Do kids really need Incentives for doing well in sports and school?

~The reward for a thing well done, is to have done it~ 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

     We all like to receive recognition for our hard work.  Yeah, sometimes even I need to dangle a carrot or two to motivate me.  How much is too much?  I mean, when kids grow up and head out into the work world, sometimes the only reward for hard work is a paycheck and they need that to live.  Should kids expect a reward for everything they do?  Shouldn't the success that comes on the heels of hard work be reward enough?  Reward systems are a personal decision for every family, and what works for one might not work for another.

~The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because

it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work~

Thomas A. Edison

     Incentives and rewards for kids are hugely popular today.  While I don't think giving rewards for hard work is necessarily bad, I think the reward system can take on a life of it's own if parents aren't careful.  Giving rewards can be effective but often times those ever resourceful kiddos try to up the ante by looking for bigger or more substantial rewards at time goes on.   

~Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work~

Booker T. Washington

     I struggle with the whole notion of extrinsic motivation vs intrinsic motivation.  I really want my kids to do the right thing and work hard to master something because it comes from the inside, not an external reward.  So much of hard work is failing 100 times to succeed on the 101st time.  If  kids are used to getting gratification for every good thing they do, what lessons can failure teach?  On the flip side of the coin, however, especially with younger kids, putting that sticker on a chart or promising a trip to the park for doing x,y,z, can really help to motivate those little monkeys. 

~Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goals: my strength lies solely in my tenacity~ 

Louis Pasteur

     Reward systems can be good ways to teach kids that things can be earned and worked for.   I, personally, give money earned for chores done over and above what's normally expected of them.  I don't mind taking the kids out for an ice cream cone on the way home from a sporting event whether their team wins or looses, or promising a trip to the pool if everyone works hard to get their schooling done in a  given week.  I'm not sure there is a total right answer to this one.  Luckily, especially with parenting, we have the luxury to change our minds and set new boundaries and goals for our families.  We're all changing and in a constant state of flux, so what works at age 4 isn't necessarily going to work at 8.  I think it's up to all of us to prayerfully decide what is the best way to shepherd our domestic flock.  We all have different circumstances and temperaments, and we all have children with different needs and temperaments.  Sometimes, I really think merely speaking your child's love language is the best motivator of all.

~The family, as the fundamental and essential educating community, is the privileged means for transmitting the religious and cultural values which help the person to acquire his or her own identity. Founded on love and open to the gift of life, the family contains in itself the very future of society; its most special task is to contribute effectively to a future of peace.~

John Paul II

Why nature is so healing

     So, I've had a really rough couple of days.  Out of nowhere a panic attack hit that lasted for over two days and left me questioning whether or not I was literally having a heart attack.  I started feeling a bit better this morning, but, also like it could go one of two ways.  I could stay inside where I could feel it starting to grip me again or I could get out and into some nature.  Have you ever noticed, at night, after you turn off everything, how you can still hear a hum.  It's not truly quiet, there is a base level of white noise that's always there.  I think it's the same way for our minds and our souls.  When our minds and our souls are troubled and broken, there is all this white noise that we often create ourselves.  No stillness, no silence, no peace.  Sometimes life can feel like something that happens to us instead of something which we experience.  That's part of the reason I think it's so good to get outside.  To leisurely move through the quiet spaces in the world and experience what each of us needs.

The Quiet Path

 

     Sometimes, we just need to be present in the moment.  Truly present, not distracted, not worrying, just experiencing.  God speaks and heals in the stillness, and the quiet.  He wants our souls to be at peace. 

Always on a journey

     We are always on a journey.  Sometimes our feet take us to places we'd rather not go.  Sometimes to places of joy and beauty.  No matter what storms are swirling around you, sometimes you just need to kick up your feet, close your eyes, and listen to the wind.  

Stopping to smell the flowers is essential

        There is so much joy, beauty, love, and things to appreciate all around us.  If we don't stop to realize it, we'll miss it.  Blinded by this or that, we think and truly feel we are alone, unloved, uncherished.  I think we have to challenge our thinking and ask ourselves many important questions.  Who have we kept company and showered our affection and friendship on?  Who have we shown our tenderest love to?  Who have we let known, in our lives, how much they are cherished and appreciated?  Have we let God show us his love?  Those handful of flowers, are all the goodness and love we have to give.  What flowers are we spreading to others in our lives.  Sometimes the most beautiful bouquets are received when we give all we have.

Holding hands is essential so we don't fall

     None of us were meant to be alone.  We are called to be in community with each other.  To have someones hand to hold as we navigate through life.  We just have to remember take hold of each other and allow God to work through us and through others He brings into our life.

