UGH! Teach respect and limits by taking away their boots?

Does anyone else think the following is absurd?

Pennsylvania school district bans fur-lined boots

Published January 27, 2012

| Associated Press

POTTSTOWN, Pa. –  A suburban Philadelphia middle school’s ban on a popular type of fur-lined boots isn’t about fashion, it’s about cellphones.

Pottstown Middle School parents were informed of the new ban on the unlaced boots on Wednesday.

District community relations director John Armato tells the Pottstown Mercury students are using the boots to hide cellphones and bring them into class. Current school policy allows students to bring their phones to school but requires them to be kept in their locker during the day.

Armato says the ban targets the unlaced boots with fur or faux fur lining made by footwear companies including Ugg. It goes into effect Monday.

Principal Gail Cooper says students can still wear the boots to school, but must remove them before going to class.

I speak out about very few things, but I believe that governing what a person may or may not wear, really does border on infringing their  freedom of expression. I make allowances for limiting potentially offensive or provocative clothing probably because it has been a rule since I was in high school, which is why perhaps I swallow that pill a bit easier, but I still struggle with myself for being so malleable. 

I get very annoyed when I hear people in my community mention Obama being a communist or socialist, and then they hand me a flyer to promote a school uniform in a public school and I WANT TO SCREAM, “you can’t get anymore socialist than a uniform in a public school (a public school being a socialist concept and the uniform eliminating any sign of social elitism)!!!”

So what is it that we are trying to teach our kids? What is the lesson here? That it is rude and disrespectful to text while in class not to mention distracting?  Instead of teaching them respect or temperance we take away their right to wear their warm shoes to school? I want so badly to put my most sarcastic foot in my mouth and to blame Newt Gingrich for this, but I will NOT digress that far, this time.

I will tell you that I owned a t-shirt in high school that said, ‘life is a bed of roses, but watch out for the pricks’ which I was not allowed to wear, and I understood that if one didn’t have a proper sense of humor it might be deemed as offensive, as were the ‘grab a Heini’ t-shirts of my day, nor would I have tried to take a cell phone to class if it were against the rules because I have an internal moral barometer that tells me which limits to push and which rules to follow. Thankfully no one had to take my shoes away to teach me that.

Playing Possum

YOU CAN’T FOOL ME!

It’s been about two weeks since my high schoolers had a full day of school. Apparently in the current educational climate if a high school student has been in attendance most of the time, and has a score above a certain percentage then they are exempt from taking their final exam. Unless they attend school the day the exam is given, then they must take the exam with the rest of the kids, needless to say mine were home for a really long time and ate a lot, I digress. Of course last week being the end of the grading period the kids had off Monday and Tuesday of this week so that the teachers could do grades? Or attend a workshop? -I’m not sure. Regardless, today was the first day this week that all three of my children would be back on their school schedule and being that I am runner-up for mother of the year (a joke of course) I wanted them all in bed last night (with lights out) by ten pm. This may sound silly, but they seem to gravitate toward being wholly nocturnal when they are not on a school schedule, which I try not to take personally, and so it is necessary for me to bring them back to the daylight with incremental modification of their sleep habits.

I noticed something odd at about 10:20 pm; the house was silent. So I got up to say ‘good night’ to my children since they seemed to be sneaking to bed. I opened the door to my daughters’ room which was dark except for the glow of my eldest female offspring’s iPod. She would have known I was coming if she didn’t have her headphones on and wasn’t watching past episodes of Desperate Housewives on Netflix. So I smiled and held out my hand, she took off the headphones and handed me the iPod, then I said, “cell phone please.” Which she produced from under her covers, but before placing it my hand she had to send a final text to whomever she was communicating with. Meanwhile about 2 feet from where I stood is my youngest , a sweet child in middle school who appears to be pretending to be asleep already -only because she wasn’t wearing headphones and therefore heard my approach. I turn to her and say, “where is your iPod and cell phone My Love (sometimes I call her that)?” She responds almost too quickly, I really thought she might try to play the-pretend-sleeper a bit longer, but no, she tells me her things are on the floor next to her bed. So she snatches them up post-haste to hand them to me, but first she must shoot off one final text to whomever she was kvetching (I assume) with, at, to… I smile at our playful routine. They know that I have a rule ‘no more iPods or cell phones after 10 pm’ and if we had been on our normal school schedule they might turn them in or I might have to collect them, it depends on whether or not they think I might coming down with an early case of dementia. (I think again, -I’m just guessing at their motivation really)

