Hi everyone-I am new here and a Buddhist for over 30 years. I have 4 kids from 9-15 years old. I am always looking for books that have a dharmic tone or message-while not being specifically Buddhist. This list is not comprehensive at all, but shows a varied list of books with good messages of individual identity and honour, compassion, loss, and self exploration.

Would love to hear people's examples by age group. Here are a few of mine starting with ages 9-12 (GN=graphic novel):

1. Usagi Yojimbo, collected series, Stan Sakai (GN)-mix of history, comic-form set in feudal Japan, funny
2. Hatchet (chapter book)-nature, survival, resourcefulness, loss,
3. Boxer's & Saints (GN)-historical uprising, class, religion, social upheaval
4. American Born Chinese-Gene Luen Yang (GN) racism, identity, folklore
5. Avatar, The last Airbender), books & animated series (NOT any of the movies!!)
6. Guts, Raina Telgemeier (GN)- anxiety, growing up, family, middle school experience
7. Princess Academy–Shannon Hale, fictional medieval, class, coming of age, girl empowerment
8. Pirate's Passage–William Gilkerson, pirates, coming of age, adventure, bullying, humor
9. The Nameless City–series-Faith Erin Hicks (GN)-coming of age, adventure, social and class struggles, politics, funny
10. One Crazy Summer-Rita Williams-Garcia (chapter book)-historical, Black-American identity, social & political history, coming of age

"Tibetan Singing Bowl" - Meditation Music helps you to work all day, or sleep all night. Soothing background noise helps create a peaceful ambiance in any environment. Tibetan Singing Bowls sounds are used for Meditation purpose. This music will rejuvenate your senses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae8ltAmlGxs

Hi there! We are inviting parents whose kids are younger than 7 years of age to fill out our survey on storytelling robots. This survey is part of a study being conducted by Indiana University that aims at investigating parental acceptance and attitudes of storytelling robots for their kids and will inform the future design of robots for kids.

It should not take more than 15-20 minutes of your time. Two hundred participants will be randomly selected following a random drawing to receive a $5 Amazon credit (a digital gift card for Amazon shopping). The survey was distributed on February 7, 2018, and the drawing will be conducted on March 1, 2018. After March 1, you can complete the survey if you choose, but you will not receive any compensation for doing so. Personal identifiable information will only be collected for payment records.

For more information about the study: contract the researchers at lin98@iu.edu and brady@iupui.edu. For general information about participant rights, contact the Indiana University Institutional Review Board at (812) 856-4242 or via email at irb@iu.edu.

We'd appreciate it if you participate in this survey! Link to the survey: https://iu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8tYqRw05QRWt08t

Have any of you taken your children on a family retreat?

I would so love to take a retreat to further my practice but can't really see leaving my 2 and 5 year old girls at home for days/weeks at this stage. These two in the UK look lovely, https://thebuddhistcentre.com/family-friendly http://www.family.amaravati.org/

Thanks!

Tell a story from your week (or past two, as we didn't have one last week) about a challenge you overcame, didn't overcome, or just share some insight!

Tell a story from your week about a challenge you overcame, didn't overcome, or just share some insight!

Sorry it's a day late! It's a holiday in the US and I've missed a beat.

Tell a story from your week about a challenge you overcame, didn't overcome, or just share some insight!

Tell a story from your week about a challenge you overcame, didn't overcome, or just share some insight!

Yesterday, I was watching this brief Dharma talk by Mingyur Rinpoche about his early experiences on wandering retreat. He was living on the street, near death, and had a profound meditative experience (before going to the hospital, as it were). As I was listening, there was a part of me that was thinking, man, how amazing (and scary) would it be to drop everything and become a wandering pilgrim with nothing to rely on but your wits, your meditation, your mindfulness, etc.?

But as the video progresses, he makes a great point: to have profound experiences, you only have to change your relationship to your difficulties. You don't have to become a wandering pilgrim, or have a near-death experience, to find opportunities for meditation and insight. You just have to make your difficulties themselves the opportunity for meditation.

And it got me thinking: what if we used parenthood itself as a kind of pilgrimage? Why not take every tantrum, dirty diaper, sleepless night (and snuggle, kiss, laugh, and game) as an opportunity for meditation? It's hard to carry that through, of course, but Mingyur Rinpoche says pretty much the same thing of living on the street. So what do you think of parenting as a pilgrimage?

I found this link online. http://nurturestore.co.uk/celebrating-vesak-children-buddha-day-activities Does anyone have any other ideas to share?

I received a nice PM from a user looking to reinvigorate this subreddit. To do so, maybe understanding why those who are subscribed actually are would help.

• I want to be part of a community that helps me work through and discuss nuanced challenges in raising a family

• I'm interested in lessons others may share through stories, anecdotes, and experiences they've had in raising children or in family

Lessons come from success and failure. I only have a very young son, but I know many times I've failed in my approaches. The struggle to balance short term needs vs long term behaviors, while also wanting to instill good critical thinking skills and a deep appreciation and gratitude for anything we have can be difficult.

Meanwhile as a parent, we may struggle with our careers, personal lives, community relationships, homes, vehicles, bills, physical health, diet, mental well being, family time balance, or any number of other challenges.

