Taylor’s home with a bad cold today, so he took part in some of Cidnie’s school fun. They had fun making their model volcanos. Now, they’re only wishing they could speed the drying process so we can make them erupt!

Taylor also had a fun weekend babysitting his classroom’s silk worms. Mom was a little less enthusiastic about them, but she’s glad he had fun!

Saturday, we took a trip to Muir Woods where the kids got to learn about birds as a bonus to visiting the park. I think hearing what an Owl hears was one of the top day’s events.

This was Taylor in his Thomas Jefferson costume yesterday at school. He’s spent the last few weeks working on his biography for him. Yesterday, he had his interview in front of the class. My two favorite parts were his entry and his closing answer. I have to point out that he didn’t answer the question of whether or not he was a perfectionist with a mere yes. It was, “Yes, I am.” How perfectly fitting for this little lad!

I was so proud of him! Here’s a little video clip of his interview.

It all started with a book. Well, I should preface that the most recent event started that way. I’m actually finding this is a repeating pattern in the waters of parenting a teen.

The new “thing” for my thirteen year old daughter has been to hang out with her friends at the library after school. Generally, I’m cool with this. I’m not so naive as to believe they’re only working on homework, I understand the social elements of this age group. I’m wary of their curiosity - well, more of them educating their peers on their own understandings of said curiosities - but I can’t stop the rain from falling. So I compromise, I take a second glance at the situation and here’s what I see: I can’t control everything, and honestly I wouldn’t want to. Experience is the true teacher, but it can still involve my guidance. So I let my daughter go be with her friends and I maintain a close connection and communication with her about what happens. She’s learning that for her honesty she’s rewarded with more freedoms and can continue to enjoy this activity of library gathering. I’m grateful for this pattern, though I don’t mind telling you it quite frankly scares the snarf out of me. Last week, I learned how her friend sitting next her was chatting with a cute boy on Facebook and how she kept pulling my daughter over to see the conversation. Suffice it to say, the boy was boldly sharing what he wanted to do to her in the too typical crude language of today. Good news, my daughter is frankly sharing an event of the afternoon. Bad news, it is so obvious that this behavior is viewed by kids as both acceptable and just the way things are today. Enter the reason for this post, the book.

We were driving home and my daughter asked me what ‘p u b e s’ spelled and meant. My first instinct is a negative relation, but I answer her honestly that I don’t know, it’s not even a real word to my knowledge. She hands me her book and says, it’s right here. I read the paragraph it was listed in:
~~~~~~~~~~~
Snow Angel: i could NEVER not shave my pubes. that is just gross. but even if i did have a pubic hair problem, which i do not, u and zoe would still luv me, right?”
~~~~~~~~~~~

So my first instinct was sadly right on target. But where did it come from? What’s the point in writing like this? So I go back a few paragraphs to find the reference and find this:

~~~~~~~~~~~
mad maddie: my brother’s new girlfriend doesn’t shave her pits OR her pubes. he brought her to this family party at lake lanier this weekend and she wore a bikini.

mad maddie: it was basically like she had a pelt. the pops pulled me aside and said in this really loud whisper, “guess she forgot to mow the lawn, huh?”
~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m speechless. Between wrestling with the content itself, the idea that dad would talk like this to his daughter, the grammar, etc. I feel like I’ve been swallowed in a torrent of information leaving me disoriented. Knowing that my daughter is waiting for a response, I ask her what caused her to choose this book. She says simply her friend told her she just had to read it that it was really great. She’s just started it, which was true as this was only page three. (Incidentally, later I asked her if she’d been able to realize in her first three pages that the book was going to be full of content not worthy of her time or in alignment with her values. She said no. This, I told her is why she needs to ask for my help so she can learn how to do that for herself.)

Side story, a few weeks ago another “friend” told her about a website she just had to go to because it too was really great. We’ll leave it stated simply that the video chat site referred to is a disaster. So pulling from this experience I gently remind her that sometimes our friends don’t have the best advice and it would be in her best interest to share their suggestions with me before diving in.

