Kids and Porn

My first reaction when I heard about the mechanics of sex was; “That fits in there??” Then I immediately put it out my mind. 

As I got older I got curious and found my dad’s Playboys. I wondered how comfortable it would be to wait for things to happen while stretched out naked on a bale of hay or bearskin rug and, could I even have sex without these props? 

One of the families I babysat for had a copy of The Joy of Sex and I remember wondering why the drawings of the naked girls in the book were hairier than the girls in the magazines and, did I have to memorize all those positions or could I refer to notes?

But I never saw the act of sex before engaging in it myself for the first time. 

Once I was ready to listen I had frank talks with my mother about the mechanics of it, the emotional elements involved and the risk of pregnancy. 

All in all in was a fairly benign set of clues that led up to The Event (cue the harps and fireworks) and there were no real surprises - other than wondering what all the fuss was about. (Sorry Ron)

Today it’s a different story. 

According to this article most kids will see their first porn movie clip by the time they are 14. 

How can a kid of 14 put what they see there into context? A pizza delivery guy that gets naked before he closes the door. Massive boobs that don’t move, hairless bodies, swinging members that hang to the knee and women seemingly thrilled to have one stuffed in every orifice. Ropes, cuffs, spankings, animals, leather hoods...Holy Protracted Penises Batman!

What kid would come home and feel comfortable enough to ask for clarification on what they have seen? Who do they turn to assuage what could only be fear and confusion for all who watched the clip? Teen girls are shaving newly arrived pubic hair and saving for boob jobs. I can only imagine what the poor teen boys are thinking when they go home and take out the tape measure. 

There are some big discussions coming our way and I certainly hope the "It's Wonderful Being a Girl" talk I had in grade 5 has changed to reflect the times. 

Porn Literacy. Add that to the growing list of things we have to teach our kids along with Cyber Civility, Responsible Recycling and Planned Parenthood.

Here's a link to great discussion about Porn Literacy that aired on CBC's Q last week.

Focus on Kindness Rather than Consequences

At the school our kids go to now we, the parents, don't hear much about meanness, bullying or agrressive behaviour amongst the 350 kids. Not from our kids, not from other parents.

When there has been a problem it's been followed with high praise for the way in which is taken of. Everyone has been satisfied. 

Whatever is going on over there is working because the halls are full of happy kids helping one another out, smiling, giggling. At the open house last month a grade six teacher with some 20-odd years under his belt said he has never had this much fun at work. The teachers always look happy too. There's a nice vibe in the halls from the front desk staff to the custodian.

I asked the principal what she and her staff were doing. Was it Prozac in the water, laughing gas, cult programming ...

She explained that rather focus on the consequences of poor behaviour she and her teachers instead speak to the kids about being inherently kind to one another.

When you tell a kid what the consequence is for their repetitive, unacceptable behaviour all they do is figure out how to side step the consequence by shifting the blame, diverting attention, intimidation - you name it, they hone deviant skills.

Better to spend that time learning how to be kind.

This idea is an extension of how happy households maintain respect - and peace - within their walls and a good principal and staff can do the same with their kids as is clearly evident at St. Dominic Fine Arts School

I just read this article (give it a read, it's good) about a book called "How to Bullyproof your Classroom" in which the author says; "The problem with bullying is actually the challenge of kindness." Amen.

I was reminded of how happy our kids are now that they are in a school that subscribes to this thinking and the biggest part of their day is no longer at odds with the guidance we give them at home.

92 is the New 50

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92 is the New 50

I’m off to Whiterock to see my mom this weekend. She’s 92 and enjoys freakishly superior health. Even after nearly 100 years she remains vibrant, current and active. It’s amazing.

She reads to her friends who have diminishing eyesight, gets a few things at the store for those who can’t get out and is somewhat of a superhero amongst her peers, often referred to as The Amazing Pat Lorange. (time to get her a cape and tights)

I love the reflection of incredible hair in the mirror.

She has a tub of library books delivered monthly and will dive into one for hours only to feel, as she will tell me, “a bit peckish” for a snack and realizes it’s 2:00 am, she hasn’t stopped reading since noon. And they aren’t beach books, they are the latest by experts on the economy, the internet, government and fossil fuel.

