An article in The Atlantic claims that children's movies are giving young viewers a false sense of self-esteem by selling them in the idea that they can accomplish anything. Is that so bad?
Perhaps parents should use September 1st, and not January 1st, as the date on which they can take stock of their own lives. Is back-to-school the perfect opportunity for mom and dad to make resolutions?
Should kids be left alone to do homework? Where should the family computer be? Should your child keep their smart phone with them overnight?
Her newborn son was feverish, lethargic and irritable. Her doctor initially told her not to worry, but her instincts told her something was not right. She insisted on a further examination of her child, after all, at one week old, there was little margin for error. It was after a second exam that Furakh Mir's son, Sulayman, was diagnosed with bacterial Meningitis. The little boy recovered after receiving a course of aggressive antibiotics at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
This was the story Ms. Mir told during the opening minutes of yesterday's webinar organized to help raise awareness of the dangers, signs, and preventative measures associated with meningitis. Today is World Meningitis Day.
Being a parent means being constantly vigilant. But it also means managing your attention - focusing on what's important, and prioritizing. Meningitis was not high on my priority list. Like so many parents, I keep a watchful eye when sitting by the local pool; make sure my kids eat don't eat too much junk food; and see to it they complete their homework. Why would I attend a webinar related to World Meningitis Day? The startling facts I learned yesterday about the disease answered that question. Before I relay that information, here's a video produced by Meningitis Relief which encapsulates the reasons our focus should shift to include Meningitis:
Hearing loss, brain damage, learning disability and possibly death within the first 24 to 48 hours.
We take such precautions to get the flu shot, and wear our bicycle helmets, yet we barely hear of Meningitis from our doctors or our children's schools. It is not yet part of the lexicon. Yet it presents a grave danger. While it first presents with flu-like symptoms: fever, nausea, headache, neck pain and vomiting; it can spiral quickly downwards. About 1 in 10 with the disease will not survive. These are some of the facts put forth by the World Health Organization on their information sheet.
Dr. David Greenberg suggested yesterday that one of the best ways of assuring your concern about your child's health is being taken seriously by your doctor is to point out changes in your child's behaviour. He points out, as many parents have experienced, that one child may have a fever of 40 degrees and still be energetic and active; another may register 38.2 and be grey and lethargic. Trust your instincts. You know your child, don't shy away from letting your doctor know you feel there is more going on.
Meningitis is spread through direct contact with an infected person through the droplet route by means of respiratory secretions when air or liquid secretions are shared. - Meningitis Research Foundation of Canada
It does not spread through casual contact. In other words, similar to flu prevention. Hygiene is key. No shared drinks, or lipsticks; cough into your sleeves, wash your hands.
While younger children may respond more easily to an adult warning them not to share a water bottle with their friends at the park, teenagers can be more of a challenge. Refusing a shared cigarette, or telling a friend: "No, you can't have a sip of my drink" may result in a teen being teased by their peers. This naturally discourages young adults from putting hygiene first.
During our one-on-one conversation after the webinar, Parenting Expert Alyson Schafer stressed that getting rid of this sort of stigma is exactly why meningitis prevention must become part our daily conversation. She pointed out how, at one time, proper hygiene - even after a visit to the washroom - wasn't something people focused on. Now, washing your hands before leaving the bathroom is (hopefully) routine. Ms. Schafer pointed out that meningitis awareness and prevention should become as much a part of routine conversations as flu vaccines, and washing your hands during cold season.
It's never too early to being that conversation. Talk about meningitis vaccines, and prevention with your family, your friends and your schools When it comes to meningitis - knowledge is power.
Men Get Pregnant Too is a regular contributor to The Good Men Project. Today's post was inspired by the memory of the only slumber party I remember attending. It was 26 years ago. While today, I'm too tired to remember where I left my ball cap, or to stay awake past ten o'clock, at 15 years-old it was about the relationships strengthened and bonds formed in the wee hours of the morning.
Men Get Pregnant, Too is a regular contributor to The Good Men Project. Today's post is an interview with Lisa Dixon-Wells, M.Ed., founder of Dare to Care: a prevention, awareness, and early intervention program. Not only was it surprising to learn that bullying is a learned behavior - most likely passed down from mom or dad; but it was also shocking that 60% of bullies will go on to have criminal records.