Okay, so reality check here. The stuff her “friend’s” are suggesting are definitely morally corrosive. The good news is, she’s sharing them with me. I hope this means I’m playing a few cards right and that I can maintain that relationship. I can’t imagine not knowing about this stuff she’s dealing with every day. It still scares the snarf out of me.

That last line by the way is the crux of this book’s author’s reasoning. Since being exposed to this book I’ve done a little research to see how other parents were receiving it. I found an article where the author addresses being under fire for her books. She states: “…that parents anger springs from fear.”

I would like to address this because there is fear here, as I’ve clearly stated but I don’t think it’s of the variety the author is describing. I’m not afraid of tackling tough and sensitive subjects with my kids. It comes up all the time. I’m actually a very big supporter of my kids hearing the right information - from me. I’ve got a very open door policy on talking honestly about what moral and sensual things mean. My fear stems from the flippant and rampant acceptance of crudeness and lack of moral compass views thrown at our youth. This time in their life is so turbulent anyway, they don’t need any help stirring the waters they are forced to navigate. While it’s easy to recognize the physical changes taking place, they’re far from the only thing developing. These adolescent years are formative brain development years, a time when their development turns to the frontal region as they begin developing their reasoning and impulse control skills - which by the way, won’t fully mature until their mid-twenties. This is one major reason why pleasure seeking activities are so prevalent among teens. Scientifically, we can now prove how their brains are starting to process differently rewards and pleasure. So they turn outward for more social interaction and peer pressure takes center stage.

THIS is what scares me. We’re taking our youth at their most vulnerable state and asking them to process very adult moral concepts and themes. And we’re asking them to do it before their ability to successfully process it is developed. I defy you to find an adolescent who didn’t feel that pleasure and reward rush from reading a book like this, even if they’re able to acknowledge the content isn’t of moral material. With such direct and powerful image wording and descriptions let alone the addressing of topics they’ve been told by adults they aren’t ready for yet, we’ve just sugar coated an already tantalizing treat. The danger to me is how we’re helping them form their thoughts and opinions during a time of key development. Most parents don’t want to be excluded from their child’s process during this time, but tools like this book are aiding that war as well. Morals never have and never will compete with the glitz and glamour of immoral, and those presenting immoral material will never share the realistic results of the behaviors. After all, no one wants to see the disease and hardships that come from immoral choices - there’s no fun, money or profit in that. Parent’s are already at the disadvantage and children are already vulnerable - why do we need to exploit both yet more? I don’t understand it. I mean, kids have every reason to target parents in their battle for independence, we make them brush their teeth, shower and finish homework. We’re evil. Trying to help them process and understand why content like that shared above is morally corrupt is fuel to an already glowing bonfire. This is where my fear turns to anger. So yes, I am angry and it does stem from a fear, just not the fear the author is talking about.

The only thing I know to do as a parent is keep up the second glance. I can’t take it for granted that what my daughter is doing or seeing is okay - even though I know she’s got the foundation of a strong moral compass - I’ve got to take second looks. I’ve got to stay involved no matter how hard because I’m my daughter’s best advocate while she’s growing her own armor. I can’t send her into battle without full protection. So until that brain is developed fully, you can bet your buttons I’ll be crusading in front of her and I’ll gladly take on authors like Lauren Myracle and all the content she’s addressing head on.

Other thoughts on parenting teens:
Independence

I shared recently how I’ve been working on increasing my own education through available technologies today. I’ve been focusing on taking in at least one lesson a day in various subjects. With a love of history, today I watched the first part of a series on Thomas Jefferson.

It is common knowledge today that Jefferson was well educated and influential with his knowledge. Many declared his writings as “evidencing keen intellect.” It is no wonder that he would be chosen to work on writing our nation’s Declaration of Independence; a document that not only stands the test of time but also personifies the embodiment of educational wisdom.

I was struck with how we owe all we now have at our disposal for learning because of our ancestors like Jefferson. What are we doing with it? What would they say about our education system today? What more would they teach us? I fear we’ve squandered that gift. I fear we’ve lost the very art of learning.

