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NEVERENDING ♾️ The NEVERENDING Raising Children Thread

JNA said:
Where were the parents / adults ?

9-year-old girl tossed into air by bison at Yellowstone National Park
www.nbcnews.com

9-year-old girl tossed into air by bison at Yellowstone National Park

The unidentified girl was with a group of people in Old Faithful Geyser on Monday when the parks department says the group caused the bison to charge.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com
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National Parks have been seeing declining attendance/funding for years. This incident is unlikely to help with that trend.
 
Is going back to school on August 7th early ?

Who remembers going back to school the wednesday after Labor Day ?
 
JNA said:
Is going back to school on August 7th early ?

Who remembers going back to school the wednesday after Labor Day ?
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It's a state law here that public schools can not start before Labor Day. Because touri$m.
 
Maister said:
It's a state law here that public schools can not start before Labor Day. Because touri$m.
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"Since the ban on a pre-Labor Day start went into effect in 2006 in Michigan, hundreds of districts have applied for waivers from the Michigan Department of Education to get permission to start school earlier.
At least 178 school districts are using approved waivers to start school before Labor Day, according to the Michigan Department of Education. Another 28 are awaiting approval.
...
Many districts say they need the earlier start to align their calendars with dual-enrollment programs that allow high school students to take college courses.
Districts are also granted waivers because they meet exemptions built into the law, which include increased instructional time as part of a reform plan as well as balancing a school calendar for year-round schooling."

article
 
Our district's first day of classes is August 26th, however the first football game is Friday August 23rd.

That's not a practice game, it's a real in-season game.

Band practices start this morning @ 9:00 am. Football has already had 'summer camps' for a few weeks.
 
Veloise said:
"Since the ban on a pre-Labor Day start went into effect in 2006 in Michigan, hundreds of districts have applied for waivers from the Michigan Department of Education to get permission to start school earlier.
At least 178 school districts are using approved waivers to start school before Labor Day, according to the Michigan Department of Education. Another 28 are awaiting approval.
...
Many districts say they need the earlier start to align their calendars with dual-enrollment programs that allow high school students to take college courses.
Districts are also granted waivers because they meet exemptions built into the law, which include increased instructional time as part of a reform plan as well as balancing a school calendar for year-round schooling."

article
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I thought I read earlier this year that there were enough schools asking for waivers that the state was looking at getting rid of the ban on pre-Labor Day start dates. Around here, most of the private schools will start going back the last week or two of August. The girl across the street from us goes to one of the private school and my daughter is always bummed when that girl is no longer around during the day... not because my daughter doesn't have her to play with, but because she's jealous that she's already back to school while my daughter has to suffer through another week of summer!

Usually our district starts up the day after Labor Day but a couple of years ago they actually started on the Wednesday after. I wish they would do that every year since it's really nice to have that Tuesday off after Labor Day to relax and not rushing home from wherever in the early afternoon on the holiday.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
I thought I read earlier this year that there were enough schools asking for waivers that the state was looking at getting rid of the ban on pre-Labor Day start dates. Around here, most of the private schools will start going back the last week or two of August. The girl across the street from us goes to one of the private school and my daughter is always bummed when that girl is no longer around during the day... not because my daughter doesn't have her to play with, but because she's jealous that she's already back to school while my daughter has to suffer through another week of summer!

Usually our district starts up the day after Labor Day but a couple of years ago they actually started on the Wednesday after. I wish they would do that every year since it's really nice to have that Tuesday off after Labor Day to relax and not rushing home from wherever in the early afternoon on the holiday.
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To me the whole school year - Labor Day law thing has gotten ridiculous. Look, there are a certain number of days of instruction that are required of public schools and a certain number of 'free' snow days permitted. It seems most years we end up exceeding the snow days and there's a threat of 'extending the school year further into June'. The school year already runs past Memorial Day. Don't those additional snow days cut into the traditional Memorial Day - Labor Day summer tourism season just as much as starting school in late August does?
 
Our schools started the '19-'20 school year today.

It is amazing to me that the school calendar becomes so central to our lives while we have kids in school. Once they graduate, it is difficult to adjust to the loss of that calendar.
 
School starts next week here and usually ends mid May. I blame the extra days off like teacher in service, fall break, and whatever other days off they use. It's not like they increased the days of instruction. At least not that I know of.
 
This is what most of us envision when we have kids- that some day they'll find their own happily ever after. This my son and his new wife at their wedding reception on Sunday.

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Public school in NJ starts after Labor Day. Most of the Catholic schools do as well. The charter schools often start in mid-August.