I go to my son’s room next. He is entirely motionless and it’s completely dark in his room. Could it be that he is sleeping? I walk to his bedside to find out; I have to get very close in the dark to see, so I lean down and discover that he too is wearing headphones. I give him the benefit of the doubt and think perhaps he was listening to music and fell asleep. So I attempt to find the place where the headphones are connected to his iPod. I feel the thin strand of rubber coated wire, but cant seem to find the source. I’m groping in the dark quite a while when I think I notice a slight quaking, but I persevere in the name of a quality night’s sleep and then I feel it again -the quaking and I realize he is giggling. I too start to giggle and say, “give it to me you little devil.” Low and behold what does he produce from a place between his chest and his pillow? His iPod playing a movie on Netflix. I ask for his phone and he hands it to me. I tell him good night and I wander back to my bedroom with a large enough handful of technological booty to disturb the sleep of three very intelligent young people. I smile at my contraband and then I hear my daughters talking. Yes they do that if they aren’t wearing headphones and texting their friends at 10:20 pm on  school night.

The takeaway: I love being a parent and sometimes that means making the unpopular decisions for the health of my children. The funny thing is they expect that from me. It doesn’t mean they won’t try to ‘get away with murder’ if I let them, but they aren’t arguing either.

Tech-Free Sunday # 8; I think we might be getting the hang of this!!!

I have found that we really are adjusting to our Tech-Free Sunday. The kids no longer complain, they know what to expect, that is not to say that I don’t catch them trying to cheat, but in my opinion our little social experiment has made each of us more aware of how much time we spend interacting online or via text etc, and in certain children I have noticed an improved attitude while tech-free, and in other children I have noticed less time spent during the rest of the week, and then there is the sneak factor as there is with anything forbidden….. (more on that later) We had a very busy day… my son decided that we should have steak on the grill for dinner, which was nice and easy, so that made getting our rooms clean, all the laundry done possible (sort of) I AM SO GONNA VEER OFF HERE:

For as long as I have been a parent (13 years) I have been trying to get all the laundry done; it’s is IMPOSSIBLE! Have you ever noticed that?  I mean, I will even take off what I am wearing and do one final load after I have asked everyone if they have any dirty laundry just so the hamper will be empty. I have this weird obsession with the completion of this task – I know it’s futile, but I think I have some kind of OCD issue with it, which is ridiculous I KNOW…which leaves me standing naked in front of the washing machine with that happy feeling that IT’S ALL DONE, when I have to grab something to cover myself, quickly take a shower and make some more clothes dirty?! Logic? -there isn’t any! Meanwhile: when I get back to throw the final load in the dryer, the hamper is FULL and overflowing again! How is this possible? -this is what I call “the laundry ambush”! I hate the laundry ambush!!!  Someone was half-listening when I asked if all the dirty laundry was in the laundry room, then when they can’t find a clean pair of underwear they finally bring me every article of clothing they own! GAH! As I said it is never done… back to our Sunday -sorry about the detour:

So we changed sheets yesterday, because it didn’t get done on Saturday and we did our chores, because they didn’t get done on Saturday either, and then we went “in to town” (that’s what us country folk say) to go shopping. Only because we HAD to: every morning before school (for a week) my son had been taping the sole back on to his favorite pair of shoes, we also had to buy a new color cartridge for the printer (which is half the price of a brand new printer! I am tempted to buy a new printer every other time I have to change the cartridge) so an English project could be printed. Let me say right here that I am not a fan of shopping in general. I like the “veni, vidi, vici” method, but that is not possible with a 13-year-old girl on the hunt for an 8th grade formal dress. Lucky for me, (heah in tha south) everything closes at 5 pm on Sundays, so our time was restricted by the Bible. I was never so grateful! We got our steaks, got home, ate, cleaned up and just lounged around… did I mention that I have a PETA card carrying 11-year-old? Yes I do, so we didn’t ALL eat red meat, with our baked potato and salad; one of us had a veggie burger. 🙂 (as if you care)

