I am not trying to denigrate our pain or our conversations about it, just adding a little to the scales. After all, if we only had rain, and never any sunshine, there'd be no flowers.

I'll start out by adding a joke here that my cousin in Egypt sent today:

God the Parent:Whenever your kids are out of control you can take comfort from the thought that even God's omnipotence did not extend to God's kids. After creating heaven and earth, God created Adam and Eve. And the first thing He said to them was: "Don't.""Don't what?" Adam asked."Don't eat the Forbidden Fruit." God replied."Forbidden fruit? We got Forbidden Fruit? Hey, Eve..we got Forbidden Fruit!""No way!" "WAY!""Don't eat that fruit!" said God."Why?" "Because I am your Creator and I said so!" said God, wondering why he hadn't stopped after making the elephants. A few minutes later God saw the kids having an apple break and was angry."Didn't I tell you not to eat that fruit?" the 'First Parent' asked."Uh huh," Adam replied. "Then why did you?""I dunno," Eve answered."She started it!" Adam said."Did not!""DID so!""DID NOT!" Having had it with the two of them, God's punishment was that Adam and Eve should have children of their own...thus the pattern was set and it has never changed. But there is reassurance in this story. If you have persistently and lovingly tried to give them wisdom and they haven't taken it, don't be too hard on yourself. If God had trouble handling children, what makes you think it would be a piece of cake for you?

love ya,

katlaughing

catspaw

When my son was an angry teen, is there any other kinds, sometimes, I was in a lot of despair. We moved to CT, he didn't want to follow our rules, so I drove off and left him standing in the street, in MA, with a small pile of possessions around his feet, huddled like a scared puppy. He was 17. We always keep in touch by phone and we often went up to see him, it was a 2-3 hour drive, and took him groceries etc. he often lived on the street or on someone's couch.

He worked his way up from dishwasher to manager of a Masonic bldg in which Cal Coolidge had his law office at one time. We left him inthe street 12 years ago and he has never looked back. He is now the HVAC Mgr. for almost 1,000 apt. in Louisville, KY and an part-time amateur micro-brewer, owns his own home and a new truck, and is pretty happy.

He was into horrible music, wore black, dyed his hair black and got into trouble. Now when we look back on it, he tells me leaving him to fend for himslef was the best thing that ever happened to him. Our love and respect for one another continues to deepen. I am convinced that his early upbringing, esp. my family's influence, is the main reason he came out okay. He had plenty of strikes against him, including a teenage dropout for a mother!

I can safely say, my other two, both women, are going an equally sane and safe route, although I might not like their choices all of the time.

Remember the good things about your children and those of others, compliment them for it, and give thanks that it is so. One thing I learned from my mom that I never tire of telling my kids is how proud of them I am. Mom was always telling me that and I believed her. This gave me strength and confidence.

C'mon, 'Catters, I know you have some similar stories. Let's hear 'em.

kat

Well, last night someone handed me the answer to this argument, to use on people who think that "no hitting" means "no discipline."

"Spare the rod and spoil the child" is a phrase which came out of the O.T. semi-agricultural society, and is a reference to a shepherd's rod.

1. The rod was used to guide sheep, and fend off predators. Hitting sheep is pointless.

2. The ancient Hebrews, from what we know, weren't into corporal punishment -- you could stone your children for disobedience, but beating and spanking?? Which part of the O.T. do we apply?

3. J.C. didn't say it was OK to hit kids.

There is a great young adult novel called *Making up Megaboy* in which the theme is a lack of community leading to whacked out kids. I recommend it as a great discussion book.

-- MA, wearing the youth librarian hat.

Actually, my 16 year old son and I were just discussing one of those times about half an hour ago. Bear with me, I don't know how clearly I can give you this picture.

My son's Psych class covered ADD/ADHD today. He told me he listened to the description of all the symptoms and said to himself, "Uh huh. That's right. I have ADHD all right."

Now, I discovered for myself, about a year ago, that I have the "daydreaming" type of ADD, and I have strongly suspected that Darriel has ADHD although it's not bad enough for my insurance to cover testing him for it. I've told him a lot about it and tried to teach him some of the skills and techniques that will help him to compensate, but he still got failing notices this quarter in four classes. I won't go into the new approaches I'm taking now to helping him learn, although I feel we're making some progress. I just want to tell you about this one incident three or four years ago.

That year, after about 8 weeks of school, he got the usual bunch of failing notices. I hit the ceiling and started making my usual loud noises about taking away TV privileges and not letting him spend time with his friends if the grades didn't improve. To my amazement, he started crying. He said, "You don't know how hard it is for me. I just can't do any better, and I don't know why, but I try as hard as I can. It's depressing enough not to be able to pass my classes, but if you take away my TV and my time with my friends, my life will be just awful." Well, he doesn't cry lightly. I made the decision that even if he had to take every grade twice, I would never again threaten to cut off his TV privileges or time with friends (sometimes I have to restrict them to allow time for schoolwork, but that's not punitive.)

