Response to Kelly

The problem with Boyack's approach to work is that she was very specific about what she felt children could do at certain ages (those lists were nice) and she was very emphatic about making your children work--but she didn't really have a plan to implement it per se. She said that kids get bored with the same approach so she rotated through different job charts. Basically, her chapters on work were to motivate parents to think that children working was important.

I also didn't agree with everything she said about raising independent children. For example, she told the story of when she was having a primary presidency meeting in her kitchen and her three year old came in and made a peanut butter sandwich on the floor and then left the kitchen eating it. Boyack used the story as a good example of letting your kids be independent. I thought it was a good story to illustrate why her kids needed to work so much (letting kids eat anywhere but at the kitchen table pretty much drives me nuts). Her tolerance levels for certain things are clearly different from mine. I'm not trying to judge her--I'm just saying my type A personality is not okay with crumbs all over the floor and babies eating wherever they please.

I still think the work chapters are worthwhile because it is important for our kids to learn to work and it is worth it to allow a little mess to facilitate independence. But overall, the chapters on finance were the best part of the book.

One of my favorite topics....

WORKING CHILDREN!!

I haven't read that book - I don't think - but I have read something similar...  Oh yes, a book about a Dad opening a National Bank of Dad.  I can't remember what the title was.  We started that and it was so awesome to see.  I also really loved having Josh in charge of it.  Nerd that he is, he has a wonderful spreadsheet set up to track everyone's accounts.

But, I don't think you talked enough about the working part, Andrea!  I have read the TJED Home Companion and have used a lot of Diann Jepson's ideas.  I still go back to the tickets every now and then.  I rotate between three different systems to accomplish work.  Tickets, going room by room as a group, and just plain assigning jobs that need to be done to specific children.  I let them choose between tickets and family work on most days.  They choose base on how they feel about working together at the moment. ;-)   Adult Skills classes have been a big hit.  My oldest - who is what would be considered practice scholar - is still working on getting everything passed of - but a lot of it she can do we just haven't made it "official".  I love having a list of basic skills to work on - and love that someone else put thought into putting it together!  As they've learned to cook, I've been printing up their mastered recipes and putting them in their adult skills binder so that they are also developing their own personal cookbook as they learn.

I'm curious what Boyack does differently regarding work!

I read an idea about having kids earn privileges.  So if they ask to be able to do 'A', you say sure - do 'B' and then you can do 'A'.  Everybody wins.  ;-)

What I've Been Reading

So, this is what I've been reading lately:

The Parenting Breakthrough: Real-Life Plan to Teach Kids to Work, Save Money, and Be Truly Independent by Merrilee Browne Boyack.

Sorry about the large font--I cut and pasted from amazon and was too lazy to change it. However, this book is good enough to "yell" about. It is the best parenting book I've ever read. Not that I've read a lot, but of the ones I have read--this is the best.

The first part is all about teaching your children to work. I've already spent a lot of hours thinking about how I was going to do that, so I didn't find that part as helpful as the rest. It was still helpful--just, you know, I already have a plan. My plan mostly comes from Dianne Jeppson's (is that her name?) ideas in the Thomas Jefferson Home Companion. I've already started putting together Life Skills Courses for Miriam when she turns 8. I'm really excited about them, actually. I'm also excited to take her out on special outing and introduce the classes to her and give her a new apron (and show her my matching apron) in honor of her new responsibilities. So much to look forward to. So much to do to finish putting classes together!!!

Anyway, back to the book. The second half of the book is about teaching finances and it is AWESOME. I am just amazed at how many good ideas she has. After I read the book I asked Timothy to read the chapters on finances. He did, and then we scheduled a time to talk about the chapters. I said, "Is there anything you want to do with our family that she did with hers?" Timothy said, "Yes. All of it." Which delighted me because I felt the exact same way. Timothy also told me to buy the book as a reference. The copy I read I checked out from the library.

So, at the beginning of Feb. we gave our kids an allowance for the first time. Something I thought I would never, ever do--but now seems like the perfect introduction to saving vs. spending. Cowen has opted to save his money for a mountain bike and get 100% matching interest from the Young Family Bank, but Miriam and Emeline decided to blow their dough. Emeline on a really cute and beloved Calico Critter rabbit baby, and Miriam on dollar store junk that she has played with endlessly. Whatever--the point is, they are getting interested in spending money and learning to make decisions and will eventually grasp interest and the value of saving. In short, I'm pleased with the experiment so far.

