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Posted by: deweywells on 7/30/2010 It's been a hot, hot summer in the mid-Atlantic. Plenty of time for play and reading. For the first time in my entire career in teaching (nearly twenty years), I've successfully disconnected myself from my classroom responsibilities for a few weeks this summer. Instead, I focused my efforts on my health, my kids (the time they will want to spend with me is slowly eroding, even if it's only temporary), and reading and writing about education outside of the classroom. It's my own effort at inne...
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Posted by: deweywells on 7/24/2010 Just clicked "Publish" and am ready to take my coffee and latest book to the backyard before it's hits 90+ degrees. What are you and your child reading this summer?
Read more about the importance of summer reading on my blog, Wonder of Children.
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Posted by: toorockmysoul on 7/21/2010 Today I spoke with a friend of mine. He is a well respected friend whom I have been close to for many years, despite the distance ....in miles.... that came between us after I moved several years back. He has one on me as he and his wife have successfully raised to great young men, both well into their college years. This fact gave me the thought to writing my post today. Not his two college aged boys, but the theory of raising them.
While talking and catching up with him in our ...
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Posted by: shamaker on 7/20/2010 Is playing with our kids a good thing or a bad thing? The answer, according to several experts and parents, is yes and no. Yes, it’s great to have that playful communication with your children but the no comes in when you have playtime in lieu of other parent-child interactions. Check out more in my article, “Playing With Your Children Can Be More Than Fun and Games” on Crosswalk.com.
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Posted by: toorockmysoul on 6/28/2010 Recently something happened to my wife that at first I blew off as , 'it will go away'. But as time went on and it didn't 'go away' I started to see that although annoying, it was also a little scary. As the Operations Manager for a local lodge, she wears many hats with her job. One is handling all marketing, sales and solicitors. Most of the time it is all pretty standard stuff, everybody wants to market you something they think will benefit the business and she deals with them appropriat...
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Posted by: Running Diabetic on 6/14/2010 Once I had my first child, I knew I would dread the day that I had to return to work. And I still dread returning to work every Monday after spending the weekend with my children. My husband and I are not wealthy and both of us have to work to pay the mortgage and bills. We chose to buy a home in a nice neighborhood so that our children could be in the best possible school districts. We have a modest townhome and drive sensible cars. We are sacrificing in...
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Posted by: shamaker on 6/15/2010 Apparently, my mother was right: reading can make you smarter. And having lots of books around your house is good for your children, too. An article on LiveScience.com entitled "Growing Up With Books Boosts Child's Education Achievement" talks about the correlation between the number of books in a home and the child's level of educational achievement.
"For instance, a child born into...
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Posted by: shamaker on 6/9/2010 9 Shamless plug alert: I wrote an article about large families that has been posted on Crosswalk.com entitled Large Families: Blessings or Burdens?. Quoted in the article is Ange, who frequently contributes to Stage of Life....
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Posted by: shamaker on 6/2/2010 3 The Washington Post had an op-ed piece in Sunday’s paper (May 30) entitled “5 Myths About Working Mother.”
1. Mothers today spend much less time caring for children than did their parents and grandparents.
2. Women’s jobs interfere with family life more than men’s.
3. Mothers with college degrees are more likely than other women to opt out of...
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Posted by: toorockmysoul on 5/31/2010 When I woke this morning I wasn't sure what today would bring for me. Yes, there are plenty of chores outside and the weather is going to be beautiful here again today. I have been wanting to get into my pottery studio to throw some clay....that is always a centered rush for me on any given day! Then again, maybe just kicking back in the Adirondack chair surrounded by the dogs for a little R&R today, before resuming the daily grind tomorrow. It all sounded good when I opened my eyes this mo...
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Posted by: mommy9 on 5/27/2010 In just four short hours from now our 17 year old son will be walking across the stage to receive his high school diploma. I have been spending most of the day getting clothing ready for our family to attend as well as running last minute errands. It is only 3 p.m. and I am exhausted. So I give the twins to a couple of the older kids so I can catch a short power nap. Suddenly I hear the car alarm. Up I jump to inspect the commotion only to find that my 13 year old is trying to break into to the...
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Posted by: ssowmya on 5/31/2010 When no more than a cell,
She protected us and nurtured us,
Held us in her womb.
Coursing her blood and breathe within us,
Waiting for that day, for the unseen to be seen!
Every birth is a story
To be recounted many years hence,
To willing or unwilling ears
By her, as she lives through
An experience very few can forget.
She is there when we smile
For the first time,
She is there when we cry
for the hundredth time!<...
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Posted by: shamaker on 5/28/2010 Just when you think you've seen it all, an Indonesian two-year-old boy chain smokes. Yep, two packs of cigarettes a day. His father says there's nothing wrong with it and his mother says if they take away the overweight child's cigarettes, he throws a temper tantrum.
The few news articles I've read focus on how this story shows the extreme additiveness of tobacco. While true, that seems to miss the entire mark.
The biggest problem here is that these parents are letting th...
