Children | Mommy Points

July 14, 2009

Summer Vacation

Filed under: Children, On The Web, parenting — Chris @ 8:40 am

Yesterday I was in the store looking for some new swim goggles for my son. Yes, the blonde one who would lose his head if it were not attached. I noticed a horrifying sight.

The summer stuff was being pushed back to the clearance rack and the back to school stuff was prominently featured up front. ACK! Summer just started. Didn’t it? I certainly am not ready for the back to school extravaganza to begin. This is the first year that I will have children in elementary school, middle school, and high school. Just thinking about all the planning and co0ordinating and lunch packing is making my head spin. I sure hope that they figure out how to add a few extra hours to the day by the time September rolls around!

But aside from my anxiety over that, I still feel like there are so many things that I want to do with our summer vacation. Like, maybe, actually GO on a vacation. We recently moved across the country and landed here right in the throes of baseball season. Last night was our final game. After almost 6 months of non-stop baseball we have a lull before the next sports season begins and more importantly before school begins.

People keep asking us if we have been to this place or that place–various touristy sites, lakes, parks, theaters– and so far Ihave had to say that no we haven’t gone anywhere. But I am looking forward to checking out at least a few places over the next month.

At Motherlode, the New York Times parenting blong, Lisa Belkin tackles the question of whether or not we should get rid of summer vacation as a society. For the children, not for the grown-ups, because clearly it really is not a vacation for us.

What do you think? Should we get rid of summer vacation and go to school year round? Would that help families where both parents work not have to scramble to find summer daycare? Are the lazy days of summer a thing of the past?

If we did get rid of summer vacation when in the world would children have time to just be children? To relax and run around the neighborhood with their friends and have no agenda? To sleep in until their eyes pop open by themselves, to lay on the grass and read a book, to play card games with some friends, to not have any scheduled activities. The sort of free time that we as adults are always wishing that we had more of. Time for the children to just be children.

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July 10, 2009

Co-Ed Dorm Rooms, Good Idea or Not?

Filed under: Teen years, parenting — Chris @ 12:23 pm

So how do you feel about this?

The University of Chicago, following in the footsteps of other universities, has decided to allow gender-blind housing assignments in their dorm rooms. What this means is that your daughter or son could choose to room with a member of the opposite sex.

Um, yeah. I don’t think so.

Most universities already have co-ed dorms and co-ed floors, so this was just the latest step.

Let me say here that I did share off campus housing with friends of the opposite sex. But it was OFF campus, and we all had our own private bedrooms. It was a perfectly fine experience. In some ways probably better than living with a house filled with other girls. It also provided me, someone who grew up in a house without a father or brothers, a glimpse into the male mind.

Maybe this makes me something of a hypocrite. But then again, I have done ~~lots~~ a couple of things I don’t neccessarily want my children to do.

I suppose my issue with it is that it is a single room and that it is college sanctioned.

But what do you think? Would you allow your college student to room with a member of the opposite sex? Do you think you even have a say since they are over the age of 18?

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July 7, 2009

What Sort of Allowance Does a Child Movie Star Get?

Filed under: Allowance, Children, parenting — Chris @ 10:56 am

Well, if you are Abigail Breslin you get $13 per week. The 13 year old Academy Award nominated actress makes $2 million per film and was recently ranked eighth in Forbes magazine’s list of “Young Hollywood’s Top-Earning Stars.

And guess what? She also has to do chores. Next time my children complain I am going to be pointing this out.

Kudos to her parents for keeping her grounded and away from the Hollywood starlet mentality.

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July 4, 2009

Happy Independence Day

Filed under: Children, On The Web — Chris @ 12:29 pm

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.

–Erma Bombeck

May you and yours have a fabulous weekend filled with the trifecta of food, family and fireworks.

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July 2, 2009

Be Safe on the Fourth of July

Filed under: Children, On The Web, parenting — Chris @ 9:04 am

Every year people across the country set off their own fireworks to celebrate the 4th of July. Most never imagine that they or their children will be injured.

