Do One Thing: Week 9

Week 9: PERSONAL ITEMS:

The majority of families displaced by Katrina are still waiting to go home because they were not prepared with personal papers and information, they depended on FEMA and the government, they waited too long, they didn't save for an emergency and other situations that we all tend to do. Now is the time to prepare. Do not depend on the government to rebuild your life after an event.

Copies of all important papers

Download info to a zip drive, including i.d. cards, deeds, trusts, wills, etc., all your personal credit card numbers and the numbers for who to call if lost or stolen, social security numbers, pension fund, safe deposit box info., bank account numbers, all types of insurance papers, birth certs. passports, photos of the family, phone numbers, cd/dvd. of genealogy, and passwords to accounts, etc. Do you know your families cell numbers without your cell? If your battery wanes will you be able to call numbers by memory? Copy everything that identifies you and your property, your future, your finances, your claims, etc. Get it all on a zip drive. Carry that with you or have it stored near you bed or in you kit so you can grab it at a moments notice.

You will also want cash in coin and bills (if the electricity is out- chances are so will the atm machines). Think of how your city will run without credit or atm, how will it run on a cash only basis for two weeks? You need a stash of cash.

a cd player with batteries or tape player. (a few years ago I video taped each room in the house, garage, and shed for insurance purposes. I opened closets, drawers and doors, to expose exactly what would need to be replaced in case of fire etc. I put that on a dvd and keep it with the kit. (understand that insurance companies will want receipts- do you keep yours? They cannot tell the difference between faux pearls and real without a receipt. Also they are prepared to fight your for the replacement costs, not new mind you, how much can your replace your t.v. for if it was four years old? E-bay cost against new. Also, remember that in a city-wide event there will be literally hundreds of families vying for those insurance funds, and they won't come easily.)

Keep your laptop/cell phone charged and ready to go every night if you have to run out without notice.

walkie talkies, battery operated radios, ham radio if you are licensed.

If you need them, FEMA and/or the Red Cross will need info from you as well. Remember if you want help from these agencies you need to apply for it the day of the incident. Do not wait three or four days, you need to request help that day! Make sure to contact the correct people, look for badges and their i.d., don't give personal info to just anyone. Check the FEMA site for more detailed info.

Again, make sure all your personal information is where you can easily grab it, not tucked in a far closet. Think the house is on fire and you are out side, where can you grab it quickly from? Can you store this info on your personal key chain?

Do One Thing: Week 3

Week 3: FOOD & MESS KIT: Cereal, peanut butter, oatmeal, dry soup mixes, MREs, jam juices, fruit cups, energy bars, dried fruit, nut crackers, PLUS a mess kit or utensils to cook with, manual can opener, ziploc bags. (again, remember the baby and provide whatever the little ones may be used to eating) No need to go to the store, try to find things right from the cupboard!

You should store with meals in mind, however, BASIC meals for survival, not company sit down feasts. Store extra water if you are storing meals that need water in a recipe, such as soup. Store only those things you currently eat. If you don't eat MREs on a weekly basis don't store them. Also if you can find canned goods with the pop tops, that illuminates the need for can openers.

3 Meals and two snacks per person each day. Store this in your containers that you gathered last week. You can place all the meals in one pack or give each person their own meals in their own pack/container...it's up to you. Think about freshness, stability, and expiration dates. wrap or re-wrap to discourage spoilage and pests. Label the food and also the outside of your container so that you know what you have, the suggested meal menus, and when you need to rotate it out with a fresh batch.

I got a problem.

Alrighty then. Perhaps we should just read this in the Church Lady voice and be done with it.

Today's subject: Sex.

(now, evidently,soon to be former) New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and US Girls.

First, the Governor. It's not surprise that a career politician, one who builds that career on "moral" standards, has been caught with a prostitute. It's not a surprise that our tax dollars were paying for all this $1000.00 per hour service. It's not a surprise that the spouse stands beside this politician and says they will work on the marriage. I understand there are marriages where this has happened and that, yes, it can be repaired, my point is that this man's act was for recreation, not an emotional outburst or momentary madness.

Why am I not surprised that this is being played out in t.v. and radio as a common "mistake". Last evening there was an L.A. radio host who said all this could be avoided if prostitution were legal. Really? This is the problem? Evidently. According to this host, men are men, and men need variety and will cheat if they don't get permission to do so. He states that no man should even think about marriage until he is well into his 30s, and then only if he has been with many many women. He even went so far as to suggest those women be from different cultures, countries, etc.... juuuuust to try all he can. Hmm.

