Chicago, IL (Vocus/PRWEB) February 02, 2011

The growing number of people who do not work will likely have an especially tough time this April 28th—the next Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day (TYDSWD).

Jayne Pearl and Richard Morris, co-authors of Kids, Wealth, and Consequences: Ensuring a Productive Financial Future for the Next Generation (Bloomberg, a Wiley imprint, 2010), offer ways to make TYDSWD constructive for parents in these circumstances.

• Stay-at-home parents. The Census Bureau estimates there are approximately 5.7 million (26%), mothers, and 158,000 fathers opting to stay at home (or forced to due to unemployment, illness or disability) rarely sit at home in pajamas watching soap operas and munching bon-bons. Pearl and Morris suggest that on TYDSWD, these parents can expose their children to the many productive activities involved in managing the household such as cleaning, laundry, cooking, shopping and paperwork. Some stay-at-home parents also volunteer in the community.

As parents go about the day involving their children in age-appropriate domestic chores, they should talk about their choice to stay at home: What family values and financial considerations factored into the decision not to work? If parents worked outside the home before, what did they enjoy and what don’t they miss about working? What were some of the main adjustments the parents made during the transition from work to home? How do children benefit from their parents being home?

• Unemployed parents. TYDSWD may sting this year for parents who are jobless. But Morris and Pearl suggest many positive activities to do and discussions to initiate with their kids. On the practical side, unemployed parents can show their kids, about 12 and older, what the job hunting regimen entails: searching online, contacting headhunters, responding to job openings, follow-up emails and phone calls, and tracking system for all the above. Parents can even solicit their children, if they are especially computer savvy, to suggest ways to improve the parent’s electronic tracking or searching. Parents can show the child their resume, and discuss how their education and previous experience have helped them along their career path. What were some of the best career moves they’ve made? And worst ones? Where are they focusing their search now, both geographically and in terms of job functions and industries? How have they tried to cope emotionally and financially with being unemployed? They can also invite their kids to suggest ways to further tighten the family belt.
• Wealthy, nonworking parents. Parents who have chosen not to have a formal job with a paycheck can still involve their children in productive or creative activities in which they engage. What is a typical day in the parents’ life like? If they sit on boards of companies or nonprofit organizations, they can try to take their daughter (or son) to a board or committee meeting. (If that’s not possible, parents can describe what such meetings are like and how they participate.) Parents who sit at a home office and trade stocks or manage real estate can invite their children to help or watch as they research a company or plot of land they have an eye on, and discuss the criteria by which they evaluate its worth.

Artists, writers or those who engage in other creative pursuits can think of a project in which they can involve their kids. Set up an easel and palette for the children to paint while the parent works on one of their paintings. While creating a piece of art, parents can talk about how they approach a blank canvass: the choice of subjects, colors, forms and genre. How has their work evolved over the years? A performing artist can take their child to a rehearsal, or let him or her watch the parent practice. It’s also important to talk about the business side of the parent’s creative work. How does the parent market himself? How has technology changed their art and the market for their work?

Morris and Pearl also have tips for parents who do work:

• Avoid over-glamorizing your job. “The point is not to highlight just what may seem like fun aspects of your job to your child, but to give them a realistic glimpse of your work. Most jobs require many tedious tasks, dealing with sometimes unpleasant customers or co-workers, and pressures from deadlines and competing demands from the boss, or making due with insufficient resources. Talk with your children about how you juggle these aspects of your job, including your efforts to utilize stress management and people skills to improve your work and workplace.”
• Make Every Day “Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day.” Pearl and Morris explain, “You don’t have to wait for April each year to take a child to work. While planning a short business trip or interesting meeting, consider taking your child. At the dinner table, regularly talk about something especially challenging that happened with your work, or some important decision you need to make.”

Kids, Wealth, and Consequences helps parents and their advisers understand how affluence affects children’s future success, happiness and motivation. The book explores everything from how and when parents should talk to their children about the often-uncomfortable topic of money to what families from all income brackets can learn from the economic meltdown about spending, saving and investing to help them better prepare themselves and their children to survive in any economic environment.

Jayne Pearl is a journalist and entertaining speaker, focusing on family business and financial parenting. She is author of Kids and Money: Giving Them the Savvy to Succeed Financially (Bloomberg Press) and has co-authored or ghost-written ten other books. Jayne began her career at Forbes and was former senior editor of Family Business magazine, to which she has contributed for 20 years.