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Posted by: deweywells on 5/21/2010 Have you noticed the end of school is on the horizon? Are you humming, "It's the most wonderful time of the year" or "School's out for sum-ma?" Or are you wondering what alien is inhabiting your child's very being lately?
Many of us look forward to the end of school and the time to exhale and enjoy summer. For many children, it's stressful in ways they - or us - find hard to comprehend. They may feel loss or worry about the unknown. No doubt, the tenor and energy fluctuates, spikes...
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Posted by: AmyDoodle on 5/16/2010 As far as legacies go, my tastes lie with something simple, like a check. Or stock. Or heirloom china. Unfortunately Mama wasn’t the heirloom china type. What I got when she departed for the peaceful place where mothers don’t have to cook, clean, or say, “If I told you once, I told you a million times,” was not the inheritance I assumed was my birthright. What she left me was the very thing I was the least qualified to handle. Wisdom.
Giving me a lapful of life lessons is like tossin...
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Posted by: shamaker on 5/18/2010 Are you a confident parent? I consider myself more confident than most, which doesn't mean I don't ever make mistakes or second-guess my decisions. But with all the parenting advice floating around, sometimes it gets hard to figure out what to do.
My article "Expert John Rosemond Urges a Return to Common Sense Parenting," provides some insight into how you can parent with confidence today....
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Posted by: shamaker on 5/14/2010
Another new study was released this month decrying the side effects of too much television on toddlers. According to an article in the May issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine (a JAMA/Archives journal), the side effects of too much screen time may not be evident until the child enters grade school.
Children who watch more TV at 29 months old (2½) seem to exhibit more problems in school and poorer health behaviors when they enter fourth grade.
A ...
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Posted by: deweywells on 5/11/2010 This week’s blog falls loosely under the heading of “love of learning” as it pertains to the passion for learning most teachers possess. Specifically, I’ve been reading Caltha Crowe’s new book Sammy and his Behavior Problems, a book which chronicles a year in third grade punctuated by a teacher’s passion to know each child, her propensity to examine her own feelings and teaching, and her steadfast desire to give her children the best opportunities for learning.
For those of you famil...
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Posted by: The Practical Chef on 5/4/2010 1 As Mothers Day approaches I think about my mom and grandma and the effect they have had on my career. I’m a Chef and I owe a lot of my love of cooking to them.
My mom and dad got married when they were 18 and 19 years old respectfully. My mom did not know how to cook, so my dad’s mom came to live with them for a bit to teach my mother how to cook. My grandmother was very large Italian women whose love of food and cooking was her life. My mom is a petite woman, just a kid when she mar...
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Posted by: Silvia on 5/4/2010 1 Just in case you have not heard, there was a recall initiated April 30th, 2010 on Children's Medication (Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec and Benadryl).
To help Stage of Life readers, here's the link to the site that explains the recall and gives you a list and search function to see which products and medicines are included. Hope this helps.
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Posted by: Running Diabetic on 4/27/2010 This month's post asks us to thank one person in our lives who have influenced us. I couldn't agree with this more.
Mumble-mumble years ago, as I was getting ready to graduate high school, Oprah was doing a special on gratitude. One of her guests told a story about how, after a loved one had died, she wished she had taken the opportunity to thank that person for how important he was in her life. Even at age eighteen, I took this advice to heart and sat down to pen thank you notes ...
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Posted by: mommy9 on 4/29/2010 I am sitting at the end of my very long dining room table that hubby and I bought from IKEA about 4 years ago. I am looking at all the little dents and scratches etched from little toddlers spoons from the last few years. The table was only 300 bucks or so. It is just a block table to be used for eating, crafting, sewing and art. I love our humble table. Presently it is the only thing tidy in the house. The breakfast mess has been cleared off and my 10 year old is loading the dishwasher. There ...
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Posted by: shamaker on 4/22/2010 I just finished reading Michael Pollen's new book, Food Rules, about eating more fresh foods and less processed foods. I must say that I like his premise, along with Nina Plank's Real Food and other books on the back-to-basics food movement.
For the most part, we do lots of things right: buy beef, lamb and pork from local ranchers, buy our veggies from a local farm in season, buy raw milk from a local farm. I don't give my four kids any soda or canned juice on a regular basis--milk a...
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Posted by: bugcandy on 4/19/2010 My five-year-old daughter, Raina, asked me last night while we were brushing our teeth before bedtime...
"Daddy, I know I came from pieces of both you and mommy and that I started out as an egg inside mommy...but what's the part that came from you?"
Aside from my eyes growing HUGE in surprise from the out-of-the-blue question, I had to pause to figure out what level of response I should give her. She had obviously been thinking about this. From previous lin...
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Posted by: mommy9 on 4/21/2010
It is within the tough times, the stressful moments, and the walks through the valleys which test our marriages. We are either pulled away because the clouds of the storms distort our view of one another, or we are knitted together because we have a strong foundation in Christ. There have been several seasons in my marriage where the thickness of the clouds caused me to lose my way a bit. The scope of my vision became paled and I lost sight of the truth. However, I am very grateful that ...
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