Pretentious presents
I received this e-mail on Friday from my daughters principal. The school now does paperless notices to try and conserve paper. It is a wonderful thing as instead of throwing out the reams of paper that come home with a million messages I can now hit the delete button and be done with it.
Dear Parents,
This is just a reminder that students in elementary school should not have cell phones or I Pods in school. Please remind students to leave these expensive items at home.
Thank you for your cooperation with this matter.
Sincerely,
B. Bauer
This message is just a small part of what I try to deal with on a daily basis with my kids. Josh always maintains the hardest word to say is no. I must say my kids must feel that its the easiest word as they hear it, a lot. It is so hard to keep kids grounded in the disposable soceity we live in. American kids do not only have a lot of stuff but they have excessive amounts of high tech expensive gadget each one trying to out do the other. I got a call the other day from a parent in Ryan's class who is trying to get a group together to buy a birthday gift for two girls who are having a combined party. She wanted us to chip in to buy an i-pod for each of the girls. Can I just add that both girls already have i-pods but they want the latest ones. Keep in mind these girls are 8 years old. Yes, 8 years old!!! What's next. I know for sweet 16's they expect Prada bags, real ones and they can tell the difference. I don't even own a real Prada or real anything for that matter. What exactly are we teaching our kids? The pressure to keep up with Joneses is huge and I have to say for the most part my kids don't expect it. They would like a lot of stuff and they have the ability to get it with our pebble system.
We have a huge glass container of shiny glass pebbles, the type you use for flower arrangements, the girls each earn a pebble everyday for making their beds, cleaning their rooms, and cleaning up from the table when they are done eating. They are 5 and 7. They do a great job on their beds, better then me I must say. Each pebble is worth a dollar. Ryan can earn 5 pebbles for her and Nikki at the end of the week if she gets all her words right on her test on Friday or 3 pebbles if she gets up to 2 wrong, if she gets more then that wrong she gets no pebbles. Nikki can earn pebbles for her and Ryan by reaching her objectives in class and her teacher tells me whether she has or not during the week. I find making them work for pebbles for the other creates a positive cheerleading environment. Nikki will keep quiet so Ryan can learn and Ry will be after Nikki to find out what she has to achieve and encourage her to do it. They can lose pebbles too, for a smart mouth, lying, fighting, etc.
The pebble system really works well as I find I no longer have to yell at them and they feel a sense of accomplishment whenever they earn something. It also eliminates the "I want that" phenomenon. Ry wants an Ipod. Sure I say to her, save your pebbles and you can buy one. She also wants another American Girl Doll (she has bought 2 already with her pebbles), she understands that if she buys the doll then she won't be getting the ipod. Its a hard lesson to teach but I hope its one that will carry her through life, opportunity cost is what it all boils down to.
One of my toughest challenges is keeping our house cable TV free. Ry is not exactly a kid who fits into our surroundings, and looking at the kids in her grade, I am pretty thankful for that. Unfortunately being an artiste and not being able to talk about the pop culture is hard. Right now the kids are all abuzz about High School Musical, she would love to watch it and I would love her to be able to converse with her pals about it, unfortunately the quandry is two fold, firstly we do not have cable and secondly the show is at 8:30 on a Thursday Night, her bedtime is 7pm. I feel for her and would love to remedy it, but I really want her childhood to be about playing and getting as much freshair as possible then being slumped in front of a TV and zoning out. I don't believe her and Nikki will look back at this time in their lives and say ... remember when we watched High School musical? Rather they can talk about the adventures of boxy (Ryan is Boxy the dog), or when they play butterfly girl and princess girl (Ry is Princess girl and Nikki, Butterfly girl). One day when they have kids of their own, their will realize the treasures of their childhood, until then it won't quite gel with those around them. Maybe thats not a bad thing.
Dear Parents,
This is just a reminder that students in elementary school should not have cell phones or I Pods in school. Please remind students to leave these expensive items at home.
Thank you for your cooperation with this matter.
Sincerely,
B. Bauer
This message is just a small part of what I try to deal with on a daily basis with my kids. Josh always maintains the hardest word to say is no. I must say my kids must feel that its the easiest word as they hear it, a lot. It is so hard to keep kids grounded in the disposable soceity we live in. American kids do not only have a lot of stuff but they have excessive amounts of high tech expensive gadget each one trying to out do the other. I got a call the other day from a parent in Ryan's class who is trying to get a group together to buy a birthday gift for two girls who are having a combined party. She wanted us to chip in to buy an i-pod for each of the girls. Can I just add that both girls already have i-pods but they want the latest ones. Keep in mind these girls are 8 years old. Yes, 8 years old!!! What's next. I know for sweet 16's they expect Prada bags, real ones and they can tell the difference. I don't even own a real Prada or real anything for that matter. What exactly are we teaching our kids? The pressure to keep up with Joneses is huge and I have to say for the most part my kids don't expect it. They would like a lot of stuff and they have the ability to get it with our pebble system.
We have a huge glass container of shiny glass pebbles, the type you use for flower arrangements, the girls each earn a pebble everyday for making their beds, cleaning their rooms, and cleaning up from the table when they are done eating. They are 5 and 7. They do a great job on their beds, better then me I must say. Each pebble is worth a dollar. Ryan can earn 5 pebbles for her and Nikki at the end of the week if she gets all her words right on her test on Friday or 3 pebbles if she gets up to 2 wrong, if she gets more then that wrong she gets no pebbles. Nikki can earn pebbles for her and Ryan by reaching her objectives in class and her teacher tells me whether she has or not during the week. I find making them work for pebbles for the other creates a positive cheerleading environment. Nikki will keep quiet so Ryan can learn and Ry will be after Nikki to find out what she has to achieve and encourage her to do it. They can lose pebbles too, for a smart mouth, lying, fighting, etc.
The pebble system really works well as I find I no longer have to yell at them and they feel a sense of accomplishment whenever they earn something. It also eliminates the "I want that" phenomenon. Ry wants an Ipod. Sure I say to her, save your pebbles and you can buy one. She also wants another American Girl Doll (she has bought 2 already with her pebbles), she understands that if she buys the doll then she won't be getting the ipod. Its a hard lesson to teach but I hope its one that will carry her through life, opportunity cost is what it all boils down to.
One of my toughest challenges is keeping our house cable TV free. Ry is not exactly a kid who fits into our surroundings, and looking at the kids in her grade, I am pretty thankful for that. Unfortunately being an artiste and not being able to talk about the pop culture is hard. Right now the kids are all abuzz about High School Musical, she would love to watch it and I would love her to be able to converse with her pals about it, unfortunately the quandry is two fold, firstly we do not have cable and secondly the show is at 8:30 on a Thursday Night, her bedtime is 7pm. I feel for her and would love to remedy it, but I really want her childhood to be about playing and getting as much freshair as possible then being slumped in front of a TV and zoning out. I don't believe her and Nikki will look back at this time in their lives and say ... remember when we watched High School musical? Rather they can talk about the adventures of boxy (Ryan is Boxy the dog), or when they play butterfly girl and princess girl (Ry is Princess girl and Nikki, Butterfly girl). One day when they have kids of their own, their will realize the treasures of their childhood, until then it won't quite gel with those around them. Maybe thats not a bad thing.
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