The Parenting Files: Peers and Challenging Behaviours

My son come home yesterday spouting comments along the lines of "I'm never going back to school", and "I'm leaving and going to another school".  Apparently he is having friendship issues again.  Apparently I need to email his teacher about it.  Again.

The problem is that he is not completely innocent in the friendship issues.  He does things that annoy the others.  I know exactly what it is that he does that annoys the other kids.  I've seen it.  They've told me.  Last night we had a long discussion about being honest with ourselves because aren't usually mean just for the sake of it.  Not a whole class!  That doesn't excuse their behaviour or make it OK, but you do reap what you sew.

He wasn't happy to hear that he needed to own some of the cause for being teased or for the kids being mean.  I know those kids very well - mostly they're really lovely kids.  So I sent Mr Busy off with Matthew 5 and Psalm 37 in his new Bible, received for his 13th birthday.  When he came back to me he'd read some of the comments in the margins.  Quest Bibles have great information for younger people or new Christians.  Then we talked about the kinds of behaviours God wants us to engage in, and how God won't prevent the consequences of bad choices.  We also talked about how God wants to bless us and how choosing His ways and the behaviours He says are good can be the pathway to receiving the blessings God has promised.

We talked a lot about being meek. 

We looked it up. 

Gentle, kind, humble, courteous, patient.

Hopefully he'll switch his brain on before he says or does things today.  Thirteen year old boys don't seem to think much before they act.  Who said boys were easier?  I reckon the girls were much simpler at this age.  And much more sensible.

Updates Of All Kinds

Lots of updates for you today.....

I am still healthy.  I am surrounded by little people with snotty noses and God is good.  I started to get a sore throat the other day.  More praying.  More ease-a-cold.  I'm tellin' ya folks, if you're the praying kind and aren't opposed to natural cold and flu stuff this is working out to be a good prevention recipe!  It could also be that God just know I can't take any days off because I would find it so difficult to make them up later. 

The daily devotional thing is still going.  I've missed a day or two with the change in routine that has come about from being at a different school.  But I am enjoying thinking about those Bible passages from the perspective of "what did I learn?" and "what will I do?"  I don't even read the blub in the booklet.

Teaching rounds are going so well.  The teacher I'm working with is an amazing person to work alongside and to learn from.  She lets me experience my own inexperience and then provides me with really helpful and meaningful feedback that I am able to implement the next time I'm teaching. 

Amongst all of that I'm trying to write an assignment.  Ugh.  I miss my day off!

Going the Extra Kilometre....or Fifty

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I began teaching rounds today.  It was so very nice to be back with the Preps I met in February.  And they remembered me...that's always a heartwarming thing.

For the month of May the school I am in is getting the student body involved in "Go the Extra Mile".  The school has decided to donate to last year's funds recipient as it was more appropriate for little people as well as big people.  So, for the rest of the month of May I need to get moving!  I need to do 2km every day to reach the goal, which is also my last day there.

I think it's interesting that I had just been pondering my dilemma of not having time to exercise.  I was reading something the other day that challenged me that this is a lie.  Well...I'm yet to be convinced that this is actually a lie for me.  People who are often up at 5am working and don't really stop except to cook and eat dinner until about 9.30pm are pretty busy and genuinely find it difficult to fit extra things in.  So rather than saying "I don't have time" I've started thinking "what can I do that will fit in a schedule like mine?"  And here is the answer, handed to me just like that.  Walk.  At school.  It is 2.2km from my front door to the end of the main street in Our Town and back again.  I think I'm going to have to drag a child out to walk with me after work every day.  It's too dark in the mornings when I would want to be doing it.  And we'll be walking the track around the oval regularly throughout the week as well.  Just in case there are days I really don't get out at home.

I'll keep you posted!  It'll be an interesting and, no doubt, challenging journey for this I-wish-I-loved-exercise person.

Baking Day and Colds

A few weeks back when I last trekked over to Costco I bought a 2kg bucket of Greek yoghurt.  I enjoy it with a little drizzle of maple syrup for breakfast some mornings, when I'm bored of egg on toast and it was the same price as a 1kg tub.  Apparently I don't enjoy it quite as much as the quantity required of me by the use-by date.  Two kilos is a lot of yoghurt!

So what to do with about 1/2 a kilo of yoghurt that has officially gone past its use-by?  My answer is CAKE!  One gluten free, one regular and both containing yoghurt so that nothing was wasted.  The timing was doubly perfect as we're off on a family picnic tomorrow.  Now my mission is to convince everyone they don't need icing.  Dh and the girls have all got/had colds this week.  Sugar always makes the symptoms worse so I have a bit of a job on my hands!

