Bullying is a fact of life but that does not mean it should be “just let go”. If your child is the one being bullied it can cause a lot of damage to his or her self-esteem. Nowadays teens and young children are experience even more violence than ever. My own personal opinion is that this is caused by stress and nervous tensions. Teens today have more reason to be depressed than ever. They have schedules as bad as we do. It also seems they are losing their innocence when they are younger then ever.

Bullying has even caused suicides in very young children and teens because it makes them feel so left out of their peer group. A kid subject to bullying may also see no recourse or no way out of the situation. With no way to fight they give up and become very depressed.

If your child’s behavior shows any changes you should encourage them to talk to you. Often a sullen or withdrawn kid or one that looks depressed is dealing with a bully at school. Let’s face it. If you own a child they will not always tell you what is wrong. You need to perceptive. I am an excellent min d reader.

One tip off is the kid that keeps trying to think of ways to get out of going to school. Teens may not sleep or act listless. There may be no engagement at all in any social activities. They may be irritable and even bully other children to kind of release the energy of what is being done to them all day. In some cases the bullying is so bad that your kid can’t eat, develops an ulcer or becomes physically ill.

If you find out there is a bully you need to instruct your child on how to avoid it. Often that is all you can do to help them avoid it. Make sure that they know that it is the bully that has the problem or that is not good enough and not they. You can also teach your child to avoid bullies whenever possible without changing too much of their lives. The idea is to find a compromise between avoiding the bully and having the bully control your life.

Kids also have to know that violence also makes it worse. Tell them of the dangers of fighting fire with fire and how that can cause conflicts to escalate.

You should also tell your kid to stand their ground and walk away from bullies. This is part of a lesson about choosing your battles wisely. If a bully approaches you make sure that they aren’t afraid and that you will not be pushed around.

I always contact the school officials when this sort of thing happens. They are more serious about stopping bullying then ever as they have figured out that this type of aggression can lead to something as severe as the Columbine high school shootings.

When it’s hot who feels like cooking a heavy meal? Not me. Why heat up the kitchen. It is time to make lighter meals for you and the kids because the heat reduces the appetitive anyway.

In the summer I just go for the fresh fruits and vegetables. You can make all kinds of different simple and delicious dishes with them. Most need very little preparation to make them absolutely delicious.

You can also use spices to add some pep to a meal that might seem too plain (as is often the case with dishes that consist of just cut up vegetables.) Use spices to add pep to a meal instead of drowning everything in a heavy sauce. There is also no need to cook anything. I like grating vegetables in the summer to make them more palatable.

You can also experiment with lettuces. They can be used as a base for a dish as in making a bed of lettuce or as part of the salad. You should also not use too much dressing as it can be really fattening for both you and the kids. I like to make my own oil and vinegar dressings for a salad. These dressings give a light taste that adds a spicy taste to the dressing for different flavors.

Lettuce of all kinds is a good platform to start building a meal on. You can add potatoes, macaroni, chicken, shrimp, turkey and other things to lettuce. I sometimes just pour hamburger made with taco mix and grated cheese over a bed of lettuce. You can make a complete meal like this in a matter of minutes and you won’t bore your kids taste buds (or your own!). Also these types of meals can be very nutritious as well.

To save time I sometimes buy precooked meat or that chicken that is part soy in the store and just dump it in the salad.

One of the most nutritious meals you can make is a macaroni salad. My kids love it with peas, cheese and tuna. They love this mix of foods whether they are cold or hot. Sometimes I add chopped up boiled eggs or a few chopped up raw tomatoes to this mix as well.

Another macaroni recipe I like is eggs, onions, tuna, relish, mayonnaise and cup of mustard. This makes a cool spicy macaroni salad dish. Of course you could add a little yellow or red curry powder to this to spice it up.

Of course if it is really hot I make sure there is a lots of cool fruit on hand for dessert. My kids love frozen fruit chunks, especially grapes. Frozen bananas with chocolate drizzled all over them are also a nice idea.

