Karate and Dance

I’m not one of those moms who has to have their kids in everything, but I do think it’s important to let them try different things that they show an interest in. So MM has been taking dance since September and both kids recently tried karate. We’ll be looking for a new activity come summer.

I had a few reasons for putting MM in dance this year. She wasn’t going to be able to go to school as much and I wanted something for her to do that would have her around other kids. Dance was about half the cost of her preschool, and it turns out that a few of the girls from dance will be starting at the same kindergarten next year, so that worked out well. She had also expressed an interest in taking dance. She’s a very girly-girl and is very much into princesses and twirling, etc. It was only when she got into actual dance classes and discovered there was oh-no-work! involved that she cooled to that idea. This is also a good thing. Why not test the waters even if they’re not the right ones? Now she really doesn’t want to continue, but we’re committed until the end of May, after her recital. I hate having to make her do something she doesn’t want to, but they’re good lessons to learn: finish what you start and be careful of the choices you make. The last reason for enrolling her in dance was because I was hoping to help the extreme turn in of her legs, but since she’s no longer falling over her feet, I see no reason to pursue that further.

A few months ago, she started asking to try karate. Gus had also been mentioning it, so when the opportunity arose, we went for it with some trial classes. It hasn’t been a complete disaster, but it didn’t take long to see that a year commitment would be a waste. By the third lesson, MM was complaining that she didn’t want to go, and Gus was being threatened by the teacher to not be allowed in class. That was the end of that.

I found it interesting and kind of annoying that we had explained in pretty good detail what Gus’s issues are and our concerns about whether he could manage himself in the class. We made it clear that he would probably need extra help, and the school assured us that they had worked with autistic children before with wonderful success. Whatever. The look on their faces when he was running back and forth or when he started talking loudly during meditation told me that they didn’t really get it when told them what they’d be dealing with.

It will be a relief to not have to drag kids off to an activity for a while, especially with the gas prices at $3.75 today. But I’ll be back to it by July when we start swimming. Fortunately, I’ve never had to push them to do that. And maybe by fall there will be a swim class that we can fit into their schedules.

Karate Lessons

Last week my son's school had a health fair. I stopped by because the flyer had mentioned that a karate school would be there. My daughter has been asking about karate lessons for a while, and I thought they might be good for my son who has Aspergers Syndrome (autism spectrum disorder). But my concern has always bee that the schools would all turn out like that school in The Karate Kid. Silly, of course. That was just a movie.

The guy at the fair seemed nice enough and I asked lots of questions about their ability to teach a child with special needs. He said that they do have some autistic students, but at the same time, he said that they tend to ignore inappropriate behavior. The rationale is that they want to reward appropriate behavior and not give attention for misbehaving. But, anyone who has been involved with autistic kids knows that they often need a lot of redirection. So immediately I wondered if my son would be running around the room, being ignored.

I also asked if the school was geared toward competition. That's not really the environment that I want either of my children in. I want them to have fun and gain confidence, even to learn a bit of self defense ( especially my son, who is at risk to become a target for bullies as he ages) but not to become obsessive with tournaments or winning. For one thing, we can't make the financial commitment that the tournament path can often require. Heck, I'm not sure we can afford to have them both enrolled at all. I'm not sure about this because they refused to give me any fees until AFTER my kids had their trial lesson. Then when he gave me the appointment card, there was no address. I'm also not interested in having a child so focused on winning at such a young age. They have plenty of time for that later.

There was a phone number, so I called to get the address so I could get directions online. Three calls and still no one has answered the phone and after 3 days, no one has returned my call. I'm not feeling so great about this place.

I went online to see if I could find anything and I did find a website (originally I had been told there wasn't one). The information I originally wanted about pricing wasn't there, but I saw some other interesting things.

There was a student featured and also a parent featured. Both were being lauded for their intense commitment to their practice and to tournaments! One parent brings his child to lessons every day! I may be overreacting, but that doesn't sound to me like the laid-back vibe that I heard about at the fair.

I'm going to keep the appointment, mostly because I already mentioned it to my kids and if we don't go, there will be major drama. But I don't have a good feeling about it.

