Easy Ways To Reduce Water Waste At Home

While you generally don't think of water as a non-renewable resource, maybe you should be. Only 3% of Earth’s water is fresh water, and with climate change causing significant problems for environments around the world, freshwater access is becoming more difficult. In fact, about one in every eight people in the world do not have access to clean water. While water might cover the majority of the planet, fresh, clean water is surprisingly hard to come by, and a lack of it can prove disastrous.

Around 20% of wastewater comes from agricultural operations and commercial discharge, but that still leaves a significant portion that's the result of individuals like you and me. The average home uses more water than you might think for everything from flushing toilets to washing clothes to cooking meals and more. Luckily, there are a few small things you can do at home to reduce your water consumption and do your part to save our limited sources of clean drinking water.

Teaching Children About Energetic Boundaries

Energy Boundaries for Kids:

Helping Them Be The “You” That They Are

By Cyndi Dale

A while back, I received a call from my son’s school.

Now I’ve been called by the principal every so often for all sorts of concerns. There was the time Gabe “accidently” punched a kid in the stomach after the other kid “mistakenly” kicked him in the gut. There was the day nearly every boy’s mother was asked to restrict her son’s activities at school, after the boys collectively staged a mass jump into a huge mud puddle—the one near the recess teacher. There have been the flu calls and the “dog ate the homework” calls, the latter usually accurate, as we’ve tended to host dogs that eat just about everything, except the dog food, of course. This particular call, however, flipped my stomach.

“Your son threw his back out,” the school nurse informed me.

“How?” I asked, my stomach now officially sinking.

“Apparently he was simply sitting in his desk at 1:30 and said his back started throbbing. He’s having a hard time walking right now.”

I groaned—not only because I was concerned about Gabe’s well being, but also because I was the reason for his malady. You see at precisely 1:30 p.m. that day I was “releasing energy” from my lower back while sitting in an office with my therapist. My “old emotions” had transferred immediately from my body to Gabe’s, no stopping at “Go.”

Are Recycled Homes The Next Big Thing?

In the era of climate change, more and more people are looking to unique solutions when creating their homes. While many will draw the line at simply adding solar panels to their homes, some families are taking it a step further and building their home of entirely recycled materials. Despite seeming like a far-fetched idea, these homes are actually shockingly doable and can help reduce your carbon footprint down to next to nothing.

Why Waste?

There are plenty of options out there for green construction, and with the U.S. Construction market being worth approximately $1,162 billion, builders know diversifying their construction materials is good for business. So what exactly is pushing people to use recycled materials in their homes? The answer depends on what style of construction you're looking at. There are a variety of types of recycled homes, with people using everything from salvaged building materials that you'd expect to see in a home all the way to plastic bottles and old tires. For some, building with recycled materials means getting a home that looks similar to conventional homes at a fraction of the cost. However, for others that tend to use more creative materials, building a home from recycled materials can be a way of expressing themselves. The ingenuity it takes to build a home from recycled materials certainly is a unique way of making a statement.

Have you ever thought about where your parenting beliefs come from?

Are you willing to take a hard look at your parenting skills and the way you discipline your child?

Have you ever thought about where your parenting beliefs come from? The ways we discipline our children have been passed down from grandparents to parents and then to us. Some parenting practices go back several generations. Societal beliefs also shape each decade.

How do you feel about the way you were disciplined as a child?
Have you ever explored these feelings? There is much value in this exploration. 
Are you parenting from the past?

A Successful tool we have used was to take a piece of paper and pen. Draw a line down the middle of the paper. On top of the page write mom/dad. Write pros' on one side and con's on the other. Now start listing what you liked and didn't like. This is where the intentional Conscious Parenting begins. 

(This is an example, no references to anyone in particular)

We invite you to take a look at the choices you are making that will shape your childs well being. Choose wisely, someday they may quite possible be passing along these beliefs to your grandchildren. 

