education

How Can the Schools Contact Me, Let Me Count the Ways

By / September 19, 2012

I appreciate that my kids’ schools try to keep me informed. I really do. When Kiki was starting school a decade ago events and deadlines got missed because notes didn’t make it home or were never handed over to me. I remember being frustrated about the lack of communication. Now things have swung the other way and I feel like the schools are like a child on the playground shouting “look at me!” every five seconds.

Any time the elementary school has an announcement, they send a note home with the kids. Both of the kids, so I end up with two copies of every note. Then I also get a phone call telling me all of the information that is contained in the note. At the same moment that the automated system is calling me, it also sends me an email to tell me the exact same information. One announcement and I’m notified four times.

The junior high school both calls and emails for every announcement. Except that in addition to the automated announcement system, sometimes one of the junior high secretaries will also write an email to tell me the same information.

The High School also uses an automated phone and email system. It has the added fun aspect that most of the time the emails are not actually emails, but links to an audio file of the phone call. Also the principal’s messages are always attachments, never in the body of the email.

If all the schools have announcements on the same day, I’ll get three phone calls and four emails.

This is not all. The attendance system is separate. If any of my kids have an unexcused absence (If I didn’t call early enough to prevent them being marked unexcused, or if the teacher just fails to mark them there) then I get a phone call about that. There is a super extra special phone call and email combo that automatically contacts me if a child ever is absent from the high school flex class that they’re supposed to attend. That phone call will be a recording of the principal’s voice speaking very sternly about my student’s bad choices. Except the only time I’ve ever heard it was when my student was off doing school business and the teacher who was supposed to excuse her forgot to do so.

I did not sign up for any of the school PTAs this year because last year they averaged 1-3 emails per week per PTA.

So I feel a little bombarded, particularly this week when all three schools are very focused on their upcoming Parent Teacher Conferences and school fundraisers. I am over-contacted. Yet I am sure that every day the school secretaries get phone calls asking questions about exactly the information that they’ve handed out multiple times in multiple ways. They bombard me because it saves time answering parent questions over the phone and like spam, sending multiple messages is as easy as sending one.

Today I got a phone call from the school that I was very happy to receive. It was one of the teachers calling me directly to talk over concerns about one of my kids. We talked and problem solved for about 20 minutes and agreed that a conference with additional staff members might be beneficial. This is the heart of why I put up with the noise, the candy sales, the demands, the emails, the phone calls, because, in the end, all of those things begin with adults who care passionately about helping kids have the opportunities that they need. Some of the programs which are noise to me are vital for some other child. Because of this, I will exercise my patience. And submit a suggestion that maybe it would be possible to allow parents to opt out of the automated announcement phone calls.

Strategies for Dealing with a Bully

By / September 19, 2012 / 3 Comments

Here at Chez Tayler we are currently managing a couple of situations where one of my kids feels picked on or bullied. This is nothing new. We deal with iterations of this almost every year. We’ve also dealt with situations where I needed to teach my kids not be mean to others. In helping my kids analyze their experiences and formulate strategies, I’ve realized that many of these strategies are fairly universally applicable. So I am going to offer them to the internet as tools for dealing with bullying.

Before I begin talking strategies, I feel it is important to clarify that not every negative social interaction is bullying. Bullying is persistent and there is usually a power differential. If the kids have roughly equal social status you can get all sorts of nasty conflict, but it is not quite the same as bullying. What gets fascinating is that sometimes two kids both feel like they’re being bullied because they perceive the other person as more powerful and popular than they are. Some of the strategies below address true bullying, others are more appropriate to other sorts of social conflicts. I’m going to put them all down, because I can’t be certain which strategy will be most helpful in a given situation. Please be careful and cautious, bully situations sometimes get worse for a time as the bully lashes out at the social shift. If there is any risk of physical danger, get allies–adults, teachers, other parents, friends, people who will help keep you or your child safe.

