By Renee Martinez, Founder of Raising Boys World
With my 3rd son, it’s always an effort to get him to do anything. From getting out of bed in the morning to getting him into bed at night, I feel like I have to negotiate or plead with him for everything. He whines about everything we ask him to do or participate in. I think he whines for the sake of whining, because I can’t imagine how brushing teeth or reading a story to me could warrant such an outcry. Yep, you read correct. When I ask him to read to me (or even to take turns reading a page to one another) he tells me he’s not a good reader and whines and pouts. Oh the drama! The thing is, he is a good reader and need I even mention that practicing will make him better. Whatever…he wants nothing to do with reading to me. On the flip side, if there is someone in the family who always brings me flowers or tells me I look beautiful or wants to cuddle; it’s not my husband I’m talking about…it’s my 2nd son. With summer vacation so close, I’m beginning to mentally gear up for the parenting marathon. I hope I’m up for the challenge. I’m not a big fan of sending my kids to all-day summer camps all summer long…but now that the reality of four boys with lots of energy is starting to really hit me, I’m getting a little worried. Fortunately, I was still able to sign up the older two for 2 weeks of half-day camps through our community. I’ve also worked out a babysitting situation for a few days so that should help. What I need to do next is come up with a list of “Things we want to do over the summer.” In fact, I think I’ll get the boys involved, they can help me with this task. Maybe I can have some fun with this! One of them can write our list and the other will be responsible for checking things off that we do. We can also put our list in a folder where we can save any memories of the event so at the end of summer, we’ll be able to see what we did. What about the things on our list are rewards for good behavior? Not all, but maybe a few items could be. So tonight before bed, we will compile our list. I’ll post in once we’ve completed it. I’d love to hear what some of your favorite things to do over the summer are. Also, how do you handle your additional parenting time?
About the Author: Renee consults and speaks professionally on social media marketing, integrated marketing communications, public relations and branding. She is the president of Ruby Marketing Communications (www.rubymarcom.com), a boutique marketing communications company that specializes in providing branding, social media strategy and integration, and creative services. Her blog (www.lisac95.sg-host.com), provides resources on everything marketing and social media for her active audience.
Renee has contributed as a featured monthly columnist in the monthly jewelry industry publication, JCK, on matters related to internet marketing as well as in InStore Magazine as a featured blogger where she writes about developing effective marketing strategies for the jewelry industry using social media. She is the founder of: Social Media Biz Summit (www.socialmediabizsummit.com), the first large-scale SM conference to come to Buffalo, NY; #jewelrychat, a weekly twitter chat for the jewelry industry and www.RaisingBoysWorld.com. Renee teaches social marketing courses at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY for the business school as well as offers small group social media marketing training and educational seminars for businesses in Western New York and beyond.
Renee has dabbled in the internet marketing arena since the early 90′s and is not ashamed to call herself a “marketing geek”. From chatting in AOL, “sharing” music on Napster, and teaching HTML classes before it was considered “cool” to developing comprehensive social media strategies, effective public relations campaigns and managing online communities (most recently Chevy Girls Buffalo).
She enjoys being able to help people find their voice online and to create buzz about their product or service that will give them the results they desire.
Renee can be found on Twitter (@reneemmartinez) and Facebook (http:/www.facebook.com/RubyMarCom).