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How to Modify Your Home With Accessibility and Health in Mind

An estimated 15% of the world's population is currently living with a disability, and it's not always easy to determine how accessible and health-conscious your home is to the average person. If you're interested in making some healthy improvements to your home while also making it more accessible and habitable for individuals with certain disabilities, getting started is easier than you think with these tips:

Widen Doorways

The U.S. is the second largest construction market in the world, with a market share of 10%. While there are plenty of major renovations that can be made to increase accessibility, this project is very simple and can even be performed by any DIY handyman. But widening the doorways of your home allows for easier access for individuals in wheelchairs, those using walkers and other people with limited mobility. While widening the doorways themselves is a relatively labor-intensive task, it's often more feasible to invest in a door with offset hinges, allowing for a few extra inches of space.
"Many wheelchairs and walkers are too wide to easily maneuver through doorways. Widening doorways can be a costly job (up to $1,000 in some cases), but you can use some offset hinges to help swing the door clear of the opening to inexpensively add a couple inches of space, writes Rachel Brougham on Family Handyman.

How To Get The Whole Family Excited About Exercise

Trying to stay healthy and active as a parent can be tricky; with the busy schedule of any mom or dad, you might struggle to find a time to work out. This is even more true for working parents, where fitting in exercise drops further and further down the priority list until it's almost entirely forgotten about. Parenthood can often make getting into shape seem impossible.
However, exercise isn't important just for you, it can be helpful for your family too. That's why you should try to plan your next work out with getting your family involved in mind. Exercise can help have many health benefits for children, including improved strength and immune systems. The average child catches between six and ten colds a year, but getting the recommended 30 to 60 minutes of exercise daily may reduce this number. Here are just a few ways to get your children involved in your exercise routines to help improve health for both them and you.

Turn Exercise Into A Game

If you can turn exercise into a game, you're far more likely to get your kids excited about joining you during your workout. For younger kids, use active games like tag, hopscotch, or other fun challenges that get your kids moving. Older kids might prefer to pick a sport. If you can, help them practice by shooting hoops or running bases with them; this gets you moving while also encouraging their active interests.
If childhood games and sports aren't preferred by your kids, use popular activities like biking; in spring 2017, 66.21 million people in the U.S. had gone cycling within the last 12 months. By using popular activities that your kids enjoy, they're more likely to ask to join you, possibly even keeping you motivated to work out more often.

Cyclops

Cyclops!

Once in the legendary days, there in Sicily roamed the rare giant of the one eye, called Cyclops.  He was a big, tall, hairy guy with one large eye.  A real giant that stalked the dark nights.  Granted, that the world has come a long way since the beliefs in giants, but today in the twenty-first century we have created the new monster.  Our monster is sometimes in colors of passionate purple, blood red, and death darkness.  Its body is square, with two dials and an inner box of controlling dials in its head.  It also has one big eye.  Yes, the big brown body with one eye, breathing from dawn till dark lies in your living room. The one-eyed "Cyclops" monster is the television set.

                Within your “cyclops” lives enough blood, terror, and torments that would be enough to stage four hours of screaming pain.  Pictures that deal with animals out of proportion eating men, men killing men for love or fear, saucers with men to destroy the earth.  It seems impossible that a person can turn "Cyclops" on one night out of seven without finding blood.  Color sets have become the thing for the rich or should we say the "realistic" people who like red blood instead of the black.  What is more astounding is that the family may have from two to three of these monsters in one house.  One for the playroom, bedroom and one for the living room.  The name "chamber of horrors” would be more suitable than the living room.

The masters of these monsters are eager little faces, eyes big as saucers and little faces dazed with amazement or twisted with pain.  We know that all of it is imaginary but try to tell that to the screaming child having a nightmare from a television show.  It seems a shame that this is what “cyclops” gives to children, a wonderful world of giants, killings, pain and terror and nothing more.

               

             The stores now have taken an active part in making "Cyclops" the beginning of a new realm of things to play with.  Combat guns and tanks, Frankenstein puppets, rubber knives, horror comic books all crowd the market as toys for little children.  The child’s mind is so clouded with black things, there is no room for growth and imagination for the right things.

               

Turn off Cyclops for a while and watch how people scatter in little crowds with nothing to do.  Experience a nightmare free night, a child’s imagination. Look at the brown box, "Cyclops" who rules over your kingdom. Let the eye of the monster die.  

Children don't need violence, guns, and monsters to grow up with.  They need instead love, security, and understanding.  Things that no monster one-eyed or not can give.  Keep the blood where it should be, inside the body, not flowing from a gaping wound on the belly or face is shown or projected by CYCLOPS!