It's true that this host felt sorry for the wife, the kids, but in reality they should have seen it coming and this, he explained, is why women always forgive the men who go off to prostitutes. It has nothing to do with intimacy, it's just sex. This, according to his program, was excuse enough. The whole "Boys will be boys!" rule.

Interesting. I married a man; not an animal. I am offended to think that people are just blithely sitting by without protesting this statement that all men are beasts, and will and should conduct themselves without control or self discipline.

The entire program, from I can tell by going back this morning and listening to sound bites, has to do with his agenda at getting prostitution legalized, after all Nevada has figured it out. Legalize it, monitor it, and everyone can be safe while breaking their vows.

One of his guests was a former Hollywood madam and she agreed with all he had to promote. Lovely.

Essentially, because it was with a prostitute, everyone should be o.k. with this. I'm not even talking about the tax money, the laws, the dignity that was destroyed because of this. Heck why should we bother with that? Why is no one bothered that a "leader" has once again broken the trust of the American people? Because we have come to expect it.

Then we have the new report that 1 in 4 girls aged 14 - 19 are infected with an STD. Is this alarming, or is this too, normal human behaviour? "We can't stop people from having sex, teens are gonna have sex!" That's the thinking, right? I have a lot of problems with this study.

I find the timing amazing. Consider all the controversy lately about vaccines. Darn those moms anyway! Now, just when we have a handle on another vaccine, all these moms are wiggin' out and wondering if they should just blindly go forth as we have been trained to do. Or, maybe we need to stop and think a minute about it. So out comes a scare tactic to reinforce the need for a vaccine.

Doesn't anyone wonder if this is another Thalidomide ? Does it concern anyone else that we are vaccinating girls during puberty? Does it occur to anyone that we don't have any concrete long term studies on how this will affect their reproductive health later? Back in the day "the pill" was a new thing, a "hope", for women every where because heck, we were gonna have sex anyway, right? It was a band aide that was supposed to put everyone at ease.

The problem is that it is just that, birth control, not pregnancy prevention. We still get pregnant, it's just the birth that has become controlled. Back in the day no one knew personally of a women who was actually considered "barren". It almost seemed biblical. No one heard of anyone going to get help with fertilization; that was rare. Now, swing a cat and hit a couple who have fertility issues. Could the fact that we all have succumbed to the chemical cures that we are forgetting to connect the dots?

It's easier to just take a pill, to get a vaccine, than to do what it takes to avoid things we are not ready for. So let's all march our young girls down and get them vaccinated against a preventable disease. Yes, preventable.

Another problem I have with this report is the "girls only" angle. Are these girls born with STD? No, and the study implies (rightly so) that they have had sex. But with other girls or were there boys involved as well? If so, then how many boys have STD? Why aren't we concerned about warning them? The answer they are giving us is, that with the boys, there is rarely physical evidence or signs, with girls there is. O.k., but still, shouldn't there be something said about both genders? Shouldn't we be worried about the boys too?

How about that "black girl" stat? I tell you, I'm not black and I am furious over this. Where were these studies taken? In large cities. Were there 50 white girls and 50 black girls studied and they found these stats from that data? Were the girls completely honest? There are too many variables. Maybe it's not even 1 out of 4 girls. Did they test girls from all kinds of families, neighborhoods, classes, races, religions, regions, etc. etc. etc? Or perhaps the control group they chose could bend the outcome. Anyone who has taken a high school math class can see how stats can be bent.

On a hot day, give every teen in a crowd their choice of Pepsi or Water. Count how many teens are wearing black shirts. Count how many kids in that crowd wearing black shirts choose the Pepsi. Chances are the conclusion can be drawn that teens who drink Pepsi have a tendency to wear black shirts. Black can be a sign of Goth or depressed behaviour, i.e. Pepsi causes depression in teens. Forget the fact that 99% of the teens in the high school across the street wear black as a "cool" colour choice and that most teens enjoy a soda on a hot day. Stats can be skewed.

I'm a little ticked here. Tell the world that 1/4th of all your girls are sleeping around and spreading disease. Scare the crap out of everyone. Don't worry about the future outcome, that's why we have lawyers. Assume your children are idiots and without self control. Have them punched up with chemicals to avoid a disease that can be avoided completely. Make some pharmaceutical companies some cold hard cash. What other choice do you have?

