Welcome to The Parent Portal

Our goal at After School Snacks is to support you in the lifelong work of parenting. We have designed The Parent Portal as a special place for you. Here you will find additional resources, articles, and tips to help you in one of the most important roles of your life, whether that be as mother, father, grandparent, nanny, teacher - or anyone at all who is committed to nurturing children.

Resources for The Talk

The inevitable Talk with our daughters about their changing bodies can be a scary prospect. There's the anxiety of what to say, how much to say, and when to say it. Taking the time to prepare and having the right resources can make all the difference in the world.

After reading a variety of books, some designed specifically for parents and some especially for girls, I'd like to share my favorites. I hope you will also find them valuable.

Summer Sanity Strategies

While summer can be a fun time for the whole family, it presents its own set of challenges. For one thing, I don't want to be on-call for 24 hours every day. Over the years, I've tried a variety of things to get through the summer without turning into a blubbering idiot (or threatening divorce) while at the same time keeping my kids fairly mentally healthy. Check out my ideas here.

Weekly Family Calendar

To organize our family's various schedules and keep chaos at bay, our weekly family calendar is indispensable. This is a paper calendar I print out each week. It has space to put what we're eating for dinner, reminders for piano practice, who is responsible for taking the kids to their activities, etc. In hopes you might also find it a valuable tool, I've included the calendar and instructions on how I use it here. Feel free to download it and customize it for your own family's use.

Gift Ideas

In the spirit of good money management (see Money Management Skills for Kids), we've compiled resources for inexpensive holiday giving from all sorts of sources (including you!), and we want to share it with you. Of course, gift ideas are useful the year round, so you can make frequent use of our Holiday Gift Giving Guide for gift ideas for all sorts of categories: moms, dads, grandparents, caregivers, hostess.... We hope you'll find everything you're looking for!

Halloween Costumes

In an attempt to free every parent from mind-numbing pain and stress over costumes, we've compiled a list of resources for Halloween costumes. There are even a couple of links for those darned handmade things! Be sure to check out my article on The Terror of Handmade Halloween Costumes!

They Grow Up So Fast

Your children do grow up so fast, and you want to record as many of those precious moments as you can. Check out these great resources that will help you do just that.