1. Lay Low. This sounds like the common, and often useless, advice “just ignore it and the bully will stop,” but it is not quite the same thing. Laying low is not hiding and waiting. It is lowering your visibility for awhile to give you space to pay attention to some of the other strategies on this list. Avoid the places you’re likely to see the bully, try not to draw attention. If you are a target of opportunity, or the bullying is taking place in a particular social context, laying low may be all that is necessary to defuse it. This is why the “ignore it” advice still gets handed around. Sometimes it works. Laying low can also resolve social conflicts that are not actually bullying. However if a bully is deliberately seeking victims, this may shift the target, but will not eliminate the behavior; other strategies have to be used.

2. Identify allies. True allies are people you trust to listen and act fairly, not just people who will always take your side. If people only choose sides, you find yourself in the middle of a West Side Story conflict; two groups ready for battle. In theory the staff at the school are impartial people, who will judge fairly. It is not always the case. Look around at how other people are reacting to the bullying. You’ll likely notice some people who do not like it but are not saying anything. These could be allies. Parents should be allies for their kids. Listen in detail, don’t get instantly outraged and defensive. There are two sides to every story and until you know both sides, you are not ready to aim your outrage at the most appropriate target.

3. Identify Causes. Another common bit of advice is that bullies are actually scared inside. This has truth in it. Most bullying is not deliberately malicious for maliciousness sake. It is immature personalities flailing around trying to defend themselves from social harm or to scrabble themselves into a better social position. Some harmful behavior is just inconsiderate and clueless. Feelings of insecurity are a huge driving force for meanness. Figuring out where the hurtful behavior comes from does not necessarily make it hurt less, but it definitely strengthens the person being hurt. It gives you a chance to come up with ideas of how to change the social context. Often clues to the shape of the pain are embedded in the bullying itself. For example: the insecure girl seeks to tear down another girl who she perceives as a competitor. She is trying to push her insecurity off onto someone else.

4. Risk Assessment. Sit down in a safe place to figure out why the things the bully did hurt. Is it physical injury? Is it that you’re afraid that other people will believe the bully’s words? Figure out what the bully has power to damage that matters to you. This lets you focus on undermining the power of the bully carefully and consistently. It gives you specific aspects of the bully situation that you can focus on and untangle. Also spend some time thinking through what power you have. What allies can you bring into play? What new allies can you acquire? What consequences will there be if you take action? What can you do to remove the power of the bully over the things that matter to you? Identifying what you’re most afraid of and what you most want to salvage from the situation helps you better assess what you are willing to risk in order to make the bullying stop. When the bully has no power over anything that matters to you, the bully becomes irrelevant.

5. Extinguishing Behavior. Most bullies are not very self-aware. This means that they can be experimental subjects like Pavlov’s dogs responding to stimulus and rewards. Once you’ve identified some causes and the risks, you can begin to remove rewards for behavior you don’t want and add them for things you do. A boy pulls the girl’s hair because he likes to hear her shriek and he wants her attention. She can begin by stifling her shriek and turning away instead of turning toward. If she also rewards him with attention for a positive behavior, like holding the door open, then the boy will shift his behavior to match the rewards he wants. This tactic works best when applied slowly and subtly. It is particularly effective if allies are part of the plan. Five people working in concert to eliminate an unwanted behavior can make it vanish quickly. Be aware that extinguishing one behavior may make a new unpleasant behavior emerge.

6. Keep Records. I add this one with caution, because for the most part we should let go of the small social harms we receive rather than holding on to them. But if you are dealing with a true bully, someone who persistently tries to undermine you or harm you, then this one is critical. Employ it when the victim is at serious risk of physical or emotional harm. Write down information about bullying incidents, what was said, where it happened, who witnessed it, any proof you have that the incident occurred. These records are first for you, to help you identify patterns. Second they function as evidence if you have to convince someone in authority that they must act against the bully. I do not recommend that children be the ones to keep records. Parents should encourage the kids to tell the stories, but parents keep the records. Do not let the bully know about the records. If the situation resolves, stow the records and let it go.

I know there are other strategies out there, but thus far circling through these has been enough to empower my kids to handle their social conflicts. If you have additional thoughts and strategies, I’d love to see them in the comments.

