Finding My Way...

Pre-teen Accountability

As an addendum to my earlier post, I sat down today to work out a system of accountability for my daughter and her responsibilities at home.

I have realized that negative discipline is WAY less effective with her. She doesn't see her role in the loss of privileges, and just sees punishments and lectures as us being unnecessarily mean to her. As an only child she has also been a little indulged, and she is showing a streak of entitlement, which doesn't fly with me. That's not how we roll.

So, rather than weekend TV being the norm and me taking it away for unacceptable behavior or not fulfilling her responsibilities, doing her stuff each week will earn her the TV time.  She'll start on Monday morning with no minutes of TV time, and as the week passes, keeping up her room and schoolwork will earn her that time of relaxation on the weekend.

She is a visual learner. Things sink in better when she has a visual there to remind her. So I made a slightly more mature version of a sticker chart. Completion of each task earns her five minutes of TV time. If all is completed in a week, that's 2.5 hours of TV. Because she seems to respond better to positive reinforcement, I will also seek to "catch her being good" and supplement that time with some bonus time. Three to four hours of TV on the weekend is a good amount for her.  It allows for her Saturday morning cartoon habit, with time left for a movie on Saturday or Sunday evening.

I'm hoping this will be a happy medium between me swooping in to take over and just letting her continue in this grade free fall.

The plagues of homework and an evil mommy...

I am currently taking a break from cleaning out a corner of the office. In a few minutes, when I am finished, I plan to bring a desk sized folding table in from the garage, wipe it down and create a study desk for my daughter. She will hate it. She will glare at me. She will whine. She will stall. I will want to shoot myself. It's gotta happen.

I am preschool teacher by trade, but I've largely been a stay-at-home-mom since Emily came home to us at age 5 months. She loved school and learning through kindergarten and I loved teaching her and helping in her classes. Then first grade came, and real work began.  We were both out of our comfort zone and it all fell apart.

I will summarize the last four years by telling you that a child who loved kindergarten and spent August begging to start first grade was crying and having stomach aches by October. We got a diagnosis of mild dysgraphia, and motor integration issues. We've learned to work with that. It has improved a little over the years, but every time things get better, school gets harder and we struggle to catch up again.

Now add pre-pubescence...a creative child who can live in disorganized squalor...a child who "forgets" things all the time...a child who never thinks things are her fault. That's where we are now. Her interim came back a week ago and it did not reflect the work of my daughter who made AB honor roll all of last year. I come to find she has told me every day for a week her homework is done, yet she did not complete her math log one single day last week. It was a hard week, a crazy week. She is in the school play and it was tech week. But you can't just skip homework and hope it will go away and you won't have to do it.

So the study desk downstairs, in the office, on the main floor of the house, in a high traffic area. I have e-mailed with her teacher, and we are meeting to strategize ways to help Emily be more successful. I will will be devising ways to force her to be more accountable. And while I have reminded her numerous times in the last 24-48 hours that I love her no matter what her grades are, I will also be telling her that my job is to teach her how to manage school and homework in order to be successful. 

It's going to be a tense week around here...

Oh! My virgin ears!

I know I have sheltered my daughter. At age 10 she's seen only a handful of PG movies, never mind a PG-13 or R. I screen her music, and upload playlists to her iPod. She entered 5th grade this year, and it seems like someone has opened Pandora's Box of Profanity!

When Em was in first grade we were having dinner with my Mom one night and Emily announced that someone in her class had "said the 's' word" at school that day. My Mom's eyes got wide and I chuckled, knowing full well that to Em, the "s word" was shut up or stupid. I can't say the same any more.

At the end of last year, Emily learned the word b!tch from a girl in her class told a boy he was one. Should you be allowed to use the bad words if you don't even know how to do it properly? This same charm school dropout was caught by me this summer calling someone a "butt-muncher" in a group of kids that ranged in age from 4 to 10. Emily was called a b!tch a few weeks ago by a boy in her class that was mad that she won a game in math class.

The other day in carpool, the girls were trying to share earbuds to listen to one girl's iPod. I offered to use my cassette adapter to play it through the car radio for all to hear. That was fine through the sweet Taylor Swift song, but a few moments later "Boom Boom Pow" by the Black Eyed Peas came on, and I was mortified to hear:

These Shoes

These shoes took a special journey this weekend. I wore them on the train as I traveled to Philadelphia and they walked in Day 3 of the Breast Cancer 3-Day. It was cold, it was wet, and by 7am I had planted the left one square into a puddle and soaked through the shoe and two pairs of socks. 

They covered my feet through 15 miles from Fairmont Park through the city to the Navy Yards. They were with me when I cried a little at mile three because I couldn't keep up with my team. They were with me at City Hall when I needed a break and took a sweeper van a half mile to the next pit stop to sit and refuel.

These shoes carried me through Chinatown, and down Elfreth's Alley. They were with me as I met Sharon, who was walking in her 5th Breast Cancer 3-Day this year, despite having been laid off from QVC a year ago and still being unemployed. 

They carried me to my loyal and proud husband who was cheering me on just before Pit Stop 4. They almost failed me when I tripped and nearly laid out in the street, but Tini caught me, and I forgave them. They stuck with me when I decided to keep walking instead of stopping for a cheesesteak at Pat's or Geno's. They stopped with me to greet cheering teams, to high five, to woo, to wow, and to give "Making a Difference" bracelets to children who were out braving the cold and rain to cheer me on.

These shoes moved slower as we approached lunch. They held feet that were tired and stiff and cold. These shoes found the energy to dance a little as I entered South Philly High to blaring rock 'n' roll to get my lunch. I sat and wanted to take these shoes off. I knew though, that as soon as these shoes were off, I wouldn't want to put them on. I needed these shoes to finish the job.

Your "little bit" helps.

A friend stopped by this morning to see how the Philly Breast Cancer 3-Day went, and to bring me a donation.  A group of my friends play Bunko, and she hosted this month.  Usually we bring $5 and pay in to allow the hostess to provide prizes.  This month there were no prizes, the $5 was collected and donated to my fundraising efforts for the 3-Day, which benefits Susan G Komen for the Cure and The National Philanthropic Trust.  Each of my wonderful friends chipped in $5.  Not much, right?  A Venti Frappacino at Starbucks, a pizza from Dominos, about 2 gallons of gas...how much can that possibly help in wiping out cancer?

Yet those ladies joined together and brought me $160.  And that money was joined with other donations and monies from fundraisers to make up the $2602 I have raised so far.  That money was joined with the monies raised by the other nine ladies on my team, Team Dash, to make up the $29, 848.10 we raised. That money was joined with the funds raised by the approximately 3,000 participants in the Philadelphia Breast Cancer 3-Day to make up the nearly $8 million dollars that was raised.  And Philadelphia was one of fifteen walks this year!

So, no, alone you cannot wipe out breast cancer.  I can't do it alone, doctors can't do it alone, NO-ONE can do it alone.  But lots of ordinary people, coming together with their "little bit" can do extraordinary things.

The Time Has Come!

The time is finally here to head off to Philly for the Breast Cancer 3-Day walk.  Team Dash rocked the house, raising nearly $30,000 for breast cancer research and screening!!  I cannot tell you how proud I am to be a part of this group of ladies.

I am packing my Mom's flip cam to take some videos, and DD's Canon for some photos.  It kills me not to bring my D70, but lugging it around is not worth it for some stellar photos.

To the right in that column there are constant updates from my Twitter account.  I will be tweeting from most pit stops and in the evenings.  I will also upload some photos as I go to my Facebook page.  If I can figure out how to post here from my Blackberry without killing the battery, I will do that as well.

Go Team DASH!