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Texting Your Child While in School

During a particularly difficult time for my daughter, she sent me a text one day from school. She needed to tell me something. I responded, she responded, I responded…it turned into a 20 minute “texting” conversation. All of this was while she was in a class. I felt a twinge of guilt. Should I really be texting my daughter while she is in school? I’m sure most parents would say no. But the circumstances wouldn’t allow me to say, “We’ll talk about it later.” The reality is that she may not have been ready to discuss what she was. Now … Continue reading →

What Really Happens in the Classroom?

My 7-year-old and I play a little game on the ride home from school each day called “High Low.” After we clear the madness that is the school’s parking lot we take turns telling each other one high point and one low point of our respective days. A couple of weeks before Christmas my daughter shared a “high” of crafting Christmas cards for her teacher’s 20-something-year-old unmarried daughter who couldn’t make it home to Wisconsin for the holidays. I didn’t get all the details, but I from what I gathered, the teacher’s daughter had to remain in Texas for some … Continue reading →

Bystanders to Bullying

I have written a number of blogs on the topic of bullying but a recent “Dateline” special got me thinking about another aspect of bullying…the role of a bystander. As one expert on the show said, “Bystanders are absolutely the most critical part of stopping bullying.” She said that most bystanders tend to think they are doing the right thing, by not participating. They think they are in a neutral position. However by refusing to intervene and stop the bullying, they are really siding with the bully. I had never given much thought to that. I have talked to my … Continue reading →

Bullying Leads to a Suicide Pact

Suicide is such a devastating way to go. Recently two 8th grade girls (who were also best friends), Haylee Fentress and Paige Moravetz, made a suicide pact. The reason? They were being ostracized and bullied by others. Both girls left behind a note for their families. Bullying continues to be a huge problem today. Although bullying has always existed, it seems to have reached new levels…in some part, no thanks to technology. There are some who believe that bullying is just a part of childhood and that those who are victims need to somehow suck it up and deal with … Continue reading →

Is Your Child a Bully?

Once again last week Dr. Phil covered bullying in a show called “Raising a Bully?’ This show had a little bit of a different perspective in that it was more about the bully rather than the one being bullied. As I expected would happen, one of the parents of a bully attempted to defend her son. It really doesn’t matter what the details are. They were horrible and actually resulted in arrests being made. But the mother of one of the bullies was talking out of both sides of her mouth. In one breath she would admit that what her … Continue reading →

Parents and Teachers Need to Work Together to Stop Bullying

The Dr. Phil season has barely kicked off and already I am seeing him tackle a lot of teen issues. The biggest one on his plate is bullying. He has already done a couple of shows on teen bullying and is now starting an anti-bullying campaign. Like Dr. Phil, I too believe this is a serious issue. With technological advances in our society, bullying has been taken to a whole new degree. As I have said before, the bullying has to stop. One of the things that I feel would greatly help to stop bullying is if parents and teachers … Continue reading →

Talk to Your Teens about Bullying

Today I continue blogging about the recent Dateline special that featured segments on issues like teens and technology, allowing strangers into the home and what I am going to talk about today, bullying. The producers of Dateline staged a casting call for a fake reality television show. The first part of this segment featured a group of five middle school girls, with three of them being actors. The other two girls were being secretly watched by their parents through hidden cameras. The idea was to see how the two girls would react when the actors pretended to bully one particular … Continue reading →

The Bullying Has to Stop

The bullying has to stop. It has gotten out of hand and seems to be reaching new levels. I was on Facebook the other morning, checking everyone’s statuses. One of my Facebook friends had something in her status about her son sending her frantic text messages that he was being bullied at school. I don’t know what she ended up doing but if my child was sending me frantic text messages from school, I would be there in a heartbeat. I still don’t think that bullying is being taken as seriously as it needs to be. Bullying has gone to … Continue reading →

Can Good Parenting Prevent Teen Violence

There is a reason that we talk so much about discipline, and child behavior so much. This is because it is important to do as good a job in parenting as possible in hoped that it will keep our children on the straight and narrow through childhood and into adulthood. But can all the parenting in the world prevent some of the bad teen issues we are seeing in the news right now. News of gang rapes, rapes in middle schools, setting children on fire, and girl on girl beatings are the extreme in bad teenage behavior. Whenever I see … Continue reading →

Volunteering When You Have Other Children

Schools usually need a lot of volunteers throughout the year. There are many activities, programs, lessons and fundraisers that require parental help. And being a parent who volunteers helps you get to know what the school environment is like. You will also meet other parents, teachers and staff through volunteering. Increasingly though, it is becoming the norm for schools to ban any children from school property if they are not students. Our school used to be open to having siblings visit the classroom, but these days they are not even allowed during official visiting days or even school pageants. Since … Continue reading →