Have you noticed the latest sign that our great nation is taking yet another step toward being an
“idocracy”? Teens wearing sleepwear. All day, instead of “regular” clothes. I first noticed it last month while shopping at Target—a couple checkout aisles over, a girl and her mom were talking
loudly and getting ready to empty their cart onto the checkout stand. I think the girl had forgotten to get something and was wanting to go back out into the store. She was dressed in full flannel
pajamas, pants and top, with slippers on her feet, and wearing a short winter coat. At first I felt sorry for her. ‘I wonder if she just got checked out of a teen psychiatric ward of a hospital,’
I thought. (Seriously, that’s what I thought!) But then I remembered the fuzzy slipper craze from a few years ago, when kids were wearing that kind of …
Category: Overscheduled Kids
Empty Promises: Are We Failing Our Kids By Telling Them They Can “Do It All”?
In January and February, it’s “roll out the red carpet” time here in North Texas for area middle
schools, junior highs and high schools. Which means if you’re entering one of those illustrious institutions next fall, you get to attend a welcome night at said school, and if you
already attend one of those schools and are involved in any extracurricular activity that can “show off” in three minutes or less, you are invited, sometimes required, to be
a part of this welcome. And if you’re a parent of a kid in one of these categories, you attend, too, to sit on gym bleachers and either learn (“Umm, is that a beard and
sideburns I see on that senior?”) or watch your child perform (“Should I wear my photo button?”). Over the past six years that I’ve been attending these dog
…
Putting the Fun Back Into Kids’ Fundraisers
A lot has been written and debated about kids and fundraisers (I once wrote a section cover story for the
Dallas Morning News about the topic eight or nine years ago), but things don’t seem to change much over the years– basically, as kids add more activities to their schedules
and a family’s life gets busier, not only do they/we have to think about practices, team photos, physicals, release forms, concerts/games/tournaments, private lessons, parent
meetings, parent volunteering (Who wants to be the Snack Mom? Um, how about The Prop Pop?), “buttons”/car decals/yard signs, and possibly traveling to out of town events, a lot of
activities come with fundraisers. Either the school hardly funds the activity and the organization must raise funds in order to do what they want/need, or they’re independent and don’t get any
school funding, or the …
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 …
Race to See “Race to Nowhere”
A few months ago, Allison started saying what many teenagers have probably often said: “I hate school.
School is stupid. They give us tons of homework and make us memorize a bunch of useless junk that we’re never going to use—what’s the point?” And I reacted the way many parents probably
react: “Yes, some of it does seem stupid and useless but you have to play the game. You have to study and do good on tests so you can move on and get to college, where the real learning
happens. I didn’t like all of my classes, either, but my goal was to get out and move on.”
But that conversation kept nagging at my brain. Even though she was tired and burnt out when she spoke, her words had a
grain of truth in them. Maybe she’s right, I thought (and don’t kids have a way with …
Sleepless in Suburbia
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)
Flipping Upside Down for Kids’ Activities
Should parents encourage kids to do whatever extracurricular activity “floats their boat”, or encourage them in skills they can enjoy as hobbies later in life? For example, volleyball or running? Cheerleading or swimming? Skating or dancing? Football or golf? And once the choice has been made, do we think about what that will eventually mean to our families, time-wise and dollar-wise, if they progress?
My husband and I have been thinking a lot about this topic lately as our youngest daughter recently was accepted onto the city gymnastics team. She’s always been agile, climbing and hanging on everything, always been tiny for her age, so I …
Slowing Down
Sometimes I love it when it storms. Especially on Saturdays. Oh, I know that when that happens, there are crying brides all over the county who were counting on fairy-tale outdoor weddings, but consider an upside to Saturday rain– suddenly all the over-scheduled families have to slow down and shift gears, so to speak, spend quality time at home. Should we watch a movie? Play a game? Or (horrors) talk??? Because rainstorms mean youth soccer games are cancelled (or baseball, or any other outdoor youth sport).