At this point in my life I wish there was year round school with 2 week breaks between quarters.
 
I'm having school anxiety. We moved in January so are in the same school district, but have a different neighborhood elementary school that my boys are required to attend. However, this coming school year is kind of special, because it's my oldest son's 6th grade year (so, last year of elementary), and it's my youngest son's kindergarten year. It'll be the only year that both boys can attend the same school, and my youngest is excited about that.

I put in a transfer request to keep my oldest at his previous school, so he can finish out elementary with his friends. I also put in a transfer request for my youngest, so he can go to the same school with his brother.

However, I've been really worried about the whole thing, and actually had a bad dream last night (because I ran into some "school mom" friends.) Both boys have to start at the new school, and then find out after two weeks if the transfer requests have been approved (it's a lottery system). So, that sucks that they have to start the school year at one place, and then switch to a new school.

I'm also worried about what if my oldest son doesn't get to go back to his old school for his last year. He's going to be really bummed, especially because he's already switched schools once (in 3rd grade) and it took about a year for him to make good friends.

I'd be fine if my youngest's transfer request wasn't approved and he stayed at the new school (he already knows some kids that attend there, and then he wouldn't have to switch schools next year), but then I'd have school drop offs / pick ups at two locations and that's not fun (for me).

And on top of if all, my ex thinks that the new school "isn't good" so I'd have to deal with his a$$hattery if one or both boys went there. It is a good school, just not as well funded as the old one (aka, the new school has more working class parents and the old one has more wealthy families who can donate a lot of time and money to the PTA and other things).

Everything will work out just fine, right?!
 
The kids will be alright.

FWIW, my oldest changed schools going into 2nd grade, 4th grade, and 8th grade.
 
It's hard to listen to your adult child critique your parenting (with the aid of a counselor). Mom apparently got a whole lot more wrong than I did. (I tried to do the opposite of everything my father did, which seems to have worked okay-ish.) Getting him diagnosed earlier would have been a huge help to him, and also for both mom and me.
 
Gedunker said:
It's hard to listen to your adult child critique your parenting (with the aid of a counselor). Mom apparently got a whole lot more wrong than I did. (I tried to do the opposite of everything my father did, which seems to have worked okay-ish.) Getting him diagnosed earlier would have been a huge help to him, and also for both mom and me.
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I’m sorry you had to hear it, and hope it helps your child.
 
kms said:
I’m sorry you had to hear it, and hope it helps your child.
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I've been trying to demonstrate that the unexamined life IS worth living and then this had to come along.

Just kidding :ha:

I'm proud of both of my kids - they are polite, intelligent, kind, and curious about the world around them. Whether we just got lucky, or had a little to do with it, doesn't really matter to me since I'm not going to get another shot at parenting a newborn. I am seriously happy that he's getting help sorting through things and I'll always be there to help as best I can.

What more can you do?
 
Gedunker said:
I've been trying to demonstrate that the unexamined life IS worth living and then this had to come along.

Just kidding :ha:

I'm proud of both of my kids - they are polite, intelligent, kind, and curious about the world around them. Whether we just got lucky, or had a little to do with it, doesn't really matter to me since I'm not going to get another shot at parenting a newborn. I am seriously happy that he's getting help sorting through things and I'll always be there to help as best I can.

What more can you do?
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Sure it's difficult, but you do the best you can do in the moment. What we know now in hindsight is often more than we knew then. You accept your shortcomings and move forward. Some things he has to work through himself and can't entirely blame you or his mom. You're a great dad.
 
My 9-year-old has no idea who Taylor Swift is or has any in interest in those teen/pre-teen sitcoms on Disney or Nick but she knows every Harry Potter character's backstory and can draw you a pretty accurate map of Middle Earth based on multiple readings of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
My 9-year-old has no idea who Taylor Swift is or has any in interest in those teen/pre-teen sitcoms on Disney or Nick but she knows every Harry Potter character's backstory and can draw you a pretty accurate map of Middle Earth based on multiple readings of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
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Winning. My 7 year old loves to sing along to songs so she knows Taylor Swift's songs but not Taylor Swift if that makes any sense. Sadly she is not interested in Harry Potter, I haven't given up hope though. She does like to watch anime thanks to my husband. She's happiest drawing, painting, or coloring and building stuff out of Legos.
 