And on the subject of colds, I have decided that even though there are more cold/flu germs in our house right now than could sink a ship I will be not be getting sick.  I begin teaching rounds again on Monday and have to make days up if I take time off.  I'm not doing it....it's decided.  Just to make sure I'm taking ease-a-cold tablets to get ahead of any germs. And eating chicken soup.  And praying lots because God is the one who insisted I do this degree.  So far I'm fine.

The Parenting Files: Gradual Release Check

We're heading into some birthday weeks here.  That there are three of us close together makes me step back and take stock of where we're at.  That and a post from the lovely Frances about letting go just a little bit.  One of my children is nearing official adulthood.  We only have a year to finish preparing her for adult independence.  At the other end of the spectrum, a child who begins his teen years.  He has mastered the baking of one or two things independently and is working on cooking meals.  In between the two is the child who embodies balance between the two: courageous independence juxtaposed with needing reassurance from her parents.

It seems the whole of motherhood is a journey of preparing our children to fly.  To leave the nest with wings strong enough to carry them through the journeys ahead of them.  Our program of gradual release is well on target.  Driving lessons, cooking lessons, how-to-keep-your-room-clean lessons.  They're all under way.

It's easy to scaffold those practical things until children can perform tasks independently, but it's so much harder to figure out how and when to remove the supports that give our kids emotional stability and discipline.  It's hard to watch them suffer the consequences of their own decisions sometimes.  We're working on moving to a negotiation and advice model of parenting, rather than direct instruction.  Unless a cup of tea is involved and then there is still lots of direct instruction!  There's also direct instruction happening around the compulsory eating of school lunches which give a growing lad necessary brain fuel.  Like I say....what to push and what to step back on.  They're tough decisions.

How's your program of gradual release going?

First Week of Devotion

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It's been an interesting week.  I've learnt a lot about finding time for a personal 'quiet time', how simple that can be to achieve and how very much you can learn out of a few verses.

I don't think I know a Christian who doesn't struggle with being diligent about their quiet time. In the past week I have sat in the middle of the hubbub that swirls around our house in the mornings and just read.  And journalled. Then I've gotten on with the morning and the day.  I think I had thought a quiet time had to be the first thing you did in the day and away from other people.  This week I've realised that God can speak through all the noise and carrying on.  It can be the third or fourth thing you do and He won't mind at all.

The tool that has helped most has been answering two questions: what did I learn? and, what will I do?  Punchy little innocent-looking questions that really make you think about what you're reading and how you are going to respond.  Write your response down - it helps solidify everything in your head rather than thoughts that whimsically float in and out of your head.  Or is it just me this happens to?

I'm about to put something together for Miss Sunshine to help her through her Texts and Traditions subject at school.  They are spending a year studying the book of Luke, which in her teenaged mind is utterly slow and boring, especially when the rest of the world is fast and exciting.  And while I have challenged her to use this as an opportunity to really take in what God is saying to her, and how taking it so slow is actually really worthwhile, she's still very much a kid and just wants to get it done. 

I think I need to put some new cool fonts to use.  'Cos that's the other thing I've discovered this week:  free, very cute fonts.  You can find them here.  You just pick the one(s) you want, right click on it, open it and then click on install.  Voila, it will appear on all your Microsoft programs just like *that*.

When Curriculum Planning Builds Faith

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My school is just embarking on the journey of using the Understanding by Design process for designing curriculum. I had thought it was just a different looking curriculum document and hadn't thought too hard about it until we were looking at it the other day as a staff.  My Head of Primary offhandedly mentioned that curriculum design by this approach requires Christian teachers to be in the Word so that we can bring that into our classrooms.  Hmmmmmm.  I didn't ever think that curriculum design could ever be the impetus to grow a deeper faith!  That one comment was the wake up call I needed to consider the changes I need to make in my personal life in order to be the Christian teacher I need to be for my students.

So, rather than reading The Age over breakfast (free on my iPad!) I am now arming myself with my Bible and the journal given to us at church a couple of months ago and I've begun using my breaky reading habit to get that ever-elusive devotional time.  And you know what?  Within two days I was able to use what I'd read to encourage someone else. 

The other impetus for change has been attending an incredibly inspiring statewide conference for Christian teachers.  We finish tomorrow and then head back into our classrooms with our students on Thursday.