Month: April 2012

Family

The Water Table

When we first moved into the house, our garage was wide open from the floor to the roof. I spend a few weekend putting in the supports for a floor and created an attic space. Some time after that my father came up and helped me insulate the garage and we now effectively have an attic above the garage. We store most of our Spring and Summer paraphernalia up there: lawn chairs, plant pots, window box planters, hoses. We also put some of the outdoor Winter stuff like sleds and lights up there as well.

But every Spring, ever since it was unveiled for them, the kids are interested in one thing that they know is up there. The want the Water Table.

It’s a Step 2 toy that they got back when the boy was 3, maybe 4. It stands about 20 inches high and it’s shape is circular. About 30 inches in diameter, I’d guess. It’s a light blue color with a couple of different levels and a ramp on the side. It has 3 legs.

When it was first assembled, there was a water wheel that mounted on the upper portion of the Water Table. The water wheel had a reservoir that could be filled precisely using a pitcher that was supplied. All the water wheel did was spin and spray the water around a little when the water flowed through the reservoir. It also came with a little plastic sailing boat.

Over the years, we got other little boats that were also used in the Water Table. The kids would place a boat in the upper portion of the table and try to sail it down the ramp to the lower portion of the table. The would try to submerge and sink the boats. On occasion, they’d try to figure out ways to keep the boats under water.

Most of those little things are gone now. Every now and again, I’ll see one of the little boats in a sand box. The only time it gets wet is when it rains now.

But the Water Table endures.

When I went up into the attic above the garage over the weekend, I went up there intending to pull a few of the usual things down for the Wife to continue with her Spring chores. But the kids knew the Water Table was up there, and as soon as they heard the creek of the pull down door, they appeared in the garage. Both of them wanted me to bring down their Water Table. Much to there chagrin, it was the final item I brought down from the attic.

They wasted little time in getting it out on the deck and filling it up.

Truth be told, it’s held much more than water in it’s time. It’s held sand, dirt, rocks, a snapping turtle (for a couple hours anyway), and a painted turtle (for a whole day- it’s one of my first posts). It’s held “bubble juice” mixed into the water. It’s even held the kids at various times. The lass in particular had a penchant for climbing up into the table. Or she did, when she was smaller. It’s held water so dirty you’d wouldn’t believe it was actually water. It’s held chunks of ice from early freezes. This morning it had ice in it; brought on by the latest in a spate of freezing nights we’ve had lately.

But, remarkably, the best thing it’s held all this time is their attention.

Family

Opening Day 2012

Didn’t get around to this yesterday, but it was Opening Day here. The boy chose not to do baseball this year. The lass, in contrast, could hardly wait. The fact that I’m coaching the team is gravy for her.

Compared to previous Opening Days, this one was more efficiently run and better for the kids, as far as I’m concerned. In previous years, after the players and coaches were introduced for all of the Tee Ball, Coach Pitch, Minor League, Minor’s Softball and the Major’s baseball and softball teams there would be a long procession of talking that really made it tough on the kids. Their strength is in movement, not sitting and listening to people talk about things they don’t care about.

This year, they eliminated almost all of that, stripping the morning down to the bare essentials of the introductions, singing the National Anthem and having the players and coaches recite the Little League Oath. It was a welcome change since it allowed us to get right to the games. It was doubly welcome because it was cold yesterday morning. Probably in the 40’s or so with a nasty wind that made it colder. The kids were troopers, but they were definitely getting stretched to their limit.

As for our games, we played 2 one-inning games. Our guys hadn’t even had much practice at hitting and running the bases, since I’d only had our first practice this past Monday. Never-the-less, they performed well. They all hit the ball and ran the bases and, generally speaking, caught on quickly. They took a bit to figure things out in the field, but once we started getting the swarm defense going in getting after the ball, I knew we were right on schedule. I was even able to get them to throw the ball to 1st base a few times.

The lass did fine as well; although, since she played at third base, she didn’t get any balls hit her way. But she hit the ball well and, when we were done for the day, she got to yell “BATS!” for our team cheer. So she left with a smile on her face.

They tell me that’s what it’s all about, so score one for the good guys.

