Kids these days

Another thing that I do online is review books (you may have noticed some of these reviews on the sidebar, in the LibraryThing box). I've just finished reviewing this month's selection, and as I did so, I realized that I really had more to say, not necessarily about the book, but about parenting books in general, and a blog being the perfect place to air your unsolicited opinions, I thought that I'd post it here instead.

The book in question was called Working Parents, Thriving Families. As a working parent, I picked it up, expecting a few time management tips, maybe. As it turned out, it was more of a dissertation on How You Should Parent. I found the author's style of parenting to be a little intense in places, though I'm not sure whether the fault lies with him or me. For example, in a section on how "to monitor our children well", he mentions an'unhealthy' thing that a friend's boys (aged 11 and 12) had wanted to do. What was this unhealthy action? Was it sneaking off to an R-rated movie? Was it forgoing supper in favor of cake and soda? Nope. It was jumping on a trampoline with no protective fencing around it. Egad! How will the boy survive to turn 13? I found myself thinking, "Seriously? In my day, no one had ever heard of protective fencing, and yet, somehow, we survived."

The thing I find unpalatable about parenting books is that eventually, so many of them come down to this 'us vs. them' mentality, where kids exist merely to 'push the boundaries' and parents exist merely to draw the lines. Shouldn't you see your child as a person? Don't you remember what it was like to be 11? Would it kill that 12 year old to see the PG-13 film? You know that your child is going to grow up and realize that the entire world has unfortunately not been created by Pixar, right? Do you always make healthy choices? Why is it somehow perfectly ok, in our culture, to insist on allowing your children only to eat fruit leather for a snack, cut their juice with water because, "you know, juice is so sugary"...and then chow down on Oreos yourself after they go to bed?

Don't you think that the key to good parenting ought to be communication? Don't you think that we should be less focused on creating an environment where our child can never come to harm, even if we are not paying attention, and more focused on teaching our child about the world around them, on being a part of our child's life so that they feel they can talk to us in a collaborative way - so that they are neither totally sheltered nor without guidance? To protect too much is to create a Sleeping Beauty situation. If Sleeping Beauty's parents had told her about the spinning wheel, she would have known how not to prick her finger. In the same way, if you never jump without a net, how do you know to avoid falling?

If you treat parenting like a general going to war you'll have very well-behaved, clean, appropriate kids. But if so many things are forbidden, either the lure of the forbidden becomes so much stronger, or their natural curiosity is quenched. I'm not sure which is worse. What seems the biggest shame, if you view parenting as a tactical, practical task, is that you miss out, to a certain extent, on knowing your children as people.

That's not to say that you shouldn't have rules. Many rules are important - 10 hours of sleep per night, don't hit your brother, etc. But I suppose I am afraid if I do as Mr. Palmiter suggests and "assess visits to another child's home", for instance, discouraging interactions with kids whose parents are late to pick them up or 'seem disorganized', or who fail to call while your child is visiting them...well, who would that leave, exactly, in the good camp? If all parents evaluated by that standard, I know I wouldn't ever have visited anybody as a child. On time was not my parents' strong suit. Nevertheless, they were very good parents.

What do you think, o blog reader? Am I being too hippified here, for lack of a better word? Of course I realize that there's a distinction between the parent and the child, and I do have the last word. At the same time, while I want my child to grow up to be safe, I find it distasteful that 'safe' appears to be the number one American virtue at the moment. Sure, I want my daughter to be safe. But I want her to be able to think for herself, stand up for herself and for others, if they need it. I want her to question, and to explore. I want her not to be afraid to be friends with the late kid, or the kid whose mom packed the Twinkies, or even the kid who has terrible parents - because terrible parents are not terrible children, and nobody deserves to be written off for the sins of others. I want her not to take things at face value. Someday I'm not going to be there. But she will still be around. I don't want her to lose her way then, because I did all her thinking for her. What do you think?

Working it Out

We've been pretty uninspired about housework around here lately, so I thought we might need a new system to get us on track. Over the years, Bella and I have tried quite a few different chore systems to try to take the work out of work and make it fun. Some have been more successful than others, but each one has been entertaining in its own way - so I thought it might be a good idea to post a few of the family systems/books/resources we've tried, in case a few of you might like to give them a try too.

