1001 Things Your Kids Should See & Do (or Else They'll Never Leave Home)

By Harry H. Harrison

When it's time for your kids to leave home, will they be ready to face the world? Will they be able to handle the NYC subway system? Will they have experienced the challenge of a summer career camp? Will they be able to compare civilizations and governments around the world? Will their imaginations have been sparked in a foreign land? Will they know that tamales aren't edible until they take the cornstalk off? 

In 1001 Things Your Kids Should See & Do Before They Leave Home, best-selling author Harry H. Harrison Jr. has compiled the definitive book for preparing a child for adulthood. There's so much to do…and so little time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 18, 2007
• ISBN: 9781418561475

Book preview

1001 Things

Your Kids

Should See & Do

(Or Else They’ll Never Leave Home)

HARRY H. HARRISON JR.

a

1001 Things Your Kids Should See & Do

Copyright © 2007 by Harry H. Harrison Jr.

Published by Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee

Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Project Editor: Lisa Stilwell

Designed by ThinkPen Design, LLC

ISBN-10: 1–4041–0418–6

ISBN-13: 978–1–4041–0418–1

Printed and bound in China

www.thomasnelson.com

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. They Need to Visit Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

2. They Need to Grow Up

3. They Need to Exercise

4. They Need Culture

5. They Need to Be Good in Science

6. They Need to Learn to Cook for Themselves

7. They Need to Learn about Money

8. They Need to Be a Computer Geek

9. They Need to Understand What Is Going on in Today’s World

10. They Need to Know God

11. They Need to Travel

12. They Need to Prepare for College

13. They Need to Read 100 Books

14. They Need to Be Good Citizens

15. They Need to Learn to Handle Life

16. They Need to Know What to Do in an Emergency

17. They Need to Know the Facts about Alcohol and Drugs

18. They Need to Know More about Sex than They Think They Know

19. They Need to Become Responsible

20. They Need Encouragement

Introduction

The purpose of childhood is training for adulthood.

All kids talk about how they are so out of here after graduation. They announce they’re going to college, going to Borneo, traveling around Europe, spending time in New York City.

These are the same teenagers who get so turned around on their way home at night, they call you wondering if taking the highway to North Dakota was the right exit. And they know home means free food. Air conditioning. Nice bed. Mom’s shoulder. Dad’s money. And as long as they stay home, they can avoid the messy complications of adulthood.

That’s when many start saying, I’m so out of here after a year or two of junior college.

Later, I’m so out of here after my MBA. Then, You’ll never see me again once I get my second PhD.

That’s typically when parents resign themselves to reality, build a bedroom over the garage, and move into it.

There are over a thousand things every kid needs to see and do to have the faith and courage and skills and confidence to walk out that door when adulthood beckons. And you can either start preparing them for adulthood early in their life, or deal with a thirty-year-old waiting for dinner downstairs. In their pajamas. •

They Need to Visit

Mister Rogers’

Neighborhood

1. They need to see that you love them completely. The way they are.

•

2. They need to catch moonbeams.

•

3. They need to see you light up when they get home from school. Or when you get home from work.

•

4. They need to tell the truth.

•

5. They need to read. Fast. And remember.

6. They need to dig a hole to China.

•

7. They need to take a nap with their dog.

•

8. They need to search for the end of a rainbow.

•

9. They need to trust, at a very early age, that home is safe.

•

10. They need to see your face in the crowd at their soccer games and band concerts. Cheering. Not yelling.

11. They need to build a birdhouse.

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12. They need to develop their curiosity about things.

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13. They need to look at a leaf through a magnifying glass.

And see wonder exists out of ordinary sight.

•

14. They need to collect a jar of lightning bugs at night.

15. They need to tell the difference between cicada and cricket sounds. They’ll be hearing things all their lives that sound like one thing, but are actually another.

•

16. They need to play flashlight tag with their friends and discover the joys of summer nights.

•

17. They need to develop a sense of adventure. The younger the better.

18. They need to be assigned chores. Even if it’s just cleaning their rooms.

•

19. They need to spend hours building a sand castle on the beach, then watch the evening tide wash it away.

•

20. They need to climb up the inside of a lighthouse.

•

21. They need to watch a chrysalis turn into a butterfly. You can buy them on-line.

22. They need to find their way out of a maze.

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23. They need to watch a windmill.

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24. They need to see you reading your Bible. At home.

•

25. They need to learn proper grammar.

26. They need to know who they are: their full name, address,