It's all about Love

     It's all about love.  Everything.  To will and want the best for the people in our lives.  To work our hardest to get each other to heaven.  To have a servants heart.  Showing love in a glance, a smile, a gesture.  Trust me, you'll remember those moments of love.  You'll cling to them in the darkness.  You'll learn how essential love is to the human person as oxygen and breathing.

You learn to bring the fun back

 

          We can't take life too seriously or we'll miss 99.9% of it.  Seriously.  Laugh, smile, enjoy the funny.  Don't be too focused on your sufferings.  Those sufferings pass, and so do all the joy filled moments.  Don't miss the joy because of the suffering.

It's all about this

      Our hearts are carried around on the outside of our body through our loved ones.  Be they our spouse, children, friends, whomever.  Anxiety,  is that horrible storm, that's so strong, it can sweep your legs out of underneath you.  It humbles you because you realize just how fragile we all actually are.  Fragile, beautiful, "fearfully and wonderfully made" Psalm 139:14  Remember, you are more precious than you know.  

  

When baking at high altitude makes you want to cry

     I have some help for you.  With some very simple alterations you can bake as God intended, at sea level.  Generally when baking, you'll start to notice a difference in how your baked goods turn out at about 3,000 ft above sea level.  Then you'll start to notice an even greater difference around 7,000 ft in elevation, then again around 9,000-10,000 ft.  Now I've got to make a little disclaimer.  Cooking is more of an art than a science and many things can affect recipes.  You may still have to make some minor adjustments on your own because I may be using different brands, and fresher or older ingredients.  You may have to decrease by a little less or add by a little more.  Also, crazy as it sounds.  Mountain regions can also have their own little micro climates.  So, what alterations work for me, may not work for someone over the next mountain.  However, I'm going to give you some general guidelines to follow.
     At higher elevations there are a lot of different things going on than at sea level.  The air is dryer, and the higher up in elevation you go, the dryer the air will be. Moisture is going to evaporate more quickly the higher up you go.  The higher the elevation, the lower the boiling point of water. When water boils at lower temperatures, it takes longer for foods to cook in or over water.  The higher the elevation, the faster leavening gases expand.  What might these effects look like?  If you make no adjustments in recipes you'll notice your cakes, brownies, breads, those types of things will rise quickly and then fall in the middle.  Cookies turn out like really thin hockey pucks.  So what alterations do you need to do?  There are 4 basic alterations you need to do.
1. Flour
     You'll need to increase the amount of flour you use in your recipes.  When you add flour to your recipes, it helps prevent your goods from rising too much or too quickly.  Use the amount of flour called for in the recipe, then make the following adjustments:
3,000 ft add 1 tbsp flour
5,000 ft add 2 tbsp flour
7,000 ft add 3 tbsp flour
10,000 ft add 4 tbsp flour

2. Leavening (Baking Power/Baking Soda)
     You'll need to decrease the amount of leavening you use in your recipes.  When you decrease the amount of baking powder/baking soda, it helps prevent the the goods from rising too quickly.  When the expansion is too fast, the goods will fall.
3,000 ft decrease leavening 1/8 tsp per tsp
5,000 ft decrease leavening 1/4 tsp per tsp
7,000 ft decrease leavening by 1/4-1/2 tsp per tsp
10,000ft decrease leavening by 1/2 tsp per tsp
3. Sugar
     You'll need to decrease the amount of sugar you use in your recipes.  The decrease in sugar will help the structure set.
3,000 ft decrease 1 tbsp per cup
5,000 ft decrease by 2 tbsp per cup
7,000 ft decrease by 3 tbsp per cup
10, 000 ft decrease by 4 tbsp per cup

4. Liquid
     You'll need to increase the amount of liquid you use in your recipes.  This will help make up for the extra moisture loss.  I'm going to suggest adding one additional egg across the board for your recipes.  It adds liquid as well as additional protein which helps make things set faster.  If you find you need to add additional liquid, follow the guidelines below.
3,000 ft add 1 tbsp water
5,000 ft add 2 tbsp water
7,000 ft add 3 tbsp water
10,000 ft add 4 tbsp water

     I have not found I need to alter the fat(butter/oils/shortening) content even when I'm baking at 9,000 ft. You'll probably find the higher up you go the less rising time for breads you need.  Also, for yeast breads you'll want to let them rise twice, and only till double in size.  You may want to try increasing your oven temperature by 15-25 degrees and decreasing your baking time, checking for doneness early.  I have not found many recipes I actually need to do this to, even at 9,000 ft.  I hope these general alterations help you while baking.  They are based off of my own observations, tears of frustration, and dumping the really inedible stuff in the trash.  I love cooking,  if you love it as much as I do, don't let living at higher altitudes stop you.  It's totally doable.



