Promoting Learning and Skills

Everyone should have the same opportunity to learn and achieve their ambitions in life, in their communities and at work. 
Because our business is to look at what works and what doesn’t in learning, skills and employment, we have direct experience of the “wrongs to be righted”. And we have the evidence to back up our recommendations.
That’s why, as well as delivering Adult Learners’ Week (now in its 24th year), we campaign, lobby and advocate on behalf of learners of all kinds, especially those at most disadvantage.
In the recent years, we have campaigned to:

• Highlight the unintended impact of 24+ Advanced Learning Loans for apprenticeships
• Gain support for an Apprentice Charter that would benefit apprentices and employers 
• Support people in low pay to progress in their careers 
• Help marginalised learners to access better opportunities through the Equality, Diversity and Innovation Fund
• Help adults improve their literacy and discover a love of reading, through our continued support for Quick Reads 
• Help adults improve their numeracy with the Maths Everywhere App 
• Deliver Community Learning Champions – supporting volunteers who help adults to learn 
• Help people plan for a longer working life through our Mid-life Career Review 
• Reach deprived and marginalized learners, through our management of the Community Learning Innovation Fund
• Encourage schools to use the Pupil Premium for family learning – something we know has a dramatic impact on children’s and parents’ learning 
• Ensure Trainee ships are available to older learners link to the following news story on the new website please 
• Raise awareness of the needs of both young adult carers and care leavers 

We want to work with anyone who is as passionate about learning and addressing disadvantage as we are. 
So if you develop policy, inform opinion or develop learning and skills practice, or if you just care about learning, we want to challenge your thinking, engage you in debate, and encourage you to advocate alongside us, so that everyone can benefit from lifelong learning.

Implement Your Chosen Coping Strategies

Stress is common in our everyday lives. For the purposes of improving overall productivity and lowering stress, it is important to manage your time effectively, plan your day, and prioritize task demands. At the same time, it is highly beneficial, and recommended that you work on developing and have various coping strategies available to you; their regular use will help keep stress levels down. If you are currently feeling overwhelmed by this process, you may consider setting up a consultation with a licensed mental health clinician.
- See more at: http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/first-things-first#sthash.w1KwoDKY.dpuf

Now, I don't doubt the necessity of planning out one's day in advance. If we are to be productive, we must consider what needs to get done and how we're going to do it.
Rather, it's how we think about and approach our tasks, duties, and responsibilities - and the level of significance that we ascribe to their completion which can cause some of us considerable anxiety. Ultimately we may forget to do things, choose to ignore our responsibilities, or do them in a haphazard fashion. Even worse, we can become clinically depressed.
In order to remain healthy, we should always consider the importance and value of our priorities. In our personal and professional lives, however, many of us want to accomplish multiple goals at once. Often times, we don't care to work toward them in an incremental or step-wise fashion.
- See more at: http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/first-things-first#sthash.w1KwoDKY.dpuf

Now, I don't doubt the necessity of planning out one's day in advance. If we are to be productive, we must consider what needs to get done and how we're going to do it.
Rather, it's how we think about and approach our tasks, duties, and responsibilities - and the level of significance that we ascribe to their completion which can cause some of us considerable anxiety. Ultimately we may forget to do things, choose to ignore our responsibilities, or do them in a haphazard fashion. Even worse, we can become clinically depressed.
In order to remain healthy, we should always consider the importance and value of our priorities. In our personal and professional lives, however, many of us want to accomplish multiple goals at once. Often times, we don't care to work toward them in an incremental or step-wise fashion.
- See more at: http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/first-things-first#sthash.w1KwoDKY.dpuf

First Things First: A Mindful Approach to Choosing Our Priorities at Home and Work

• By: Darin D. Schiffman, Psy.D.
• ·
• Mon, 09/22/2014 - 06:30
• ·
• 0 comments

• Log in or register to post comments

• Back to Depression
• Back to Stress

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Now, I don't doubt the necessity of planning out one's day in advance. If we are to be productive, we must consider what needs to get done and how we're going to do it.
Rather, it's how we think about and approach our tasks, duties, and responsibilities - and the level of significance that we ascribe to their completion which can cause some of us considerable anxiety. Ultimately we may forget to do things, choose to ignore our responsibilities, or do them in a haphazard fashion. Even worse, we can become clinically depressed.
In order to remain healthy, we should always consider the importance and value of our priorities. In our personal and professional lives, however, many of us want to accomplish multiple goals at once. Often times, we don't care to work toward them in an incremental or step-wise fashion.

