LifePundit

Give the Kids Recess!

What was your favorite subject in school? Mine was recess.

An hour of PE doesn't equal recess. Our kids need more unstructured time.

I assumed all elementary schools had recess. Turns out they don't, so the S.C. legislature is looking into a law that makes recess mandatory. They should also make a law that common sense is mandatory.

We all want our kids to be smarter, faster, jump higher, more successful and extremely happy, so we push push push. Just what is all that pushing bringing us?

Well, in Lily's case, it's brought really bad handwriting. She was in a very high-quality church dayschool and was taught to write when she was four. Trouble is, her motor skills weren't up to it. She couldn't form the letters properly. The teacher kept telling me to work with her, but I kept thinking, "She's in 4-K." I should have finished that thought with, "She's in 4-K. Maybe she's not ready to write."

Instead, in first grade it turns out that Lily can't write where you (or she) can read it, and the first grade teacher says she sees a lot of this from the children being taught to write too early. Lily is one of the worst cases. So the teacher tries to get the administration's permission to drop printing with Lily altogether and switch to cursive, since printing is a lost cause but perhaps Lily will be able to start fresh with cursive. The administration didn't agree.

I've always thought that content mattered more than handwriting, but I should have been paying more attention. Lily's handwriting, cursive or printing, is a mess. She's an honor roll student and gets good grades when the teacher can read her writing. Sometimes Lily can't even read her writing.

This is one of my regrets, and fortunately Lily will probably be able to send me typed birthday cards when she gets older so I can read what she has to say. As far as regrets go, bad handwriting is a problem but something we can all live with in the scheme of things.

But no recess! Somebody needs to pay attention to what we're doing to our kids. What do you think?

Britain Disperses Teen Groups with Device People Over 25 Can't Hear

Cross-posted on The Clock Stops Here.

Should a country that cares about its children use a device that emits a high-pitched sound only people under 25 can hear to disperse those children, also known as "gangs who are up to something"?

That's a debate going on in Britain. And I find it upsetting on two fronts:

1. What! You mean I can't hear as well as I could when I was 25? When did this happen?
2. Of course it's okay to use a high-pitched device on gangs who are up to something. What would you rather do, shoot them with a bullet we can all hear?
    

Here's a photo of the device called a "mosquito." Here's part of the story from this BBC report: 

There are estimated to be 3,500 of the devices, known as the Mosquito, in use in England, many at shopping centres. 

Their sound causes discomfort to young ears - but their frequency is above the normal hearing range of people over 25. 

England's children's commissioner backs a ban but stores say the devices can be useful against anti-social youths. 

The devices, which exploit the fact that a person's ability to hear high frequencies generally declines once they reach their 20s, have proved popular with councils and police who aim to tackle anti-social behaviour by using them to disperse groups of youths. 

But a new campaign called "Buzz off", led by the children's commissioner for England and backed by groups including civil liberties group Liberty, is calling for them to be banned. 

The organisations want to highlight what they call the "increasingly negative" way society views and deals with children and young people.

Excuse me. Perhaps if the "children" weren't engaged in anti-social behavior, nobody would be viewing them in an increasingly negative manner. So if the mosquito gets them to buzz off on home to behave themselves, wouldn't that make it part of an effort to get society to view these 25-year-old children-who are-not-up-to-something in a better light?

And if we're exploiting their hearing advantage by using it to break up anti-social crowds, what about the cell phones they're using that have ring tones in a frequency that parents and teachers can't hear?

In one way, I wish I couldn't hear anybody's cell phone ringing. Go ahead. Use a phone I can't hear ringing. That would make two of us happy. Just be sure that when you talk on your phone you talk in a frequency I can't hear either.

For more about this nasty little conspiracy against the older, wiser, deafer generation, click here.

The Tests We Take

Today we had lots of tests. The first one was to get to a testing center 30 miles away on time so Lily could take the SAT.

Now, we are a chronically late family, led -- or held back -- by me. I always assume things will take a lot less time than they actually do. For example, if I need to be at an appointment at 2:00, I will plan things so that I arrive at the address at 2:00. I won't have figured in the time it takes to find a parking space, park, gather my stuff, etc. So I'm always a little late, though beginning to catch on to how this works and getting better.

