Should be an interesting one. Even though I’m very much interested in the results, it’s not my style to spend the day or even the evening staring at the television to get the results as early as possible. I figure there are more productive things I could be doing.

I’ll be taking care of voting this morning. I had hoped to get out to vote early, but things just didn’t work out that way.

However you’re voting, just don’t let long lines or anything else keep you from it. It’s an important election and you should do your best to make your opinion be heard.

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I saw this tweeted by eMom about PETA trying to get Ben & Jerry’s to switch to breast milk for their ice cream. Obviously just another publicity ploy, which is about all they ever seem to accomplish, but for once I’ll take the bait.

A stupid notion at best. You just have to look at how hard it is to get human breast milk for babies in NICU, and how many mothers struggle with production anyhow to realize that this is ridiculous.

Hey, I’m pregnant and planning on breastfeeding. Of course this idea annoys me.

So far as I’m concerned, there are very few uses I would allow my breastmilk to be put to. The first is obviously to feed my child. As I have so far always been one of the lucky ones able to produce excess, the rest I hope to donate to a milk bank so that it is available for babies who need it.

Not for ice cream.

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A lot of people think that kids these days are spoiled. And it’s easy to see why. Kids often have tons of toys, electronics and family life can seem to center around them.

Heck, the Navy even compared the current generation reaching recruitment age to aliens! Basically they feel that kids these days speak such strange jargon with their abbreviations (LOL), and that they are excessively used to being praised.

Well, we can argue that one back and forth all the time. Certainly a lot of parents have been told to do everything they can for their child’s self esteem, and many take that to mean praise every little thing. But I still have faith that most parents do the best they can and try not to overdo it.

I agree with the experts over on WebMD. They have a great list on how to raise a spoiled child.

One of the easiest mistakes to make in my opinion is not enforcing rules consistently. I suspect we all do this to some degree. The challenge is to not do it too much, and most especially to keep it consistent on the most important rules.

I love the idea of knowing how to praise a child properly. In a lot of ways I don’t think it’s so much what you praise as how you praise it. It’s been shown that telling your child that they’re smart is not as effective as telling they you’re proud of how hard they worked. It’s just more motivating.

I do know my kids have a lot more toys than they need. We have a plan to go through them hopefully soon and get rid of at least half. That will take care of a lot of the clutter. And you know what? My daughter is looking forward to it. We just did a smaller cleanout of her clothes, and she was delighted and very proud to have worked so hard on that kind of a project.

I don’t think my kids are too spoiled. I work hard at making sure they know they are a part of my life, but not the only thing. They help around the house. They have rules to follow. It seems to work pretty well.

[tags]spoiled kids,navy aliens,children,family,rules[/tags]

The post Are Kids Spoiled These Days? appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Help might just be on the way. The Parents’ Tax Relief Act of 2007 has been introduced in Congress. I don’t see it listed on the Library of Congress site yet, but it was just introduced so I assume it hasn’t been listed yet. Found the Parents’ Tax Relief Act of 2005, which was a prior attempt at this.

I love the idea of this. It is so hard for families to find a way to have one parent stay home, yet many families would love to do just that.

It should also help somewhat with the loss of Social Security protection. Even stay at home moms would be earning towards Social Security, in this bill. Social Security is one of those factors that most don’t consider when making the decision to stay at home, yet the time may come where it will be very important to you.

To quote from the article linked above:

The Parents’ Tax Relief Act extends the Dependent Care Tax Credit to stay-at-home parents; makes permanent the $1,000 Child Tax Credit and fixes it to inflation; and permanently eliminates the marriage tax penalty. The bill also encourages telecommuting, adjusts Social Security credits for stay-at-home parents, and streamlines the home office deduction.

Sounds great! This bill has been introduced in both House and Senate.

I would love to see it more reasonable for mothers or fathers to make the choice to stay at home and raise their children as their partner works. There is so much that could be done to make being a SAHM less financially difficult, so that parents can make the decision that is right for their family more easily.
I can also hardly wait to see what it does for the home office deduction.

I don’t demand that all families have one parent stay at home with their young children. I do recommend all families look at the possibility, then make the decision that is right for them. If this passes, the money side of the equation may be a little easier.

[tags]Parents Tax Relief Act of 2007,SAHM,Congress,House,Senate,Social Security[/tags]

The post Could Money Problems for SAHMs be Eased with Tax Relief? appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Many states have been considering longer school days, and now Congress is looking to get into the act. I can see good and bad to it, and I’m wondering what other parents think.