Self-Imposed Stress From "Taking On Too Much"

For these reasons, try to think about what you're doing and why. Ask such questions as "Is it really important that this gets done now or can it wait?" Essentially we must be more mindful of our own thought processes. This is a very deliberate and intentional practice requiring substantial mental focus. We need to know and be more connected with our ideas, expectations, and intentions, particularly those that will advance us toward our goals.
Thinking in a more purposeful manner will decrease your experience of stress. Specifically, it relaxes you, allows you to be more flexible / revise goals as necessary, and decreases anxiety.

Prioritize And Plan Your Day

1. Know yourself well! Specifically, understand your strengths and weaknesses, including your unique work habits.
2. In all situations, time will dictate what happens next. You will improve your efficiency if you know which tasks you can fit into the time that is left over once all the major tasks have been completed.
3. Obviously, larger tasks will have to be broken down into smaller tasks. For example, you might not have enough time today to write the report that is due next Tuesday, but you can use the next 20 minutes to write the introduction while waiting for a meeting to start.
4. Doing smaller, less significant tasks first (i.e., to lower your anxiety), is okay, and in many cases desirable. But do them quickly and without interfering with the important tasks. The important tasks are the ones that will have serious ramifications if you do not finish them.
5. This is similar to the fourth point: Procrastination is the practice of putting off your more important tasks until later, while completing the less important or more pleasurable tasks first. To some extent procrastination is normal, even healthy as a coping mechanism to deal with anxiety about deadlines. But, it can decrease productivity, in addition to driving up your sense of anxiety, resulting in stress, even feelings of guilt.
6. Compartmentalize your efforts. By that I mean that you should try to keep various assignments and issues separate from each other. Isolated and focus only on those details necessary to complete a task. Concentrate on the task before you, and don't let your mind wander, i.e., thinking about what you have to do next. Learn to say "no" to anything that doesn't deserve your immediate focus or time. By not allowing yourself to be derailed by non-essential thoughts or details, you will greatly increase your overall accuracy and cut down on the time needed to complete assignments or home-related chores and activities.
7. Multi-task whenever necessary, provided the other activities don't diminish your ability to focus or return your attention to the task before you.
8. Know which assignments require more attention to detail and which do not. This might be difficult if you are a perfectionist, but you will save much time, while freeing yourself up to complete other items on your list.
9. Be able to recognize when your anxiety or stress level is going up. Have a plan for how you will decompress.
10. When you get home from work, give yourself permission to switch gears between work and family mode. Try to be present and mindful of the fact that you're at home. You can remind yourself that whatever it is that your mind keeps drifting back to regarding work can wait until tomorrow. Also, remind yourself how continually thinking about work while you're at home can have serious health consequences for your physical and emotional functioning.

Implement Your Chosen Coping Strategies

Stress is common in our everyday lives. For the purposes of improving overall productivity and lowering stress, it is important to manage your time effectively, plan your day, and prioritize task demands. At the same time, it is highly beneficial, and recommended that you work on developing and have various coping strategies available to you; their regular use will help keep stress levels down. If you are currently feeling overwhelmed by this process, you may consider setting up a consultation with a licensed mental health clinician.

- See more at: http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/first-things-first#sthash.w1KwoDKY.dpuf

First Things First: A Mindful Approach to Choosing Our Priorities at Home and Work

• By: Darin D. Schiffman, Psy.D.
• ·
• Mon, 09/22/2014 - 06:30
• ·
• 0 comments

• Log in or register to post comments

• Back to Depression
• Back to Stress

• Back to Articles

Now, I don't doubt the necessity of planning out one's day in advance. If we are to be productive, we must consider what needs to get done and how we're going to do it.
Rather, it's how we think about and approach our tasks, duties, and responsibilities - and the level of significance that we ascribe to their completion which can cause some of us considerable anxiety. Ultimately we may forget to do things, choose to ignore our responsibilities, or do them in a haphazard fashion. Even worse, we can become clinically depressed.
In order to remain healthy, we should always consider the importance and value of our priorities. In our personal and professional lives, however, many of us want to accomplish multiple goals at once. Often times, we don't care to work toward them in an incremental or step-wise fashion.

