No one wants to be harassed into good manners.

Achoo: Good Manners can be Contagious by Mij Kelly, illustrated by Mary McQuillan, has everything a picture book for the six-and-under crowd needs. The rhythm and rhyme make reading it aloud enjoyable for everyone. Even better, the story is silly, eliciting endless laughs even while making a point.

I think I’ve mentioned my family’s renewed commitment to family dinners. We’ve spruced up our regular weeknight fare by moving it into the dining room and adding a few flourishes. Over the past month we’ve made even simple macaroni and cheese into a memorable dining event.

All of this has made two things clear:

1. with the right setup, even a four and six-year-old can share stories over dinner for an hour; and
2. my four -and six-year-old seem unable to consistently chew with their mouths closed, use napkins, eat over their plate, or take turns talking.

That last one is predictable. I know. But this little book seems to help, mostly by reminding us parents to lead by example.

There is no need to interrupt dinner with constant nagging.

This book clearly strikes a chord with the little ones.

Little Miss Four frequently quotes it. Miss First-Grader actually brought it for show-and-tell; she thought it went well with a book about bullying they had read the day before. Then yesterday, I found both girls snuggled up with Achoo, reading the book together.

Simple though it is, this is a favorite already. Plus it’s a great platform to remind us all about basic manners and how we as a family can kindly teach each other to be polite.

Last year I began saving all manner of clean recyclables for a second life as a toy or craft. Last winter we relied on creative inspiration from websites like

• Family Fun
• Kinder Art
• This nice list from TLC

When our new baby (not so new anymore!) was born last June,  the girls continued to create with recyclables, replacing my help with their own vision, a whole lot of duct tape, and quite a bit of creative dedication.

I have never been more impressed or annoyed by this than I was at 6:30 this morning. Yes, 6:30. In the morning. Apparently Miss First Grader was struck by inspiration sometime around 5:30. When it was complete, of course, she wanted to share with her mother.

“Computers! We made them ourselves!” She burst into my room with her sister close behind.

I was too groggy to get a picture of those computers, but I have snapped a few photographs of their favorite project, the “Toad Village” that now populates our living room. The first “Toad House” was a Kleenex box Little Miss Four toted out to the garden, covered in sticks and leaves, and left as an offering to the toads.

When a toad seemingly claimed that house for his own (how else could she explain the sudden disappearance of her creation), she became a dedicated toad-lodging architect. Combining forces with her sister, they have created a veritable metropolis, using ice cream and yogurt containers, shoe boxes, coffee tins, and… yes, that’s Polly Pocket approaching a box of wine!

Polly has moved into toad village for the winter.

This is one of those wonderful “do-good” habits (assuming you can tolerate a bit of a mess) that offers endless opportunities for discussion.

• Talk about the concept of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Which comes first? Which last? What does that say about the importance of each?
• Maybe the dolls don’t need doll house furniture, if bits of egg carton can be a sofa and the old wine box still works for Polly!
• Reduce in another way too. Maybe refrain from buying another box of cereal or crackers just yet, as our Polly Pocket Toad village is full at the moment with a perfectly lovely, red-painted Nilla Wafers box. Though the kids protested that decision, I felt good about modeling the “reduce” concept. It also felt good to back off our cracker-based-snack habit!

Of course, when company is coming, I tend to look around at all of these creations and long for more recycling and less reusing. Under the cover of night, when they girls are deeply asleep, I whisk off the duct tape and relocate the toad villas down to the curb. I know, I know, I should help them reflect on the recycled third life of their boxes.

I’ll work up to that conversation. For now, they value their looted recyclables too much for that.

Here is a book that beautifully illustrates how much good just a few dollars can do. One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference by Katie Smith Milway is helping me prepare the girls for our family’s first foray into micro-lending.

Though friends have told me that Kiva is a straightforward and inspiring way to help others, I have been reluctant to introduce the kids to it. Micro-lending? Even with an economics degree buried in my distant past, it seems like a complicated idea to explain to my young ones. At four and six, they are still trying to differentiate the value of pennies and quarters on a consistent basis.

Thanks to One Hen, I think they have the concept down. Our Kiva account is up and waiting for one each family member to decide how much of our Christmas money to contribute.