I wanted to mention here that I take my cell phone with me when I leave the house on these days. I do leave it in the car when I go into a store, but I check it when I get back in the car just in case of an emergency. The idea of Tech-Free Sunday was more a lesson for my children who were constantly connected with their friends and spending less and less time with family even when they were at home. They weren’t listening; an important part of having a conversation, which I found rude as well as frustrating. I wanted one day where it really was, family day and to remind the kids that there are other things to do besides texting. The importance of learning manners while being so overly-connected is a difficult concept to teach; ‘PUT THE PHONE DOWN, please step away from the phone’! I was constantly having to say, so I declared Tech-Free Sunday. One person mentioned not having a land-line and if that is the case and you want to try tech-free you can always change your recording on your cell to say something like; ‘ I am spending time with my family today and will be unavailable by cell phone, please text me in an emergency’, and then just check your phone every hour or so… Going tech-free for one day a week is not necessary for every family, but I thought it was for ours. There definitely has been a change for the better for us, and if you want to try it do what ever feels right for you and your family. I think going tech-free is just as challenging, if not more, for adults… I recommend everyone try it even if it’s only for a few hours, the world will not stop I promise!

And so….. another Tech-Free Sunday, where no one died for lack of gadget, therefore we will do it again, next week…. 🙂

If you’re gonna do Tech-Free Sunday -Do it your way!

While I was at my daughter’s soccer game a mom came up to me and told me that their family was going to try Tech-Free Sunday tomorrow too, and she asked if we watch TV and I said, no WE don’t, but it doesn’t mean you can’t. We do listen to radio, and while cooking we have listened to iPod’s thru an iHome; where each kid got to share their personal genre with the family, that way my “Hollywood Undead” lovin’ daughter didn’t kill my “Cat Stevens” lovin’ son and vice versa. My thought is no personal devices requiring ear buds taking you away from interacting with your family. I think if your family is going to try it, you should try it in a way that makes you comfortable.  The first time you try it you might feel miserably Amish, (I’m not worried about offending the Amish since they shouldn’t be reading this blog) but remember they don’t have electricity or running water and that should help keep things perspective. We still use our electricity and of course running water as well as motorized vehicles, and it still isn’t easy. Another mom told me their family might try it too and she asked if I give up alcohol on this day too… I laughed, and won’t tell you exactly what I said, but I will say that there is always wine served with dinner…(The day I had to listen to Hollywood Undead for a half hour  -ummmm, no I don’t give up alcohol on this day of all days.) I might be crazy, but I’m not THAT crazy! This mom said she wasn’t interested in doing all that cooking together stuff, which is absolutely fine. I just happen to have a son who loves to cook and I am learning to enjoy the company in the kitchen while I prepare dinner.  However, I must say that the first two times I had “help” in the kitchen I secretly wanted to pull my hair out because I had to think of things for them to do instead of just doing it myself like I usually do, which was just as hard for me as it was for them, but I have come to enjoy it and rely on their help. Remember before, everyone was off in their own worlds texting, or chatting, or what-evering and I was alone in the kitchen cooking, then I would call them for dinner, and it was like a bunch of strangers showed up at the table to scarf down their meals and hurry back off to their own worlds again.

Since I talked to two people about it today I thought I might do a quick “Saturday Evening Post” about it just in case your family is thinking of trying it. A fun way to start is by having everyone in the family make a list of 101 things  to do when your bored, and share it with each other, these lists can be pretty funny, but also something to refer to when you are feeling lost without your cell phone. If you are stuck indoors I suggest board games, cards, we played word games with the thesaurus, we tried a debate (EPIC FAIL), we talk a lot, we have given facials and even tried ear coning. When I was growing up, we did a lot of puppet shows, plays, we had marionettes and would do performances, we made up commercials… you are only as limited as your imagination, make it up as you go. As the weather has gotten a bit warmer the kids are spending more time outside, where they can hula hoop, ride bicycles, play wiffle ball, play tag, blow bubbles, go fishing, give the dog a bath, do a treasure hunt or whatever.  A lot of our day seems to be spent planning, shopping for and preparing for our family meal, which I do like to get everyone involved in. It gives the family a sense of community, it makes me feel more a part of that community rather than just the laborer, and I think the kids really like being in charge of a particular part of the meal for example, put one in charge of dessert and another in charge of the salad and give them a stack of cook books, they have to do that in the morning so that there is time to shop for ingredients. I understand why the whole cooking thing might sound like too much, but if you’re feeling brave think of it as putting a book (a cookbook) in their hands first thing in the morning, it uses math skills (because with a family our size we have to double or triple recipes),  attention to detail is required to read the recipes and follow directions and teaches life skills at the same time, but if you are going to try it, do what feels right for you and your family.