The School Barrage

By / September 6, 2012 / 6 Comments

This is the time of year when I have to aggressively defend my schedule and budget from three schools. I know that there are costs associated with educating my children. I pay my taxes and school fees with only muttered grumbles because I understand that the value of what my children are given far outweighs the monetary price I pay. I also understand that my children benefit greatly from many volunteer run programs through their schools. Each year I pick a place to volunteer, some small place where I can give a few hours to give back a little since my kids are getting so much. The problem is that there are so many programs in need of volunteers and donations. Volunteers needed for field trips, choir costumes, to help with fund raisers (so many fundraisers,) and then I’m asked to donate funds for class trips, field trips, boxes of kleenex, tootsie pops to sell for a class fundraiser, otter pops for a different class fundraiser, paper towels, hand sanitizer. I understand how much these donations help. It just starts to feel like a barrage when every single day includes a phone call, email, or note wondering if maybe I could just give this one little thing. None of it is aimed at me personally. I know it will settle down, but I’m starting to picture myself with a shield deflecting each of these requests before they have the chance to land on me.

I feel guilty when I deflect requests, particularly if I’m deflecting them without having some other thing which makes them impossible. It is much easier to say “I can’t go to your meeting because I have this other meeting.” Than it is to say “I’m not going to go to your meeting because I intend to be at home having a quiet evening.” Except unless I say exactly that, all my quiet evenings will be obliterated. Instead of having a stable routine, our family will have chaos and stress. Last night I stayed home from an event without any obvious excuse. In the quiet space, Link was able to talk to me and tell me about a significant problem at school. The quiet space means that today we are on the way to solving the problem instead of continuing to let it fester.

So pardon me while I pick up my shield and deflect school requests. I have important spaces to defend.

Space is Becoming Cool Again

By / August 31, 2012

A year ago I wrote an article talking about the lack of child-aimed science fiction. It was based on a blog post I wrote in 2009 about an experience with Patch where we deliberately sought out information on the space program. At the time, both times, I expressed concern that my children would not experience the sense of wonder about space that I felt as a child. If people don’t feel that wonder, then funding for space programs will disappear, and that would be sad for all of us.

This month NASA landed another rover on Mars, an event my teenage daughter was excited to watch. Today I picked up a copy of a National Geographic entitled “Exploring Space” As soon as it was spied on the counter, a child snatched it and ran off to read it. Also today, I saw a commercial for Nook Color in which a little girl and her mother read Curious George and then the little girl played space exploration by pretending to be an astronaut. Many congrats to Nook for portraying a little girl aspiring to be something other than a princess or a fairy. It pleases me greatly that the advertising folks at Nook think that space exploration is cool enough to entice people to buy a Nook Color to share with their kids.

I think we might just inspire that next generation of scientists, engineers, and astronauts after all.

Blind Spot

By / August 31, 2012 / 4 Comments

Howard sent me a link to a game called Petit Computer with a note that it might be a good choice for Link’s upcoming birthday. I watched the video and it was like being transported back to all the computer avoidance of my childhood. My father was a computer programmer beginning in the days when that meant racks of punch cards. My three brothers and two of my sisters were all interested in the possibilities of programming. For me, programming was something to escape from rather than enjoyable. My response to Howard was that I was not a good judge of whether the game would appeal, because it looked hard and boring to me. I was just self-aware enough to know that not everyone shares my opinion of programming. My family members certainly didn’t. Many of my current friends are excited by the thought of putting together code which turns a pile of organized metal and plastic into a magic generator of games and productivity. I just want to turn on the computer and use it.

I think I was in elementary school the first time I located the blind spots in my eyes. Every eye has them. They are the spot on the retina where the optic nerve attaches. This means that no visual data is collected there. We don’t notice them because our brains fill in the gap with what ever is surrounding that spot. If you put something small enough into exactly the right visual space, it vanishes. I remember holding an optical illusions book close to my nose and moving it back and forth to watch a printed dot disappear into my blind spot and come back again. As long as the dot sat in my blind spot, it was as if it did not exist.

