School's Back! A Parent's Guide to Surviving the Start of School

As summer rolls to an end, the call of the school bell begins to ring out all over the nation.  Here in Cobb County, students started school last week.  Cherokee County started August 1st, and I know of places elsewhere that start in the next week or two.

And as kids board their school bus, parents begin to panic.  Will my child do well this year?  Will he make friends?  Will she like her teacher? What if the teacher can't teach my child?  What if there is a bully in the classroom?  What if a gunman bursts into the school building and hunts my child down like a rabbit?  What if aliens blow up the school as a sign of their hostility?

There is a commonality among all but one of these questions:  there isn't a thing you can do to prevent the situation.  You cannot hover over your child's shoulder during the school day providing personal tutoring or helping him/her make friends and learn how to like the teacher.  Nor can you screen every person your child will meet during the school day and magically remove anyone who seems like a bully.  As for gunmen and aliens?  Chances are equal for both to show up, and in either case you cannot stop them.

The one situation you have direct control over is your child's teacher.  If your child has the misfortune to actually get a teacher that doesn't work out due to a personality conflict - a rarity in my experience - you can get your child switched to a different classroom.

Everything else is out of your direct control.  But indirectly?

You are the most important influence in your child's life at the moment, from elementary school to somewhere in middle school.  Then, you get downgraded to merely an important influence.  In any case, you can help your child not by trying to pave the road in front of him, but by teaching him how to drive.

I like this particular metaphor because it works on more than one level.  Learning to drive inside the lines equals learning how to act in a social setting.  It is inappropriate for anyone to stuff toilet paper rolls down a toilet and then flood the bathroom by repeatedly flushing the toilet.  It's also inappropriate to run around school naked or half dressed.  These are outside the line behaviors, and the vast majority of kids know this before kindergarten because their parents taught them how to drive inside the lines.

Potholes represent both choices your child has to make and things that happen outside her control.  Your child needs to learn how to make her own decisions and make her own mistakes - the earlier the better because the older your child gets the more severe the consequences.  As parents, we need to start letting kids make their own decisions at an early age without using our power to override their choose.  For example, let your kindergartner pick out which clothes to wear to school. As long as the outfit follows the school dress code, keep your mouth shut about what you think would be a better choice.  I would go so far as to discuss the dress code before the start of school, and then stay out of the way.  If your child wears shorts in the winter and freezes at recess, so be it.  No one died from getting a little cold.  If you live in a place with real snow and cold temperatures (we have neither here), maybe you discuss sending along long pants for outdoor time.  But let your child learn. Sometimes, the best way to learn is to make a mistake and then live with the consequences.

 As for bumpy roads, they represent life events that happen outside you or your child's control, events that they will have to deal with.  See another person getting bullied?  Find a wallet on the ground?  Get a flat tire on the way to school? Witness someone having a temper tantrum?  How have you taught your child to handle these situations?  And I don't necessarily mean what conversations you have with your child (though conversations are valuable).  Parents are the first and foremost role models for children; they will do as we do regardless of what we say.  

I guess this boils down to Uncle Ben's saying:  With great power comes great responsibility.  And as a parent, you have great power in your child's life.  If you panic at the thought of school, your child will panic at the thought of school.  If you belittle the teacher where your child can hear you (and remember, children have BIG ears), then your child will respect the teacher less.  And if you worry about your child passes a grade, your child will question his/her ability to pass the grade.

So use your power wisely.  Everything will work out in the end.  Really and truly.

Fly Away, Flu!

This past week, I received an email from the pediatrician's office, telling me that the flu vaccine is now available and remind me to schedule an appointment for my children.  The email spawned some questions:

• Do I want to schedule an appointment?  
• Do I want my kids to get another vaccine?

I know that vaccines do not directly cause autism, because I read and believe all of the research surrounding thimerosal.  And I have relatives who died or were permanently disabled from polio, so I also believe that vaccines do good.

But I also know that the over use and misuse of antibiotics has created several new super bugs, including new strains of both tuberculosis and gonorrhea that resist almost all available antibiotics. If we get an epidemic of either disease, we would be hard-pressed to respond in any way other than to let the infected die while protecting the healthy.

