The fire ant test

When I was a kid we played a crazy game. Growing up in South Carolina (SC) we had a rather large fire ant problem. (you know those little ants that bite like a crazed dog) So we would find the biggest fire ant mound we could and try to push each other into the pile. Obviously, if you went into the pile you lost. I know you are thinking I'm crazy and I would have to agree (I mean I work with teenagers for a living). As I think about this game we used to play and how that would look if I tried to play it today here in South Texas (ST) I think it would look completely different. You see here the fire ant mounds aren't mounds at all but rather bumps, so there would be no way to play this game. But what does that have to do with anything?

Well you see, sometimes we see things going on in our kids lives that to us seems like fire ant mounds. You know, when they don't do their homework, disobey something we have told them to do, want to have pink hair, listen to screamo music, etc. What do we do when our children do or want to do something so horrible that we just cannot control our desire to crack down and make sure that they live up to our standards and desires? How do we not make SC ant hills out of what are really ST ant hills? You see, many times we look at something that our kids do and see all the negative parts of it. We also see that we have told them not to do something "a thousand times," but what we don't see is that our kids are actually in the process of learning who they are and figuring the world out. In other words, when our kids listen to music that we can't stand, they are just trying to find their type of music, or when they want a mohawk at 5 they are just trying to determine what their hair is going to look like for the rest of their life.

I will grant you that some of those things are big deals. If our kids don't do their homework, they may not make it through school and be able to go to college. But when they want to ride a skateboard instead of a bike, or get their nose pierced, it is not the end of the world as we know it. We have to begin to see our kids as people and not just our kids. As our kids begin to grow up - yes, even at 4 or 5 they are growing up - they have to discover who they are and we have to let them.

When my son came to us at 5 and said "I want a mohawk," we said ok, but you can only have it on the top and not down the back. He said ok and he still has it 3 years later. Someone asked me why I let my 5-year-old pick a mohawk and I had only one response "why not?" We see things in our kids lives, and we think they are huge, dangerous ant hills, when really they are just those little ants that get in your kitchen and annoy you. So, how do you decide what is a big, nasty SC fire ant mound and what is a small ST fire ant mound?

Well, here is the test - you need to look into the future and see if you would be upset if your kids were doing that thing while they were in college. If you would, then fight the battle. If you wouldn't care, then as Reba would say "lettitgo." So when your kids listen to music you don't like, remember your parents probably don't like your music either. From this point forward, when your kids do something that you don't like, just give that thing the fire ant test - is it a South Texas fire ant mound or is it a South Carolina fire ant mound? If it is a SC mound, then get out the fire ant poison and take it out. If it isn't then "lettitgo."

facebook, twitter and instagram what are those again?

Social media is huge today, but you already knew that, since you are on a social media site right now. Let's see, for me I am at least somewhat active on Twitter, Facebook, Blogspot, Flickr, Words with Friends and Instagram - at least that's all I can remember. I would venture to guess that if you have a child that is between 12 and 99, they have an account on at least one of these, if not multiple. You probably have an account on one or more of these as well. (And if you don't, why not?)

No, really, why not? You see, if your kids have an account on one of these sites, then you need to have an account as well, or at the very least have access to their account. We have to check behind our kids to see what they are putting out on the web for the world to see for so many reasons - here is a short list:

• Sexual predators
• Involvement in drugs/alcohol 
• Sexual activity with the person they are dating
• Cheating in school
• Signs of depression
• What they think about you
• Colleges and employers look at their pages

Now, I know that is a short list, but really there are many more. I think all of those are huge in the lives of our kids and their relationship with us. But how do you know if you they are putting themselves in bad positions even if you do have accounts on these sites? How do you know that your kids don't have multiple accounts on the same site so they can show you one and their friends others? How do you know?

I don't think you can know 100%, but you can follow it pretty closely with a few easy steps. First, friend them on the site (or follow, or whatever it is on the particular site - if you don't know how then ask them to help you.) Second, check on their profile on a regular basis - that means go to their site and even look at their page while they are on it. If you look over their shoulder and their page looks different than the one you see, it might mean they have more than one.  Third, ask them about some of the things they post. They don't have to be big important things, but just asking them in real life lets them know you are not just spying on them. Fourth, don't put mushy, sappy stuff on their wall or they will make a second page. (That means moms, you can't post xoxoxo on your son's facebook page on his birthday, as much as you would like to.)

The biggest part is just get involved and pay attention. Talk to your kids about what they put up and help them understand the dangers without sensationalizing them. And have fun with social media - who knows -  you might like it more than your kids do!

