My four-year-old, Harry, came running out of school, excited to tell me that he’d made a ‘diva’. My first thought, of course, was that he’d fashioned some likeness of Mariah Carey or maybe Diana Ross. I couldn’t think why, but I was willing to go with it. But then, from out of his book bag, he pulled the ‘diva’.

Made of clay, it looked rather like a diseased liver with a candle stuck in the middle. I tried not to recoil. I praised his amazing painting skills and then tucked the diva back in his bag. I wasn’t thinking, “Wow, my child is so talented”, I was thinking “Where the hell am I going to put that monstrosity?!”

Look At All This…Art

The first time your child brings a piece of art back from school, you exclaim with delight, you show everyone, you stick it to the fridge or even frame it and hang it on the wall. All this despite the fact that it’s probably just a collection of paint smudges on rough, khaki-colored paper.

As the child proceeds through preschool and then “big” school, they bring home more and more. Some of it is quite good (although the better it is, the more you suspect they didn’t actually do it themselves). Some of it is dreadful. My son once brought home what looked like a random pile of crap all glued together and poorly painted over. Turned out it was a “rubbish sculpture.” It really was. In more ways than one.

But still you feel like you need to keep it all, don’t you?

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New Year’s Resolutions. So easy to make. So easy to forget about by January 5th. Why? Because as adults, we’re accepting of the New Year’s resolutions joke - nobody expects you to actually keep them.

Wouldn’t it be great if somewhere along the line we were taught to actually do just that? If you have kids, you have the opportunity to teach them not only how to make resolutions, but how to keep them, too.

Limit the Number of Resolutions

A long list of resolutions is simply too overwhelming. That’s probably one of the reasons most adults don’t keep their resolutions. How many habits would you have to change to loose weight, get organized, remember to phone your mother once a week, get the living room painted, and finally reconcile your checkbook all within the few days of a new year?

Young children should focus on one thing they want to improve and older children should limit it to two or three. Talk with your children about what is most important and focus on those. Then maybe take your own advice and set few for yourself, too.

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I am constantly amazed by how much I learn from my two-year old daughter. Since the day she was born, she has been an inspiration and a guide in my self-discovery process.

I think we often overlook how much we can learn from young children. Somehow, we’ve ended up with the notion that we need to teach them how to live. While parents obviously have a role in raising kids with the right values, if we took the time to really observe babies and children, we’d find they already know most of what we adults are still trying to learn. That’s why sometimes, it’s best to go back to ‘babysics’!

Now, as grown-ups, we may not be able to follow these literally, but taking another look at how we can apply some of these simple principles to our lives couldn’t hurt.

4 Things Babies Already Know

1. Babies Make it Simple. They laugh when they’re happy, cry when they’re upset. They don’t mix the two up and never pretend to feel one way and act another. No complications, no misunderstandings. Babies truly live in the moment.

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Parents who live far from family and friends, single parents and parents of special needs children all share something in common: the danger of isolation. Isolation is an overwhelming sense of loneliness stemming from having a situation different from the “normal” family. Isolation is dangerous because it can lead to feelings of depression or even resentment, neither of which are very healthy states to be in. I understand because not only do I live far away from family, I’m also a Mom of a beautiful girl named Jaimie with special needs.

I had to learn how to be my own person, fighting that isolation, so that I could be the best mom I could be to all of my children, including Jaimie. Here are a few important ways I learned to fight isolation and stay strong:

Get Rid of the Guilt

Easier said than done, I know. The truth is as parents - especially Mummies - we are predisposed to guilt. We’ve always been there to do everything for them and it’s hard not to feel a twinge of guilt when we have a chance to get away on our own for awhile.

Parenting Without Guilt

But guilt is the number one thing holding us back from enjoying our well-deserved “Me Time.” Those of us with special needs children or who are single parents seem to have an extra layer of guilt we wear. After all, who else is going to care for our children? Single parents can find activities offering child care or reach out to a community-based program with child care offerings. Parents of special needs children have access to child care through many therapy programs and other parents with similar children may be willing to take turns with child care duties.

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Typically, holidays are about tradition, family and memories. Children anticipate the season with excitement and joy. This expectation of family togetherness and happiness often makes it difficult for divorced or separated families to cope with the upcoming holiday season. Many traditions are shattered, family ties estranged and memories distorted when a marriage ends. Holidays that children once looked forward to can become days of anxiety, tension and dread as parents attempt to negotiate time spent at two households.

Recent estimates tell us that one million children go through the experience of a family breakup each year. Just under one half of all marriages will end in divorce. And about 40 per cent of all American children will spend some time in a single parent family before they reach the age of eighteen. Growing up in a divorced home is not a rare occurrence, but rather a norm for today’s society.

Pulling Children Apart

As prevalent as divorce may become, in the eyes of a child (and for the adults going through the divorce) it is a life altering experience. For children, the biggest alteration is the loss of full-time parenting. Divorce means that for the rest of their lives, children will be shared between parents. Vacations, birthdays, holidays and even weekends become discussions of where and with whom children will spend their time.

The growing awareness of how painful and devastating the effect of divorce can be leads parents to ask “How can we ease the stress of shared holiday gatherings for our children?”

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