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Parenting Issues - Family Life, Parenting Advice, School Age Children

I'm full-time working Mommy. I have a 6-year-old daughter, "Princess," and a 4-year-old son, "Buddy." My husband "Hubbie" is a stay-at-home dad and rock musician.

The Working Mom Blues

February 7th 2009 03:33

Photo by Ryan Glanzer

Days like these, it sucks to be a working mom. It’s been a long time since I felt that agonizing tug on my heart as I kissed my kids goodbye and dragged myself out the door for work, kicking and screaming.

It used to be a daily occurrence when the kids were babies. Each morning, the front door became a tear-filled torture chamber as I forced myself to walk away from the only things that mattered to me in this world. Things slowly got better as the kids got older, but some days that familiar heartache still rears its ugly head.

Today was one of those days. My 6-year-old daughter is in the process of losing her second tooth. It’s the bottom front tooth, so it affects every aspect of her life from eating to talking. As I’ve mentioned before, “Princess” is a very special girl. To her, each of the most natural, everyday functions that we all take for granted – from eating breakfast to putting on shoes to pooping – is a tremendous ordeal.

For most kids, losing a tooth is two parts excitement, one part fear and seven parts cool and gross. For Princess, the process is nine-and-a-half parts fear and one-half part cool and gross. As a result, she was a soggy mess this morning, full of tears, spit, snot and a little bit of blood thrown in for effect.

That tooth was just hanging by a thread, and she was determined to get it out before she left the house. But she was too scared to actually pull on it, so she stood in the bathroom all morning crying her eyes out as she repeatedly rinsed with water and spit in hopes of dislodging it “tsunami-style.” There was no way we could put her on the bus in her condition.

The bus came and went, and we hoped she would calm down before I left for work so I could drive her to school. No such luck. The tooth was being as stubborn as the girl, so I was forced to walk away and go to work, leaving my daughter a puffy-eyed mess.

I get no sympathy from my co-workers who say, “Well at least your husband is there with her.” Any mom will tell you there are some things a kid needs her Mommy for. Hubby is a fantastic father, and he will be as sweet and gentle with her as I would, but it’s just not Mommy.

I know, I know. It’s more about me than it is about her. She will be just fine. I will come home this afternoon to a smiling, happy girl who may or may not have a missing tooth. It just irks me to have to spend my day with other people’s children when I could be home hugging my own kids.

I will get through it, and thankfully these dreadful days are getting less frequent. But it makes it no less painful when they do come along.

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No Child Gets Ahead

January 16th 2009 21:53

Photo by Ignacio Leonardi

Why are there so many resources for kids who don’t succeed in school, but the kids who excel are not given any special accommodations? My daughter “Princess,” who is in first grade, reads at a third grade level (or higher) and composes her own piano music. She is beyond any child in the class in Accelerated Reader points. She gets 100 percent on nearly every single test and quiz she brings home. She is not just bright; she is brilliant. Yet her teacher does not seem to acknowledge that she is at the top of her class. At our last parent-teacher conference, we asked if Princess would be labeled as gifted. She hemmed and hawed and said she’d like to recommend her, but she thought Princess was just a bit too shy.

Since when did shyness have anything to do with smarts? In fact, shyness is a classic trait in gifted children. It seems that experts have no problem labeling a child with behavior problems as having ADHD so their parents can make excuses about why their kid is failing, but the smartest kids in the class get no extra challenge or accommodations.

Let me stop here to ask all those parents with ADHD kids to please NOT blow up my mailbox with complaints. I know there are plenty of children with legitimate learning disabilities, and I am not for a second suggesting that kids should not get the help they need. But I am also a high school English teacher, and I have seen my share of students who are obnoxious jack-holes and are labeled ADHD so they can get out of doing their work. I have also seen plenty of smart, well-behaved kids like mine get robbed of valuable educational experiences because these jack-holes take up all the teacher’s time and energy.

That being said, I think another part of the problem is…get ready for a shock…. No Child Left Behind. This train wreck of an idea has made it impossible for teachers to do anything but focus on the bare minimum (i.e. the kids who can’t, or don’t, learn the basics). Teachers are so worried about meeting minimum standards and making their students pass those ludicrous standardized tests that the smart kids just sail right on by. Who cares if they’re bored out of their minds and don’t actually learn anything? They’re passing the tests, by golly!

