It may seem odd to be talking about putting kids on the bus to school when the school year is winding down or even, for many school districts, over and done with, but for one high school sophomore in American Fork, Utah, the morning send-off may be the best part about being through with school. It seems his dad loves him so much, he was willing to go to some pretty extreme lengths to show that love — including by putting on a wedding dress.
Sending Kids Off To School In Style
June 5th, 2011Click It or Ticket — For Kids Too
June 4th, 2011
When I was growing up, my siblings and I were absolutely required to wear seatbelts at all times when traveling in a car. Considering the way my mother drove, that’s a very good thing. Back then, it was a matter of personal choice; today it’s the law. Electronic signs along the freeways I drive to work proclaim “click it or ticket”, the slogan law enforcement agencies are using to remind people to wear their seatbelts and officers are indeed handing out tickets for failing to comply. As one Texas ten-year-old found out, that applies to kids as well as adults.
A Summer of Cinema
June 3rd, 2011
Has summer vacation snuck up on you as it has the rest of us? Are you staring at three months of “I’m bored!” and wracking your brain (and searching the internet) for activities that will keep them busy and happy without driving you insane or sending you to the poorhouse? Are you looking at the cost of summer camps and wondering how much your kidney would sell for — assuming you could even find a spot at any price? Well, help is here.
Of Bicycles and Inspiration
June 2nd, 2011
There have been many great speeches in our history. From Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address to Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream, the power of words to move and to motivate us should never be underestimated. That inspiration, too, can come from the most unexpected places. While we expect wisdom from political leaders and activists and occasionally find someone on television with something important to say and the ability to express it, sometimes powerful insight and motivation comes from the most unexpected places — like a little boy who just learned to ride his bike.
Dancing Is For Boys
June 1st, 2011
My oldest son is turning into quite the hoofer. He’s no Gene Kelly, yet, but at only nine years old, I wouldn’t expect him to be. If he keeps at it, however — and he certainly seems to have the motivation to do so — by the time he graduates from high school he very well could be up there with the likes of Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, The Nicholas Brothers, Sandman Sims, and so on. He’s always tapping his toes and practicing his dances.
Disrupting Graduation
May 31st, 2011
It’s a time for Sir Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance. It’s a time for formal dances and the robes of academia. For many, it signifies the end of childhood and the start of their adult life. Graduation from high school is no minor event and should be treated with the reverence it deserves. In Duncan, South Carolina, school officials and law enforcement are serious about making sure that’s the case.
Happy Birthday To You… Tube!
May 28th, 2011
Six years ago, if you wanted to show the video of your kid’s first day of preschool to your friends and family, chances are, you plugged your camcorder into the television set, fiddled with channels and inputs, and eventually got it working. If you had family far away or were just technologically inclined, you might have loaded the video onto your computer and burned a DVD to pop in the mail. Not so anymore. Today, everyone just uploads their videos to YouTube. This month, the service we all rely on turns six years old.
Fishes and Lizards and Snakes, Oh My!
May 25th, 2011
Kids like critters. Even the ones that say they don’t like them or who are scared of them are generally fascinated by them, if they can view them from an appropriate distance. So, of course, they make for great lessons — lessons the students won’t soon forget. After a day with non-human guests in the classroom, kids will rush home to breathlessly tell their parents that a lizard’s tail can grow back or that snakes lay eggs like a chicken. So why would anyone get upset about a lesson featuring geckos and clownfish?
Texas To Redefine Science In Schools
May 23rd, 2011
It’s a good idea to regularly review what schools are teaching in their science classes and update the curriculum as new discoveries are made and old theories evolve. That’s going to happen in Texas but the problem is that they’re not so worried about science down there. Or, rather, they are worried about science and are doing their best to eliminate it from the public school curriculum. Creationists on the State Board of Education have been appointing other creationists to the review panels and selecting materials that attempt to make the idea of an intelligent creator (i.e., God) sound all science-y. Aside from the idiocy and blatant illegality of that, the problem for the rest of us is that, in large part, Texas determines the content of science books for the rest of the nation.
Talking to Kids about the Rapture
May 22nd, 2011
If you’re reading this, no doubt you’ve realized that the rapture, predicted by Harold Camping of the Family Radio Network to occur on May 21, 2011, came and went and you were left behind. Chances are, this also means your kids were not taken home to Jesus either and, almost certainly, they’ll notice Monday morning that some of their friends aren’t in class and won’t be ever again. This will likely result in some confusion for your children and, as is so often the case in times of tragedy, they will need your support, guidance, and wisdom to cope with their new situation.
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