Family Friday: An Exercise in Exercise

Kids didn't use to have to exercise. They stayed fit enough running around being kids. They didn't have to diet. They could burn off anything just being themselves. I will admit that I did exercise as a child. I thought my mom's Jane Fonda tapes were so much fun, I would do them with her. Trouble is, kids don't run around outside much anymore. They don't jump or climb as much. They sit in front of the TV, in front of the computer, in front of gaming consoles. But I don't blame them. I don't even blame the media. I blame us. We tell our children, "Go outside and play," but when is the last time we went outside to play? With this in mind, I would like you to examine the following exchange:


Shawn:  Aimee, is there a way I can get in shape without moving?

Me:  No, movement is required for exercise.

Shawn:  Oh. Well, is there a way I can exercise without using my legs or running?

Me:  You could try sit-ups.

Shawn:  OK! How do I do sit-ups?

Me:  Lay down on your back. (Shawn lays down on his back.) Now sit up. (Shawn puts his hands on the ground beside him and pushes himself back to a seated position.)

Me:  (realizing my mistake) No! You have to sit up without using your hands. Put your hands behind your head or cross them across your chest.

Shawn:  (puts his hands behind his head and does a proper sit-up, actually more of a crunch as his head and shoulders barely rise off the floor) Oohhh! (flops back to the floor.)

Me:  (realizing this is probably as good as it is going to get for now) OK, now do it again.

Shawn:  (repeating crunch and flop) Oohhh!

Me:  Again.

Shawn:  (repeating crunch and flop) Oohhh! This is torture!!

I didn't have a useful response and Shawn did not try anymore sit-ups.

Family Friday: The Family That Plays Together Stays Together

This is our wall of Guitar Hero/Rock Band controllers. As it turns out, this is much safer (and better looking) than sitting them on the floor leaning against the wall. My favorite thing about these music-themed games is that, since you can pick your difficulty level individually, we can all play together as a family regardless of how many hours we have logged on. Derrick plays a lot, while I only pick up a guitar controller when we play as a family or when company comes over. Also, this is one of the few games we can get Shawn to play that is creative rather than destructive. And that ROCKS!

Family Friday: Beyond Batman

With the release of Batman:  The Dark Knight Rises in theaters, retailers have brought DVDs of the Batman shows that I grew up with - namely Batman:  The Animated Series and Batman Beyond - to the forefront. We snatched up Season 1 of both series. While I was watching an episode of Batman Beyond, I felt I had an insight into the tragedy at the midnight showing of  The Dark Knight Rises.

In the episode, "Golem," Willie is a picked-on kid at the high school that Terry - the new Batman - attends. After being picked-on and pushed around by a bully, Willie's frustrated dad demands, "So what are you going to do to the guy who did that to you?" "When someone pushes you, you push back," and "I'm not raisin' no wuss." When Willie asks how he should deal with it his father replies, "Hit 'em where it hurts. You figure it out." Driven over the edge by the pressure of being picked on and the added pressure from his father to do something about it, Willie steals his dad's golem - a twenty-foot tall robot that works with a human controller. Willie uses the golem to destroy the bully's most prized possession - his car. An encounter with Batman during this incident accidentally fuses Willie's mind with the robot's, making it possible for Willie to control the golem without using the remote control. This also means that when the golem gets damaged, Willie feels it. He continues to attack the local bullies and even confronts his father, throwing his taunts back in his dad's face and almost killing him when Batman intervenes. Of course, Batman saves the day and Willie ends up in a juvenile facility, but I want to focus on Willie's relationship with his father and the influence this had on Willie's actions.

 Willie's father was insistent that Willie fight back against his persecutors by any means necessary. I don't think Willie was trying to earn his father's acceptance by stealing the golem; I think he wanted to show his father how destructive he could be while taking his father at his word. So what does this have to do with the Colorado grad student who shot up a theater full of people watching The Dark Knight Rises? It goes to show the sort of familial relationships that can produce a killing mindset. We can't assume that the killer in this instance had this kind of family relationship, or even one like it, but it is worthwhile for us to think about these factors before we blame all of the killer's motivations on the movies. And of course, we must always remember that Batman himself never kills or condones killing.