Yet amid that struggle, we still have family that we are a part of.

My son is 3 years old, and is going through that phase where everything is being tested, every limit, every word, literally everything. We just finished putting him to bed, and while we played in the bath, everything was fine. While we brushed our teeth, everything was fine. As we picked out our stories for the night, everything was fine. He was content until the moment the stories were done and the lights went out. Then it was like DEFCON 5. The temper tantrum and screaming and kicking and full blown 3 year old freak out once his door was closed.

"This again," I said to myself, as the bedtime routine has been this for over a week now. How we have been dealing with it is laying in there with him until he calms down, and we lay until he starts to doze off, and sneak out. This OBVIOUSLY is not working.

So I opened the door, and sat on his bed, and as he screamed that he wanted to sleep in mommy and daddy's room, I told him that I wanted to show him something, and in between cries, and gasps of air after nearly hyperventilating , he asked what it was. I asked him, "who is out on the shelf in the living room? (One of our Buddhas, whom he has been asking/ very aware of since he was able to speak and hold conversations). Again, between gasps of air, and crying, he told me Buddha. "That's right," I said, "and Buddha has taught me something very important, to help me when I am upset, or sad, or angry, just like you are now. Do you want me to show you what he taught me?"

At this point the screaming and freaking out had stopped, as my 3 year old was now VERY interested in what the 14" lava rock statue of a man in our living room could have possible taught his dad. He looked at me, with that confused puppy, tilted head look, and said "what?"

"It is called, mindful breathing." I told him. "I will show you how to do it." We breathed in through our nose, (like smelling a beautiful flower, I told him), and then out through our mouth, (like when we blow a dandelion). I told him that whenever daddy is upset,I do this and I feel so much better afterwards, and as we breathed together, in and out, I kept repeating, "I breathe in, I breathe out, I breathe in, I breathe out". After 2-3 minutes of this, he was calm, and laying with his eyes closed. I kept breathing until I noticed that he was asleep.

I stood up to leave, and the bed moving must have woken him, cause I looked and his eyes were open, staring at me. "Uh oh, he's awake again," I thought as I prepared myself for another freak out. But nothing, there was just silence. Then I heard a deep breath in, and a deep exhale, "I love you daddy" he said, and he closed his eyes to go back to sleep.

I have never posted anything to this sub before, other than a few months back asking why there are no threads here. I actually joined this sub in hopes of finding some advice on how to raise a child with some sort of Buddhist presence in the house hold. With the exception of my son asking us "who that is" pointing at the statues and figures of Buddha through out the home, I have never actually had an opportunity to help him using a lesson from Buddhism, as I always felt that he was too young to grasp it. Today I learned something as valuable as he did.

I just wanted to share this, as I am extremely proud of my boy, and very grateful to have had the opportunity arise to share that moment with him.

I have had such a rough month. I knew it would be before it started, and I thankfully it has gone better than expected. There has been a lot of big change for my family, but that's life.

I am working more, and so has my husband. The kids are all teens and have been downright awesome in helping where they can. No matter how long the day, we make sure to have dinner as a family, and my husband and I both have every Sat off just so we can spend it with the whole family together. I think this has helped stress a lot.

Well after a week of feeling over worked, under rested, and bad weather I just kinda lost it this morning. (The cats destroying the bookcase didn't help.) I cried, and screamed, ranted. Since I am home alone and can't see my husband until dinner I wrote him a very long ranting note.

I kept feeling worse and worse and I still have a long day at work ahead of me. I just didn't know how I was going to handle the day. I said the Green Tara Mantra and OM Mani Padme Hum and that helped some.

Then I recalled something my son said a while back, "People who complain about the weather often tend to be in a worse mood." His teacher showed the class a study about that, and positive thought.

So I recycled the first note I wrote a new one. This one was a thank you note, for everyone in the house! In this note I made sure to say thank you for the things each person has done around the house this month... It worked way better than expected. I feel better, but still not excited about walking to work in heavy rain. At least it is not far!

It was never a busy sub, but what happened? There's nothing here anymore?

My wife sent me this link and I thought it was extremely relevant. Especially because when these types of things happen, mourning occurs but it's a different type of mourning, and very difficult to process for the parents.

Thought it was an interesting article.

Article

Hi all,

I hope this off topic post will not be taken as intrusion.

I wish you all well.

I learned that there was an abandoned subreddit called /r/Mahayana. There were ZERO posts in that subreddit. The owner had deleted his account and there were no mods or admins listed for the group.

I contacted the reddit admins and got ownership of the group.

I've spruced it up a bit and I am happy to announce it is open for business.

Everyone is welcome:

/r/Mahayana

http://www.lionsroar.com/dharma-moms-dads/

TLDR; Non-killing, non-stealing, abstaining from sexual misconduct, abstaining from false speech, abstaining from partaking in things that cause heedlessness.

Are you Buddhist? Do you have a child age 5 to 11? Take this survey and be entered into a gift card raffle

Do you live in the United States? Do you live with a spouse or a partner (a significant other whom you have lived with for at least 6 months)? Do you have a child age 5 to 11?

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To participate, click here: https://survey.lilt.ilstu.edu/TakeSurvey.aspx?SurveyID=m2534592