Lightening Online

There’s no doubt about it.

Parenting is a tough gig!

You show me someone who thinks it isn’t and I’ll show you someone living in la-la land.

Bringing up children to be well-adjusting, happy young adults is a tough ask.

Navigating the emotional turmoil of life, relationships, homework and education…. the list is never ending.

BUT, at the end of the day, our job as parents is NOT to be a child’s friend.

I’m not advocating a lack of mutual trust and constant bickering.

But at the end of the day, there are times when a parent needs to be the unpopular one.  Needs to say NO!

NO, you can’t have a facebook account before you turn 13.  I want to teach you to respect other peoples guidelines and NOT to become someone who will forge/lie their way to getting what they want.  I want to protect you from the possible dangers facebook can present (and we’re kidding ourselves if we don’t concede that facebook comes with it’s risks - at any age).

NO, you can’t watch M-rated shows at 13.  I don’t care if your whole class is watching them, they contain scenes you’re not ready to see (maybe not ever in some shows/movies).

NO, you can’t roam the streets with your mates.  No matter how good your kid is - get them in a “pack” and stuff starts happening.

NO, you can’t go to a party at a person’s house I don’t know.  Maybe it’s not YOU I don’t trust!

I could go on and on with this list.  None of the items are stand alone.  Some are “age appropriate” issues.  Do we really need to allow our children to “grow up” so young?

My point is that when we say “yes” when we really should say “no”, we do a disservice not only to our children, but to parents all around us.

Parenting is a tough enough gig as it is, us parents need to stick together!

Disclaimer: I in not way think I’m getting it “all right” when it comes to parenting.  I don’t even always say “no” to my children when I probably should stand firm.  But I AM getting so frustrated at feeling like I’m the “only one” making a stand at times (although I know I’m not really).

Every time a busy season comes around on the farm and I become a “temporary widow” and “temporary single parent”, I am overwhelmed by how hard the task can be (and in awe of those who do it on a more permanent basis).

I will admit that it is easier these days than it was when the kids were younger.

Except when they are sick!

Which all 3 currently are.

Even harder when I’m not feeling the best myself.

At the moment I am juggling dealing out medication doses, cleaning up tissues, cleaning up bodily fluids (mainly due to phlegm), dr’s appointments, cuddling sick kids, driving the tractor, transporting hubby between farms, cooking, cleaning, washing….

On top of that there’s the usual stuff like parent-teacher interviews, parents & friends meetings and follow ups, submission writing for funding, netball coaching, personal training, grocery shopping, dealing with mail, dealing with the mess kids are making being home from school, broken sleep due to kids waking up from coughing so much….

Is it any wonder I feel like crawling under the doona and staying there until everyone is well again and seeding is over????

* For those not familiar with our farming program, seeding is a busy time of the year where the tractors go many, many hours a day spraying weeds and putting seed in the ground to grow our years crops.  During this time, my husband is rarely seen hence the term “seeding widow” (or “temporary widow”).  Fortunately, with larger equipment and not tilling the soil as much, our seeding program tends to run 3-4 weeks instead of the 6-8 it did when my kids were babies.

Image Credit http://www.suburbanpediatrics.org/ParentingTips.html

We sponsor a number of children in poverty stricken countries and one of the things the groups that run these sponsorship programs do is ensure as many children as possible have access to education.

After all, a decent education can be a ticket to freedom from poverty for these children.

Education gives them a hope and a future.

Yet, here in one of the “luckiest countries in the world”, why do we not place a higher sense of importance on funding education?

Every time I turn around, it seems like the government have cut funding from this program or that program.

Cutting back funding for basics like electricity, even though the increased use of technology means we are using more electricity.

Cutting funding for teaching numbers and support staff hours even though research has shown the benefits of smaller class sizes and one to one support and instruction time.

Placing emphasis on “super schools” and ignoring the rest of the students in the state.

Can you tell I’m feeling frustrated at the moment?

The things is, I strongly believe that every single child in our country should have access to a decent quality education.

I’m not “anti” Private Schools but the fact is, not every family can afford to send their children to a private school.

And they shouldn’t HAVE to.

I can’t help but feel that the direction things are heading in will only continue to widen the divide between the “haves” and “have nots” in this country.

In a country that supposedly favours “equal distribution of wealth”, something about the state of affairs in our educational system just doesn’t seem right.

And for the most part, I feel so helpless to do anything about it.  *sigh*

Any ideas?

It would have to be one of the hardest parts of parenting.

Teaching your children how to deal with disappointment.

Dealing with their disappointment yourself.

Naturally, we want our children to be happy. There’s a natural instinct to want to protect them from hurt and disappointment.

The problem is, life isn’t fair.

Life disappoints.

Life hurts.

And protecting our children from experiencing such things means they’re not going into adulthood fully prepared to deal with life.

I know all that.

But it’s still hard.

It still sucks.

Lleyton tried out for our local sapsasa football team today.

He didn’t make it.

Naturally, he’s disappointed.

But the hardest thing about the selection process is that it’s so subjective.

Boys who weren’t playing the game well were selected because they stood out (were away from their “man” all the time).