Self-Imposed Stress From "Taking On Too Much"

For these reasons, try to think about what you're doing and why. Ask such questions as "Is it really important that this gets done now or can it wait?" Essentially we must be more mindful of our own thought processes. This is a very deliberate and intentional practice requiring substantial mental focus. We need to know and be more connected with our ideas, expectations, and intentions, particularly those that will advance us toward our goals.
Thinking in a more purposeful manner will decrease your experience of stress. Specifically, it relaxes you, allows you to be more flexible / revise goals as necessary, and decreases anxiety.

Prioritize And Plan Your Day

1. Know yourself well! Specifically, understand your strengths and weaknesses, including your unique work habits.
2. In all situations, time will dictate what happens next. You will improve your efficiency if you know which tasks you can fit into the time that is left over once all the major tasks have been completed.
3. Obviously, larger tasks will have to be broken down into smaller tasks. For example, you might not have enough time today to write the report that is due next Tuesday, but you can use the next 20 minutes to write the introduction while waiting for a meeting to start.
4. Doing smaller, less significant tasks first (i.e., to lower your anxiety), is okay, and in many cases desirable. But do them quickly and without interfering with the important tasks. The important tasks are the ones that will have serious ramifications if you do not finish them.
5. This is similar to the fourth point: Procrastination is the practice of putting off your more important tasks until later, while completing the less important or more pleasurable tasks first. To some extent procrastination is normal, even healthy as a coping mechanism to deal with anxiety about deadlines. But, it can decrease productivity, in addition to driving up your sense of anxiety, resulting in stress, even feelings of guilt.
6. Compartmentalize your efforts. By that I mean that you should try to keep various assignments and issues separate from each other. Isolated and focus only on those details necessary to complete a task. Concentrate on the task before you, and don't let your mind wander, i.e., thinking about what you have to do next. Learn to say "no" to anything that doesn't deserve your immediate focus or time. By not allowing yourself to be derailed by non-essential thoughts or details, you will greatly increase your overall accuracy and cut down on the time needed to complete assignments or home-related chores and activities.
7. Multi-task whenever necessary, provided the other activities don't diminish your ability to focus or return your attention to the task before you.
8. Know which assignments require more attention to detail and which do not. This might be difficult if you are a perfectionist, but you will save much time, while freeing yourself up to complete other items on your list.
9. Be able to recognize when your anxiety or stress level is going up. Have a plan for how you will decompress.
10. When you get home from work, give yourself permission to switch gears between work and family mode. Try to be present and mindful of the fact that you're at home. You can remind yourself that whatever it is that your mind keeps drifting back to regarding work can wait until tomorrow. Also, remind yourself how continually thinking about work while you're at home can have serious health consequences for your physical and emotional functioning.

Implement Your Chosen Coping Strategies

Stress is common in our everyday lives. For the purposes of improving overall productivity and lowering stress, it is important to manage your time effectively, plan your day, and prioritize task demands. At the same time, it is highly beneficial, and recommended that you work on developing and have various coping strategies available to you; their regular use will help keep stress levels down. If you are currently feeling overwhelmed by this process, you may consider setting up a consultation with a licensed mental health clinician.

- See more at: http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/first-things-first#sthash.w1KwoDKY.dpuf

First Things First: A Mindful Approach to Choosing Our Priorities at Home and Work

• By: Darin D. Schiffman, Psy.D.
• ·
• Mon, 09/22/2014 - 06:30
• ·
• 0 comments

• Log in or register to post comments

• Back to Depression
• Back to Stress

• Back to Articles

Now, I don't doubt the necessity of planning out one's day in advance. If we are to be productive, we must consider what needs to get done and how we're going to do it.
Rather, it's how we think about and approach our tasks, duties, and responsibilities - and the level of significance that we ascribe to their completion which can cause some of us considerable anxiety. Ultimately we may forget to do things, choose to ignore our responsibilities, or do them in a haphazard fashion. Even worse, we can become clinically depressed.
In order to remain healthy, we should always consider the importance and value of our priorities. In our personal and professional lives, however, many of us want to accomplish multiple goals at once. Often times, we don't care to work toward them in an incremental or step-wise fashion.