Lily has figured this out, so she needed to leave extra early for the SAT. This wasn't a bad idea since we aren't familiar with the area and it turns out the Democratic primary and the SAT were held at the same school. Getting there on time seemed to be a point of stress for her, and since I wanted her to be relaxed, I let her set the time. So she got us all up at 5:15 to leave at 6:30. (Horses had to be fed and all that, too.)

Sleep deprivation for all. I think even the horses are tired. I'll be surprised if she filled in her name right on the test. Not that it matters. She's in seventh grade so this was something she needed to do for a university-backed program for above average kids, not for getting into college. I think it's like Lake Woebegone, where all the children are above average.

Another mother there this morning said, "I think this is like those 'Who's Who' books where for $29.95 your name can be included." In other words, if somebody's going to say my child is above average, I'm certainly going to bite.

So we arrive at the center  much earlier than anybody ever needed to be there and sat there in the dark and the cold, waiting for the hundreds of other above-average kids. Lily had 12 number two pencils, a school-issued calculator and her snacks. As we were getting out of the car, I asked rather routinely, "Do you have your I.D.?"

NO! In an above-average like fashion, she'd forgotten it. And she panicked. I looked at my watch. No time to drive 30 miles and back.

"What's going to happen?" she said in alarm.

I said, "You'll either get in or you won't." She was upset. I was cold and wanted to go to bed.

Paul said the most amazing thing. "There are always other tests and other days."

I was so proud of him. He passed his test. What he really wanted to say was, "You mean I paid for all this and we got up early and drove all the way here and have been waiting in the cold etc."

Lily calmed down. We finally got in the building (after standing in line in the cold). I told Paul to get her in, because he's got a natural talent for getting past barriers. (Translation: He's a Yankee.) It turned out to be no problem, since she's in seventh grade and he's a Yankee.

I don't know where the day went because I spent most of it in a sleep-deprived coma (I haven't been sleeping well all week). We ate two meals out and managed not to have any brushes with fruits or vegetables, unless you count a pickle.

Lily is riding her horse. Paul is playing the piano. And I'm about to pass my test by riding my exercise bike, even though I really, really don't feel like it.

Ko Jones

Lily and I are listening to Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad from Audible. It's hysterical -- three witches, inspired by Shakespeare's three witches -- go on an odyssey to foreign lands (which resemble France, Italy, Spain and Louisiana) to stop Emberella from marrying the prince. They're the anti-fairy godmother -- and they're the good guys. Really.

They end up in a streetside cafe during the running of the bulls, and they won't move because they think the locals are poking fun at them. Somewhere in this hilarious episode somebody uses the word "ko jones," an obvious mispronunciation of cojones. But not obvious to Lily.

"Mom, what are ko jones?"

I ponder this a minute. "I think they meant to say cojones."

"And that's what?"

"Um, testicles." We sit in silence. Then I add, "It's not a nice word. You shouldn't use it."

"MOM! Well, DUH!"

Just doing my job, one embarrassment at a time.

Slapping Matthew and Single-Gender Schools

Lily has been in her single-gender magnet public school (actually, there's also a program for boys so it's really a double-gender, single-gender approach but who would know what that means?) for slightly over a year now. It's the best decision we've ever made.

Here's a recent conversation:

Lily: I'm going to be really sad when I get out of eighth grade next year.

Me: Why?

Lily: Everybody is so nice here. Even the mean people.

At her fancy private school (the one we pulled her out of last year mid-year) the mean people were actually mean. Go figure.

In fact, there was a mean boy who was just rude to all the girls. He must have had a terrible crush on them all and didn't have a clue what to do about it, though try to explain that to any of the girls. "He's just mean and rude," they'd say.

He would stand in front of Lily's locker and intentionally block her access. When she'd ask him to move, he'd say things like, "Loser" as he slowly stepped out of the way. That's not why we pulled her out of school, left half-a-year's fully paid tuition on the table, bought property in the other school district so we could apply for admission, paid tuition for the public school in the other district and had to get her admitted to the magnet program. (And if you think any of this means we have lots of money, you're wrong.) Here's why we pulled her out of an excellent school and chose a single-gender school.