It's easy. Talk to your kids. Both genders. Tell them who they are. Tell them they are worth more. Tell them they deserve more. Tell them how and why to wait. Expect more. Trust them to do just that. Educate them with as much information as you can. Give them some credit for being more than animals.

Do me a favour, 'k?

Alright, it's the weekend and you probably have tons of other stuff to do. But, if you have an extra 20 minutes (I promise it's really only 20 minutes), take a gander at the link to the right. The one that says "The Story of Stuff, with Annie Leonard".

It's easy to understand, has basic information we all need to know, and doesn't really preach at the end, just lets you decide what to do with the information she has given you. That's easy.

Please, please, please, if you do choose to follow the link, give yourself the 20 minutes and actually watch the entire presentation. She makes some very good points, most of us already know, but, for most of us, we need reminding of. Now shoo, go on now, watch and relearn.

Thanks.

Part 4: An Example Chart

This is an example of a chart that I made years ago. It has a different colour for each child on the top, and then colours for mom and dad on the bottom. (You can adapt this to your needs.) Each section has five minute increments, beginning with the bedtime and going backwards, which can be marked off.
The bottom of the chart is an illustration that shows that "obedience equals happiness and a correct bedtime" on the left; and that disobedience equals unhappiness and an early bedtime.



You may need to click on each photo to see clearly the illustrations, but you get the idea. And yes, my kids went to bed at 7:00 until they were in 6th grade.

Part 3: Family Home Evening Lesson Outline

Now that you know the basic foundation for the program here is an outline to help your children understand exactly how you will train each other for happiness. The idea is, that instead of arguing and disobedience, choosing to obey, and being disciplined will result in more happiness -which is its own reward. An obvious reward for obedience (using this system) is that everyone will go to bed on time and not have to miss out on family time.

Every time a person chooses disobedience or arguing, that person will take five minutes off of their bedtime. They will recognize their behavior, admit it to the parent, and promise to try and choose better. At the end of the day, one half hour before the earned bedtime, they will begin the bedtime routine. After that time (the half hour before the bedtime) any (each) act of disobedience will result in five minutes off for the following day. If a person goes to bed other than the regular time, that person will not get a story or other bedtime 'perks'. Prayers will be said, the parent will tell the child (at least five) things they did right and tuck them in. If a child goes to bed before dinnertime, they will still go to bed, and when dinner time has come, they will get a sandwich and a glass of milk. They get out of bed only to re-brush their teeth. They only go potty if they get permission. Any "pretending" adds five minutes off the next day.

Every bedtime should include prayers and mom and/or dad sharing (at least five) things the child did correct during that day, reinforcing the good behaviours and letting the child feel forgiven and accepted.

If mom and dad goof up, say a naughty word or whatever you decide, there is a spot on the chart for you to take responsibility for your mistake as well. At the end of the week the children get to decide how to spend those minutes, as a family, with you.

A chart that should be laminated and used with a dry wipe marker to mark off the five minute increments for disobedience. Each person in the family will have their own colour, mom and dad can share colours if you want. Place the chart low enough on the fridge so that every child can mark on it and "read" it easily. An example chart will be posted after this. When you make up your family's chart try to make it so that any non-readers can understand the concept clearly by observing the illustrations.

A key to the success for this system is that you will train yourself NOT to argue or debate with your children. Never. You are the parent, they are the children. You train them, not the other way around. Later, in their teen years they can discuss points, but in tones that are rational and with respect and obedience without argument to your final decision. Your children will not be robots without opinion, but rather young adults who can discuss and accept the will of wiser parents with trust. In turn you may even find they have a great reason and change your opinion due to their self control and good use of language!

Always pattern your parenting to that of Heavenly Father and you'll do fine.

Most all other questions should be answered in the following outline. However, if you come up with a question, feel free to ask away and I will try to explain it better.







Family Night Overview

Opening Song: Choose the Right Way CS 160

Opening Prayer:

Scripture: “ And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the evil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness.
But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another.” - Mosiah 4:14-15

Ask each family member to tell of a time when they felt really happy.

Explain that Heavenly Father and Jesus want us to be happy all the time. When we look at the times when we are happy it is usually when we are obedient and following the commandments of God. Commandments are like God’s rules.