As kids hit their teenage years, they start needing a focus. They need something around which to form an adult identity and a direction to be heading. Children are happy to just be, teens want to be going somewhere. Link struggled last year because he knew that he needed a direction for his life, but the only thing he is really passionate about is video games. I keep trying to introduce him to things ancillary to video games in the hope that something would ignite the same passion. I gave him tools for making videos and video editing. We took him to GenCon. I kept casting around for something, anything, that would help Link find a focus. I never even considered teaching him to program a computer. Programming sat in my blind spot, because I didn’t like it and didn’t know how to make it sound exciting. It did not occur to me that to the right person, programming is exciting all by itself.

“Mom! I want to buy this game.” It was a familiar refrain, one I’ve been hearing all summer. Link has spent most of his lawn mowing money buying games on his 3DS. He researches the games himself, plays demos, and then comes to me for help when he’s ready to buy. The game he had found this time was Petit Computer.
“You really want this one?” I asked.
“Yeah! I can use it to write my own games!” Link’s eyes were bright and excited in the way that he is when he is truly engaged. When Link is talking about something he loves, he meets my eyes and speaks at length. His enthusiasm causes him to forget that words don’t always come easy. At all other times he uses as few words as possible. We bought the game. More than that, we made an appointment with one of his uncles, someone who loves programming, to sit down with Link and teach him enough BASIC to make the game do fun things.

It is like I turned my head and realized that a wonderful possibility was sitting right there in my blind spot. Among the things that Link will be getting for his birthday is a copy of Hello World! Computer Programming for Kids. It is possible that Link will not fall in love with programming, and that is fine. He needs something he is passionate about, not something his mom thinks he should do.

I never wanted to be the parent who tried to push kids into things I wish I could have done. Yet over and over I discover my own interests and biases leaking into their lives. All I can do is make adjustments when I catch myself doing it.

Life Begins to Settle

By / August 28, 2012

Something important happened last night and I almost missed noticing it. Howard and I were both pretty stressed about packing him for WorldCon, so I summoned pizza for dinner. The kids descended like locusts once the magical circles of goodness appeared. They were all right there, so I did a quick survey of each child, asking about homework.

Kiki didn’t tell me details, just enough to let me know she had it handled. “I got this mom.”

Link had only one math paper “I did most of it at school. It is pretty easy.”

Gleek had several assignments, but she knew exactly what they all were. She negotiated to do some of it that night and the rest in the morning. I said yes because I didn’t have energy to enforce anything else.

Patch also had several assignments. He told me what they are and laid out a plan to do some that evening and the rest in the hour before school. Again, I didn’t argue with the plan.

The pizza vanished, and so did the kids. They went and did their school work. Then they played until bedtime. This morning both Patch and Gleek completed their work, without drama, in plenty of time to play before school.

Last night and this morning my kids demonstrated that they are settled and happy in their new routines. They’ve got the right amount of work and are getting it done. I know not every night will go this smoothly, but it gives me hope that this year we all may reap some benefit from the groundwork laid last year.

Exactly the Same, Only Different

By / August 22, 2012

Day two of the school schedule and it is all beginning to feel familiar. My brain is unearthing the habits which lay fallow for three months. I’m remembering to watch for school pick up times and what times of day are parenting heavy because all the kid needs get squished into the same few hours. The kids are all in the same schools as last year, so no one is adapting to a big cultural shift. We are beginning to fall into the patterns of last spring. Even the afternoon carpooling schedule is the same. Except Kiki has a before school class that requires us to get up earlier every other day. Last year Gleek and Patch had teachers with very regular and regimented homework schedules. I can tell already this year is going to be different. I think this will be the year that Gleek seizes control of her homework and I’ll need to keep my hands off. It feels like I’m going to be able to continue to require chores instead of having to excuse kids because they’re overwhelmed. This year we might even be able to make the weekly activities for the kids. Things are looking good, so naturally I’m holding my breath waiting for crisis to erupt. Surely there has to be a crisis, some big emotional event or huge homework slog to be got through. Yet when I try to sense it, anticipate the shape of it, I can’t. Maybe that means there won’t be one for awhile. Maybe we can just have small daily crankiness and stress instead of big worry and diagnostic processes. At least for a month or two. By November the shapes of the strains will begin to emerge.

