Wednesday, July 16, 2014

To Sleep Perchance to Dream

I've been a night owl as long as I can remember.  When I was in high school I had a 12 inch black and white TV on a little table near my bed.  I would stay up every night watching reruns of the Andy Griffith Show and Planet of the Apes until they played The National Anthem and went off air.  (People born after the 80s will have to ask someone older what it meant when a TV station went off air.)  When TV was done, I would read novels until my eyes burned with dry, tired longing for darkness.  Around 3:30 or 4:00 a.m., I'd finally go to sleep for a few hours.

On the weekends I'd sleep in and sometimes I'd nap after school in the afternoons.  I must have gotten enough sleep somehow because I managed to grow up healthy.  In college I started to be more interested in the purpose of sleep and what happens while one is sleeping.  I took a few classes and read a lot of books.  I learned a lot about what our bodies do while we sleep and why we dream.  

I continued to appreciate my late nights, but as I got older I found more and more of my friends frustrated with sleepless nights and insomnia.  In an effort to be helpful, I made a list of sleep tips.  

1)  It might seem obvious, but cut out caffeine.

2)  Go to bed and get up around the same time every day.  Your body wants to be on a routine.  Force yourself to go to bed and wake up within a 1 hour window every day.  Your body will adjust to that schedule. 

3)  Try a journal.  If you are having intense or weird dreams or nightmares, try journaling about your day.  Wright down what you did and all the random thoughts floating around in your head.  The very act of writing them down, will help your brain organize the thoughts into more manageable chunks before you fall asleep.

4)  Keeping a journal will also help you clear your head of cluttering thoughts, to do lists, and stress.

5)  Do something relaxing.  Deep breathing, a warm bath, stretch, or meditate.

6)  Make your room a comfy sanctuary for sleep.  Remove distractions - especially those that cause stress.

My daughters are night owls too.  I choose to embrace and appreciate that we have that in common rather than fight against it.  Using observations and charts, I found their natural sleep time based on when their bodies and minds got tired.  And that became bed time.  It took some adjusting on both our parts.  

We have some of our best talks and funnest family time in the evenings as we all come home from busy days and activities.  And, since we all enjoy going to bed later, we can all enjoy sleeping in on weekends.  Some of our best warm snuggle moments are in those lazy mornings long after then sun has climbed into the sky.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Giving Children Money (Or Giving Choices to Children)

I thought I'd posted my views on money and allowance before, but I don't see them here. And, since I'm making more of an effort to keep up with my blog, and, because money stuff comes up almost every day, I guess it's worth spending some time on it again even if I've done it once before...

When Rachel was in elementary school they sold Popsicles on Fridays after lunch for $1 each.  I was the volunteer mom who ordered the goodies, stocked the freezer, and arranged for volunteers to sell the treats.  I was there a lot of Friday afternoons and I often watched children buy a treat, eat two bites, and then throw it out before heading to recess.  My daughter did this a few times before I asked her, "Why do you buy the Popsicle if you don't really want it?"  She said, "If I don't buy a Popsicle, I have to give you back the dollar and then I have nothing."

The next week I tried an experiment.  I told her that I was giving her $1.  I said that it belonged to her.  She could chose to spend it at school or save it and keep it for whatever else she wanted.  She saved it until after school and spent it on candy at Walgreen's.  A similar item, but this time she chose a candy she really wanted and ate it all.

(Please note, my choices here never hurt the overall school sales and I continued to contribute my time and efforts so that there was no significant loss when Rachel bought Friday Popsicles less frequently.)

After this I began giving Rachel a weekly allowance.  It was about $5 a week.  Whatever the amount, it was about the same amount of money I was spending on "junk" that she asked for when we were out running errands, when we passed a vending machine, or when we stopped at a garage sale.  I was spending about $1 each time we went out on some little treat or toy.

And, what was she doing to earn a treat?  Behaving?  Shouldn't she behave anyway?  When I took some time to look at the big picture I saw that I was really wasting my money.  She wasn't learning anything valuable.  The items went unused or unappreciated minutes after we got home.  And, even though it wasn't a lot of money, it was adding up.

Once I started giving Rachel the allowance, it was up to her to buy all that extra stuff with her own money.  And, all of a sudden, she became much more picky.  She became aware of which candy costs more and which colored pencils lasted the longest.  She took more time to consider what she really wanted and often chose nothing in order to avoid wasting her own money. (And, consequently, she and I were no longer wasting my money.)

As time went by, I took it further... on a vacation I would give her extra money; a vacation budget.  For example, she might get an extra $40 to spend while we are on vacation.  Now she has to chose if she wants to use that money to buy the over priced t-shirt or the less expensive magnet or the stuffed animal to join the thousands of others in her room back home.  And, what she didn't spend she could keep.  Just like I budgeted money for vacation and if I didn't spend it all, I could then use it for something different back home.

10 years later it's now part of how all money I give her is handled.  She gets a weekly allowance and figures out how much she needs for her weekend plans and what else she wants.  She chooses if she's going to spend more on snacks at the movie theater or save those dollars for ice cream after the movie.  Or, maybe she wants to be frugal and rent a movie and eat what we have in the kitchen for free.  She plans ahead making note when she has something expensive coming up and she needs to save.  She gets a clothing budget.  She can spend it all on the most expensive brand names and have a few items to wear or she can spend it on lots of less expensive clothes.  She makes her own choices and works for extra money when she wants more expensive things.  Same thing for a haircut.  She knows how much I'm willing to pay and she can make an appointment at a salon at that price point or she can pay the difference.

I've done the same with Kate.  She gets a weekly allowance and can spend it on whatever goofy items catch her eye.  She likes to save up for bigger things more than Rachel did at the same age, but they both understand the value of money and of choosing purchases wisely.  I'm proud of how well they do.  I think they are both better at it than I am so it's not something they were ever going to learn by my example!

Every child is different and some might not be able to handle the responsibility quite so widely, but I think the whole system has been pretty simple and would work for most families.  Some families also have rules about children putting some of their allowance in savings and giving some to charity.  You'd have to work that in somehow.  In our case I let it be their choice.  Both have chosen to put money in savings and to give money to charity on their own and again, I think it's held more meaning because they have had a choice.