America is always on the moveliterally. Experts estimate that one out of five households move to a new residence each year. If you do the math, that amounts to a whopping 1.5 million moves every month. Those are some amazing stats, especially if you consider how trying and stressful such moves can be. It’s a wonder that one householdlet alone millions!can pull it off.

If you’re part of this statistic and on the verge of a big move, though, don’t be daunted by the whole process of packing up your stuff, loading it, and dragging it to your new home. There is a way to move without losing any valuables, too much money, or your mind, whether you’re moving across town, or across the continent. With some common sense, some help from professionals, friends, and loved ones, and the essential “Do’s and Don’ts” list in this article, you can be successful and avoid all of the mishaps and stress that usually come with moving.

We’ll start with the positivethe Do’s on our list. Make sure to check off all of these before you even start stuffing boxes with your stuff. Do:

Line up help for packing and moving your stuff. It depends on your budget whether you hire professional movers or call in the volunteer brigade (your friends and family). Either way, round up somebody.

Have a chat with your post office, making sure they know to forward your mail to your new address. In many cases, you will need to fill out a mail-forwarding form.

Purchase brand-new moving boxes from your moving company or truck-renting company. They’re worth the money. Bugs and vermin can stow away in old boxes. No need to give them a free ride to your new digs.

Sort through your stuff for old valuables you don’t need anymore to sell. Be honest with yourself, and you may be able to pay for your move with the money you makeespecially if you sell them at convenient and easy marketplaces like online classified sites.

Drop off old valuables that aren’t worth selling at a Goodwill or other charity thrift shop.

Think comfort and safety on move day. Pack a first-aid kit with medicines and hygiene products, as well as a change of clothes and light snacks.

Now onto the Don’ts. Avoid these missteps, and your move will feel like an exciting adventure, not painful torture. So don’t:

Take on the entire move without any help and worse, without any planning.

Forget to find out your local post office’s rules for transferring mail. And while you’re at it, don’t let it slip your mind to change your address, as well.

Move without your kids and pets or leave them home alone during trips to and from your old and new residences. For pets and small children, your best bet is a sitter.

Grab a few used vegetable boxes from the supermarket or grocery store. They may be cheap, but bugs and dirt may be hiding inside them. You want to start in your new home with a clean slate, not an infested one.

Haul old kitchen junk, like worn-out plastic containers and chipped glasses, with you to your home. You can save yourself a lot of heartache, and muscle aches, if you use the move as a chance to get rid of this kind of stuff.

Pack expired canned foods, leftovers, and perishables. Anything that can spill, go rotten, and cause a mess in any way is not worth the effort. Again, think clean slate.

Throw a garage sale, sell what you can, and save the leftovers for the garage sale you tell yourself you’ll have next spring. Truth is, this stuff will probably be clogging your storage space for years to come. If you want to sell it, try an easier and more profitable way, such as online classified ads.

Forget to unpack box after box after you move in and then when you can’t find something (because it’s buried in a box somewhere), go shopping for it. Unpack as quickly as possible. You won’t feel at home in your new place until you do.

These Do’s and Don’ts will help you have a “moving” experience when you settle into your new home. But instead of tears of frustration and anguish pouring out your eyes, they will be tears of joy.

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A healthy family is built on good relationships. Maintaining good relationships with one’s children is not always easy and requires conscious effort and skill. There is much that you as a parent can do to foster good relationships with your children. This includes:

• Making a conscious effort to build and maintain a sound relationship with your children;




• Making time to spend with them; and




• Spending time with them engaged in activates, playing games, having fun and helping them acquire new skills.

With this in mind, a group of professionals from business, education and psychology developed ‘The Ka-Ching! Business Parenting Course’ which is a structured yet flexible programme designed to assist parents in ensuring their children’s future success and happiness. It focuses on two main areas:

1. Providing children with the necessary knowledge, skills and characteristics to achieve success in later life.

2. Producing a bond of love, respect and understanding between parents and children through positive interaction.

The course is essentially a clear and practical step-by-step guide, which positively involves parents with their children - as partners. Children between the ages of 6 and 14 will derive the maximum benefit from the course and parents don’t need to have any specialist knowledge of business.

The basis of The Ka-Ching! Business Parenting Course consists of a wide variety of realistic business projects, which parents and children take on together. In the process of carrying out the various projects, children acquire the critical business, financial and supporting skills, knowledge and characteristics in an enjoyable and challenging environment.