But, before she left the private school, she had a fantasy. She was going to slap Matthew on her last day at school when he blocked her from getting to her locker. All the girls were thrilled. They talked about it for weeks. "Lily's going to slap Matthew!" Vigilante justice. There were phone calls. Much scheming. "Lily's going to slap Matthew!"

At the time, my father was in the hospital looking like death and not far from it. We went to visit him. Lily told him, "I'm going to slap Matthew on my last day of school." My father, of course, was all for this.

"Do you know how to slap somebody?" he asked.

She demonstrated her technique. My father gave her some pointers, and there in his hospital bed with tubes and monitors tying him down like Gulliver in Lilliput, he showed her how she needed to bring her arm back as far as she could before letting go as hard as she can. He showed her how to hold her hand to inflict maximum pain.

Then he said, "Okay. You've slapped him. Now what are you going to do?"

Lily thought about this for a minute. "Run?"

"Yes. Run. And run fast. 'Cause if you slap somebody, you'd better be sure you're ready in case they slap you back."

Lily decided that Matthew would be too shocked to slap her back since she had tolerated his insults graciously for years. Plus, her friends were all going to be there.

I was probably not a very good mother in all this, as I didn't forbid it. Sometimes, people just need slapping. Especially uppity Southern aristocratic boys who have forgotten (or never knew) their manners. (See "Gone with the Wind.") Still, I should have said something, though I probably still wouldn't.

There was great anticipation among the girls on Lily's last day of school. Matthew was going to get slapped.

Only, since it was her last day, the cafeteria gave her a cake and everybody sang a song about how they would miss her. All the teachers made a big deal of her departure and how much she'd be missed. And even Matthew was nice.

"I was all set to slap him, but he was all nice."

Oh well. At least she's got the technique down.

More on the Golden Compass

In spite of my good intentions, I didn't get very far in The Golden Compass. I turned it back into the library without finishing it.

And I don't think it matters. My current dilemma is whether or not to attend the movie. What rubs me the wrong way is I really don't have time for all this debate and cogitation over a stupid movie. I've got work to do, old people to visit, Christmas coming. Horse stuff. Pretty much just a variation on the stuff you have to do. We're all busy. It's a kid's movie. Does it matter?

Unfortunately, yes. Though if I am completely honest I have to say I'm a recovering Baptist (Baptists were different back then, I think), I did find this article by Albert Mohler helpful. (Hat tip: Because I Said So, though she's probably going to get annoyed with me because this is the second day I've linked to links she's posted. Imitation and flattery and all that.)

Lily's a smart kid. Here's what I think we should do. Take her to the movie, and then talk about everything, from cosmic battles to how easily it is to have your thinking seduced to what the author has said about his work.

Here's what Paul says, "I'm not giving any of my money to people who produce this kind of stuff."

And he has a point. In Economics 101 I learned that when you spend money, you are voting with your dollars. When I spend money on something I don't believe in, I am voting for it anyway.

So what to do? Play it by ear, starting with a talk about supply, demand and the value of your dollar's vote.

Or maybe wait until she brings it up.

Christmas Resolutions

I feel the dread of Christmas future. Christmas 2007. If I'm going to survive, I need to make some Christmas Resolutions.

We all know about New Year's Resolutions. We don't think about Christmas Resolutions. I think if we made Christmas Resolutions, we'd have a lot easier time come New Year's.

For one thing, we'd have fewer pounds to lose and fewer money troubles.

I realized the other night that I wish that I could just skip Christmas. It used to be my most joyous time of the year. Now I fake it for Lily's sake. I need to rediscover the joy of Christmas, because the celebration of my Savior's birth ought not to be something I dread.

This isn't going to be an essay about what's gone wrong with Christmas. There are things that can't be helped -- such as my parents' sad state of health or the pain of my mother-in-law's demands and manipulations (Boundaries, boundaries). But there are things that can be helped -- such as my attitude and my ability to say "yes" or "no."

I'm sure you have your own list of how you'd like Christmas to be different. Guess what! It can be. It's a decision you're allowed to make.