Watering my grass

Watering the grass is one of those things that I hate doing. I think it has to do with the fact that I hate yard work altogether. But I forget to turn off the sprinkler at the right time, and I end up watering the road in front of my house or I have a lake in my backyard.

But with all that said, I know I have to water my grass - because I live in south Texas and if you don't it will die. Then I'll have a brown yard. Then I will get cracks in my yard and it will make my foundation crack. I know you are saying to yourself "I thought this was a parenting blog, why is he telling me about yard work?"

Well since you asked, I'll tell you. We water the grass because it has to have water to grow. We have to give our grass what it needs to be able to thrive. In the same way we have to give our kids what they need to thrive - physically, emotionally, socially and spiritually - because that is what we do. So what is it that they need to thrive?

Physically, they need you to show them affection - hug them, kiss them, put your arm around them, high five, fist bump, just make physical contact so they know you love them. Take every opportunity to show them physical affection. This is easy to do when they are little and cute but it is important even when they act like they don't like it when they are teenagers.

Emotionally, they need to know that you love them - they need to hear the words come out of our mouth. Our kids need to hear the greatest three words in the English language: "I love you." But they also need to hear words of encouragement and affirmation. We need to tell them when they do things good and right and not just bad and wrong.

Socially, our kids need us to help them learn how to fit in - in other words not be socially awkward. How do we do that? We have to help them not stick out like sore thumbs but we don't want them to be consumed by trying to be popular. To do this, we need to give them safe social environments to learn how to interact with peers. I think one of the greatest places to do that is sports teams and church student ministries.

Spiritually, we need to help our children see that God is the most important relationship they have - they need to see that God is our most important relationship. We must model what it means to put God first in our lives. It is a great idea to have some type of regular Bible reading together as a family as well as praying together as a family. I've found recently that the best time for us as a family has been supper time. I pull out my iPhone and use Youversion to read a portion of the Bible and then we talk about it for a couple of minutes.

Now that we know how to give them what they need to thrive, we need to keep one more thing in mind.  Just like when I water my grass, we can over do it. Sometimes we see these four areas and we just pour into those areas and we can overwhelm our kids. We can end up watering the road or making a pond in the backyard.

Physically, we can crowd our kids and take away the specialness of the affectionate touch we give. Emotionally, if we say those three words all the time they can begin to lose meaning. Socially, we can put so much pressure on our kids to "fit in" that we can take away from who they are and cause them to focus on being popular and fitting in more than just being who God made them to be. Spiritually - there's no way to over do this, right? WRONG. If we push too hard in this area, we can make our kids feel like they can never measure up. We can also make them think they can just rely on the fact that we have a great faith so they are good to go. So give them what they need but don't overdo it.

One last thing - sometimes we just need to let our kids be kids and remember that if we are giving them what they need, they will still make mistakes and sometimes it is just part of being a kid.

"Nothing"

"Nothing", "I'm fine", "I don't know". Do these answers sound familiar? Which one do you hear most from your teenager/pre-teen? I think both of those are copout answers and if we let our kids get away with it, we are taking the easy way out ourselves.

When someone says "nothing," "I don't know," "I'm fine," or any other teenage answer to a general question, they are doing it to avoid the real issue, whatever that may be. Sometimes they are avoiding the issue as much as they are avoiding talking at all. Many times teens and pre-teens say these things just to see if we really want to talk, or if we are just trying to make ourselves feel better by having asked a question at all.

There are times that we as adults ask kids something just because we feel like it’s our job, and not because we actually want to have a discussion with them. When we ask questions designed to get an easy answer, we are hurting our kids and ourselves, not to mention our relationship with them.

How do we hurt ourselves? That is a good question--thanks for asking. When we allow our kids to wiggle out of really talking, we miss the chance to help them learn, influence their decisions and generally get to know them as people, not mention the most obvious thing—we miss the chance to PARENT THEM.

So how do we stop the copout? The first step is to recognize it for what it is: An easy way out. Then, when we recognize the easy answer, we have to stop it in its tracks. The best way I have found to combat the "nothing" answer is to ask a more specific question. (Instead of "How was your day", ask "How was your first period class?", or "What did you have for lunch?") Anything more specific that will jog their memory is better than letting them get away with yet another “Fine.” Many times our kids genuinely don't remember what they did during the day and we have to help them think through it so they can remember. 

So, recognize the copout, stop it in its tracks, and finally, don't stop with just one question. Sometimes we ask a question like "How was first period?" and we get about 30 seconds of conversation out of that but we let it end there.

