Kids and Money, Kids and school

Whose Fundraiser Is It, Anyway?

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I got out of bed this morning with feet that ached so badly, I had to
“hobble” across the bedroom floor. Was it age finally setting in? No, just fundraiser burnout. I worked 3 ½ hours yesterday morning at a drill team bake sale, 4 ½ hours in the afternoon at the
elementary school carnival/auction, and an hour and a half selling “latecomer” tickets at a high school choir concert. I definitely wore the wrong shoes.

Kids and school

Bullish About Anti-Bullying Program

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We humans may have found a vaccine for Polio, landed a man on the moon and invented the Twinkie, but we sure
have a long way to go in getting a handle on school bullying, don’t you think? Just like our parents did many years ago, modern parents still (unless we are rabid helicopter parents) just shrug
our shoulders and say, “That’s human nature” and tell our kids to “stand tall” if they are teased/bullied. More phrases in the time-worn parent …

Kids and school, Raising Girls, Raising Teenagers

The Passing Period: More Like A Passing Dash

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When parents have a bone to pick with a teacher or a school, it’s definitely a whole different ballgame than
everyday consumer complaints. Many things race through your head when trying to decide if you should speak out or not. Will the teacher take it out on my child in the classroom if I complain? Will
my complaint really make a difference? Will they laugh at me after I leave? You know there are those parents who are in the principal’s …

Humor, Kids and school

Form Fatigue

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Are other parents with school-aged kids feeling the crush of back-to-school paperwork this year, or is it just
me? That was the question on my mind last Thursday afternoon when I got an email asking me to fill out what seemed like the 50th  (or was it the 60th) “form” I’ve had to
fill out since the start of school. I put the question to Barb, a mother of two, ages 10 and 13, who was at the elementary school that …

Humor, Kids and school

Scenes From A School Talent Show

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Just like a 4th of July Parade or apple pie, nothing is more “slice of Americana” than
an elementary school talent show, eh? Kids in egg costumes singing a hard rock/rap version of Humpty Dumpty; a boy on piano plinking out “Axel F”; teachers tap dancing; three sisters in red
lipstick singing The Star Spangled Banner…Last weekend, Andy and I coordinated the mechanics of our elementary school’s talent show for the first time.  

Being a Better Parent, Kids and school

Geek Phobia– Can We Get A Vaccine, Please?

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America has a lot of long-time, embarrassingly idiotic attitudes, stereotypes and prejudices about a lot of things
that make us the laughing stock of the world, and no where is this seen more acutely than in jr. high and high school.   For example, what total
no-brain started the attitude, so many years ago, that athletic ability rules and that having any kind of smarts or artistic talent is considered geeky? Probably someone who ended up spending
their life on …

Kids and school, Overscheduled Kids

Sleepless in Suburbia

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Conversation this morning just before my teen, Allison, got out of the car to walk into school, and just after she’d complained how tired she was and how she’d stayed up until 2:30 a.m. doing homework and how she couldn’t get up this morning and how she’d forgotten her headband and now her hair would look bad and how she was going to be late to school, and…
Uncool Mom : You know, sometimes you’ve just got to put your homework aside and say, I need sleep.
Teen daughter: (Getting angry, voice rising) I’m not going to do that!! If I did, I’d fail everything! You’re always saying it’s important to get good grades, so DON’T BE A HYPOCRITE!! (Door slams, she walks up the sidewalk to school)

Humor, Kids and school

A School Bus “Education”

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Remember that school field trip I recently said I would be attending as a chaperone? Here’s the post I made about it at neighborsgo.com, a community website/blogsite of the Dallas Morning News. But beware, ye who blush easily- this is the “uncensored” version.


Ah, nothing like being on a field trip to a museum with a bunch of giggling 4th graders, viewing a bunch of phallic art– and not just at the exhibit.  In fact, I’m not sure where I saw more– on the statues at the Dallas Museum of Art, or drawn all over the seats of the Dallas County school bus …