The Mom Crowd

This is a guest post from my friend, Dawn Craig.  I saw on Facebook that she did not recommend the movie ‘Astroboy’ so I asked her to explain. Here is Dawn’s review of the movie.

What ever happened to movies that are capable of portraying a valuable life lesson in a manner that is suitable for children? My husband and I recently took our two daughters (6 and 7) to watch Astroboy for what we thought would be a nice, entertaining evening – instead I spent almost the whole movie comforting my youngest and worrying about the nightmares they would have that night. I should have known things weren’t going to go well when within the first five minutes the little boy Toby (later referred to as Astroboy) is killed by a huge robot named the “Peacekeeper” (created by a government official to help him win his next term in office.)

Toby’s dad has a meltdown, (which any parent would do under the circumstances), and creates a robot identical to his lost son, including all of Toby’s childhood memories. Shortly after his creation, Toby’s dad rejects the boy and orders him to be destroyed. Another scientist saves the young boy and instead tells him to go find his purpose in life and sends this robot child out into the world alone. At this point my kids are already asking why his daddy wouldn’t want him and where was he going to go. I thought at this point it couldn’t get any worse and that surely the producers wouldn’t maintain this negative storyline throughout the whole movie – I was wrong.

The movie continues on with scenes of orphans being manipulated by the only father-figure in their life, numerous attempts to kill Astroboy, the “Peacekeeper” destroying the city, the second death of Astroboy, and so much more. In the end obviously the good guy wins, but unfortunately the much too negative path to get there disallows any positive message to be seen.

I can understand and appreciate a writer’s need to create storylines that not only entertain the children but can hold the adults attention as well. Unfortunately it seems they keep continuing to push the line and have lost sight of the impression they can have on a young mind. Needless to say I wouldn’t recommend this movie to anyone with small children.

Have you seen the movie? What did you think? Also, have you seen Where the Wild Things Are? Would you recommend it?

Since our son was about 18 months old, he has experienced night terrors.  At first we had no idea what was happening to him in the middle of the night until I had a conversation with my friend Karen about it and she told me of her son having the same thing… night terrors.  For Andrew, it usually happens less than an hour after he goes to bed and then he will generally have multiple episodes of this in the same night.  He wakes up crying and is completely inconsolable for up to about 35 minutes.  There is nothing we can do to even remotely calm him down.  He appears to be awake, but technically isn’t.  It is quite a strange event. 

Night terrors are most common in young children, usually ages 3-6, however they can occur in younger children and also in older children and adults.  There are many misconceptions about night terrors, mostly that they are just really bad nightmares, but in reality they are very different events.  Nightmares are bad dreams that you can wake up remembering.  Night terrors are commonly described as seeming to wake up screaming or crying, appearing awake, but confused, not remembering the incident, and being inconsolable for 5-30 or more minutes.  A child experiencing night terrors will suddenly fall back to sleep as quickly as they appeared to have waken.

There are apparently different things that can trigger night terrors in children.  The most common thing is letting the child get over-tired or over-stressed.  There are also many different ways people choose to deal with their child’s night terrors.  For us, sitting with Andrew, rubbing his back or legs and hugging him sometimes helps soothe him.  Other times, it’s best for us not to touch or talk to him.  If your child has a tendency to have night terrors, make sure to let any babysitters know how to best handle them. 

The important thing to remember is not to treat the child as if he/she is acting up.  This is an involuntary response that they don’t even know is happening.  Being calm, finding what helps soothe your child at that time, and trying to prevent letting your child get totally wiped out will all help the situation! 

Does your child experience night terrors?  How do you help them during an episode? 

Photo Courtesy of deltaMike

When children turn 5 (or 6) school is of course, the next milestone.  There are so many options now for school and many of them are appealing: public school, private school, homeschool (and there are many variations to homeschooling). In the US, homeschooling has become more mainstream.  Well, by mainstream it seems like everyone knows at least one family that homeschools.  The majority of children still attend public school.

Parents choose to homeschool for a variety of reasons and the availability of curriculum is so substantial that any parent can find (with some research) what kind of educational format they desire to teach their children.

Reasons for homeschooling:

• Gifted children who can explore and learn broadly and more in depth at home
• Parents want a better education for their kids
• Incorporating faith into the classroom
• Protecting children from the bad influences of public school
• Allowing children to excel in areas they are giften and take time in subjects that are more challenging
• Child has chronic illness that makes it difficult to go to public school
• Parents live in a bad school district and want their kids to have a better chance at education

Right now our oldest child attends public school and we are homeschooling our middle child (long story–it was supposed to be the other way around but sometimes things have a funny way of working out).