Boys who did play the game well stuck to their opponents and the ball didn’t go near them.

Boys who had the “right” surnames were looked at more closely.

Boys with unknown surnames were overlooked.

Boys were chosen for height over ability.

Decisions were made that didn’t match up with the “ethos” of sapsasa (where it’s close, they’re supposed to take year 7s over year 6s and they didn’t).

It’s hard.

Hard for the selectors too. They have all these boys and a few hours to make their decisions.

Those decisions aren’t going to be perfect.

I understand that.

At the end of the day, all I can do as a parent is sympathise with Lleyton and allow him to work through his disappointment.

And try to use this as a teaching opportunity that life just isn’t fair. No matter how badly we want it to be, we’re all human. Humans have different ideas to one another on what is right or “best”. Humans make mistakes. Humans aren’t always perfect or “fair”. No doubt he’s going to face worse disappointments than this in his life.

But as a mum, all I want to do is take away the hurt. Make everything alright. Make a perfect little bubble for my child to grow up in.

If only that were possible…

I picked up this awesome idea from a friend of mine that we stayed with on our big trip.

It’s pretty simple and once set up, is easy to use.

I just used our own ideas for rewards and consequences.

Ours looks something like this:

My friend had a fancy big poster with the kids photo’s stuck to the chart.

I just printed off a simple table on the computer onto yellow paper then laminated it.  The kids each have one of their name stickers made into a small label that gets stuck onto the chart with blu tak and can be moved up and down as necessary.

Each chart cycle lasts for a week.  Whichever row they are on when it gets to Friday night bedtime is what they get (they don’t always get the reward or punishment imposed that night but it’s what we arrange for them as early as possible – for example, the lunch order has to wait until the next school day).  Saturday morning everyone returns to START and away we go again.

It’s working REALLY well for us.

The kids LOVE it.  They love getting to move themselves up on the chart when they’ve been particularly helpful or pleasant.  They HATE having to move themselves down on the chart (we get them to physically do it themselves to reinforce it) but appreciate the opportunity to “redeem” themselves if they’ve been acting up.

Farmboy is finding it really helpful because he’s sometimes at a loss as to what to do with the kids.  It can help defuse situations before they get fully blown.  And it seems to be helping him watch and reward the positive stuff (something that doesn’t come naturally if you’re not trained in doing it).

We try to focus more on the positive side of things as much as we can and so far the lowest anyone has finished has been the 1/2 hr earlier bedtime slot.  That doesn’t mean they don’t all move down the chart at some point or another but overall they mostly finish up at either START (which means they don’t get anything – positive OR negative) or above.

I love it too as the kids are really trying to hard to do the right thing and have a positive attitude to helping out around the house.  It suits me too when they choose a meal to have.  And it’s a way for them to “earn” having lunch orders.  We don’t usually have all that many but I like the idea of them “earning it”.

It’s possible that the novelty will wear off after a time.  And maybe at some point we’ll refresh it with some different rewards and consequences.  But we’ve been going for nearly 2 months now and it still seems to be going well.

My niece is.

No doubt I’ll blink and we’ll be celebrating her 1st birthday.

Anyway, here are some pics as promised.

I finally remembered I had stashed the camera in the glove box of the car.

One of the advantages of having kids first is that they then get the benefit of younger cousins.  Mind you, I think Lleyton would rather have a cousin his own age but you can’t have everything.

I love watching my kids hold a baby.

She certainly makes my kids seem very grown up.

There’s someone else I love to watch holding a baby too:

There was a time when he wouldn’t hold a baby until they were about a year old.  He’s much more confident and relaxed around them now.  He probably doesn’t look it in the photo because she was starting to fuss and he’s actually moving her to settle her.

Clucky?

Me?

*sigh*

I can’t seem to convince Farmboy that we should have another.  It probably doesn’t help that I had a dream recently that we had twins -  a male and a female.

Personally, I think now would be a great time to have twins.  Look at all the helpers I’d have!

Him?  Not so much.

Guess I’ll have to be satisfied with the kind you can hand back.

I don’t tend to get too involved with political discussions.  I usually prefer the ostrich mentality of “stick my head in the sand and let someone else worry about it”.  Plus I like to avoid conflict whenever I can so embarking on political debate kind of goes against the grain.  I mean, there’ll always be someone who disagrees with your viewpoint.

However, I’m going to stick my neck out here and say I’m not a big fan of paid maternity leave.

I have 3 main reasons:

1.  Somewhere along the line, someone is going to have to pay for it.

It’s either going to come out of our taxes or cause an increase in the cost of goods and services.  That money has to come from somewhere!  So what are we really achieving at the end of the day?

If the cost of living goes up, or our taxes do, having children is only going to become more difficult, not less.

2.  Why do people need enticement to have children?

I have to question anyone who needs extra enticement to have children.  Motherhood involves sacrifice.  Lots of it.  If you’re not willing to make it - are you really ready?

Are we going to entice the best types of people into motherhood with all the incentives we’re adding?