Welcome back to work, and school, and reno projects, and all the other joys of life after the holiday break. During this radio interview on the Andrew Carter Morning show, hosted here by Tracey McKee, I offer some tips on how to avoid having your family succumb to those mid-winter blues:
As a working parent, one of the greatest challenges is the gear shift and balancing act required to be efficient at work, and devoted at home. Rarely does my professional life take me on the road for very long; these past two weeks have been the exception.
I left for the London 2012 Paralympic Games on August 20th. I'll return home September 12th. The first week was an exiting separation; long distance phonecalls, conversations through Skype's electronic magic, and postcards from overseas added a sense of Robinson Crusoe adventure to working abroad.
Soon, phonecalls weren't enough. The kids started school on Wednesday. For my daughter, it was her first day of kindergarten; her first steps into a big-kid school. My son started grade two. Gone is his preschool innocence, replaced by a slighty jaded edge of a 7-year-old one year from being in the 'senior' yard. After a week, he needed more than phonecalls from a Hilton.
Although my wife will be joining me for the last week of my trip, preparing for her vacation adds to her already considerable workload. Groceries must be bought and meals must be planned for the week we're both away. She's attempting to make the house a little more Mary Poppins, a little less Dorothy-leaving-Kansas.
Babysitting will be shared among family members. Each person must be made aware of emergency pĥone numbers, school and after-school activity schedules, lunch menus, and homework routines. It's becoming a question of whether her 'vacation' will be relaxing enough to alleviate the accumulated stress involved in preparing for it.
The children, like weathervanes, feel change approaching; Something Wicked This Way Comes. They grow a little more raw, a little more sensitive, a little more weepy. This kind of emotional pressure tests any relationship: the kids with their mom at home; the kids with their dad on the phone; the husband and wife an ocean apart.
My hotel room and cable TV, my new colleagues in London who have become my friends, and the unparalleled inspiration of the Paralympic games are slowly having their hypnotic appeal shaken awake by my desire to be at home and contributing to my family's life.
I know it won't be long before we're four to a bed again during storytime after supper. Soon after that, certain memories of my three weeks in the United Kingdom will seems years behind. My right brain is determined this experience is worth it - once in a lifetime. Its counterpart is a little weary, a little lonely, and feeling a little helpless.
Some parents travel regularly. I guess their family routines are as well organized as their carry-on luggage. I'm not sure I could do this regularly. Absense makes the heart grow fonder. But not far beyond that, it's just chest pains.
I have a stringent running schedule. It's like clockwork. It's a little OCD, really. For about seven consecutive months I run 3 to 4 times a week. I'll work towards a half-marathon, one either in my hometown or a short drive away in Ottawa. After the race, I'll intend to take a week off and begin training for a full marathon imagining myself an uber-fit 40-year-old smoking all the twenty-something's who run races thinking they know what it means to be in shape.
But, inevitable, after the race weekend something important comes up: like a once-in-a-parent-of-young-children's-lifetime dinner and a movie with my wife. I'll skip running that evening. (I never run in the morning. I know there are parents of youngsters who wake even earlier than their kids to work out. Those parents are just plain crazy.) The morning following "date night" (which is really just sitting next to each other in bucket seats rather than on the sofa, and watching a really big silver screen instead of the TV in the den), I'll sleep in and have a slow breakfast. I justify that laziness as an extension of Date Night. A couple of days later I'll skip running because it's too hot. I'll skip the one after that because of some sort of appointment; and the one after that because I haven't blogged frequently enough due to my rigorous training. Then I'll take 7 months off because I'm discouraged and out of shape.
I'm at the tail end of the 7 months off, and I'm feeling it. My back is stiff after watching The Newsroom back-to-back to True Blood. My shoulder hurts when I lift one of my kids (remember when you used to lift both of them simultaneously? Are they bigger, or are you older? The answer is 'yes'.) Every twenty minutes or so, I flex my neck muscles and turn my head - the move is followed by a satisfying cracking noise where my head meets my body. I need to get back out there. But, boy, I really don't want to. Why can't running be like sex? Why can't I remember how good it felt last time? I think the reason is because, where running is concerned, I spend the first ten minutes thinking "this *&@n' sucks!" There is a fantastic rush which accompanies a good, long, sweaty workout. Unfortunately, it will take me at least two months of training to get to a place where I feel I'm doing more than working my way towards a heart attack.