The story follows Kojo, a young boy from Ghana, and his experience buying a hen with the help of a small community loan. Over the years, Kojo’s one hen grows into a bustling farm. Kojo’s small loan ultimately helps this family, his community, and even his country grow and thrive.

Understandably, the story is a long one. Both my 6 and 4 year old like to pick it frequently for a bedtime story, and I catch myself wishing for a short Todd Parr story to wrap up our evening more quickly. Terrible, I know.

Once we get started, though, the gorgeous illustrations and well-written prose draw me in right along with the kids.

And yes, I’ll admit to abbreviating the story now and then, relying more on the pictures and large-print excerpts featured on each two-page spread. That gets us through on those low energy nights. I’m continuously impressed by how often the girls pull this story from the shelf.

After all of this reading, I’m surprised the girls haven’t decided to capitalize on our own backyard chickens. I keep waiting for them to ask to sell our eggs, but the issue hasn’t come up just yet.

I was also surprised to learn that this is more than just a book. One Hen has actually grown from being a book to a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing enrichment curriculum for elementary schools, teaching about world problems and how kids can make a difference.

The website www.onehen.org offers additional resources, including links to effective micro-lending organizations, lesson plans based on the story, and a children’s blog. Check it out if you have the time!

Join us! Get your family involved in micro-lending and start “making changes in the world, one person, one family, one community at a time.”

January is the time that many of us make goals for the New Year.  Would you like one of your goals to be giving back, but you find it daunting or overwhelming?  Do you listen to your philanthropically gifted friends and think you just don’t have the time or energy to give back?  If you use your passions to give back, then you will have more fun and it will be less daunting.

Below I offer a few suggestions to help you give back in 2012!

Did you know that you can use your professional skills to give back?  Organizations are frequently in need of professional services so you can reach out to your favorite non-profit to see if they need help.  Websites such as Catchafire.org and Sparked.com help individuals connect with a non-profit that is looking for your specific skills.

Are you a photographer? You could offer to take professional headshots for donations to the charity of your choice or take photos at charity events for a discounted rate or even free.  The Wish Upon a Wedding organization asks professional photographers to donate their services to weddings for those with a terminal illness and Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep offers photography services to families who have lost a baby.

There are many opportunities to give back for crafters. Project Linus can always use more sewn or tied blankets for kids in the hospital.  If you are a scrapbooker or card maker, you can offer your scrapbooking skills to a family who lost a loved one or make some cards for local seniors.  You can get your kids involved by decorating placemats for Meals on Wheels or thank you notes for the troops.  You can also find organizations that allow knitters to give back such as afghans for Afghans or Chemo Caps.

You can also give back through food. Donate your excess fruits and vegetables from your garden to the local food shelf.  You could also volunteer with organizations such as Hands for Harvest or Fruits of the City to help get fresh food to the food shelf.  Bakers or chefs could participate in a bake sale for a local charity, donate a custom dessert or meal to a silent auction, or just give a meal to someone going through an illness.  For those a bit more ambitious, you can find several other food related fundraiser ideas online!

Do you love kids? Search for a local crisis nursery or women’s shelter and offer babysitting services.  Work with an arts organization such as Free Arts Minnesota to help kids with arts projects.  You can also offer your time in a local school through mentoring or tutoring.  If you have a special place in your heart for kids in the hospital, consider an organization such as Camp Get-A-Well-A that offers a summer camp experience to kids in the hospital.

I hope this post has inspired you to give back in 2012.  No matter what your passion is, you can find some organization that could put it to good use.  Please stop by The Blogunteer or search the Doing Good Together site for more inspiration!

This book was the perfect combination of story-telling and wonderful recipes. I loved the many quotes and experts from memoirs (including that of Maya Angelou), tips from other experts (Jamie Oliver!) and many other outstanding contributors.