Today we seem to care more about buzz words, statistics, standards, etc., etc., etc. than we do about whether or not our children are succeeding at gaining wisdom and knowledge. Teachers lament receiving students who come unprepared to learn their material and they are quick to point out that they have no time to review or re-teach in order to keep up with today’s schedules and standards. These standards are a direct result of our competitive desire to prove how smart our kids are. No one bothers to take the time to see if our kids are really smart or not, they just see test scores and try to find ways to increase them. One tactic is to throw more content earlier to students. Consequently, we continually increase our expectations of mastery for a broad array of subjects before most kids are old enough to reach the bathroom sink by themselves. And how do we measure the smarts and abilities of students and educators? Why, with a brilliant “one test fits all” approach. Boy we’re smart.

So, in a time when all resources were scarce, computers didn’t exist and there were no endless lists of structured programs and legislation to govern it, the most brilliant minds of our time developed. And now that we have all those things and more we’re producing a generation capable of winning texting contests. In fact, I doubt many of them could hold a candle to the educational wisdom of their ancestors. Interesting isn’t it? And it doesn’t end there. Here’s another interesting comparison between then and now. Jefferson, who we’ve already determined was brilliant and well educated would have been doomed to fail by our ’standards’ today. According to records, he started school at age 9. I’m confident that most people would completely flip over the suggestion of not starting formal education until the age of 9 today. My son is only 8 and he’s in his fourth year of his public school career. We’re not even going to go down the preschool path.

Not only did Jefferson not begin school until the age of 9, his first five years were spent on only two subjects: language and nature. History and science weren’t added until his second school at age 14 and math, astronomy and architecture wouldn’t be introduced until he was 16. I’ve shared before how my son’s kindergarten curriculum had the subjects of data analysis, algebra and geometry. I’m sorry, but I think discrete mathematics at age 4 and 5 is ridiculous. And while my son has probably had more homework in the last 4 years than Jefferson had until he hit college, I would argue that he’s not got anything on Jefferson. None of today’s hype impresses me. I simply don’t buy in to today’s theories and beliefs on education. I think if Jefferson and his peers could talk to us to day they’d have a lot more to teach us and it would have an awful lot to do with backing up, slowing down and focusing on basic and fundamental education.

I’d wager that Jefferson didn’t feel deprived by spending his first 9 years of life free of school. Kids can’t be kids today, they’re not allowed; there isn’t time for it. How can they be when a simple playground accident is treated like an act of malicious intent or they’re supposed to understand and spell words like equivalent and metamorphic by the time they’re 8? (I didn’t make those up, those are straight off my son’s vocabulary list this week.) Our expectations are out of alignment and seriously whack.

When are we going to see there’s more to learning than we’re focused on seeing today? What I wouldn’t give to spend a few days in the same room as our forefathers; we’d have a lot to talk about.

I just returned from my son’s Kindergarten musical. It’s so amazing to see them growing so fast right before your eyes.

I’ve been so impressed with the music program at my children’s elementary school. Their teacher does more than just teach a few songs to the student body. Every age group is given a time to perform in their own program. Every program incorporates kids playing instruments, doing some simple choreography and singing all as part of a themed program. Often it includes highlights for solos and narration speaking parts. The stage is decorated to match and programs always accompany a performance. I’ve been around to a few other schools and I find very few put this much into their music department and concerts, especially at an elementary level. It is so rewarding for everyone involved.

Here’s some highlights from this one:

Taylor took ample opportunity to pose for the camera. What a character!

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It’s possible that I’m insane, but I’m really excited about a new project cropping up on my horizon. I know, it’s not like I’ve already got a plethora of them right? It’s not like I haven’t been complaining about my lack of steam to get them completed lately either right? I know, I may need to be committed somewhere in a little white jacket. Especially when you find out what this project is in and how excited I am about it!

