1. Be nice to each other.

2. Learn as much as you can. Read books more often than you watch movies. Expand your vocabulary. If you realize you don’t know the answer to something, go figure it out.

3. Be nice to others.

4. Be focused. Learn your strengths.

4 things to teach your daughters about men

5. Love hard.

6. Be good people.

7. Accept when you’ve given something your best and it doesn’t work out. That’s just a life lesson, not a failure.

8. Situations usually work out best for people who choose to make the best out of situations they’re in. Always remember that.

9. It never hurts to look at an argument from the other person’s shoes. Even if you’re convinced you’re right. Especially if you’re convinced you’re right.

What lessons do you want your kids to learn?
10. ?

Solange gets candid on c0-parenting with ex

A little while back I was fortunate to be asked to participate in a webinar for black moms. Our topic was about the plight of our brown babies and what we can do as parents to prepare them for the best life possible.

One of the other panelists, Kimberly Seals Allers (a single mom herself) responded to a question about single moms. She recently wrote a post on it and invited me to get my readers to weigh in. She writes:

“Recently, I had an epiphany.

It was actually more like a frightening realization, to be honest.

And it came to me on the television set of a BET taping, of all places. During the taping, I was sitting next to a young black male who was just singing his mama’s praises. He spoke lovingly of how she raised him as a single parent, giving tough love and setting high expectations. Then, he began to talk about how when his father left, his mother “didn’t miss a beat” and just got on with their lives. This struck me. I interrupted him gently, to remind him that that is just what he saw or what she allowed him to see, and that he didn’t know what happened to his mother when he went to sleep or when his mother was alone-she may have cried for hours.

The problem with what this young man saw, is that he was left with the impression that his father left his family and there were no consequences. No repercussions. This is dangerous thinking for our young men. And in my opinion, dangerous behavior on our part as Black women. My fear is that our Strong Black Woman Syndrome is unintentionally breaking down our families and creating a dangerous legacy.”

I found her theory refreshing and I spent the next few months thinking about it. Examples of the “Strong Black Woman Syndrome” were all around me. Friends told me that it was no big deal when their child’s father left, because they were expecting him to leave all along, that they’ve spent their whole lives planning on being single mothers. That stunned me.

4 things to teach your daughter’s about men

Do single moms create a new generation of single moms – their strength backfiring, leaving the current generation of fatherless youth to believe that a man’s presence isn’t really necessary, since Mom does such a good job holding it down on her own?

But isn’t it a Catch-22? Don’t single moms, like all parents, want their kids to feel safe and secure knowing that they will be OK no matter what? Why make it apparent that their life is made even more complicated by Daddy’s absence? One thing I think single moms do amazingly well is their ability to shine no matter the circumstances. They do it all – because they know they have to. They let the love for their kids push them forward, doing just as much as, or sometimes more than, the moms with partners and other sources of support. They rock. Is this now one more thing they have to worry about as they try to do it all on their own?

Let me hear your thoughts on this theory: Do single moms help create more single moms by creating the “allusion” that Daddy ain’t necessary? What, in your opinion, contributes to the rise in female-headed households with no man in sight?

How to remain connected in your marriage

Take a look at the hottest celeb pics on the net!

Have you ever met someone who is constantly surrounded by drama? You know, the one that has random people at the door ready to fight, an evil boss, backstabbing friends, bad kids, the man that’s doing them dirty, the dog that ate their dress shoes. I’m sure you know this person. Maybe you are this person.

I used to think that dealing with drama was like catching a cold in the winter. People who were always surrounded by drama were just victims of unfortunate circumstance. Then I realized that while problems are something that everyone has to deal with in life, having those problems consistently spiral into an out-of-control, dramatic situation, usually has more to do with a person’s own drama queen qualities than the situation itself.

5 signs of a friendship gone bad

I’m always one for performing a good self check every now and again so I’ve decided to come up with a few quick ways to know whether the drama that has taken over your life could be because you, in fact, are a drama queen (or king).

You might be the problem if:

Every sordid detail of your life is posted on facebook, myspace, or twitter: Just because your spouse drank all of the orange juice doesn’t mean it’s time to change your relationship status from married to “in a relationship and it’s complicated.” If you have to tell all of your real-life friends, your facebook friends, and a few people you don’t know every time something goes wrong in your life, you may have a flair for the dramatic.

