Skeptics may groan at yet another extraneous, feel-good program, where tax dollars are squandered on things that parents ought to be teaching at home. Teachers should spend their precious class time teaching math, reading, and science, right?
But others believe that an increase in empathy is not only desirable for life in general, but it also makes for a better learning experience. Kids who have participated in Roots of Emphathy bully each other less; kids are calmer and more respectful of the teacher and of others; kids feel more free to ask questions and to work on problems that they don’t immediately understand. They are learning, in short, how to live with other people, and how to live with themselves.
Tag: kids
What did you almost name your kid?
The other day, my groceries were scanned by a woman whose nametag said “Alma.” I almost told her that I wanted to name my daughter that; but then I realized that, if she’s anything like every other Alma I’ve ever met, she just wants me to take my receipt and go away.
Anyway, when I come across someone with a name we decided against nine times, sometimes I’m relieved (“Whew! Dodged that bullet”) and sometimes I’m wistful (“Just think, that could have been ours . . . “). Truly, I feel like all my kids have the perfect name for them. For a few of our kids, it’s almost uncanny: Clara, for instance, turned out to be remarkably clear-eyed and fair skinned, unlike all the other kids. But I supposed people just grow into names, so it’s hard to say if a name is really ideal, or just very familiar.
A few of the names I pushed for, and my husband didn’t like: Ada, Delia, Beryl. A few of the ones I’m pretty glad he didn’t go for: Oceania, Moselle. (Look, I was young, okay?) He also liked Edith, which I could never warm up to, although Edie is a sweet nickname.
Of course, nothing can beat my husband’s own dodged bullet. His mother had a boy’s name picked out when she first got pregnant, but she had a girl first, so she couldn’t use the name. Then she had another girl, and then another girl. By the time he was born, she realized that she really oughn’t name him . . . Huckleberry John.
PIC baby aghast
HA. How about you? What’s in your discard pile? Do you know what you almost got called?
When she was just a little girl, I asked my readers . . .
What will she be?
What happened was, a compassionate friend sent me a “There, there” bottle of Tanqueray, and my five-year-old immediately got a fork and pried off the red seal. Benny wanted one, too. So she muscled open the fridge, found a bottle of wine and a fork. When I asked what she was doing, she struck this pose.
I feel like there is . . . something . . . in the future for this kid. But what? Will she be a pirate? Scourge of heretics? Doctor of the Church? Crazy fork lady? All of the above?
At the Register: What makes a good dad?
There are a good many variations on the theme of being a good dad. Some fathers emphasize self-mastery or hard work, some are more joyful and relaxed; some are more formidable, some are more approachable; some are more physical, some are more cerebral. What all dads have in common, though, is that their children are no accident. They were given to them, specifically and intentionally by God, because of the gifts they have and because of the virtues they need to cultivate.
Read the rest at the Register.
And I didn’t include this specifically in the post, but good daddies wear the beautiful, beautiful bracelets their daughters made just for them:
Speaking of fathers . . .
It doesn’t build up motherhood or empower woman to tear down fathers, whether you think they deserve it or not.
[…]
1- Don’t be bitter.
Even if you feel your bitterness is justified and caused by circumstances that may have been out of your control you have to stop and consider what message that bitterness is sending to your children, especially if you have sons.
Children internalize everything. When you speak ill of another parent in front of them they perceive it as an insult aimed at them. After all they are their father’s child.
All bitterness begets is man hating feminists out of our daughters and sons who think being a father can be replaced by a mother because their own mothers deemed fatherhood useless.
Bitterness perpetuates the cycle of abandonment.
Respect. Katrina never lets herself off easy. Definitely worthwhile to read the rest, if you’re a single mom or not.
My least favorite part about spring
Changing over the winter clothes.
It’s not just a matter of scooping up the cold-weather clothes out of their drawers and replacing them with hot-weather clothes, or even a matter of making a million little emotional decisions, like, “Do I throw away this ratty but beloved shirt while no one’s looking?” or “Do I pack away this baby sweater in case there is ever another baby?”