So I'm going to write down my Christmas Resolutions and carry them with me. I'm going to re-read them before I go into a store or any other stressful situation. (Yes, I find Christmas shopping stressful.) Why don't you do the same?

Here's my start:

1. Hallelujah! Jesus is born. You don't need to buy a thing.
2. Who are you trying to please? Remember that while Martha was busy cooking and fussing over the meal, Mary was sitting at Jesus' feet, enjoying the presence of her Lord. Be Mary, not Martha.
3. Food is available all year round. You can probably go to a Christmas party and have about three special things and be just as happy as if you ate the whole round of melted Brie with yummy stuff on top. Eat something healthy before you go to parties so that you won't be hungry and out of control. Find ways to celebrate other than food and drink. Like smiling and listening to carols and catching up with friends.
4. Cook everybody's favorite food for Christmas dinner. If it doesn't look like Martha Stewart's table, that's fine. Spaghetti goes fine with lobster and lobster goes fine with sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top. Honest.
5. Give what you can to the people who need it. I think I'll find an angel tree and buy some gifts for children of prisoners.
6. Don't spend more than you can, but don't be a scrooge. Have fun picking out toys for the children in your life. If you get lost and realize you're veering into buying some junky toy because you don't know what to do, get a gift certificate. Personal gifts are better but not worth going crazy over.
7. Send cards to friends you seldom see. It's a good time to stay in touch. If I see you on a semi-regular basis, don't look for a card from me.
8. Lower your expectations for yourself and everybody else.
9. Put on Christmas carols, get out the hot chocolate and have a fun time with your family decorating the house. This is not a contest. Do as much or as little as you want. Take pictures and look at old albums.
10. Go to church every Sunday. Keep focused on the reason.
11. Do something special for people who are alone or have suffered a loss in the past year.
    
12. Catch your child's cheer and spread it to your spouse.
13. If you have difficult people forced on you, welcome them but don't let them disturb your peace and joy. Deflect, set boundaries and take a walk if you need to. In fact, it is a possibility that extremely difficult people can celebrate elsewhere. If you're not going to make them happy and they contribute nothing (or worse) to the household's joy, what's the point? Remember that that is always an option. Being a Christian does not mean you are a doormat. Especially if you've been a doormat for a long, long, long time and you are still not pleasing them and they are still not contributing joy.

I'm sorry about that last one. I'm going to think and pray on that some more, and if Paul really wants to have these people, we'll have them. Playing Christmas carols really loudly ought to solve a lot of the problems. The dog may need a lot of walking, too. That really is okay. It's not up to me to make unhappy people happy. In fact, I don't have the ability. I may just leave and go to the nursing home and be with people I really can make happy. Truly, deeply happy. Just by showing up with a smile.

This list is off the top of my head. What's on your list? I'll bet you have ideas I can use.

What Do You Do When You See Children Being Mistreated?

Saturday is Child Abuse Day at Wal-Mart. Or so a friend tells me. She won't go there on Saturdays for that reason.

We've all seen it. You're standing in line to check out. It could be any store or any place. And there's a mother (usually it's the mother) with a child who got on her last nerve three weeks ago and she's venting her anger at the child. It's a few degrees short of legal abuse. You can't call the authorities and leave it up to someone else. Do you turn your back, get in another line, say something to the mother, say something to the child, say something to God, say something to the cashier, or what?

I don't have the answer. Usually I try to make eye contact with the child and smile, giving him/her what I hope is a loving and supportive look. "The world loves you even if your mother seems not to" I try to say with my face. Is that lame or what?

I will say something if the child is standing in the shopping cart and the mother is talking on her phone and not watching. I'm not treated like a hero for this intervention, but I know I am. I've added five minutes to that child's miserable life.

But what to do about the over-the-top behavior we see in public places? (And dear Lord protect that child in private.)

I wrestle with this every Saturday at Wal-Mart. Sometimes it's a teenaged mother who will never be equipped to raise that child. Sometimes it's somebody you would think would know better.

I feel like I should say something, not be a silent witness to what is a kind of child abuse. I don't know what to say, and pray that God will give me the words.

What do you think? What do you say?