So I wonder, do vaccines exasperate the problem?

After research, my answer is no, vaccines do not exasperate the super bug problem.  In fact, by removing certain viruses from the living population, vaccines help us eradicate certain diseases, creating a stronger populations.

I then looked at arguments against the flu vaccine, or vaccines in general:

1. Vaccines hurt the immune system, as evidenced by the sudden expansion of auto-immune diseases.
2. The flu vaccine doesn't work because the scientists merely guess what to put into it.
3. We don't know that vaccines are effective.
4. My child is not in an at-risk group, and therefore does not need the flu vaccine.
5. Vaccines use thimerosal, which causes mercury poisoning.

More research ensued, and this is what I learned.

1. Auto-immune disease, such as arthritis, have been documented for centuries, and there really is no "sudden expansion" in the area.  In fact, vaccines help to exercise the immune system in a world filled with antibacterial soap and obsession with cleaning products.
2. Okay, the scientists are guessing what flu will emerge each winter.  But the amount of hard work put into that "guess" outweighs the amount of fancy or fantasy in it.  
3. Proving a positive is quite difficult in science.  But circumstantial evidence solidly and strongly supports the effectiveness of vaccines.
4. In the beginning, the medical community recommended the flu vaccine only for at-risk groups (such as people with weakened immune systems or with respiratory problems, like asthma).  But these days, everyone is eligible for the flu vaccine because it is better for everyone if no one gets the flu.
5. Thimerosal is a preservative for multi-dose vaccines that helps to prevent deaths from vaccines gone bad.  In 1928, 12 children died from a staphylococcus infection given to them through a vaccine without preservatives.  Several groups researched thimerosal after someone supposedly linked it to autism, but no one has credibly supported that link.  In response to public opinion, the CDC removed thimerosal from almost all vaccines.  The flu vaccine is an exception, and still contains a small amount of thimerosal, but there is a non-thimerosal version available if you ask for it.

In the end, I would rather my kids not get the flu, so I will be taking them to get the flu vaccine in the next week or so.  My husband and I will also be getting the flu vaccine.  The question now is, will you?

* The video is a song about the flu, composed and sung by the amazing Tom Lehrer.

If At First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again!

First found in "The Teacher's Manual" by American educator Thomas H. Palmer, the proverb "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." remains good advice in all stages of life.  But while we adults know this proverb and can apply it at our discretion, children need to be taught to keep trying.  The question is, how?

I know of two ways in which adults unintentionally discourage trying:

1. Praising kids for being smart.  As counter-intuitive as this seems, if you want a child to perform well in school (the first place for her to shine), praise your child for all the effort she puts into her work, but do not praise her for her intelligence.  Children figure out on their own how intelligent they are in the scheme of things.  No child needs to be told, "You're smart." But every child needs to be encourage to keep trying.  Otherwise when a child is presented with a assignment that feels hard, she quits without really trying.  The internal feeling is, "Well, if I'm not smart enough to do this, then why even try."   
2. Not letting kids be imperfect.  For all you Alanis Morrisette fans out there, remember the song, "Perfect"?  The song starts with "Sometimes is never enough/If you're flawless, then you'll win my love" and end with "We'll always love you just the way you are/If you're perfect".  Alana wrote this because she felt the pressure to never make mistakes - a pressure that parents sometimes put on their children (hopefully unknowingly).  For example, if you have a child going through speech therapy, a good speech therapist impresses upon the parents' not to correct their child's speech at home.  Why?  Because the child needs to be able to practice without censure.  Of if your child is learning to write, most teachers want parents not to correct any writing that child does at home.  Learning to write is a multi-stage process, and children need to practice each stage without constantly getting their work corrected.

As for how to encourage trying, I suggest you tell your kid that he has a super power - the ability to keep trying until he gets something right.  Then praise him for trying and let him do his best without jumping in to make everything perfect.