I had been more interested in homeschooling than my husband.  He grew up around kids that were homeschooled for faith reasons and once those kids left home after high school and went off to college they lost their faith.  Many of them were socially awkward and didn’t know how to deal with people very well.  He had some very strong feelings about how keeping our kids out of public school just to shelter them and protect them from all the negative influences was not good reason enough.  Before he agreed to homeschool we had many conversations about how important it is to teach our children to learn how to deal with the world so that when our kids leave home to make a life of their own they know how to make good decisions and deal with people (and hopefully don’t chunk their faith).  As a mom, I find it so easy to want to protect my kids from every bully, aggressive behavior, sexual influence, other kids who do drugs etc.  I freak out thinking about all those things and want to keep my kids home ALL the time so they don’t have to deal with those types of things.  Ultimately though, I want my kids to learn how to deal with difficult people, and make hard and wise decisions for themselves.  I want them to learn how to apply their faith. So for us, deciding to homeschool was not (as much) about shielding our kids from “the world” as much as it was that we want them to have a good quality education.  Definitely part of me likes having them at home away from some of the things kids deal with today–don’t get me wrong!  Porn, sexting, drugs, bullying….it all freaks me out too!

I know a lot of families that homeschool and enjoy it and I wanted to try it.  Most of the parents I know who do homeschool their kids enjoy the time they spend together and love seeing their children learn.  I wanted experience if for myself at least one year and then decide if I enjoyed it enough to continue.  I’m glad that my first year at homeschooling is teaching just one child. I think it would be more difficult to start off teaching two different grades.  Our youngest, who just turned 2, is at home with me and my middle while we do school.

What to do with toddlers while you homeschool:

I have found that our 2 year old enjoys being around us while we are schooling.  He likes to sit in my lap while we are reading books, looking at pictures, or doing fun things on the computer. If we are working on writing, the 2 year old is too–in his own way of course.  I make an extra worksheet for him or make sure I have paper, crayons, and markers nearby for him to play with.  Playdoh is a big hit too.  He’ll sit at the table next to us and make playdoh creations for 30+ minutes. I was worried that  the 2 year old would feel left out but it hasn’t been a problem.

I love the flexibility of school time too!  Usually we start after we send off our oldest to school with Daddy.  (School in the UK starts at 9!!) Most days we are done by lunch.  Some days we run errands in the morning and we do school while the 2 year old naps.  I love that we can do whatever field trips we want and incorporate our faith into whatever we are learning in school.

We like the ways schools work in the UK so we are thinking that next year we will probably have both middle and oldest in public school.  We may decide to homeschool them when we get back to the States in 4 years.  Who knows?  We want to take it one year at a time for now.

If you are thinking about homeschooling here are some tips to get you started:

• Ask around to other homeschooling families what they enjoy about it and what the challenges are. Ask to go observe one of their school days so you can get a feel for what a day looks like.
• Start researching curriculum early.  Ask other families what curriculum they use and what they like about it.  There are SO many choices that it can be overwhelming in the beginning.
• Look for a homeschool fair where different curriculum publishers have booths set up so that you can see their materials in person.  You can order any curriculum you want online but seeing it in person and getting a feel for what works with you and your children is easier when you can flip through the pages.
• Be prepared to spend some money.  Homeschool curriculums vary in price depending on the publisher but it can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars up to 1000 each school year.  If you are planning on homeschooling several different children then you can reuse some or most of the materials for future kids.
• There are tons of places online to buy used curriculums and also forums for parents to discuss issues that come up.
• Ask around or look online to see if there are any homeschool co-ops that you can talk to or join.  Many homeschoolers form co-ops to do sports and other extra curricular activities and socializing.
• Think about an area in your house that you can use for school.  We have a bookshelf that holds all of our homeschool materials.  We use the dining room table or coffee table to do most of our school time.  Some people have a dedicated bedroom for school.

Deciding to homeschool is a big decision and we all want to do what is best for our kids.  Have you ever considered homeschooling?  What concerns do you have about it?  Do you homeschool? What is your experience?  Why did you decide to homeschool?

photo courtesy of PearlsofJannah

Studies have shown that fostering a second language in your child has extremely positive cognitive and cultural advantages. However, as most of us live in a mono-linguistic society, it can be difficult to start and maintain language learning.  Less than 10% of all Americans can speak a second language fluently.  Also, the amount of exposure to a second (or third) language will vary drastically from place to place.  As a former resident of South Texas and Southern California, I probably had much more exposure to Spanish than, say, someone from Caribou, Maine.  Now that I’m a mom, and I live overseas in a non English-speaking environment, I’ve seen firsthand some of the trials and triumphs of learning another language – the things that work, and the things that don’t.  For the mom who doesn’t want to wait until high school to get her child started with a new language, I’d like to share a little bit of my experience in this area.

Educational Programming

I’m sure many of us wonder, how much are all these hours of watching “Dora the Explorer” really helping my child learn a second language? There are a variety of opinions on this subject, with shows like Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go! continually gaining popularity.  Some linguists think that these shows should not offer the English alongside Spanish, and that by doing so, they are actually inhibiting a child’s language learning ability.  Their reasoning is children don’t think like adults when it comes to language learning.  Kids can hear the word vaca, for example, and automatically associate it with a cow without hearing it reinforced in English.  Others believe that these shows are a great introduction to foreign language, and give parents an opportunity to interact with their child in another language.  I tend to side with this opinion.  My son has learned some basic Spanish skills from these shows, which is helpful when he interacts with my husband’s side of the family.  While this is by no means a complete education, it gives the child a great chance to learn the different sounds that exist in another language and to construct a few basic sentences in that language.

