Everybody from the Orthodox to the Reform, knows the “big holidays”; Rosh Hashanah, Passover, Yom Kippur, and Chanukah. One of the more “off-the-beaten-path” holidays is Shavuot, or Shavuos (also known as Pentecost), which is one of the most important holidays on the Jewish calendar – even if you’ve never heard of it.
Make a list of your cybersafety concerns. Ask other parents what they monitor and the programs they use to do it. Have an open conversation with your kid about monitoring programs. Trust is a two way street, I don’t recommend doing this behind a child’s back. When it comes to keeping an eye on the kids and their participation on the cyber highway there are two key ways to do this.
I’m not talking about taking the door off the frame in your kids room and forcing them to be compliant. I’m talking about digital parental controls. In this day and age we have to be aware of where our children are going online. Scams, spam, pedophiles and other scary things lurk in the cyber world and we have to help our children stay safe. Here are a few ways in which you can do this with specific examples to easily follow.
If you immediately caught the Lonely Jew on Christmas reference in the title to one of my favorite South Park episodes then you and I can definitely be friends! I’ve always been a fan of South Park. I love the straight-up honesty and ridiculous unrealistic dialogue between all the characters. They make fun of literally everything. And on the surface I’m totally okay with it. If I thought about it any deeper than that it would probably be terribly disturbing. LOL but that’s not what I’m about here today.
During the month of November and December we have a lot of holidays going on for a lot of different people. Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and winter solstice to name just a few of the most common. Christmas gets a lot of commercial attention, but your family’s holiday can be just as much fun and just as lovely as those glossy magazine spreads, even though it may not be Christmas.
Let’s thrift! Thrift shops are the place to go for all things secondhand. I LOVE walking around aisle after aisle of cast offs looking for my next big find. When my kid was younger I hit up some of the local thrift stores to stock up on shorts and shirts for his summer camp. Since he barely comes back with any of his own clothes, I wasn’t going to spend a lot of money on new clothes that would last three weeks max. Sadly the cost of clothing at thrift shops has gone up so much that I can buy new clothes for about the same price. These days you have to know your stuff to play the thrift game.