According to this article, in 2007, U.S. hospital emergency rooms treated an estimated 9,800 people for fireworks related injuries.

* 56% of the injuries were to the extremities and 36% were to the head.

* 49% of the 2006 fireworks injuries were burns, while 29% were contusions and lacerations.

*Nearly half of the victims of fireworks in 2007 were under the age of 15. The risk of fireworks injury was nearly two-and-a-half times as high for children ages 10-14 as for the general population.

*Sparklers, fountains, and novelties alone accounted for 25% of all emergency room fireworks injuries in 2005.

*On Independence Day in a typical year, more U.S. fires are reported than on any other day, and fireworks account for half of those fires, more than any other cause of fires.

*Fireworks caused an estimated 1,700 total structure fires and 600 vehicle fires reported to fire departments in 2005. These fires resulted in $34 million in direct property damage.

*More fires are reported on a typical Fourth of July than on any other day of the year and fireworks account for half of those fires, more than any other cause of fires.

If you are going to have personal fireworks, please be safe. But maybe they are something best left to the professionals.

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June 30, 2009

Tips For Preventing Brain Drain This Summer

Filed under: Children, Ideas, parenting — Chris @ 9:03 am

I have read that when school starts in the fall that teachers spend a good month or so trying to get the children back to where they were academically when the school year ended. What can you do this summer to ensure that your children are on track when the school year starts.

1) Make your children read every day. If they are new readers, make them read to you. Model the behavior for them. At my house we all sit down and have some quiet reading time everyday. Mostly I do this for my own sanity and to stop the otherwise non-stop chatter.

2) Play board games. Most games require reading, counting, and addition of some kind. Monopoly, Scrabble, the kids won’t even know that they are using educational skills.

3) Take some educational field trips. Make time for the museums that you might ordinarily not go to. Most children are fascinated by art museums. A fun thing to do is a scavenger hunt at a museum. Stop by the gift shop and pick out a few postcards depicting items in the museum. Then go find them. This should excite even the most reluctant museum go-er.

4) Keep a family journal about your summer vacation. Not only will it encourage your children to write about the things that they are doing, it might also inspire them (and you!) to be more creative in your activities, to think outside of the box, and look at things in a new way.

5) Study your family tree. Have the kids make up a list of questions to ask Grandma the next time she calls. Or better yet, go to visit the elderly memebers of your family with a video camera in hand to capture the stories. Some of them might not be that interesting to the children right now, but one day they will cherish those memories. I know that my own parents stories of living during the Depression fascinate me now in a way that I could not appreciate when I was younger.

6) Your backyard is a big science experiment just waiting to be discovered. Give the kids some containers and a magnifying glass and set them loose.

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June 29, 2009

Scratching My Head

Filed under: Children, On The Web — Chris @ 8:43 am

Count this one as a marketing campaign gone bad. One of those things that causes you to scratch your head and wonder, “What in the world were they THINKING?”

Who thought that stuffing candy into pharmacy pill bottles and handing them out to children was a good way to promote the newly opened pharmacy? Was there not one person who thought it might not be a good idea to give the false impression to children that medicine equals candy? Apparently not at one Sam’s Club in Maryland.

This particular Sam’s Club handed out medicine bottles filled with candy to children as they entered the store. I think of all the time we spend as parents trying to instill in our children that medicine should never be played with, that it is not a treat. The time and efforts that have gone into making sure that medicine bottles are childproof. How we store them locked away from small children. This campaign at this store just flies in the face of all of that.

What’s next, handing children pretend lighters and matches?

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June 28, 2009

A Summer Pastime

Filed under: Ages 10-12 years, Children, Chores, Instilling Values, Kindness Of Spirit, parenting — Chris @ 1:10 am

What kids haven’t dreamed of setting up a lemonade stand on a hot summer day?

My children and some of their friends set one up this weekend.

They built the stand themselves with scrap wood and nails. My word, the number of nails they used. Let’s just say we should huddle under this should a tornado come through.

