mezamashii's Xanga

School is not for common sense

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:47:23 GMT

I've always been a big proponent of public education. However, now that I'm looking at kindergarten registration for one of my own in the fall, I'm starting to look at public education a little more critically.

9 year old sent to principal for bringing 2 inch long lego gun to school.
4 year old gets inschool suspension for having long hair.

Both of these incidents are pretty much over the top. However, to me, there is a grand difference. One of them is about a 9 year old breaking rules and the other is about basic civil rights.

All the kids know whether or not toy weapons are allowed at their schools. Yes, it would have been a good use of common sense if the adult who caught the 9 year old with the gun had just told him to put it away and not bring it back to school. We often joke about how zero tolerance is really a zero intelligence policy, but in the end, the principal didn't dish out any severe punishment other than just talk to the kid and tell his mother he had broken the rules. We all need to jump through the hoops to get through life, even if the rules aren't that cool. How is a 2 inch gun different than a 3 inch gun? A 5 inch gun? Where do they draw the line?

In the media, the 9 year old's mother was defending her child's rule-breaking and getting a lot of sympathy. It is because of parents like this that the schools have decided they need to get more parental and take more responsibility for dishing out punishments since the parents won't even acknowledge their child could do wrong.

Perhaps that's how we got to the second incident with the 4 year old boy. Where teachers and school districts feel they not only need to make arbitrary rules about appearance, but that they need to rule with an iron fist because the parents aren't instilling "morals" in their children. This a complex issue centered around civil rights.

Putting a 4 year old in inschool suspension because he is growing his hair out for cancer wigs is unconscionable. Unlike the zero-tolerance weapons policy, this isn't a rule that was designed to keep children safe. You can't avoid that there is probably prejudice because the boy's father is a tattoo artist.

Several appeals cases have ended in judgments that a public school district can enforce dress code requirement because of the potential "distraction". Applying that ruling to hair needs to be challenged as one could be argued that it is only distracting to judgmental adults and not to children. Long hair is a cultural value of many cultures and in many places young long-haired young boys is a norm. And to top it all off, the boy is doing it specifically for charity.

And then there is the punishment. Is it appropriate to expect a 4 year old to sit alone at a desk all day? Yes, there will be adults near by to "check on him" but in prisons we consider isolation for an extended period of time to be cruel and unusual punishment. Do you think adults checking on him counts as "social interaction?" While inschool suspension for a 10 year old might be appropriate, it is just common sense that it isn't okay for a 4 year old who probably can't really sit still anyways due to his age.

But then, school isn't about common sense is it?

Don't Touch Me

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:42:31 GMT

"Don't Touch Me! Don't Touch Me!"

The chorus of touch and complain has begun amongst my children. I had sincerely hoped and dreamt that this form of sibling torture and teasing wouldn't begin until we were nearing preteenhood. You know? Just the prospect of listening to this for the next 15 years just about makes me want to shoot myself in the head.

The whole thing came up because my kids are like a basketful of new puppies. They climb all over each other and are even capable of falling asleep in a tangled mass of limbs and oversized toddler heads. Whereas my dayhome girl defines her personal space like the Queen of Sheba. So you can imagine the daily supernova that occurs when my puppy-children clamour all over her and around her in their playtime.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!"

We've been trying to teach the children the concept of the roles different people have in personal space and how to respect other people's bodies. Like, "Who is your family?" I'm your Mommy and I love to hold you or give hugs, but I am not your own personal trampoline. "Who are our friends?" It is not okay to grab Mommy's friend's arm and chew on her bracelet for example.And so its become a whole new world now that we've learned that other people can get in trouble when Mommy hears, "Don't touch me!" or "She's touching me!" A whole new world of Mommy torture. Four year old, while hugging his little sister tightly says, "Mommy! She's touching me!" After 500 lectures about how "Don't touch me" is to be said when you don't want to be touched, not when you want to get someone else in trouble, we have now upgraded to the POKE and RUN.

And I managed to blog today with out mentioning the iPad. Whoops.

It's almost February for Pete's Sake

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:22:04 GMT

I thought I was all done with this whole New Years Resolution talk, when today my dayhome agency visitor hands me a form titled "GOALS FOR THE NEW YEAR." Argh!On the back of the form it says:

It's the start of a New Year and time to sit down and set some goals for your dayhome for the next year. "It is important to our well being that we feel we have some control over our lives and that we are continuing to change, to learn and to grown as a person" (Family Childcare training Program). Achieving goals gives us a sense of accomplishment and achievement.