You are always involved in confrontations for “no reason”: Do you ever notice that people that are surrounded by act as though they themselves are never the source of it. They are quick to tell everyone about the woman that is calling them up to harass them and equally as quick to leave out the time they slept with that woman’s husband. In my opinion, fights should never be an every day occurrence. If they are you may want to evaluate your own drama-queen/king-like qualities.

Everyone else is crazy: Does everyone else have some type of issue that makes them impossible to get along with? Do you find yourself complaining about “people” all the time. Is everyone you encounter dumb or crazy. If this is you, you may need to remember that old saying about pointing the finger and how many fingers are pointing back at you.

If you still feel like you need some drama in your life to keep things interesting just remember this: The Young and the Restless airs every weekday at 12:30pm EST. If you’re not home at that time, record it and watch it later. I know I do.

Is it time to end the friendship?

Take a look at the hottest celeb pics on the net!

In the months leading up to our wedding, my husband and I received a lot of advice about marriage from married folks. The advice that they gave varied a little, but there was one thing that I heard over and over: marriage takes work. While knowing that there was work involved was helpful, only hearing about the work sometimes felt a little disheartening. I started to wonder, after all of that work, was there anything fun about marriage?

I know that I have only been married for two years, but I’m still waiting on the constant drudgery that I heard so much about prior to our nuptials. When I think about the other things that I have to do on a daily basis, marriage, quite honestly, is probably the easiest. No, marriage is not all roses and romance all the time, but so far it’s easy a whole lot more than it is hard. It does take work, there’s no doubt about that, but most of the time even the work doesn’t feel so bad especially in comparison to the work involved in doing things like cleaning the house or getting the kids to bed or actually going to work every day.

Obamas speak on what almost ruined their marriage

In order to keep our marriages happy, it is important to be aware of the potential issues, but it’s also important to focus on the positive. In honor of this I decided to make a list of the top five reasons why I love being married:

1. I always have a date: Being married I never have to worry about being bored and alone on a Saturday night. Even if it’s just ordering subs and watching a movie, I always have something to do and somebody to do it with.

2. I can eat good food without cooking it: I am fortunate to have a husband who loves to cook and is good at it. After a long day, nothing feels better than being able to eat a home cooked meal without putting in any effort. Don’t have a cook for a spouse? Maybe your spouse is the best mechanic, or housekeeper, or poopy-diaper changer. The point is that having another “half” means that you can get everything done while only doing half of the work.

3. I always have a shoulder to cry on: And a hand to hold, and arms to hug me when I need it, and someone taller than me that can get something down off of a shelf that’s out of reach. Being married means that I always have someone there for me, even if it’s just to tell me that everything is going to be alright when there’s nothing else to say.

How to remain connected in your marriage

4. Sex is Better: Yes, I know this is contrary to everything that you’ve ever heard. Being married is supposed to take away all of the mystery, leaving your sex life, well, dull. But..(clearing my throat so that I can talk about this openly) those mysteries like “Is he going to call me?” “Will he respect me in the morning?” “Is this going anywhere?” “Does he have a disease?” or “Is he just plain old crazy?” don’t really exist in a marriage leaving room to let go of your inhibitions. Being a wife means that you can do or say whatever you want in the bedroom, and not worry about whether he’s going to tell his boys.

And Finally,

5. Every night I get to have a sleep over with my very best friend: And really, what could be more fun than that.

Check out our favorite couple below:

School is underway and the kids are settling into their daily routines. By the second week of school, our second grader was getting notes in her daily agenda book.
Day 1 it was simply: “Talking”. So I reminded her that talking was disruptive and asked her not to do it again.

Day 2 it was: “Talkative.” So I said 2 notes in one week!! If you bring home another note, you will lose your outside time after school tomorrow. We had a long talk and she explained to me that she could not help it. The “other people” at her table were talking to her and she just had to respond.

Day 3, Wednesday, it was: ” Too Much Talking.” By this time I was angry, you can’t go outside today or watch TV and if you bring home another note you will lose your outside privileges on the weekend.

Day 4, Thursday, was back to school night. I waited patiently for the teacher to give the parents her presentation. Following the presentation, I approached the teacher and introduced myself. I told her I was concerned about the notes that were being sent home and asked for suggestions on how to address the talking issue. She said that we should look for positive ways to deal with her talking. I liked this approach because I really didn’t like punishing her but I also did not want her talking to continue. For the most part she is a very good kid – she is well behaved, she is very smart, she does her work, and she gets good grades. However, she is talkative too – a social butterfly that gets her work done in a hurry and then wants to talk to others (preventing them from getting their work done.) I did not like punishing her..but I wanted the talking to stop.

