Kids Online

I've being trying to figure out what I've learned and what conclusions I should draw from the Frontline episode Kids Online. The online social milieu reminds me of all the worst aspects of a middle-school-to-high-school social scene, amplified many times over.

At the same time, I could relate to the teenagers' desire to connect with others and show their "real" selves to people who understand and support them. It was hard to do anything unexpected at school, where the other kids would probably just think you were stupid, or at least act as if they thought so. But I remember just dying to do something interesting and different. To feel alive with adventure, and experience intense sensations and emotions. The teenage years are a funny time of both wanting to be your own person and figure out who you really are, what is special and unique about you, but at the same time you want lots of support from like-minded friends. The process of figuring out who you are is a conversation, not a monologue. I was a pretty asocial kid--I cared less about what other people thought of me than anyone else I knew my age, but I still needed a couple of solid people in my corner to hang out with now and then.

It seems like online communities can serve an important function in these years, and I can see why they are so popular. That said, of course there are pitfalls. I have no idea what the risks will be for my particular kids, and I'm even having a hard time coming up with guiding principles to help me make decisions about computer and media exposure down the road. My main principle is that we live in a tiny house with little private space, only one computer (which is in a central area), and no TV reception. Our media exposure is limited to pretty unsexy, educational things like Kids Discover, The Nation, National Geographic, and whatever we find in the library. 

How long will this approach work? So far my kids aren't unsatisfied with the way we live and aren't pushing for more of anything, really (except time with Mom). We hang out with mostly pretty like-minded families, so they don't see their friends getting cell phones and ipods and video game set-ups, so it probably doesn't occur to them to want those things. When will this change? What will I do when it does change? Dare I hope it doesn't change? Has my and my husband's low-media, low-budget lifestyle had a positive effect on the kids? 

My husband and I are really winging it. We don't read parenting books, we don't have many discussions about how we should do things, we rarely (never?) have serious discussions all together as a family. We just kind of bumble along without a lot of planning or foresight. Our kids aren't amazing the world with their skills and talents, but they are usually pretty easy to hang out with, they have surprisingly good judgement, and they are trustworthy. I think these are the attributes that will ultimately help them develop healthy friendships and other relationships, in person and online. And I hope these attributes will help them steer away from the more destructive stuff out there. I just hope I'll have the foresight to spot trouble before it hits and the wisdom to figure out what to do about it.

Jinx!

Today A and I were talking about how she used to get so angry and upset about a year ago, but she hasn't really had a big blow-up for quite a while. Less than an hour later, M said he wanted to ride bikes to the park and I agreed--it was a beautiful spring-like day in a winter than has been either unpleasantly wet or unpleasantly cold, and disappointingly without ANY snow at our house. A had a total screaming, crying fit. Stomping around, screaming that she HATES riding her bike and I just don't understand ANYTHING about her!!!!! OK, after several back-and-forths, we finally did ride our bikes and that was a good call and turned out fun, thank heavens. 

After we got home, I was working on some math with A, and she again had a big freak-out melt down, sobbing, throwing her math book, screaming that she isn't stupid but she just HATES AVERAGES!!!! And both of these came out of nowhere--they didn't escalate from milder frustration, nor did they seem like she was bursting out at me because her brother was driving her absolutely crazy and she didn't know what to do about it (these were the typical patterns a year ago).  

Is this a sign that we're moving into the new phase? Did my reminder show her that she's been good long enough, time to indulge herself a bit? Did I just remind her about how satisfying it is to have a big screaming fit? Who knows. Funny thing is, after these fits of temper she is always really cooperative and loving and sweet. They seem to serve a function of releasing some built-up frustrations, and I think that when she is in a good place emotionally those small frustrations don't really bother her much, so they are more easily released without needing a big angry, crying moment. But when she's not feeling so solid and confident, she can't shake off the small disappointments and frustrations so easily.

Balm for a battered ego

Whew, today was just wonderful. What a welcome relief from my rather rocky work week, which included my boss having to drive me home one day because I couldn't stop crying, and then spending the next day reorganizing this report I've been killing myself working on for the past 3 months. I've actually been working on it for 9 months, but totally stressing out and driving myself crazy for the past three months to meet this deadline, which was today, which we didn't make. But mercifully, my boss told me to stay home today (my normal day off) so she could have if for the day. I have to go in this weekend, but at least I had this beautiful sunny day to forget about it.