Tags the lass

Misc

An Evening Visitor

The dog started barking upstairs and that typically means a cat in our driveway. Doesn’t matter if it’s our cat or someone else’s cat, as far as the dog is concerned it’s trespassing. An offense punishable by barking the interloper to death.

This happens just about every evening and as I said, it’s usually a cat. So when she started doing it last night, I asked the lass to get her (the dog) to knock it off. The lass, curiosity clearly getting the better of her, decided to check out what the dog was fussing about.

She comes up to me, eyes wide and with a little concern in her voice, “Dad, it’s not a cat.” Right then, I’m thinking “We need a bigger boat…”

She continues “It’s about this big…” and she holds her hand about a foot apart. My next thought is “Well, scratch the bigger boat.” The size means it could be just about anything. She’s smart enough to know what a cat looks like, so I need another detail to have any hope of coming to a conclusion.

She finishes “… and it’s grey and has a pink tail.”

Ahh, well, round these here parts there’s really only 1 thing it could be. I hopped up off the couch and went to the window and sure enough, the possum was waddling across our driveway. By this point, the dog had come downstairs, clearly hoping we would unleash her upon the poor creature. Our younger male dog had picked up on her agitation and was similarly inclined. I imagine his thoughts were along the lines “Got no idea what’s going on, but I’m IN.”

As soon as I stepped outside, it scooted into the brush. The tree it went to is dead and it was only a foot or so off the ground when the lass and I tracked it down. It barely moved even after I went inside to get the camera. The lass was impressed by it’s lack of movement and kept asking why it didn’t move much. I tried to explain that’s it’s defense mechanism, to sit there and be still, hopinig we’d leave it alone.

Aside from taking the pictures, we obliged.

Misc

From the Annals of Duh

Kids who eat at home eat better

In reviewing 68 studies on the association between family mealtimes and children’s health, the researchers found clear patterns: Children who frequently eat at home with their families eat more fruit, vegetables, fiber, and calcium- and vitamin-rich foods. The more a child’s family eats out, the greater the amount of less nutritious food and drinks, such as soft drinks, he or she consumes. In addition, children from families who have frequent at-home meals together have a lower body mass index than those from families that eat out frequently.

I read the above paragraph to the Wife and her reply was “And they needed to perform a study to tell us that?” Just so.

Also from that linked article:

More than 40 percent of a typical American family’s budget is spent on eating out…

Now that surprised me, as it appears to me they are saying the entire family budget, not just the food or grocery budget. I know we’re way below that, meaning there must be families way above. I’m curious as to the methodology they used to come up with that number, as it seems really high.

Family

The Lass Writes an Essay

The lass brought this home a couple of days ago. It’s an essay she wrote in class. I have preserved all punctuation and spelling.

How The Cat And Mouse Became Friends
The cat liked the mouse. The mouse did not like the cat. The cat gave the mouse ches. Then the mouse relist tat he was being not mean and tay becam friend.
The End

In case you couldn’t figure it out, “relist” is supposed to be “realised.” And I guess it’s more of a paragraph than an essay. But, hey, they’ve got to start somewhere.

Tags the lass

Family

Not Adding Up

As regards school, one thing I was curious to see about this year was the math lessons. Particularly where the boy is concerned. Judging from the news and the political machinations, a lot has gone on in the field of teaching math since I was a kid. I was curious to get a first hand account.

I’ve considered commenting on this before, but I held my tongue because it was still early in the school year and it seemed premature to judge things. Now, with somewhere around 2 months to go, the die has been cast and my verdict is in.

I don’t like what’s been done.

I have a couple of qualms with how they’ve taught the subject. One, I don’t think they’ve been adequately aggressive. They haven’t had much practice with subtraction (quizzes I’ve seen concentrate on addition) and they’ve done little with adding multi digit numbers and subtracting multi-digit numbers. Two, the techniques they’ve taught for adding and subtracting I think are error prone and don’t scale well.

Regarding techniques, they appear to have abandoned teaching borrowing and carrying. Rather, they have the kids rearrange numbers to make the addition easier. For instance, when calculating 17+6, the kids have been taught to turn the 17 into a 20, and then adjust 6 to 3, thus making the equation 20+3, which is easier to add. Which I agree it is, but only if that what was asked in the first place. As near as I can tell, similar gymnastics are used with subtraction.

