Friday, May 25, 2012
Are we teaching our kids to not stand up for themselves?
One of the more jarring truths of parenting (right up there with the fact that you’ll at some point say, “Do you mean to tell me that I’ve been walking around ALL DAY with POOP on my shirt/hair/cheek?”) is that in one moment you can be someone who finds the fully sanctioned fighting in hockey distasteful and the next need to channel a world-champion yoga-breather to keep from pummeling a 6-year-old who just sucker-punched your kid in the forehead. And if the little punk’s mother watches her offspring throw the roundhouse—twice, just say—and does nothing but send a what-can-you-do-boys-will-be-boys shrug in your direction, well then, if you’re like me, you’ll want to take her down, too. As the mom of two boys—who grew up in a household …
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Research shows that boys are lagging behind girls when it comes to reading; is there anything we can do about it?
One of my proudest moments as a parent was when my son, Finn, told me to shut up. Well, I’m paraphrasing. He was reading a book, and I asked him a question. Seventy-four times. Finally I told him (and everyone else within 10 miles) that if he did not answer me THIS INSTANT, all of his Legos were going out the window. I may or may not have violently brandished a minifig-filled Tupperware container for emphasis. So that got his attention. “SHHHHHH! PLEASE, Mom! Let me just finish this chapter!” he hissed. Immediately, my eyes welled up and I started sniveling noisily. Not out of hurt or anger. I was delighted! Delighted mixed with proud and, okay, enormously relieved. Consider these details: 1. I was one of those nerdy kids who a) got in …
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
While the Christmas season can be joyous, it is often stressful. As a result, some have changed the way they celebrate the holiday.
When I was a kid, my always loving, usually patient mother told me and my three siblings that she couldn’t understand why our behavior worsened right before Christmas. “Why would you act like this when Santa is watching?” she used to ask us. Now that I’m a mom, I think I know the reason. We were probably reacting to the stress that resulted from receiving less attention while all the holiday preparations took precedence over our normal routines. While the radio is assuring us that It’s the hap-happiest time of the year, many of us are panicking about getting it all done. “It” is different for every family, and has a lot to do with traditions that were established in previous generations. And much of “it” seems to be done by the women in …
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Joni Mitchell’s “Twisted” prompts a middle-of-the-night jam (and rap) session.
An entire house-full of smoke alarms went off at 4:15 a.m. at my in-laws’ home on Cape Cod last weekend. They were the kind of alarms whose screeching is accompanied by a woman’s robotic and repetitive warning of “FIRE … FIRE … FIRE”—the effect of which I imagine rivals that of broadcasts in nuclear facilities upon a pending disaster. But that fun detail is not at all related to this story. This story is about 3-year-olds drinking vodka (it will take some reading for that to be clear). Following the smashing, uh, dismantling, of about 28 faulty alarms, my husband urged my younger son back to sleep—a process, incidentally, that involved reading the same Charlie & Lola book five times. Meanwhile, I worked on the 6-year-old. “Sing me a song—…
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Can you trust your kid with a cellphone? How young is too young to have one?
This past Sunday, the Boston Globe ran a front-page story about kids and cell phones titled “Connected, Exhausted: Texting teenagers who stay ‘on call’ all night pay the price in lost sleep.” Is this topic headline news? If the number of comments that readers posted in response to viewing the online version of Beth Teitell’s story is any indication, it most certainly is. I was in the audience at Project Wellness last week when Dr. Elizabeth Englander spoke to parents of R.J. Grey 7th graders about protecting technology-savvy kids from harm. Dr. Englander is a recognized expert on Internet safety. As she spoke, slides illustrated her points. For me, a mother of three whose kids all have cell phones and Internet access, there were two “A-ha…
Jeff Barry
1:10 pm on Friday, May 25, 2012
When I was a child my mother forbade me to fight. "We just don't do that sort of thing," she would say. As a result every bully knew I was an easy target, and target me they did. Finally one day, when I was covered with bruises and my mother was embarrassed by what other women were saying when they saw me with her, she finally let me fight back. "If they start it you finish it," she said. The … more ›