This week we received a brochure for a new school opening in our area. The concept is “Classical Education” and as I skimmed the reading list for this 6-12 program I found myself rubbing my chin thinking on what a great list it was. I looked at their curriculum overview and found myself wishing I could sign up! As hubby and I talked on our walk last night we discussed how sad it is that neither of us feel really well versed in literature. I recognize names, some works I know I “studied” in school but remember so little if anything, but the vast majority I know nothing of and have never read. How sad given how much I love reading and how much I’ve been reading lately. So my new project is to make my way through this core reading list of over 100 titles and to take up the challenge of some of the curriculum topics. I may not qualify to sign up as a student but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn all this stuff. Besides I’ve always been a trial by fire person and have managed to learn a great deal teaching myself.

It’s kind of sad when you think on how we spend so many years being exposed to a vast array of education topics, but as we “specialize” our field continues to narrow. By the time we’re adults most of us have chosen a field of expertise or study and while we may know a great deal about that we are likely very ignorant of other topics.

It made me really question when the last time was I chose to learn something just because. Obviously, my answer was lacking and it’s time to fix that.

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While I enjoy the routines of school and the return to schedules I definitely don’t enjoy the exposure to sickness that comes with school. The first note of strep throat in the classroom came home yesterday. Then at curriculum night yesterday one of the parents actually asked the teacher when it was okay to let your child come to school when they weren’t feeling well.

For all those parents who wonder this the answer is simple. When you know your child isn’t feeling well you keep them home. Often they are contagious before a fever and before what they have has been identified. Most school districts have a common rule of a child being fever free for 24 hours before returning to school, another common sense item yet I’m often amazed at how many parents share stories of doping their kids up on Tylenol before school to mask the symptoms. Not cool.

I wouldn’t say I’m an extremist parent in this regard, but I have been known to keep my child home for their own safety if they had signs of a simple cold, etc. just to make sure they didn’t get something worse. I would say that I think most parents miss the boat on this issue entirely waiting until a fever breaks before keeping a child home. If more were aware of them being “off” or feeling a little under the weather I’d bet we’d keep our kids healthier overall and nip contagious illness in the bud more often.

It’s not all bad, exposure to illness means stronger immunity too. I’m okay with that, but I’m not okay with irresponsible parents. Their lack of consideration and awareness affect so many other kids and their educations. I wish they could see that.

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And just like that they’re gone…

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I’ve been thinking about how to start blogging my memories ever since I wrote about them last week. Today I was chatting online briefly with a friend from High School. We’ve actually gotten to know each other better since we graduated than we ever knew each other as classmates. I mentioned that I blended in with the walls pretty well in school because I was so shy. I suppose his response shouldn’t have surprised me but in a way it still did to read that he remembered that about me. I guess that part of me is so changed into the person I am now that I’ve always hoped others would forget it too. But it’s part of me and it’s what’s on the brain right now so I’ll share a few memories of that quiet kid I used to be.

I have to preface all of this with a constant question in my mind. It’s one of those “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop? The world may never know.” kind of questions. I’ve always wondered how my life might have been different if I’d lived in different places, or more specifically not moved when I was a young girl. You see, when I was born and up to the ripe old age of 7, my family lived in Preston, Idaho. Now if you’ve seen Napoleon Dynamite you’re going to be laughing your backside off about my internal struggle but I’ll share it all the same.

My parents owned and operated the Plaza Motel which was right next door to the Popp’n Pins bowling alley. My mom and dad are probably amazed right now that I pulled that name out of the archives so easily. But I actually remember a lot about those years in Preston. I especially remember Kindergarten and first grade. I remember that I was a cute little girl that was well liked by her classmates. I didn’t have any enemies or kids that were mean to me. In fact, I remember very specifically laying our coats down against the wall of our first grade classroom during the winter as there were no hooks on our wall. Several boys had a habit of burying mine with theirs. One day, I remember Ricky coming up to me and asking me if I knew why so many boys put their coats on top of mine and when I said no he explained they did it because they liked me and thought I was cute. I blushed as deep a pink as my dress but inside I glowed like a thousand watt bulb with the compliment. I remember catching him looking at me with a big grin more than once and loving every moment of it. I have a similar memory of Kindergarten and my mom switching from the half day every day to the all day every other day program for a short time. When I went back to my half day class I was grabbed up in the biggest bear hug by one of the girls who exclaimed with glee, “Oh goody, goody gumdrops!” over and over. I can still hear her in my head. Further, my peers perceived that my family was rich because they owned the motel. Which was one of like four businesses in the entire town. Okay maybe more than four but again, have you seen Napoleon? The point is, the perception, or at least my interpretation of it, was that I was one of those popular kids - well liked, privileged, etc. If we had never moved I may have been a smug Summer Wheatly (sp?) kind of girl.