The first problem is there are 3 steps, meaning more opportunity for error. The second problem is it become cumbersome real fast when adding multi-digit numbers. What do you do when calculating 137+286? Turn the 137 into 140 and the 286 into 283? They still have a carry to handle. Similarly, they haven’t learned a thing about borrowing in subtraction.

The Wife and I asked about this at the last parent-teacher conference. We got some boiler-plate response about wanting the kids to really understand how the math works or some such. It’s not like we’re talking about complex numbers or imaginary numbers. This is just simple addition and subtraction.

I’m not sure what to do about it either. Sure, I can try to teach him how to carry and borrow, but when? After he’s been in school all day and is sick of learning? On the weekends when all he wants to do is play on his DS or Wii? Frankly, we send him to school to learn that stuff.

But it seems to be too much to expect.

Football

We Can Only Hope

Via ESPN, it looks like the NFL may scrap the Pro Bowl.

This has to be the biggest no-brainer in the history of football. Personally, I can’t even remember the last time I watched a Pro Bowl for longer than it took to recognize that’s what what was on and then flip the channel. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one, seeing as they moved the game to the week before the Super Bowl in an attempt to boost viewership of the game.

The players will surely love it, since it’s one less game for them to get beat up in or risk injury in. The owners ought to love it for similar reasons. And as I said, it’s doubtful the fans will even notice it’s gone.

Where exactly is the downside?

Family

Grandparent’s Day

Today was Grandparent’s Day at the kids’ school. The Wife’s parents had gone the past couple of years, but this year my folks came up and went with the kids to school. Naturally, the kids were excited.

The boy had done some prep work for their arrival in class. The teacher had them fill out a sheet and then they had to write an essay using the answers from the questions. Following are the boy’s questions and answers, and the essay. I’ve preserved spelling and punctuation as much as possible.

Q: What is your grandparent’s name?
A: Grampa

Q: What does he or she do for fun?
A: read news paper

Q: What does you grandparent like to eat?
A: pankakes?

Q: What is your favorite thing to do with your grandparent?
A: go in pool.

Q: What are three words that describe your grandparent?
A: funny, fun, sleepy?

Q: What makes your grandparent the best?
A: That he is funny.

Now the essay:

My grampa is the best because is funny and fun. He is [redacted] years old. My favorit thing to do with him is go in the pool. He likes to read news papers. He likes to do puzzles. He likes to eat pankackes. He lives in pennsylvania. It takes 4:00 hours to get there. They had a lot of pets but a lot of them died. About 10 or more. But they have 6 pets. But they did not get them at the same time.

Tags the boy, the lass

Misc

An Unlikely Dad

I’ve actually seen this hyped at a couple of places, and this is just the most recent. That said, portraying Darth Vader as a father with a petulant 4-year Luke nipping at his heels seems like one of those ideas that’s so obvious it’s hard to believe it took this long to come to fruition.

The book will be released on May 4th. If the teasers are any indication, it’s hard to imagine it being anything other than a huge hit.

Family

Tee Ball Again

So this year, the Wife and I actually steered the boy away from participating in any Spring sports. His biggest problem I can only characterize as an immaturity of expectations. He expects to be great without working at it and is really upset to find out that he isn’t great without working at it. Last year, every time out for baseball was a battle if he got out or didn’t get a hit or anything. It got to the point where it wasn’t fun for him or me.

The other point against his participating is that he’s already involved in Scouts and martial arts. So his after school time is already filled to a degree by that stuff. Adding 2 more night of baseball to the mix, even for just a few weeks, would have been that much less time for himself. He values that time and the Wife and I don’t want to take it from him if that’s what he really wanted. Ultimately, that’s what he chose.

The lass, on the other hand, couldn’t wait for Tee Ball to start this year. She even started practicing before the season started. The big surprise for me was that I was contacted about coaching one of the teams this year. Having helped coach 2 Tee ball teams and a coach pitch team, it seemed like something I was capable of handling.

