Dilemna of the anti-gun mom

When my kids were little I could protect them from violence on TV and video games and I could prevent them from ever having guns or violent toys of any kind.
But since then, I've been falling down a slipper slope. I let them go to lazer tag games even though it clearly involves kids firing at each other. Why? Because it's fun and I don't want to be so politically correct that I won't let them have fun.
I've also allowed swords but not guns in the house although some water guns have made their way in - only to be put on a shelf or discreetly hidden by me.
Then we got a new X-Box for Christmas and my brother gave us several games - most of which had a teen rating. Before I knew what had happened, the boys were playing a video game in which they shoot down airplanes. Honestly, it seems pretty harmless even though it's rated Teen but there were others that I put up on the shelf while 8-year-old W. wailed about how it's not fair and his cousins play the games and they're only 4 and 7. "Every family has different rules," I told him.
I've told my kids how I feel about it. They know that "Mommy hates guns." But I feel like I've already been too lax about what I've allowed. This has led to some funny conversations. Their argument about laser tag: "It's like a gasoline nozzle, not a gun." Their argument about the video games, "There's nothing wrong with shooting. It's fun!" These arguments make me want to throw out all the guns.
And then there's TV where I don't allow them to watch adult TV or even much TV at all but where they usually plunk themselves in front of 'The Today Show" in the morning and learn all about Britney Spears' drug problems and the murder of the day.
Several studies, including a recent study at the University of Michigan, have found a link between children watching violent TV or playing violent video games and aggressive behavior both as children and later in life. (For an article on the study see ScienceDaily http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071127142134.htm).

piano lesson nightmares

Both my boys are taking piano lessons and our piano teacher is a friend who is a wonderful musician but an impatient teacher. I've always thought this was OK because R. and W. need someone to light a fire under them. But our piano lessons are torture so sometimes I wonder whether they should be taking lessons or at least taking lessons with this teacher.
R. has to be poked and prodded to practice and I have to sit with him and I have to remind him to count. So he's not really taking responsibility for practicing himself. When I try to talk to him about it he says he doesn't want to stop lessons. If I force the issue, he says that he wants to play but he doesn't want to practice. This is what everybody says about piano. But I sympathize.
W. has no trouble practicing. He's such a go-go kid, he's always looking for something to do anyway. So W. is moving ahead and, in fact, is now in R's piano book even though he started several months after R.
T., their piano teacher, says that R. starts playing and then when he tries to correct him, he falls apart and loses energy and just seems to space out. Is this a reaction to T. yelling at him? I don't know. I know part of it is a function of R.'s ADHD. He just has tremendous difficulty concentrating and we're going to see his pediatrician tomorrow to see if we should increase his medicine. Meanwhile, I guess we'll keep soldiering on and see if things improve. I sometimes wonder if it's worth it or if we should be switching teachers despite my friendship with T. Sigh.

School Play Rejection

My older son, R., tried out for the school play, "Alice in Wonderland." He's a shy, quiet kid who was never interested in acting but his school had a Shakespeare workshop and he loved doing that so he jumped at the chance to be in the play.
After he tried out, my friend, who is helping to organize the play told us, "Raymond was great. He was really fabulous." But he didn't get a call-back and when the posted the parts today he was, "Diamond Two," and I'm sure he's really disappointed.
Rejection. You want your kids to put yourself out there but when they do, they're bound to get rejected. Of course, we have to be proud of him and encouraging and tell him stuff like, "There are no small parts just small actors." But honestly, don't these stupid people realize how talented my son is. I want to throttle them. OK, I've had my little hissy fit. I guess I can't be one of those moms who calls up and complains even if these people are idiots. Instead, I have to be understanding and serene with them and with my son. That's show business. We'll try and encourag him in other ways and if we don't make a big deal it won't be a big deal to him.
I reminded my husband that it's really not about us and we should admit that we had visions of seeing R. in his starring role. Instead, he'll be out there as the two of diamonds saying his 1 or 2 lines. Oh well. I'm sure it won't be his last rejection so we better get used to it. He can talk about this in interviews when he goes on Broadway. Ha.

School Daze

R. has always struggled in school, although struggled doesn't seem quite the right word because the truth is R. has always spaced out in school. He has fun when it's something he enjoys - science, art, gym, recess.  But for the rest he's very passive and all this is probably typical of kids with ADHD.

The truth is he's doing much better. He's not way behind the class but he still sits back and waits for school to come to him. He's not engaged unless he's interested.  And so we hear that his teacher is keeping him at recess sometimes to complete work and one day my husband returned ho to find that R. was in tears after staying up late to complete an assignment and having to stay in and rewrite it in script.  Why? There was an assignment sheet with directions that he forgot to bring home or take out. 

