- People with no degree in education or educational experience or child psychology have no place in our schools
- Why do people want what they want and are unwilling to compromise and then end up screwing everyone over
- How is it that people with zero knowledge of a subject sure do have a lot of opinions on that subject
- Most people didn’t pay attention in school and it shows
- Common sense and intelligence are a curse. Ignorance is bliss.
- I am thankful to have my kids almost be out of these schools seeing the way they are headed. Even more, I’m thankful I have highly intelligent children and Husband and I are educated enough to supplement their education
- Why is it that the people who claim to be devout Christians are the least Christ like
- Maybe we all need to go back to 1950s family values
- Did anyone ever notice that the Jetson’s takes place in the future, but their home life resembles that of the 1950s
- Maybe church isn’t what I”m looking for. Maybe I’m looking for more of a round table theological discussion.
- Maybe what I need is more time in nature
- My anxiety won’t allow me to spend more time in nature, especially alone
- I wish I could take more walks
- I wonder if there’s a way I could record all of my brilliant ideas and thoughts while in the shower since I forget most of them when I get out
- Why do I always think of great responses to arguments in the shower
- Why do I always feel like going for a run while I’m in the shower but when I get out, I’m too tired
- It’s so damned hot, how do people not understand climate change
- Why are people so opposed to doing their part for climate change
- Common sense and intelligence are not the only curses. Compassion and empathy are as well.
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I went to very small Catholic schools growing up. By small, I mean my 8th grade graduating class had 14 kids and my high school graduating class had 87 kids. I understand that’s not the norm. The thing about small schools was that there was no stress (for this particular topic). Every year, you knew who was going to be in your class. Every year you knew who your teacher was going to be. Every year, you knew who you were going to eat with at lunch. High school was a little different only in that I knew no one where I went to high school. But, with it being so small, I made friends quickly. In high school, who is in your classes is less important than who is in your lunch period. At my high school, all freshmen ate together, so that was easy. Each year after that, I always had friends in my lunch block. I never really worried about it because I was sure I’d know someone.
With zero public school experience, I wasn’t naive enough to think it was exactly the same, but I thought it was probably close. Husband confirmed that. It wasn’t until high school that the different grades got mixed lunches there was a chance you weren’t with your friends. Now, once you get out of elementary school, it’s the luck of the draw. As a person who was in education, I don’t understand this. As a mother, I don’t understand this. Middle school years are the toughest years for many reasons. There are so many changes taking place in kids’ bodies and brains. There are more social pressures and educational pressures added to those changes. Then, the school throws them to the wolves. Studies show that lunch is actually very stressful for students. “Who am I going to sit with?” For some, this list is long and it’s honestly tough to choose who to sit with. For others, the list is smaller, or even nonexistent. My daughter and one of her best friends were so excited because they were on the same team this year (our school divides kids into teams, but it’s pretty much irrelevant to those in honors classes). They don’t have a single class together, including lunch. They were devastated. My daughter is in a better situation than her friend, though. My daughter knows a lot of people in her lunch block, including one of her other best friends. Her friend has no one she really knows well. Up until 4 years ago, students had lunch with their grade levels. They changed this up so scheduling wouldn’t be so difficult. In middle school, there is a limited amount of “electives”. In fact, until this year, the “electives” were choir, orchestra, band, or general music. You had to pick one. This is the first year they have a “choice”... psychology or no psychology. So, I don’t buy the scheduling thing, especially now with teams. The truth is, mental health does not matter in this country. The stress of lunch is a mental health issue. I know a child who is a year ahead of my son in school. Lunch was so stressful for him that he got a pass from his guidance counselor to go to the library instead of lunch. While I think it’s great that he had the option to do this, we took away this student’s time to eat because he was too worried to sit in a cafeteria with no friends. Administration states that there will always be kids they know in their lunch blocks. Kids they know aren’t always their friends. Sometimes, it’s the “kids they know” that are the problem. Yes, they need to learn to branch out. Yes, they will not always be with their best friends, yet, this is a problem that can be avoided for as long as possible. The counselor’s at Sunshine’s school are trying to do something about this by sending out emails to National Junior Honor Society members to have them look out for kids sitting alone and either ask them to join them at lunch or tell her and she will find a table for them. Still, that’s a lot of pressure to put on middle school kids. Our society puts way too much pressure on kids and refuses to address their mental health. I don’t know the right answer. I don’t know how to fix the problem. I do know that something has to change, for the sake of our children and our future. Coming off a pandemic summer was more difficult that I anticipated. I feel like this summer has been lost. It hasn’t been, but it’s taken until we’re getting ready for school for it to feel like real summer.