Self-Imposed Stress From "Taking On Too Much"

For these reasons, try to think about what you're doing and why. Ask such questions as "Is it really important that this gets done now or can it wait?" Essentially we must be more mindful of our own thought processes. This is a very deliberate and intentional practice requiring substantial mental focus. We need to know and be more connected with our ideas, expectations, and intentions, particularly those that will advance us toward our goals.
Thinking in a more purposeful manner will decrease your experience of stress. Specifically, it relaxes you, allows you to be more flexible / revise goals as necessary, and decreases anxiety.

Prioritize And Plan Your Day

1. Know yourself well! Specifically, understand your strengths and weaknesses, including your unique work habits.
2. In all situations, time will dictate what happens next. You will improve your efficiency if you know which tasks you can fit into the time that is left over once all the major tasks have been completed.
3. Obviously, larger tasks will have to be broken down into smaller tasks. For example, you might not have enough time today to write the report that is due next Tuesday, but you can use the next 20 minutes to write the introduction while waiting for a meeting to start.
4. Doing smaller, less significant tasks first (i.e., to lower your anxiety), is okay, and in many cases desirable. But do them quickly and without interfering with the important tasks. The important tasks are the ones that will have serious ramifications if you do not finish them.
5. This is similar to the fourth point: Procrastination is the practice of putting off your more important tasks until later, while completing the less important or more pleasurable tasks first. To some extent procrastination is normal, even healthy as a coping mechanism to deal with anxiety about deadlines. But, it can decrease productivity, in addition to driving up your sense of anxiety, resulting in stress, even feelings of guilt.
6. Compartmentalize your efforts. By that I mean that you should try to keep various assignments and issues separate from each other. Isolated and focus only on those details necessary to complete a task. Concentrate on the task before you, and don't let your mind wander, i.e., thinking about what you have to do next. Learn to say "no" to anything that doesn't deserve your immediate focus or time. By not allowing yourself to be derailed by non-essential thoughts or details, you will greatly increase your overall accuracy and cut down on the time needed to complete assignments or home-related chores and activities.
7. Multi-task whenever necessary, provided the other activities don't diminish your ability to focus or return your attention to the task before you.
8. Know which assignments require more attention to detail and which do not. This might be difficult if you are a perfectionist, but you will save much time, while freeing yourself up to complete other items on your list.
9. Be able to recognize when your anxiety or stress level is going up. Have a plan for how you will decompress.
10. When you get home from work, give yourself permission to switch gears between work and family mode. Try to be present and mindful of the fact that you're at home. You can remind yourself that whatever it is that your mind keeps drifting back to regarding work can wait until tomorrow. Also, remind yourself how continually thinking about work while you're at home can have serious health consequences for your physical and emotional functioning.

Implement Your Chosen Coping Strategies

Stress is common in our everyday lives. For the purposes of improving overall productivity and lowering stress, it is important to manage your time effectively, plan your day, and prioritize task demands. At the same time, it is highly beneficial, and recommended that you work on developing and have various coping strategies available to you; their regular use will help keep stress levels down. If you are currently feeling overwhelmed by this process, you may consider setting up a consultation with a licensed mental health clinician.

- See more at: http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/first-things-first#sthash.w1KwoDKY.dpuf

Millies Cookie Recipe - Fun for all the family

Thanks to Hotpink from Answerbank for this

Chocolate Chip Cookies Millies Style

Ingredients

125g butter, softened
100g light brown soft sugar
125g caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
225g self-raising flour
½ tsp salt
200g chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, gas mark 4.

2. Cream butter and sugars, once creamed, combine in the egg and vanilla.

3. Sift in the flour and salt, then the chocolate chips.

4. Roll into walnut size balls, for a more homemade look, or roll into a long, thick sausage shape and slice to make neater looking cookies.

5. Place on ungreased baking paper. If you want to have the real Millies experience then bake for just 7 minutes, till the cookies are just setting - the cookies will be really doughy and delicious. Otherwise cook for 10 minutes until just golden round the edges.

6. Take out of the oven and leave to harden for a minute before transferring to a wire cooling rack. These are great warm, and they also store well, if they don't all get eaten straight away!

7 Secrets of Fun Families

What's that saying about raising a family?
The days are long, but the years are short. That's the carpe diem sentiment we heard from readers when we asked them to weigh in with favorite ideas for packing family life full of as much joy as possible. From hundreds of responses, we selected the best and organized them into seven categories. As you'll see, the ideas are simple (Make a list of activities! Draw on the windows!), but the memories created are lasting.