A few years ago a long-boarder took her down at a cross walk (he was mortified, visited her in the hospital, good kid, an accident) and she broke her wrist, the doctors were floored by her good health and amazing healing powers. They kept asking what meds she was on and had a hard time taking “none” for an answer. A couple things to note here; she’s been taking vitamins and minerals and whatever alternative supplements are touted as being good for you since the 70’s and she is from an indestructible generation that survived the depression, WWII and decades of wearing pantyhose.

She emails, surfs the net and gets outside pretty much every day. She is self sufficient and happy and has lived on her won since my dad died in ‘98.

She has no doubt she’ll see her 100th birthday and nor does anyone who knows her.

She lived a fascinating life growing up in England, meeting her Canadian husband during the war when their lines literally crossed - he was a signalman she was a phone operator, he stayed on the line after she patched through his call and he asked for a date. 

My dad’s work took them to Mexico City where my brothers were born in ‘47 and ‘49 then onto Caracas, Havana and finally Spa, Belgium where I was born in ‘61. In ‘63 we were back in Canada and living a normal life in comparison to the ex-pat, maids, money and Mercedes years that they left behind. When my brothers and I reminisce about childhoods is as though we are from two different families. They grew up with young, tanned, cocktail-drinking, party-going wealthy parents. Mom was 40 and Dad 45 when I came along (planned) and b y then were an older sedate pair struggling to make ends meet. I never wanted for anything, had no idea that there had once been more money and ... I had Mom all to myself.

She sewed and I watched her, enthralled (but forever incapable of mimicking her wizardry with the machine). We went for long walks during which we talked about everything. They were walks with Buddha, or Yoda, my mom speaking to me as an equal even when I was quite little and she let me take bites of some meaty subjects.

She got into the health food thing in the 70’s and made a few “training” bread loaves that could have been mortared together to make a sturdy house, but the healthy baking got better. She did the Transcendental Meditation thing for awhile too. I recall her going into room all wound up and coming out like she had been filleted.  

                                                  She always told me I could do anything. 

When I was in my 20’s and living in my own apartment in downtown Montreal, regaling her with stories of late night escapades, she said it sounded like fun and I wondered if she envied my growing up times far more liberal than hers had been. A dad, some suitors and a husband, those were the men in her life. What fun it would have been to pub crawl through the 80’s with a 20 year old version of my mom as my wingman. She woulda knocked ‘em dead. 

As much as I deny her getting older, she embraces it. She doesn’t look in the mirror and see an old woman who laments the passing of days but rather sees herself and thinks: “Look at you! Healthy, happy ... you’re fabulous Pat.”

My mother is a great broad, the best mom and a dear friend to many. I am looking froward to hanging out with her for the weekend.

As I have said throughout my life, I hope I grow up to be just like my mother. If all goes well I still have at least 40 years to keep working on it.

___________________________________________________________________

My mother sat down and wrote about her life in longhand, had a friend type it up and now my brother is posting it on line. If you are interested in reading about a life well lived, visit www.patlorange.com

With Edie, her best pal since 1963. They have had a lot of laughs together.

What's Another Word For Penis?

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    Eu-phe-mism 

noun 1: the substitution of a mild,  indirect, vague *(or funny) expression for one 

thought to be offensive, harsh, blunt or *( too clinical)   

* added by me  

_________________________________________________________________________________

When the kids were still really little I was advised by a friend that I teach the kids the correct words for their body parts. I wasn't having any of it. I had long since decided I wasn't going to do that as a result of an incident I had witnessed before having kids.

A man was at the park with his daughter, she was in a full body snowsuit and he was holding by the wrists swinging her in circles. Eventually the suit began to ride up and give her wedgie - she yelled "DADDY!! STOP!!  You're hurting my vagina!" The cool crisp winter air carried that cry across the prairie landing on every ear in a 20 mile radius.

I knew then and there that if I ever had kids they were getting goofy words for their parts. 

Clancy had a petunia her brother - a twig and berries. As they have evolved so has the list of names for their bits, they know the right words but, like me, think they others ones are way funnier.

In recent months 10 year old Clancy has come to adore the word "balls".