While everyone else bitched and whined about all the things they didn’t have their God given right to do last summer, we had an amazing time. That’s because we had time and we actually like each other. Don’t get me wrong, we missed our “normal” stuff, but we truly enjoyed the time we had to do nothing. And by “nothing” I mean, only one (or was it two) dance class, karate (but not as much), tennis, and summer classes to get a jump start on HS (the boy went into HS with Health and Gym completed, not to mention his honors work). Plus, the weather was great. Hot, like one of the hottest summers I can remember, but it was OK because we had all the time in the world to go swimming. We’d hike in the mornings and swim in the evenings. This summer, we went from zero to 100 in under 60 seconds. My previous post was about how I can’t understand people whose kids aren’t involved in anything over the summer, and I stand by that, but I don’t think I was ready for everything to happen all at once. And I definitely didn’t expect this weather. In the amazing book, Polar Bear, Why is Your World Melting, it breaks down climate change so even toddlers can understand it, yet, we still have people who think it’s fake because it still gets cold in the winter. I won’t spend this post blasting you with scientific data about climate change. Instead, I’ll break down one little piece that as it’s explained in the book. Places that were once dry are becoming wet. I picked this particular fact because this is how my summer looked. It was a frickin monsoon of a summer. When you have a kid who plays softball, rain is not your friend. We were coming off a year of not playing due to the pandemic. Everyone just wanted to get back out and back on the fields. Added bonus, I coached this summer. When Sunshine was in t-ball, I swore I would never coach her again. Then, I coached soccer, which I love doing, so I thought, why not give softball another go. After this year, I will never coach softball again. Literally half of our regular season games were rained out. Half. In a season where there are only 13 games, that makes for very little softball to be played. We played 1 game all season with a full team. One. They tacked on an extra week, which was two whole games, to make up for the games we didn’t get to play. We had to forfeit one of those two because we didn’t have enough players. Aside from softball, the rain affected everything we did. Strawberry picking, raspberry picking, and blueberry picking were rushed because we had to get it in between storms. Hiking had to be put on hold due to mud and rain. The zoo had to be pushed back until it wasn’t too hot or wasn’t raining. The pool didn’t get as much use as it has in the past. Yet, with all of that, we still packed in the fun. We got a few hikes in. We toured new places. I swam more this year than any other year. We went kayaking. We went fishing. We eventually did get in the things that we love, such as berry picking and the zoo. We got to hang out with friends. We got to go visit Grandpa and Grammy. I’m sad that the rain made it feel like I lost time with my babies, but I’m thankful for the time I do get to share with them. School is just around the corner and the years are coming to a close where they are going to want to hang out with their mom during the summer. I’ll take what I can get now. I don’t understand families whose kids aren’t involved in activities. I’ve said that before, but it still boggles my mind. All summer, I’ve been seeing pictures of people who are taking month long vacations, or even several short vacations and I just think, how do they have time? First, what kind of jobs do people have that they can take off that much time because, obviously, we forgot to sign up for that when choosing careers. Second, don’t their kids have things going on? Don’t get me wrong, we pull our kids out of stuff here and there to go to the lake, but, mostly if we miss something, it’s a scheduling conflict with other activities.
So far this summer, Sunshine has taken 3 dance classes, played softball, and takes tennis lessons. Monster not only takes karate, but he teaches it. That means he has a job that he needs to be responsible for. Are there teens out there who don’t work? I had a summer job from the time I was 13 on. So did Husband. My son has called off a couple of days, but we try to make sure he’s there for the days he has the most students so they won’t have to try to find someone to cover for him. Besides that, Husband can’t take off tons of days. Heck, he had to work on an emergency trip we took to see his dad. I drove the 8 hours and he worked in the passenger seat. Then let’s add in summer school work. Husband had to work on the trip to see his dad and so did Monster. He had to work on school work. I guess if your kid isn’t in Honors classes, there’s really no work to do, but Honors and AP classes had a lot. And, I won’t admit this to him, he actually got his stuff done super early compared to other kids in those classes waiting until the very last minute. And what about chores? My kid mows the lawn. Not because he’s just super helpful like that, but because it’s his job. It’s crazy, but just because it’s summer doesn’t mean all the work that I normally do during the school year stops. In fact, it compiles with more people home and us being on the go more. I’ll tell you, I look around my neighborhood, and all those families with teenagers or young adults living at home, my teenager is the only one mowing the lawn. They have other chores, as well, not just lawn mowing. I’m not saying that we don’t get to enjoy our summer, because we definitely are. We just enjoy it close to home. We take trips in which we can be back in time for dinner to get everyone they need to be in the evening. And we have to enjoy it without Husband. He’s never been to the zoo, even though we go every year. I guess he didn’t figure out what job he could sign up for that allowed all sorts of vacation time. We swim whenever we can because we have a pool in our backyard. Our days are packed as well as our nights. Until my kids move out, I’m resigned to the fact that our summers will be wild and crazy. After the kids move out, it’s going to be way too quiet since Husband will still have to work a job where he can’t just take off willy-nilly (seriously, how do we sign up for those jobs that would allow us to travel whenever we want? Sign us up, please!). I love that my kids are so active and learning to become strong members of society. As of written before, I do wish we had more time like last summer, but even then, it's not like we sat around doing nothing. Life still goes on, and ours happens to be a busy life. I embrace summer and all its craziness. I'm so very sad to see it coming to an end. I love being with my kids, even if that's chauffeuring them around! |
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