And his teacher says she hates to crack the whip but he seems to need pushing and at the same time, she doesn't want to go too far.  I have the same dilemma. He mostly just resists doing anything I ask him unless I sit and ask him six times.  But he hates transitions, he hates doing anything difficult and that makes it all very difficult.

So now I'm trying to see if maybe we should increase Raymond's medication but I know only too well that increasing medication doesn't mean increasing his motivation and I don't know how to do that.

Next year, Raymond goes to middle school where he'll have five different classes and be expected to bring home his assignments and work independently. I'm already having nightmares about that. 

Too Stubborn

My older son, R., is too much like me. He gets a vision of what he wants and then he will not be deterred from his vision.  So when we had the idea of saving a few pine needles from our Christmas tree in a little box he went on a 20 minutes search.  That meant we couldn't read before we went to bed (we're on the last chapters of Harry Potter). I kept offering him boxes. Finally I realized that the box he wanted was a silver jewelry box my brother and sister-in-law gave me when they got married.  But I couldn't give him that one, so I found a box with a bird on it that was very nice.  Then he wanted to tape the pine needles in a certain way. More tears, more yelling. 

When I tucked him into bed, I told him that he is just like me, he has visions of what he wants and no one can stop him.  I told him we were bound to butt heads that way, just like two goats. He didn't quite get that one.  I later realized that he had taken a velvet board I have for my beading for his hovercraft for his birds. It seems he had created a hovercraft (a box with lights in it), for six of his stuffed birds.  When he again became teary-eyed at me disturbing their hovercraft nest, I told him he could keep it but then I was so annoyed that I slammed the box down and disturbed the hovercraft. So I had to apologize all over again and tell him he could keep the darned thing.

Sometimes I feel like nothing is sacred in our house.  The kids feel like the can take anything - anything is up for grabs. I'll see the turkey baster in the bathroom, the timer will be next to the bed.  It makes me crazy.

But it's good to keep in mind that the reason that R. and I get so mad at each other is he's just like me.  When I get mad at him, I'm really getting mad at myself. Hmmm.

Homework nightmares

Last night, my son R. had a homework assignment in which he had to write a letter to  Ruby Bridges.  It seems they had watched a move in school about Ruby Bridges, who was the little six-year-old girl who had to have U.S. marshals walk her into her all-white school. 

At 6:30 R. said he wanted my help. I was cooking dinner but I got things started and then we looked Ruby Bridges up on the Internet.  Then we had a long conversation while I was cooking about why she was important.  R. then wrote one sentence.  We had dinner and my husband came home.  R. still needed help with his homework and just stared at his paper.  Then Dad stepped in and informed R. that we would not tell him what to write and gave him a few more suggestions.  Tears. Wailing. Protestations that he couldn't come up with anything. I came over to offer to help because I became convinced he really couldn't do it. But Dad held fast and eventually R. came out to read us his sentences.  This process, mind you, went on until 10 p.m. W. went to bed, R. was still writing. We had dessert, he was writing over dessert. Finally, he came up with a pretty good letter that was in his own quirky style. "Did you lose many friends when you went to your new school?" he asked in the letter.

My husband gave him a pep talk about how elephants in the circus are conditioned not to break out of their chains and that he doesn't want R. to accept failure like the elephants. Well, I'm not sure about the analogy but it was great. And it does go to show that I'm not always the best one to help them be independent.

Teens and Drugs: The Danger of Generational Forgetting

OK, I may have jumped the gun on the dangers of the new drug salvia. After talking to a couple of drug experts, I don't think salvia is necessarily the next marijuana although it seems to be getting some hype in the media. So, that's the good news.

And there's also good news in a recent study that found drug use by teens is much lower than a decade ago. Lloyd Johnston, one of the lead researchers in an annual study by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, www.monitoringthefuture.org, said that drug use has decreased since the 1990s because teens learned of the dangers of alcohol, marijuana and harder drugs like LSD and heroin.

The study found that alcohol is the biggest problem for teens, with nearly a third of all eighth graders and two-thirds of all twelfth graders reporting drinking over the past year and nearly 13 percent of all eighth graders, 24 percent of all tenth graders and 46 percent of all twelfth graders saying they had gotten drunk over the past year.

Marijuana is also a big drug of choice for teens with 10 percent of eighth graders, nearly 25 percent of tenth graders and  nearly 32 percent of twelfth graders reporting smoking marijuana last year.

The numbers are much lower for harder drugs like heroin, LSD and ecstasy but those numbers could spike up again as teens no longer perceive those drugs as dangerous and the study found fewer eighth graders view harder drugs as dangerous.  

"It's a phenomenon I call generational forgetting," says Johnston. "They have to learn the lessons all over again. They learn the lessons from parents or drug campaigns or school education programs or they can find out firsthand why it's dangerous."

The solution is obvious: Talk to your kids and make sure you're giving them good information. Don't let this generation forget.