Well, this pandemic sure is a crazy thing, isn't it? One day you're living life and the next day you're confined to your home with all the members of your family just trying to survive. Oh wait, that is my normal. Well, since I have some experience in this, may I offer some of the new "homeschool" families some advice?
First off, it is very unlikely that you are homeschooling your children. So stop saying it. Honestly, I'm a tad offended by it. You think that someone else deciding what your child needs to know for two weeks and you have to make sure they get those pieces of work done is homeschool. Ugh. You're a tutor. You're a teacher's aide. Trust me, you don't have the behind the scenes work to do, you'll be fine. Secondly, I've seen these cute little schedules all color blocked telling us what we should do. 8-9 is wake up time. Get dressed. Eat breakfast. 9-10 is education time. No screens. 10-11 is creative time. Let's build and paint. 11-12 is outside time. 12-1230 lunch. 1230-2 is quiet time. Hahahaha idiots. No clue. 2-3 play time. 3-4 education time with screens. 4-5 family time. 5-6 dinner. 6-7 TV, pajamas. 8 bed. 830 if you didn't throw a fit. Come on people. You're on your fourth day of this. You know good and well that the schedule that you saw on Facebook is crap. You should have a schedule. I agree with that. But let's actually make it work. What time do your kids go to school? That is when your education time needs to start. Because after a few weeks of mommy schooling, it will be a nightmare for all involved when they go back to school and actually need their brains to function before 8 am. Follow the kids' schedules. If you have upper elementary and up, this should be a breeze! Let's say this is the schedule for your 11 year old: English 8-845 Math 845- 920 Special area 925-955 Reading 10-1045 Science 1045-1115 Lunch 1120-1150 Social studies 1155-1225 Recess 1230-1 Computer 1-130 ILT 130-2 I say, keep this schedule as much as possible, modifying in one of two ways. Option 1: Jenny finishes her ELA work for the day before 845. Give her tomorrow's ELA work. See how much of the week she can get done. Do that for each subject. Option 2: Jenny finishes her ELA work for the day before 845. Move straight onto Math. See if she can finish her school day before 2:00! Both of these options will allow your child to finish the total amount of work before the due date. What if your child doesn't finish the work before the designated time? Keep the schedule. Keep it on point. At the end of the day, it's their homework. You know, those are those assignments that come home in their backpack and get brought back in the next day. People are doing their children a disservice during this time. Parents are using this as family vacation time. There seems to be this mindset that they have forgotten that their children would normally be in school for 8 hours and it is okay if their work takes all 8 hours and then a little extra afterwards. The goal is not to corona-party with movies and popcorn while glancing at some flash cards. Teachers are working from home to create these lesson plans. They have set up zoom and skype videos to see and help their kids. Administrators are monitoring classrooms and handing out food. Bus drivers are going to neighborhoods to provide. Yet you, PARENT, deem it too difficult to hold your student accountable so that WHEN they arrive back at school, the same teacher doesn't have to reteach the lessons that should be under their belts. Step up. Be the boss. It will be okay. You'll still have plenty of play time with your kids since there is no team sports, dance classes, music lessons, etc to rush off to. Be a parent. Help your kids. Help the teachers. Do your job.
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We all have heard it said not to air your dirty laundry. I think we all understand the concept. But, because it's me, I want to discuss the airing of laundry in that visual way that I prefer.