Her finance chapters cover why an allowance is a good idea until a child is 12 and reaches "financial independence," creating a family bank, teaching about interest, savings, bills, the value of money. My favorite idea she shared was giving kids age 12 and older a large sum of money in August for clothing and school supplies for the year. That way, they get to make grown-up decisions when they are still young enough to listen to you a little bit. They learn to budget out the money because when it is gone, it is gone. They have to decide whether or not an item is church approved, because if it isn't they can return it or it goes in the garbage. For me, the best part of that is that they have enough money that it matters. Growing up I never had more than $10 to my name and I think that really hurt me when I left home and had no finance skills.

She also talks about money chores and not giving your kids privileges for nothing (you want to visit a friend on Friday and borrow the car--then you wash the car to earn the privilege). I think all of her ideas are really helpful in combating the tendency of parents to do too much for their children.

She also discusses how to teach your kids about mutual funds, the stock market, wise investing and other things I don't understand. Timothy said he would help me. She also talks about the Mission Savings Fund--a really great plan that requires a child to contribute a certain amount of money every month to a savings fund with the contribution increasing as a child gets older. The parents match the child's investment and when a child hits age 19 they should have roughly $12,000 saved. Enough for a mission or, for girls who opt not to go on a mission, quite a bit of school. Pretty brilliant. Since the parents contribute half the funds, it makes it easier to be firm that it is mission money if a child starts to balk.

Anyway, there was too much good stuff for me to go into it all here. Let's just say, Timothy and I completely and radically changed our plans to teach about finances after reading this book. I definitely think this is an IMPROVEMENT and that our kids are lucky we read it.

What I've Been Reading

In October I did manage to read one book. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann. I loved it. Literally, from beginning to end, I couldn't put it down. It's about this Victorian explorer, Percy Fawcett, in the Amazon and how he disappears and over 100 people have died looking for him, (it's kind of an Amelia Earhart type obsession) and because he wrote articles for occult magazines and went to seances and that sort of stuff, many people still think he found his lost city and it's this otherworldly mystic place. I thought it fascinating in so many ways. First of all, it's a brilliant look at Victorian society, it's also interesting to learn how those explorers, ie Livingstone, Shackelton, Burton, etc., operated and how that morphed into the scientific expeditions you have now. Secondly, learning about the Amazon itself was crazy--I still think I have no comprehension of a forest that large. At first, after reading this book, I thought I really don't think I would go there, but then again, why not? Hee. Hee. Another part that I enjoyed was how this guy went into the Amazon with his 16 yr old son looking for traces of Fawcett in 1996, and barely made it out alive. Crazy! Basically the natives there said the same things to them as they had said to Fawcett 70 yrs before, that the natives that live to the east are pretty bad, you shouldn't travel in that direction. I mean, doesn't that make you just wonder whom that tribe of Indians are? And what do they know about Fawcett? Maybe there's still someone alive that could tell? What else do they know? I mean they still have no contact with the outside world at all. It kills me, I just want to pack up my bag and head out to ask them all sorts of things. I'd probably end up dead though. Anyway, lastly, my favorite part about the book was his discussion of archaeology in the Amazon. Basically I grew up believing that the Amazon was full of all sorts of tiny tribes that barely subsisted on hunting and gathering and that the Amazon was so sparsely populated and really not that interesting unless you liked eating bugs and getting nasty diseases. However, the conquistadors' accounts of the Amazon included that it was so populated that they would go days traveling on the Amazon with the banks being jam-packed with people and that huge bridges crossed it, and Amazonian women and the like. Well, everyone blew the conquistadors accounts off because they had good (monetary) reasons for exaggerating what they found in the Amazon. But now, archaeologists have actually found traces of huge civilizations in the Amazon complete with well-planned out right-angled streets, highways, and bridges that crossed the Amazon at points that were over a mile wide, etc. Now they think that diseases brought in by the conquistadors wiped out 90% of the population or more, so by the time anyone else came to explore they didn't find anything that the conquistadors had described. This is also due to the fact that there's very little stone in the Amazon, so everything was made with dirt and wood, which with flooding leaves very little traces. In fact, the native tribes made this kind of enriched soil, terra preta de Indio, (because of the Amazon's horribly infertile soil) and companies have started exporting it now because it's some of the most fertile soil you can find anywhere on the whole earth. Yet it's entirely man made and they made literally, TONS of it. Basically, any high ground in that part of the Amazon basin is man made, because it floods, so they built higher plateaus to keep above the floods and so they could grow crops during the flood season. Considering the engineering of it (technicalities and size), it's as grand as the pyramids of Egypt. Also in 2006 they discovered what's called the Stonehenge of the Amazon, believed to be anywhere from 500 to 2000 years old, which is a huge astronomical observatory tower made of huge granite blocks, each weighing several tons. Anyway, I think people still have a huge tendency to underrate ingenuity of other people. It also makes me think about all those BOM scholars and of their general belief that Guatemala and the central Americas are the "BOM lands." I personally think that's just what has been easiest to study in the past. Not saying they're necessarily wrong, maybe they're right, I just haven't seen any evidence given on why other places in the Americas should be eliminated from consideration. Anyway, just my thoughts on this cold, bleak, wintery day.