For now, we’re back to school and it feels the same, only different.

Ready or Not. Again.

By / August 21, 2012 / 1 Comment

My sister dropped her oldest son off for college last week. I’ve watched her this summer as she rode emotional arcs related to having her first child leave home. My daughter is only a year younger and I’m afraid I patted myself on the back a little about how sensible I was being about her entering her senior year. I honestly felt no apprehension. I even wrote a post or two in that vein. My smugness was justly rewarded when I waved the last of my kids out the door for their first day of school, turned, and smacked right into a wall of grief. It was actually more subtle than that metaphor implies. I was aware of something filling my head, so Howard and I had one of those conversations where I begin talking with a tiny thread of thought, spooling it out until suddenly I find that I’m holding an emotional tangle instead of a simple thread. All my thoughts unblock and I learn things about how I’m feeling by listening to the words which fall out of my mouth. The key sentences today were:
“I don’t want this part to be over. I’m going to miss this part.”
I meant this part of my life when all my kids are at home. Later I spoke words which I liked even less, because it implies a level of control freak in my psyche with which I am not comfortable.
“I’m going to miss being in charge.”
As much as I complain about it, I like being the organizer of our lives. I have all my people gathered close to me under one roof. I know I have to let them fly free. That is the point. It is what I’ve been aiming toward ever since the first minute I knew I was pregnant. But I grieve because this era of my life is going to end and today felt like the beginning of that end.

Today I was also tired, insomnia and the bio-rhythmic upset of getting up three hours earlier than during the summer, did not help any. I also felt silly to feel grief about something which has not actually happened yet. My daughter has a full year of high school ahead of her. She may well decide to live at home and attend one of the two universities within twenty minutes of our house. I could be years away from the first one flying off. I’m surprised to feel grief over this. I really thought I wouldn’t.

The good news is that the grief will pass. It is probable that any later sadness I feel on the matter will be less because I addressed some of the emotions today. This is why I did not attempt to hide from it. The feeling exists inside me, I acknowledge it and try to incorporate it, even if I feel silly or cliche about it.

My four kids came home from school happy. Kiki had nothing but cheerful words for her classes, even the dreaded physics class. She got a pair of science teachers she really likes. Link has concerns about his yearbook class. I’ll keep an eye on it to see if it needs adjusted. Gleek spent most of the ride home providing a comparative analysis of last year’s teacher and this year’s. Patch just says he liked his teacher.

We’re off and running; happy or sad, ready or not.

The Eve of School

By / August 20, 2012

Summer is not gone, but it is waning. I can see it in the walnut husks on the tree that are beginning to crack and blacken. Soon walnuts will litter my lawn and deck. I also see it by the grapes growing heavy on the vines. Any day now the local robins will discover they are there and begin raiding. The signs are all around me, but summer still has some scorching hot days in store. What we’ve run out of is summer vacation. That is finished, complete. Tonight will not be one of staying up late just because. I will be carefully managing bedtime because this is the first school night of the year.

I remember when the onset of summer vacation felt rife with possibility. I made long lists of things I wanted to do, places I wanted to take the kids. Summer was play time on a grand scale. Once I began working, that changed. I could no longer alter my schedule around that of the kids. I had business obligations which did not defer to vacation, in fact some of the business tasks increased because of summer. Those big summer conventions take a toll. Instead of contemplating summer as a wide open possibility, I know in late winter what things must get done during the summer months. I do lots of spontaneous day trips for the kids whenever a free day hits, but we don’t plan and promise in advance. An unexpected result of this is that here I am, at the end of the summer, without a list of things I meant to do and didn’t. I haven’t spent these last few weeks frantically trying to finish items on that list. Instead I sit here on my porch, done with things of summer, prepared for things of fall.

