label the file 2008/2009 tax information.
• As receipts, dividend statements, bank statements, Centrelink forms and so on come in during the year put them into your tax information file.
• Remember that if you do even a little bit of work from home, you may be able to claim things like electricity, phone and internet access so keep your bills as well.
• Before you file your receipts jot a note on them regarding what they were for. Some of the thermal inks tend to fade over time making it hard to read them come tax time.

This is a fairly simple, quick way of staying on top of things at tax time. It has worked for our family for a number of years. As I mentioned above, we have a reasonably straight forward financial situation. If your situation is more complex you might consider using a software package that can track tax items for you.

If you have any queries, don’t be put off visiting the ATO’s website. It is quite user friendly and is packed with information.

For your Sunday morning reading pleasure, here are some of the interesting bits I bookmarked over the week.

• Zen Habits, always has something to take away with you
  • How to go from sedentary to running in five steps, in case I ever have the urge to go running
  • How to get a lot done - 7 tips to achieve more. Who doesn’t want to know how to do more with their time?
• Do you suffer from blogger imposter syndrome? at Problogger could just as easily apply to any area of your life.
• Trent at My Simple Dollar detailed his book writing journey. I can’t wait to hear more details about the book.
• What’s old is new as far as parenting styles are concerned in Are you turning your child into a wimp over at Planning with Kids.
• I’m an Organizing Junkie has 13 toy storage ideas, all of which are not only functional but look great too.
• Who knew you could use the prickly bits of pineapple to make a delicious drink!
• Simpsonize Me is very fun. Here is me and The Thinker.

I apologise to anyone who has been waiting for my Screamfree Parenting book review this week.  Committee duties have taken up much more time than I expected.  I now have it scheduled for next Friday.

Image by macg3 via Flickr

The school and preschool my children attend integrate environmental awareness into many of their classes. The Thinker and I also do our best to tell the kids about our impact on the world and the importance of our natural environment.

I’d never thought too much about the actions we put to our words. Of course, we all know, actions speak louder than words. Generally, we do the “right” thing - we recycle, turn off lights, save water and so on. These are easy things to do.

Yesterday I was confronted with one of the more unsavoury aspects of being environmentally aware.

Returning home from a bike ride, The Engineer (6) skidded to a stop and jumped off his bike. I wondered what on earth he was up to. He was focused intently on something off to the side of the path.

As I approached I saw what he had been on a mission to retrieve. A revolting, dirty, old cigarette pack! I opened my mouth to tell him to throw it away, and he bent down to pick up another piece of rubbish.

“I’m collecting rubbish, Mum,” he proclaimed proudly to me. “I’m going to tell my teacher about this when I go back to school.”

I was torn between telling him to throw the germy stuff away, quashing his proud moment, or letting him continue on his mission. I decided that we could have a good wash when we got home, and even let Cinderella (5) get in on the act. By the time we were finished, Cinderella’s bike basket was full of litter.

I realised it is so important not only to tell our kids about our environment, but to show them and let them become involved as well. If I hadn’t let The Engineer and Cinderella collect the trash yesterday (as much as it made me cringe), they might never try again.