1. Planning The Cruise – When you’ve narrowed your choices down by what you can afford, let your tween in on the planning phase. Gather brochures, library books about the areas you’ll be visiting and visit the online cruise sites. Many of the online sites provide video tours. The brochures and sites include information on what is available for children, tweens and teens to do on board, which is plays a big role in the choice of your cruise.
2. Buy Clothes – Choosing cruise attire will help your tween get in the mood for the activities on board, the excursions, the pool, etc.
3. Countdown The Days: As your cruise gets closer, mark off the days on your calendar or use an online countdown calendar. This increases the fun!
4. Music Downloads: Find music from the places you’ll be visiting and download it for your tween. Let them get an idea of what to look forward to.
5. Attend A Formal Dinner: Either prepare one at home or go to a formal restaurant so your tween is ready for formal nights on your upcoming cruise. It will make you all comfortable not having to remind them what fork to use, etc. Although mistakes are overlooked on cruises, it’s nice to at least know some of the basic manners.
6. Visit The Cruise Forum: Almost every cruise line has their own forum now. Join and/or visit to learn about what regular cruisers are sharing. There’s usually up to date information about the tween clubs on board.
7. Choose Excursions: Involve your tween with deciding on what excursions to take. Read about the rules and regulations carefully to see if there is an age limit.
8. Earn Money: Give your tween extra chores so s/he can earn some extra money for the cruise. There’s souvenirs, tween club sleepovers and other extras that are tempting. Provide the opportunity for them to make money so they can pay what they want.
9. Camera: Let your tween have their own camera and be responsible for it during your cruise. Find an inexpensive one at a yard sale, online or give them your hand-me-down. Let them practice taking photos before the cruise so they’re ready to shoot lots of their own when you’re on board and sight seeing.
10. Motion Sickness Items: Just in case, talk to your tween’s doctor about what is recommended for motion sickness. Buy it and bring it along.

We’re off on a Carnival Cruise within the next few weeks. This will be the third cruise for my 11 year old daughter. She’s enjoyed every one.

Do you have any questions or suggestions for tweens traveling on a cruise? Please leave a comment.

Another thing that helps my daughter remain on track with her vitamins, is to take them when I take mine at breakfast time. I take vitamins, glucosamine and prescription medications every day. We eat a healthy breakfast, talk and both take our vitamins while we’re enjoying our meal.

I’ll continue to teach her about nutrition and provide healthy foods for her, but while this stage is going on, supplements are a way to get the things she needs to continue growing and be healthy.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post.

Social Skills Readiness

In middle school, children will be meeting new students from other schools and from home school. This is a time of making new friend.  For some children, this is something they can handle easily, for others it is one of the most frightening events in their lives. Our daughter is in between. She’s not shy, but doesn’t make friends easily.

We’re preparing her by registering her for summer activities where she doesn’t know anyone. When we travel, she’ll go off to the children’s events on her own. She’s been reading books about friendship and I’ve bought one for her as a surprise to read over the summer – Fab Friends And Best Buds: Real Girls On Making Forever Friends

Getting Organized

We’ve already started helping our daughter get better organized during the end of this school year,  but will work on it more over the summer. She’s going to be responsible for getting herself ready in the morning. When we go out for the day she’s going to be in charge of bringing her belongings. When we travel, she’s going to pack for herself. We’ll be buying school supplies that she can use to help in this area too. She’ll be using her calendar and the one on her computer to remember important dates.

She’ll be rewarded for her accomplishments over the summer and of course when school begins again. She wants more time on the computer, to see movies and to have friends over the house. All fine with us.

More Focus on Academics

When we went to the middle school open house, we were given a list of  the Florida Sunshine State books, which are recommended reading for students based on their grade level. The principal stated in his speech to us that this was not required reading, but since our daughter enjoys reading, she’ll be going through the list. To keep her focused on math, one of problem subjects, we’ll be using math in our daily lives. We’ll have her choose the lowest price items when we shop, figure out the tip when we eat out, help with measuring when we cook, etc. She’ll also play math games online.

She enjoys meteorology so she’ll track the weather for our trips, keep track of the tropical storms and hurricanes and play with a new weather device she received as a gift. None of these are things that she doesn’t enjoy. We plan on making them fun and exciting for her.

Keeping Communication Open

We have worked at keeping communication open between us and our daughter, but this summer we are going to work extra hard at this. We want her to voice any concerns she has about starting middle school.

Visiting The School

There are a few opportunities to visit the middle school over the summer and we’ll take advantage of them. We need to fill out forms when she decides what sport she’s interested in. I signed up for the PTSA so I’ll go to any meetings or see if there’s any volunteer events where we can help. There’s also another open house right before school starts which we’ll attend.

Book Recommendation

We already purchased this book and highly recommend it – Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, The: Middle School (Worst Case Scenario Junior Editions).  It covers everything from what to do if you’re bullied to how to cope with pimples.

Are you more concerned about moving on to middle school than your child? What did you do to prepare your child for middle school?

Looks are important during the teen years, especially fitting in with how your friends look and what they wear. If someone makes a comment that you look different it feels like you’re going to be branded “different” forever. When choosing prescription glasses, a teen needs to find a pair that makes him or her feel fashionable so they’ll fit in. Keep in mind that they’re either going to be wearing their glasses for reading or all the time.  You want to assure they’ll wear them.