I didn't know he had ADHD at the time, I just knew my kid was hurting and I respected him enough to know he was telling me the truth when he said he tried to pay attention in his classes and just couldn't do it.

Just now when we were discussing ADHD, I brought up that incident. He nodded and said, "You don't know how depressing it is to think I'm doing better, to work as hard as I can and then find out my grades have actually gotten worse." Not everyone would agree that I made a good decision then, but I think it was one of the really positive things I've done as a parent.

Thanks for starting this thread. - Rita

love ivy b.

ps love the origonal joke!

Oh my, can you imagine what would happen if BOTH left and right would give up just some of their "sound bite" issues and for a few years worked TOGETHER to save the current and next generation of children? Picture Charlton Heston AND the ACLU saying to Hollywood "That's it guys, "kids are more important than profits! End of story!" Or how about Billy Graham and Louis Farakhan demanding an end to discrimination (and the anger that it breeds) for the children's sake alone. It could happen, but only if those first two prominent members from the left and the right take that incredibly courageous and initially isolating step. And..it WOULD save the children.

rick

I've mentioned elsewhere that I have lots of Senior Moments. A friend who's a social worker told me, about a year ago, that some of my forgetfulness seemed like attention deficit. The more I read, the more I understand that I've been struggling with this psychological/ neurological pattern most of my life. It seems to cause a lot more problems for my kid than it did for me even though his problems are mild compared to some.

I apologize if this is more than you ever wanted to know. We have one friend, a psychologist, who believes there is no such disorder as ADD, and it makes me wild to try to talk to him. So I thought I'd state firmly that it sure seems to me to be a genuine phenomenon. I'm not a teenager, I'm not a kid in school, I'm not trying to get out of any of my responsibilities or avoid pulling my weight, there are just factors in my genes that make me forget what I was doing, fail to hear the timer bell go off when I'm cooking, forget that I set up a file so I wouldn't lose a certain type of paper, etc.

Coming down from my soapbox now. Sorry for the confusion in the earlier post. - Rita F

PLEASE KNOW, EVERYBODY, I DID NOT WRITE THIS TO OFFEND ANYONE, INCLUDING CHRISTIANS!!!

"Tolerance & Values, or, Applying the Psychic Broom"

"It seems to me that the more tolerance one extends to other beings, the more values one declares in one's life.

If one values one's own existence and that of one's family and friends, this should translate into an increased tolerance of others.

But is this so? The bigot may proclaim, quite loudly, his/her love of self and faMily, yet denigrate an opposite race, sex, profession, dweller, country, etc. Then, does this bigot have values and can they be improved upon?

Most likely the bigot will declare his/her values of love, honour and protection of family; thus espousing the "normal" family values. But, sometimes these so-called family values, remarkably male, Anglo-Saxon in their origin, also include lack of tolerance and respect for others of a different ethnicity, sexual preference, religion, colour, etc. The bigot's family values will include overt or unconscious racism, sexism, isms ad infinitum. All will be aimed at the destroying, redefining, or reprogramming of anyone different or anything which does not conform to the bigoted view of life. Of course, this narrow-livingness is NOT an exclusive of the patriarchal Christain life; other religions and societies certainly have their bigots, too.

Now, to be fair, are there non-racist, non-sexist bigots? Can a liberal who displays tolerance for race, sex, religion, also be a bigot? Does her/his disdain and protests for animal rights, a clean earth, free range cattle and chickens make him/her a bigot? Does this person then become intolerant, as inflexible and full of hate as a right wing, conservative bigot? Doesn't it take two wings to fly? Left AND right?

These are based on views of an Anglo-European world. If one were to examine and perhaps embrace the concept of balance of the Native Americans and some Eastern traditions, we find a tolerance, even for bigots! In some Native American cultures, spiritual ceremonies are conducted, even for murderers, which bless, forgive, and seek to return the criminal to a balanced way of life in which he/she will, hopefully, commit no more crimes. They will "walk in balance".

In some Eastern traditions, a person is said to be working out or living through their karma -- the system of life upon life in which one tries to learn from the mistakes of past lives and eventually attain Nirvana.

In the Dalai Lama, we find a human being who does not even promote hatred or anger towards the very peoples who took over his ancient country. Practising the sacred act of "ahimsa", harmlessness to all things, he, and his followers, brush mosquitoes off, rather than swat; sweep a walk with a gentle broom rather than crush the tiniest ant.