    

Why sex matters

     Sex without consequences.  Freedom to explore and express ourselves sexually with whom we want, when we want.  Saving sex for marriage is puritanical and repressive.  Radical feminism, the sexual revolution, contraception, my body...my choice.   What do all of these have to do with each other?  Can our choice to have sex when we want, with whom we want really have any negative consequences?  Let alone affect an entire culture?
    There is a growing movement, proponents of casual sex.  These individuals believe sex does not need to exist inside a committed marital relationship.  It doesn't even need to exist past a one night stand.   As long as there are two consenting adults, who are not abusive, and agree on what to do and what not to do, what difference does it make what goes on in the bedroom?!?  They hold that the conventional view of sex must be challenged because it is unhealthy, unnatural, even damaging.  Some proponents hold that when we hold conventional moral views about sex "we close off opportunities to explore and express the originality of our individual desires....Over the course of one evening I have shared extraordinary tenderness, generosity and affection. Knowing that it would end shortly did not lessen my commitment to these values. Instead, it intensified them."  Stanley Siegel LCSW states in his article titled 'In Favor of Casual Sex'.  Seriously?!?  Not buying it, sorry.
     I do very much disagree that sex helps to make a relationship deeper and more meaningful outside of the context for which it's meant.  Yeah, I know what you're saying.  That people you know, or maybe you, have had deep, close, meaningful relationships that included sex, and they just didn't happen to work out.  You're fine with it, no damage done.  I mean you know people who've had sex and then even gotten married so what's the big deal?  Why does sex matter?  It is erroneous to think that sex doesn't matter. Call me sexually repressed if you will.  Infidelity, divorce, fatherless homes, contraception, and abortion, are all results of sex devoid of true desire for that which is right and good for the other.  I won't bore you with statistics, you can look those up on your own, but they are daunting to say the least.  
     Casual sex ultimately only is able to fulfill one's own desires and pleasure under the impression of loving one's partner.  I know I sound harsh.  I know people who have sex, most of the time, really do care about one another.  They feel in love and love feels right and feels like it should be expressed in an intimate way.  Don't get me wrong, sex feels good, it's supposed to.  That is part of God's design.  It is supposed to cause an intense feeling of closeness, physical pleasure, and feelings of love.  This is because it seals what is already supposed to be there,  a mutually life giving, self-sacrificing love, between a man and a woman who have committed for better or worse, in sickness and health, to death do they part.  There is more to life than just what feels good and "right".  Shocker, yes I know.  I'm disappointed by that too.  Simply living life based on feelings instead of bending our wills heavenward and we're left feeling empty.  St. Augustine said of our hearts,”You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  When we search for reason, love, and belonging in the fallen natures of our fellow men, we're sure to be disappointed.  The reason for this is that feelings are fickle.  They come and go, they usually only want for self.  We often let our hearts lead our decisions instead of our wills.  That is one of the lies of casual sex.  If it feels good and right, it must be good and right.  What I think is right for me is right for me.  What you think is right for you is right for you.  Subjective truth, subjective reality.  Quit getting all preachy on me, already.  Truth, despite our understanding, or willingness to believe it, is still truth.  Love without sacrifice is as meaningless as sacrifice without love.  
      When you are in a relationship, you want the deep bond and commitment that is sealed with sex.  Sex is that spectacular, holy, opening and giving of yourself totally, and unselfishly to the other person. You don't have a choice in the matter, that's what sex expresses whether you mean it to or not. You say by the very act of sex, you are mine and I am yours, and we are Gods'.  Even if sex connects a couple for one night, this is what they are expressing whether they realize it or not.  Even if it only lasts 6 months, this is what sex is expressing, whether a couple realizes it or not.  It is not just two bodies that entangle themselves, it is two souls, two psyches.  Then, as so often happens, when men and women have multiple sexual partners, that relationship ends, and a part of a person ends with it. Eventually those feelings of love and infatuation fade.  Then on to the next relationship, and sex, and more bonding with the other that leads no where. Casual sex is never just casual. 
     A person doesn't notice at first, but eventually the lack of true, committed love eats at a person and makes them bitter.  No, they don't walk around screaming bitterness and hurt.  They may not often realize what is wrong.  They might ask many questions of the men and women they've dated.  Why doesn't it ever work out?  Wondering why the sex had to be so good and they had to be such jerks, or nags, or...or....or.....They bring this baggage into their next relationship, and the baggage increases.  Eventually they may marry, but what a load of baggage they have on their back, with pieces of their heart missing to boot.  Jaded in love, just when they should be experiencing it as God truly intended it to be with their new husband or wife.  Yearning for the kind of love that God implicitly designed to be between them, but that they sadly don't truly experience because they have unwittingly closed off their heart many relationships ago. We're told sexual experience counts.  I mean, we can't be saddled to a person who we are sexually incompatible with, right?  I have to argue that mind blowing, incredible, loving, nurturing, mutually life giving sex has nothing to do with "experience".  That kind of sex comes from self sacrifice for your spouse.  Yes!  Sacrifice, not fulfilling one's own fantasies and desires leads to mind blowing sex.  Wrap your head around that one.  Pope Francis recently stated, “Perseverance in love, in good times and in difficult times, when there are problems: problems with the children, economic problems, problems here, problems there – but love perseveres, presses on, always trying to work things out, to save the family. Persevering: they get up every morning, the man and the woman, and carry the family forward.”  No, I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination.  