After sitting out there the entire afternoon they closed up shop. They had made $28. Divided by 7 children who were working the stand, they each left with $4. It probably works out to be less than 50 cents per hour for all of the time that they invested. They could not have been happier.

I love seeing their entrepenurial spirit. Remember last week they made flyers for a lawn service? One of our neighbors called them and they weedwhacked and used the leaf blower on his lawn. I’m not sure how many people are interested in hiring a trio of boys under 11, but even one customer thrills them to no end. They worked so hard on that lawn, so invested in their work, that the owner gave them a rather hefty tip. They accepted their money graciously and the moment they stepped off his front lawn and onto thesidewalk they began screaming, “WooooooHooooo Look at our money, Mom!”

I was reminded of the post I wrote a couple weeks ago about teenagers not getting traditional jobs this summers, instead carving out jjobs for themselves. Maybe this is where that entrepenurial spirit starts– lemonade stands and lawn mowing.

I wonder if Steve Jobs ever had a lemonade stand?

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June 26, 2009

How Much Milk Does Your Family Drink in a Week?

Filed under: Children, cooking, parenting — Chris @ 6:01 pm

That is one of the most oft asked questions I get when people find out that I have a larger than normal family. The next most popular questions are about the amount of bread and whether we have a television. Ahem.

The actual answer to the question is that we drink none. I am allergic to milk and so when I cook I use substitutes. From when my children were young I have given them soymilk. They have come to prefer it over regular milk when they are given the choice. Soymilk is fortified with calcium, but it still amazes me the number of people who are shocked by it.

Milk has somehow become synonymous with calcium. There are many other things that are chock-full of calcium. Collards and other greens have as much or more calcium cup for cup as milk. They also have way, WAY less calories and fat than milk. Of course chocolate collard greens are not nearly as tasty as chocolate milk.

Yogurts and cheeses are also easier for most people to digest than straight milk.

Maybe people should start asking me how many packages of string cheese we go through in a week. That would surely shock and impress them.

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June 25, 2009

The Most Dangerous Sport

Filed under: Children — Chris @ 3:27 pm

What comes to mind when you hear those words? Football? Hockey? Soccer? Nope, none of these. It isn’t even boys who are the ones getting injured.

Move over football, hockey, soccer… the most dangerous sport is cheerleading. Cheerleading causes more serious and fatal injuries than any other high school sport.

Consider the new numbers for the 26-year period from the fall of 1982 through the spring of 2008:

* There were 1,116 direct catastrophic injuries in high school (905) and college sports (211).

* High school sports were associated with 152 fatalities, 379 non-fatal injuries and 374 serious injuries. College sports accounted for 22 fatalities, 63 non-fatal injuries and 126 serious injuries.

* Cheerleading accounted for 65.2 percent of high school and 70.5 percent of college catastrophic injuries among all female sports.

This surprised me until I saw what sorts of moves cheerleaders were doing. The tossing in the air and flips. I inwardly cringed at the thought of one the girls being dropped. Luckily, new safety protocol has been put in place and the injuries are have seen a steady decline.

So while accidental injuries are on the decline due to improved safety regulations and equipment, physicians are reporting, that across the board– throughout all different sports– an increase in preventable overuse injuries. Children who are being pressured to keep performing even though they have an injury. I see this all the time with teams that my sons’ play on. Parents who don’t take their child’s complaints seriously, and also children (I am mostly talking about older kids and teens here) who refuse to stop playing.

I had a conversation with a mother whose son has a shoulder injury and was told by the doctor to rest it and do *nothing* for 8 weeks, essentially ending the season for him. Then the doctor would re-evaluate and possibly prescribe some physical therapy. Do you think the son stopped playing? Nope, he did not. When I asked the mother she said he didn’t want to stop. He was worried he would get kicked off the team. When I asked why she was allowing him to continue playing with an injury she sort of shrugged and said, “Well what am I going to do.”

Hmmmmm, I wanted to introduce her to this little word I use. ”No.”

Sometimes it isn’t being fun being the parent and having to be the so-called “bad guy.” But you are supposed to do it anyway, right?

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