Side note: Today my youngest went to her friends house to play for the afternoon and I asked that she leave her cell phone and her iPod at home. I told her it was rude to text other friends while she was spending time with one friend, this is the first time I have done this, but I think it will be a another new standing rule. I told her that if she needed to call me that I know that their family has a home phone and they have cell phones and I have all those numbers, and guess what when I got there the two girls had been riding a tandem bicycle and were talking face to face, with nothing in their hands . My daughter’s face and hands and legs were dirty like an 11-year-old who spent all day outside should look, I am excited, a dirty kid means it was a good day in my book!

Thank you S. for having her and our next lesson will be making eye contact when thanking someone for having you, and sounding like you mean it!

Welcome to THE LAND OF ENTITLEMENT, may I see your Passport please?

“You forgot to bring your passport with you today? Oh your dog ate your passport? You just didn’t feel like looking for it? Oh that’s okay, come on in, you deserve it, the rules don’t apply to YOU silly.”

I had a friend (and a mother of a teen) stop over last night and I asked her what she thought I should blog about and her response was, “entitlement.” This appears to be a much larger topic than I first anticipated so this may have to be the first in an ‘entitlement series’ of posts. So let us begin our journey to the Land of Entitlement. It appears that there are some young people (and some not so young, as this is not a new thing; apparently there is an entire generation called the ‘Me Generation’) who feel strongly that they deserve laptops, iPods, cell phones, Uggs and straight A’s without having to work for them. Why do they feel they way and how do they get there? Whose fault is it? Is that what you want to know? Well I have a few theories, but let’s start with the old fashioned definition of the word:

According to Merriam-Webster the definition of entitlement is:1 a : the state or condition of being entitled : right b : a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract 2: a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group; also : funds supporting or distributed by such a program 3: belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges

I have heard myself say to my children, “having a cell phone is not a right, having an iPod is not a right, having a laptop is not a right, all of those things are luxuries and not necessity, therefore consider the use of those items a privilege, and when you do not follow the rules your privileges will be revoked as a consequence.” Remember me writing about the middle school art teacher blogging about the function of failure and it teaching far more than the success of an ‘A’? Have you noticed that school awards ceremonies now take days because everyone gets an award for something? Nobody wants to hurt anyone’s feelings; but an award is supposed to be just that – a symbol of excellence.

How about sports trophies? Are you a parent who believes that every child deserves one for participating in a recreational team sport or is the fact that you paid the registration fee, the kid got a jersey or uniform, he or she likely had fun and possibly learned something reward enough? Are you okay with watching your son or daughter see a peer from a rival team get the championship trophy while they clap and show good sportsmanship? Remember when a trophy used to mean something?  It meant for that one moment in time, you were the best. Don’t you think it loses its meaning, even just a little bit, when everyone gets one? What are we teaching our children? That everyone gets an award just for showing up?

I was talking to my kids about an article written by a Chinese mother about the differences between raising children in the Chinese culture vs the US culture. I asked my kids what they thought about Asian kids and they all said, “they’re really smart!” So I asked how do you think they got that way? They all thought it was genetics, but the real answer is they WORK really hard at it because it’s what is expected of them. In the Chinese culture (and most Asian cultures), honoring your family and your ancestors is of utmost importance, and if you are a slacker and don’t try to become a master of whatever you attempt then you dishonor your family, which is a huge ‘no-no’. Meanwhile back at the ranch, how are your  kids? Do you spend hours in the car driving them to every activity under the sun and providing them with love, support, and every and anything else their hearts desire and then give them a trophy at the end of the day? Do they honor you? Do they show you the gratitude and respect that you deserve? No? Why not? Do you demand it? Do you expect it? The Chinese mom admitted in her article that she has no problem calling her child every name in the book, even humiliating him publicly to get the desired result, which is ultimately respect and excellence all in the name of the child’s best interest.

Children (and some adults) must learn that if you want to be excellent you have to work hard to become that way. And in most cases, people who want to own something have to buy it, and in order to purchase it, they must use the local currency, and in order to have that guess what???? Give up? They have to work for it! NO WAY!!! Really? You mean it isn’t delivered on a silver platter by the butler? You mean if I spend all my money on gummy bears at the store yesterday and I want to buy three iTunes songs today I can’t have my mom write a note and make it so?

