Eat, Save, and Be Healthy

In this season of hustle and bustle, it’s really easy to get caught up in the “stuff” without really taking time to realize the why’s of your family celebration. When the presents are open and the decorations are down, what are you really going to remember? My guess is, it won’t be the gifts, but the time spent in conversation or in playing with your children that will warm the depths of your heart. Family traditions serve as the fabric of families that hold us together through the thick and the thin. The things that “we always” do seem to offer the ties that we look forward to the most. As you are watching the favorite holiday movies or participating in school programs look for some of the following traits and see where you think they might fall. There are three major categories of traditions.
*Celebration Traditions- those things that we do around special events or holidays
*Family Traditions- those special things that our family does that others may/ or may not participate in.
*Patterned Family Interactions- the daily life pattern of our family like bedtime or dinnertime routines

Rituals and traditions contribute to a strong sense of kinship that enables a family to withstand stress and disappointments. Family members feel the support that comes from knowing that they aren’t alone. The greatest value of traditions are they give the family a sense of identity, a real belonging. All of us need to feel that we are not just a cluster of people living in a house, but a family that a unit that is conscious of its uniqueness, its personality, its character and its heritage. They can be very simple or elaborate and through the years they become the things we most look forward to or the things that set structure for children early in life.
In general, families that share lots of traditions tend to reflect these 6 characteristics of strong families:
1. Commitment- family comes first. By investing time and energy in family relationships the challenges in life won’t be as great when we work together.
2. Appreciation- strengthen relationships by letting family members know that he or she is sincerely appreciated as a special individual. This goes along with showing respect and being considerate.
3. Communication- make this happen in your family by taking ti me to talk about trivial topics as well as the more profound issues. Listening is an important part of communication.
4. Togetherness- plan time to work and play as a family. Learn to say “no” to outside demands that take you away from or involve your children in too many things.
5. Spiritual Wellness is the belief that life has meaning and purpose which helps families in time of trouble. Research indicates this characteristic is very important in family stability
6. Coping with crisis and stress- develop the art of finding and focusing on something positive in each situation. Use each other’s talents and resources to work as a team to get through the hard times.
As this season is rich with traditions, why not turn off the electronics, and spend some quality time in conversation with your family? You’ll be glad you did.
Submitted by: Melinda Hill, CFLE, OSU Extension Wayne County

One of the surest ways to create a heated discussion with someone is to bring up the subject of welfare. Everyone has an opinion about public assistance, and what the government should do to expand or downsize “the system.” Whether you think it should get bigger or smaller will depend on your perception of why poor people are poor. And that opinion is greatly influenced by how and where you grew up.

I was raised in a middle-class home and community. I know that is a blessing. Not everyone grows up with loving parents, discipline, a work ethic, and a nurturing community of like-minded individuals. But this advantage can also be a stumbling block when it comes to understanding other socio-economic groups. Before I started working in Extension and collaborating with social service agencies, my solution for getting out of poverty was pretty straight-forward. Work hard, pull yourself up by your boot-straps; you know the platitudes we spout when someone is struggling.

Unfortunately, it takes a lot more to achieve financial success than sheer force of will (although it can be a starting point). How do a large majority of people turn into self-supporting adults and others, not? It is a subject that seems simple on the surface, but in actuality is very complex, even volatile. There is a lot of anger simmering throughout the country right now with the recession, unemployment, and staggering budget deficits looming. People are angry at the government for not generating more employment opportunities and with poor people for draining away state and federal resources. To get a wider perspective, we need to look at the myriad factors that dictate where a person lands in life, and how much personal responsibility factors into the equation.

External Factors – Geographical location, education, culture, family history, health, and income are huge starting factors that an infant being thrust into the world does not get to choose. Most of us were lucky at birth. We weren’t born on garbage heaps in Calcutta. This is not said to diminish the real suffering that goes on in some pockets of our country, but the poorest people in America are wealthy compared to the poor in third-world countries.