We had our first practice tonight. A nice bunch of kids. I knew some of them already, making things easier for me. The hardest part was the field itself, which must have been tilled to prep it for the season. The last couple of days of rain softened it considerably and our feet were sinking in as we were walking on it. It was odd because the field didn’t look wet. The kids were amused when the lass lost one of her shoes when it got sucked off by the mud. I moved the rest of the practice into the outfield after that.

I kept the practice short. Or, at least, as short as I could. Mainly, we just stuck to the basics of catching and a little practice hitting the ball off the tee. Opening Day is this weekend, so they’ll be fine for that. I’ll have the rest of the season to mold them into Major League talent…

Cub Scouts

Battleship Cove

Our Pack’s overnight was at Battleship Cove. It’s a historical military site where the USS Massachusetts, which is easily the main attraction, resides. There’s also the USS Lionfish, a submarine; the USS Fall River, a cruiser; and the USS Joseph P Kennedy, a destroyer. They’ve also got a PT boat exhibit.

If you’ve never been on a battleship, then I highly recommend doing so. It’s an impressive experience. The scale of the ship alone is enough to make the mind boggle. The tech specs are equally mind boggling: like the 16-inch canons that could hit targets 22-miles away (it’s just a big bullet- not a propelled object). The rounds were packed with 5000 lbs of gun powder and no one was allowed on deck when they were being fired. Yet the ship was designed such that when they were fired, no one felt the recoil on the ship. They also had 5 inch guns capable of shooting up to 5 miles away. The ship itself was the better part of 800 feet long. When in service, the fuel tanks held nearly 2 millions gallons of crude for fuel and the ship could run flat out for 9 days on that supply.

All of the Scouts who came enjoyed the day. The weather was perfect and it was something most of them hadn’t seen before. We had gone once before with our own kids and they’d also been taken there by the Grandparents. So they were veterans of the ships. But sleeping overnight on the battleship was a new experience.

The overnight program was well organized and well run. Once they were closed to day visitors, the overnighters were given some historical orientation about the ship, including a chance to talk to the (I believe) last living crew member of the USS Massachusetts whom is 90 years old. For an old timer, he still had plenty of spunk. More than enough to keep a bunch of grade schoolers in line while he was talking and answering questions.

Speaking of which, we were 25 of about 550 people staying over night. The vast majority of which were Cub Scouts. People were there from all over the Northeast. The ship was built to house like 3500 people, so we had plenty of room.

After the orientation, there was a dinner followed by a few different presentations including a Morse Code class, a knot tying class, a 1940’s cartoon time featuring Disney cartoons as well as a story teller. There were no obligations to attend anything and we were free to wander as much or as little of the ship as we pleased. The boy tried his hand at knot tying, but lost interest when his friends did, so we moved on from their. The military story telling time entertained them though.

Aside from that, the boy and his buddies had a grand time aiming gun turrets and “shooting” cars and signs and whatever else tickled their fancy. They weren’t supposed to run because it’s a battleship. Things were built to handle the rigors of war, so the ravages of a bunch of grade schoolers was, eh, child’s play. I was amused to notice every couple of minutes one kid or another limping or holding a side that slammed into some unforgiving piece of metal. They didn’t do much running after that. Experience really is a good teacher.

As the night wore on, the crew closed more and more of the ship down, limiting where the kids could get to and thus opportunities for problems. Officially, lights out was at 11, but a few of ours were done at 10. There were warning bulge calls at 15, 10 and 5 minutes to lights out. The ones who fell asleep early didn’t budge. The bunks we slept in weren’t luxury accommodations, but they were good enough for tired visitors.

They certainly sufficed for tired kids.

Reveille was a 6:30 this morning. Most of the kids were already waking up by then. From there, we spent a little time on deck before we had to wait in our bunk area for the crew to escort us to breakfast. After that, the exodus began.

The ship served in several campaigns, but never lost any crew members. In fact, the only “major” damage it took was to its hull on the front side. Before we left, the boy wanted to see what the damaged area looked like. After a bit of searching (it’s a big ship) we located the spot. They’d preserved a piece of the plate with the hole from the projectile that penetrated it. Even that was heady stuff to look at, since the hole was big enough for me to stick my head through. Despite that, it never posed any serious danger for the ship itself.