We have to go further. Either ask a totally different, yet specific, question or build off of that one. "So what did you think when Mr. Jones said Abraham Lincoln was the greatest president?" or "How did you do on the pop quiz in English?" Anything goes. The biggest thing is to begin to ask questions designed to get more than a one-word answer. Eventually we will get the hang of it, and our kids will understand that we truly care about them and what is going on in their lives. When they realize that, the floodgates will open.

Homework time

I don't know about you but when it comes time to help my kids with homework, I would rather go to the dentist. I hate all the whining and crying and everything else that goes with homework (and the kids whine a lot too!). But we have to help our kids - that is part of parenting, or so I'm told. But what happens when you don't know what you are doing and can't help them with their homework? Well, back when we were in school the answer was easy, but not that fun - tutoring. You either had to stay late after school to let your teacher help you or our parents had to pay someone to tutor us, and that doesn't sound cheap to me.

Today, there are other choices. For us, when my son started struggling in math this year, we called my mom, who teaches 5th grade math, and now they are Skyping on a super regular basis while she teaches him one on one. Now I know not everyone has that luxury, but there are some other options in todays world of technology.

There are great options on the internet to help your kids learn, and many of them are FREE!! One that comes highly recommended is Khan Academy. They have over 3100 videos to help your kids learn better - or even help you learn something so you can help you child. This is a great site from what I have seen. My son doesn't know it yet, but this afternoon he will be working with the Khan Academy. I'll let you know how it goes.

So, instead of pulling your hair out, check out Khan Academy or one of the other sites listed below.
(I don't specifically endorse any of these sites I just found them for you through google. Comment on this blog if you use one and have feed back.)

Learn to Be
Free Math Help
Sheppard Software - for younger kids

What do I do now?

Have you ever had one of those moments where you child does something and you have no idea how to respond or what do? You are just frozen with shock and you are trying to figure out how to discipline them without killing them? The other day I was in the kitchen doing something - probably washing dishes it seems like we can dirty every dish with one meal, how does that happen? Sorry I'm digressing.

Anyway I was in the kitchen doing something and I notice my boys are wrestling in the living room. Nothing major, that happens all the time. But sometimes one will take it too far. My youngest did something that hurt my oldest and instead of understanding that is what happens when you wrestle my oldest got mad and kicked his brother across the room. He literally put both feet on his chest and pushed as hard as he could. I was shocked. I could not believe what I just saw. I had only one response. "GO TO YOUR ROOM!!!!"

I really just wanted to pick him up and throw him to his room but I restrained myself and just sent him to his room while I checked on his brother. Don't worry he wasn't hurt... severely anyway but he was crying and so I picked him up and held him and stuff. All the while trying to calm myself down so I could deal with his brother in a way that would be constructive and not destructive.

Once the situation was under control, I went to talk to my oldest and we talked about strength and how he was bigger and stronger than his little brother. We talked about injuries and how he could do long term damage to someone doing what he did. Then I gave him the consequences that were going to come down because of his actions. He was mad and didn't want to do what I was telling him he had to do but I had to stick to my guns and make him follow through with the punishment. I can only hope and pray that the consequences were enough for him to understand that he cannot do that any more.  But what do we do in the moment when our kids do the stupidest thing we have ever seen? How do we handle it and what do we say?

I think there are a few things that we have to be ready to do when there is that moment of stupidity with our kids. First, remember they are young and will do stupid stuff. My line to my wife is "he's only _____ years old." We have to keep that in mind because sometimes our kids seem like they are very mature and then they act like a kid again and we don't understand what happened. We have to be ready for them to act like kids.

Second, we have to understand that the best way kids learn how to act is through trial and error. So when they make an error we have to help them learn, not just blow them up. They do something stupid and then we have to help them learn not to do it again. How do we do that? Discipline.

But when we  discipline in one of the WDIDN (what do I do now?) moments we have to be careful. It is easy to give out punishment that we never intend to follow through on. (you are grounded for a month, you cannot have your phone back for three weeks, etc.) When we don't follow through with punishment, then we lose the ability to discipline our kids. They see us as weak and non-committal, and then when we threaten to do something they think - "yeah, but that won't last so no big deal."

We have to take a moment to think and calm down so we can make good choices. There have been a few times in my kids' lives where I didn't tell them the punishment for the action until the next day because I needed time to think it through and make it something that would have an affect on them learning what they needed to learn.

So when you have a WDIDN moment, remember to take a few moments before responding so that you can help your kids learn through trial and error. Have you had one of those moments lately?