So, here's my goals. grrrr.

Expand knowledge and curriculum for kindergarten readiness skills, such as letter printing and scissors usage.
Seek out resources on shy children and preschool age socialization.
Enhance my curriculum to place special focus on speech and language development.

What they don't ask for (and I think they should or why bother) is how I plan on accomplishing said goals.The first goal about kindergarten readiness had significant progress on its first day. My daycare kids' parent (I have two daycare kids and they are siblings) brought me workbooks from Handwriting Without Tears. What a terrific program! I love how they start out in their Pre-K curriculum with colouring and gradually break into the proper strokes of making letters. I'm actually going to order several of their tools from the wood pieces set for making capital letters to the slate chalk boards. The teacher's manuals for the Pre-K and Kindergarten books are great. They let you know the philosophy behind each page as well as give a sample of how the curriculum should be implemented on a week by week basis.The other goals regarding socialization and enhancing speech, for my kids that are lagging a little behind their peers, will have to wait for another blog as it is now dinner time!

Self Employment and Adoption

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:43:24 GMT

The to do list I posted yesterday actually kept me on track. My hubby, if no one else, reads my blog and so I'm somewhat accountable for what I put up here. I'm a good self-starter, just not a great self-finisher. Being self-employed, I really have to be aware of that. I'm accountable to the dayhome agency I contract with, but they only come visit on a monthly basis.

I've gotten a fair bit of flack for not taking parental leave. I guess people just aren't aware that when you are self-employed you don't get parental leave benefits. I did cut it back my family daycare to only 3 days/week. With brand new kids, we have appointments like you wouldn't believe times three! Not to mention I have to be able to have days were I can do an appointment for myself once in a while with out making my hubby take over the dayhome kids also.

Fortunately, my dayhome parent was extremely flexible at the start of this process. She took two weeks off in September from her own work so that I could get moved into my new house and have lots of time to go visit my new kids while they were still in their foster home. Talk about lucky! And her kids are very similar in age to my own, so they make for terrific playmates. The dayhome kids had been with me for a year when my own adoptive kids arrived and so they were great at helping my new kids learn the rules and routines I keep.

By the way, there is a great guide on Maternity and Parental Leave called "Becoming a Parent in Alberta." It details who is eligible for Employment Insurance Benefits. The funny thing is, with dropping down to only 2 dayhome kids and going only 3 days per week, I make almost exactly the 55% of my former income that I would have made on EI. But its enough to get by and I only plan to keep it running until the kids have longer school days.

Of course its not the dream techy business I was hoping to have with my hubby at this point, but its working out well. One of the nice things about continuing the dayhome is that I have real structured preschool time for my kids with other kids at least 3 days of the week. If I weren't working, I would probably not be planning and implementing curriculum and would be a lot more lazy with my kids. Not to mention my house wouldn't be as clean!

I still have room for one more child in my teacher to kid ratio and I've really been kicking around about whether or not to fill that other slot. Its kind of nice for now to have the extra attention to give my new kids. And at least until we get over the initial appointment parade of family docs, social workers, speech therapists, dentists, optometrists, audiologists, immunizations, etc. it might be nice to have just that little bit of extra energy too.

Speaking of energy... gonna try to continue this todo list thing. I'm leaving out the obvious like laundry, dishes, normal cleaning, etc. Let's see if it keeps this self-employed new momma of three on target!

TO DO TODAY
Clean out the taken toys away bucket on top of the fridge
Start sorting through my dayhome receipts for taxes
Catchup on the kids photo album
Review all appointments to make sure we don't have conflicts
Find a way to attach stupid boys room poster that magically unsticks from the wall (its a poltergeist I know it!)
Organize the fiery pit of hell that was once the cupboard under the kitchen sink.
And Nap. I deserve one once in a while.

To Dos for 2010

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:13:17 GMT

My To Do list keeps getting lost, tossed, colored on, torn up... oh the life with 3 kids! So, I'm making a virtual to do list!