I've done something right

It is very gratifying for me to know that I have two kids - five and seven - who can actually appreciate and enjoy April Fools Day without getting bent out of shape at being tricked or without becoming mean in their humor. They actually got me a couple of times! I can't remember the last afternoon I spent laughing so hard.

This is in direct contrast to some other people I've seen today on other sites that can't take a joke to save their clearly miserable lives. And what's worse, not only can they not enjoy the joke, but they feel the need to ruin it for everyone else. That's just more annoying than I can even express. I've gotten tricked a fair few times today and I'm laughing at myself.

It's not about being mean in the trickery. It's about being able to laugh at ourselves and our own silliness or gullibility. It's about lightening up for a day.

Video Games vs. Television

Let me start off by saying that neither is particularly good for kids in excess. That being said, I think I'd rather see my kids playing a game than staring at a television. Games can at least involve thinking and in some instances even moving (i.e. the Wii system). With television shows, even interactive kid shows like Dora the Explorer, they just sit like lumps.

I've been noticing this trend with my kids for a while now. On days when we can't get out to play (which has been most of the winter), and I have work to do at home, by the time I'm free to do things with them, they don't want to do anything. They get totally immersed in their TV shows. And mind you, they're watching semi-educational things on the Noggin channel. I literally have to wrench them away from it and make them do other things. And the most recent disturbing thing I've noticed is that my daughter suddenly seems to have forgotten how to play independently. If I turn the TV off she starts complaining about being bored and there's 'nothing to do' despite the hundreds of toys around the house. Yet, when the TV is on, she's still bored and listless.

There's a totally different phenomena when I let the kids play video games on the PC or on one of the consoles (husband's XBox or their V-Smile or their Gamecube which was just given to them for Easter). Even when they have trouble with the games, they're animated and playing cooperatively and having fun. With many of the games - the V-Smiles and PC games in particular, there's problem solving and learning happening. They've never played any of the Wii games, and I honestly refuse to spend that kind of money on a game system for 4 and 6 year olds. But possibly when they are older. Even a simple game like their new Mario Kart is helping their hand-eye coordination.

Now, I'm very picky about what they are allowed to watch or play. I avoid shows or games that are very violent, that have problematic language or behavior that I don't want my kids modelling. And when these things do come up, it is made very clear that the behaviors or language are not desirable. I mean, let's be real, our kids don't live in a vacuum and they will come across negativity. Just a couple of weeks ago when we had a warm day, I took my daughter out to play with a couple of her friends, and one of the little girls spouted about how her sister is an asshole. That's what she hears from her mother. Am I going to make my daughter avoid this little girl from now on? No. The other mom (not the potty-mouthed one) and I let all the children know that they should not repeat that word. I haven't heard it from my daughter's mouth yet. So I do know that parental involvement can mitigate what kids are exposed to.

Would my kids be better off playing ball? Absolutely. But with a high wind advisory, I don't think we're going out today. In the summer, they will have swim lessons, summer school or camp, almost daily visits to the lake, bike riding, roller skating, camping and as many activities as I can possibly squeeze in. But in the meantime, I think I'll just enjoy watching them crash cartoon cars into things. It amuses them greatly.

No, You Can't Marry Your Brother

"I'm going to marry my brother. That's my choice."

"You can't marry your brother."

"But I want to."

"You can't."

This discussion in the car went on for a while and ended in tears. Apparently my almost-five-year-old wants to marry her brother because she doesn't have to move to another home. That was a new one.

"Well, you don't have to get married if you don't want to," I tried to console.

More tears. "Yes I do! I want to be a mommy and to be a mommy I have to have a daddy! And if I marry a daddy, I have to go to another home!"

How on earth do these ideas even get into a child's head before she's even in kindergarten?

Finally she got distracted asking questions about her friend whose parents are not together. The little girl spends half her time with the mom, step-father and siblings, and half her time with her father. My daughter was under the impression that she didn't have a father. I've come to the conclusion that five-year-olds should not have to think about these things.

Oh! And it got better - she thought she had to get married at twelve, when she became a grown-up! After I dispelled that little myth, she decided that she just doesn't want to grow up.

I think I agree.

However, if she does go ahead and grow up, I'm in the market for a nice tall tower.

Boy did I stick my foot in it!