Anna Karenina

Anyone read Anna Karenina? 
I'm reading it now.
Not so sure about it.
I love his writing . . . but the theme is a bit . . . questionable.
I'll probably finish it. 
The end.

So...

And just because I care, here's a little video to make you laugh. I love them. So much that I stayed up way late laughing my head and was an emotional wreck the next day. Be careful if you watch more of her videos though, the language and whatnot is not always the best.


I couldn't help myself, I had to post another.

Hormones Continued

This has all been great.  Thanks, Kelly for being specific about your issues and the book.  Very interesting.

For me, the hormonal birth control helped rather than hindered my horrible PMS/mood swings  (btw - I've been wondering about the PMS myth and if it's cultural or real . . . I'll be checking out that book if for nothing other than the first chapter).  J. said that was the best thing we ever did for our marriage  (I beg to differ with that, but that's between J. and me!).  :-)  However, coming "off" the birth control was another story.  For the past year I have been very wacky!  Worse, I think, than before the IUD.  When the doctors say, "You'll get pregnant within a month or two" . . . don't believe them!  :-)  Some months have been better than others, but I have felt out of kilter. 

I, too, am more interested in the diet side of things.  I want to figure out what MY body is lacking, not digesting, or just plain doesn't need!

Andrea - I agree with what you said about our mentality and hormones.  It's still hard to distinguish . . .like Marilyn said.  For instance, do you feel you should have "gone on something" when you were having all that rage?  Or could you tell yourself that it would pass, knowing that it would and just not knowing when it would happen? 

I had a dark period after Ethan was born (my 5th/youngest).  It lasted a good two years, at least.  I just kept pushing through it, using prayer as the main remedy.  But I'm wondering if it might have lasted less time if I'd done something more preventative rather than just "dealing."  Not even medication, but counselling might have helped.  You know??

Then, looking back in hindsight I think,  "Well, I got through it, so it must not have been that bad."  But it was bad.  So . . . .


It's just so HARD to know. 


Don't we love being WOMEN!?  :-)

Love you all.

JULIA

Hormones, continued

Wow!  I didn't think everyone would feel so strongly about hormones.

Since Andrea asked, I'll tell you some of my personal problems.   Then I'll go into some of my notes from the book.