Not only is it important that your teen likes the glasses chosen, but be sure that they fit his or her face, coloring and style. Let your teen take his or her time in making a choice. If buying glasses online, there’s nothing wrong with you visiting a number of brick and mortar stores to try on glasses to see what looks good. Be patient because it’s best that your teen be comfortable with their choice. It may even be a good idea to buy 2 pairs of glasses, which you can afford to do if you’re buying from GlassesUSA.com, so they can switch pairs. They can also have an extra pair in case one is lost.

Buying eyeglasses for your teen need not be a chore if you take their thoughts and feelings into consideration.

Sponsored post by GlassesUSA.com

Maintaining communication with your child, knowing their friends and what goes on at school and with their day to day life are ways to be aware if your teen is experimenting or abusing drugs and/or alcohol. If you have any concerns about your teen, seek the advice of a professional. A teen drug rehab is better suited to deal with the issues that teenagers go through, then an adult rehab. The same goes for teen alcohol rehab. Being in rehab with their peers who can understand, relate and guide them is an important issue.

Teens and some parents may believe that using marijuana doesn’t mean a teenager need treatment, but teen marijuana rehab is necessary. Marijuana has gotten much stronger than it was in the past. Teens can suffer damage to their growing bodies and brains, including memory loss and problems with their immune system. We all need to be aware of teen addiction info in order to keep our children safe and healthy.

This is a sponsored post.

Parents want to be sure the essentials are in order, food, electricity, water, shelter, but in doing so families may end up missing bill payments. There goes your credit rating. That will stay with you even when things get back to normal. Buying a car can be next to impossible because of that, but there are ways to get financed. Don’t give up. Look for places that help with bad credit car finance. Just be sure to check them out so that you are not paying high fees.

This is a sponsored post. Please see my Disclosure Policy for more information.

She was fine, just clumsy. When Samantha came along, it was the same thing. She would fall and get hurt more often than other children. With her, she didn’t end up injured that badly that we would be at the doctors or hospital, but we did consider buying stock in band aids.

Now if we were greedy people, my husband and I could attempt to get some money from a Personal Injury Claim when one of our daughters got hurt in a public place. Knowing the history of our children we wouldn’t put the blame on anyone else for their injuries.

One thing that we’ve learned is that we purchase shoes and sneakers that are safe to try to prevent more injuries for Samantha. Alicia is doing much better now that she is older. I am too, but I do have my moments.

This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own.

This is what I’ve told my daughter about Haiti:

Good Things Happen – but so do terrible things. Although we are focused on a sad situation, there will be positive events even in Haiti. When I learn about someone being found alive in the rubble, I share it with her. When I see people praying and singing we watch it on TV together.

We Can Help – by praying and sending good thoughts to Haiti. We also have made a donation to the Red Cross. My daughter wants to donate some money too so we are looking into non-profits that she feels a connection with.

We Are Safe – We are not in an earthquake zone, but we live in an area with hurricanes. We’ve had to face some scary times but we do all we can to stay safe. If she needs to talk about it, I go over our storm preparations with her.

It’s OK To Feel – sad, angry, scared. The good thing is that we can always talk about our feelings. We share them and can cry together. No one makes fun of feelings or belittles them in our family. We may cuddle together and have a cry and that’s normal.

We Are One People – We are learning so much about the common family of humanity. We feel closer to people in other countries because of this tragedy. She is learning about “there but for the grace of God go I” situation. There is much more to talk about concerning this and it will probably be a discussion that lasts years.

We Can Help Later – and more often. Since my daughter has learned about the poverty in Haiti, she is more aware of how much more we can do to help financially. We are considering donating money  on a monthly basis to people living in poverty.

What are you telling your kids about Haiti?

I decided to stay awake because there’s just too much trouble that 3 tween girls can get into unsupervised. I’m glad that I did. I can’t tell you how many times I had to get up to tell them to be quiet because my husband had to sleep. He had work on Saturday. I had to tell them to stop eating at one point too because I was afraid they would get sick. That’s a first for me!

I was so tired at one point that I considered shining floodlights on them thinking maybe that would keep them quiet, or at least remind them to be quiet when they started yelling. When it was time for my husband to get up for work, I just had to go to bed. One of the girls was being picked up at 7 AM so I figured one hour of sleep would be fine.

The next thing I knew I heard knocking at the door. It was as if emergency lighting was shining in my eyes. Did the girls hear? Of course not! I explained to the mother that I had just fallen asleep and that her daughter was ready. Was she? No! After that fiasco, my daughter and her friend were told to go to bed. The party was over.

Here are some Christmas School Break Activities for Tweens:

• Movies – You probably thought of this one already, but going to the movies with your tween is a great way to break the ice and get her talking. You have the subject of the film that you just saw to get the ball rolling, so take save some time after for chatting.
• Play Dates – Get to know his friends and his friends parents too.
• Visit A Museum – There are so many different types of museums. Find something your tween enjoys and see if there’s a museum that has a section on that subject. Trains, weather, comic books? You’re likely to find a museum that has a display or something pertaining to that subject.
• The Library – It’s not just for books any more. But, even looking for books together can be fun. Check out the DVD and CD collection. See if they have any special displays or events going on. Research something your tween has always asked you about, but you haven’t had the time to learn about.
• Play Games – Get out the board games, some snacks and turn off the TV. You’ll be surprised how much fun you can have together.
• Visit Family – Is there family that lives a short distance away? Why not drive over and spend a couple of days there?
• Go To A Concert – It may hurt your ears, or make you want to hide under your seat, but didn’t your parents feel the same way about “your” music? Be the cool parent who lets their kids see the Jonas Brothers and sat two rows behind them.

What are some other tween Christmas Break Activities you take part in?