It's March: Where Are Your New Year's Resolutions?

We know that our own new year's resolutions could use a good kick-in-the-seat about now, so we're re-posting our list of resolutions below. How are yours coming along?

Tween New Year's Resolutions

• Role-Model Healthy Living
• Cook as a Family
• "Unplug" More - Use Facebook and Text in Moderation
• Make Family Dinners Fun
• Get Up For School on Time
• Write Thank You Notes
• Pack the Right Gear
• Connect With Mom - Try a Mother-Daughter Journal

What others would you add to this list?

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MsTwixt's List of 2011 Tween's New Year's Resolutions

Here's the complete list from our series of New Year's Resolutions for Tweens in 2011. Did you try any of these? Please add your suggestions and comments below.

• Get up for school on time
• Write thank you notes
• Pack the right gear
• Connect with mom - try a Mother-Daughter journal
• Make family dinners fun
• Unplug more - use Facebook and text in moderation
• Cook as a family
• Role model healthy living for our daughters

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Tween's New Year Resolution: Cook As a Family

Truthfully, this resolution is more for me, the mom, than the tweens. They would all gladly cook more. It's me, the control-freak, who has a fit every time the milk spills, flour gets on the floor, eggshell bits fall in the bowl, etc.

Well, I need to get over myself, so this year I resolve to ease up on the tweens in the kitchen and let them help cook. There are articles galore about the link between cooking and making better food choices, so there's incentive enough.

Our list of fave blogs to help us get dinner on the table:

• The Family Dinner - you may remember their Treasure Bowl idea we blogged about earlier
• Dash and Bella - an irreverent blog about the trials and tribulations of raising young foodies
• Dinner A Love Story - AMAZING blog from a real working mom and how she gets dinner on the table every night
• No Take Out- a dinner recipe emailed to you every morning with directions and a shopping list to feed a family in 30 minutes - genius!

Does cooking with tweens make you want to pull your hair out? Or are you more Zen than me? Please share your tips!

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Tween New Year's Resolution: Make Family Dinners Fun

We try to eat dinner as a family most nights, but we admit that with the tweens' activity schedules, this gets tougher to do every year. As a family, we need to work hard at maintaining the family dinner ritual, so this year, we're going to make the Bowl of Treasures, a regular thing.

You may remember this idea from this blog last year - it's from Laurie David's book, "The Family Dinner". The idea is set out a large bowl at the beginning of the week and let your kids fill it up with tiny treasures they find. At the end of the week, you set the bowl in the center of the dinner table and take turns hearing about each treasure. For reticent tweens and teens whose daily response to "How was your day?" is "Fine", this tactic worked like a charm.

One of my favorite parts of this new ritual is sharing it when our family dinner table is wider than usual - when friends, neighbors, and guests visit. Everyone has gotten a kick out of it. What tips have helped you keep family dinners on track?

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A Fabulous Way to Engage Tweens During Dinner

I just stumbled upon a new book by Laurie David (over-achieving mom and producer of "An Inconvenient Truth" - yes, THAT "Inconvenient Truth" - the Academy Award winner) called "The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect With Your Kids One Meal at a Time". I haven't yet read the book (hey, I just learned about it this evening), but I have devoured her blog.

An amazing idea from her blog is called "The Special Bowl of Treasures". The idea is to set out a large bowl at the beginning of the week and let your kids fill it up with tiny treasures they find. At the end of the week, you set the bowl in the center of the dinner table and take turns hearing about each treasure. For reticent tweens and teens whose daily response to "how was your day?" is "fine", this tactic seems very cool. We're going to test drive it next week - I'll report back on how it goes.

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First Tweens' Back to School Rules

First Tweens Malia and Sasha Obama have some pretty strict rules to follow since going back to school at Sidwell Friends this week. The First Lady spoke about her self-discipline and school night rules in the October 2009 issue of Women's Health magazine.

No staying up late to watch Glee - the Obama girls are not allowed to watch television or use the computer during the week. Those privileges are reserved for the weekend only. (And after watching tonight's episode of Glee and finding it wholly inappropriate for tweens, I may adopt Mrs. Obama's rule too.)

Family dinners are sacred - even the President makes this a priority. “Dad’s office is just downstairs, and it’s rare that we don’t have dinner together. No matter what’s going on, he sets aside that time,” the First Lady said.

The First Family also says grace together at dinner, and each person shares what happened in his or her day. I love this idea! In our house, we have a similar rule: each person must share at least one good thing and one bad thing (if there was one) about their day.

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Awesome Site for Help During the Witching Hour - Dinnertime

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