Month: December 2012

There Will Be Rage

In light of the terrible tragedy in Newtown Connecticut, it is worth reminding ourselves of a few things. 

I talk to parents all of the time about the “smooth road” vs. the “rough road” that kids travel (see “School Struggles” for elaboration).

When you’re a smooth road kid, life is pretty good.  Reasonable gratification is experienced in school.  Your parents are proud of your accomplishments.  You seem to get along nicely with others.   School and social life progress along on a relatively positive trajectory that continues into college and beyond.  From where I sit, about 50% of the kids are on a relatively smooth path.

Then there’s everyone else.

Within this bell-shaped curve are kids struggling academically, socially, and emotionally.  School is not a gratifying place for them.  Many of them feel like “losers.”  There is a cumulative effect to all of this.  One grade of negativity layers on top of another until the canvas cannot take any more of the splatted paint.

Research has shown that challenging/struggling kids get yelled at on average about 65 times a day.  65 negative comments a day X 365 days in the year equals 23,725 negative comments on average for the year.  That’s 237,250 comments for a 10 year period.

 So by the time a rough road kid reaches his mid- twenties he’s probably heard about a half million times in his life that there’s something wrong with him.   While that number may be exaggerated some, the basic facts are inarguable.

Kids on the rough side of the road do not feel good about themselves.  By the time they hit their mid- teens, many are angry and disconnected.  They do not feel that anyone is on their team.  There is no sense of encouragement coming from any source that matters.  Getting past their “loser” thinking becomes virtually impossible.

I won’t pretend for a second that I have the answers, but I do know unless we recognize the issues and get these kids connected, there will be rage.

Parent Badgering Factor Running Too High?

Its December.

Were into the second quarter of the school year. The dance is in full swing.

All across America each evening this dance is being played out in millions of homes. Its the Dont You Have Homework To Do?.No I Did It in School dance.

With this dance the Parent Badgering Factor usually starts around 4:00 in the afternoon and proceeds ahead until someone (almost always the parent, usually the mom) falls asleep from exhaustion.

Upon waking up, a form of the dance kicks back in with the Hurry Up.Get Out of Bed or You Will Be Late Panic, dance, which is then later in the day followed up with the resumption of the Homework dance.

Throughout all of this the anxiety is ringing off of the hook.

Mind you, by and large this anxiety is not being felt by the child. (The child is too busy playing Xbox 360 Live or on Facebook or Instagram looking into the latest friends drama to be bothered by such an emotion as anxiety. )

The amount of anxiety and pressure experienced by the parent (usually the mom) could solve the energy crisis if we could learn to harness it. Instead, a lot of parents are turning to remedies like those found at naturesaidcbd.com, which help to alleviate the symptoms of anxiety so that they can get on with their parenting duties without worry. It’s a good job these products exist really or where would we be?

Purpose of Homework

How many of you who are fueled by all of this anxiety actually remember specific homework assignments? I know I dont. So whats the purpose of any of it?

Theres probably an unspoken, hidden agenda to homework. The hidden agenda is that homework is a tool to teach basic responsibility. You know, the usual stuffmeet deadlines, plan, follow throughthose sorts of things.

By and large your job with the kids that are not the best at self-managing is to help orient the child, to get him or her on track. Your job is not to fuel the train once it is on the track.

I like to encourage parents to use a 10% involvement ratio. Your 10% involvement is largely there to provide calm, reasonable structure so that he or she is oriented to task and knows what to do and how to get started.

If the work is too hard, its inappropriate, pure and simple and the teacher needs to know.

Takeaway Point

Dont fuel the train. If you fuel anxiety, it will get worse and worse, like a train gets faster and faster. It would definitely be worth you visiting a site similar to https://topdispensary.ca/ if you feel like you can’t calm your anxiety and need to use supplements like CBD and cannabis. You really don’t want it to emulate a runaway train! If you ultimately feel like cannabis is the way to go, you may want to see how you can best consume this and see what will work for you. There are more accessories here for those who would like to look at pipes and dab rigs, etc.

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