In the face of negative news, why not produce your own Happy Family Newsletter?

Today with so much news being circulated we are all being overloaded with a lot of negativity. People are choosing not to listen to the news. This appears to be a very healthy thing to do in reducing anxiety and stress.

How can we bring more positive energy, laughter and celebration of ordinary people? How about challenging your kids to create a family or a community newsletter/newspaper? Our second home on Bear Mountain was a lovely townhouse located in a small community of 15 homes. This would be a perfect location for the local kids to create their own little newspaper. They could observe and interview the willing adults in the townhouse community and tell stories of good things happening ‘next door’. Would this require help and guidance of the adults? Yes, but what a celebration of the community, a souvenir of COVID times and it would support literacy development in the community children. Adults could also contribute recipes or gardening advice. Maybe the local pets could add their own paw prints or the children could add their own drawings of the animals. Fitness, golfing and birdwatching tips could be shared. A tooth fairy experience could be reported on. The sky is the limit on what could be shared. Even knock knock jokes lol, or a walk to the local corner store or café could bring a new story of what is happening down the street. This is just a quick brainstorm of an example.

In creating a newspaper it might even evolve into the production of further editions. It could become an entrepreneurial project where the kids learn the concept of advertising then using the money raised to support a social justice cause. Best of all, it might nudge one of the children to consider being a journalist or writer.

Please note: Should you choose to embark on the venture the key to success is that there is buy in from the kids and there are a few adults willing to help coach them along. The last thing any of these create suggestions are meant to be are make work projects of duty or guilt. (Lol remembering yesterday’s blog of learning to set boundaries)

Dazzle’s Challenge: If you produce a newspaper send me a copy so I can post part of it on this website!

Quick Take Away Links:

https://teachingkidsnews.com/

Did you know that CBC has a version for kids

https://www.cbc.ca/kidsnews/

https://www.familyeducation.com/fun/writing-activities/family-newspaper https://www.education.com/activity/article/Family_Newspaper/

https://imaginationsoup.net/write-family-newsletter/