Playing with Matches

This morning's news is that one of the fires in California was started by a boy playing with matches. That's all I know, which is just as well. A tragedy for the families who lost their homes, the firefighters who risked their lives fighting the fire and for the boy, who gets to carry this burden the rest of his life.

Matches and guns are hard for children to resist. And because they are dangerous, we parents want to forbid them. Hide them. Lock them away. (And I'm not saying that guns shouldn't be put under lock and
key. But one day, we might forget and leave the key out, or leave the cabinet unlocked, so we still might want to think about how we approach dangerous objects.) The more they're forbidden, the more tantalizing they become.

I'll never forget watching the boys in Lily's preschool class play "shoot 'em up" even though the school had no weapon-like toys. Each boy had a plastic cow or other animal that they could use as a pistol, with a little imagination. The head was the barrel, the body the grip, the legs a trigger.

Things forbidden (like chocolate when you're on a diet) can consume your mind. My father understood this, and I think he had a really good approach to dealing with guns and matches and children. We could play with matches and guns all we wanted, anytime we wanted. All we had to do was come get him.

Because if there was ever a grown boy who loved to play with matches (and guns), it's my father. He'll sit there and light matches with you all day long. He'll take you out to a safe place to shoot a gun. You can satiate your desire for fire and gunfire. You just have to let the big kid in on the fun.

The consequences of not inviting him, however, were very grave. I don't know what it would have been but I know that I didn't want to find out. Plus, I had unlimited access to matches and guns. Soon, I lost interest.

We've taken the same approach with Lily. My father, who still loves to play with matches, taught her how to light them when she was three. She promptly burned herself (with both of us watching!) and quickly understood the nature of fire.

Your family may do it a different and better way, and I respect that.

When You're Juggling and the Balls Hit the Floor

It's hard not to feel guilty when you're juggling and all the balls hit the floor. Especially when one of those balls is your elderly father.

Lily and I usually go to visit my parents at their nursing home on the weekends. My father wasn't feeling well yesterday, so after restocking his refrigerator, bringing him lunch and visiting with him for a while, we left him to go visit my mother, who is several corridors away in the next building. My father said he didn't feel good enough to go. (He's in assisted living, she's in skilled care.)

Now, if you've got 95-year-old parents and a 12-year-old, you're in the middle of people you love who need vastly different things from you. I'm delighted that Lily wants to visit them and know that they absolutely are thrilled to see her, but I also know that I need to not stay five or six hours or she won't go  back so often. So I had promised her that we would go visit them as soon as church was over and would be back in time for her to go horseback riding (in our yard). We agreed on a time we would leave, and all was going well....

Until we were finished with our visit with Mama, who was glad to see us though she didn't really know who we were. She smiled a lot and said some phrases. She was alert and in her wheelchair. We said our goodbyes and were going down the hall back to say goodbye to my father when whom should we meet in the corridor but my father, who could not possibly stay away from a visit with my mother, the love of his life.

We helped get him set up to visit Mama, but I had a bad feeling about this. I felt like I should stay because he was so very weak and tottery (and he won't stay put in his wheelchair but has to get up and push Mama around the halls, which is the real problem, not whether or not I am there to catch him), but I had promised Lily she would have time to ride and study her math homework. So, I told them both goodbye and we left.

It wasn't like I left him on the street. He was in a nursing home full of skilled caregivers. But somehow, he fell.

And when I called this morning, they told me that they are sending him to the hospital. "We're sending him out," is the peculiar phrase they use. This always feels bad (I've got lots of practice with the ER, as friends and regular readers know). It feels worse today because I left him and he fell.

I know it's not my fault and my saintly brother assures me that the fall was caused by feeling bad yesterday and that feeling worse this morning is not caused by the fall, but by his heart condition.

My saintly brother will meet the ambulance at the hospital. Everything happens in slow motion in the hospital. The ER is a place where time drags and drags and drags. I am leaving now and will meet them up there. My father feels clammy, is disoriented and doesn't want to get out of bed. None of this is good, but he has good days and bad days, and I can only hope this is just a bad day.

I've done this so much it almost feels routine. I am prepared for anything, as much as you can be. But do pray for him. Thank you.