The first one we fell in love with was Handipoints. This website used to allow you to make chore lists for each child - and not just chores, but a lot of other good activities too, from homework enrichment activities, to exercise ideas, to general good behavior. Each came with an associated number of points. Points could be spent on activities that kids selected from another area of the website, things ranging from "Play a Game" to "Invite a friend roller-skating" - the fun activities were almost as useful as the chore lists. Another kind of points could also be spent in a virtual playland like Moshi Monsters or Webkinz, on a cat figure that decorated her house or played games. So much fun. Sadly, the website did an update in September, and I don't know about the rest of the world, but the Janicki family at least cannot get this website to work to save our lives. We're still crossing our fingers and hoping it comes back.

The second fun chore idea we've tried is called Chore Wars. This one allows you to choose a D&D style character. When you do a chore, your character gets experience points, which will be familiar to you if you've ever played old school D&D or Final Fantasy. Different chores also give you experience in different things (for instance, "washing dishes" takes both constitution and dexterity - don't want to drop the dishes, looking at old food may take a strong stomach ;) ). After so many experience points, your character levels up, and her stats change according to the tasks you've been performing. You also have a random chance of either meeting a monster or finding a dropped item. For instance, washing dishes gives you between 1 and 30 gold pieces, a 20% chance of treasure (such as a spoon - which in our house, can be redeemed for the opportunity to choose the next supper), and may lead to an encounter with a water elemental - which is a fake battle in static cartoon form. Your character hits, then they hit, etc., until one or the other of you is vanquished - no points there, but still fun!

Today's selection, an iPhone app, is a little like both systems put together. You Rule Chores is an app that allows players to choose a cartoon superhero, complete with a special power, such as "power over time and space" or kung fu prowess. After so many chores, your character will level up, giving them additional powers which you can see by touching them with your finger. For instance, Bella's kung fu girl can now catch a butterfly with chopsticks. Each chore counts towards this leveling, and also gives you between 1 and 5 coins. Coins can be saved up for rewards such as computer time or a trip to the ice cream store. I think the defaul reward settings are eminently reasonable, which is nice, as I don't really like to tweak much. For instance, "watch a movie at home - must start by 7 p.m." will cost 10 coins, which Bella could earn by cleaning her room 3 times, doing her homework for 3 days, or, if she was really, really feeling lazy, by brushing her teeth 10 days in a row. The graphics and sounds are nice, and it's fun to use. Currently, it's priced at $3.99 on the app store. It may be worth checking out!



If you have any fun ways around your house to pretend you're not doing chores, I'd love to hear them!

The Sweet Life?

Today we are getting ready around here for a trip to the endocrinologist, so I thought I'd blog about something more serious than usual: diabetes. As I mentioned briefly at the start of this blog, my daughter has type 1 diabetes. This came as a shock to me when we found out. While my grandmother did develop type 2 diabetes at the end of her life, after seemingly existing on a diet of air and Whitman's Sampler chocolates for several years as far as I, the occasionally visiting teenage granddaughter, could see, no one in our family has ever had a more clearly hereditary form of diabetes, and in fact, when they told me that Bella had it, I was not 100 percent sure what it was, though I was sure that the nurses had lost their minds when they told me that I would be walking out of the hospital with a bag of syringes and something called insulin in a week, left to our own devices - me giving her shots and counting something called "carbohydrates". Me, whose interest in food previously was purely gourmet. Me, who averts her eyes whenever they show scenes on Grey's Anatomy that actually have to deal with treating patients. Somehow, if I'd thought about it at all, I'd always thought that people with serious health issues were treated by visiting nurses. Definitely not left in the hands of novice parents, shown some rudimentary steps by jovial doctors who assure you that "you'll get the hang of it".

The first time I tried to test my own blood sugar to show Bella how painless it is, I hopped around the room saying "Ow!" and cradling my hand for ten minutes. It was all I could do not to cry. It's a good thing one of us is tough. I am no stranger to pain myself. I had open heart surgery when I was four to correct a congenital defect. But they had the decency to put me to sleep first.

Somehow we've come through it, Bella and I. I've educated myself, read all the right books, marched in the Walk to Cure Diabetes, met up with other parents of type 1 kids at Central Ohio Diabetes Association events. And yet...I wonder at what point you start to feel like you're doing it right. When do you feel capable and why is there no clear cut plan? When do you stop feeling angry that your daughter has to count carbohydrates and worry about chronic illness, when you did all the right things - breastfeeding, and avoiding caffeine and alcohol and hair dye. I once, in a fit of pregnancy panic, even called the manufacturers of a lotion after learning that it contained Vitamin A, which apparently pregnant women aren't supposed to use in a concentrated form. Why didn't all that vigilance pay off? If it didn't pay off then, what's to say the most careful treatment regiment will pay off now? Most of the time, we deal with our old 'new' lifestyle pretty well these days, but still sometimes, I worry.