Parent-Teacher Conferences

Our school is trying something new this year - "student" led evaluations aka parent-teacher conferences. In this process, the child and parents meet with the teacher to discuss his/her progress, to seat goals and agree on areas of improvement. I think this practice is good - but I don't think it should completely replace the more "traditional" parent-teacher conference. Why? Because I don't want to discuss my hyper-sensitive worries about the kids with the teacher when they are present! For example, I don't want to ask the teacher about my concerns about Andrew and Mark's social skills (or lack thereof) when they are present. So...I can e-mail my concerns to their teachers, but then I am missing out on the dialogue. I can arrange to have another meeting with the teacher, but that seems inefficient.

It just seems strange to go for an all or nothing approach, instead of just doing a mix of the two different styles.

Cooking With Kids

I grew up learning how to make a few things from my mom, and I could follow simple recipes. I decided in Colorado that I wanted to learn how to cook and I took classes at a local culinary school. Since then, cooking has become one of my favorite things to do.

When the kids were little, their "help" in the kitchen was limited to stirring things or frosting cupcakes or cookies. A few months ago, I started looking for recipes that the kids can help me make - a way for us to spend some time together and hopefully inspire them to become cooks as they get older.

I thought that I would post some of our tried and true favorites, starting with one of the easiest and most fun recipes for the kids: Monkey Buns.

I think Monkey Buns are a midwestern specialty - take frozen bread dough and turn it into gooey caramel rolls. The recipe follows, with my commentary on how the kids help with the recipe.

Ingredients:

2 (1-pound) loaves frozen white bread dough
1 1/4 cups sugar, divided
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup 1% low-fat milk
1 tablespoon reduced-calorie stick margarine
1 3/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon, divided
Cooking spray

Thaw bread dough in refrigerator for 12 hours.

Combine 1 cup sugar, brown sugar, milk, margarine, and 1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon in a small saucepan. The kids usually measure everything and put it into the pan. Bring to a boil; cook 1 minute. Remove sugar syrup from heat; let cool 10 minutes.

Combine 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon in a shallow dish; stir well. We double the ingredients here. The kids measure the ingredients in a measuring bowl, and I divide up the mixture into 3 bowls. Cut each loaf of dough into 24 equal portions. Roll each portion in sugar mixture; layer balls of dough in a 12-cup Bundt pan coated with cooking spray. The kids have fun with rolling the dough in the sugar mixture. To cut down on the mess, put the bowls over a cookie sheet to catch the extra sugar mixture that mysteriously spills. Pour sugar syrup over dough; cover and let rise in a warm place (85°), free from drafts, 35 minutes or until doubled in bulk.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Uncover, and bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until lightly browned. Immediately loosen edges of bread with a knife. Place a plate upside down on top of pan; invert onto plate. Remove pan; drizzle any remaining syrup over bread.

Yield: 24 servings (serving size: 2 rolls)

CALORIES 201 (10% from fat); FAT 2.2g (sat 0.5g,mono 0.8g,poly 0.8g); IRON 1.4mg; CHOLESTEROL 0.0mg; CALCIUM 41mg; CARBOHYDRATE 40.1g; SODIUM 302mg; PROTEIN 5.2g; FIBER 0.0g

Cooking Light, APRIL 1997

Election Day - Don't Forget to Vote!

Don't forget to vote today!

That is what I told Dan this morning as I was leaving the house. The kids looked at me funny because Dan tells them that he is going to write in "Tiger Woods for President" instead of vote for either Obama or McCain. I took this as another teachable moment opportunity for the kids: It doesn't matter who Dad votes for, as long as he votes. Everybody should vote because that is one of the greatest freedoms that we have in our country.

The kids get to vote today in the classroom. So, Andrew thought he would be funny and told me that he is going to vote like Daddy, for Tiger Woods. I told him - if you think he would make the best President, then vote for him. Ha - I stumped a 4th grader. Moral victory - to Mom.

Detention and the "M" Word

On Friday, the boys were anxious to tell me that another little boy in their class got detention. Detention is a very rare thing in 4th grade at our school, so my curiosity was piqued. So, I asked what "Joe" did to deserve detention. His crime was twofold: (1) he stuffed his hot pocket in his milk (not sure why this was an act worthy of detention because it seems like normal boy behavior to me, but according to Mark & Andrew it was detention worthy because it was wasting food), and (2) he called a teacher the "m" word.

Now, being the helicopter mom that I am, I was surprised that my kids knew what the "m" word even was - and more importantly, where did they learn the "m" word. I thought the "m" word was the Hip-Hop swear word mother ______. So, I asked them what was the "m" word. They told me, Mom, you know, the word that you use all the time. I am instantly perplexed because the "m" word I am thinking of is a word that I have never used to my recollection. So, I asked them for some context. Andrew explains, you know, when somebody is driving in front of you and making you mad. Oh....you mean "moron".... The boys just looked at me with a big "duh" look on their face.

Don't get me wrong. I think calling a teacher any name is disrespectful and worthy of detention...it just surprised me that "moron" is now put in the same class of derogatory words that can't be uttered out loud. Perhaps civility is returning to our society after all (just not in our car when I am driving!)

