Mom Is Teaching

I’m not sure how much I was influenced as a teenager by peer pressure but I am sure it is much more than I am willing to admit.  Honestly, I do recall a couple of things that seemed to be of poor taste that I totally went with the crowd on.  One of those was the Pollo shirts in all variety of loud colors and tennis shoes.

I had attended a really small school where no one really paid attention to fashion at all up through the 8th grade.  But, when I transferred to the new school in the 9th grade…it was all about the trends and Pollo Shirts, layered at that and Nike Tennis Shoes were all the rage.

So, where does that land me now? 

I am a bit of a conformist I admit.  But, at the same time, I still like to think I am well adjusted and doing my own thing.  I’m not sure how true that is as I can’t think of any good examples to use to plead my case in one direction or another. 

I do know that I was an outsider where my child’s education was concerned.  No one else seemed concerned with the candy treats or the field trips to the zoo in another state that was snatched away and turned into a field trip to…the bowling alley.  But, I as with the group regarding the trip to the Alabama Ballet and the traveling with 1 adult to 15 children.  There was obviously more people unwilling to allow their children to go or they wouldn’t have cancelled.

So…

Just from what you know about me here, what do you thing?  Conformist?  Rebel?

However you like fruit, you are going to like this Fruit2Day drink.  I honesty was unsure when I looked in the bottle but I had 2 of them the first night they arrived.  As all of you know, I am not a big fitness guru but these things taste almost like…..melted ice cream..or yogurt maybe?

I am drinking the last of my package of drinks, the Strawberry Orange ones and I have to tell you, I am sad that this is all of them.  When I can go back to the store (broke leg, remember me), I will get me some more and I think…so far the strawberry orange is my favorite.  I love strawberries so that may be why.

Either way, you need to give these little drinks a whirl.  Wait, one more thing….I told you, I am not a big fitness guru and we eat for crap around here but these little gems are quite filling if you just want to know.  As a matter of fact, this is what I am having for lunch.  And, there’s less than 7 oz in this little bottle but yummmy.

Believe it or not, we’ve talked about this before.  Ha, I am a repeat I guess.  No, really, we talked about sexting and how dangerous it is.  But, I found an article yesterday stating that teens are more safety conscience that we give them credit for.  According to this article, 72% of teens have a social-networking profile.  That’s myspace, facebook, etc for those of you who are unsure what a social network even is. 

And, 73% use cell phones while 91% have an email address.  So, this is where it gets tricky.  How do you monitor your child’s online personality without invading their privacy?

Does your child have an email account?  What about facebook?  Do you have control so you can see what they are doing if you need to?

If we break this down, 14% of teens have a blog, 22% have a webcam (and I would think this is where many would get in trouble), 27% have a game system with chat (I don’t even know what this is), 59% have digital cameras (another place I think that would need monitoring closely), 60% have an ID for an instant messaging account of some kind. 

But, when a group of teens were polled, 59% believed that posting personal information on a public blog or social network was unsafe.  But, at the same time 62% have posted a photo of themselves.  So, that could be an issue.  Just make sure you are keeping up with the photos that your children are posting and you and your child should be fine.  But, insist that even your location remain a secret.

As an adult, someone could easy find me if they tried hard, but in most cases, I still list my hometown as No Where Alabama.  It wouldn’t take much to find out where No Where is but, I’m grown…so I guess that’s where you say, do as I say not as I do.

So, it’s a huge debate around the internet world.  Nature or Nurture.  How do you parent?  According to this article, the apple rarely tumbles too far from the tree, it is also true that there are a multitude of things parents can do to safeguard their children.

How do we guard them from the most dangerous elements? 

How do we go about raising healthy and happy children?

I’m going to just give you the tips from the article, you can go read the discussion with each on your own.  I certainly do not want to be accused of copying someone and I want to give credit where credit is due, but these are just too good not to share. 

Unfortunately for you guys, they come with my commentary from the peanut gallery.