1. They plan together for adventure.

Defeating inertia is easier when you've done a bit of preparation. These families understand that having a game plan for fun is key to ensuring that special excursions and activities don't get put off for "someday."

• Encouraging Outings: The Linduski family keeps an inspirational bulletin board in the entryway of their Eau Claire, Wisconsin, home, and when one of them spots an article on a can't-miss destination, he tears it out and pins it up. "There are a few bigger trips we want to take, like a trip to see redwood trees in California," explains mom Toni. "But most of the ideas are afternoon excursions: a zip line tour, a visit to a pumpkin patch, or a hike to a waterfall."

 

• Seasonal Must-Dos: Every few months, the Carter kids -- Emily, age 11, Jasper, 8, and Natalie, 5 -- sit down with their mom, Amy, and brain- storm a list of the activities they love. Spring items, for example, might include planting flowers, going on a scavenger hunt, and exploring five unfamiliar parks. The Franklin, Indiana, family then checks off the activities as they do them. "I tend to get wrapped up in the necessities of life," Amy explains. "The lists make sure we plan some fun every week."

 

• Letting Chance Decide: The Sanders family of Elk Grove, California, works together to fill three grab bags with spur-of-the-moment outing ideas written on index cards. The simplest activities, such as a picnic in the park, go in one bag; more time-consuming or costly ones, such as a museum visit, go in another; and the most involved activities, such as a trip to an amusement park, go in a third. When they have free time and funds, the family draws a card from the right bag. There's only one rule, explains mom Barbara: "Whatever that card says, we do."

2. They turn their home into fun zones.

You don't have to attach a slide to your stairway (though one of our readers did!), but making room for games, creativity, and plain old hanging out can make a house a home.

• Graffiti Artists: Without handing your kids spray paint, you can still give them freedom to color their world. For Kelly Maver, this means keeping a jar of dry- erase markers on the kitchen window seat so that her daughters can use them on the windows: "My 9-year-old practices her spelling and makes murals for every season, and my 2-year-old pretends to write words," explains the Hewitt, New Jersey, mom, before assuring us, "It wipes right off!"

 

• DIY Turf: The Axlers of Madison, New Jersey, give "home team" a whole new meaning by making a sports arena of their basement. Bases and a home plate, yard lines, or goals (depending on the season) are marked on the green carpet with masking tape. Jordan, age 7, and Becca, 4, then get their game on with Wiffle bats or soft plastic balls. Meanwhile, in Dover, Ohio, the Warther family mows part of their lawn extra-close to make a golf green: "We line holes with sunken soup cans and add bike- flag markers. The kids and their friends love to practice their chipping and putting."

 

• Creating a Kid Cave: Kids and hidey-holes are a match made in heaven. That's what Carolyn Halliburton in Plano, Texas, got to thinking. Sure, she could use the storage space, but an under-stair closet in her home practically begged to be a hideout. The family took out some shelves, painted the walls blue and silver (they're Dallas Cowboys fans), and hung up dry-erase boards. "We also hung a curtain in the entrance to make it more secret," says Carolyn. Sons Taylor, age 10, and Andrew, 8, love to read, play, and draw in there -- and hide out with friends, of course.

3. They celebrate the little things.

Life's too short to save all the fun for birthdays and big holidays, say these families, so they look for excuses to add a dose of silliness to otherwise ordinary weeks. The reason isn't important; what matters is reveling in togetherness.

• Feting the Everyday (And the Off-the-Wall) : Heather Crosby of Parker, Colorado, observes what she calls "odd holidays" with her 8-year-old and her 6-year-old twins. "I'll slip pieces of white chocolate into their lunches on National White Chocolate Day, and we've played Monopoly on Play Monopoly Day. My kids were not too fond of National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day, though!" The Thomas family of Willard, North Carolina, turns wacky holidays into themed dinners, complete with props and costumes. They celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day, Fairy Day, and the family favorite, Cave Night. "We all dress like cavemen, and we serve dinosaur bones, aka ribs." (Tip: For a list of these special days, do a web search for "Everyday Holidays.")