Picture if you will, Aunt Bessy hanging up Uncle Hank's drawers on the line in the 1930's or 1940's. Now, Aunt Bessy's sewing circle comes over and sees Uncle Hank's underroos and doesn't want to look, but by golly, what is that! There are some skid marks on those drawers! Aunt Bessy might have gone ahead and hung them up for the neighbors to see to embarrass him. Maybe he said something that she didn't like, or made a stupid mistake and this is her passive aggressive revenge. So what happens? The women folk see the skidmarks and think, "Either Hank has had some tummy troubles, or he can't make it to the outhouse in time." What else might they think? "Why can't Bessy clean well enough? And why would she let everyone know her business?" That's where we are these days. Why are you letting everyone know your business? Well, stay with me as we travel this road. It was always said not to air dirty laundry. It was a bit of that "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." However, it was geared for maintaining the sanctity of home, not just random people. As that became the norm, it almost seemed as if the families themselves didn't want to discuss what was happening, and people began to sweep it under the rug. Darn these chore analogies. Regardless, the matters were kept in the home. As times have moved on, people have found themselves both more socially available through technology, yet starving for community in the face to face. There is the understanding that we don't want to air our dirty laundry, so instead, we air the clean laundry. What do I mean? Thanks to social media, people found that they could share their world with friends and family near and far. As it grows, it has become a place where everyone shows their achievements, pictures of kids, new purchases. It's keeping up with the Jones'. Then one day, some whistle blower decided to say, "Look at what my life is really like!" The clean clothes came down, and skidmarks went up! Well, let's face it. The laundry used to be hung on our property. We would handle it as we needed to. Then one day, they created a field of clothing lines. Everyone goes out and hangs what they want. Some choose the clean sheets. Others choose the cozy pajamas. Some people put their kids tantrum stained onesies, while others choose the awards shirt their child received for being the best. The field of clothesline is nothing but mass confusion. We wonder who actually cleaned those sheets because we all know Cindy doesn't know where the washing machine is, let alone how to use it. We envy those that wear nothing but flannel that has been filtered through the mountain air while they enjoy the fire with their love. We question the mother who can't control their child or clean the stains. We are tired of Timmy's the best t-shirts. And so we move on. This ability to scroll through our "friends" lives and like, love, laugh, be saddened or enraged, even shocked, has made it easy to walk through the field and choose what we want to be a part of. Let's be honest, if Bessy's sewing group was coming over, she wouldn't have put Hank's stained undies on the line to be seen. She'd have them soaking somewhere. If she were hurt by something he said or did, she might talk about it while they were sewing and enjoying the community and communication. And, hopefully, it would be throwing Hank under the bus, but simply stating what happened, asking advice, or asking for prayer. Those women might share something with their husbands once they got home. Maybe some would gossip. For the most part they would simply be a friend to Bessy. Bessy wouldn't need to air her dirty laundry. When we lose that sense of community, someone to talk to and live life with, someone that understands, we lose sight of what laundry we're hanging on the line. I believe that some people air the dirty laundry on social media for the attention they'll get. I think some people air the clean for the same reason. We can't always know the motive. But I have also noticed that there are more and more people that are airing their laundry in other people's yards. It started in their lawn, then moved to the field, and now they take it to you. We've had those people that comment on a post and turn the entire thing in the wrong direction. Timmy may be the best, but Freddie is never even close. So Freddie's mom posts a picture. Timmy's mom can't be outdone and so she comments, "Oh yes, Timmy got that award last year." Not community, competition. Or someone that normally doesn't share the negative let's out a bit of pain and a "friend" tells them to suck or up, or even tells them that it isn't as bad as they have it. Our inability to come alongside people has turned us all into laundry hangers and keyboard activists. We have lost our ability to be a community. So what do we do about it? I honestly don't know. I struggle with this all the time. I want to show off the greatness of a kid, some accomplishment I'm proud of them for, and it looks like I'm trying to one up people. I'm not. I hope your kid is just as awesome! But is that what people read? Does it matter if they take it the wrong way? Sometimes I just vent for the sake of venting. That is always a no-no. I will inevitably get the buck up, keep pushing, and it will get better comments. I know that. But sometimes I just want to vent! Here's what I've been trying to do. If it is really awesome and I just can't stand it, sure I post. It isn't to poo-poo on someone but to woo-hoo the event. If I need to vent, I text a friend. I try to balance good and not so great. That's what my life is anyway. Let people see the good and the bad. And what about community? We need to find a way to speak to each other without hanging our laundry in other people's space. I find this more in face to face conversations than online, unfortunately. Perhaps it's just the loneliness of people that forces them to hang their business within our fences. So why not get out ahead of it. If you find someone so annoying because they are constantly oversharing, try approaching them first. Ask them about their day. Ask about work. Find something to have a common ground on, or just take one for the team and listen. I think that if they know they have a true friend, they might just ease up on the oversharing. They won't need to tell everyone everything if they know that someone has heard them. Let's try to rebuild our sewing circles and keep our laundry hanging in our own yards. There is a lot of talk these days about kids and what they have been changing into. Personally, I agree with Head Coach Frank Martin from University of South Carolina. He says, "Kids haven't changed. Kids don't know anything about anything. We've changed as adults. We demand less of kids. We expect less of kids." I believe this to be so true. It is us as adults that don't hold to the standard that was once expected of us.