Golden Rules for Saying "No"

Child's View of the word "No"

Children test out their boundaries and rules as a normal part of growing up.  Enforcing the boundaries and rules, while occasionally stressful, leads children to feel safe and protected.  One of the common ways a parent administers the boundaries and rules of their family is use the simple word, "no".   But the aftermath of that statement ranges from a simple pout to full blown temper tantrums.

How you handle the reaction to a "no" varies from a toddler (who you hopefully distract) to a teenager (who you expect to put on his big boy pants and deal).  But there are two golden rules for saying "no" itself:

1. Only say "no" if you mean it.  - This boils down to the fact that a parent needs to be thoughtful about each and every "no".  It is amazingly easy to use either "yes" or "no" as a default answer, but default answers lead to situations where you either say "yes" or "no" when the other answer is the more appropriate answer.  This leads to breaking rule #2...
2. Never back down from a "no". - Kids learn quickly whether a parent can be whined (or pestered or begged)  out of a "no" answer.  So if you say "no", you have to stick to your guns, especially with young children (who tend to test this more).  

These rules actually help set up and enforce one of an important parent boundaries.  I call it:  "The Mommy said No, Do Not Ask Again  or There Will Be Consequences." boundary.  

Okay, there is a third rule that applies, but this one applies to every parenting situation - the United Parental Front (or UPF). But that's a different post.

Trust - It's Not Just for Breakfast Anymore

East Cobb Park - a place to run around and play

For those of you new to my blog, I avidly read and follow the Free Range Kids blog by Lenore Skenazy.  I raise my kids to be free range, roaming our neighborhood and a few surrounding neighborhoods in an effort to help them learn to be self-reliable.  I rail against the fear mongering as propagated through the supposed news media, as every single little potential incident gets blow up and reported as though it was happening it your own backyard.  I rail against the stupidity of school systems which all but ban a child either arriving at school alone or leaving school alone.  After all, what might happen if a child walks home alone or with a friend??  

But today, I want to ask the question - what happened to our trust in society?  What happened to trusting your neighbors, to other humans?

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, I rode my bike or walked to school.  I had friends to talk to sometimes; I had time to think and enjoy nature at other times.  I learned that I was okay by myself, and that I didn't need someone else around for me to be okay.  I met neighbors, both old and young.  I felt like part of a community.

Fast forward to today, and see how much the world has changed.  Moms and dads schedule playdates for their kids, who have no other way of meeting friends.  Some moms even refuse to schedule a playdate if the dad is the only parent present at the other house.  A woman called 9-1-1 to report a man who talked to her daughter.  Yes, the man's only "crime" was speaking to a little girl outside.  (The man was looking for his lost puppy.)  Another woman called 9-1-1 because a van was slowly following the school bus in her neighborhood.  The reason behind this act completely eluded me, since any vehicles following a school bus in a neighborhood drive slowly, or risk hitting a child.  But then I learned the van was driven by a Hispanic man.

What are we really so afraid of?

In Sweden, mothers frequently leave their occupied strollers outside a store if a baby is sleeping or resting happily.  When asked why, the common response is "Why not?  Everyone watches out for babies." The same is true for toddlers, preschoolers, little kids, big kids, and even teens.

So why can't we Americans learn to trust our neighbors, our community, as much as Europeans?

If we trust our neighbors, then our kids can play outside without parents worrying about nebulous danger.  If our kids play outside, they get exercise, get practice making friends, learn how to navigate their own corner of the world, and - most importantly - learn to rely on themselves.  We help our children grow into responsible adults.

But only if we are willing to put down the mantle of fear, and retake the mantle of trust.

Children and Multiple Intelligences: A Short Aside

After posting Part 1, I realized that schools and school systems who have good test scores might be hesitant to implement any new teaching methodology or techniques.  Why?  After all, doesn't the present of good test scores mean that the schools use cutting edge ideas?

No, on the contrary, schools with good test scores only use the tried and true methods, because no one wants to be responsible for lowering the test scores.  Instead, it is the Title 1 schools and the schools with low test scores that feel free to try new teaching techniques, since they can theoretically only get better.

And people wonder why I never liked "No Child Left Behind".