A good way to describe external factors is to liken them to a card game. You are dealt a certain hand, and you have to play with the cards you are dealt. Some people get great “cards,” such as good looks, athletic ability, and high intelligence. Those cards can be the decisive “thumb on the scale” that gives someone an automatic lift into success. Others get crappy hands, with dysfunctional parents, poverty, or physical and mental challenges among their cards. Their bad cards have to be played until they turn 18, or depending on the card, possibly a lifetime.

Luck – When something good happens to another person, it’s normal to feel a little envious of their good fortune. But what the envious do not always recognize is the enormous amount of work and risk it took to get lucky. My favorite definition of luck is “when preparation meets opportunity.” Going to school and furthering your education, practicing (anything from sports to the piano), and setting goals are ways that successful people use to get ahead. If you’re not willing to do the work it takes to succeed, you will reduce your odds of getting lucky.

Opportunity – Not everyone is offered opportunities to succeed. Some people get them and squander them. We all know of kids who go to college, party hard for a couple of semesters, and flunk out. Others go using a combination of loans, scholarships, and part-time jobs and work their butts off. How we respond to opportunities is just as important as the opportunity itself.

Choice – One of the greatest gifts all Americans receive at birth is the gift of freedom. Essentially, we have the luxury to choose how we will live our lives. Choice is a variable factor. Some decisions are made after careful deliberation; others just reflect our thought process at any given moment. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t regret some of their choices. However, I find it interesting that the scale we use to judge others’ choices differs from how we view our own. Psychologists actually have a name for it–fundamental attribution error. In your head, you believe that whatever problems you have are the result of difficult circumstances, whereas those same problems in others are a result of their bad choices.

There are so many other factors to consider it would take pages to delineate them all. In addition to the four listed above we should include abuse, lack of knowledge of “hidden rules,” laziness, attitude, maturity, work ethic, role models, discrimination, making mistakes early on that give you heartache for life, addiction, and peers.

What can you take from this? First, that life can be very random, so it is not always fair to pat yourself on the back if you got lucky. Second, poverty is a very complex issue that cannot be attributed solely to behavioral factors. And third, if you are lucky enough to be one of the “haves,” how can you use your knowledge and skills to help others? Senator Ted Kennedy, who got the good cards of wealth, intelligence, and political cache, also made some disastrous personal choices. But his philosophy–to whom much is given, much is expected—is one that we can all work to emulate.

Written by: Donna Green
Extension Educator, Family and Consumer Sciences
Ohio State University Extension

As a parent of a small child, I know how tempting it is to set your child down in front of the television to get some things done around the house, like cleaning or cooking…or just a minute of sanity.  However, the  American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has recently reinforced its recommendations that children under the age of 2 receive NO screen time.  In a world where there are screens everywhere– at home, at the grocery store, at restaurants, this can be challenging for parents.

There are many television programs and DVDs that claim to have educational benefits for children.  So when investigating further into the effect of media on children, scientists researched the potential benefits that media could have.  They found that media programs are only beneficial  or educational if children are able to understand the content and follow a story line.  However, children under the age of 2 generally do not have this ability.

Further Key Findings:

• Unstructured play time is more valuable for the developing brain than electronic media. Children learn  to think creatively, problem solve, and develop reasoning and motor skills at early ages through unstructured, unplugged play. Free play also teaches them how to entertain themselves.
• Young children learn best from—and need—interaction with humans, not screens.
• Parents who watch TV or videos with their child may add to the child’s understanding, but children learn more from live presentations than from televised ones.
• When parents are watching their own programs, this is “background media” for their children. It distracts the parent and decreases parent-child interaction. Its presence may also interfere with a young child’s learning from play and activities.
• Television viewing around bedtime can cause poor sleep habits and irregular sleep schedules, which can adversely affect mood, behavior and learning.
• Young children with heavy media use are at risk for delays in language development once they start school, but more research is needed as to the reasons.

For more information on this from the APA, you can read here.