Treasure Hunting

 On Sunday we ended up with a few hours free unexpectedly, we decided to go to Swithland Woods for a walk. Halfway there I decided I would look to see if there was any geocaches there. During the journey not only did I find the geocache information I also downloaded a GPS app.

Beth wanted to take her zebra for a ride in her pushchair I didn't really think it was a good idea, but we let her bring it anyway and she did mange to get quite far before she got fed up of the roots and bumps making her hands "feel fuzzy".

The woods are often used for den building by the scouts and along the way we found several and Beth tried them out for size and comfort

             

When we first arrived there were several signs for the bluebell service so we had a look for some. I think the cold winter and late spring meant that there weren't actually any about but Beth did find some blue flowers (forget-me-knots)

Beth started a gymnastic class around her birthday, and she's loving it! She loves showing off her "shapes" and a tree stump gave her a good excuse to practice her landing shape. 

Beth and Daddy found some really big sticks and proceeded to have a sword fight (they've been practicing with light sabers). Beth even let Daniel hold her stick; he was a lot more grateful than he looks in the picture. I tried to have a go at fighting with sticks but I broke the stick. 

Beth found a Fairy tree 

We'd been pretty rubbish at finding the geocaches, I'd found one location using my GPS app, but I think the cache must have been removed, because there was no sign of it. The drain on my battery was pretty heavy and we decided to to give it up as a bad job and just take a walk to the old quarry and back. On the way Dave spotted something nestled in the tree trunk and it turned out to be one of the caches. Beth and Daniel we're very excited. This cache had a take something leave something policy and Beth picked up a walking Brussel sprout (after a lot of persuasion to leave the manky sweet or the dog biscuit and we left a packet of vinegar.  I also left the address of this blog in the log book so if you've found us through that please speak up. 

 

Money Money Money

Beth is getting to an awkward age with money. Either that or I still don't get money. 

I’m not overly sure which values we want to instil and whilst I’d like her to be frugal and manage her money properly, I would like her to value experience over possession as well. As a child , I was always the one saving my pocket money for something, or if I was given money to budget I would spend it all on one big thing, and because I'd put effort into acquiring it, it would stay with me far longer than it needed to. (for example when we went to France when I was 7 I spent all my money on a crayon/pen stand, all the crayons and pens were lost with in weeks but the hunk of plastic stayed till I had my room redecorated when I was 14...) I've spoken briefly before about how I'm petrified of our family turning in to hoarders, so you know this isn't really a path I want to go down with my children.

Another problem I have to balance is being a responsive parent and encouraging gratitude over and above enforced thank-yous. I want my children to be able to look after themselves and to be helpful to others. I believe that part of training them to do this involves encouraging them to help out around the house, but what incentives should that include? If you look on Pinterest you'll find hundreds of blogs on raising a grateful child and 99% of these read like they're straight out of the Bible belt. One Ritual we have started though, is saying grace before our main meal. Despite being raised in a Catholic house its not something we did as children. The prayer we say is below.

Dear God 

Thank you for our food today 

Thank you for all the people who have made it 

and we pray that everyone who has made or grown

 something for our dinner to day has enough to eat

Amen  

        

Its a gentle reminder that not everyone has enough to eat. We give thanks for those who produce what we eat, and we (the adults) remind ourselves that the food production system isn't fair and that we can influence this through our spending choices. 

 I also want my children to be ethical shoppers, and realise that their purchasing power can make a difference. Beth already understands a little about why we boycott Nestle, and if she asks for confectionary and I say no her first question is “Is it Nestle or have I had enough bad food?”

But back to Money...I must admit I don't always have a plan or strategy in place for trying to manage her attitude to money, I often make the decision based on my mood, her behaviour, what else she has had in the previous day or two and what she is asking for and I'm not sure this always gives the consistency that is needed for her to learn those values.

Beth has received at least a portion of her birthday and/or Christmas money for a while now. Not only does she enjoy the idea of a trip to a toy shop where she can actually buy a toy of her own choosing, but it gives us an opportunity to discuss shopping choices. We talk about the value of the toy, if she has enough money, whether it is age appropriate, if there are any reasons why I don't think it is a good thing to play with and the idea of co-operatively pooling money with her brother so the can get a bigger toy to share, but ultimately the choice is hers. Last Christmas she broke my heart by buying a set of bottles to feed her dolls with.

These opportunities are pretty few and far between though, and most of her toys come from overly indulgent grandparents (all right it's just one or two) and are often bought with a little pester power and good dose of guilt for me if I even suggest that the toy isn't durable / value / needed, which is why we saw the need for some kind of pocket money system. 

I wasn't happy with the idea of just giving her money, I don't want her to feel that having money is a right, but I don't want to pay her to do things that she needs to do anyway. Again I have compromised. At the minute she has a reward chart where she gets ticks for some self care jobs, helping with the housework and other bits. The chart was from the 99p shop and has some tasks which are slightly too old for her (do my homework) and some that I think are a bit silly (drink enough water) so we've been using those boxes for when she's extra helpful. At the end of the week we add up all the ticks and when we think she has a useful amount, she gets a penny for every tick.

Do I think this is the perfect answer, no. Please leave a comment about how these things work in your house, and maybe we can start a discussion about how best to teach the next generation about money.