I remember how running gave me more energy. I remember how once I became active, I wanted to remain active and was therefore a more productive father, husband and human being. But, man, at the end of the day I'm just too pooped. My daughter begins kindergarten in two weeks. As a result it will be the first time in 7 years both kids will be out of the house for thirty-one hours and forty minutes each week. I'll have no excuse. Certainly not when I face that group of moms who gather outside the school brandishing Lululemon running gear and Bluetooth headphones linked to their MP3 players. I have an MP3 player. And shorts. And shoes with a little bright red velcro tag with my home address and phone number on it so the medics know who to call once they revive me.
Some parents find the time, others don't. Some parents make the time, others can't. How do you do it? Do you do it? I know I should, especially now that I have the time.
Of course, we're redoing the entrance way this fall. I don't know how long that will take...but I can certainly arrange to work on it for thirty-one hours and forty minutes a week.
My daughter attends pre-school five half-days weekly. It's a fantastic institution. I talk about it in the manner with which all parents talk about their kids' fantastic institutions: energetic teachers, engaged curriculum, provides my daughter with fulfillment and education she might not otherwise blah, blah, blah. It's a good school.
Part of the programme includes each parent spending one day monthly with the kids as a teacher's assistant - we call it our "duty day". The Duty Day is a fantastic opportunity to be connected and involved in our child's development, participate in their emotional and intellectual growth, and give them a sense of pride which comes from a parent being present in...yadda, yadda, yadda. You understand the drill.
For the third time since we registered her in pre-school in September of 2010, I had a free morning, and was able to spend it as the Duty Parent. As a logical security measure, Duty Parents are obliged to wear a badge hung from a chord around their necks. This badge identifies them as a "Special Volunteer". My duties as a Special Volunteer necessitate my occasionally leaving the classroom: to fetch a bucket of water from the teachers' lounge, to be the caboose of the train of children as we walk to and from the gymnasium, to escort the little students to the washroom. The Special Volunteer is not allowed into the washroom with the children, but is expected to wait just outside the entrance and escort them back to class (after listening from the hallway for hand-washing as well as the tell-tale sounds of reams upon reams of paper towel being wasted for the drying process). Here's the rub: I get dirty looks from certain teachers with whom I come face-to-face during my hallway jaunts. Most of them are smiling, gracious, and engage me in small talk about the little bees buzzing about this grade-school hive. But, there are two or three who seem to regard me as creepy. I'm a man, who is not an employee of the school, wandering among the children. I might be a weirdo. One way to deal with weirdoes is to stare at them weirdly. Glower at them. Suspect. Analyze. Be wary of. Although my badge identifies me as a Special Volunteer (the thing hangs from my neck to my navel, as visible as a scarlet letter), perhaps I obtained it through illegal means...perhaps I used a color photocopier and a laminate machine from my local video store. (Perhaps if I told them my local video store is now a bankrupt Blockbuster, I would be one step closer to grade-school hallway acceptance). Perhaps it is my menacing gait caused by the heavy bucket of warm soapy water I'm trudging with to the classroom. Maybe they mistake the 5-year-old holding my hand, hopping by my side, and telling me a story as one desperate to escape the clutches of this vile Special Volunteer.
Maybe I'm paranoid, but just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get me:) I'd like to compare Duty Day experiences among the fathers and mothers.
These are the conflicted messages fathers receive. We are told repeatedly that participation in our children's education is vital to their well-being, yet a dad in a pre-school hallway is to be carefully regarded. As hard as it is being a working mom, being a working dad has similar challenges. Those challenges are exacerbated when three hours as a Special Volunteer is slightly soured by the wandering eyes of the Special Forces in the hallway.
*****
Only-slightly-related-to-topic thought of the day: The pre-school programme is anywhere from 2.5 to 3.5 hours, five times weekly. One of the funnier sights is watching parents run/jog back to their cars after drop-off. Naturally most of them have work to get to, other children to care for, and chores to complete. But I wonder how many of them, like me this morning, jog back to their cars hoping to squeeze an extra sip of coffee, and an extra eighteen seconds of quiet into this short period during which there is no one to care for but yourself.
Ahhhh, Standard Time. Last night we sprung ahead. Before going to sleep I advanced my clock from 10:17 to 11:17. It's a symbol of a weakening winter, spring gaining torque in its coils, and the inevitable thaw induced by the sun claiming its rightful position higher above our heads. It also results in an even more annoying bedtime as I explain to the kids it is in fact time to call it quits despite the brightness of the evening sky. Like this wasn't tough enough already.
