This time of year has so many weather metaphors – March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, right before the April showers come blowing in. You might be dealing with nice warm southern temperatures, a rainy Northwest spring, or a snowstorm in the Rockies.

It’s hard to be a parent during the winter. By this point in the season, most of the methods you use to entertain your kids (and get them out of your hair for a minute) are starting to get stale – it’s too wet or cold to go outside, they’ve watched all their movies several times over, and they’ve just emptied the toy bins again. Read on for some fresh ideas to help combat your kids’ cabin fever.

By Elaine Pace

Keeping our family active during long, cold winters is a challenge.  The easiest activity is to reach for a DVD and zone out, but that is hardly helpful to our bodies. 

It’s tough for parents to stick with a fitness plan. With 12 years of parenthood under my belt (and some hanging over it), I’ve realized that our children’s plans tend to crowd out our own. Babies wake in the night leaving us exhausted before the day begins. And after work we’re rushing between piano lessons, soccer practice, and art class.

Christmas is technically over, but the kids are still home through the New Year celebration. So what do we do with the time? Do your family traditions extend through the coming week or have they already come to an abrupt end?

It has been almost 50 years since Charlie Brown first started his search for the true meaning of Christmas. Since then, the “gimme” spirit has gone well beyond the neon pink aluminum trees – for some kids, the holidays are little more than placing an order to Mom and Dad for gifts they want. In the end, though, as Charlie Brown found out, it’s not the lights and music that makes the holiday.

It doesn’t take much for a school routine to turn into a school rut. The march from class to class to class can make your kids long for something new and exciting. Thank goodness for recess, and thank goodness for lunch time.

Teachers are people too. Most are stretched beyond their limits with more students than they can reasonably reach. Treat your student’s teacher like he or she is part of your team, because they are.

To say kids need a lot of stuff would be a major understatement. Before you can bring them home from the hospital you need a car seat, crib, diapers, diaper bag, clothes, bottles, stroller…the list goes on. But that’s just the beginning.

Let’s face it – your kids use technology. And unlike the desk-bound, dial-up technology of our youth, they take their mobile devices everywhere and anywhere to stay connected to the online aspect of their social lives.