Has YOUR child lied about their age to join a social networking site?

Were you aware that they lied? Did you help them set up the account? If so I recommend you read the article below and reconsider your decision.

 

Facebook Users Who Are Under Age Raise Concerns

 

When I read the article linked above I was startled by what I learned, which was quite a bit. According to this article, “Internet companies have set up the rules against under-age users because they must comply with the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, passed in 1998, which says Web sites that collect information from children younger than 13 must obtain parental consent.” I was also alarmed by the problems for the underage boy who was ‘friended’ by a poser classmate and had his photos linked to sexually explicit websites, but not until his name started showing up in Google searches did anyone notice. I don’t know about you, but this scares the bejesus out of me! Two out of my three children have Facebook accounts, but I made them wait until they were 13, which in my opinion is still a little young to be exposed to some of the content even on their own parent’s pages; for example photographs from the old fraternity days, do you really think it is okay for your child to see you stoned out of your gourd or drunk off your a$$? What messages are the youngest users getting from their parents, cousins, other family members or contacts who are shown in countless photographs of underage drinking?

Another problem is that today’s parents have a lot on their plates and it is very difficult to monitor all of the online access that our children have. I allowed my twins to sign up for Facebook accounts when they turned 13, but most of their friends already had accounts (my kids are the youngest in their class, but still there are teacher’s children who have been on Facebook for years, whom I happen to know were not 13 when they opened their accounts). I mentioned in a few earlier posts about banning my 11 year-old daughter from Sketchfu, which sounds like it should be relatively harmless site, but as I mentioned there was a chat feature, and she had people on her friends list that she did not know. Initially she was banned for her own inappropriate use of foul language, but it wasn’t until I did a little research that I found out that even Sketchfu has an age limit of 13. So when I confronted my  11 year-old about this, and asked her how old she said she was on her account, she told me that she lied and said she was 14.   I was disturbed by her having access to and/or being in an online environment posing as a 14 year old. I wish I could find some medical or scientific statistics on the extremes between the maturity levels of an 11 year-old and a 14 year-old, but since I have an 11 year-old and a 13 year-old I can tell you that at times it seems as though they are 10 years apart.

Once I found out there was an age limit for that site I told her that just as she does not have a Facebook account, she is not allowed to have a Sketchfu account until she is 13, but I know for a fact that she has been back to the Sketchfu site since I banned her, I just haven’t caught her. It is horrifying that it is so difficult to be vigilant when a child’s ease of access to these sites can even be had from their iPod Touch. Out of fear for my daughter, I want to post a warning statement on these websites that say, ‘please beware that there may be under age users on this site who have lied about their age, so keep your content on a 6th grade level’, but that interferes with an adult’s First Amendment rights, while trying to protect my child.

What is the answer? How many people use the parental controls on their computers? I have to tell you that on my last laptop I tried to activate them just under my kids log-in ID and I couldn’t even check my email when I logged in as me (and I am the administrator), it was a nightmare, so I finally had to turn it off. I am no computer genius obviously, but there are parents out there who know far less than I do that have no idea what there kids are up to, and if they did they would have no way of knowing how to manage it, because I too am at a loss. I have asked many parents and kids what the tech-rules are in their homes just to get an idea of what others are doing to battle this epidemic. I have borrowed some other parent’s rules and made them my own, but how do we protect children whose parent’s don’t even know they need to be protected? I guess we start with trying to manage it in our own homes and hope that blogs like this one and articles like the one linked to the New York Times above will help make people more aware.

Follow the ‘yellow brick road’ to where again?

What do you do when you know you aren’t in ‘Kansas’ anymore and you have no idea how to get to ‘Oz’?

Today has been an interesting day; have you ever noticed how ‘polite’ people use the word ‘interesting’ to replace a more negatively sounding word?! My day started out by over-sleeping, I woke up exactly 1 hour too late…. damn time change! Yesterday we were fine, but not this morning…. so of course this puts everyone slightly on edge when your mother wakes you in that ‘OMG-we’ve-already-missed-the-bus-and-are-going-to-be-tardy tone’! Of course my son is ready in 5 minutes, I doubt he brushed his teeth, but he say’s, “I’ll be waiting in the car” -very efficient.  Meanwhile my youngest had 2 bowls of cereal in the amount of time it took my 13 year old daughter (who had to shower and put on make-up) to get ready in a hurry!