Richard Morris is an adjunct professor at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management and is principal of ROI Consulting, helping family owners expand and pass down their business to subsequent generations. Previously, he worked at his family’s 80-year-old privately held company, Fel-Pro Incorporated, managing Marketing and then Acquisitions, and serving on the Board of Directors until its sale in 1998.

Heidi Klum is set and looking forward to hosting a show called Seriously Funny Kids on the Lifetime network. Klum will be hosting and starring in the new unscripted (‘reality’) program early next year.

She says:

“Someone once said never work with children and animals … so I decided to drop the animals and stick with the kids,’ she said. ‘I have four children under the age of six, and to be honest, sometimes I enjoy them more than adults. They’re uncensored, unpredictable and absolutely hilarious. The kids will be the absolute stars of this show.”

According to Perez Hilton Klum will be “interacting with children and bringing out the hilarious and often insightful things they say.” She’s a mom to her own brood of four, and is looking forward to working with children for the show as well.

Image by OneInstant via Flickr

While many new parents have been there before, be it with their own children or a friends (or relative’s child) parenting classes really can still make a huge difference.

While there are a great many different choices to think of when you are looking for a pre-baby refresher, finding one that fits you and your plans can be the best recourse.  If this is your first baby (or even your second) a class really can get you up to date on new and useful tips in birthing and those first important days.

There are a surprising amount to choose from, and if you are in or near a larger metropolitan area those choices can go even further. If you are considering  amore natural approach to childbirth (or, conversely you more than welcome the epidural) there is likely to be a class for you.

Don’t be nervous about not knowing much going into the class you choose, after all it’s very likely that there are people attending that will be in the same state as you.

Being nervous and even outright terrified is a very normal response to having a baby, and it does get better. Long after the lack of sleep, confusion, and worrying wear off (all things that are again, perfectly normal for a new parent).

The classes aim to help you through both the birth of your child and the time after that. They can help you feel a bit more confidant at a time where you will need all the confidence you can get.

Image via Wikipedia

While there are a lot of talented musicians out there, it can be a lot harder to find some really family-friendly fare. Many musicians don’t cater to the younger set, and while many parents may love the tunes by the more popular artists (Lady Gaga, anyone?) finding something for both parents and their musical children can be frustrating.

Kidz Bop tries to make the differences a bit more livable, by taking many popular songs and changing some of the more questionable lyrics. While this works out for music that may not be great for kids, or at least a but more on the questionable side, many groups are still wondering if the idea is even a workable one. After all, having a nine year old singing about broken hearts and falling in love may seem a bit more ridiculous than many may be able to overlook.

While yes, they are coming out with more CDs than it seems any of the kids in the group has had birthdays (as of this writing, they are on number 18), it may work as a solution for some tolerable music. However, they aren’t without their own problems and many of the songs they use aren’t standard kids fare.

Others aren’t too sure about the trend of considerably more adult tunes being sung by kids. Understandably, many of the topics covered in pop music does have some rather adult messages, and at times could pose some issues (and especially if a child listens to a song and decides to look for it online).

A good example would be Lady Gaga’s Alejandro. While in and of itself, something that adults would be able to enjoy and understand, the video may be questionable for kids.

So, with both the positives and negatives of even the music remixed for the younger crowd, is there a solution musically for parents who just cannot listen to the Farmer in the Dell anymore?

While as of now Gosselin isn’t sure what his book will be about, there are some sources who claim that it will be about parenting and the responsibilities that come along with it.

Some sources are claiming that the famously divorced Octodad will be teaming up with a leadership coach Dr Sylvia Lafair to write his tome, although he claims he still isn’t sure about what it will be about.

Gosselin has had a lot of attention from publishers seeking to make some dough off the famous divorce and questionable behavior during his time globetrotting and cavorting with various ‘lady friends’. While an insider claims that the book won’t be featuring the more sordid years, there is said to be plans to talk about the sextuplets that helped he and ex-wife Kate become reality stars.

"What the book won’t be focusing on is how quickly he moved on, after Kate, with two much younger girlfriends, his partying nights in Las Vegas or his new huge tattoo that covers his entire back."

Read more: From NY Daily

While his more public dramas may have many wondering what exactly he could offer to parents, the book is likely to still be a success due to the attention he’s received.

Would you be reading it?