Help get your child motivated for a great school year by helping them create an inspiration board, a gathering of clippings, quotes, photographs and treasures to provide a reminder of what is important and most of all, what is possible.

To start, work with your child to determine where an inspiration board could fit in their room. Is wall space available? If so, you could:

• hang a purchased cork bulletin board
• create your own custom-made version with an old frame and corkboard
• homasote is also a great material for creating a bulletin board
• chicken wire, either stapled inside an old frame or attached directly to a wall (with sharp edges carefully folded over) in conjunction with clothes pins makes a quick and inexpensive bulletin board

If wall space is unavailable, set aside some real estate on a desk, dresser, shelf, or floor for:

• a purchased easel that could safely support a bulletin board
• make an easel out of cardboard that could support something lightweight like poster board or a piece of foam core
• an old music stand

Once the display has been created is when the kid fun begins! Anything from old magazine clippings to candy bar wrappers that inspire can be attached to the board. If there seems to be an absence of motivational sayings, it can be a fun parental project to explore the words of others, whether it be Spongbob Squarepants or Eleanor Roosevelt and see if anything resonates. A trip to the library or internet search can turn up plenty of quotable quotes.

If your child needs a hero outside the family for inspiration, look no further than Beijing. Here are a couple of Olympic athletes that seem worthy of emulation for their deeds:

• Michael Phelps- An ADHD kid growing up to be "the greatest athlete of all time" is pretty awesome all on its own. But what I found particularly impressive was Phelps' humble words after winning that 8th gold medal, "Without the help of my teammates, this [wouldn't have been] possible."
• Dara Torres- While many athletes block out the world to prepare for a race, Dara Torres used her time before a semi-final race helping rival Therese Alshammar of Sweden deal with a torn swimsuit. When Torres noticed Alshammar was missing from the march into the area, she asked officials to delay the race. As if that wasn't good sportsmanlike enough, Torres also told the other swimmers what was going on so they wouldn't get anxious during the delay and was always the first to congratulate those around her once the race was finished, even when she lost the gold medal by 1/100th of a second.
• Jason Lezak- Michael Phelps got most of the press, but it was Lezak's amazing anchor leg that won the Men's 400 Relay and helped Phelps get his gold medal count to 8.

An inspiration board can serve as more than a motivational tool and gathering place for your child's favorite things, it can also provide parents a glimpse of their dreams.