She knows when not to use the expression - pretty much anywhere but at home with the rest of her nutty, oops, family - but she loves the word nonetheless and when she is sad all I have to do is whisper balls in her ear and she cracks up.

Last summer Jack got a double marble run - two sides twisting and turning and intertwining, you start a marble at the top of each at the same time and see which comes down first but the game only came with a half dozen identical red balls.

Clancy, her dad and I were at the kitchen table, fully clothed, finishing breakfast. Jack came into the kitchen wearing only underwear (his favourite weekend outfit if he doesn't have anything on his calendar) and asked if he could have a Sharpie to mark his balls.

We all laughed out loud and Clancy was near tears, clamping her legs together to stop from peeing herself.

"What?" asked Jack, "I just want to know which is which."

That did her in, we had to mop up her "spill".

It will forever be a favorite family moment, never forgotten.

A few days ago I used the expression grow some balls, the kids asked what it meant and I explained.

Yesterday Clancy said: "I have a joke."

"What did the confident gardener say to the wimpy gardener?"   
"What?"   
"Why don’t you grow some bulbs?!"

I laughed, I mopped MY spill. Like mother, like daughter.

Class War in the Classroom

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In a perfect world every kid would get their own teacher who could guide them through each subject in life with expertise and patience and compassion. Challenge them here, catch them up there, untangle this, focus on that.

But of course that’s not the way the things work and the groups they are taught in are based on the year they were they born and not their capabilities or lack thereof. So, as a result we have “gifted” kids, “average” kids and “Not So Smart (NSS)” kids. 

You cannot apply one of these labels across the entire spectrum of things a kid does. There are gifted kids who are hopeless at sports and gifted guitars players who don’t read well. There are brilliant mathematicians who haven’t couldn’t throw a Frisbee to save their lives and some amazing athletes who are also academically brilliant and there are captains of industry who are completely illiterate.

The definition of a gifted kid is one who shows strengths in one or more areas and is easily bored and wants more of a challenge in those areas. 

I have asked this before: Who does that formula NOT apply to? 

If kids were grouped together according to their level in each individual subject this labeling wouldn’t occur and kids would get help where they need it and challenge where they could use it.

Instead we have articles like this one that talk about how gifted kids are in a bit of a bind because sometimes being clever makes it hard to socialize, they hide their smarts to “fit in”. Can the same not be said of average and NSS kids? Of any of us? Old or young, smart or otherwise? Isn't socializing hard enough without being labelled according to academic skills? Don’t NSS kids hide their disadvantages the same way smarts kids do? Doesn’t one kid hide their inability to read the same way another might hide their ability to understand physics? Aren’t we all susceptible to ridicule based on how much we know, how much we don’t know, how tall or short thin or fat we are? But where we can’t change our height, we can learn and get smarter, in the right environment.

There’s a class war in the classroom and it is stunting our collective growth.

What if all the kids who read at a grade 2 level were grouped together regardless of age?

What if all the kids doing grade 5 math were grouped together regardless of what year they were born?

It’s the way swimming lessons work and no one dies. It’s the way university works and no one dies.

Kids would move from one subject to the next in groups that were assembled by understanding rather than age. When a level is mastered the student moves to the next group at their own rate.

If everyone can suck at things and excels at others the thrill of pointing it out dies.

Wouldn't everyone eventually feel secure enough to show/admit their weaknesses, get help and thrive? 

Wouldn’t it mean that a teacher would be talking to a group of kids who were all on the same page and no one would be acting out because they “so get it” and are bored or can’t  “get it” and act like the class clown rather than be seen as the village idiot?

And rather than an article like this that says we need to do more for our gifted kids we would be doing more for ALL our kids and they could all very well be gifted at something? 

Something they, in the current system, may never discover because of how far they get left behind or crappy they feel?

Teachers & Parents as a Team

This article talks about research that shows how kids with counting skills in preschool fair much in math down the road and it's worth a read, especially if you have really little kids.

That makes sense, we all know what reading to our kids before they get into school does for them. What I found interesting was this paragraph:

“[The] low-income children aren’t learning math skills anywhere because parents think the children are learning them at school, and teachers think they’re learning them at home,” Dr. Manfra explained in the release. “This is a problem because it gives parents and teachers the idea that it’s not their responsibility to educate the children, when it’s everyone’s responsibility. This is problematic because, when the children enter kindergarten and are at lower math levels, they don’t have the foundational skills needed to set them on paths for future success.”