Our home also has rules. What are some of our rules?

When we follow the home and family rules we are happy.

Satan does not want our family to be happy. He has come up with a plan to make us sad. It has a name: Contention. (3 Nephi 11:29) Contention means to argue or fight with each other, to use mean voices and angry words. When we disobey the family rules it makes Satan happy and God sad. It makes us sad too. We are Heavenly Father’s children; we feel the same way Heavenly Father feels when we obey and when we do not obey. We do not want contention in our home; we want to feel happy inside.

Our bedtime rule is that the children go to bed at 7:00 so they can have a good night sleep and wake up happy and ready for a new day.

Let’s talk about a new rule to help make us happy. It is a choosing rule. You will get to choose for yourself to obey or disobey.

Do you think it would help if we started to think carefully about our words and actions? Our words and actions need to be nice. We need to speak nicely to each other, not argue or fight, and to obey Mommy and Daddy without arguing.

Do you think we can choose correctly and make Heavenly Father and ourselves happy all the time?

Here is a special chart that will help all of us learn to choose the right and make changes so that we can be a happier family.

If we choose well all day long, we will get to eat dinner with the family and spend family time until our bedtime. Mommy and Daddy will spend the time right before bedtime helping you take a bath, brush your teeth, and get ready for bedtime. We will share a story, tell you the things you did right all day, say our prayers and sing a song before you go to sleep. That would make us all happy, right?

When we choose to disobey, or uses mean words, or argue, we will lose 5 minutes of the day. This means that we will need to go to bed five minutes earlier. If we choose to disobey the family rules we will go to the chart with Mommy or Daddy and cross off the bedtime by five minutes. We will also have to tell Mommy or Daddy what we chose to do wrong and say we are sorry and try to choose better.

It takes us a half hour to get ready for bed. So at the end of the day Mommy or Daddy will check the chart and when we are a half hour from the bedtime you have chosen, we will come and get you and help you get ready for bed. We will help you take your bath, brush your teeth, and get ready for bed. We will say prayers with you, tell you the things you did right, and tuck you in.

We will not get a story or a song if we choose to go to bed early. If we choose to go to bed before dinnertime, when it is dinnertime Mommy or Daddy will bring us a sandwich and a glass of milk. We will not be allowed to get out of bed without permission; if we choose to disobey then we will lose 5 minutes off of the next day. Even if it’s sunny outside or we are not tired we will need to rest quietly in our bed. If we have to go potty, we will need to ask Mommy or Daddy to get out of bed. If we choose to pretend or be disobedient after we are in bed, then we will choose to lose another five minutes for the next day.

_______will be the red colour, _____ will be the blue, and ______will be yellow. Mommy and Daddy will help you to choose the right. If you argue with Mommy or Daddy you are choosing to lose five minutes.

If Mommy and Daddy use angry words or disobey the family rules they will choose to put 5 minutes on the chart. At the end of the week, we will count up all the minutes. The children in the family can decide how to spend the time with Mommy and Daddy.

Do we think we can change for the better and make us all happy? Do you think that Heavenly Father will be happy with us?

I know that Heavenly Father will be very happy that our family is trying to be obedient and not allow Satan to make our choices.

Let’s begin this tomorrow and see how much we more happy we can be by next week!

Closing Song: Quickly I’ll Obey CS 197
Closing Prayer:







In all honesty, the first day we applied this system, #1 went to bed at 3:30! Wow. Not one of the kids made it past 5:30. It was one of the toughest days of my life! The next day it got better, and the day after that it was great. By the end of week two the kids were only missing bedtime by 20 minutes or so. Eventually, (a few years later) we decided that when a child reached the sixth grade they could go to bed "whenever". It was an easy rule, because they were self disciplined by then. They knew the rules, they knew they had to get up at a certain time, no matter what, so they usually chose well.

This disciplined all of us so well that I can also honestly say that I can count on less than one hand the times my kids talked back to me after we implemented this program. Imagine your teenagers NEVER giving you back talk, never raising their voice to you, and rarely to their siblings. It was years of practice, but it worked.

Part 2: The Base

When we think about it, Heavenly Father never argues with anyone. He does not debate. He sets a certain standard and expects us to follow that standard. When we choose to disobey there is an established consequence already in place that follows. The same is true for obedience, there are set rewards for obedience and we receive those rewards according to our obedience to Heavenly Father. This is a great example for us to follow as we parent our children.