As it turns out, my parents sold the motel and moved to a small farming community after my first grade year. The closest town was Rexburg, about 8 miles away. While I was delighted that we finally had our own home everything changed. No one knew me or my family, they didn’t own any landmarks and consequently big changes were in the cards. I was a nobody, a new kid, an outsider. While the kids of my “neighborhood” readily accepted me and were kind with fun friendships forming, the kids at school were not. For a child who never experienced a move, doing it for the first time at age seven was brutal. Most of the kids at school in my class were mean and made no bones about not accepting me as the outsider. I got ‘new girl’ sneers and jeers to my face as well as behind my back, and I was excluded from circles of friends along with their games and activities. I was too young to know if I had tough or weak skin, I just knew I was very confused because this was so opposite of what I’d known in school previously. I wasn’t a totally ninny because I remember yelling one day to most of the class that maybe I’d move back where I came from anyway and then they’d be happy and so would I! It wasn’t until I broke the ice playing the coveted sport of soccer at recess that I was accepted as one of the group. For the record, one aspect the movie got right about Preston is the sport…tether ball was the only thing outside rollerskating I’d had exposure to. But the good news is I had a knack for it and I was pretty good, comparatively speaking, so from that point on things took a positive turn.

By the time I was my daughter’s age, in fourth grade, things were much closer to the life I’d known in Preston and I was happy. I even had a boyfriend, and he was one of the popular and privileged, “rich” kids whose daddy was a big name farmer in the area. Remember how association acceptance worked? When you’d be accepted in different social circles just for who your friends were? Oh wait, that’s not a thing of the past. Never mind. Anyway, aside from the petty girl games that come with the age and a few rough patches with it, life was good. That’s when the next blow struck. I was uprooted again when all the kids my age were combined into one big sixth grade class at a middle school in town.

Sixth grade changed everything…again. I was now another face in a classroom of kids I’d never met, this time things were more equal but still really intimidating. Most of us were new to each other. However, that year largely defined the rest of our school experience, reputations and friends. Worse was I lost my association powers because my friends and I were separated into different homeroom classes. In fact, after a few weeks of school my best friend informed me that she’d found a new best friend and so couldn’t be my friend anymore. It was a sign of things to come because I never again associated with those early friends from grade school. I’ve always regretted that. But I fell back into a pattern of quiet uncertainty. I met one new friend that became my bosom buddy through the worst years of my life - a.k.a. Junior High. But the pattern of quiet was set and wouldn’t budge much until I got involved in drama my last couple years of High School.

It’s funny looking back because I see a recurring pattern of starting new, rising to the challenge and starting over. I’m not the shy, quiet and insecure girl I was in school anymore but I remember her very well. There’s a lot more to me being quiet than I can share here and this is already a book so I’ll close and save the other thoughts for another day. Suffice it to say there are good things about being quiet too.

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So many things are calling for my attention this morning but my mind is likely to explode if I don’t find a way to get some of these thoughts and memories out. So the laundry, dishes and vacuuming will have to wait while I attempt to organize and store these thoughts here on my blog - my personal pensieve.

The memory mumble in my head has been building for a while now. The culprits for the growth include: 1) watching my daughter and remembering life at her age, 2) being in touch with old classmates, 3) reading. All three seem to have recently collided in the same space of my mind.

My daughter is 10 this year. She reminds me frequently that she’s really almost 10 1/2 because she’ll be 11 this fall. What she doesn’t know is that I need no reminding. Nor does she comprehend how well I understand her feelings of wanting so much to hasten growth not to mention the emotions of girl troubles and boy crushes. But I do remember and watching her experience it is like reliving some of my past on a regular basis, which until recently I’ve completely underestimated the power of. This is intertwined with viewing photos yesterday of some old classmates at my last high school reunion that I didn’t make it too. I saw a picture of one of my best friends when I was her age and it brought back a flood of memories. Then last night as I was reading, I was struck with the harsh reality of how many things we do in our lives because of influence or peer pressure and how that impacts our lives, the lives of others and the memories we lock away.