Are you still with me? Okay good, because my son was waiting in the car for 20 minutes and honking the horn the entire time, as if I had forgotten that we had someplace to be, meanwhile I made him (and his twin sister) an English Muffin with butter and strawberry jam, so they would have something in their stomach to start the day, because moms are just like that! So we get in the car and I hand the twins their muffins and my daughter says, “mom did you write that note to my English teacher”?

PLEASE NOTE: Last night this same daughter left a note on my laptop; the note was written to her English teacher, and it said something like: ‘Dear Mrs So’n So, Please excuse my daughter for submitting her online assignment 1 hour and 15 minutes late bla bla bla….’ Right beside the note was a blank piece of paper and a pen, with which I was expected to write this note to her teacher. Now I will say, that in the past I have written a note when I knew for a fact that my daughter had been working diligently on a project and something unfortunate happened, but that was not the case this time. This time, she spent her entire Saturday watching episode after episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” on Netflix, and on Sunday I put in plenty of personal time on the Atom model project, but I had not heard one single thing about this English assignment so I am assuming that she forgot about it. Now let’s return to this morning in the car on the way to school…

I respond to the question, “No M, I did not write a note to your teacher.” Indignantly, she spats that she will now be getting a lower grade because of me! To which I respond (calmly I might add), ‘how this is a lesson in organization, and time-management, and that if I had seen her working diligently on the project as her letter to her teacher indicated, then I might have written the letter, but this was not the case. If she knew that she had an English deadline and an Atom Project, then she should have worked on one on Saturday and one on Sunday. A deadline is a deadline, and she won’t be learning anything if I write a note to her teacher, because ultimately she is accountable. If she watched TV all day Saturday and knew about the assignment, then she is irresponsible (which I know is not the case, she is normally extremely conscientious), but if she forgot about the assignment, then she needs to use her agenda to become more organized and manage her time better’…. meanwhile I can feel (what I call) “death glare” penetrating the back of my skull, so I turn around and I say, “I’m sorry honey, but I wouldn’t be doing you any favors by writing the note, so please understand and to eat your muffin so you have something in your belly.”

“I hate English Muffins”, she spats.

“Oh since when? I think I saw you eat one covered in Hollandaise Sauce and Eggs Bene on Saturday”

“I hate them plain”, she says.

To which I reply (still calmly, I might add), “perfect honey, because this one has butter and strawberry jam on it, just take a bite please.”

So I happen to glance into the backseat, as she pinches a crumb off the edge of the muffin and angrily shoves it in her mouth…… skreeeeeeeeeeetch …… into the ‘suicide lane’ we come to a dead-stop… I am no longer calm, in case you were wondering. I say, “it will be a mistake for you to behave this way.” And suddenly out of no where, like a polite southern child she says, “Yes ma’am” and takes a bite, so I wait for traffic to pass and I pull back on to the road … Since I am all Yankee,  I set a very poor example of “polite southern ways”, but in a pinch a “yes ma’am” will come out of one of my children and will put them on the path to recovery instantaneously.  All three of my kids have had issues with homework in the past week, so as I continue to drive I drone on with my lecture about homework, which even I don’t remember because I am so tired of hearing myself talk… I pull into the school and try to salvage the morning, with ‘I love you(s)’ and ‘have a good day’ darlings….

So what I NEED TO KNOW IS: Since I can’t get back to ‘Kansas’ (the days before puberty) how do I find the ‘yellow brick road’ and stay on this path to ‘Oz’ (a time when we will be from the same planet again). You are probably wondering by now if I sprinkled LSD on my fiber bran cereal this morning, and the answer of course is no, but again I ask you; why kids don’t come with manuals? EVERYTHING ELSE DOES! To simplify this for you (for me, really) I will say that there are times, between the lessons of ‘Tech Free Sunday’ and using a late homework assignment as a lesson in personal accountability/responsibility, that I feel lost. Times when I imagine what Velma must feel like when she loses her glasses on ScoobyDoo, as I fumble around blindly trying to raise intelligent, productive human beings, by limiting their tech time and not writing notes to their teachers? I might be the cause of a new type of Bulimia: “Techno-Bulimia” for all I know, where my kids binge for 6 days of the week because I made them purge on Sunday, and then because I didn’t write this one note my daughter doesn’t get into Harvard and hates me for the rest of her life. Am I being overly dramatic  or is parenting really the most difficult thing I will ever do? This post feels like my lecture in the car this morning; I think I just rambled on for hours, about nothing, but who knows, maybe you got something out of it, let’s hope so! 🙂

“I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!”

