Here's Something We Don't Hear Everyday

This from the Springfield Sun:

Teach Your Children Well

...What’s going on? Why are students fighting just because someone’s girlfriend sent a text message to another person’s boyfriend, or maybe a rumor is being spread through text messages about a fight in the school? Do our kids have so little education outside the classroom that our teachers and educators can’t peacefully conduct education in the classroom? It appears to be the case.

I’m a parent, and no, I’m not a perfect one. Nobody is a perfect parent, employee, or anything else. But we do need to spend time with our kids, teaching them to respect each other, to act like the young adults they are once they reach high school.

When I was in school, if I had been involved in a fight, I would not have wanted to go home because I would have been in much deeper trouble at home than I could have ever found myself in at school.

I’ve spent time talking to some teachers and educators about the problems in today’s classrooms, and to my surprise, I’ve had at least one tell me that some parents have come right out and told them, “When they’re at school, they’re your problem!”

No, they’re actually everybody’s problem. Everybody who pays taxes, that is, and the last time I looked, that included all of us! Our school board and city government shouldn’t have to pay police officers to patrol the halls of a public school, especially one in a small town like ours, because some people just don’t take the time to get involved and discipline their own children, or teach them how to act so that a lot of discipline is not necessary...

‘Momblocked’ mothers feel edged out by dads

Caregivers can clash

when stay-at-home fathers step up their game

Two months after giving birth to her daughter, Jen McClure-Metz received a phenomenal job offer. If she wanted to become a producer on a hit television show, she’d have to start in a month.

McClure-Metz and her husband talked it over and made the same decision many families are making: Dad would stay home full time and take care of their daughter.

“While I never thought that I would end up staying home with Sarah, I knew that I was fully capable of doing so,” says Brian Metz, McClure-Metz’s husband.

But almost four years into it, McClure-Metz began to feel her husband was maybe too capable. He had become more competent and assertive in the child-care arena and it showed in small ways. Metz took over when his wife struggled with the car seat, or put the kibosh on plans when he thought their daughter needed down time.

“Basically, he was the parent in charge and I often felt trumped,” says McClure-Metz.
More and more dads like Metz have become so confident in taking care of the kids that moms can feel edged out, or "momblocked."

Dr. Craig Garfield, a pediatrician and researcher at Chicago's Northwestern University who specializes in the role of men in child-rearing, says it's still the norm for moms to act as the gatekeepers to fathers' involvement with their kids. “I’d still say it would be a unique father who is so confident in his approach to parenting as to block his partner,” Garfield says.

But the growing number of primary-care dads could be reversing this notion.

This from MSNBC, Art by Kim Carney.

Bribing kids for good behavior - is bad for behavior

Parents buying off kids for good behavior

Experts caution against bribery,
urge rewards that make sense

The old axiom in education is that it's not bribery if the action preceeds the reward. But does it breed - the dreaded - sense of entitlement in children?
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“It’s definitely more our generation,” Kirsten Whipple, a 35-year-old mom in Northbrook, Ill., says with a quiet laugh. “I’m sure our parents would be appalled if they knew how much we bribe our children.”

She can see why they might be — but she and her husband try not to overuse rewards and have found they work best for smaller things. For instance, they might offer their boys, ages 5 and 8, a special dessert or a chance to rent a video game if they listen to their baby sitter. A good report card might earn a dinner out to celebrate.

Whipple has noticed a downside though — what she calls a “sense of entitlement.”

This from MSNBC.