kjel said:
Winning. My 7 year old loves to sing along to songs so she knows Taylor Swift's songs but not Taylor Swift if that makes any sense. Sadly she is not interested in Harry Potter, I haven't given up hope though. She does like to watch anime thanks to my husband. She's happiest drawing, painting, or coloring and building stuff out of Legos.
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Download the audiobook version for the first Harry Potter book before you go on your next long drive and try that. My wife tried reading the first book to our daughter when she was about 6 but she just wasn't interested. A few months later we had a long drive to a Christmas party and I was tired of listening to Arthur stories (or whatever) so I downloaded the first book from the library for free to give it a try and my daughter was hooked. By the time she started 3rd grade last year she had already read all of the Harry Potter books. The guy who reads them, Jim Dale, does an awesome job and I think listening to each one individually before she read them helped her out with a lot of the names, made up words, and more difficult sections. She's in 4th grade now and at the start of the summer she decided she wanted to re-read all of them and she's already back up to the 5th book. That's pretty impressive to me.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
Download the audiobook version for the first Harry Potter book before you go on your next long drive and try that. My wife tried reading the first book to our daughter when she was about 6 but she just wasn't interested. A few months later we had a long drive to a Christmas party and I was tired of listening to Arthur stories (or whatever) so I downloaded the first book from the library for free to give it a try and my daughter was hooked. By the time she started 3rd grade last year she had already read all of the Harry Potter books. The guy who reads them, Jim Dale, does an awesome job and I think listening to each one individually before she read them helped her out with a lot of the names, made up words, and more difficult sections. She's in 4th grade now and at the start of the summer she decided she wanted to re-read all of them and she's already back up to the 5th book. That's pretty impressive to me.
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Thanks, I will give that a try!
 
We generally let our kids wear whatever they pick out but I may have to step in and assist my nearly-4-year-old. Apparently she got out of bed after I tucked her in last night and laid out this outfit for the day:

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A plastic firefighter helmet, a lion mask, a magic wand, a flower lei, and some light-up Paw Patrol shoes that haven't fit in about 6 months. She was very proud of herself but I think she's going to be a little cold.
 
^ That's something my little one would do. Thankfully she goes to a uniformed school so the only real choice is dress or skirt and short or long sleeved shirt.

This morning my neighbor's 20 something son was walking down the block in a fuzzy reindeer onesie.
 
The Magic Firefighter Lioness from Polynesia

(sounds like a good character for a children's book series)
 
Planit said:
Yes.

Don't remember exactly but she continued reading on her own at bedtime for a very long time.
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We read to our son literally every day of his life (I mean we didn't miss it a single time) at bedtime up until kindergarten, and even after that throughout lower elementary semi-regularly. He put an end to the delightful tradition after we tried to get him to 'take turns' reading with us.

Today he despises reading. Says when he reads he doesn't visualize or picture what he's reading about. All I can say is we tried our best.:worried:
 
mendelman said:
A good parent will insist that their children absorb this kind of stuff:

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My kids play "restaurant" once in a while. So I made one of the kids watch the restaurant skit he did. The results of the next restaurant game were hilarious.
 
DVD said:
My kids play "restaurant" once in a while. So I made one of the kids watch the restaurant skit he did. The results of the next restaurant game were hilarious.
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That was a particularly well constructed and executed bit in the show.

My 10 yr old son loved the whole show as the tone fits perfectly with his personality.

He's already considering a career on SNL.
 
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Re: reading - Our oldest is 9 and a half and our youngest will be 4 in March and we read to both every night. The oldest absolutely loves reading and has read all of the Harry Potter books multiple times and is now working on the LOTR series (we just finished the audiobook version of The Fellowship of the Rings last night but she's also reading that one concurrently). She goes to bed around 8:30 each night and after we read to her, she likes to read to herself for a bit (comic books, scifi/fantasy, manga, true fact books, regular ole fiction, biographies... everything!) and we routinely have to tell her to shut the light out and go to bed because she stays up way too late reading. When she was little, she didn't really care about toys or playing so much and loved to sit in our laps and just listen to us read absolutely anything.

Our youngest isn't quite that crazy for reading but she still loves to have us read to her at bedtime. She's just now starting to get more into us reading more complex stories with a little bit of plot in them though so maybe that reading bug will still bite.

Re: The Sack Lunch Bunch - I've heard that's hilarious and really want to check it out.
 
WSU - you should introduce your girls to it. As you describe her, I bet your oldest will enjoy it at least.
 
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My little person is having a tough year in school. Academically she's fine and on target but she's struggling with the social aspects and half her day is spent in a very chaotic classroom with a first year teacher. The other half of the day is spent with a veteran teacher and there aren't any issues there. Part of what makes this challenging is that the entire school district operates on a ranked choice lottery system-children frequently do not attend a neighborhood school and there isn't a culture of socializing outside of school.