Satisfied with the find, he was then ready to head home. He hadn’t had enough to eat at breakfast, so he was hoping to have a little extra when we arrived at the house.

That was our overnight at Battleship Cove.

Cub Scouts

Gone Overnightin’

I’m heading out for an overnight slumber party on a retired Naval vessel with a bunch of Cub Scouts. With any luck, the kids will sleep. I seriously doubt any of the adults will. Should be a great time!

Back tomorrow.

Football

Another Look At Soft Shell Helmets

Post author By Gerry
Post date April 20, 2012
3 Comments on Another Look At Soft Shell Helmets

A while back, I wrote a quick item wondering about the possibility of soft shelled helmets replacing hard shelled helmets. Mainly, I was just wondering aloud about it and also the possibility of a combined shoulder-pad helmet design. The ideas being either:

A better dampening effect on the energy transmission to the head via the soft shelled helmet, or
A means of transferring the energy to the body so the head doesn’t take all of the energy from the blow via the combined helmet-shoulder pad design.

After all this time, I got a comment to that post which was basically a form of spamming; however, it was actually on topic to the post so I allowed the comment to remain. I’ll even to the commenter a favor by posting the website he provided right here: Game Breaker Helmets.

One of the arguments often heard about reining in head injuries is to remove the helmets from the game altogether. It’s a nice counter argument, but there have been studies done comparing incidents of head injuries between rugby players and football players and the results are a head-shot (yes, bad pun) to the counter argument: rugby players have a higher rate of concussion incidents than football players. So no helmets is not the answer.

So for hee-hee-ha-ha’s , I did a little research about the transition from leather helmets to hard shell helmets. In a, uh, nutshell, it was basically arbitrary. A guy by the name of John Riddell started making them in the 40’s because the leather helmets got soaked and brittle and generally not liked much. The hard-shell design allowed for team advertising with logo’s to boot. Football has been using the same basic design ever since.

I have no doubt that directly comparing soft shell helmets to hard shell helmets in controlled lab experiments would leave soft shell helmets wanting. But, I think actual use could achieve an important side-effect: modifying the way the game is played. Players would not be able to lead with the head as they do now, thereby reducing head and neck injuries in the long run. Plus, according to the link site I linked above, the helmets can be screened with team logos, so we don’t have to lose our fancy helmet artwork.

What would be nice is to see some kind of research about these soft shell helmets so that a more compelling case can be made for them. (Perhaps our commenter from above has something like that?) Of course, it might cut against them as well, but if the decision to use hard shell helmets way back when was arbitrary, then it can’t hurt to give the alternative a look and have the discussion now.

Family

What the Kids are Watching

I have to say that the Netflix streaming service has been great for the kids. There’s seemingly no end to the cartoon entertainment available. Which is good, because they haven’t tended to go back to a cartoon franchise once they’ve completed it. The only one they sometimes go back to is Avatar: The Last Airbender.

For now, they’ve been watching episodes of Woody Woodpecker. These aren’t the original cartoons, though. Rather, it’s a re-boot of the original. The only characters I recall from the first go around are Woody himself and Buzz Buzzard. They’ve introduced nephews for Woody as well as Winnie, a sometimes girlfriend, Wally Walrus and Miss Meanie. In all, the only one who’s consistently amusing is Wally and that’s almost entirely to do with his think Svedish accent. I mean Swedish accent. It’s quite catchy. In all, I’d rate it as OK on the entertainment scale and certainly inferior to the original. But the kids enjoy it. Fortunately, the smarty-pants routines are seeping into the kids personalities.

The other one we found is the old chestnut Inspector Gadget whom the kids have just started watching recently. Gadget gets old since every episode is rehash of the same story line with Penny and Brain saving the world while Gadget bumbles through the episode. I don’t know how long they’ll watch this series, but there’s nothing objectionable to it.

Last night, I discovered Transformers Prime. Now this is a good cartoon. It’s one of the computer animated variety, and certainly the subject matter is well suited to the medium. The kids are old enough to watch it, but I wouldn’t let younger kids watch it since the material is definitely on the darker side of the spectrum. But Optimus Prime and his sense of honor and duty dominate the story and that’s something worth having them watch. In my opinion, it’s a better story line than any of the 3 movies that preceded it. And lets face it, big robots that turn into cars and planes is awesome entertainment. Right now, there is only season 1, but season 2 will become available later this year.