It’s a matter of going up into the little girls’ room, which is unaffectionately known as “Tinkle Town,” and facing the horrors that have been allowed to propagate over the last few, dark months. And it’s not just a matter of clean laundry not put away, or dirty laundry on the floor, or people who have guilted me into buying them pants because they don’t own any pants except those awful itchy gray ones, but it turns out that they have pants — LOTS of pants — but which they have been dropping on the floor, mashing elderly Easter eggs into, and then packing into old gift bags — GIFT BAGS! — and stuffing into the closet. That’s all true, and dreadful enough.
But there’s more. Let’s just say that what sounded like wild, coke-fueled parties after bedtime was actually wild, Coke-fueled parties after bedtime. 36 cans of Coke. Also a bowl of sugar. Bad children! Bad! So bad!!!
Anyway, with a job as big as this, there is no such thing as a system. The only system is to dive in head first and resign myself to sheer misery and a marathon workout for the washing machine and dryer for the next 72 hours. Pray for me. And the first person to say “First World Problems” is gonna get a gift bag from me.
You’re not BORED, are you?
I’ve seen this picture here and there online, and I like it. I like it a lot.
Of course, this would only work with kids who can read. Or, let’s face it, this would only work with kids who are not actively campaigning to drive you out of your gourd. But it should work. It’s a good idea in theory, and some days, that is the best you can get.
However, it needs expanding. For instance, here is a version for my two-year-old (who, admittedly, has never been bored in her life):
Here is one for the dog:
And here is one for my husband:
Well, that should keep ‘em busy.
The boy has an aha moment.
PIC Aha band “Not this kind, fortunately. Never this kind.”
Says the boy: My tooth is almost out. Can I just have my tooth fairy money now so I can buy this thing?
Me: Nope. Sorry.
Boy: Okay. I guess I better haul some more rocks so I can earn the money, because I really want it.
Me: Good idea.
[Me on the inside: HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
Now to spread the word to everyone who owns a credit card . . .
Parents who fail (and parents who don’t)
Not a failure: “My daughter is pregnant.”
Failure: “My daughter had an abortion because she knew darn well what would happen if we found out she was pregnant.”
Not a failure: “My child is severely depressed.” “My child has debilitating anxiety.” “My child is suicidal.”
Failure: “I have no idea how to help my child, but I’ll be damned if I let someone stranger into our personal lives. Professional help is for parents who can’t hack it, and I don’t belong in a waiting room with that trash.”
Not a failure: “We are totally crashing and burning in the home school/private school/religious school/public school we thought would be so perfect for our kind of family.”
Failure: “We are totally crashing and burning, but if we quit, we’ll be failures as parents/let down the community/have to admit we’re wrong/change our lives around. We better keep going, so everyone will know we care about our kids.”
Not a failure: “I don’t understand my kid very well, and it’s hard to talk.”
Failure: “My kid has a great relationship with my husband, or with her teacher, or with her friend’s mom. I can’t allow this. I’m the mom.”
Not a failure: “My kid is screwing up in exactly the same ways I did or do.”
Failure: “Boy, does this look familiar, and boy does it make me feel bad. I’ll punish her double, one for each of us.”
Not a failure: “Despite our best efforts to raise him right, my kid exercised his free will and is now a druggie, an alcoholic, a criminal.”
Failure: “His name is forbidden in my home.”
Not a failure: “We are too broke to give our kids everything their friends have.”
Failure: “I must do everything possible to get more money, so we can be happy.”
Not a failure: “My child is gay.”
Failure: “I refuse to have gay children, so either the kid or the gayness has got to go.”
Not a failure: “My child has left the Church.”
Failure: “I refuse to speak to my child who has left the Church. How could he betray Me this way?”
Not a failure: “I just said exactly the wrong thing to my kid.”
Failure: “We must never speak of this again.”
Kids and the occult: what’s your policy?
In my post for the Register about the Black Mass that will be reenacted at Harvard, I included this paragraph:
Satan is real, and he is not fussy. He doesn’t care if you are kidding or not when you call him by name. This is why I tell my kids to stay far, far away from participating in anything occult — ouija boards, tarot cards, etc. — even if it’s just a game. An invitation is an invitation, and Satan doesn’t stand on manners. You may not see Exorcist-style special effects when the Father of Lies creeps into your life. You may not realize anything has happened to you at all, as the rift between you and God slowly gets deeper and wider.