1. Let your child know you are excited to see them when they enter the room. (is that not the case with anyone?  I mean, I can see where it is of major importance with children, but in my opinion, it’s just a natural and polite thing to do, but hey, what do I know?)
2. Teach your child it’s okay to be bored (by all means, please….my mother plays 900 games of Go Fish a day.  I have a cast on my foot and right now, she is caring for my kids way more than I really would have ever dreamed I would have allowed, but I’m kind of in between a rock and a hard place – I am in a cast and immobile and have been since January – but anyway, my kids do not know how to be bored and they have to learn AND SOON!)
3. Limit your child’s media.  (by all means please.  I remember watching the news after 911, that’s how I equate this because the way I see it, it was tough really tough on me with all that being shoved at me, and for a child, the same would be the case with a few news stories a week, overwhelming and could be very saddening)
4. Let your child make a few of the rules. (I read the full discussion and all I am going to say on this one is – agreed)
5. Teach your child - don’t assume it’s all happening outside the house.  (This one is the one that I hoped to bring to this blog……homeschooling is ever parents job, regardless of whether thy attend public or private school or they are homeschooled, parents have to learn to take the responsibility for educating their children AGAIN.  I say again because I think it was a big deal many years ago but with the advancement of our society, people quit parenting as much as their parents did.  Why?  I really don’t know but I know that it happened.)
6. Model appropriate behavior. (Yes, please)

Ok, so anyway, I was watching the ABC segment about teenage pregnancy.  And, here I have to insert some more history…

Side Bar – I rarely ever cry anymore.  I don’t mean for this to see like I am pointing fingers but….I simply don’t cry.  And for those of you who don’t read my Mental and Emotional Health blog, I have a therapist, a psychiatrist and I suffer from depression.  At this point, I am apparently severely numbed by life.  Because we don’t let our kids watch grown up tv, we dvr our crime shows and other that The View, that’s about all we watch.  Still no crying.  I couldn’t tell you the last time I cried at a funeral. 

So, with that, tonight I was watching the segment ABC on teenage pregnancy.  The young girls on the show, or one girl in particular, had a set of twins.  She had agreed to give the babies up for adoption.  They showed her in the hospital and holding her babies.  It was painful.  The young girl was crying, holding her babies, talking to the adopting parents.

I burst into tears as she handed one baby to the adopting mother and she handed that baby to the adopting father and then the birth mother handed the adopting mother the other baby.  Oh the tears.  I had one of my kids in my lap scratching his back and the other lying on the sofa beside me an I was…scratching his back as well. 

I realize that I am not a very good parent.  I realized I haven’t really ever understood much about my own parents.  I also realized that those teenagers make a very difficult decision. 

And, so I kept crying.

My computer is giving me fits, I’ve lost several posts lately so cut me some slack if this one is a bit like you are getting shafted.  I don’t mean to be brutal, but…but, when I have to re-write posts, I get short winded…aha imagine that?  Me?  Short on words?  Never!

Ok so what I was trying to tell you earlier was that tonight, on ABC, there was a segment on teenagers and sex.  And, apparently I was very naive to what the real world looks like for teenagers.  Everyone thought my dad was too lenient but honestly, I gave him no reason to not trust me.  I only know of one person that had a baby in high school.  That’s every person to come through that school in my four years so in my opinion that’s a lot of people, right?

Well, apparently, teenagers are having a lot more sex than I realized.  Yes, teenagers in my circle were having sex.  One of my favorite teachers told me this one time, “the bad girls never get pregnant, they know how to prevent it, it’s the good girls that get pregnant”.

That stuck with me and I wondered where I fit in that puzzle because I was a good girl and I wasn’t pregnant in high school.  My group of friends were considered the good crowd and none of them got pregnant either.  So, that brings me to teenagers and sex. 

Am I delusional?

Anyway, I’m about to make this a 2 part post because…well you had to have the history so, stay tuned…….Part two….tomorrow…

Your kids are bouncing off the walls.  They are outside, inside, hungry, thirsty, need a toy, need to rest and they are just running around like a herd of wild Indians. 

We aren’t technically Indians but you get the picture right.  I am not dummy, I know that research says the color of a babies room and the color of the children’s rooms and the daycare was painted with bright beautiful colors and the kids loved it. 

So, moving on, there’s a commercial on late night TV here for some brand of paint.  It starts out with 2 kids running inside their house, slamming the front door and headed up a large set of steps at warp speed.

