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    Jenna Magill

    Jenna Magill

  • Food Fights - is the Dinner Battle Worth It?

    Growing up I had to clean my dinner plate or I couldn't have anything else until breakfast. I remember epic sesssions of me sitting at the table an hour later with a plate of spaghetti in front of me with the noodles growing ever larger from all the parmesan cheese I sprinkled on my plate to make it palatable. For a time when I was first married, we tried this same approach to dinner with our two children. Never a big eater myself, and noticing that my children were similar, the approach never really worked for me. ...

  • Bedtime Bliss: Five Starter Steps Towards Sanity

    Do you find yourself dreading your child's bedtime and the endless struggle it has become to get them ready, in bed, and asleep before you fall over from exhaustion? I know very few parents who haven't had some sort of struggle to get at least one of their children off to bed. Here are a few of my time tested methods to making bedtime sanier for you (CALM) and more predictable for your children (CONSISTENT).#1: Make a routine and stick to itAs with all things involving children, consistency is essential. ...

  • Potty Training: Easy Steps to Success

    When I found out I was pregnant with my first child, I had a slight panic attack thinking about when I would have to start potty training. The whole idea of potty training just grossed me out and seemed like an impossible task. Now, after successfully training two children and almost finished with training my third child, I find potty training to be a piece of cake. ...

  • Who's Homework is it Anyway?

    I recently attended a meeting at one of my daugther's schools. During the meeting, I explained my philosophy on how I monitor my child's homework. Simply put, I consider my daugther's homework to be her job, not mine. Granted when my daughter was much younger I would sit with her nightly and we would plow through homework together. Then in third grade things went amiss and homework became a battleground. Fourth grade was horrendous unti mid-year when I had an epiphany. I decided to make homework her job not mine. ...

  • Courageous Parenting: Being a Leader for Your Children

    I am a single parent with three daughters, one tween, and two toddlers. My everyday parenting life is full of opportunities to guide my children to becoming the productive members of society that I hope they will grow up to become. To me being a parent means making myself obsolete, my job is to raise my children to be fully independent functional adults. I am raising them to leave home. The foundation I am setting now in parenting my children should serve to give them the inner voice and strength needed to become responsible adults.