When I screw up, I do it royally. Tonight was a doozy. It all started innocently enough. My daughter had pretended to cut my hair. So I played along and then she commented that it would grow back anyway. I should have seen the danger signs, but I just agreed and kept getting her PJ's on. Then she asked, "Why does your hair grow back when it's short?"

Blithely I replied, "Because your body just grows and it's part of your body. And you know what's really cool? When you die..." Oops! I caught myself too late, and she heard it, dammit!

"When you die what?"

Ugh. Kicking myself, I finished the sentence. Maybe she would let it drop after that if I said it in a sufficiently that's-so-cool sort of tone. "When you die, your hair and nails keep growing for a while. Nuts, right?"

"Yeah!" Pause. "How do they come back?"

Damn. "Who?"

"People who die?"

Go ahead, slap me now. Now I've got a 4 1/2 year old freaking out about death. But I couldn't bring myself to lie about it either now that I had stepped so deeply in the mucky muck.

We went to read How the Grinch Stole Christmas (cheerful place, our home, isn't it?) and she seemed to have forgotten her gloom. But then she cornered my husband. When I went to see what was up, she started crying about how if I died she'd miss me and if she died she'd be someone else. Apparently he'd tried to comfort her with a cursory explanation of reincarnation. At least I am not alone in my stupidity.

Finally, she asked if dying was real. I didn't answer; I just looked at hubby. Of course she asked why I was looking at him. She's really too smart for her own good. Anyway, he did it! He told the lie! "No," he said, "It's not real. Nothing bad is going to happen, now go to sleep."

How many ways is this going to come back to bite us in the butt. I know it's not nearly over.

What a dope I am.

When Will It Stop?

I just watched part of a video on MSNBC of two middle schools fighting in a bathroom at school. I’ve seen girls do worse, but of course they were in jail, so it’s sort of apples and oranges. I was a teenager once and I remember threats and viciousness, yet I still found this video clip disturbing. Perhaps I have a different perspective as the mother of a little girl. But it goes a little beyond that, I think. For all the honey in the Hundred Acre Wood, I can’t figure out what it is that we are teaching kids to make them so damned volatile.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of these people petitioning for violence and profanity to be eradicated from all media. I just monitor what my kids are watching. I don’t allow them to watch most TV shows, I seriously restrict violence and our viewing is usually limited to Disney, Nickelodeon or Discovery Kids. But I don’t think I have the right to tell other people what to let their kids watch. At the same time, I can’t understand people who allow their preschoolers to listen to hard-core rap, watch violent movies like Spiderman III or horror flicks and then don’t understand why their kids do things like assault their own parents, curse at them or attack their siblings. That seems to me to be a bit of a contradiction.

We can’t have it both ways. People complain that kids are too violent but then let them play games like Grand Theft Auto.

I don’t blame the media or entertainment industry. I don’t wholly blame the kids. I pretty much think that parents need to stop being so damned touchy feely and start setting some limits on their kids. If everyone parented their kids, I think we might start to see a bit of a change. And I know that has been made virtually impossible these days what with all the ‘experts’ telling parents to boost kids’ esteem and empower them and let them be free and let them make their own decisions at the age of three. “Let them work it out,” I hear from one neighbor who used to be a preschool teacher. “They have to learn.” Sure, okay, but they also need some kind of guidance. That’s the problem with all this ‘self-help’ advice: it throws out great one-liners, but never gets into the reality of implementation. Life cannot be reduced to a catch phrase.

Yes, we should boost kids’ self-esteem, but they also need to understand that they won’t be the best at everything, nor will they win all the time in the real world. I agree that kids should be allowed to make some choices for themselves, but quite frankly, if a three year old could make all their decisions for themselves, they wouldn’t need parents. How’s that working out by the way? You have a kid who thinks they know everything and never has to follow a rule, you say? I can’t imagine why.

I think a bit more of the ‘old-school’ way is going to have to make a comeback and fast. I don’t think that kids need to be beaten, I won’t go that far, but at the same time, parents need to be allowed and supported in setting some better limits on our kids. And stop blaming the media or the entertainment industry. Just because a child wants to watch something or play a game, doesn’t mean they have to be allowed to. Just because everyone else is doing is doesn’t mean that my kid has to do it. How is a child supposed to not succumb to peer pressure when their parents are giving in to it? Barbara Bush may have had some kind of an idea.

