Tag Archives: assets

Figuring Out the Assets!

In the last Blog I wrote about the fact that It’s Time for My Personal Insurance Review and Updates. One of the most important steps to take when reviewing your personal insurance coverage it to determine your overall personal assets. I have always found Tax time to be one of the great times of the year to gather the information together and start determining our families Net Worth. It seems to older we get–the more we collect and the more we need to protect. I tend to separate my assets into several categories: Real Property that is paid off and … Continue reading →

Learning Positive Values

Children need to develop positive values that help them in making good decisions. According to the Search Institute, “The more a child develops positive values that guide her or his behavior, the more likely it is that she or he will make positive choices and grow up healthy.” Some of the more prominent values that are necessary to grow up healthy include: • Caring • Equality and social justice • Integrity • Honesty • Responsibility • Restraint Children learn values primarily by observing parents and other people in their lives. If you regularly exhibit the above-mentioned values, your child will … Continue reading →

Religious Community

Another important asset to help instill in our children is a sense of religious community. For single parent families the involvement in a loving, supportive community of faith can help ease the pain and emotional suffering that both parents and children feel. Many congregations offer divorce support and recovery classes and often have members who themselves have been through a divorce and can relate to what your family might be going through. One important aspect of this asset is for adults and their children to both be involved in religious services. Do not just drop your children off and pick … Continue reading →

Youth Programs

The next asset in this series speaks to a child’s need for out of home activities. The Search Institute recommends that elementary age children be involved in an extra curricular activity for at least one hour per week. Teens should be involved for up to three hours per week in outside activities. For many children extra-curricular activities can be joined at school when they are available. Many children of single parent families attend an after-school daycare type of program that may help fill this need for other activities. The idea is to help children define their areas of interest and … Continue reading →

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 →

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 →

Useful Roles

The next asset that we will examine in this series is concerned with ensuring that children are given useful roles. Children feel good when parents involve them in family life in age appropriate ways. Young children can help with easy chores such as a two year old collecting napkins and placing them in the trash after a family meal. Older toddlers can help to clean up heir toys. Preschoolers can make a homemade card for a relative’s birthday. Elementary age children love to be in charge of something. It is very empowering to them. Let them decide what they want … Continue reading →

Parental Involvement

This asset speaks to children’s need for parents to be involved in their lives outside of the home. Being an involved parent takes time and dedication. For some parents that might mean coaching a little league team, or staying with your child during dance practice even if you 10 errands to run. I think this topic is very timely especially since it is the beginning of a new school year. School age children spend a large amount of their time away from home and in a school setting. As parents we have to meet them where they are at-meaning be … Continue reading →

Other Adult Relationships

Children of all ages need safe secure relationships with other adults such as teachers and coaches, relatives, close trustworthy friends. A word of caution about the adults you let into your children’s lives-be careful. I just finished reading a newspaper article about an accused serial child molester who allegedly had a notebook of victims and potential victims. This person specifically wrote a category of “Single Parent Boys” It seems to me from this article that this person specifically targeted boys from single parent families. Perhaps it was because of his perceived notion of lack of supervision that can occur in … Continue reading →