3.  It forces people back into the workforce

I know someone who had 13 weeks paid maternity leave in the private sector.  The catch?  She has 12 months to get back to work or she loses her maternity leave payment.  Too bad if the money is spent and she doesn’t want to go back to work.

I’m not against wormen in the workforce.  I’m a big believer in personal choice.  But I’m also a fan of stay at home mums and I think we really don’t need anymore arm twisting to push mums back into the workforce before they are ready.

There you have it.  My opinion on paid maternity leave.  I acknowledge that it’s not a clear cut “one size fits all” type of arrangement.  And the lastest offering by the government seems more of a political stunt than anything.  I haven’t looked into it in depth but it sounds like you have to sacrifice other payments in order to get the paid maternity leave they are offering.

I still think the old system they had in place back in the baby bonus days is the best.  Many people didn’t realise that when the government first brought in the $3000 lump sum payment, it was actually a decrease in the amount parents got for their children.

The concept of the baby bonus (not the maternity payment) is that those on high incomes when they have their children get paid more over the first 5 years of their life.  It’s a tax repayment system.  If you paid a lot of tax before your child was born and then went on to not earn an income (or a lesser income), the government gave you some of that tax back.  Seems fair to me.  Those who didn’t pay a lot of tax still got $500 a year for the first 5 years of their child’s life.

Over To You

I’d love to hear your opinions on paid maternity leave.  Fair?  Unfair?  Reasonable?  Unreasonable?  How do you think the government should tackle the whole “family payments” system?

My firstborn is off to camp today. It’s not the first camp he’s been on. But I find it doesn’t get any easier to let them go. This time they’re travelling 500km away. It seems so FAR if something were to happen.

Still, it’s an important part of growing up and I’m thankful that Lleyton doesn’t seem to suffer from homesickness or anxiety over being away from us.

No doubt he’ll have a ball!

They’re staying at an Adventure Campsite with flying fox, rock climbing and an obstacle course. They’re doing visits to Monarto Zoo, the Aquatics Centre, an Aami stadium tour (which obviously he’ll LOVE), Museum and who knows what else. All the things that aren’t accessible from here in a simple day time excursion.

We have a fabulous Deputy Principal at our school who is particularly enthusiastic about this kind of stuff. He’s particularly lucky because this is really a “year 7″ camp and he’s a year 6 in the 6/7 camp. Chances are he’ll get to go again next year (or somewhere similar).

And they were able to get funding so the camp has cost us $122.50 which is amazing for what they’re getting and the distance they have to travel.

Farmboy and I are heading away this week as well so I guess we’ll hardly even notice his absence (and as it turns out, we’ll be a little closer if something does happen - so he’s not going to be as far away from us for the WHOLE time he’s away).

Still, my little boy is GROWING UP! *sob* He’s even getting to the stage where he’d rather not have hugs and kisses (although I still kind of insist because I think it’s important).

I don’t even want to THINK about the day when he might leave home!

Dear Mr Contact,

Yes, I know that “Contact” is actually a brand and that I should in fact be referring this memo to all “adhesive book covering” companies. But the truth is, we all call is “contact”, no matter who made it.  And “adhesive book covering” is quite a mouthful compared to “contact”.
I would be pleased if you could consider the following points when next testing the quality control of your product:

1. Please make sure that all “adhesive book covering” is actually ADHESIVE! There is nothing worse than trying to stick something to a book covering that won’t stick! And sticking to itself does. not. count!
2. If you cannot get your contact onto the backing paper without bubbles, then how on earth am I ever going to get it onto a book without it bubbling all over the place???? Sheesh! With all the technological advancements we’ve made in this world, is it too much to ask for contact that won’t bubble???
3. While the pretty pictures all over the covering are lovely, my 11 year old is not into Bratz, Tweety Bird or Spiderman. In fact, he hasn’t been into any of these for MANY years. WHY can I NEVER find any covering appropriate for him?

Kind Regards,

A Frustrated Parent

Today is my first day of long service leave. I’m celebrating by cleaning the house!

My youngest started full-time school today.

All 3 of my children have worked hard to make the transition as painless as possible by being absolutely feral for the past week. Plenty of bickering and whining and stirring going on. Enough to make me kind of relieved that school went back today.

How kind and thoughtful of them to do that for me.

I did spend an hour in Trailer Boys classroom this morning. While he was rather excited, he did get a little overwhelmed at first when we got to school. But he settled in after a while as I expected he would.

So, now I’m home. Alone. Attempting to clean away some of the feral-ness the school holidays has left upon my home. And breaking out in a sweat in these 40+ degree temperatures.

The long-service leave?

Well, I’ve spent the past 11 years at home with kids under 5. And people start asking you what you’re going to do when your youngest starts school. So, I tell them I’m taking long-service leave. I’ve worked full-time in this job for more than 10 years so I figure I deserve it. Even if it’s only 8-4. I’ll even get paid just as much as I did as a full-time mum!

My actual plans this term are to go through the entire house and declutter as much as I can. After several years of keeping up with the basics as best we could, it is in desperate need of a decent declutter, sort out and deep clean. When that’s done, I may even get some painting done.

How does that sound for an exciting way to spend my long service leave?