Remember, parents, LBK (Life Before Kids)? Remember the glory washing over you as you gained an hour's sleep in the fall? Remember how you didn't care about spring's time change, since you compensated by sleeping in an extra 60 minutes? Ahhhhh....LBK. Not benefiting from a time change, I can deal with. It's the comfort of pulling the sheets under their chins under the cover of darkness I'm going to miss. As I've mentioned in prior posts sundowns have a transformative effect on me as well as on my kids.
Can't we just eke it out until June? Is there some way, either through science or chemistry, to keep evenings dim enough that my kids are dimmed to the beckoning of the outdoors at 7pm? Maybe I'll start a list of items required to keep bedtimes simple for the next 100 days:
Heavy Curtains
Gravol (never mind toddler doses, gimme the big pills)
Note to self: remove carbon monoxide detector...really, what could it hurt?
Tonight is the first really challenge; the combination of sleep deprivation induced crankiness due to last night's time change, and the realization that daddy must have &^%$'d up bedtime since it's still bright outside. I can always move the kids to Saskatchewan before my wife gets home; they leave their clocks alone year round. Of course, they also get more sunlight than any other jurisdiction in Canada. It may not render bedtime any easier, but it may soothe my disposition, which is a little dark at the moment.
In this article: "Call it the Dad Effect.", the author offers what he suggests is a simple solution to bullying in schools: get dads more involved. James Watts is the founder and principle of Education Plus High School, an alternative private high school in the municipality of St. Laurent, just north of Montreal. He is also chair of the governing board of a local high school. In short, he is far more qualified to give an opinion on school bullying than I. With my lack of experience in the field of education, I am in no position to debate whether his solution is viable. But as a father, I take issue with his arguments and wonder whether a similar article could have been written about mothers, without a severe backlash.
To illustrate my point, I will quote some passages in the article, but will reverse the sexes: fathers will become mothers; men will become women, etc. Imagine a working mother reading the following:
"The few mothers who darken the doors of their child's elementary school miraculously disappear just when they are needed most: when the child gets to high school."
"Many mothers leave school and all things academic (with the exception of math and science projects) to their children's father. Maybe they see it as a logical division of labour; or it could be for strategic reasons; or because of availability or lack of it; or just plain laziness."
"Attend a school's bake sale, Parent Participation Organization event, or home-and-school meeting, and you will think you have stepped into a man-only zone. (Thank god for these amazing hardworking dads who offer many billable hours of service to cash-strapped schools.)"
"For a would-be bully knowing there is a mom and that she is often seen in the school is a strong deterrent."
"Finally, a mother who is involved in his child's school sends an unmistakable message that she cares enough to take the time to know what's happening in her child's life...It is this mother who will model to her daughter how to be a woman."
"So, moms, if you really want to bully-proof your child get involved in his or her school. Go into the school's office tomorrow and ask how you can help out. Join the home-and-school organization. Stand for election for the governing board. Attend sports events. In doing so, you will be protecting your child, and other children, from the potentially damaging effect of either side of bullying."
OK. If you were, or are, a working mother how do you feel? I'm a working father who is as involved as possible in my children’s lives from the moment I leave the office, until I return. In between, I'm often following up on e-mails, completing forms, and calling home. The truth of today's society is: as much as roles may be reversing, they remain largely assigned in the same fashion as twenty years ago. More mothers stay home than do fathers; and, as a couple, more parents decide mothers will dedicate their time to child-rearing than to being in an office. I have no opinion as to whether this is wrong, or right. It just is. In our house, it works well - for us. In this article, if the argument is "a father's participation is school reduces the risk of bullying", can the opposite argument not also be inferred: "a father's absence from school increases the risk of bullying"? Thanks, I needed that. Especially the part about laziness.
We have had a minor brush with bullying since my children began going to school. The solution was intervention by my wife and me in the way of talking to our child, informing the school, and remaining in constant contact with teachers and the principle who were stellar in their handling of the situation. An involved administration proved as vital as a hands-on parent. This may be something Mr. Watts would like to examine more closely, especially considering: "Fair or unfair, as a principle I grant more time to the complaint of a parent who has been involved in my school than I do the parent I have never met." Warning to the bullied child of two working parents. In his article's opening paragraph, the author refers to the research done on bullying: "A plethora of 'solutions' have been offered. And yet the problem persists." Why? because the problem is a complex one, dealing with human nature which, at it's heart, is fickle and jumbled. While there are dads (and moms) who could be more involved in their children's lives, let's not insinuate to the majority of parents that "lazy" working dads may be the cause of their child being bullied.
And, by the way, when I am at school, I do not darken the door - I'd like to think I brighten it up a little.