I have determined that the only way to make sure Princess gets a more challenging educational experience is to try to get her into the gifted program. I feel guilty as I write this because I’m becoming one of those parents – which is actually every parent – who wants an individualized education for their child. But when you’re too poor for home school or private school like we are, you do what you can.

Princess came home the other day and told us about a child in her class who was named the “Lucky Learner.” Apparently, he got to be the line leader for the day and some other special treatment. I asked Princess if she has ever been the Lucky Learner, and she said no. I suspect the Lucky Learner is actually not so lucky. It sounds to me like a child who has been struggling and did something right. I think it’s wonderful to recognize kids who have accomplishments, but is it wrong for me to think Princess should be recognized for being the smartest kid in her class? What’s wrong with making smart kids feel good? Why should the struggling learners get all the attention?

I’m being a bit facetious, but there is a point. No Child Left Behind has forced teachers to ignore the needs of bright children. Let’s hope our new president will have some fresh ideas to make sure all kids – not just the struggling ones – get the rigorous education they deserve.

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Panty Crisis 2009

January 7th 2009 13:04

I perform a miracle every single weekday morning. The miracle is getting my 6-year-old daughter Princess on the bus by 7 a.m. I would like to say this miracle is always free from crying and/or kicking and/or throwing of garments, but I can’t go that far. Suffice it to say that somehow, by the grace of God, I get her on that bus. How we get there is not always pretty.

This morning, for instance, we had a major Panty Calamity. As I have mentioned in previous posts, Princess is extremely picky about her clothing. If a seam doesn’t feel just right, an article of clothing could be banished forever. Panties are particularly troublesome because you have the elastic around both the waist and the legs as well as the cotton part, which tends to bunch and sag. At this moment there are no less than 10 pairs of underwear in Princess’ drawer that do nothing but confuse her father into thinking she has enough panties to get through the week. There is only a small group of about five “acceptable” panties that Princess will wear at any given time. And that group is usually hanging out in the hamper, leaving Princess virtually panty-less.

Last night, Hubby tried diligently to prevent Panty Crisis 2009 by washing a load of panties before bed. Unfortunately, they did not completely finish drying. So when I took a pair of panties out of the dryer for Princess to wear to school today, she immediately noticed they were damp.

“They’re just cold,” I tried to tell her. “They were out in the garage all night.”

Nothing doing. You can’t fool that girl. So I did what any Supermom would do in this situation: I threw every piece of laundry onto the garage floor, tossed three pairs of panties in the dryer by themselves, turned the dryer on High, and prayed that the bus wouldn’t show up in the next five minutes.

In the meantime, I handed a very naked Princess her hairbrush and told her to go ahead and brush her hair and get the rest of herself ready while her panties were drying. No dice. She refused to move a muscle without her panties.

Thus Panty Crisis 2009 began. Princess stood quietly in her room, naked and pouting. I stood in the garage, beating the dryer with my fists, yelling and cursing for it to dry faster.

Somehow in my motherly glory, I performed yet another miracle, pulled the warm-but-not-quite-dry panties out, and got the girl into her clothes and out the door.

In a matter of about five minutes, Panty Crisis 2009 was over, and Princess got on the bus smiling and waving back at me. Does she even know the wonders I am capable of? Does she appreciate the lengths I go to avoid a complete meltdown (by both she and I) in the morning? Maybe not now, but just wait until she has a Princess of her own. Maybe then will I get a, “Thanks, Mom.”

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Helicopter Parents Come in for a Landing

January 5th 2009 23:38

Photo by Sergio Catala

A new British survey by the ICM research institute has found that parents are too protective of their kids. The study showed that “half of the children aged 7 to 12 in Britain are not allowed to climb a tree without adult supervision and 42 percent are not allowed to play in the neighborhood park without the presence of an adult.” Experts say that overprotective parents are robbing their kids of their childhood. They are also depriving them from learning essential life skills and how to handle everyday challenges. I am actually torn about this issue because I tend to be on the overprotective side of things, although I worry that I am too involved in my kids’ lives.