It is possible that my feelings of completion have more to do with resignation. Ready or not, school will begin. I did not feel ready two weeks ago when I rounded the corner into August, I did not want to think school thoughts. But then later that same day, I did. It was like I found the drawer where all the school thoughts were stored. Once found, I was able to air them out and see what needed mending. It also helps me feel complete that I’ve done so many house tasks that have been waiting. I finally took a saw to the dead tree in my front yard. It has been rendered into a log, a stump, and a pile of branches. I’ve been staring at that ugly, dying tree for years and now I don’t have to anymore. Granted, I still have to clean up the tree shrapnel, but the major work is complete. The same with the summer conventions. In the next couple of weeks I’ll finish off these odds and ends of summer and we will fully transition into a different rhythm of life.

I am done with summer. I am ready for school. But there is a large part of me that wishes for a pause. A space in which I could spend two weeks to unfurl all those summer possibilities which we were too busy to contemplate this year. A space with the difficult pieces of summer complete, but the difficult parts of school put off for a bit. I would dearly like a pause. Perhaps I’ll find some of that in the writer’s retreat at the end of September.

Being Between

By / August 17, 2012 / 2 Comments

For the first time all summer, I find myself between. There is no more work I can do for GenCon and I can’t yet begin post-GenCon accounting. I’ve mailed all the things to ChiCon, but have to wait for Howard to get home before the final preparations. I’ve finished off the house organization projects which got shuffled aside during the crush of other things, and I’ve not yet decided what house project to tackle next. I’ve let go of my summer plans, but won’t embark on school schedule until next Tuesday. I am between. In some ways it is a lovely space, but staying here too long would not be good for me. I like moving forward.

Yesterday I read a letter from a friend where she lamented that every year she intends to plan and prepare better for the beginning of school. Then every year she ends up dealing with the same frantic scramble to get everything done. I read her words and realized that one of my focuses over the past six months is that I’m trying to be less prepared. I live much of my life planning for the future. I’m paying attention to thing I need to do today in order to prepare for events a week, a month, a year in the future. I’ve slowly become aware that the world is full of people who do not do this. I regularly see something coming, stress about it, plan ahead for it, and then move onward; only to find that others hit this same emotional process weeks or months later than I do. Several times I’ve had to straighten out a financial misunderstanding because I’ve paid a bill so early that the recipient mis-filed the payment. I plan ahead. Much of this is my job. I am the one to reserve a hotel room in February so that Howard has a place to stay at GenCon in August. I make sure that merchandise arrives where it is supposed to and when it is supposed to. I create schedules out of nothingness and then remind everyone to adhere to them. I intend to keep doing my job, accomplishing concrete tasks on a think-ahead timeline, but I want to shed all the needless stewing over possibilities.

My kids start school on Tuesday. Beyond reminding myself what the wake-up, drop-off, and pick-up schedule needs to be, I am trying not to think about it. Entering school will expose my kids to new information and people. They will shift and grow in response. Some of that growth will be painful and difficult. Tantrums and meltdowns are coming. I know it. If I sit down to think about it, I could predict what those crises would be, but then I would begin planning how I could respond to these hypothetical crises. After that I can imagine that the child does not like my response and reacts poorly. I could stage an entire melodrama in my head with branching possibility trees, a choose-your-own-adventure of parental stress. Except when school really does start, odds are that my kids will depart from the script in the first five minutes. All my fretting, planning, preparing would then be discarded because we’re going somewhere else. Instead of trying to improve my predictive abilities so I can better plan, I’m trying to trust that I’ll be able to deal with whatever comes when it arrives. Some things are concrete and life will be better if I plan ahead for them. Other things are in flux and I need to leave them alone until they are concrete. Living in flux is where I have to exercise my faith; faith in myself, faith in God, faith in the family members around me. Faith is often hard, I want to be able to predict and plan, as if I could plan life into calmness. Controlling something that is in flux is like trying to grab a fist full of water. I need to learn how to open my fingers, let the water flow past, and wait for something solid to grab.

So I am between, and will be until Monday. I will do the few small concrete tasks which are nearby and then I will endeavor to fill the remaining space with something enjoyable. Perhaps I can make something lovely out of these last few days of summer.