She asked me and my husband if we could move to the beach house full time because she has friends there and the school is right across the street. It would mean an hour plus commute to work for me, but my husband can transfer work locations easily which would cut his commute to half of what it is currently. The town has a population of about 3,500 and there is one K-6 school with one classroom for each grade level with weekly music, gym, technology, library, and Spanish classes, a super active PTO that organizes many events, and veteran teaching staff.

We talked about it and my husband is perfectly fine with it but worries about burdening me with a 60 mile commute (all highway). My oldest would stay in the Newark house and her long term boyfriend would likely move in as he attends university nearby and it would be a significant cost savings for him as well.
 
I can only say, weigh the advantages for the little one and the disadvantages for you. No offense to everyone else involved, but screw them. You're the one who ends up having to pay the cost. Are you willing to pay it?
 
DVD said:
I can only say, weigh the advantages for the little one and the disadvantages for you. No offense to everyone else involved, but screw them. You're the one who ends up having to pay the cost. Are you willing to pay it?
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It's a little more complicated than that. This is basically where race, socio-economic factors, and education levels intersect-an 8 year old is exactly equipped to navigate this. Each of us gives up something by staying or moving.
 
mendelman said:
WSU - you should introduce your girls to it. As you describe her, I bet your oldest will enjoy it as least.
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My daughter and I sat down and watched The Sack Lunch Bunch Saturday night. After a few minutes of her questioning what she had agreed to she quickly began to enjoy it. I think I might have enjoyed it as well but I couldn't hear much of it over her constant, genuine laughter!

Seriously though - it was great. We both agreed our favorite part was the playing restaurant scene and the increasingly absurd Mr. Music. I also thought Girl Talk with Richard Kind was pretty funny and would love to see that as a recurring feature somewhere (Richard Kind is always one of my favorite actors though and I think I would honestly enjoy watching him read the telephone book).

The only disappointment we had was that it was a movie and not a television show. For some reason, I thought it was an 8-episode series. We're both hoping it comes back for me.
 
Is it a universal thing for teens over, say, the age of 13 to not want to wear warm coats outside when temps are well below freezing? I seem to recall it was a thing back in my day and I find it interesting the current generation is doing the same thing.
 
Maister said:
Is it a universal thing for teens over, say, the age of 13 to not want to wear warm coats outside when temps are well below freezing? I seem to recall it was a thing back in my day and I find it interesting the current generation is doing the same thing.
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I recall kids doing this when I was a kid and see kids at my daughter's school doing this too. I never got the appeal and there's no way my parents would have let me out of the house while dressed inappropriately for the weather.

In a similar vein, The Atlantic recently had an article about the phenomenon of The Boys Who Wear Shorts All Winter.

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^ Instead of the picture of the kid shoveling snow, they could have taken a photo of the 14-year-old boy down the street from me who will be out shooting hoops in the driveway in shorts no matter how cold it is or how much snow is on the ground.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
I recall kids doing this when I was a kid and see kids at my daughter's school doing this too. I never got the appeal and there's no way my parents would have let me out of the house while dressed inappropriately for the weather.

In a similar vein, The Atlantic recently had an article about the phenomenon of The Boys Who Wear Shorts All Winter.

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^ Instead of the picture of the kid shoveling snow, they could have taken a photo of the 14-year-old boy down the street from me who will be out shooting hoops in the driveway in shorts no matter how cold it is or how much snow is on the ground.
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My former priest told me he was happy to see that my son wears shorts in the winter. I responded that if my daughter wears skirts and dresses in the winter, I see no reason why my sons can’t wear shorts.

Again, they suffer from the cold when they do, not me. They’ll put on long pants when they feel too cold.
 
kms said:
Again, they suffer from the cold when they do, not me. They’ll put on long pants when they feel too cold.
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That's my (desired) parenting style, too.

Once they are in 4th or 5th grade, they are fully responsible how they dress themselves and the ramifications of their decisions.
 
That's how I've done it. It usually ends up with 2 statements

1. Are you sure that's going to keep you warm enough? Which they always say yes.

2. After being out in the cold they complain, I', cold! My only answer is that sucks, you should have worn more clothing.
 
kms said:
My former priest told me he was happy to see that my son wears shorts in the winter. I responded that if my daughter wears skirts and dresses in the winter, I see no reason why my sons can’t wear shorts.

Again, they suffer from the cold when they do, not me. They’ll put on long pants when they feel too cold.
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This.
 
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