I was listening to a client talk about a team she encountered this previous weekend and I thought of so many other teens I have come across in my life. One thing that I have seen a shift in, is our representation. This woman told stories of rude teenagers and said, "I would have killed my girls if they acted that way." But then again, that's because she has expectations. (We get along well.) One expectation that adults had as children was to be a proper representation of their parents or other adults. This one always laid heavily on me. I'm not even sure where it came to me from. I never got the lecture from my parents. I'm sure at some point I heard it briefly in church. And when it came to the school, I can't think of a time this was brought up. Yet, when I was in high school, I was very concerned with whom I represented. Let's start with the school. When I put on a jersey and stepped onto the court, I knew that I then represented my team, my coach, my school. To extent I felt like I represented my town. I'm not sure that it mattered, at least in basketball. My coach left a terrible taste in the mouths of everyone he met. Still, I wanted to make sure that my school community was brought up and not down if it involved me. The same went for my family. I lived in a small town. My father grew up there and attended the same high school as I did. Even though I wasn't exactly popular in school (okay, completely not popular) I knew that I had family all throughout the town, and surrounding towns. I couldn't have imagined what might have happened if I brought a sour note to my father's name. My grandparents would have been mortified. I knew that every old person I ran into had a very good chance of knowing at least one person in my family a generation or two above me. I wanted to represent my family well. But the one that made the most of an impression on me was always my faith. My school community wasn't always around me. My family wasn't by my side. I could have acted so much worse on so many occasions, yet I knew that God was with me. I would represent Him whether I did well or not. The second I became a Christian, I became a representative. The moment I was baptized, I made sure the world knew where I stood. Today's society holds less to our representing others. Today seems to be about representing ourselves. Now, I won't say that the concept is completely terrible. I could have used a little more confidence in myself. And let's face it, we can't all be happy with the way we are represented through different avenues. How many times have we said, "They don't speak for all of us," in reference to radicals of any nature? But I think we tipped the scales too far. I don't want my children to act correctly because they think that if Mom finds out she'll kill us (though that doesn't hurt). I want my children to act right because they want to make me proud. I want them to act right because they show the world that I have taught them right from wrong. More importantly, I want them to act right because God wants them to act right and they want to do right on their own! Oh man. It's a lot to take in sometimes. I think the issue we face right now is that parents want their kids to be good and do right, but they aren't being held to a standard. Parents today seem to be working on wishes and hopes, dreams and rainbows. They forget that when their kid doesn't do well it makes the kid look like a brat and the parent look worse. What words have we thought when we were around poor behaving children? Bad parents, lazy parents, selfish, childish, dumb, obnoxious parents? Representing a group of any nature used to be a point of pride. Kids that put on a jersey because they made the cut. Keeping the family name out of the mud because Pops worked so hard to get the name out there to begin with. Heck, even the gangs. They rep their colors as a point of pride. It all says, "I belong somewhere." But that belonging always came with a price. Those practices were hard, and the drills broke down our bodies. Kids can't go out and have fun with their friends because Pops would not be happy. And the thugs had to prove their toughness through crimes to be a part of that gang. Belonging comes with a price. That's why there was so much pride in it to begin with. When you put that much work in, you have earned your spot. We don't require our kids to earn things anymore. They take no pride in their work. Their only pride is of themselves. There is never anything bigger than themselves these days. I encourage parents, coaches, teachers, adults that are helping to mold our youth, teach your kids what and who they are representing. Teach them why what they say and do is important. It isn't just so you can look good. It makes an entire group look good. And at the end of the day it takes the focus off of themselves and all of their petty points of pride. |
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May 2023
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