This week being a vacation week, the burn rate on the cartoons has been increased a bit. Even so, with these 3 to rotate through, they should be entertained for a while yet.

Football

Good for Minnesota

I don’t have a link at the moment, but it looks like the Minnesota Vikings ownership is not getting a lot of love from Minnesota politicians at the moment. Public funding for a new stadium was shot down within the past couple of days.

I recall one of the lines I read was from a city council member who asked the Vikings representatives something to the effect “In these tough economic times, why should we be asking the taxpayers to give money to a billionaire?” I think that hits the nail dead in the head.

Now, when I read stuff like this, frankly it pisses me off a bit. Mainly for the fact that it’s so blind to the realities of the situation. See the above paragraph.

If owners are willing to exploit football fans to this degree, then the only thing that will set them back in line is for fans to tell them to go bilk some other city. Because the owners have made it clear that they’re more than happy to stay in town while everyone ponies up big bucks for their seat, when it comes time to give a little back they find out it’s a one-way street.

I enjoy football as much as anyone, but I’ve never liked the idea of taxpayer funded stadiums and facilities. NFL owners are billionaires. They can afford to spend some of it to make their own facilities.

Family

10th Birthday Idea

I’m on board with this. In fact, I think it would make for a great 10th birthday theme. Stick a bow on a bottle of Tide, some Clorox and some Bounce, throw in a few new clothes and underwear and it’ll be a 10th birthday neither would forget.

Tags the boy, the lass

Family

Parental Follies

After dinner tonight, the kids wanted to ride their bikes a bit. We don’t have a very good setup for bike riding at our home, though. Our driveway is fairly narrow and all gravel. I suppose the gravel part is OK once you’ve learned to ride, but training wheels and gravel don’t work. Also, there’s the small matter of about 4 chords of waiting-to-be-chopped firewood sitting in the middle of our driveway at the moment, which makes for even less room for riding.

Our lawn isn’t exactly great for riding either. Fairly narrow with the logical turn around spots on hills. Plus, it’s kind of bumpy. Of course, if the lawn was really nice, we probably wouldn’t want them riding on it.

But they tried to make the most of it. The boy, particularly, is good enough to be able to tool around a bit back there. The lass is still learning how to ride. I told her to just keep her feet out to the side and try to balance on the bike as it went down the hill. So she practiced at that for a bit.

At one point, they asked if I could ride their bikes. Not in the “Will you do it?” sense, but in the “is it possible?” sense. When I told them I could ride either of their bikes, I offered to demonstrate by riding the lass’ bike down the little hill.

They thought that would be grand.

So I got myself setup on the lass’ bike (standing on the petals) and started down the hill. Just after I hit the bottom, I must have hit a bump. That and the fact that I exceed the reasonable weight limits of the bike resulted in the handle bars tilting way forward on me. I tried to correct the situation, but must have pulled on the hand brake on her bike. With all of my weight already forward as a result of the handle bars, I went flying head first off the bike.

While the landing wasn’t particularly pretty, it also wasn’t particularly harmful. Due to the size of the bike, I was only a couple of feet off the ground at most to start with. I did more damage to the few tufts of grass we’ve got in the yard than anything else. Naturally, I got up and dusted myself off and acted like the professional idiot that I am.

The kids were quiet for a moment, then the boy asked “Is that why we wear helmets, Dad?”

“Yes, that’s why you wear helmets,” I answered.

Admin

Server Updates

I’ve been informed by my host provider that the server the site runs on will be undergoing upgrades sometime during the wee-hours of the morning. The site will be down for a couple of hours as a result. Hopefully, that will be all the disruption incurred.

I’ll be backing up the site just in case…

Family

Kids and Clickers

Some of you reading this may remember a time before cable. Back then, channel choices were limited to UHF and VHF. Most of the networks channels were on VHF and those typically came in the clearest. But it was rare that the antenna could remain in one position and maximize reception for all the stations. If you remember those times, perhaps you also remember to whom the job fell to tune the antenna. Us (at the time) kids. If we were particularly unlucky, the mere act of touching the antenna would result in better reception. At which point it was time to settle in and get comfortable.

