The Bully Issue

When J(15) was in 4th grade, we started to get the sense that she wasn't happy in school.  By the end of the year, we were noticing she wasn't herself and friendships weren't coming easily to her.  Over the course of the next two years, we came to the conclusion that she was being bullied and the school was turning a blind eye to the problem.  Our final solution (after NO support from the pubic school) was to take her out and enroll her in our Catholic high school for 7th grade.

J's public school principal told me I had raised my daughter in a bubble, needed to cut the apron strings, and a slew of other cliches that never helped the situation.  In the back of my mind, I really thought maybe I had screwed up.  With that in mind, I made J a deal:  Give the new school a try.  If it was still tough, we'd explore other options.  By the second week of school, she was going to sleepovers and thriving.  In the three years since leaving public school, we have seen a new person emerge.  She's happy, confident, and seems to enjoy school as much as any 15 year old can be expected to.

I've taken several things away from this situation:

- Not all principals are created equal.  I have a great friend who is a principal in another district.  She coached me through dealing with this in a positive, calm way and couldn't understand why we weren't getting results.  She would edit anything I put into writing, making sure I wasn't letting my emotions get in the way of my requests for help.

-  Kids aren't always equipped to fix "these things" on their own.  We tried that approach.  We tried coaching J through things, giving her skills, and letting her deal with it on her own.  Only, when it's one kid facing an entire clique, it's really hard to put the skills, guidance, and advice into practice.

-  In my experience, parents are far too quick to deny their child could be less than perfect.  (One of these days I'll write about how we dealt with K(12)'s attempt at bullying.)  In my opinion, if you don't know your child is doing something rotten, you don't have a chance to correct it... which isn't to say parents should run around tattling.  But parents should be able to calmly say, "Our kids are having a difficult time getting along.  How can we help them with this?" without it turning into a massive ordeal.

-  Schools aren't really equipped to deal with bullying yet.  No one seems to know how to stop it or what skills kids need to cope with it.  And this is a problem.

-  Catholic schools are a blessing even if paying for them is truly difficult for us.

And Also...

... OtHello Kitty cracks me up.  No one else in my house seems to appreciate my humor.  Or my lack of iPhone photo skills.

Kismet

The Catholic high school my daughters attend requires the kids do a specific number of volunteer hours as part of their Theology grade every year.  The junior high requires 12 and the high school expects 16.  My kids?  Over achievers.  J(15) had 125 last year and plans to aim for the same this year.  K(12) is just starting her first year there and her goal is 50 hours.  They're both over 10% of the way to their goal and they still have 11 months to go.

J(15) with her various end-of-year awards, including her Gold Award for 100+ hours of community service.
There were tears - Proud Momma tears.

In support of their efforts, I mentioned their goals on my Facebook page.  I have a bunch of friends who work for non-profits or who are teachers or principals - exactly the kind of people I want my children to be around.  Just a quick note about the girls looking for service hours opportunities and it was met with several offers for later in the summer as friends are setting up classrooms (and also when the girls are going to be on baby overload, so that works perfectly.)

Then my friend Jim dropped me a line.  Jim is the director of development for Olivia's House.  Olivia's House is an organization for children dealing with grief.  It's probably where I should have taken the kids after we lost Andrew.  They needed something more than just a fairly dysfunctional, grief stricken mother and a father wo was holding everything together while still working 50+ hours a week and commuting like a mad man.  But I didn't because I couldn't get out of bed, let alone think about helping the kids face their grief when I was barely able to function through my own.

So Jim dropped me a line.  Olivia's House needs help with yard work and office cleaning - exactly the kind of stuff the girls can do.  The kind of stuff we can do as a family, really.  

Maybe it's time we find a way to honor Andrew in some way other than by remembering him and dusting his urn every few days.  And maybe this is the first step toward doing that.

Holding Hands

Holding hands is a promise to one another that, for just a moment, the two of you won't have to face the world alone.

~Unknown

G(8) won't hold my hand in public any more.  Not when we're crossing a busy parking lot, not when we're looking for a seat in church, and most definitely not when we're anywhere near other kids.  I've spent the last 15 years holding the hand of a child in some capacity or another.  And in a few months  weeks, I'll have two new hands to hold.  But in the meantime, it's a strange, lonely feeling to reach out and not be met by the grip of a sweaty, sticky little hand.

Maybe he thinks he's ready to face the world alone.  I'm not sure sure I am.

G(8) getting his bunk set up at Cub Scout camp earlier today.  He already looks more grown up than I'm ready for.

Goals

I was thinking about the changes we will face as a family once this baby arrives in August.  His birth really decreases his siblings summer by about 3 weeks.  Starting in July, we have the "one hour from the hospital" tether to deal with, too.  I don't want this to be remembered as The Summer of the Baby.  That's probably unavoidable, but I want there to be at least some other memories associated with these fleeting warm days.

With that in mind, I asked each kid what they'd like to do with their summer.  Their answers surprised me.