I have to admit, I haven’t made it all the way through. Each page is so full of ideas, many of which I want to try out right now. So far, my family has

• tried a few of the recipes, not all to rave reviews from the kids, but the adults in our house were more than impressed.
• adopted a show-and-tell bowl for the center of the table, so Little Miss can squirrel away her favorite finds from the day and share them with everyone at dinner. Miss First-grader always adds a prize from her school day. This is a great way to reflect on the days’ adventures.
• relocated dinner. We already abide by most (admittedly not all) of Laurie David’s ten nonnegotiable rules for family dinner. What we lacked was dinner with a sense of style. By relocating our evening meals to our dining room, rather than the kitchen nook, dinner has taken on its own personality. The girls enjoy setting the table when they get to select place mats and often create little name tags (this is a boon to my goal to get everyone participating with chores). Somehow, the simple act of elevating dinner to the dining room has meant longer conversations of dinner, slower meals, and a greater sense of camaraderie at the end of even the most hectic days.

Essentially this book has helped reinvigorate a habit I’ve been striving for since my oldest began eating solids. The wide range of conversation starters and family games will apply to my family as it grows. Even time-crunched, stressed-out teenagers will be inspired to gt in on the act… I hope.

Be sure to check out The Family Dinner website for additional resources and great snippets from the book.

Today our nation stands still just long enough for us all (or at least those of us with school kids on break) to grapple with some big ideas.

What is freedom? What is equality? Or in the words of Miss Kindergarten, “Why was there ever a time without equality?” And what do we hope to distill within the content of our characters? Our children’s characters?

The National Geographic offers a great video for kids entitled Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Remembered. After going way over Miss Kindergarten’s head with YouTube footage from the march on Washington, it was a relief to find this two and a half minute summary of what King accomplished. Is it oversimplified? Surely, but a five-year-old must start somewhere.

It was remarkable to watch her disbelief. “Separate restaurants? Separate schools? Why would they do that?” I didn’t really want to answer.

We attempted, briefly, to follow the DGT newsletter suggestion (excerpted below) educating the kids about the value of human rights. Unfortunately, my girls still reside in a world where time-outs are the most severe form of punishment the “law” can administer. This makes many of the articles in the Declaration of Human Rights (the right to justice under the law, for instance) confusing and the rest (the right to be free from torture or slavery) were both self-evident and a little shocking.

Instead, after watching the National Geographic video, we crafted with inspiring quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr. himself. Activity Village, a UK-based site offering an endless supply of timely crafts and coloring pages, suggested this Hand Banner. While we traced tiny hands and cut out the quotes, we discussed the meaning behind each one.

The favorites with my daughters were:

• “Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”
• “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continued struggle.”
• and “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

Together we spent a peaceful morning remembering a turbulent past and learning (or relearning) important lessons form a great man.

If you have older children and want to try working more deeply with the concept of human rights, the Dong Good Together newsletter offered the following suggestion:

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, on January 17, is the ideal time to encourage service and bring awareness to human rights. Here are three ways to begin:

• Have each person in your family choose one right (or, if you’re ambitious, all of them!) from the Declaration of Human Rights and create a piece of art around it. Talk about why a particular right was chosen and why it is important. Display the art at home — or perhaps at a library or other public space to educate others and raise awareness about critical issues.

The Dong Good Together newsletter also offered these discussion questions for the day:

While making art, writing letters, doing a service project, or reading one of the books below, chat about human rights. Pose these questions:

• Why is it important for all human beings to have rights?
• What additional rights would you like to see included in the Declaration of Human Rights?
• What examples have you seen in your life, or in the news, of where human rights have been ignored?

As a follower of Doing Good Together, your mailbox probably looks a lot like ours: crammed with the noble requests of a million charitable organizations. There was a time when I felt obligated to send a few dollars back for every free sheet of return address labels sporting adoptable kittens or each well-written letter tugging at the heart strings.

Then there were the phone calls. My subscription to National Geographic could help who? Sure.

Clearly, that method of personal philanthropy is unsustainable, not to mention ineffective. I was spreading my contributions so thinly, I didn’t feel ownership over any particular cause.

A few years ago, my husband and I started operating as if we were our own foundation. Now I feel much more committed to a few organizations. I feel as though I’m making a small difference to their work. And I have a reasonable answer to every call for charitable donations: “We’ve already planned our giving for the year. Thank you.”

This year, the kids are old enough to get in on the act, so we plan on making an event of our intentional giving decisions.