The next thing you see is a woman painting a wall, a really not-so-pretty green wall.  She looks at her husband and make some kind of statement about painting the entire house that color because of the the transformation in the children

Camera pans around and you see those same to children sitting individually in these little kids chairs and they are holding these some pretty big thick books and are supposedly reading.

Now, if I could get my kids to sit still and be calm when they read?  That’s be a good deal.  But, not my wild ones, they want to bring 30 books out at a time…I’m certain it is a plot against me.

So, if your kids are acting up, my all means, go paint the inside of your house kiwi-green.  Yea, nasty eh?

My father was a teacher, an educator and he was good at it.  He used his educational skills to parent me and most people didn’t realize how good he was at what he did.  Most people thought he was too lenient.  They thought he let me get away with too much.  In the end, I was a good kid.  I’ve heard my mom say that my first 20 years were much easier than my last 20.  Yet, she never agreed with my father’s methods. 

They had divorced when I was 4 and she despised him.  That’s another story all together and it didn’t matter what he believed was best for me, she was going to oppose it, just out of principal.  Unfortunately, the last 20 years, she has been unhappy with my behavior more often than not.  My father died just 1 month prior to my 20th birthday. 

So, does that say that he did a good job when he was alive because I was a good kid or that he screwed up and that’s why my life as an adult hasn’t been all roses.

Either way, this wasn’t what I was planning to talk about.  I was planning to discuss the ability to teach.  I too have a degreed in education.  I am no where near the parent my father was, I can’t seem to channel my academics into my parenting gig.  Actually, truth be told, I wasn’t very good at discipline when I taught school either.

I told you all that to say, it’s Father’s Day, my dad was a great dad, he was a good teacher, a good parent.  Regardless of what my mother thought, or anyone else for that matter, he was a good and I just want to say Happy Father’s Day to my dad…even if he isn’t hear with me now…he will always be with me.

I have been literally running around like a 3 legged dog.  I am still in a cast and I’ about to be at wits end.  So, I’ going to tell you some things my kids have learned recently (in bullets, gotta love bullets)

• Jace now, at 4.5 years old is using the potty and wearing underwear.  His biggest issue is if anyone walks by the bathroom, where he obviously never shuts the door, he has to turn and talk to them and then he ends up peeing all over himself. OOPS
• Every now and again he will ask for a pull-up.  No real reason except I think he is lazy.
• His sensory disorder is very obvious now.  My mom says it is just like potty training me yet I was not this old.  When he poops, he gags and heaves the whole time.  But, he will not let anyone else clean him either……he wants to go alone, be alone, handle it alone and I couldn’t be happier
• My kids have learned to play Go Fish and holy mother of Sasha are they killing me.  We are playing 50 games a day and it is exhausting. 
• Walker is telling time – making us crazy
• Walker is reading speed limit signs to us – making us crazy
• Walker is reading every thing he can get his hands on, or shall I say his ears…for instance, we can no longer spell things around here.
• Both boys will get in the pool, and Jace will go under and the bubble blowing deal.
• Both boys climbed the stairway to the big waterslide, over and over and over – their father was exhausted, I was sitting under an umbrella and I am so blistered.
• Jace pretends he doesn’t know his numbers and colors but refuses to let us know that when we play games.  It is driving me insane.
• Walker can work the TV satellite remote well enough to put it on DVR’d shows but he also knows how to push record and we end up with 300 Telitubbies and Caillou’s…argh, painful
• Both boys are using the Wii sports both the original games and the EASports games. 

So, see, I have been really really busy lately, my kids are learning all kinds of stuff…..see the proof is right here…see it…

First of all, if you do not believe in the following 2 things, then skip this one otherwise it will probably just enrage you.  So,

1.  It takes a village to raise a child – I am the product of a teacher, I was a teacher and I owned a daycare.  If I see children out of line, as long as I can correct the child in the proper manner (humor works great for example when a kid is about to fall out of buggy in a store and mom has turned her back to get something off a shelf – something like, “you sure are awful cute, you better be careful or you are gonna fall on your noggin”.  That usually gets mom’s attention and I’ve never had anyone get upset with me.  I mean, you know, by telling the kid he/she is cute, how could anyone be mad at you, really?