Granted, my kids are little and still very much under my thumb and I have no experience raising anyone older than six, but I honestly believe that if the foundation is set at a young age, kids will take those lessons with them. I’ve been fighting those peer pressure battles since the day my oldest was born. People pushing me to let my kids have candy or crappy snacks all the time have changed into different people thinking that I’m stupid for putting their seat belts on to drive down the road. But you know what? My daughter was playing McDonald’s the other day with some peers at the playground, and when she placed her ‘order’ instead of asking for soda, she requested water. I wasn’t there; I heard the story from Grandpa. So obviously the lessons have sunk in. When my kids start expecting gifts and trinkets on a regular basis because they were being given them (against my wishes) I put a stop to it. Now we have a reward system and they have to earn their little treats. And when they want something strictly because they see someone else with it, I say NO! because they don’t always have to follow the crowd.

We’ll see how this works out for us, but I certainly don’t get the sense that I’m alone in thinking that parents are starting to feel the need to regain control. I look at it this way, I can let my kids run amok now and then let them pay the price later (that girl in the video is being charged now – she’ll have a criminal record at the age of fourteen) or I can take the responsibility now and hopefully they’ll be spared when they’re older. As far as I’m concerned, I signed up for the latter the day I decided to become someone’s mother. Or maybe I’m over-simplifying. What do you think?

And just as I finish writing this, there’s another story of a school shooting, and the fourteen-year-old suspect killed himself. When is it going to stop?

How Do They Do It?

There are a number of things that I'm good at. I'd even go so far as to say that I'm a halfway decent parent most days. One thing I stink at, though, is home-schooling. I don't know how all those moms do it. It seems like it should be the simplest thing in the world, natural even - I mean people did it sort of before there were schools, didn't they? Yet the skill set consistently eludes and frustrates me.

My daughter didn't quite make the cut-off for kindergarten this year, and because of finances, she's at preschool less than she was last year. But she still has to know certain things before she starts kindergarten, because from what I keep hearing, these things are no longer taught but expected. Even the children in her class have more developed skills than she does, because they are working on them every day. So I try to work on these things at home. We work on holding the crayon properly, beginning letter sounds, numbers, whatever we can. But what we 'can' do is increasingly less as my patience rapidly dwindles.

It wouldn't bother me so much if it didn't bother her that she's slightly behind her peers. It does upset her though when her kindergarten friends call her a baby or snottily point out that their drawings are better than her scribbles. She gets frustrated when she's having trouble cutting and is the last one to finish her school project. She chastises herself almost as mercilessly than they do and I can't take it. So I try to tell her that where she's at is fine and that she just needs to keep practicing. But she doesn't want to practice - she wants to watch TV or do puzzles or go run outside. While I can't blame her, if she doesn't do the harder things, she won't get better at them and she'll continue to be teased and to berate herself.

We worked on writing her name this morning. First she traced my block letters, then over my dotted lines, then connect the dots. That was all fun until she had to try it on her own.

"I can't do it! I'm no good at writing my name!"

"Yes you can, you just did it five times. Try."

"I don't want to!" And she threw the pencil onto the table.

There is something in my personality that gets very annoyed with people who give up too easily. Some things I have infinite patience for - quitting is not one of them. Even when my husband gives up on a game of chess, on the rare occasion that he's not slaughtering me, instead of playing out the game and seeing if he can pull a win out of his butt, I want to whack him right upside his head. What's this nonsense that you only play until the end when you're winning? I'm as sore a loser as he is, but at least I get mad when someone else beats me - and don't just settle for beating myself.

My daughter seems to have adopted this same trait. She gives up before she can fail. We don't pressure our kids to be great or even good at anything, but I do demand that they try. I just don't seem to have the patience to deal with their frustration intolerance.