My mother perpetuates the problem. She is convinced that anytime the kids walk out the front door they are going to be abducted. We live in a very nice neighborhood with a large, tree-filled front yard, and the kids love to romp around out there. Hubby has no problems letting them do their thing while he tinkers around in the garage or plays guitar in the front room. He doesn’t feel the need to watch them constantly; he simply checks on them every now and then. When I’m in charge, I feel the need to actually be in the front yard with them. I don’t follow them around, but I at least have one eye on them most of the time

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The Epidemic of Cheating - and Why It's Our Fault

January 3rd 2009 00:05

Photo by sanja gjenero

I am a high school English teacher, and I can tell you without a doubt that students cheat, and they cheat A LOT! They don't think anything of copying each other's homework or cutting and pasting entire passages off the Internet. This goes for both the slacker kids as well as the "cream of the crop" college-bound students. They simply don't think what they are doing is wrong.

Can you really blame them? They see their own politicians and business people cheating all the time, and those folks are some of the richest, most powerful people on the planet. What are the real consequences for cheating in our society? Sure, you could get caught and go to some cushy country-club prison for white-collar criminals for a while. But in the grand scheme of things, what motivation do kids have for NOT cheating

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Movie Review: The Tale of Despereaux

January 1st 2009 21:56

I give it two stars out of five

Let me start by saying that the book on which this movie is based - Kate DiCamillo's The Tale of Despereaux - is a fabulous novel. I recommend it anyone who loves a good fairy tale, no matter what age. It was well-written, timeless, and entertaining. I'm afraid I can't sing the same praises for the movie. In fact, I was extremely disappointed.

I suppose you can't blame the movie makers except in the fact that they tried to make a movie for this book in the first place. At first glance, the story would appear to be very adaptable into movie form: a heroic mouse goes on a quest to rescue a grieving princess. It's a unique twist on the classic knight's tale. But the story is much more complicated than that, and it was simply impossible to translate the backstory and character development onto the screen

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Why Abstinence Education Doesn't Work

December 30th 2008 03:46

Photo by Stefano Bianchi

A new study to be published in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics shows that teenagers who take pledges to keep their virginity until marriage are just as likely to have sex and less likely to use contraception than those who don't take abstinence pledges. This study was the largest so far in a growing line of evidence that shows that abstinence education simply doesn't work.

I am a high school English teacher, and my students literally laugh at the sex education they get in school. They mock the system for being naive about the sexual behavior of teenagers, and the general consensus among them is that everyone has sex. Period. Abstinence is a joke

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Developing Your Child's Fine Motor Skills

December 23rd 2008 03:03

My 4-year-old son is having a tough time with his fine motor skills. He is left handed, so it’s hard for him to write and color with regular pencils and crayons. His preschool teacher has expressed concern and suggested we get him some occupational therapy. But being the awesome parents that we are, we decided to help him ourselves, and these are some of the things we have done.

Triangle Pencils and Crayons
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New Year's Resolutions for Moms

December 21st 2008 18:41

Illustration by InvisibleSnow

It's hard to believe 2009 is just around the corner. What a year! It seems as if this year has produced more historic changes than any single year in my lifetime. Our economy has tanked to historic levels, companies that have been household names for generations are now history, and we have elected a new president who is making history every single day. It only makes sense to have a list of New Year's Resolutions for the coming year that reflect a new outlook on the future.

Expect the Unexpected
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The Big Christmas Lie

December 15th 2008 22:14

I am the worst Mommy on the planet. I can't live with myself anymore. Every year, I lie to my kids' faces about the existence of Santa Claus, and I don't know if I can do it anymore. My kids are only 6 and 4 years old, but I'm having a hard time looking into their trusting little eyes and pretending there's a Santa Claus.

In my defense, I don't ever actually lie. When they ask me if Santa Claus is real, I usually just smile and say, "What do you think?" But my conscience truly got the best of me last night when Princess wrote the most adorable letter to Santa. She spent hours writing it in pencil, then writing over top of her letters in different colored markers, then erasing the original pencil marks. She put stickers on it and decorated it so beautifully! She didn't ask for much in the letter -- just some Littlest Pet Shop stuff and a microscope. She even wrote another letter to Santa for her little brother since his handwriting is not so great. She addressed the envelopes, folded the precious papers, and sealed them up

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February 2009

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January 2009

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December 2008