2.  We use corporal punishment.  I was the product of a father who used corporal punishment about 5 times in my life and would have used it more but I really was a good kid for him.  My mom, she would just get angry and start hitting me with a belt and not stop.  That’s not corporal punishment, that’s abuse.  I am talking a controlled adult using a safe method of spanking a child on the bum.

So, with that, about 2 weeks ago, my 4 year old was being a royal pain.  He has been for sometime and basically I look at it like he hasn’t outgrown the terrible 2’s.  The 6 year old is pretty difficult too.  But, a couple of weeks ago, my mother was angry because the 4 year old did something.  She used a fly flap (which she has already been told that my husband does not consider that appropriate) and was just swiping at his legs, over and over and over.  I yelled at her to stop.

She’s been pissed ever since.

But, she was not punishing my child, she was abusing him and sick or no sick, cast or not cast, I WILL NOT allow this to happen.  She really hasn’t spoken to me much since that time.  I have just dealt with her the best I could.  She has still been taking care of the kids while I have a cast on my foot as well as taking care of my house, but she isn’t speaking to me about it.

So, today, they were on a wild spree and she says, “I can make them mind but it makes you mad” and I said, “No you were out of control when I spoke up and when I make them mind, you go cuddle them afterwards and that’s a problem”

She was crying, leaving me with little left to say.  She said  her nerves were shot, I told her to go home and she refused.  She was already hacked at me about a series of other issues that I couldn’t control.  But, she wouldn’t go home.

Yes, I have had a cast on my leg since January.  When I first broke it, she was on her way home from my aunts anyway, she helped me for a couple of weeks then left and went back to my aunts because, “if I was going to run all over to conferences, what was the point in her being here to help me”. 

At the point where they put me non-mobile and I had to put Mini Me in daycare, she returned home to “take care of me and the boys and help around my house”.  Well, who knew this was going to be a 5 month long affair.  She and I have never got along very well, and for us to be together, in the same house this often is extremely difficult.

She has resorted to saying really evil things, I have restrained until today.  Today, I said what I thought.  One day last week when my husband got home, I was in horrific pain but wouldn’t take pain medicine because my mother was calling me a junkie.  I was less than 2 weeks post-op at that time.  She said I didn’t remember anything that went on because I took so much drugs. 

Let me tell you, I have taken less than 1/3 of what has been given to me for pain over the course of these 5 months.  Yes, less than 1/3.  Does that sound like a junkie to you?

I haven’t been outside of my house in over 2 weeks.  I am non-mobile and to be perfectly honest, I weigh so much that it is hard to get in and out of my house because of all the steps so after surgery I went to my kids baseball games and to the doctor.  Now, you tell me, if you are needing pain medication and taking it, you don’t leave home for over 2 weeks and every day is the same for you, can you imagine how it is easy to lose track of what day it is? 

She goes bizerk if I ask.  I don’t really not know, I simply think out loud. 

Anyway, this was suppose to be about her and my children.  They don’t obey her.  They never had.  She has never made them.  She has never made any of the kids that grew up at her house over the years obey her.  Her house was a free for all and all the kids new it.  And, my kids know it too now.  And, she blames us.

Either way, I do believe that it is perfectly find for the village to raise a child and I believe it is ok only if the village is willing to understand their role.  And, I do believe in corporal punishment but only in a controlled environment with a controlled adult and done appropriately.

So, what’s your thoughts? 

As I query through my emails and I look for support in some of my internet endeavors, I run back into people that I have worked with before and it is most joyful for them to remember me.  And, so, when I sent Alan Jordan and email, he remembered me.  I was absolutely thrilled to know that he not only remembered but offered me the opportunity to review another book.  Well, how can anyone turn that down?

Here’s the meat of his email and I’m going to get my email out so I can get something to read and review because…they have adult books too.