Perhaps I have unrealistic expectations, and maybe I'm unwittingly putting too much pressure on my daughter. I just don't want her to feel badly about herself by comparing herself to her friends. She's a smart girl and she's naturally good at lots of things. But she also needs to understand that even if you're not great at something doesn't mean you just stop working at it, especially if it's something you're going to have to do like it or not. You don't want to practice soccer because it's too hard? Fine by me! Do something you enjoy! But being able to write and read is pretty much not optional. She'll need to know those things even if she does join the circus (like she's telling me right now).

So, what am I doing wrong? How do I get her to keep working on those skills without making them so miserable that we're both irritated with each other and the task at hand? How do those home-schooling moms do it? Any comments or advice will be much appreciated.

The Fish Incident

Yesterday was an interesting day. I got to see an example of people at their best and unfortunately people at their worst, all in the space of a single afternoon.

We were at the lake, my in-laws, the kids and me, and a woman with what seemed to be a hundred little girls of various ages. My daughter, being the little butterfly that she is, right away made friends. MM (my daughter) is four and the youngest girl there had to be at least five or six.

The first thing to tip me off that these might not be the most angelic group of children was that they asked MM if they could borrow her shovel...and then her pail...and a couple more shovels...a strainer...pretty soon they had taken every toy that we'd brought to the beach. Not one of them thought to give MM something to play with even though they were her toys. I said nothing and let her deal. I got slightly annoyed when Gus went to use our watering can (probably to help the girls who were playing with it, by the way) and one of the girls shooed him away because they were playing with it. It's his watering can! I screamed internally, but still I kept my mouth shut. I can't get involved in everything my kids are experiencing; they have to learn to speak up for themselves.

Later in the afternoon as I was in the water with Gus, there was a sudden disturbance on the shore. Apparently the girls caught a fish. It's a pretty typical thing for the kids to do, so I didn't think anything of it at first. MM ran out of the water to see what her new friends were up to.

At first when I looked up, I thought they were carrying the fish around by a fin. This would have been disturbing enough, but then I got a better look: the poor thing had a stick jutting in one gill and out the other. I pointed this out to the lifeguard who went to rescue the poor thing's body before it could be further defiled. Apparently the girls were about to poke its eyes out.

I have to say that I am incredibly proud of my daughter, and I told her so. She didn't like what she saw, and she spoke up. She told her new, older, gang of friends that what they were doing was not nice. And there were real tears glistening off her cheeks when she saw that the fish had been bleeding. My daughter may be a lot of things, but she has a truly compassionate heart, and the courage to stand up and speak out against what she feels is unjust.

Part of her character is undoubtedly just her personality, but I think part of it may stem from having a brother with special needs. She's come to his defense, even though he's the older, on several occasions. Even when a big bear of a man yelled at Gus one day, she wasn't afraid; she went right to hi and in her most polite and endearing voice, apologized for what her brother did, and the man felt about two inches tall for picking on a little kid.

When MM does something inappropriate, I check her immediately. No, you can't listen to loud music when someone is sleeping - you wouldn't like if they did it to you. No, you are not allowed to put your hands on your hips and glare at mommy when you're angry at me. No, you don't get your way by having a hissy-fit, you suck it up when you can't have something, and maybe if you behave well enough that might change. I would have never in a million years sat by and watched her harm an innocent animal.

This brings me back to my original thought. The little girls at the beach were not being very nice, sugar-and-spice little girls. But I don't blame them. They were not alone; they had a "responsible" adult supervising them (if you want to call it that). But the woman said nothing. she sat and watched them torture this poor creature whose worst crime was probably chasing after a pretzel thrown in the water.

I am constantly amazed at people who complain about how rotten kids have become over the past couple of generations. Well hell! It's not their fault! No one wants to discipline or be the bad guy; no one wants to be the one to say "no" to their kids. "Empower them!" parents have been told. "Raise their self esteem!" But this has gone far beyond the intended limit, I fear. Because we've got a generation of kids who can't cope with losing, who can't take correction or criticism, and who have a sad deficiency of empathy. And no, it's not all kids. I think finally parents are starting to see how maybe the loosey-goosey style of parenting may have some flaws. Unfortunately, there are still an awful lot of parents who think the word "no" should be taboo. My daughter was crying over the cruelty of those little girls, and their "mother" (she was someone's mother if not everyone's) couldn't be bothered to say, "No. Stop. That's wrong." She left that up to a four year old.