And is was a lovely day. First A's piano lesson, with her wonderful, incomparable piano teacher. She was in the emergency room at this time last week and had us all very scared, but today she was healthy, almost fully recovered, and a joy to see. Then a leisurely trip to the grocery store where I got a great dinner idea from a friend I ran into there. Back home for lunch, then the kids and I rode bikes to the park and spent the spring-like afternoon playing in the sun with some friends. After climbing up the big hill from the park on our bikes, we had to stop for gelato, of course. We came home and the kids and I made a delicious dinner, watched a movie about Andrew Goldsworthy, played a few rounds of Man Bites Dog, and now here I am writing on my blog.

Lately my kids have been wanting to make dinner with me so they can pretend they are doing a cooking show. So they actually do most of the work and I just tell them what to do, and they then turn to the "camera" and say "We're using about a half pound of green beans for three people, and you start by cutting the ends off, like this..." etc. etc. It is really fun, and we always seem to wind up with something everyone likes when we do this. Not that everyone likes everything, or course, but at least one thing appeals to each kid, usually. A loved the quinoa-corn-feta dish (thanks Melisa!), M loved the oven-baked sweet potato chips, and I loved the green beans (and the other stuff, too). Add apple slices and carrots sticks, and it was really delicious. The roasted fingerling potatoes were done about 20 minutes after we ate, so we had a second course standing around the counter. We topped it off with vegan zucchini brownies, which are amazingly delicious.

I want to recommend the movie Rivers and Tides, about Andy Goldsworthy. If you aren't familiar with his work, he makes these amazing, mostly temporary sculptures using natural materials such as leaves, flowers, ice, rocks, and sticks. Sometimes you can't believe his stuff is made only out of natural materials, the colors can be so brilliant, or the shapes so perfect. A movie is a perfect medium for showing his work, because the destruction of some of the pieces is part of the piece. He builds things at the ocean's edge sometimes, so that the tide will come in and wash it away (or at least cover it up). Great movie, amazing art.

Modern History

A has been really interested in ancient history, particularly the ancient Greeks. She likes the whole first volume of Story of the World, though--Phoenicians, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Alexander the Great, it's all good. In the meantime, we've pressed on with volumes 2 and 3 of Story of the World, and have covered periods in history recently that I find really fascinating--the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Abolition movement, the Trail of Tears. Really dramatic upheavals that surely no one could find boring. 

I decided recently that we should pick a time in history and spend some time there, preferably something a bit more recent the Ancient Greece, and maybe even covering some American history. The American revolution didn't really excite anyone around here, and we have done a fair bit on Lewis and Clark over the years, so I was thinking we'd focus on the period between the Lewis and Clark expedition and the civil war, which covers some pretty interesting ground--Nat Turner, the Trail of Tears, early westward expansion, War of 1812 and later Napoleon, independence in Mexico and South America. Anyway, I put a bunch of stuff on hold at the library covering this time period and then asked A if that sounded interesting to her. Well, the closest person to this time period that held any interest for her was Catherine the Great, a bit before the period I was thinking of and definitely not American. When I asked what period of time sounded most interesting of all, she said she really wanted to study "Those early wars between England and France, before Henry the VIII, even". OK, not especially modern, but this is good. We can work with this. I wish I would have asked this question before putting all those materials on hold at the library! 

When I asked M what he would like to spend time learning about, he said "Germs, viruses, and dinosaurs. Mainly dinosaurs." He and my husband went to see the Walking with Dinosaurs show and had a great time and it rekindled his interest in dinosaurs. I wish I could find a really great dinosaur timeline. We have a great book that covers the creatures on earth in different epochs, but it would be really cool to be able to see some of them laid out so you could follow the evolution without having to turn a page. I bet someone has made a poster of this. Ah ha, google comes through again! This poster is a lot like what I was picturing.

So capable!

Here is what M has been doing for the past few weeks:

It doesn't look like all that many in this picture, but there are at least a couple hundred. Plus, about 30-40 more around his bed. I'm so impressed with how he can follow instructions and figure out how to make these. Sometimes they are too complicated and he needs help, but he's done the vast majority by himself. He got two airplane-a-day calendars for Christmas, and he is through about March on one and even farther along in the other. Plus, he has a book with several copies of a bunch of different designs, and I think he's done at least one copy of each design, and several copies of some of the easier ones. I also printed out a bunch of instructions off the internet a couple of years ago and had them sitting around in a folder, and that is how he built most of the planes on regular white paper.

