As I dropped my youngest off at daycare this morning, the teachers’ in the 18 month old ro… more
Posts Tagged ‘School’
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Father News: BMI, Food Portions, Sports Injuries, Genetic Mutations, and Race
By Dad News Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Calculating BMI Want to know your child’s Body Mass Index? (KidsHealth)
Portion Distortion How do you judge the amount of food your kids should eat? (KidsHealth)
Jump in Kids’ Sports Injuries Due To Overuse “Injuries are increasing because kids are playing sports year-round — often without seasonal breaks.” (Healthday)
Entire Family Genome Sequenced For First Time “Children receive 30 mutations from each parent, researchers find” (Healthday)
Thinking About Race In Pre-K Should we consider race and culture a factor when choosing a school for our children? (Dadwagon)
Dad’s Valentine to Junkanoo
By Daddy Clay Thursday, February 11th, 2010
I’m a huge advocate for experiential education, creative curriculum, and having kids learn in a variety of styles, but between Valentine’s Day and my son’s “Night of Nations” project I’m ready to chase a box of conversation hearts with a quart of rum and call it a parenting career.
The Valentine’s thing, I sort of get. I did it when I was a kid — decorate the bag, address the cards, shove the red plastic-y looking lollipop in there. And I’m also grateful for the initiative my daughter took in creating her own craft-paper Valentine’s. Once we had finally hoovered up the drifts of clippings from that project, it was on to the winter poem memorization mobile project. Think snowmen with hearts. Okay. Done. Read the rest of this entry »
100 Faces of Fall
By Daddy Brad Friday, October 9th, 2009
Transition is always difficult, but none more so than the transition from summer vacation to the start of school. Indeed, this autumnal change over was no cakewalk for our family given the exciting summer we experienced. A brand new baby joined our family! With the new little dude around Walker and Ella’s end of summer adjustment wasn’t solely an earlier wake up and go to bed time, but more importantly learning to share Mom and Dad’s time with their new little brother.
Thanks to the lazy summer schedule, Mom and I were able to spend quite a bit of one on one time with each of the older siblings in between diaper changes and colic soothing. In fact, an entire evening each week was dedicated to pursuing an activity of their choosing. Walker and I played lots of putt-putt, pitched washers and visited costume stores, while Ella’s sole request was to grab a Churro at Costco and then feed the ducks at the park.
But now that school has begun, our time is tight. The lazy exploits of summer seem like a distant memory. The long days at the pool, vacations to interesting places and stay up late movie watching/ice cream parties, have given way to homework, soccer practice and early bedtimes. Even though we try to take several interesting family outings during the school year, like a quick muddy trip to the Austin City Limits Music fest, most of our time together as a family is spent at practices, carpool and around the dinner table. My question is, given this frantic pace will we remember any of the details of these hectic, yet precious years? We won.
The Homework Ate My Dog: or The Frog Prince
By Daddy Clay Monday, October 5th, 2009
Exhausted, caked in mud, eyes straining in the moonlight, I lurched through the Austin night. A rough day at ACL? Nope. Just helping with homework.
Since Bubba started at his new school, our evenings have turned into an episode of CSI. My wife and I are forensic investigators trying to piece together fragmentary evidence and interview reluctant witnesses in an attempt to get an answer to one simple question: Have you done your homework?
Most afternoons at about four thirty, one of us asks the dread homework question which sends our Person of Interest into a coma of eye rolling and flopping onto his bed. I then don those special goggles, get out the ultraviolet light and begin digging around in Bubba’s backpack. Little of use turns up — his assignment book has been crushed, wrinkled, spindled and partially burned.
Direct interrogation is also of little use. Bubba responds to the Bad Cop (my wife) with answers that would do an AIG exec proud. To the Good Cop he alternates “I did that in study hall” with “We didn’t have any” until I relent. On the night in question I ask: “Do you have any Science, at least?” “Nope,” he answers on his way out the door to soccer practice.
My wife and I are doing our best to find the right balance of homework help with our 6th grader. Obviously, the objective is for him to be able to manage his homework on his own. Unfortunately for Bubba, my wife and I have lots of experience (25+ years actually) in what his new school expects of students. We insist that he walk through all his nightly assignments with us. My wife is generally called in to help him through his math on a problem by problem basis.
The tension this involvement generates, combined with the hard work involved in getting the homework completed nightly, leaves us all crabby and exhausted by eight. After putting the younger kids to bed, I seek out Bubba for a little reading or TV watching. Just a few minutes without an agenda to reconnect after our evening of CSI.
Last Monday night, aha a Cowboy game! Totally beat, the two of us flop in the sofa for some restorative bonding and couch potato time before bed.
Before we’ve even settled in, Bubba points to the window above the TV and shouts, “I need that!” I follow his gesture to the window. “It’s my Science homework! I have to have it by tomorrow!” He is pointing at a gecko skittering across the window in pursuit of a moth.
So I find myself out in a drizzling rain carrying a bucket and a dishtowel, prowling around the house swearing under my breath. I’m a deranged, suburban Steve Irwin. My plan is to creep under the window and sweep unsuspecting amphibian into the bucket with the towel. What actually happens is: I lunge at the window, step in gooey mud, pull my groin, howl in pain, fling the bucket and say bad words.
I burst through the door wild-eyed and covered in mud. Bubba turns on his heel and runs, in tears, to his bed. I turn back around, collect my bucket, and limp into the night.
As I muck around, pointing a pen-light at every drainage ditch and muddy hole, I’m lacerating myself for my outburst, feeling guilt for putting my son in such a high-pressure school environment, wondering if my wife and I are really on the same page about education, and begging, begging the universe to put some damn creature in the bucket before I catch pneumonia.
As I turn over rocks in a full-blown rainstorm, I realize that I am hoping that a snake will bite me, as it will be easier to catch that way. After about an hour, it becomes clear that every living creature got the message but me — time to go inside. I’m trudging back through our yard when I almost step on the toad.
I’ve pulled Bubba out of bed, and he’s as excited as I am. The toad, less so. He jumps out onto the kitchen table (don’t tell my wife), and there is a scary moment before we get him back into his temporary home. By the time, I get Bubba tucked back in, I’m too tired to know if anything I have ever done is right, but I know this: If, as a teenager, he ever questions my love for him, I’m just going to say “Tell it to the Toad.”