G(8) was quick to come up with a list.  It was mostly reasonable:  fishing, camping, go on a boat, go to the beach, get a rocket, visit Fort McHenry, and see the Declaration of Independence.  Oh, and become a big brother again.  This boy is obsessed with Thomas Jefferson, so I would like to make the trek to the National Archives to see the D of I.  But between a weekend of camping and a weekend at the beach, I just don't think I can swing that one.  I can tackle a bunch of his other goals, though.  We did the rockets yesterday.  We're going fishing with my brother and Dad today.  He leaves for camping with Cub Scouts on Sunday.  The following weekend, he's heading to the beach for a soccer tournament.  Fort McHenry is only 49 minutes away, so we may try that in July and still safely stay within the "one hour tether".  So I can handle his goals, for the most part.

We found a book on Thomas Jefferson at the bookstore.  He's a happy, happy kid!

K(12) was a little more reluctant to come up with a list.  She wants to go to the beach and camping.  Those are great choices because they are already planned.  Then she completely threw me:  she wants to go mountain climbing.  Mountain.  Climbing.  (Let's switch topics for just a second.  Let me list my fears:  Needles, snakes, MY KIDS IN HIGH PLACES.  I can't cope with them hiking in the rocky local park.  I can't handle high dives.  I panic.  I don't mind heights for myself, but when my kids are in high places, I Freak. Out.)  I think K caught my initial reaction and then threw in "sky diving" for good measure, too.  We settled on seeking out an indoor rock wall.  I'm thinking this place is going to be our best bet.  It's only 45 minutes away, so I'm still safe to give it a try after the traveling at the end of the month.

J(15) doesn't have a list... yet.  She is going to high adventure camp in July where she'll do white water rafting and actual mountain climbing and zip lining.  She's getting a lot of volunteer hours in through church and Scouts.  But as for actual 'stuff I want to do', she hasn't given me a list.  I guess I can't force her to... but I'm hoping she comes up with a few social things to do so she doesn't spend the summer in Cyber Land.

My goals for the summer?  So boring... painting, cleaning, organizing, and sleeping as much as possible.  Oh, and to keep the kids busy, of course!

K(12) caught the tiniest Sunny I've ever seen... and it promptly jumped out of her hands.  

The Things They Teach

I spent a whopping $10 on a rocket kit for G(8) yesterday.  It covered a Cub Scout elective (probably not as they intended... I'm sure Scouts expected us to do something complicated and spendy, but baking soda and vinegar is what they got.)  And, as usual, Toys R Us completely failed to impress.

It was very nice of J(15) to take time from her busy texting/Facebook schedule to help her little brother out.

The thing is, G wasn't upset with the lack of success.  You can even hear him say, "That was the best one yet!" at the end of the video.  I need to be more like him... more in the moment, happy with his own definition of success.

***UPDATE***

David came home and promptly schooled us in the art of rocketeering.  We didn't reach heights of 50 feet, but we did get a good 25-30 feet, accompanied by a beaming, happy G howling at his father's hatred of vinegar.  I stand corrected!

Use the Force?

A major thing happened last night.  Two major things actually.

First, J (15) spend 5 hours volunteering at the church carnival without either parent being there.  And the world didn't end.  Second, I made the decision to let her boyfriend (who was also volunteering) drive her home.

J is my ADHD kid.  Brilliant child with a bright future ahead of her - honors classes, dedicated to community service, love of theater, just all around interesting kid.  However, every now and then her ADHD rears its ugly head and she makes some rash decisions.  So usually, in an event like the carnival one of us sticks around in the background, keeping an eye out for her inner spaz.  Only last night it was pouring and we were working on the latest bedroom transformation, so I just left her there.  How much trouble can she get in, really?  It's our church, for heaven's sake!  And everyone knows her, right?  So I cut the apron string a smidge.  And I think she felt awfully grown up.

The driving part was hard.  She didn't ask, but it certainly made my life a little easier, so I made the suggestion.  The boyfriend seems very harmless and he had his younger brother with him, so they weren't alone.  We live about 4 minutes from church.  It requires a left-right-left series of turns to get up the hill and into our neighborhood with a top speed of 35 mph.  If it hadn't been dark, she really could have walked.  She texted me before they left and twice in the car:

J:  We're in the parking lot.  Heading out now.

Me:  Be safe.  Be smart.  Wear your seatbelt.  Come straight home.  I love you.

J:  I KNOW Mom.

Me:  You don't know.  You think you know, but you don't know.  SO just listen to me for a change and I will see you in 5 minutes.

J:  Okay, Mom.

J:  We're on our street.

And then she was home and the boy walked her to the door, chatted with me for a minute (nice kid!), hugged her, and was on his way home.... his mother can deal with the stress of highway driving in the rain.

Clearly she's growing up.  Clearly she's dealing with it very well so far.  Clearly I'm not the massive, panicked mess I thought I would be (okay, so I was a little worried) about all of these changes.

But now I want her to go to the library's zoo program with us.  I let her do all kinds of grown up things last night and watched her handle them extremely well... and part of me immediately wants to force her to do something her 8 year old little brother isn't even very keen on.  This growing up process is tough on both of us and I'm not going to force her to go.  I remember reading that teens spend a lot of their teen-time making huge leaps toward independence and then immediately retreating back to their childish pre-teen state.  I didn't realize parents went through the same process.

Sigh.