Lock is an intentional verb in the concept of storing memories. You see I’ve recently come to the realization of how I’ve locked in so many memories, expectations and criteria based on association and timing. Sadly, many of those were done automatically when I was the least capable in my life of looking beyond myself - namely, high school. As I looked through pictures of classmates from a few years ago I found myself thinking terrible things like, “wow, they sure got fat”, or “woof, time has not been friendly to them”, or even “they look as mean and stuck up as they ever were.” These aren’t the things I think when I meet people every day now, I don’t hold them to this standard. And then I thought on how I was being so harsh in my judgments and expectations simply because of association. The fact is, I knew these people when they were teens. The fact is, teens are self-centered and egotistical and often down right unkind. The fact is, teen bodies haven’t been impacted with age. I didn’t think I was a terrible teen, I still don’t. But I concede that I was totally wrapped up in myself, my own fears, anxieties, self conscious worries, etc. Heck, I never wore a short sleeved shirt to school or shorts because I was so sure everyone would notice my horrifically bony elbows and knees. It never even occurred to me that they wouldn’t notice my imperfections because they were so focused on their own. And I certainly never thought on the physical state of maturity and age, I just took for granted that my body would always be the same and therefore only focused on the things I didn’t like about it. This is where hindsight becomes so valuable and we’re back to that reality of not truly appreciating what you had until you no longer have it principle.

What really got me into a muddled mess was thinking about never giving these classmates a chance. I locked in my memories of them at their best or worst and that’s where they live in my mind. It’s why I’m so shocked when I find out how many kids some of them have or how nice they are now that they’re adults and I’d be equally shocked to learn anything negative about my personal heroes and the few I put on pedestals. I’m ashamed to admit it, but to this day there are two girls whose names make me cringe when I first hear them. It was a silly thing that happened clear back in 7th grade when they made fun of me for not having any boobs when I refused to give them my math answers. But it made its mark on me because it hit on the area of physical bodies and so many insecurities I battled with every day being so skinny and nothing but a straight highway. I’m sure neither one remembers it and I’d guess that both would feel terrible today to know how much it devastated me. And that’s the point. Kids are mean. Sometimes they’re just stupid and do and say things without thinking. Most of the time they do or say mean things just to impress someone they’re with because they want so much to be accepted and feel important. This peer pressure makes kids do things they wouldn’t do on their own and often things that are uncharacteristic. This describes the scene I read last night in my book and it made me really think hard on my own locked memories. Moreover I wonder how many people have locked memories of me doing or saying something that was hurtful to them that I’m not even aware of? And wouldn’t I like the chance to be redeemed or make things right?

I’m not sure if this post is really going anywhere or not. I just know I have a lot of thoughts and feelings regarding the many memories in my head right now. As my husband’s 20 year reunion comes up this summer I see and hear so many shallow things regarding these locked memories. Some are so bitter that they have nothing but complaints and unkind things to say. Others purposely attempt to live in those days past because they were the height of their glory days. All I know is that I’ve grown SO much as a person since my school days and the person I am now is the one I’d like my classmates to know, not the growing, insecure teen I was. That means I have to look at each of them with different eyes too. So why is association memory so difficult?

I’ve definitely identified some things I need to work on, namely my own lock box of memories. Maybe it’s time for me to find a key and allow those babies to move around a bit, rub up against some new memories in my mind. Perhaps I’ll start unlocking those trapped memories here in some more posts on specific memories; try to view them in a new and different light. It’s funny what you choose to remember and how when you start thinking on those things other memories find a way of spilling out. It’s part of who we are - a natural process. But if I want to keep growing as a person I think I need to air out some of these memories. Besides that, they’re not all bad. In fact, I’m sure I’ll be surprised at how many good ones are hidden under the locked ones. Hmmmmm that’s something to think about.

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