July: Great Single Mom Meeting!

What a great meeting!

Lynette Dewberry spends her days as a professional in the financial industry. But on last Thursday evening, she was an advocate for financial readiness in the lives of Kansas City single moms. Lynette generously took time from her busy schedule to share valuable insights to help single moms conquer money barriers in their lives.

Lynette Tip: Careful of Emotional Spending

Emotional spending is part of most everyone’s life. Emotions play a significant role in our interactions, relationships and parenting styles. In their proper context, emotions contribute to the excitement and spontaneity of life. In extremes, the same emotions can contribute to mayhem and chaos, especially in our finances. Lynette encouraged single moms to think critically about emotional purchases to avoid creating problems later.

Lynette Tip: Give and You’ll Get

The law of attraction is an often overlooked principle of life. Lynette reminded us that the more we give, the more we receive. She also modeled this spiritual truth by giving amazing gifts to moms at the meeting. A beautiful jewelry set and a few sets of movie tickets were among the give-a-way items at the Sisters Helping Sisters Single Mom Empowerment Group.

Thank you, Lynette, for providing practical, useful tips and advice at the Plaza Library. Because of you, we are all better able to track spending trends, develop savings strategies and plan for future financial security.

We appreciate you for donating your personal time and resources. We will see you again soon!

Visit Lynette's website

"10 Money Tips from Mom"
"Tips from Healthy, Wealthy Moms"

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Ideas for Time With Your Teens

Spending time away - from home - with your teenager promotes strong relationships and open communication. Research-based sources validate the significance of your involvement in your teen’s day to day life. You can easily utilize “together” moments as opportunities to convey your values and expectations about sex, drugs and other risky behaviors. As you spend time with your kids, you can actually position yourself as the “safe” person for advice and ongoing support.

Kansas City offers countless opportunities for low-cost fun with your young person. Take advantage of the City’s resources to create “mindless” and almost effortless time to just enjoy one another. Many parents mistakenly wait until their teen is in crisis to develop close interpersonal relationships. It’s often too late at that point. Instead, spend small, but frequent, increments of time with your teen on a regular basis. They may act as though they don’t like it, but they will thank you for the memories later in life.

Here are some cost-free ideas to “hang out” with your teenager:

• Visit the lush, multi-colored Kauffman Memorial Gardens off of Rockhill for a peaceful mini-retreat.
• Take snacks to Shawnee Mission Park and gaze at the rippling water from the gazebo.
• Leisurely take in the greenery at Loose Park.
• Introduce your kids to the excitement of City Market on a Saturday morning – loads of fun and plenty of conversation starters!
• Read the same book or magazine article and walk the Country Club Plaza while discussing it.

As you can see, spending time with your teen doesn’t have to break the bank. Nor will it take hours and hours of time. In reality, frequency is more importance than duration. Recurrent chunks of bonding time demonstrate your commitment to your teen’s interest and them as a person. The end result will be a strong, trusting relationship that propels your teenager toward self-confidence and a sense of belonging. In fact, my teen gripes when I suggest we hang out. But just the other day he said he enjoys our time together. Go figure.

Any other ideas of how we can enjoy our teens?

Useful Links:

Things to do with your teen

Kauffman Memorial Garden

For more links visit Teri Kansas City Examiner articles here.