 

• Keeping It in the Family: The Smiths of Poway, California, love to entertain ... themselves. "Every couple of months, we like to host little parties where we are the only guests," explains mom Joannie. The three kids, ages 9, 13, and 17, help pick an event -- the Super Bowl, the Oscars, or simply the release of a much-anticipated DVD -- then they decide on the food (fun appetizers are a favorite) and deck themselves out in festive clothing. "We get to spend good, quality time with each other," Joannie says, "and celebrate us as a family."

4. They narrow the gap between playing and learning.

How do you expand children's minds? By increasing the fun! These families do that by making time for curiosity and exploration.

• Family Book Club: The Delgados of Edcouch, Texas, love to read. The family chooses a book together, reads a chapter aloud during the day, and discusses it over dinner. To make their book club even more rewarding, they give themselves a treat (a movie, say, or an ice- cream outing) when they finish a book. Recently, they've read the Harry Potter series (a favorite), The Hunger Games, and mom Laura's choice, Little Women.

 

• Alphabet Party: At the Pincock family's weekly alphabet-themed celebrations, p is for party. Also, pink clothes, pizza and pears for lunch, Peter Pan and popcorn, and playing in the playroom. Every letter gets its own occasion to shine. "The parties kept my preschooler happy and busy during the long winter months," explains Canton, Michigan, mom Amy. "We made it through all 26 letters by the time spring came!"

 

• Messy Exploration: Allison Beard of Brighton, Colorado, believes that giving kids the freedom to make a mess also gives them license to learn. That's why she helps her son, 5-year-old Griffin, get up to some crazy concocting at a backyard science lab in fair weather. When conditions are less favorable, the dining table, covered with a shower curtain, stands in. "We set him up with a variety of nontoxic things he can mix together to see what happens," Allison explains. Ingredients include sugar, salt, cornstarch, baking soda, vinegar, water, and food coloring. Ice-cube trays or muffin tins are perfect for mixing, and craft sticks for stirring. A lab coat (and an evil-scientist laugh) completes the scene.

5. They fill their lives with sweet surprises

Kids thrive on routines, but it's often the unexpected joys that they truly treasure. These parents know how to catch their gang happily off guard -- and make the kinds of memories that last forever.

• Keeping Them Guessing: The weekend-afternoon Mystery Trips started when Nikki Price was a girl and her mother would put the kids in the car without telling them where they were going. Now she carries on the tradition with her children, Zachary, age 8, and Rachel, 4, in Plainfield, Illinois. "We'll tell them how they need to dress and if they need to bring anything, but that's it," says Nikki. "The anticipation is a lot of fun, and my husband and I get a kick out of their guesses." A park? The zoo? It's a mystery -- at least until they get there.

 

• Breaking the Rules: When it's lights out, it's time to sleep, right? Not if you're the three McKee kids in Katy, Texas. "I get everyone to bed like normal," their mom, Mandy, explains, "then, about ten minutes later, I blast music throughout the house! Everyone gets up, and we go get ice cream with the kids in their pj's. They expect it every summer, but they never know exactly when it's coming."

 

• Surprising Others: Wacky stuff is plenty fun at home, but foisting it on an unsuspecting public really ups the ante. For example, Wave Day. You don't know about Wave Day? Oh, right, that's because the Johnson family of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, made it up. On Wave Day, mom Rebecca, Gwyneth, age 14, and Jessica, 10, wave to every single person they can. "It's amazing to my girls that such a simple act can make a person's day."

6. They find the silver lining.

Fun is really a state of mind, as these look-on-the-bright-side families remind us. With a little creative thinking, they banish disappointment and turn it into delight.

• A Can-Do Attitude: When a storm kept the Barbee family from the state fair, they decided to bring the fair to them. "I gave everyone an hour to make something to submit as an entry to the Family Fair," says Sonnet, an Idaho Falls, Idaho, mother of four. "We had artwork, a coin collection, homemade cookies, and a flower arrangement, and I awarded prizes to everyone." They competed in a trampoline-trick rodeo and a watermelon-eating contest. "The kids had so much fun that we forgot that we missed out on the real state fair."

 

• Let Them Eat Cake (or Pie): When kids get the blues, distraction can be the best remedy. While her husband is away on business, Celi Back mixes it up so that the six kids, ages 9 months to 12, don't miss him as much. They camp out in the yard, make a construction paper "Welcome Home" sign, and, naturally, eat pie for dinner. "Once, we had spaghetti pie, then chocolate pie for dessert, and we ate it all on the floor, picnic-style," says the Tempe, Arizona, mom.