Written by Pat Chastain in 1965 

The Autonomy Of Children -- Are We Sharing Too Much?

Social media has become a part of everyday life. Nowadays, checking your daily Instagram feed is more common than glossing over the morning paper. When it comes to raising children in the modern era, few parents are immune to the temptation of posting their children online. 

A recent controversy in the parenting blogging community has shone a spotlight on this common practice, and as a result, many parents are asking themselves a complex question:

Could there be negative consequences when I share photos of my young children on social media?

Because social media is so new, there are no easy answers when it comes to this important question.

A recent study showed that the average parent will have shared almost 1,500 images of their child by the time the child is five. This seems like an impossibly large number, but the study gets worse.

The study also revealed that these parents often lack the knowledge over the privacy of these photos; after all, once a photo is uploaded to the internet, it's open for the world to see. While email and search engines are the two top activities on the internet, social media isn't far behind.

How to Spot These Five Common Childhood Rashes

Children have sensitive skin that is often prone to rashes, redness, dryness, and other blemishes. Young children's and toddlers' tactile relationship with their environment makes them especially prone to unusual irritants and bacteria, and so they tend to get rashes more frequently than adults.

Though most rashes in children are not cause for concern and heal quickly, some skin reactions could indicate more serious disease. Use this guide to identify, prevent, and treat these five common childhood rashes:

1. Measles
   
   Though most children in the United States (91.1%) were vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella in 2016, it is still important for parents to recognize the measles rash, especially in infants too young to be vaccinated. Measles looks like red or brown blotches that begin in the head and neck region before spreading to the rest of the body. Measles is highly infectious and often accompanied by fever. Though it passes in about a week, children with measles need to see a doctor, and steps should be taken to prevent this highly infectious disease from spreading.
2. Chickenpox
   

Happy Hallo-Green: Five Tips to Use Less Plastic This Season

Spooky season is here, and many families will be stocking up on candies, decorations, and costumes to celebrate this Halloween. Though this middle-of-fall tradition is an annual favorite for many, like the winter holidays, Halloween celebrations are notoriously bad for the environment. Many rush to stores looking for the perfect partyware, only to discard products as soon and November arrives.

Halloween is scary, but climate change and pollution are even scarier. Use less plastic and be kind to the planet this October 31 by following these tips:

1. Give out Plastic-Free Candy and Toothbrushes
   Single-use packaging of all kinds is one of the biggest contributors to landfill waste and oil consumption. In order to give out safe candy, you still have to get storebought stuff, but there are plenty of candy options available that pass parental candy checks. Candies like Dots, Hershey kisses, Nerds, Whoppers, and Junior Mints all come in cardboard or foil wrappings, which are a little more eco-friendly. If you're someone who gives out toothbrushes as healthier treats, look for wooden, biodegradable brushes with cardboard packaging instead of plastic materials.
2. Ditch the Fake Pumpkin
   Instead of using plastic pumpkins or plastic bags to hold candy while out trick-or-treating, use a reusable cloth bag or a paper bag. You can even sew and decorate your own treat sack as part of a homemade (plastic-free) costume!
3. Use Flashlights Instead of Glowsticks
   Flashlights can be used again and again, but glowsticks last mere hours before heading to the dump. For extra visibility, use lights with rechargeable batteries and reflectors on costumes, and leave the glow sticks on the store shelves.

3 Easy Way to Teach Kids to Save Water

Every day, an American uses about 88 gallons of water in their home. Taking showers, cleaning dishes and laundry, and cooking all add up quickly. However, much of that water isn't even put to good use-- according to Chelsea Green Publishing, a leaking faucet alone wastes about 2,700 gallons of water each year.

Teaching children about careful water use can help them grow into lifelong conservationists. As an added bonus, helping kids use less water can lower your utility bills. Teach kids to protect both your budget and the planet with these five water-smart tips:

1. Establish Good Bath Time Habits
   
   Bathing is one of the biggest activities for water consumption. When bathing infants, fill the tub with only a few inches of water. According to Water: Use it Wisely, there's no need for several gallons to wash a little one, and deep water makes bathing babies more dangerous. As toddlers grow older, they'll notice you only put as much water as needed in the tub. When they are old enough, exchange children's baths for quick showers, and explain that a full tub wastes more water than a short rinse.