Are you really there for your kids

This weekend we started seeing commercials for the movie Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs. And of course our seven year old said Mommy I want to see that. So I told her if you don’t get any notes in your agenda this week, then I we will go to that movie next weekend. So on Monday morning I reminded her of our agreement before she ran to the bus stop. She came home Monday afternoon with a great big smile. I was on a conference call when she came into the house and she did not care. She whipped out that agenda so that I could see that she did not have any notes. She was soo happy and proud of herself!!! And it was the same story each day of this week. So guess we are going to the movies on Friday!!

I really liked this approach better than punishing her. And it seemed to be more effective -at least for her it did. I have a teenager and to be honest this incentive approach did not always work on him.

BMWK – I don’t think that all of her incentives will involve activities that require me to spend money. What do you think about this approach? Do you think it is like bribing the kids? Has this approach worked with your own kids?

4 ways to become a productive parent

[suhhttp://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngb-mit] Use submit in a SentenceSee web results for submitSee images of submit-verb (used with object)

1.

to give over or yield to the power or authority of another (often used reflexively).

Since my husband and I moved into our new home in August we have locked horns about the neutral wall color to use throughout the house. I, after spending way more time than one person should watching HGTV and reading home design magazines, feel that I have come up with the perfect blend of alternating French Vanilla and Dominican Satin. My husband, who will actually be the one doing the painting, wants to use one color throughout, claiming that alternating the colors will cost him more time and effort in having to change brushes, and that the alternating colors will make the house look like a crayon box.

As innocuous as it seems, the decision has been the source of more than one heated debate over the last few weeks. No matter how eloquent the argument for one option or the other, neither one of us is budging. So now we have two options: 1) continue to argue forever with the rooms painted their current shade of faded eggshell or 2) one of us will have to submit to the other.

Could Mr. Right Be Write?

This is not the first, and I’m certain it will not be the last time that my husband and I don’t see eye-to-eye on something for which there is seemingly no compromise. Two slightly different shades of neutral don’t seem to be enough to cause trouble at home, but how often do problems begin between a couple with small issues where neither partner is willing to back down. We see it all the time when celebrity couples divorce citing “irreconcilable differences”. Whatever the issue was, there was no compromise, and no one was willing to give in.

These days, submission to another person is often equated with weakness. Strong, Black men don’t want to look “whipped” for giving in; strong, Black women have been told over and over again not to bow down to anyone. While there are times when you truly need to stand your ground, the truth is that there are moments in a marriage when it is necessary to put your spouse’s needs ahead of your own, if only to keep the peace. In a healthy relationship, most issues will reach a compromise, and one person won’t constantly be submitting to the other.

I am the first one to admit that to “submit” can be a difficult concept to grasp. The dictionary offers several synonyms to the word that can sometimes make it feel a little easier, like comply, agree, and yield.

But it only offers one alternative:

Antonyms:
1. fight.

Is it okay to snoop on your partner?

Take a look at the hottest celeb pics on the net:

My co-worker and I were talking about how we wanted our husbands to help us around the house – and with the kids – more.

She told how her husband surprised her by making dinner, cleaning up the kitchen and then taking out the trash.

“I totally went overboard with the praise,” she said. “I was literally clapping my hands and praising him like I do with our son when he pees in the toilet. I was all, ‘Good job! I’m so proud of you!’”

We laughed about how hard we praise our husbands in an effort to get him to do more of what we want – but maybe I realized she was on to something.  No man wants to be treated like a child, but what if we showed the same enthusiasm to our spouse that we show to our kids whenever they do something they think is noteworthy?

Is it okay to snoop on your partner?

7 reasons he’s afraid to commit

There are times when a marital relationship tends to plateau and-dare I say-get a little BORING. At the other end of the spectrum, there are also times when transitions are taking place, and the relationship can get downright scary, whether it’s a “midlife crisis” or a new career.

The importance of remaining focused on your vision as an individual, couple and family is so important during these times. It’s also esssential to note that individual growth does not have to equate to growth apart.

Do you keep secrets from your spouse?