Our plan is simple:

Set a budget: Check out your family budget and determine how much you can afford to donate. Leave a flexible margin for those adorable girl scouts next door and your niece’s new marching band fundraiser.

Select a cause (or two): Have a family meeting and determine what causes are most important to you. What issues do you and your kids care passionately about? Why do these causes intersest you, and how do you think you can make a difference? Do a little research to discover what organizations are doing good work on your issues. These websites can be extremely helpful: Charity Watch, Charity Navigator, and GuideStar.

Send in your donations: Don’t forget to check with your employer for a matching contribution. Doubling your support feels even better! Use what you’ve learned to make predictions about how can your dollars will make a difference?

Remember, the point is not so much the amount you gift each organization but the intentionality you bring to it. Take the time to evaluate the change you want to see in the world, research an organization that is effecting that change, and make a financial contribution to the extent that your are able. Doing this is exponentially more rewarding than pushing five dollars at the next group that asks.

Have fun discussing your children’s priorities with them, and feel free to let us know how it goes!

One  of my family’s New Year’s resolutions is all about chores.

I don’t mean Cinderella-style, toothbrush-to-the-floor, scrub-all-day chores. Our family does many things together. We bake together, build forts, read books, construct Lego communities, and complete little volunteer projects whenever possible. We have lots of fun.

We also create huge messes, and while I’m pretty good at motivating creativity and curiosity, I haven’t been terribly efficient when it comes to instilling habits of routine responsibility and universal “pitching-in.”

Miss First-grader has been snarling at me over unloading the silverware. Not the entire dishwasher. Just the silverware.

It seems to me that in order to inspire a sense of social justice and a desire to help others in the outside world, I’ll need to teach the kids these same expressions of compassion right here at home.

Families help each other, not for an allowance or special spiderman stickers, or extra television. We help each other because that’s how dinner gets on the table and how we have room for the next extensive Lego village.

A habit of pitching-in at home is not developing here overnight, and it’s not happening without a little push-back. It is happening though.

Little Miss Four is still is still at the age where helping out is fun (spray the homemade cleaner? yes, please! sort the silverware? I can do it!)

Miss First-grader is a bit more challenging, as her days at school have raised the value of play time.

Putting Miss First-grader in charge (more or less) of a meal just once a week has given her a sense of responsibility along with a glimpse at the work it takes to keep our family fed each night.

Thanks to the clever web-site The Kids Cook Monday, she picked out a couple of recipes and helped out with dinner on Friday night (Monday’s don’t really work for us).

She has actually told me a few times, “Wow mom, it takes a lot of work to take care of three kids doesn’t it?”

“Not when two of them are old enough to help out a little,” I assure her.

In addition to this fun evening together in the kitchen, I’ve laid out a basic handful of expectations the girls need to complete each day. Don’t worry, they won’t threaten play time all that much. During these first days of greater expectations, the girls have kept their chores up pretty well, with minimal nagging on my part.

I just let them know that all of their basic tasks need to be done before dinner. It is pretty entertaining to watch them dash around to make their bed and sort that silverware while their food cools a bit. In my opinion, this progress bodes well for the future of social justice.

I saw this lesson in action last summer when my third baby was born. Our world was upside down for a while, full of the attendant awe and sleep deprivation that follows the birth of any child. Through it all, our kindness habits stayed pretty much intact, in part because we had adopted the local food shelf as an ongoing effort.

As you kick off your 2012 lifestyle refinements, consider adopting an organization in your area. Here are a few tips and lessons learned from my experience.

Choose Wisely: Think about groups whose mission you believe in and that fit with your family’s interests. Make a list of several possibilities and let your children help choose. And of course, make sure the organization is open to having entire families assist.

Go Local: Choose an organization near your home, preferably one you drive by on a regular basis. This way the kids just might bring up past donations while you run an unrelated errand. Our family has adopted a food shelf very near our school. We often play at the playground there, especially after making a drop off. During Help the Hunger Month, our food shelf (as we call it), was the only organization the girls considered sending their money to.