Not only did we tune the antenna, we also were the remote controls for our parents. And, I suppose, why not? Since we were already up there futzing with the antenna. Might as well kill two birds with one stone. We’d patiently stand up there flicking the dials on the TV (or pushing the buttons for the stations on the more modern versions) waiting for some kind of “OK” to signal that a station had been selected and we could return to our seat. Assuming we weren’t making reception possible, that is.

I mention this because I think there’s something useful there from a parenting perspective. Namely, the act of a parent having a child do something trivial. While I remember being none to thrilled with the job at the time, as a parent I actually think that things like this have a place in helping parents raise their kids.

Mainly, it’s an assertion of dominance. Not the kind of dominance where a parent is actually forcing a child, mentally or physically, to do things a certain way. Rather, it’s the kind of dominance where the notion is enforced that the family has a pecking order and the parents are at the top of that order, while the kids reside somewhere lower in that order.

I’ve never bought into the “parents as friends” line of thinking. Kids don’t know enough about the world in order to make good decisions. As a case in point, we had a Roadside Cleanup with the Cub Scouts this past weekend. In my group of boys, one of them decided that a good diversion was to pretend a bear had emerged from the woods and was chasing him. So he ran off screaming right down the middle of the road. (I did take him aside immediately to deal with the behavior and he didn’t do it anymore). Like I said, not the best at decision making. We parents have to teach them that sort of thing, be it through example or by talking them through the decision making or by scolding them when they get something demonstrably wrong or by letting them suffer the consequences of their own decisions.

Now, can a parent teach that sort of thing (or anything, for that matter) if the child doesn’t respect the parent as the leader? Not likely, in my book. Does anyone listen to someone they don’t respect?

But how to establish that pecking order? How to establish that status as the leader above the kids? That’s were kids-as-clickers comes into play.

Using the kids as a clicker reinforces the pecking order of the family because the kids are the one doing the work for their parents. It works because it happens every day and it’s a trivial exercise for the kids to perform. After a short period of time, it’s simply understood that this is one of their jobs as a kid, so they do it with minimal fuss. This makes it a win because for a couple of reasons. One, it’s a low-overhead request; meaning parents won’t have to expend a lot of emotional energy (aka- screaming) to get the kids to follow through. Second, it helps to lay the ground work for future moments where you’ll need their help or you’ll want to explain something important to them (like how pretending a bear is chasing you as a pretext for running, screaming down the middle of the road is a bad idea).

Nowadays, we have actual real remote controls so kids don’t have to be our remotes. But there’s still no shortage of simple tasks that they can do: retrieving food from the pantry or freezer, getting the mail, letting the pets in and out, feeding the pets, bringing clothes for laundry. Frankly, whatever they can be convinced to help out with works towards the ends of reinforcing the notion that the parents are the boss. The key is that it has to be fairly trivial to perform (thereby minimizing the opportunity for foot dragging), and it has to be something that needs to be done (now they’ve done something useful rather than just some random request because Mom or Dad is on a power trip)

All that said, kids-as-clickers is not a cure all. Just because they do these things doesn’t mean they’ll become perfect little angels. At least, not if my 2 are any indicator. They’ll still carp about certain tasks, and claim it’s the other ones turn; but, I do think they are more likely to listen in general as well as primed for larger requests of their time and effort as a result of having established the pattern of parents-ask-and-children-do.

Tags parenting

Family

Vacation Awaits

Well, vacation for the kids anyway. Spring vacation has arrived and, judging be the weather forecast, Spring itself as well. There won’t be any swimming just yet, but it can’t be far away at this point.

The Wife and kids spent most of today out in the yard starting the cleanup. The kids were actually useful this year for a change. They helped carry all the the Wife pulled out of the gardens and carried it down to the compost. The boy even emptied the wheelbarrow of a load of firewood, stack the wood by himself, so they could use the wheelbarrow for carting the crap instead of a bucket.

They were paid with ice cream from one of the local dairies later on. It’s never too early for dairy made ice cream. Especially maple walnut. Yum.