The good, of course, is that it means there is more time for activities that schools have been neglecting. I’d love for schools to have enough time for art and music classes, for example, as well as just more time for the kids to play at school.

Many parents who work outside the home would probably also appreciate the extra time that they wouldn’t need to find childcare for.

It would give more time for schools to reach the educational goals set by programs such as No Child Left Behind. I’m not 100% a fan of such programs, as I think it encourages too much teaching to the test, but maybe the extra time could be used to do more than that. I can hope, anyhow.

If the longer days are run similar to what the schools in the CNN article are doing, the children will probably enjoy it more too. Some parents in that article report better overall progress in school, as the children have something to look forward to at school, and so are better about the other subjects too.

The bad can come in if the schools get the extra time, start out with wonderful, enriching programs, then decide students aren’t keeping up with standards, and that more time has to be spent on academics. It’s a government thing, after all, and all I have to do is compare what preschool is now with what it was when I was a child to know that children are being pushed harder now. What’s to keep them from pushing harder still with more hours.

The issue of teacher pay comes up too. I understand that current programs run about $1200-1300 extra per year per child. That will add up fast. So many schools are already underfunded, so that could be a serious problem.

Then too, what about teachers who don’t want longer days in the classroom. I can certainly see why some wouldn’t. A teacher’s day doesn’t end when the kids go home. There are papers to grade, lessons to plan. Adding to that could be a serious impact to the teacher’s life.

Right now the plan is to look at adding the option for longer days to schools that aren’t meeting their goals. That’s probably not too bad a thing, so long as it’s done right.

What I would like to see is something regulating how much of the extra time can be required to be purely academic work versus enrichment courses. I wouldn’t want schools to be able to extend the school day and then keep adding the academic pressure to the children. But giving them the option to pursue things that are interesting to them could be quite beneficial.

So what do you think?

[tags]longer school days,Congress,elementary school,middle school,students,no child left behind[/tags]

The post How Long Should the School Day Be? appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

You hear all the time about how kids today behave. I could go back and point out that even the ancient Greeks found their youth to be unbearably poorly mannered, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make today.

I read over on Blogging Baby about a study which blames the media, parents and feminism for how kids behave these days. It claims that there are more troubled children now than there were 50 years ago.

I agree with some points. Lax parents are a major problem. Too many want to be their children’s friend first, rather than parent first, and so the kids get away with thinking of only what they want, and don’t behave in socially acceptable ways. That certainly can have a lot to do with parents.

I won’t just blame working parents, though. Coming from a family of four girls raised by a divorced mother, I can tell you that working parents can do a great job raising children. So can stay at home parents. It has more to do with what you expect of your children and what you teach them than whether or not a parent is always able to be at home.

As for media, yes, it certainly has something to do with it, especially the sexualization of younger and younger girls. You know the images young girls are seeing these days. Think about pop stars, the shows they enjoy watching, and toys such as Bratz dolls (which will never remain in my home, even if given as a gift). Are those healthy self image messages for girls?

However, media does relate to parenting in part. If you aren’t spending enough time keeping up with what your children are seeing in the media you can’t help them with those images. You as a parent need to tell them when something is unacceptable.

And I can’t really agree with blaming feminism. Here’s a part of what was said on that topic:

“In feminism we have emphasized changing girls much more than we emphasized changing guys. So nurturing sort of has gone out of the way as a role model for females. So that means if you are less nurturing you are more likely to be more aggressive, as males are,” she said.

Somewhat true, but I don’t agree with what she makes of it.

To my mind, feminism means giving girls more options. It certainly has nothing to do with encouraging little girls to dress inappropriately. If anything, a feminist would want girls to dress so that her gender is not… overexposed, shall we say.

I think some of the problem there is how people think of it when they say feminism is about equality. Some take equality to mean being the same. And certainly men and women should have equal abilities to go to school, get jobs and provide for their families, have fun with loved ones and friends and so forth. But that doesn’t mean they should have to take the same paths. And it also doesn’t mean that those who prefer more traditional roles need to change themselves.

Living in the world today and raising children is hard work. There were issues when you and I were growing up that resulting in some of our fellow parents today not understanding what they need to do as parents. The media and society right now encourage a highly selfish, individualistic, consumer driven lifestyle that makes many problems grow worse. Some can cope with these problems well, others cannot.

You can say “it takes a village” or you can say the first responsibility belongs to the parents, but in any case things have changed over the past many years in how children are raised. And that’s one of those things we have to deal with as parents. As an individual you can start with your own expectations of your children and build from there.