Predictably, someone responded with this comment:
Seriously? Ouija boards? Tarot cards? What other things made by Parker Bros. are we supposed to be a afraid of? Are the kids not allowed to dress up for Halloween? How worried should we be about that Harry Potter fellow?
A fair question.
As with so many other things, we try to find that middle way when dealing with occult-ish things in our family. We don’t want to be screaming meemies who hide under the rug every time someone says the m-word (magic); but we want to make sure our kids don’t innocently slide into something truly dangerous.
There are three categories of things that raise questions:
Things expressly designed to make contact with spirits other than God or the saints or angels. This includes tarot cards and ouija boards –
and just because Parker Brothers is dumb enough to put out a kiddie version of these things doesn’t mean they’re harmless. They are explicitly occult, and, as I said in the Register post, the devil doesn’t care if you are just kidding, or don’t understand what you are doing. An invitation is an invitation; and Catholics are, in fact,expressly forbidden to get involved with this kind of thing, so there’s not much to decide. Listen to your mother!
Things which once had or may have had occult or pagan origins, but have changed or been “baptized,” and now signify something else. The gleeful celebration of Halloween, complete with skulls and bats and gore, falls into this category. My husband and I make decisions about these things on a case-by-case basis, and sometimes decide to pull away from creepy stuff for a while if it seems like it’s having a bad effect on the kids, or if it crosses the line into true perversity. But “spooky” is not the same as “occult,” and the Church has a long history of facing death and fear head-on; so it’s entirely possible to be a good Catholic and still enjoy scary stuff. I talk about this in a few posts: Twofer Costumes for the Conflicted Catholic Family; Do Brains Break the Communion Fast? and Twelve Movies to Terrify Your Kids.
Yoga also falls into this category. If it’s just exercise, it’s just exercise, and if it calms you down, super — and I think 99% of Catholics who do yoga are doing fine. If you’re trying to find spiritual enlightenment through yoga, though, I’d be wary. The Church has that covered already. Mind/body stuff is weird. It’s not for nothing that the sacraments use materials we can taste, touch, and smell. What you do with your body means something, so make sure you know what you mean!
Things which deal with or discuss magic or the occult, such as the Harry Potter books. Our kids have read and enjoyed the books. My husband and I read them first, to see what all the fuss was about. We decided that, since none of our kids show any particular attraction to dark or occult things, there was no danger in letting them read about magic — especially since it was a story about goodness and love and such conquering evil and darkness and such. If I had a kid who was easily swayed, and showed an unhealthy interest in magic or new age stuff, we’d probably make a wider berth around Harry Potter (and this would be no tragedy, because the books are not exactly irreplaceable in the canon of western literature).
My son recently wanted to look up Harry Potter curses to beef up a game they were playing. So I said yes, but first we discussed how Harry Potter is clearly fiction, but some people take it more seriously than that, and that they can get drawn into dangerous waters, so we don’t want to get sucked in with them. He volunteered that, if he saw anything that looked at all weird or fishy, he’d shut the window immediately (which he actually does).
Dungeons and Dragons (etc.) is in this category, too. Some of our kids play it with other kids who are decent and grounded, and just want to have fun imagining crazy and exciting stuff. I would not let my kids play it with a group of kids who were fascinated by the occult in general. You get out of it what you put into it.
People who argue that the Narnia or Lord of the Rings books are dangerous are simply not serious people, and when they want to talk about this stuff, I have to go clean out the lint trap of my dryer, because it’s more edifying. I have, however, noticed a lot of books aimed at middle school girls which tell the stories of wise girls who understand the ways of the earth and herbs, etc. etc., and harsh, suspicious men, especially clergy, want to quash and oppress them. These are ideas which can seep into young imaginations and wreak all kinds of havoc (and they tend to be stupid books anyway), so I’ve asked my kids to stay away from these. Scorn is a powerful teaching aid.
*****
Overall, we keep a sharp eye out, and reevaluate often what we will and won’t allow in the house. And we talk, talk, talk about it, and try to keep a sense of humor. If parents freak out when kids do something that might be wrong, kids will not go to parents for help when there is something wrong. There is a lot of weird stuff floating around, and kids need to be taught a healthy sense of caution, without making them afraid of the dark.
How about you? How do you handle this in your house? Has your thinking or approach changed over the years?