Sunday, September 11, 2011

debrief and reminisce

Our family has always had a tradition of debriefing and reminiscing events. And large historic events are especially good times to debrief and reminisce. I posted this idea on another blog but it fits well with family night activities:


As today is an important day for Americans to remember those who have fallen in recent history, it is important to teach the younger generation why it's important to remember. Sometimes history seems like such a dull thing of the past to kids. Teaching them now about an historic event that we and many of them have lived through puts the human touch, emotion, and passion into history. It is important to impart not only information but values and lessons learned from such historic events. Today is a great day to remember why it's so important to remember and share such events.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

imparting values through current events

While watching a talk show today, it was mentioned about an upcoming reality show casting a controversial figure. The points were brought out about just not watching the show, or watching the show and not mentioning it to kids or watching the show and discussing it with your kids. I happen to agree with all three and it depends on the age of your kids. I think however if you do decide to watch, it will likely have to be mentioned because my guess is that the controversy will be brought up during the show itself, leaving it unwise not to mention it or talk about it with your kids.

If you do decide to watch, it makes for good family time, both while viewing but also setting your family up for discussions later after the show and possibly more discussions later on as well. Isn't this what we want with our kids, to be able to impart our values to them? What better way to do that than to use real life current situations and have meaningful conversations with our kids about it.