My problems mostly started after the birth of my second child.  Prior to Brynne's birth I cycled about every 35 days and was somewhat predictable.  I used no hormone-controlled birth control after her birth (as opposed to something like a condom).  But then I had a hard time getting pregnant with Logan.  I had a miscarriage.  My cycle ran crazily long - I'd have between 3-6 periods a year.  I attributed it to stress.  We moved a lot, I had an early-morning paper route for awhile, etc.  I was able to get pregnant a year after the miscarriage.  After Logan's birth my doctor convinced me to try Depo-Provera - which is the 3 month birth control shot.  I had it twice.  The second time my period started and never stopped.  When I went to the doctor about it they said that I was having a "reaction" and I would have to wait for all the hormones to go out of my body before my body went back to normal.  I was ready to have another baby anyway, so I wasn't too concerned about the birth control cycle being done.  My body never went back to normal.  My cycles ran anywhere from 2-9 months - totally unpredictable.  After 3 years of trying to have a baby I went to see a different doctor (we'd moved).  He suggested we try to regulate my cycle.  Since I wanted to have a baby he put me on progestin.  It didn't work at all in the way he said it would work.  Among other things, I had terrible hormonal issues for 2 weeks out of every month.  It felt like morning sickness times 10.  After six months I decided I'd had enough of that.  I stopped the drug.  A month later I got pregnant quite by accident/surprise.  I was thrilled.  Kenna is 4.5 years younger than Logan.  After Kenna was born I decided NO MORE  HORMONE BIRTH CONTROL of any sort.  I wanted to give my body a chance.  I'd only used hormone birth control for a combined total of 7 months out of my entire marriage.  It wasn't excessive.  But it wasn't a good thing for my body.  Anyway, I got pregnant again a month after I stopped nursing Kenna. 

I stopped nursing Natalie in January of this year.  I'm still having those crazy cycles.  I think it was a blessing from Heavenly Father to be able to have her so soon after Kenna.  But those two pregnancies back to back wore me out, so I'm currently using the copper-T IUD because it does not have any hormones.  I would love to do natural family planning, but since I have no predictability to my cycle, I'm trying to get that more regular before I move away from the IUD.  I have mixed feelings about birth control.   I know there are people who think it's a totally evil thing.  I think the hormone ones can be bad for our bodies, but I don't think it's necessary evil for people to - with spiritual guidance - control the size of their families.  But that's a whole separate topic.  I had problems before I even tried the depo-provera, but I do blame the depo-provera for making my problems worse.

I don't have PMS very much.  I do have a family history of women with fibroids and hysterectomies, which I am trying to avoid.   I also have irregular and anovulatory cycles.

So on to the book:

Chapter 1: PMS is not a natural or inevitable part of life, but rather one created by our culture, lifestyles, and environment.   It is a result of hormone imbalances, most of them caused by an excess of the hormone estrogen and a deficiency of the hormone progesterone.  It's also about women being out of touch with the cycles and rhythms of their bodies, their feelings, and their souls.

Chapter 3:  Estrogen...an excess or a deficiency of estrogens can make a world of difference in a woman's outlook on life and her overall health and well-being.  Excessive estrogen can cause cancer.  Estrogen dominance is a condition where a woman can have deficient, normal, or excessive estrogen but has little or no progesterone to balance its effects in the body.  Symptoms of estrogen dominance:
acceleration of aging process
allergy symptoms, including asthma, hives, rashes, sinus congestion
autoimmune disorders
breast cancer
breast tenderness
cervical dysplasia
cold hands and feet as a symptom of thyroid dysfunction
copper excess
decreased sex drive
depression with anxiety or agitation
dry eyes
early onset menstruation
endometrial cancer
fat gain
fatifue
fibrocystic breasts
foggy thinking
gallbladder disease
hair loss
headaches
hypoglycemia
increased blood clotting
infertility
irregular menstrual periods
irritability
insomnia
magnesium deficiency
memory loss
mood swings
osteoporosis
PMS
polycystic ovaries
premenopausal bone loss
prostate cancer
sluggish metabolism
thyroid dysfunction mimicking hypothyroidism
uterine cancer
uterine fibroids
water retention/bloating
zinc deficiency

causes of estrogen dominance include the environment: pesticides, plastics, waste products, car exhaust, meat, soaps, and other solvents.  All called xenohormones.  Most noticeable symptom is lack of ovulation.

If you have your hormone levels tested, be sure progesterone levels are tested to in order to compare to estrogen.  Estrogen levels by themselves don't signify much.

Chapter 4: progesterone
evils of synthetic progesterones and progestins.  Natural progesterone is cheap and fairly safe to use.  Hard to overdose on.  Chapter 16 goes into greater detail on it's actual uses and how to find a good one.  It is NOT prescription.  Usually can find in health food stores - but there are ones that you should NOT buy.  the book details what to look for and gives some suggestions of reputable brands in the appendix.  It's fairly safe to experiment with on your own, but you can see your doctor to have lab work done.  There's a section on the testing - what sorts of results you'll get and how to interpret them.  And notes that hormone levels fluctuate greatly - even over the course of a day - so the best indicator is symptoms, not lab tests, and they treat the symptoms to get you feeling good.