~ The Wicked Witch of the West

 

 

 

 

TFS #7:Today had one less hour so WHY did it seem like the longest day of my life?

Today was TFS #7; a beautiful sunny day!

Mom’s Activities:

• Go to Craft Store to Shop for Uranium Atom Project, a Model car, and a Manga Drawing Kit
• Go to Fresh Market to shop for Sunday Dinner Ingredients
• Go to World Market to shop for Sunday Dinner Ingredients
• Cook Sunday Dinner
• “Help” with design and production of one Uranium Atom Model.
• Edit English Paper
• Try to finish a cocktail before all the ice melted.
• Try to remember to be grateful! 🙂

Kid’s Activities:

• Lounge on Hammock
• Hula Hooping
• Log Rolling (seriously they tried to walk on a log in the back yard)
• Play Frisbee
• Play Wiffle Ball
• Write a list of 101 things to do when one is bored
• Play Board Games
• Draw Manga
• Go to Craft Store to Shop for Uranium Atom Project, a Model car, and a Manga Drawing Kit
• Go to Fresh Market to shop for Sunday Dinner Ingredients
• Go to World Market to shop for Sunday Dinner Ingredients
• Eat Sunday Dinner
• Design and produce one Uranium Atom Model.
• Write English Paper
• Catch up on Homework
• Help clean up after dinner

Tech Free Sunday # 7 Dinner Menu:

• Chicken Makani
• Dhal (Red Lentils)
• Basmati Rice
• Cucumber & Mint Raita
• Naan
• Puppodums
• Mango Chutney

I am exhausted! I’m not sure, but it might have to do with the fact that my 13 year old daughter’s ‘boyfriend’ called her and texted her about 6 times last night at 1:30 am (I texted back: “This is ‘M’s’ Mom, she is asleep. I’m glad to hear that you are the number one soccer player; we have tech rules at our house, please call our home phone # tomorrow between the hours of 10 am and 9 pm to find out what those rules are”.)  He texted back: ‘I’m very sorry’.  Ok so at least he was polite enough to apologize, but still…..  Grrrrrr. Helps to illustrate my point that parents need to unite and get a universal rule book for these gadgets so not one of them is able to text or call another at 1:30 am!

It seems that the kids are getting used to not having their constant connection, they seemed to entertain themselves fairly easily today and I honestly did not hear one single complain, except during the photo of them and their gadgets, one was not happy, but the others were fine.  It could have something to do with the weather change and Spring being in the air, but I do believe that they are enjoying the experience. This evening’s meal was not prepared by the family, which I did not enjoy as much, but they were outside playing and so it was a welcome exchange. On another very exciting note: there were no complaints about the meal, they all said that this was their favorite menu so far, with the exception of my youngest who is a vegetarian, she was not a fan of the Dhal (I think it was more the way it looked than how it tasted that bothered her). TFS#7 another success, no one died and so we will do it again next Sunday.

 

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” ~ Dr Seuss

What does it take to push me to my emotional limit?

A LOT!

What does it take you?

Could you make a list if you were asked to? Would you want to make that list if someone asked you to?

Probably not, so let’s start where we left off:

This blog is about balancing human interaction with technology-overload and parenting teens while standing on a beach ball, spinning plates and juggling Waterford Crystal. Simple Right?!

• My youngest has lost all electronic device privileges for two weeks and every time she is caught cheating the two week clock resets itself, she is on day two for the 4th time.
• All electronic devices must be turned in to my bedroom at bedtime or 10 pm which ever is earlier.
• Tech Free Sunday is the day where our family takes a break; no texting, no cell phones, no computers, no TV, no iPods, no PSP or DS’s and we prepare our Sunday meal together
• My Son and I are still on day 3 of the Couch to 5k Program
• No internet use unless you are in a common area, this means not in your bedroom with the door closed.

For those of you who are missing or have missed the past techfreeteen posts I will do my best over time to re-enter some of the useful information that I think might be helpful.

For those of you who are not parents of teens, not a friend of mine, easily offended, or just enjoy ruining someone’s day please don’t read my blog because it isn’t about you, or for you. It’s about my family and my time with them and how crazy that can be sometimes.