Don’t bother slaving over the oven in the summer. Instead save energy, air conditioning bills and keep your kitchen cool.

Cooking for kids so they will actually consume enough can be a challenge. This is true of my kid at home now who is almost five but is eating only bananas and tomato soup unless I am very clever with it all and do my best to try and get him to eat something different.

Problem is he is really picky and what he thinks is great one day is yucky the next. Remember how much I told you he loved pesto last year. Well he is off it now. It looks like green yucky he says. I tried putting less garlic in it and that didn’t’ help.

Of course he is so stubborn and I am wondering if he is getting the right nutrition. His eating patters waver from being massively hungry to eating like two peas a day. I have also figured out that most kids his age are more like grazers rather than really chow it all down in one sitting. It is also hard to get him to see eating as being fun sometimes.

All you can do is try to get them some nutrition through the foods you know they love. A good example is macron and cheese. In fact my kids would eat that every single day if they could. Of course one can’t live on Kraft Dinner alone so I add my own cheese for added calcium and protein.

I also make sure they get calcium by adding chocolate to the milk. Right now he likes that Strawberry Quik stuff. I am always thinking – whatever makes you healthy. However when I buy these mixes I make sure there is not too much sugar in them.

Calcium is also found in vegetables, ice cream, pudding and yogurts. Cherries also have it so cherry flavored yogurt is a very good idea. However watch it with yogurt as if it is not sweet enough the kids will always turn their nose up at it.

Another thing to remember is that kids do have sensitive taste buds. Like us they have tastes. They may like some foods and not always. They may have real opinions about what they want to eat and what they don’t want to eat.

I try to encourage them to help me cook in the kitchen as much as possible. This helps to get them used to different foods. If they have tried a food and don’t like it then you should just trust the kid. No sense forcing them to eat something they really don’t like. It’s frustrating but I believe in treating a child with as much respect as possible and as much like they are humans with tastes and preferences like the adults.

At any rate, I have found that kids who have a hand in cooking are more likely to eat the meal without whining. It is because they feel they have created something.

After watching the Al Gore documentary I have been conscientious about being a green mommy. My latest endeavor is to go back to drying my laundry the old way – on a clothes line.

I must say though the one thing that I am missing is the dryer sheets. Clothes are a little wrinkly and is it wrong to admit that I actually love the smell of those scented dryer sheets. I love the vanilla varieties and also the lavender types too. However I am not as fond of the scent of the great outdoors around where I live.

However with some clothespins and a clothesline I intend to save a lot of money and achieve that scent that every laundry detergent company has been trying to capture called the Fresh Outdoors. The key though is to hang it out on a day where there is no smog or you will not get that result that you are looking for.

Another caveat is the subdivision. It is important to make sure that you are even allowed to put up clothesline. Same if you live in an apartment building. Many find them unsightly. A clothesline may be against some local regulation or law.

Of course for your clothes to dry well you will need a good quality line. It need to pulled very tight and not sag as the saggier the line is, the less chance it has of drying the clothes in a way that helps them keep their shape.

Drying clothes on a line doesn’t cost a lot. All you need to do is hang them out. I wipe down the line itself every now and then with a damp rag to make sure that it is clean so the clothes or clothespins don’t become marked in any way. It is a guarantee to me that the clothes will not get marked up in any way.

Clothespins are also essential and they come in several different types. There are plastic ones that stay clean and undamaged. The wooden ones tend to swell up in the rain. Whether you use plastic or wood you should store them where they will keep clean and dry anyway. I use a small plastic bag that I just hang from the clothesline as well.

Another reason to line dry instead of throwing them in the dryer is it is just that much easier on the clothes. They will simply last a lot longer than if you just threw them in the dryer. Lint, after all, is actually worn away fabric that is floating around in your dryer. It is usually hardware, like zippers, scraping away against clothing that causes this.

You can also save yourself some money by not using your electric dryer. The electric dryer costs more energy then just about any other appliance in the home. By being this conscientious about energy you will be making Al Gore feel proud.