Chapter 5: disturbing effects of xenohormones in environment -
undersized penises of boys who's mothers were exposed to PCBs
50% decrease in sperm count since 1938
increased incidence of testicular and prostate cancer
endometrial cancer
PMS
cervical cancer in women who mothers were given DES (which is synthetic estrogen)
postmenopausal osteoporosis
change in sexual orientation
estrogen dominance syndrome
increases in breast cancer

Osteoporosis is more prevalent now, and more severe, and is occurring 15 years or more before menopause.
(My insert - and this in a country where dairy consumption - the supposed cure for osteoporosis - is higher than any other country)
Chapter 8 - a whole chapter devoted to PMS
The most important physical influences on PMS are hormonal imbalances caused by stress, diet, and environmental toxins.  Natural increase in sensitivity in a woman premenstrually,.
Healing PMS -
*correct estrogen dominance with natural progesterone cream
*take a daily multivitamin that includes zinc, B complex, vitamin C, magnesium, vitamin E, etc.  take additional vitamin B6
*Eat a plant-based, fiber-rich diet of fresh, organic vegetables and fruits, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and legumes
*eat fish at least twice a week
*try herbal formula for PMS that includes some or all of: peony root, milk thistle, Vitex, wild yam, dandelion root, yarrow, and nettle
*manage stress
*get some exercise every day
*keep a journal and allow yourself to nitice the deeper levels of your anger and pain.  seek to resolve unresolved issues the rest of the month

what to avoid:
*birth control pills
*unopposed estrogen
*situations that cause anovulatory cycles
*sugar and refined carbs
*rancid unsaturated oils and dydrogenated oils
*feed-lots meats
*pesticides of all kinds
*chronic stress

Chapter 14 - Nutrition
There isn't one right way that works for everyone.  Get to know your body.  In general - organic, fresh, whole-grains.  Fish in moderation is good for you.  Less sugar and refined carbs.  Plenty of fresh air, exercise, and STRETCHING!  think of processed foods as the enemy. ;-)   Identify problem foods - you can have too much of a good thing.  yeast - importance of probiotics, proper vitamins.


*******************************

There you have it!  I got the book from my library, but it's pretty cheap at Amazon.  Lots more information, of course and some of it is pretty technical.  One doctor spent much of his career studying the effects of progesterone on women, so he's basing his knowledge on research that he conducted himself.  The female doctor likes to use both traditional and non-traditional healing techniques, which I personally like, to help people have happy, balanced, healthy lives.  She's spent her career treating women.

Thank you

This is all really interesting.  I want to read the welfare book and the hormone book.  I agree that one of the most confusing things is to feel these emotions/impulses/etc. and not really know if they are "real" or if they are hormone-driven and if they will pass, or if they are more serious, or if you should be worried, or if you should be doing something, or if you should be trying to ignore it all----or what.  Very baffling, and scary sometimes.  Andrea, that is really scary about the molar(?) pregnancy.  It is helpful for me to hear of other people's experiences, if only so I have some frame of reference for what kinds of things can be caused by hormones and how other people have handled it.
Anyway . . . thanks for all your thoughts.

Mental Illness

In response to Julia, I think hormones are sometimes confused with mental illness--such as depression, or being bi-polar. People suffering from those diseases can't "pull themselves out of it" and need medication and other help. Hormones are different because, while they can exert the same control of your reactions, they usually level out again--after a period or, in my case, a d&c, so after the "episode" you can think again. Also, I don't think many of us can "pull ourselves out of it" when we are having a hormone induced reaction to something. I think you basically said that yourself--how you respond to your hormones and how you plan before and after the hormones hit can be your only way to positively handle the problem. During is pretty much lost. For Kammers, things like "don't live in Chicago during the winter" is an example of a positive help. Not solution, but help. My mom tracked her period and the three days leading up to it she and dad weren't allowed to talk about money. At all. Positive strategy. For me, lots of sex usually helps. I know, too much info--but seriously, my emotional health is directly related to how much I'm being touched. So---these are the things we need to know about ourselves to make a positive plan of action.

I don't know. Kelly, does the book talk about specific things in your diet that can help??