7. They make work feel like play.

These families skip the nagging and tackle household chores with a party spirit. It's got to get done, so it might as well be fun.

• Sorting It Out: "Laundry party!" It's not your usual call to merrymaking, but that's what Janet Mongilio yells to her family when there's clean wash to be sorted in their Parkersburg, West Virginia, home. "All four of us run to the bedroom, dump the baskets of clothes on the bed, and start sorting them -- and throwing them at each other." (Picture a washday version of a food fight.) Chaos! Mayhem! And, in the end, a neat pile of folded clothes for everyone.

 

• Harnessing the Competitive Spirit: When it comes to doing boring tasks, the Button family of Fayetteville, Arkansas, finds that a beat-the-clock contest gets everybody motivated. (Could that be because they've got two boys, ages 9 and 12, in the house?) "We set the timer, and we attempt, as a family, to beat our own time unloading the dishwasher, getting the trash out, or doing any one chore together," explains mom Kristi. The catch: "The dishes have to get put away in the right place and unbroken."

 

• Hunting for a Clean Room: To bolster her kids' enthusiasm for tidying up, Carol Vargas of Kennesaw, Georgia, turns it into a rousing scavenger hunt. She hides clues (drawings or objects in small ziplock bags) in the clutter for her cleaning kids to find. The hints help the kids figure out their reward for completing the task. "It could be something as simple as a special lunch of fave foods, a chance to pick a toy out of our prize box, or a visit to the local park."

Originally published in the March 2013 issue of FamilyFun magazine

Have some fun with the Family - Make a Tres Leches cake (3 milks)

Personal Development needs to be fun as well as educational, bring the family closer by making a mess in the kitchen or baking a cake for someone special.

Try this cake, its easy to make and you can get the kids involved!

It’s All About You – 7 Areas Of Personal Development

Is the phrase ‘personal development’ clear to you? If your answer is ‘No’, you’re not alone. On the one hand, you say a lot with a statement like, “I’m into personal development,” because you’re saying that you’ve made a commitment to living more than a mediocre life. On the other hand, the phrase is pretty vague. That’s why we decided to make a list of the 7 most common areas of personal development.

1. Your Spirit:

How do you want to grow spiritually? Do you want to meditate more often? Do you want to have a deeper sense of purpose, participate more actively in your church, synagogue or spiritual community? Would you like to build your intuitive skills or simply trust the wisdom and guidance of your higher self? Getting clear on your spiritual goals and what you plan to do to achieve them is foundational to overall personal development.

2. Your Creative Genius:

What do you want to be, do and have in the realm of your creative self expression? Maybe you love painting, writing, dance or underwater basket-weaving … It doesn’t really matter what. What matters is developing your creative genius in ways that challenge and stretch you.

3. Your Relationships:

Spouse, kids, parents, siblings, neighbors and close friends all come under the category of relationships. How do you want these relationships to look. What do you value most about your friendships? What do you want to have more or less of? What are your goals for love, friendship and family relationships? If you’re single: what are the qualities of your ideal mate? What are the qualities you want to develop in order to draw that mate?

4. Your Money and Career:

What are your career and money benchmarks for the year? What are your financial goals for 3, 5 and 10 years? What steps do you plan to reach these goals? These are the kind of questions you want to ask yourself when it comes to financial personal development.

5. Your Fitness and Health:

Have you thought about your diet and exercise habits lately? Are there areas where you can improve them? Is there a sport you’ve always wanted to learn? Are you ready to give up potato chips or smoking? Come up with a list of 3, 6 and 12 month goals for your fitness and health development.

6. Your Stuff:

Are there things you want to have – a home, a new car, better furnishings, an upgraded computer. You can take a little time each day to imagine enjoying the overall improvement in your life as if the thing or stuff is already there.

7. Your Community:

This area of personal development has to do with your give-back goals. It could be giving back to your local or global community. Personal development goals for your community can include all sorts of things from donating time, money, stuff or knowledge.

Your Turn!

We want to know what your top 2 areas of personal development are this year. Maybe it’s your health and fitness. Maybe relations, money or stuff. Leave a comment below and let us know what’s most important to you for 2015.

AND … We know there’s more than 7 areas of personal development, so if we missed one of your favorites, leave a comment and let us know.

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