Television: Part II: Drug Ads

This musing is less about the kids than a general observation about the silliness of drug ads. Do you remember the good old days where pharmaceutical companies were prohibited from advertising on T.V.? Now, I don't think it is possible to watch an hour of T.V. without seeing a drug ad. I can't believe these ads are effective. More time is spent by the announcer revealing all of the potential side effects than the attributes of the drug. The one that caught my eye this morning was a new drug that helps people stop smoking. Some of the potential side effects: suicidal thoughts, depression and death. I've never been a smoker, but why would somebody pick a drug that could cause their death instead of a patch?

These ads defy everything that I learned in my B-School marketing classes. Spend millions of dollars on expensive television ads where most of the air time is used to talk about the downside of the product. Other than politics, in what other industry does this happen?

Imagine if this were used to sell food products, like hot dogs. The opening frame would show a happy family eating hot dogs at a baseball game. The announcer says "Hot dogs are an All-American food for your family to enjoy not just watching America's favorite past-time, but at any time of the day." Then the announcer would start in on the warnings: Consult your doctor before eating hot dogs. Hot dogs contain nitrates which in some cases may cause cancer. Hot dogs can also pose a choking hazard for young children, so use caution while eating. Hot dogs also contain high levels of cholesterol and may raise the risk of heart attack in some people.

It is crazy! No other company would spend money to tell the population about the bad effects of their products - nobody would buy them. But, drug ads must be effective because pharmaceutical companies continue to use them to promote their products. It truly has me stumped - and amazed at the same time.

Television: Part I: Parental Locks

This week, I took advantage of the "parental lock" on our digital cable T.V. I knew the day would come - I just didn't think I would need to use it now.

Some background: the boys wake up REALLY early in the morning, so we let them watch T.V. in our family room. Usually they watch CNN because the choices at 6:00 a.m. are news, cartoons that they outgrew when they were 4 or infomercials. But, at some point, they discovered a channel that I think is called "Real TV". What caught their eye when they were flipping channels was lights and sirens - for whatever reason, the boys are still fascinated with firetrucks and police cars.

The problem: this weekend, the boys were playing with their hot wheel cars, and Andrew pulled over Mark for drunk driving and being "passed out" at the wheel. I about gave myself whiplash turning to see what they were talking about. A few questions later and they showed me the channel. It is like COPS on steroids. Talk about a parenting reality check!

So, I activated the parental lock and blocked that channel. If only I had a videotape of the next morning when the boys were trying to figure out what happened to their channel. They tried for awhile to figure out the password and then gave up. I was so smug at being able to outsmart the 9 year olds, until they got savvy with On Demand.

Around September 11th, On Demand Discovery channel had a show about the Twin Towers. Mark still wants to be a firefighter, so you can imagine why he was drawn to some of the footage. But, not exactly the footage that I would have preferred the boys to be exposed to at their age. The downside to the parental lock is that it doesn't work On Demand. How could a cable company give you the ability to control your kids worlds and then leave a great big loophole?

Not one to give up easily, I resorted to a low-tech solution: The remote control goes to bed with me. And, the boys are too lazy to manually change the channel from the one it is on before I go to bed: CNN.

Soccer Mom Who Doesn't Wear Lipstick

My conservative friends...my apologies in advance. This is a political post with opinions that you may disagree with, but I really hope not.

I have made no secret of the fact that I strongly support Obama to be President. I supported him in the primaries, and I took the kids with me to one of his rallies. It was an opportunity for them for many reasons, which I will describe in a subsequent blog post.

The kids know why I support Obama, and one of the main reasons involves the pure nature of the political campaign of 2004. I absolutely abhor misleading political ads, and the 2004 campaign seemed to reach a new low. Yes, my conservative friends, I know that both sides engage in misleading attacks. However, it is the nature of what is being misled that has upset me so much - it is one thing to mischaracterize a vote and another thing to smear a person's integrity or character. It is the latter that especially has no place in our politics in my opinion.

I want to raise the kids to be informed voters, i.e. voters who can distinguish between a misleading ad and the actual facts. The last two weeks have given us an opportunity to put into practice my philosophy. The kids are familiar with the internet, so I added a new website to their repertoire: http://www.factcheck.org/. When the ad appeared claiming that Sarah Palin told Congress "Thanks but no Thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere, we fact checked it and found that it was misleading. Ditto on the "Lipstick on a Pig" ad. We have done the same with Obama - his ads claiming that McCain supports troops in Iraq for 100 years was fact checked.

However, despite my best of intentions with the kids, "fact checking" ads has had an unintended consequence. Mark asked me last night if every politician lies. That made me very sad, and yes, ashamed, of our country's state of politics. What does this style of politics teach our children? I think this is a legitimate question for both liberals and conservatives. Why can't campaigns just run truthful statements? I have no answer. I didn't know what to say to Mark - other than we are only fact checking some, but not all ads, because I don't want him to grow up to be a cynic like Dan.

So .... my conservative and liberal friends - please comment - please tell me why both sides are not standing up and demanding that our politicians follow the rule that we, as parents, insist upon our children following: honesty.