Some changes are taking place within my family that are causing our relationship with one another to ebb and flow from one extreme (boredom) to the other (scary transitions). Here are a few ways that we remain connected as we go higher and further together than we’ve ever been:

* We understand that seasons come and go. When the good times are rolling, we enjoy them to the max. When things are tense, boring or down to business, we understand that the tough times won’t last always.
* We refuse to be afraid of success; therefore we ball till we fall on new projects. My career path is getting ready to drastically change, and Patrick is about to go back to school. Neither of us knows what it means to quit, so we’re going HARD until we fulfill our goals, no matter how long it takes.
* We maintain an attitude of gratitude. My dear, sweet husband washed, dried, folded and put away the laundry last week! Man, I can’t tell you what a monumental moment that was! I thanked him over and over again for that!
* On that note, we turn the seemingly mundane into monumental moments. It took some planning, but after the laundry miracle, I made an intimate meal for us and ensured dessert was poetry in motion. LOL
* We keep the honey in the moon always. You’d be amazed how one good roll in the hay can obliterate tension.
* We play back in our minds what made us fall in love with one another, and we ensure we tap into that need within one another. Patrick tells me that I made him feel like a giant, and that nothing was impossible for him, so when crises arise, I try to blow his head up like our tough times are nothing compared to the awesome power and wisdom that dwells within him. It’s not spurious…it’s the honest truth.

All in all, it takes work to make a marriage work. How do you maintain your connection so your relationship will go higher and further than ever before?

3 ways not to let money stress your marriage

Have you ever met someone that was only in your life for a moment, but in that brief moment they were able to say or do something to positively impact your life. I had such an opportunity recently at a conference. There was one woman that I sat next to throughout most of the conference. During lunch,dinner and breakout times,we had the opportunity to talk about our husbands and kids. In one of our conversations she said: “I am making a concerted effort to be present in my relationships, especially when it comes to my kids. When they are talking to me, I have to stop and make sure that I see the whites of their eyes. No more texting or working or watching TV during the times that I am supposed to be spending with my kids.” That sent a chill up my spine because it hit home.

I only have a few hours a day to spend with my kids. I spend 2.5 to 3 hours with them in the mornings and then they go to daycare. After work, there are no more than 4 to 5 hours to spend with them before bedtime. So why would I spend any of that time working, or searching the web, or looking at Facebook, or talking on the phone, or watching TV. It beats me.

But I have to admit that I went through a period where I was not giving my kids my un-divided attention in the evenings. I was working or taking conference calls or just plain busy doing other things. I was physically there…but I was far from present. The kids would walk up to me and say mommy can I do this…and I would answer…And sometimes I did not even know what I was agreeing to. This had to stop.

My husband and I talked about my work situation and we prayed about it. We both agreed that I would tell my manager that I had to move off of my current assignment. I could no longer work on a project that required me to work in the evenings (my team was in Australia…totally different time zone with no overlapping business hours.)

This was risky, because in this current job market there was a good possibility that there was no other assignment for me to move to within my company. As always, God made a way and my manager found another project for me almost immediately. Now, when I shut off that computer at the end of the work day, it is off. And if I really must do some more work or if I want to search the web or mess around on Facebook, it has to be after the kids go to bed.

But work isn’t the only thing that can prevent us from being present for our kids. People are watching television, talking on the phone,or just claiming to be tired ” I worked all day now leave me alone.” And I can relate to being tired after work. When I get off of work, I would love to be able to grab something to eat, sit on the couch, and watch the nightly news and Access Hollywood. But that’s not possible. I have four children that need my undivided attention and my energy for a few more hours.

As Rev Run says in his book Take Back your Family, you have to : “Be A Beast For Your Family.” He received this inspiration to be a beast from Will Smith’s example : After a long day of shooting, Will Smith returned to his trailer only to find a group of kids waiting outside. Although his body was aching and he was tired from working all day, and it was dark and raining, Will found the strength to go back outside of his trailer to see his fans. He found the strength by telling himself that “I’m a beast.”

Ran across an article that talks about how Facebook can incite jealousy in a relationship. The highly addictive social network can be a great tool for communication, networking and all other types of positive activities but when it starts to cause a problem in your relationship then you may need to pump your brakes. Researchers recently did a study on college students and this is what they came up with:

Here’s how Amy Muise of the University of Guelph in Ontario and her colleagues think the ugly green-eyed monster rears its head:

Student spends time on Facebook. He or she monitors the profile page of a significant other, finding ambiguous information about their partner that they otherwise may not have access to. This new information stirs up jealous feelings in said student, who then scours for more Facebook information that further fuels the fire.

This escalating cycle can become addictive, according to the new research published in the August issue of the journal CyberPsychology & Behavior.

The article goes on to talk about how the jealousy triggers are the same as before but now access to this information is just more readily available and out in the open for your significant other to see.

BMWK family we’re just asking that you don’t end up like the video below…