Heavenly Father allows us the opportunity to grow and learn, to repent and change. We can take advantage of this gift each time we make a mistake and try to better ourselves immediately. Heavenly Father recognizes the person who is trying to repent. He forgives our mistakes and helps us to listen better to the Spirit, which will help us to choose more wisely our thoughts, actions and words.

Teaching children to understand the process of agency is important. Many times members of the church refer to this as “free agency”. It is true we are “free” to choose, however agency comes with rewards and consequences. We can choose the act, but not the reward or consequence.

Our thoughts lead our words and actions. Helping children to understand they think about their choices before they act is vital to their becoming aware of their agency and their own responsibility. Reminding them that they are constantly choosing for themselves will help them accept the rewards and consequences for their chosen behaviors. Re-enforcing good behavior is always preferred, however children must also have boundaries and understand with clarity when they have crossed over those boundaries.

Little children learn very early on what “yes” and “no” mean. If they can say “no” they understand its’ meaning well enough to begin practicing obedience.

As children grown in understanding they can be taught that only Heavenly Father can refuse to forgive; we are commanded to forgive all. However, when things become very serious, Heavenly Father will remove someone from the group – kind of like “time out”, to keep the group safe from harm. In society, when adults behave badly, in a very serious way, they too are removed from the group and set apart so that they do not harm anyone in the group. This kind of “time out” is called “jail” or “prison”. Their agency is taken away and someone with the proper authority chooses for them. In both of these examples there are times when the person who has behaved badly will repent and be brought back into the group, forgiven and allowed to live, choosing for themselves again. In other cases, when they have behaved so badly they do not repent, they will sit in a "time out" and not be allowed to make their own decisions. They lose their agency because they have not made enough correct decisions. They do not live with their families, friends, or get to leave “time out”.

In our homes children need to understand clearly the boundaries Heavenly Father has set and the ones that we as a family have set. Children need consistency so they can choose correctly each time and know what to expect.

Children need to understand the difference between discipline and punishment. A disciplined child will be educated, love learning, be obedient and eventually live the standards necessary for acceptance into adult society, clubs, etc. and if a member of the church -a temple recommend. Discipline is a gift, most times without tangible rewards. Children will need help recognizing these rewards as they come along. Constant reminders of “hidden” rewards for a disciplined life will help them appreciate rules and boundaries that help them towards goals.

Hidden rewards can be earning good grades, being the good friend, finishing projects, helping others, etc.

Hopefully as we train ourselves to be better parents, our children will become self-disciplinarians and the parent role can evolve (around year 18!) from caregiver and teacher to adviser and friend. “I teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves.” – Joseph Smith

Are you frustrated as a parent? So was I.

A long time ago I found myself alone with five children as Thor went off in search of a dinosaur to whack over the head and throw into our cave. I was out numbered and the offspring got restless. I couldn't blame them or Thor, it was my fault. I was inconsistent and it frustrated everyone.

One particular day I found the very ugly side of myself and thought I was the worst mother in the world. I grew up in a spanking world. I was taught to spank. Spanking solved everything. If I got into trouble I was to go outside, pull down a slim branch, spend a few minutes bending it back and forth until it broke off the tree, and then hand it over to my mother who disciplined me with said twig. Although I never went that far, I did spank and I regret each and every one of those spankings.

I remember them and what is worse, my children remember them. Do we remember what caused them to be spanked? Nope, just the punishment that came from anger and left its emotional mark on my kids. My kids are grown now, and have forgiven their dolt of a mother. I have not.

We have been admonished by a prophet of God, now, recently, to give up the spanking. I wish I had heard that speech when my little ones were little. My spanking was encouraged, even praised, and I had well behaved children to prove the method. However one day I broke. I couldn't do it anymore. So I prayed. Hard.

What I came up with was marvelous. It worked! It was HARD. Especially on me, because I had to change. The training was more for me than the kids. But change I did, and they followed; and after one heck of a week things began to turn very well. I still had the best behaved kids I knew, just without the spanking, arguing and other messes that led to all of our frustrations. My kids were happy and content; and so was I.

So here you go. I have been asked by a few people to finally get this out there in hopes that the masses (read: the 5 people who read this blog) can find it as useful as I did. Please read through all the posts and feel free to adapt it to your particular circumstances and family.