February 1-7 // Family Olympics, No-Spend Challenge, Global Perspective, and More!
New month, new theme, new ideas!
Hello! It’s a new month, new theme for personal growth, new challenge, and lots of cool new activities. Here’s an overview of what you’ll find in this week’s newsletter!
February's Theme: Becoming Generous and Resourceful
Activities: Family Olympics
Parenting Pep Talk: Global Perspective
Thoughtfulness: Encourage a Strong Person
Challenge: 25 Days of No-Spend
Book Clubs: Thirst and A Long Walk to Water
Picture Books: Nya’s Long Walk, Groundhog Day, Kermit the Hermit
Activity: At-Home Family Olympics!
Since the Winter Olympics begin on Friday (February 4), it’s the perfect time to have your own indoor Olympics with your family. We made a PDF with some printables for you to print out (scorecards, Olympics sign, etc.) that you can download below ⬇️
You can also save this ⬇️ to your phone and refer to it as you emcee the event.
Opening Ceremony
Play the triumphant Olympic Fanfare loudly as you welcome everyone to this year’s Family Olympics. You can enlist your kids to create a theatrical routine to begin the Olympics. If you have a poster board and watercolors, you can quickly make a large “Family Olympics” poster for the kids to run around with…or just print out the sign we included in the PDF!
Torch Relay
This is probably the most exciting activity in this year’s indoor Olympics. You can make a torch by simply stuffing red/orange/yellow tissue paper into a paper towel roll. (Keeping some paper towels on it makes it white 😉)
Line the kids up at a start/finish line—we used the front door—then explain each leg of the race and assign tasks to each kid. This is not a competitive race; the whole family can follow the person holding the torch and cheer them on until they pass it off to the next person. Heads up: you’ll probably end up doing this race multiple times so everyone gets a chance to jump on the couch. And they’ll probably want to do it when friends are over, too. It’s not the worst 😊
Check our Instagram later this week to see a reel of our family doing this race. A relay like this is a great chance to break the normal house rules (such as jumping across the couch) and threw in some cleaning tasks, too 😉 You can save the below image to your phone and modify it for what works in your own home!
Speed Skating
If you have wax paper, wrap it around your kids’ feet and secure them with scraps from fabric or plastic bags. Wax paper makes kids’ feet very slippery, so make sure there’s nothing around that could really hurt them if they fell. If your kids are older and capable, invite them to do six laps in a circle and see who finishes first.
Curling
Fans of the sport might be angered by this super-simplified adaptation to the game, but at-home curling is fun, especially for competitive grownups. All you need to do is use tape to mark out a goal on your dining table, then slide Oreo’s into it. (If you make the snowballs in yesterday’s meal plan, remember to set aside 10+ Oreo’s. They break easily.)
For younger competitors, you might want to situate them closer to the goal. (We let our 3-year-old sit in the middle of the table to play.) The outer ring is called the “house” and the inner ring is called the “button.” We let each player use 7 Oreo’s all in one turn and we scored at the end; Oreo’s in the house scored 1 point each; Oreo’s in the button scored 2.
Figure Skating
Choose a rug to function as your rink, invite your kids to wear flowy clothes, play a song like “Crystallize” by Lindsey Stirling, and let your kids do the fanciest tricks and smoothest movements they can. Applaud loudly and encourage teamwork; this is a super-cute opportunity for older siblings (or parents) to do lifts with the littlest ones; see the photo below of our kids’ routine.
Included in the PDF of printables at the top of this email are score cards of 9, 10, and a “???” (That last one is for if your kids are just being silly and you’re not sure what they’re trying to do 🙃) Make copies for multiple judges, and have each judge hold up the score for the routine! You can also grab spray roses from Trader Joe’s (approximately $6 for a huge bundle) and throw them at your kids after their performance.
Medals
This week’s meal inspiration includes some recipes with yogurt; make sure you save the foil lids so you can make some medals for your kids! (Thank you Pam Beesly for this idea.) We cut up rags for the ribbon and tied them a hole in the lid. Then in Sharpie, we wrote things such as “Outstanding Leadership,” “Most Determined,” etc.
This is a great opportunity to talk to your kids about where they find their worth. Do they compare themselves to others? Do they feel usless because of their talented peers?
Use these Family Olympics to affirm your kids in the stuff that matters. What attributes are they growing in right now that will be really important to have later in life?
Parenting Pep Talk: Global Perspective
It’s a very strange feeling to hear of horrible suffering around the world from the comfort of our couches. Watching the Olympic Parade of Nations and thinking about what life is like in many of those countries with oppressive governments is mind-boggling. Why do we have food and safety when so many people have been born into severe hardship and oppression? Plenty of people in impoverished, enslaved countries are more kind, smart, and hardworking than many of us here. So why do we get to have fun and chase our dreams when they are stuck in squalor?