So, too, might the bigots, right wing and left wing gently sweep the walks of their minds and hearts; might they cease, even for a short walk, their hatred and intolerance? Would they then, through application of a "psychic broom" become more tolerant, thus displaying a mein of real Christain and/or other religious values?"

1994 Katey LaFrance

My suggestion was that folks from both sides give up JUST ONE issue. I swear that would show so many people that there might be hope of consensus. For the children's sake dammit!

katlaughing

What am I getting at? Each person, in his/her life, will face conflict & hurt. We can't protect our children from that, any more than we can protect ourselves. The important thing is to teach them how to respond. The children of our society need to feel that they are seen as individuals, that they are seen to be worthy of love & respect. They need to be taught to be responsible for their own actions & they need to understand that they have power over their lives. Too many in society today focus on what is being *done* to them or what should be done *for* them, rather than realizing that each of us has power to determine our course of life.

I am a parent & I am an educator. I take the job/s very seriously. In my school, I know that many of my students may see me more hours a day than they see their (working) parents. In each setting, I feel a deep responsibility to model responsible, fair, loving behavior & to hold these kids--the future leaders of our world--accountable for their behavior. None of us can touch all the children of the world, but all of us can touch some. It may not seem like any big thing we do, but little things add up, for good or ill.

Right now, I am trying to make a difference in the life of one child--my son's friend who has just (I believe, unjustly) been thrown out of school (see "Frenzy" thread). His mother is not available & his father is out of the picture, so he is over at my house for the weekend. It was not a good time for him to be alone. Life is full of choices; we need to help our kids make ones which are wise & positive. God grant us the wisdom to do so.

bbc

Well where do you start with this one? Good stuff all, so good there is not much to add, but I will.

For an example of the way constructive argument (in this forum at least) can result in a strongly held position being reversed or at least modified, have a look at the ' Parody :Good Or Bad' thread. As for being cast out, I will have some trouble trying to explain my change of view to my fellow band members but I think that is due to the fact that they do not really understand how I work..

Because I express my opinions strongly, other tend to think that I have a clear view of how I see things and that this view is fixed. The reality is that I am not sure of anything and enter into discussions, willing to be convinced either way, even if this takes a little time to re-consider. If points are raised that make me question my original position, I see no real problem in agreeing with them..... I do not appear to be perceived by others in this way though?

Thanks for the explanation of the various learning problems, I don't know if these labels really help anyone very much though. Surely all these labels are saying is that, we are all different, have different strengths and weaknesses, learn at different rates, and that we have to use different methods.....Not such a shattering revelation, surely?

So why do we still continue to try and shove people at the same rate, through the same shaped hole and make them feel it's their failure, when they don't easily fit?

As for bigots:... SONG WARNING-SONG WARNING.

This one is down to my Geography teacher and it was just about the only constructive thing I remember learning there.

He told me that the phrase, 'present company excepted', was the last refuge of the bigot. It enabled her to give full rent to her prejudice, whist seeming to excuse the individuals present, from it.

Sorry about that.... I was only teasing. I was going to say 'he', and 'his' but stopped and went to put 'them and 'their', but then I just couldn't resist it...... Would anyone have picked me up for saying 'he' and 'his', in this context, I wonder, or are all bigots male? Just to add yet another subject to this thread.

The bigot's song.

Present company excepted, they're robbing us blind,
It's my view, that I'm entitled to and its true I'm 'gonna' speak my mind
Present company excepted, they think that they're 'high fliers',
It's understood, that they're no good and should be known as cheats and liars
Present company excepted, you're the only one, that I might trust,
It's clear to see, you're a lot like me and nearly could be one of us.

Present company excepted, they've got it laid on a plate,
It's such a shame, they're all the same, I blame it on the Welfare State.
Present company excepted, they seem to need to shout it,
With that hair and the clothes they wear, can't bear to even think about it.
Present company excepted, well you wouldn't know it,
You look all right, appear quite bright, well you might be but you don't show it.

Present company excepted, do they really believe it?
All the fuss they make, for religion's sake, well me, I can take it or leave it.
Present company excepted, I'm sorry if I tread on your toes,
I want to make it clear, to all those here, you don't appear to one of those.
Present company excepted,..... why has everyone departed?
Well it goes to show, they have to go, when they know that they've been out-smarted.

Roger Gall 1997

bbc, Your son and his friend are extremely lucky to have a person like you in their corner. I know we disagree about the school's approach to the whole situation, but the bottom line is that those two kids KNOW that someone cares.

Kat, I'M still trying to understand what I said! (see Shambles second paragraph) I'll keep ya posted.

Remember JoMaMa's advice, it is always best to let sleeping dogs lie.