[tags]feminism,it takes a village,children,misbehavior,society,problems,media,kids,parents[/tags]

The post Who is to Blame for How Children Behave? appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

This is a topic I keep hearing about. The most recent was over at Blogging Baby, where there is a post about Oklahoma considering making universal preschool available for three year olds.

I went and read the New York Times article about it. It’s a pretty interesting idea. You may have been reading this blog long enough to know that Ariel has been in preschool since age 3, but not an every day program. Just 3 hours a day, two days a week at age 3, and now 3 days a week. She loves it. She is learning things there that she refused to learn from me.

Yes, refused. With me she had no interest in learning to write. She’s still resisting trying to write neatly, but she can write her name now, as well as other letters.

She also has lots of fun with the other kids.

I’ve found this to be good for Gage too, even though he doesn’t attend. Still not talking much, but he has become more comfortable with other children just from seeing them for a while before and after each class.

The program in Oklahoma at least appears to be well run. Limited class sizes, bachelor’s degree required for the teacher, one teacher for every 10 kids. And the kids definitely do better in kindergarten.

In a lot of ways, I do like preschool being more generally available. So much of the difference between low income children and higher income children stems from what they learn before kindergarten. If this can help close the gap, it’s probably a good idea. The difference may only last a few years in most cases, but it’s a start.

So what about the nanny state? Honestly, I’m not terribly worried about that so long as preschool is voluntary. Voluntary universal preschool can be a resource that gives parents more flexibility to work without spending excessive money on daycare, which for many is the only other option.

And then there are the concerns that you’re pushing children too hard, too young. This could definitely become a problem. My daughter’s preschool teacher describes current preschool as being what kindergarten used to be, and kindergarten being more like first grade used to be. Children are definitely being pushed much harder. But that’s an issue that covers all grade levels, not just preschool.

I can tell you from my experience that my daughter’s preschool is generally appropriate to her age. There is some sit down and learn time, mostly writing practice, but much of what they do is not so different from what she’d be doing at home, just a little more directed. Arts, crafts, games, that kind of thing. Lots of playtime, and once projects are done, the freedom to decide what to do next. We have a good program.

Things like that are what will determine if offering universal preschool is a good idea or not. It could become a problem if it goes much more academic than what my daughter deals with. But there are also some wonderful advantages.

[tags]universal preschool,preschoolers,oklahoma,daycare[/tags]

The post Is Universal Preschool a Good Idea? appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Information is so easily accessible these days. It’s great in some ways, but it can sure make parenting more challenging. Just try to protect your kids from things you don’t want them to see yet!

The best thing you can do, of course, is to be there with your kids when they’re likely to encounter problem content. That means rethink the computer and television in the bedroom. It’s much safer to have these out in the main areas of the home.

Yes, that does mean everyone is more likely to have to share, especially when it comes to television. It’s not that hard to have two computers side by side, but two televisions in a room are generally more of a problem than a solution.

Use good software if you like, but don’t rely on it to do your job. No software solution is perfect, and too many kids are quick to learn to get around it.

As for television, be as aware of what your children see you watching as what they watch. I had to work hard to get my husband to quit watching vampire movies or other inappropriate shows in front of the kids. I had to point out to him that some of the shows on the History Channel really aren’t that appropriate for preschoolers to see, even if their educational content would be great for older children.

Some things, of course, cannot be avoided. You’re going to have to explain some things. But if you’re aware of what your children are seeing you can limit this problem somewhat.

[tags]inappropriate content,children,kids,child,internet,television,family[/tags]

The post Helping Your Kids Avoid Inappropriate Content appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

OK, I know some will disagree about me on this one, otherwise the school board in Georgia wouldn’t have had to make this decision. They voted against a mother’s petition to have the Harry Potter books removed from the school’s library. They didn’t even need to discuss it.

The mother behind the request sees it as an anti-Christian bias. I honestly don’t see it that way. For one, the Harry Potter books don’t strike me as anti-Christian, promoting witchcraft… you probably know the routine. They’re fantasy. She hasn’t read them, she has merely read what others who disapprove of the books have said about them.

However, I also have no problem with books such as the Chronicles of Narnia, which she suggested as a possible replacement, being in the school library. Those are good books too. Not as enthusiastic about the Left Behind: The Kids books, but so long as similar books for other faiths are allowed, why not?

And that for me is the litmus test for this kind of case. What are we letting those of other faiths do? If we’re treating them all the same I have absolutely no problem with it.

What do you think?

[tags]harry potter,georgia school board,book ban,library[/tags]

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