I don’t have answers for that. I think it’s good to sit and be sad about it sometimes, though. And I think it’s good to continue exposing ourselves to the lives and stories of people whose lives look very different from our own, to learn endurance and optimism from their examples and to consider if there’s any way we can help bridge the gap of inequality.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said as he received the Nobel Prize: “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up.”
What an invitation! It’s crazy to think about all the people in the world who could’ve found cures for cancer or created an innovative new way to clean up our oceans or made a really, really good movie…but they never had the opportunity because their basic needs were not met. We can’t wrap our minds around the missed potential.
However, it’s difficult to figure out exactly what to do to help the problems of the world. When Helping Hurts by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett gives an eye-opening realization that many of our well-intentioned efforts to meet needs overseas have only been crippling. But that doesn’t mean there are no efforts that are worth our time and money. (See this video by Mark Rober about why we should try to help developing nations.)
Lack of clean water, for example, is a global crisis that’s very fixable. Imagine spending your whole life hauling heavy jugs instead of going to school and watching friends and siblings die due to preventable, water-borne diseases…then imagine, in a single day, having clean water in your very own village. When we use our resources to help fight the global water crisis, we give the gift not only of health but of time.
As a Christian, verses like Psalm 9:18 are a great comfort to me: “But God will never forget the needy; the hope of the afflicted will never perish.”
Is it possible that we can be the means by which God remembers the needy? This month, may we all learn to “do without” some things so that we can have more resources to spend for others. Watch how shifting our mindset about money might change our kids, too.
Monthly Challenge: No-Spend February
The challenge this month is to decide some rules for yourself as it pertains to your spending, such as:
No spending on “wants” (ice cream, Amazon, movies, etc.)
Local spending only
No spending on [insert addictive habit that you’re trying to quit]
The most important—and exciting—part is figuring out how you can use that money instead. Paying off debt? An anonymous gift to a single mom? Setting it aside for the next time you meet a friend who has an unexpected need? Providing clean water for someone with a reputable organization such as Charity: Water?
You don’t have to figure it out right away, but just keep it in mind as your “why” as you try to follow your chosen rules for 25 days this month. Cross off each successful “no-spend” day using this chart! You can download it below ⬇️
Act of Thoughtfulness: Encourage a Strong Person
Who is someone you know who is very strong and heroic but who might not receive much attention for it? Their muscles might not be impressive and everyone in their country might not know their name, but their character in hard times has proven to be of Olympic caliber. Shoot them a text or write them a letter and say something like, “When I watch the Olympics and think about people with massive strength and endurance, I think about you.”
Book Clubs
This month’s books are all memoirs that can be devoured quickly, so we’re not going to ask weekly discussion questions. We just recommend that you read them (or better, listen to the audiobook.)
Grownup Book Club: Thirst by Scott Harrison - A NYC partier and club promoter hit rock bottom and found a way to use his gift for partying to raise money for the preventable problem of the clean water crisis.
Older Kid Book Club: A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park - A young boy in Sudan finds himself on a treacherous journey to survive and uses his experiences to help meet the needs of people in his country. (This is a great readaloud, but be warned that people do get shot, eaten by lions, killed by crocodiles, etc.)
Picture Books
Nya’s Long Walk by Linda Sue Park goes along with A Long Walk to Water (mentioned above.) Though having too much awareness of world events can cause stress for children, it’s good for our kids to be aware of how difficult life is for other kids their age around the world. Stories create compassion like nothing else.
Groundhog Day by Gail Gibbons will tell you more about groundhogs than you ever thought you needed to know. However, it’s interesting and fun 😊
Kermit the Hermit by Bill Peet is a sweet book about a grumpy crab who learns the joys of generosity.
Ice Breaker by Rose Vina is about Mabel Fairbanks, who was not permitted to compete in the Olympics because of her skin color but “shattered icy barriers” by demanding opportunities for others.
From Our Hearts
May your family have lighthearted fun and grow in confidence from silly things like at-home Olympics.
May the second half of your winter be sweet and full of cozy memories.
May you encourage your kids and help them know their true worth and what really matters.
May your hearts break for those who are suffering in our world and in your neighborhood.
May you find ways that you can truly be a help to others.
May you not be weighed down by “wants” that feel like “needs,” but instead learn to do without—happily—so you are freer to give.
May your kids learn from you and with you as you seek to be generous and resourceful this month.
We are praying these things for you. See you next week.
Warmly,
Hope from Family Scripts