    You might say, yeah, this is all well and good, but....  There is always a but.....  The reality is, sex is never free, not even in marriage.  It's not supposed to be.
      How does this all play out in real life?  Charles J. Chaput who wrote in 1998, “Contraception has released males – to a historically unprecedented degree – from responsibility for their sexual aggression.”   As Mary Eberstadt notes in her book Adam and Eve After the Pill, for men, " the sexual revolution seems more like a slow-acting virus whose damage does not become apparent till much later in life. As Maggie Gallagher and Linda Waite, among other researchers, have emphasized, divorced men have higher rates of depression, alcoholism, and other forms of “risk taking.”  For women, “the fallout from the revolution appears more immediate and acute. It is women who have abortions and get depressed about them, women who are usually left to raise children alone when a man leaves for someone else, women who typically take the biggest financial hit in divorce, and women who fill the pages of such magazines as Cosmopolitan and Mirabella and chatty websites like Salon with sexual doublespeak.”  The use of contraceptives and the ideologies which spurred the sexual revolution have only complicated things more frighteningly.  Sex without the possibility of it's natural consequence. The fruit of the oneness of individuals, a baby. Look at all the broken men and women who've chosen abortion over giving life to the natural consequence of sex, because sex outside of a committed marital relationship has consequences. Just ask all those single mothers, many who've had a man promise love and partnership, only to be abandoned because sex has consequences. Sex can bind together into one flesh a married couple. Sex can bind together an unmarried couple too, but when that relationship ends, where does it leave a person? Condoms, the pill, IUD's, even the pull out method, all say to your sexual partner, you can't have my whole being, my soul, my heart, I want only pleasure from this act of sex. I will take pleasure and give nothing substantial in return.  
    I am well aware that sex even in the context of marriage has consequences.  We're all fallen people.  We all sin.  So even in marriage, we sin, sin which hurts our beloved, hurts and damages our children.  This is why a married couple must pray and stay close to Christ.  Offering up their marriage as an expression of Christ's love for us.  Just because of the possibility of disappointment and hurt within marriage through infidelity, divorce, you name it, does not negate its good and value.  All of life can feel like a battle sometimes.  However, some battles are important to fight.  Let's face it, none of us, not one of us likes to be told what we're doing might not be the bed of roses we want to think it is.  Life is often spectacular suffering intermingled with spectacular beauty and love.  God's will, is the will of a loving Father.  He wants only good things for us.  Beauty, love, truth and hope.  Which, is why we have free will.  Love is something that must be freely given.  It cannot be demanded or taken.  God let's us know what is good, and right, and true.  It's up to us whether or not we follow his will for our lives. 
"11And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?12Or if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion? 13If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?" Matthew 7:11-13  Abandoning our will to God's will is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, but we must ask for the grace.  Saint Thomas Aquinas said,"The Eucharist is the sacrament of love; it signifies love, it produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life." Well I argue that Marriage is the sacrament of love; it signifies love, and the fruit of it's love is openness to life, and children.  Sex, is the consummation of the whole spiritual life of married love.
    On a personal note, sex matters to me because of the four precious gifts God has placed in my care.  I want them to know their hearts and souls matter.  That there is a life after this one, and we were not made for the mediocrity of this world.  That they deserve love that is Godly, that is given freely, that is intense and beautiful, and that it can be found without having to compromise themselves.  When we're asked to compromise our hearts and souls, we lose who we really are bit by bit.  Until, there is nothing left of ourselves that we recognize.  The father of lies whispers many things, many doubts, many half truths into our ears.  To disturb our peace, to rip away our trust in God.  "The more our soul is peaceful and tranquil, the more God is reflected in it, the more His image expresses itself in us, the more His grace acts through us. On the other hand, if our soul is agitated and troubled, the grace of God is able to act only with much greater difficulty." Father Jacques Philippe so beautifully states.  Sex matters my friends, and for more reasons than you can possibly imagine.  Much love to you on this journey.  Navigating these waters is not for the faint of heart.  It takes courage, prayer, and the sacraments.
     Want some "light" reading recommendations?
The Vindication of Humanae Vitae 

The Weight of Smut 
Adam and Eve after the Pill by Mary Eberstadt
Love and Responsibility by Karol Wojtyla
Humanae Vitae by Pope Paul IV
Why Humane Vitae was Right by Janet Smith