You did one book– The Monster on Top of the Bed - a CD with multi-cultural aspects, and you wrote an honest review that helped me to position it as a "Discovery Edition," prior the next year’s release of the standard (read tall, with hard cover) edition that features English, Spanish, Italian and French translations.
We publish e-books that foster’s children’s creativity, like Zoom! and Fluffy a book by 7-year old Ella Winchester.  We go one step further.  We offer parents the ability to make extra money by selling books.  All they need to do is click on the [Sell This] button, and then let people know why they like the book.  In fact, they don’t even have to buy a book to sell it.  All they need to do is know enough about the book to explain to people why they should buy it.   See http://www.lbcllc.com for details.  This is especially true for webmasters and bloggers, who can put a widget on their site, next to a book review.
Not every book is a children’s book.  For example, we sell How EVERYONE Can Get Great Job Interviews, a .pdf file that let’s people copy-and-paste the dialogue they need to get job interviews.  It also helps people pinpoint their value before they make that first crucial sales contact.  Yes, that’s right, getting a new job is selling your ability to help a business prosper to a business decision maker.  In the near future, we are introducing a course entitled Integrity Based Selling, Marketing and Job Seeking.
With many parents out of work, our books and courses can help parents avoid stress, improving the lives of countless children.

Don’t wait, get yourself a copy, even with the recession as it is, your children deserve the best..and you can always use your local library and if they don’t have these books, ask them to get them.

Obviously this isn’t a topic I have discussed in a while, or at least 2 or 3 days anyway.  And, in our neck of the woods, school is out and it is my understanding that next will bring real homework and much  more of it.  My thoughts are how much more disgusting could it get than to have more homework when in the here and now we had more than I thought was necessary.

One of my favorite websites, Stop Homework has a great article or ten but one in particular about a school system that is doing their part in reducing stress and by doing so they are attempting to reduce homework. 

I get beside myself when I hear people talk about having a reading list for the summer.  What the heck?  Where I come from there was no guarantee’s whose class you were going to be in the next year and the classes weren’t uniform across the board so a kid could do an entire worth of reading only to be put in a class that requires different books.  How silly is that?

Another article on the site is about a fourth grade teacher who doesn’t want to assign her students a bunch of homework but due to the nature of the system, she needs to keep her job as well.  That’s pretty pitiful if you ask me.  Her own education and research proves that it is totally unhelpful but she can’t make decisions for herself all in the name of keeping her job.  That’s nuts people, completely nuts.

Cathy Puett Miller has sent you a message.

Date: 6/05/2009

Subject: Reading: Beyond the Snuggle and Cuddle Stage

Join host Allen Cardoza and me for an important discussion on his show, Answers For the Family. We’ll be discussing reading with older kids - how to make it valuable, navigate the world of the pre-teen, tween and teen years and have your child come out at the other end a reader. Many of you may know a family who struggles with the transition time or is worried about their growing young person and their attitudes about school and learning. Be sure to recommend they tune it.
The show will be live at 11AM PDT on Monday, June 8. Anyone can listen live at www.latalkradio.com or visit a podcast after the fact at www.answers4thefamily.com. The more the merrier!

I don’t know how many second place winners there was in the contest but let me tell you, either way, I can tell a bad story.  I am good at adjectives and showing you the way.  I am not really even sure which one of the allergies stories I told on this particular contest because we are a house ridden with allergies.  My husband is allergic to everything except what I am allergic to.  My kids suffer from the normal every day pollens and allergens that affect us in this area.

I heard one time that if you moved, you probably wouldn’t have as many allergies because most people are allergic to the allergens in their area.  And, I found that true.  I left home and moved an entire state and away.  I didn’t have one sinus infection the entire time I was gone.  Hit another state or two and then back home.  And, guess what?  Allergies are back.

For me and my entire family we have a serious issue with mold.  We bought our home out of foreclosure and it had serious issues with mold.  I started a remove the shower campaign not long after we moved into this house, then, we took a trip to my in-laws in Florida.  No one was sniffling and rubbing their eyes.  We weren’t there long enough for it to be a matter of being in a different area.http://www.aller-ease.com/index.php?go=home

When we returned home, within 30 minutes my kids were sniffling little snot-walkers and I looked at my husband and I said, “SEE!”  He agreed to remove the shower.  And, indeed, their was mold behind the walls of the shower, under the shower to the point that the floor had to be replaced. 

It was amazing.

So, now I have this Aller-Ease pillowcase and since I told the story, I get to keep the pillow case.  But, let me tell you, I’d love to have some clothes made out of this stuff.  The feel of the cover is almost like…….yummy…yea it’s that good. 

You really should pay attention and either go buy you won or at the very least wait to see if you can tell a horror story and get one because…I am just about ready to order my husband one.