I reckon it’s safe to say this can occur across all household incomes and situations.

We all understand that teaching is everyone’s job and it’s constant. But parents in all income brackets can be surprised when they discover their children cannot read as well as they thought or maybe struggle with math.

It can be for any number of reasons, maybe they can’t see or hear from where they sit but haven't told anyone. I didn’t know my child needed glasses until one day she was standing right in front of the TV screen and that’s when I found out she had been moved to the front row in class. 

It could be an discovered learning disability or learning style. Or they could be inadvertently snowing you...

I remember thinking my son was a genius the way he read a book one night without any real hesitation . I thought; “OK, the penny dropped, he gets it, he’s reading now. Cool.” Then we went to the next book and he read it like it was in foreign language. What the...? “The teacher read us the first book in class today Mom, so I remembered it.” A-ha.

Math can be tricky too. Give a kid two numbers to add and and unbeknownst to us he hasn’t a clue but he takes a stab and is only one number off. We pat him on the back, tell him he was close and doing so well!

Teachers have big classes and many demands, parents are no less busy but when we all take the time to investigate a child's comfort level, skill level and actual abilities we will know better if they need help. 

One of the easiest ways to find out how a kid's reading is progressing is download an app or game they have been dying for that has new instructions. You’ll soon find out what they know by how much reading help they ask for.

Same with math. Open their piggy bank and tell them can buy something then ask them to count out ten pennies they need or the three shiny big silver coins and seven brown ones or twelve of anything.

If it doesn’t look like “learning” or school work then they aren’t trying to prove anything to you and are more comfortable to say - “I don’t know what that word is.” or "How many is ten?”

We can’t expect that teaching just happens at school and nor can teachers know how much we do at home so it’s team work that helps the child thrive.

Although, as the article says, it’s hard for the low income family kids, it can happen in any family. 

Parents Have to Parent!

A little girl at a local school is being bullied. One of the bigger boys is "tea bagging" her. Often.

I’ll let you look it up. One note; this version is done clothed. 

Kids - mostly boys - learn about it playing Halo when battle winners gyrate their crotch over a defeated opponent.

The fact that an 11 year old girl is having this done to her - repeatedly - is disturbing.

More disturbing is that another kid in the school has been paying the boy to do it to this poor girl. 
How is it that kids have managed to get to be 12 years old and not know that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable?

The girl's parents have gone to the school to demand action. But the schools don't know what kind of action to take anymore. Nasty behaviour has slowly crept into the schools over the years and it is not being dealt with. Most schools seem to have given up and it's hard to blame them, it's got to be frustrating to have the parents deny culpability just like their kids do. 

"Not me!" Has become: "Not my kid!"

Used to be a teacher would catch a kid doing something wrong, pull them up by the ear, march them to office, call the kid's parents and they would have to come and get the kid, take him/her home and the principal would give the parents what-for.

But something has happened. Somewhere along the line the schools lost the power to tell the parents: "Either your kid smartens up or he/she can’t come back here." 

As a result abhorrent behaviour is left unchecked and kids have no idea what is intrinsically wrong and few pay any consequences for misbehaving.

Parents are afraid to speak to one another directly about each other's kids to discuss things lest they be black-balled by the Mommy Group, ostracized at the soccer filed or name-called on Facebook. I don't recall my mother ever being more interested in her friendships than our well being and our behaviour. Seems today all kinds of things are ignored so that moms can remain "in" while they quietly seethe about one another's kids. Waste of time.

So as a last resort we turn to the schools to discipline the kids - but that's not their job. They are meant to teach the kids. We are their parents.

Policy at the school should be: 

The school tells the kid to knock it off and no amount of whining or crying is going to change things.

They then call the parents and demand they come pick up their kid and give them a refresher in what's right and wrong.

No more chances, if he/she does it again it's a week's suspension and the school doesn't care if you don't have childcare set up for such a situation, that is your problem, maybe use some of your vacation days to sit with at home and teach your kid about life instead of taking another trip to Hawaii so the kid thinks they get rewards for being an ass.

Parents need to be parents so teachers can teach.