Author Archives: Valerie Nelson

About Valerie Nelson

Valerie is a Families.com blogger, freelance writer and small business owner. Valerie helps non-profit organizations with fundraising through grant development for their programs and projects. Valerie enjoys spending time with her family and currently lives in Michigan.

Creative Activities

Asset number 17 involves the creative use of time. According to the Search Institute, “Most children don’t decide how they spend their time-they need adults to choose and create activities for them. With encouragement and support from parents and other caring people, children can enjoy fun, meaningful activities that help them become caring, creative, confident adults.” Even adults who do not have an artsy bone in their body can help children tune into their creative side by playing different types of music at different times of the day. Choices could include classical, soft rock, jazz and if you like living … Continue reading →

Education Savings Plans

Did you know that September is officially “College Savings Month? With the costs of college soaring each year (See my previous article titled College Affordability for more on this subject), most parents are going to need more than one month to save! All kidding aside, making September College Savings Month is an attempt to help make parents aware of different saving options and the value of starting to save early for their children’s college education. One of the most popular options, the 529 plan, recently got even more enticing. Last month President Bush signed the Pension Protection Act into law. … Continue reading →

Appropriate Growth

The book What Young Children Need To Succeed defines this asset as “Parents and other adults have realistic expectations for children’s development and don’t push beyond the child’s own pace. Adults encourage children to do their best and develop their unique talents. This is an extremely important and difficult asset to balance. First, we need to understand what appropriate developmental stages they should be in during each age. Read as many books as possible. If you are not a big reader, then talk to people who know, or at least give the appearance that they know what they are doing … Continue reading →

More Online Learning Options

Online schooling is being recognized as a viable option not only for college, but also primary and secondary grades. Some opponents of virtual schooling especially in the early years have cited the lack of social outlets and peer to peer interaction as problematic. The wonderful minds behind online education have come up with some excellent ideas and resources for children to utilize in order to broaden their horizons. Some online schools now offer virtual clubs as well as field trips. A sampling of the clubs offered include: offers a wide variety of online clubs such as a science and chess … Continue reading →

Positive Peers

Asset number 15 from the Search Institute states that children should spend time with children of varying ages that model responsible behavior. The first part of this asset tells us that children need to be around people of all ages. This does not commonly occur at a high level in most schools where children are primarily with their age peers throughout the day. In the olden days, schools were one room and teachers taught children of all age ranges in the same room. In addition, back when our country was more prone to farming, families usually were quite large, which … Continue reading →

Adult Role Models

Children learn how to act by watching and interacting with other people in their lives. Adults need to set good examples for their children and other children. In a nationwide survey conducted in the late 1990’s only 27% of student’s in grades 6-12 said they had parents and other adults in their lives that model positive, responsible behavior. I guess the old saying “Do as I say, not as I do” is still a widely used method of parenting. Like it or not we parents are our children’s most important role models. We need to have a sense of purpose … Continue reading →

Student Dress Codes

An ongoing debate in the realm of public education is the need for student uniforms or at the very minimum a school dress code. Typically administrators and some teachers along with a smattering of parents are among those who believe that having a dress code is necessary to the successful operation of schools. Most of the people opposed to a dress code are students. People who agree with dress codes do so because they are said to, “Reduce gang influence, minimize violence, and help to identify trespassers. Parents benefit because they are no longer pressured to buy the latest fashions, … Continue reading →

Education News

There are two topics that I believe are worthwhile to write about today. A recent study conducted by Save the Children found that over 43 million children in war torn regions around the world are being kept from going to school. The reasons that these children are being denied an education are not just due to lack of resources or their families need for the children to stay at home to work, as is a reality in many parts of the world. The main reasons that these children have little hope for a strong future is because bombs have crushed … Continue reading →

Neighborhood Boundaries

In an ideal world this asset titled: Neighbors take responsibility for monitoring and supervising children outside the home, would happen everywhere. In the reality of the world we live in it is sometimes our neighbors that we need to protect our children from. Single parents may find this asset difficult to enact because typically the parent works 8+ hours a day out of the home and has a host of responsibilities to take care of once he or she arrives home after work. Still children need this asset to grow up healthy, so try to find some creative ways to … Continue reading →

Safe Environments Away from Home

Environments, outside of the home should be safe places for children to learn, interact and play. It is important that these venues have age appropriate rules and clear consequences for not following the rules. The primary place that most children spend outside of the home beginning at age 5 through 18 is school. This blog will focus on this asset as it relates to school. These tips might be helpful to parents, educators and children. Schools need to have a clear written set of rules and policies such as a code of conduct that should be reviewed with teachers, students … Continue reading →