Sorry for not writing for more than a few days, but I’ve been deep in
thought and research about a topic that I know is near and dear to many parents’ (and grandparents’) hearts, not to mention Aretha Franklin’s: Respect. It has occurred to me this fall that, among
the many values that Andy and I have actively tried to impart to our kids over the years, respect for adults has not been one of those we’ve worked especially hard at. Geesh, do we have
to teach everything? Can’t some things just occur naturally? Well, for our oldest, respect for adults pretty much did come naturally, with the exception of the adults known as her parents,
but hers is more of a “defying parents for the sake of defiance” issue rather than respect. As far as I know and have seen over these past (almost) 17 years of her life, she is
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Category: Being a Better Parent
It’s Cold Here Out On This Limb…
I have a friend who raised her daughter with the philosophy of never saying no, of never having her be upset for too long, of always giving her
what she wanted, no matter how crazy the request or how far the parents would have to bend over backwards to grant it. It didn’t matter if they hurt themselves while bending
over—whatever she wanted, she got. “I don’t like hearing the crying and carrying on,” my friend told me. “It’s so much easier this
way.” Hah, I thought to myself, easier now, but just wait ‘til later. I imagined the girl as an incorrigible, unpleasant diva as an adult.
Well, “later” is here– she’s an adult now, and as far as I can see, she’s a nice, intelligent college graduate who lives on her own; a law-abiding,
church-going, tax-paying citizen with a good job and …
When Your Child’s Email Gets Hacked: My Look Into the Evil World of Spamming
I guess our first clue should have been when our preteen daughter, Emmie, couldn’t get into her email account a few
weeks ago– she said it wouldn’t let her in, and she figured that maybe she’d forgotten her password, even though it was the only one she ever used, and it always popped up automatically from
our home computer, anyway. (Her email service says that’s a sign that the account might have been compromised.) But unknowing doofus parents that we are, we just went on
about our business as she answered the security questions and reset her password (she chose to “change” it to the same one as before). Then yesterday morning, suspicious emails, with blank
“subject” lines, started arriving from her address, several every few minutes, into my inbox and into everyone else’s in her address book. They contained a link to a “pharmaceutical” website, a
site that contained descriptions of just how their products would help male enhancement and performance. It’s bad enough we all get …
Kids and Summer Boredom: Should Parents Come to the Rescue?
I got screamed at yesterday. Surprisingly, not by my teenager, but my soon-to-be teenager. And just what were those oft-repeated,
often-heard-in-summer-words, this time uttered at the top of her lungs? “I’M BORED!!!!!!!” Followed by: “WHAT CAN I DO?!! FIGURE OUT SOMETHING FOR ME TO DO!!!!!!! Followed by
bedroom door slamming, and after that, crying. Geesh. I thought I was over those years of “Mommy, please fill my every waking void…”
So that I could get even a shred of work done during the summer, I used to do just that, at least two to three days a week: schedule day camps, mothers-day-outs, etc., planning far in advance to
fill the summer calendar, beginning as early as late February. But as kids get older, I think they need to be more responsible for filling in their time, to foster creativity, independence, etc., and
so each summer for at least the …
“Good for the child” is not always good for the group
Emmie spent every afternoon last week at a girls’ science and engineering camp at Southern Methodist University
(probably the best bargain on that campus—only $50 for the whole week, and two days included lunch!). She really enjoyed rubbing elbows with professional female engineers, learning more about the
different types of engineering, working on projects, and making friends with girls from all over the Dallas area and even from as far away as Houston, ranging in age from 12-18. The only thing she
didn’t like about it, which she complained to me about every day, were the girls who talked all the time to each other and didn’t pay attention, making it hard for the few that wanted to pay
attention. And unfortunately, there were only a few who really wanted to pay attention. Emmie says that on the first day, when the facilitator asked each girl to tell the group why …
Random Acts of Art: Why Yarn Bombing, Flash Mobs, and Other Unconventional Creations are Good for Kids…and Communities
An article in the newspaper recently caught my eye, about the “Surfing Madonna”, a mosaic that has been causing a commotion in
California after it was installed clandestinely this spring on Good Friday/Earth Day, in the beach town of Encinitas. The 10 ft. x 10 ft.rock and glass piece, depicting the Virgin of
Guadalupe hanging ten and the words “Save Our Ocean” along one side, was created elsewhere and then brought to the site by people disguised as construction workers, and installed
with powerful epoxy glue. Though much of the public loves it, city administrators got in a huff and hired an art conservation agency to study how the mosaic could be safely
removed and displayed elsewhere, since “grafitti” is against the law. After receiving thousands of dollars from the city, the agency told them the best plan for the artwork
is to leave it where it was, protected from the wind …
Respect the Rumble: Teaching Kids About Storm Safety
With the start of summer 2011, storms are definitely on my brain these days, from the tornadoes that ravaged Joplin and other cities across the
U.S., to the severe storms that set off the emergency sirens in the Dallas area last week, to Hurricane Katrina—though it’s been almost six years since that tragedy, I was thinking about it
this past weekend as our family took a vacation to New Orleans. It was interesting to hear about the stories of people who had the means to evacuate but chose not to.
My friend who lives there told me that many people had weathered many hurricanes before, and felt like they could do the same again, and didn’t expect things to be as bad as
they were. But isn’t Mother Nature often full of surprises? A resident of Joplin was interviewed after their …
From Setbacks to Comebacks: Helping Teens Deal With Disappointment
All over town this past couple of weeks, you could almost hear the cries, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes
staggered. Cries of joy and cries of pain, as teens from area high schools looked at posted “results” and found out if they made it into next year’s school teams/groups/leadership
positions—cheerleading squads, “elite” bands, the co-ed western dance team… drum majors, drill team officers, club presidents…and the cries weren’t just from the kids. Parents cried, too. “When we
found out she didn’t make it, we both boo-hooed together,” said one mom. “I’d put so much effort into driving her to extra practices, and doing whatever else she needed me to do to help, that I
felt like I’d lost, too.” I could relate. When I found out Allison wasn’t on a particular list (while using the browser on my phone in the grocery store check-out line) I almost dropped my
bag of green …
Whose pep rally is it, anyway?
Excuse me for wondering, but weren’t high school pep rallies originally designed for the students and staff of a school
to “rally” behind their sports teams and get them fired up to win? Later they were expanded to include pep rallies for everything from final exams to “just say no to drugs”—but, back in the
day, I don’t ever remember the audience expanding to include parents. I mean, why would kids want their parents at school, anyway? Don’t parents have a lot of other things to do during the
day? Around here, apparently not. Because as soon as my teen became a sophomore and a full-fledged member of the high school drill team, I discovered that not only did parents attend pep rallies,
there was a whole section of the gym reserved just for them. And it wasn’t just a bunch of stay-at-home moms filling the stands. Working moms, too. And dads– …
When Kids Steal
One day last week after I picked up Emmie from school, while concentrating on navigating the aravan out of
the parking lot and keeping with the school zone speed limit out on the street, I caught the words “hundred dollar bill” as she chattered about her day. It took me a few seconds for it to
fully register on my brain. “Wait a minute—back up,” I said. “What did you say?”
“Frankie gave me a hundred dollar bill today,” she said. Of course I’m thinking it was one of those fake bills, like the
old $3 bill with Bill Clinton on it, but I asked to see it anyway. She passed it up to me, and I almost pulled the car over. It looked, smelled and felt like a real hundred dollar bill (not that I
handle a lot of those on a regular basis, but this was definitely not something out of a Monopoly …