TODAY
~~Menu plan~~
~~groceries~~
~~daycare curriculum for Tues, Wed and Thurs~~
~~Take youngest for hearing test~~
~~garbage day~~
~~figure out how to request kids immunization records~~
pick up pictures for Great Grandma & biofamily
respond to biofamily letter

FEBRUARY
Research local plumbers to replumb basement bath sink (it was draining into basement pit drain rather than sewer!) Talk with hubby about also replacing water heater.
Design & budget for garden, front lawn flower bed, front porch repair, back deck demolish & replacement
Install basement stair railing
Paint stairs door
Apply sealant on basement drafts
Replace girls room light, basement lights

SPRING/SUMMER
Garden
Front lawn flower bed
Front porch repair
Back deck demolish & replacement
Replace Garage outdoor lights
Weather strip bottom of garage door
Paint Garage doors
Repair flashing on garage roof
Demolish terrible little shed
Apply siding to newer shed
Repair or demolish firepit

FALL
Insulate & Drywall basement laundry room (only unfinished area)
Replace basement drop ceilings with drywall
Replace paneling in big upstairs bedroom & master bedroom downstairs with drywall.
Replace hardwood around front door entrance with tile.
Remove linoleum on basement stairs & recover with carpet or paint.
Paint ceilings throughout house.

The Do-It-Yourselfer Life

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:35:00 GMT

The man in the basement and I sat down last night and talked about our future. I say the man in the basement because at the moment I barely see him. He works as a web developer from his little office stashed in the corner of our TVroom downstairs. My life from 7am to 9pm is upstairs running a preschool 3 days a week & chasing around our 3 newly adopted preschoolers the rest of the time. I see the man downstairs at some meals and after 9pm most days as I'm getting ready for bed.

Anyways, so now that you know about the man downstairs, back to talking about our future or rather our past. We realized that we had spent the past 7 years in a holding pattern and our focused effort was on trying to start a family. We spent a couple years with body mechanics poking our unmentionables trying to figure out why the damn engine wouldn't fire. Then we tried to be parents in foster-to-adopt, but the kids we loved for 18 months ended up going to their extended bio-family. Somewhere in there we realized we didn't want to be raising a family in the States, so we moved to my hubby's hometown in Canadaland.

In Edmonton, we tried to start a business while waiting for me to become a resident and become eligible to adopt. Unfortunately our business, a like an overweight cargoplane, quickly used up our financial landingstrip and the business vaporized at the end of the runway. Hubby got a job, I opened a family daycare and we waited for our family to start. We bought a house here & and then immediately after, the family thing started.

Hubby has a stable job. We've made a few friends here. Its hard to think of living our life outside the voyeuristic bubble of the adoption process. But now that we're probably 6 months out from the legal finalization of adoption, I can finally start thinking of what life will be like with out the endless parade of social worker types.

So, now what? I always had these vague notions I would go back and finish grad school after I had kids & the kids were in elementary. I always wanted to have our own business. I always wanted to be a writer. I always wanted to make video games.

How will I get there from here? Right now I'm not sure if I'm coming or going!
Life. Its what you make of it.

Just Breathe

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:27:37 GMT

We are still in the middle of growing out of tantrums around here. When one of my little ones gets upset, I often ask them to "Just Breathe." It is amazing that simply telling a child "Open your mouth, fill your lungs full of air and then let the air out" brings those moments of over-stimulation right down to tranquility.

Teaching a child to self-calm is like giving them a little tiny taste of meditation. I was looking around for a good explanation of breathing and found this video. The narrator sounds just like my kids' doctor and so they really tuned in and listened.

My Own Personal Winter Wonderland

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:43:00 GMT

Watching Scifi Come Alive

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:22:06 GMT

I'm a geek. I love hearing about new technology: nifty little gadgets, electric buses, etc. To me, its like watching the science fiction I've read and dreamed about come to life. The Kindle is one of the latest things I've become enamoured with. My hubby has a little review of it, "The Kindle Seduced Me."

One of my favourite scifi genres is dystopia. After moving here to my hubby's homeland, when I watch or read news about the States, I feel like the powers that be took some of my favourite dystopian novels to heart like their own personal to-do manuals.

Oh and just a little side-note on the geek side. I'm really glad we got the cover for the kindle... it makes it very nice to hold.

A Watched Pot Never Boils

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:13:00 GMT

Deedee insisted on watching the teakettle boil. And yes that is a Fire Extinguisher right next to the stove. I'll never live down setting the turkey on fire one Thanksgiving. (The foil cover slipped & dripped grease onto the bottom of the oven.)