A long time ago, when we weren’t even contemplating a third child just yet, we adopted a wonderful organization called People Serving People. This Minneapolis-based shelter helps homeless families get back on their feet. We planned to lavish them with our extra garden produce, toys, kitchen gadgets, and any other donations we could cobble together over time. They happily accepted a few boxes of gently used children’s clothes and toys culled from the kid’s room soon after we learned about them.

Unfortunately, the collection box we stored for them in our hall closet sits there still, overflowing with useable goods. The kids grew tried of the drive downtown, and eventually the task slipped off our to-do list.

How embarrassing.

Don’t worry, it’s back on the list for 2012.

Take a Tour: Ask for a tour of the organization. Kids, at least my kids, respond best to ideas they can attach to a specific place.

Nothing helps kids understand the good they are doing than seeing its destination (at least the interim destination). The set up of our local food shelf fascinated my girls during the first visit. This fall, when we dropped off holiday donations and saw the turkeys waiting for pick up, Miss First-grader was full of hopes for the families who would be eating those turkeys. She thought of them all Thanksgiving weekend.

Directly visiting an organization can also help you know when a place is or isn’t a good fit. Our family is currently looking to adopt a senior living facility somewhere near our home. The first place we found seemed uninterested in our wish to visit residents, donate homemade cards, and possibly bring baked goods or garden produce over the course of the next year.

In fact, they seemed somewhat annoyed by the inconvenience.

Maybe I was misunderstanding them, but I was so put off by the place that I put the whole idea on the back burner for several months. Now we’ve found another place, also nearby, and they couldn’t be happier to have more volunteers, especially little ones. I couldn’t be happier to find an organization that seems welcoming of children. I’m sure glad we took the tour!

Be Creative with Support: Once  you’ve adopted your organization, whatever type you’ve committed to as a family, you can support them in many different ways:

• organize a collection drive
• donate your spare change jar
• organize a fundraiser
• volunteer directly
• do some “kitchen table” service projects that apply

Start the conversation tonight, right at your own dinner table. Just ask, “Do you think people are more likely to contribute to a place or a cause they know more about? Why might this be true?”

If you do select an organization, be sure to let us know how it goes. Your story will inspire others and strengthen our community even more!

And I might as well admit it. I’m a geek for resolutions. What’s the harm of looking ahead, digging deep into a personal reservoir of hope and idealism, and saying,

In 2012, I’d like to practice gratitude, find a nursing home that my family can volunteer at with personal visits as well as gifts of homemade cards, cookies, and garden produce, and add a bit of doing good to social gatherings… and yes, get in a bit better shape, I’ll be honest.

There. A resolution has been set. What’s the worst that can happen, naysayers?

Maybe I won’t adopt Christine Carter’s photo gratitude practice? Or maybe I do, but only a couple of times? Perhaps we don’t add a donation box to the next birthday party but we get do add it to the family reunion. Maybe I get to the gym once a week instead of three times. Regardless, some progress will be made.

For me, flexibility is the key. I set resolutions to serve as a compass, guiding me toward grand life goals (health, happiness, compassion).

If I leave enough flexibility to allow for a lot of success, I tend to be motivated to continue, often with a bit more momentum. And like any good orienteer, I check my compass frequently.

This means resolutions are a seasonal habit for me. My spring birthday is always a good time to punch up resolve. For some reason the fall, back-to-school energy always leads me to set a few new goals.

By small degrees and flexible resolutions, I tend to make quite a bit of progress. Let’s call it the tortoise’s approach to resolutions.

I know I won’t be running a marathon in 2012, but shedding the last 10 pounds of baby weight before my son is 1 seems more than doable. Similarly, I know my family isn’t going to start 2012 by selling off all our possessions and kick-starting a cross-country RV crusade to end poverty (though it’s more likely than a marathon!).

Instead, we’ll continue the habits of kindness we’ve already established. We’ll keep following Miss First-grader’s lead whenever she finds a cause or an issue that she deeply cares about. I’ll steer us toward a few simple goals that may keep us on a path to compassion and kindness.

And I’ll reset the compass every now and then to keep us on track.

Have you made any resolutions for doing good? Share them! If not, take a minute to check out our projects page and make one!

My first-grader made her resolution into a magnet (a craft she completed on New Year’s Day before the rest of our house was awake). She wanted to share it here too!