A has been most productive also, reading about chicken care and drawing chicken coop plans, plus she made me a cake for my birthday yesterday. Darn, I can't seem to upload a picture of the cake. I'm also impressed at how grown up she is these days--reading chicken books from the adult section of the library, and actually reading them (not just flipping through and looking at the pictures), and finding the cake recipe and whipping it up while my husband and I were out on a date. I assume Grandma helped get it into and out of the oven, but I bet she did most of the work herself, since she does bake a lot (as might tight waistband can attest). 

I'm going to stop here because my connection seems to be acting funny and I'm afraid I'll lose this, so I don't want to write any more just to have it disappear.

When I was on vacation from work I was full of ideas of ways to make our lives better. Then I went back to work, and enjoyed my first day back and felt very productive and good about how much progress I made, and then I was ready for another week and a half off. Now I'm thoroughly back in the grind and drowning in work and remembering why I don't manage to do all the things I was thinking about during my post-Christmas days off. 

My schedule feels really grueling. On my three work days, I'm up at 5:00, usually on 4-6 hours of sleep, work for 9-1/2 hours, walk for 2 hours, get home in time to kiss my husband as he goes out the door for work, make dinner, clean the kitchen, and have about an hour after that before the kids go to bed and I crash. On my non-work days we cram in piano lessons, gymnastics (twice per week), homeschool co-op, science club, grocery shopping, normal household errands, schoolwork, trips to the library, church, chamber music, 3-4 hours of work that I do from home, a little exercise, etc. etc., and try to keep the house from falling apart and becoming a health hazard. Fortunately my husband does the laundry and sometimes has dinners prepped for me so I can just cook them up when I get home, but this is still a lot to cover in a normal 168-hour week. So, as much as I fervently wish I could find more time to cook nice meals, go on more hikes, see my parents every week, play music with the kids and my husband more often, go on more dates with my husband, and practice my cello and piano more regularly, it just isn't all going to happen.

OK, so I need to regroup. Can I add anything at all? Can I eliminate anything? It all seems important, and aside from the housework, just about everything I do is really rewarding and enriching. I have some good routines, and I think my goal should be to keep these up, for starters. Here are the things I'm happy about that I've added in the past couple of years that want to keep up.

- Going to church, and doing some good activity after church twice per month (assuming I'll play music one Sunday per month and we'll take one Sunday to just go home after church). Right now we've been going out to lunch and then mainly to the art museum or the downtown library afterwards. We should add going to see my parents, to the historical society, and on hikes to our list of Sunday outings, and that would get me closer to a couple of my goals.

-Schoolwork. I think we have a pretty good start with out schoolwork routine. I'm trying to play a game with some educational value most days. We're doing short doses of several books at a time, always keeping a good book going for science, mythology, a biography, history, something like Aesop, Just-So, or Fairy Tales. We're consistent with our nighttime readalouds, which include a good dose of historical fiction mixed in with purely fun stuff. We read a poem at bedtime every night (albeit usually something funny and fluffy). I do some kind of math 3-4 times per week with each kid. We usually do spelling/copywork/dictation 2-4 times per week (3-5 would be better). We do science activities at least once per week, usually more.

-Homeschool co-op and science club--amazingly wonderful kids and families, both of these enrich our lives a lot.

-I'm doing 6-7 one-hour walks every week (usually).

-I eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables every day, including a big salad many days (4-5 per week?), and A usually

- Chamber music--I've go two quartets that each meet about once per month (sometimes with piano, also). More would be better, but I love playing with these wonderful friends and musicians, and it is absolutely amazing to be able to play the incredible chamber music literature. There are so few people in the world who get to play this amazing music, I'm so lucky to get to do this!

This is all good stuff. Sometimes it seems like all I do is work and complain about working so much and go to the grocery store, but this is enough, even if the list of things I'd like to add or do better or more often is a mile long. I'm sure it always will be. I guess we can survive on baked potatoes and smoothies and salad and Trader Joe's meat balls for another couple of years...