The Ka-Ching! Business Parenting Course a very useful, structured way to achieve the three goals mentioned at the start of this article, since it provides a vehicle whereby you can spend time with your children in the context of activity and fun while at the same time teaching your children valuable life skills.

How to use the course:


You will benefit most from this course if you adhere to the following principles:

• Keep your eye on the process not the content of what you child is learning. The experience gained in being part of a business project is far more important than the specific details of what they are doing.




• Keep your long-term intention in mind when working with your child. Do not expect your child to be the “perfect little person” or the perfect businessperson - these are long-term goals that take many, many years to achieve. See this exercise as a part of the process of helping your child grow and develop into a well-functioning happy adult.




• Allow your child to make decisions and to feel the consequences of these choices. Children need to feel that they have choices and have control over their lives. Wherever possible allow your children to choose - of course you can encourage them to think about the consequences of their actions and decisions and to make their decisions with full knowledge of what they are doing and the consequences of their choices.




• Build your child’s confidence and self-esteem by stressing successes. Success should be measured not by the outcome achieved but by the amount of effort and the amount of learning that has taken place,




• Be aware of the messages and beliefs you transmit to your child about the world. Common messages and beliefs that parents pass on to their children include: The world is harsh. Life is unfair. People cannot be trusted. Life is full of opportunities. No matter what happens you will be able to handle it. People are basically kind and good. Some of these messages are negative and some are positive. What do you want your child to think about the world? What messages do you want to pass on? How are you going to pass these messages on?




• Make time to work on this course with your children. This time should be set aside and should be made a priority.

Have fun while working through the material. Children learn best when they are enjoying themselves.

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We were gathered ’round the television, where Little Lady was watching an episode of Stuart Little. The kids had entered their house for a Home Of The Year contest sponsored by some fancy magazine.

I turned to my wife with yet another one of my way-too-brilliant ideas. “Why don’t we enter the Home Of The Year contest?” I asked.

My wife looked around in horror. “What? With this place?”

Little Lady, just over two years old, was looking for the green crayon. “Sure,” I replied, obviously missing something. “Why not? It’s a great home.”

“This place is a mess,” my wife said in frustration, as she started slipping the videos back into their sleeves. “What magazine would call this home of the year? Dump Monthly? Trash Can News? Oh, I know - Bad Housekeeping?”

Little Lady emptied the crayon box on the floor. “Oh come on,” I answered. “This is a wonderful home full of love and joy. See all the drawings taped to the wall?”

“In the Home Of The Year, there are no crayon drawings taped to the wall,” my wife explained with just a hint of patience. “There might be an original Rembrandt or Van Gogh, or perhaps an exceptional imitation. It would be placed in an elegant frame.”

Little Lady found the green crayon. Now she needed a sheet of paper on which to draw.

“I don’t know,” I hesitated. “Rembrandt and Van Gogh don’t sound very homey. I suspect you might find them in the Museum Of The Year contest.”

“Just look at this dust!” my wife cried. She blew on the top of the television set, which temporarily vanished into the haze.

Little Lady emptied her bookshelf with one fell swoop, but still could not find paper on which to draw.

“OK, so it’s dusty,” I admitted. “If we dusted more frequently, we would spend less time together and it would be less of a home.”

“The Home Of The Year contest Committee really does not care whether we spend time together,” my wife said. She headed toward the kitchen in search of iced tea, nearly tripping over a bag of clothes along the way. “They just want to see a spotless house with all the classiest decorations.”

Who needs paper, anyway. Little Lady found a blank spot on the wall, and started applying her green crayon.

“Well, that might make a good House Of The Year, but a home is a place to live in. It needs to exude love and comfort, not cleanliness,” I said.

Apparently, I was still clueless. “Homes of the year never exude love, and certainly not comfort,” she explained, picking up a copy of Good Housekeeping from the floor. “They are showcases of a woman’s ability to keep a house in immaculate condition with absolute precision … despite the presence of a male creature around.”

Ouch. Little Lady gleefully switched to the red crayon. “Well I don’t know anything about keeping a house tidy, but if that’s what the magazines want, why don’t they call it The Janitorial Olympics?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s too hard for them to spell,” my wife replied, smiling. “But they don’t, so just get used to reality. We simply do not have even the slightest, tiniest, most minuscule hope of ever winning the Home Of The Year contest.”

By then, Little Lady had drawn three stick figures on the wall. “My home,” she shouted, running to give Mommy a big hug.

I didn’t need a magazine to tell me we already lived in the home of the year. And if the dust doesn’t kill us off first, we will live there every year.

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