Music

When we first moved overseas, I was so frustrated at how resistant my son was to learning Arabic.  Then, his teacher at preschool had the brilliant idea of loaning us a CD with some children’s songs in Arabic.  My son LOVES them!  He can do all the dance moves that go along with the songs, and he has learned body parts, animals and verbs by listening to one CD.  He’s even starting to teach his sister some of the things he knows.

Tutoring

For the parent who wants to do more in-depth learning, tutors are available to help kids learn another language.  These programs usually take place after school for an hour or two a week, and they can involve intense, one-on-one language learning or group learning.  Ask the head of the language department at your local high school (or university) if there are any programs like that available in your area.  For us, tutoring has proven extremely valuable.  We are NOT native speakers here, and while we can help our son a bit, he doesn’t really like speaking with us in Arabic – and to be honest, he doesn’t learn very much!  Having a native speaker who talks to him only in Arabic has really improved his communication skills.

Language Education Programs

Did you know that there are foreign language immersion schools in the US?  Right now, there are over 200 of these special schools located throughout the United States.  Some teach completely in a foreign language, some have some classes in English and some in the foreign language, and some are “two-way” programs with a mixture of native and non-native English speakers learning from each other as well as their teachers.

Being Creative

Sometimes, we have to step out of our comfort zone to get this going and try to get those brain muscles working, too!  There are places that offer mom & child language learning programs to help those of us that want to take an active role in the language learning process.  For those of us that have a bilingual family, having each parent speak in their native tongue can cause language learning to be a little slow in the beginning, but has tremendous benefits long term.  If you feel comfortable doing this, ask abuela or abuelo to speak with your child only in Spanish.  I knew someone who made a deal with her neighbor – my friend spoke only English to her neighbor’s kids when they came over, and her neighbor spoke only Spanish to the kids when they were at her house.  Pretty neat, huh?  There are endless possibilities in this category if you want to get your child rolling with a second language!

Some more information:

Kids Source has a great FAQ page about the benefits of children learning a second language

Center for Applied Linguistics home page

Worry has been following me around lately.  I know how to combat it – I posted about praying for peace mere weeks ago – yet I am still being pestered with a fear about this or a worry about that.  It is so annoying!  And it’s a domino effect this time around; when one thing is resolved, another issue arises, giving my weary soul minimal rest in between.

At the moment, my worry is for my son.  He’s kinda accident-prone.  He’s a toddler, so saying he trips up on his own feet doesn’t mean that much.  But he does.  Trip up on his own two feet, that is.  Regularly.  This has resulted in some pretty nasty bumps on his head.  (People actually look surprised when they see he is bump-free.)  Last week, he fell on his face again, and the bump is an ugly combo of red, purple, blue and yellow.  I can’t tell you how many times I have prayed over his little head, yet I cannot shake the worry that comes with being his mom.  I seriously break down in sobs whenever he hurts himself.

Max Lucado’s latest book, Fearless, has a chapter about worrying for our kids’ safety.  He says,

We tend to forget this fact, regarding our children as “our” children, as though we have the final say in their health and welfare.  We don’t.  All people are God’s people, including the small people who sit at our tables.  Wise are the parents who regularly give their children back to God (58).

Lucado says we have two choices when faced with our childrens’ struggles (health or otherwise): to despair over what can happen, or to believe in Jesus’ power to love and care for them.  Now, I realize that a bump on my son’s head is small potatoes compared to what else can happen to him – maybe compared to what has happened in your child’s life.  Yet the despair I have felt is very real, and dealing with it is not easy.

As one might expect, prayer is the key remedy.

Prayer is the saucer into which parental fears are poured to cool.  Jesus says so little about parenting, makes no comments about spanking, breast-feeding, sibling rivalry, or schooling.  Yet his actions speak volumes about prayer.  Each time a parent prays, Christ responds.  His big message to moms and dads?  Bring your children to me.  Raise them in a greenhouse of prayer (60).

I believe in this advice, and I have been stubbornly giving my fears about my son’s injuries to Jesus, again and again, each time I feel them.  Even though I wish I could put the boy in a plastic bubble and roll him everywhere in a cocoon of safety, I turn to God to increase my trust in Him.  I involve my kids in this praying, too, saying prayers aloud while Eli plays and inviting both of my children to pray aloud for his head during bedtime prayers.

If my worries are going to persist, my prayers must persist as well.

Jesus, thank you for keeping watch over our children as they come and go.  Thank you for standing beside us as a protective shade.  Thank you for being our help.  We depend on you.  Amen.

What Psalms comfort you during your time of worry (mine was paraphrased above, Psalm 121)?  Is your prayer time proportionate to the time you spend worrying?  How do you work through your fears?