Family Friday: Kids Movies That Are Actually Good For Your Kids #3 - Hoodwinked and Hoodwinked 2

Shawn got Hoodwinked 2 which caused us to go back and watch Hoodwinked. Although the movies have many similarities to the Shrek movies, I think they stand on their own very well.

In Hoodwinked, the classic story of "Little Red Riding Hood" is re-examined from the viewpoint of each character in turn:  Red, the wolf, Red's grandmother, and the woodcutter. Related to the classic scenario, is the mystery of the "goody theif." It's more fun to watch the narratives unfold by themselves, so I won't spoil that, but the movie admirably shows how, as one character puts it, "If a tree falls in the forest there will be three stories:  yours, mine, and the tree's."

Hoodwinked 2 took on the story of "Hansel and Gretel," mainly from the perspective of our main characters from Hoodwinked as they get involved in the "Hansel and Gretel Story. while Hoodwinked 2 does not look as in-depth into the fairy tale as Hoodwinked, it still produces some very satisfying twists. The main message of  Hoodwinked 2 is summed up when Red's grandmother tells her, "A person can never really fail unless they give up."  The temerity to keep trying even when things are going badly is a character trait that is badly needed among the children of this youngest generation, and even among the young people of my own generation. I have seen too many of them give up at the first sign or hint of failure as though everything should just be handed to them, and despite continuous protestations that their goals are so very important to them. I strongly believe that this tendency to give up is because members of my generation and below get discouraged when our goals aren't as easy to attain as as they seem to be "in the movies." The fact that a movie is addressing this issue is both amusing and heartening.

In addition to many references to other fairy tales, these movies give subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) nods to The Village People, XXX, Kill Bill, Terminator, Lassie, Starsky and Hutch, Don Quixote, Peanuts, Silence of the Lambs, Entrapment, Mission Impossible, Star Wars, and several others that I failed to either recognize or name. Despite this inundation of references, Hoodwinked and Hoodwinked 2 are a great pair of movies which stand well on their own story-telling merit.

Family Friday: Children's Medicine

Something must have happened to children's medicine. Somewhere, someone must have decided that children don't need children's medicine - that they can take the same over-powered solid pills that adults take. Because that was what the doctor prescribed for Shawn this week for his ear infection. Shawn is a heavy for his age, but I don't think it's enough to require a level of antibiotic that gave me bad side effects as an adult. At 8 years old, Shawn is far from mastering swallowing a pill whole. That required me to grind the pill up into powder and mix it with applesauce and cinnamon. Of course, that just made the applesauce taste like medicine and not the other way around. The only way to get the pill down in a timely manner was for me to divide the lump of applesauce/medicine into a number of smaller, more manageable-looking lumps and get him to take them in succession. The advantage of this method was that I got to review fractions with Shawn at the same time that I got his medicine into him. It was an operation that took almost all my patience. But Shawn told me he loves me. It is these all-too-infrequent rewards that make the work of childcare worthwhile.

Family Friday: Kids Movies That Are Actually Good For Your Kids #2 - Up

"Good Afternoon, my name is Russell and I am a Wilderness Explorer in Tribe 52, Sweat Lodge 12. Are you in need of any assistance today sir?" Boy, if only we were all as brave as that kid.
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Carl is an old man. Never had children; lost his wife, Ellie, to illness. His only regret is not taking her on her dream vacation - Paradise Falls. So when he ends up about to be forced into a "retirement community" he figures he has nothing to lose, and takes his house there by attaching hundreds of balloons to it and flying down there along with Russell who wound up along for the ride because he was under Carl's porch at liftoff. When they land near Paradise Falls, they go through all sorts of difficulties trying to get the house next to the waterfall including meeting up with, and then getting chased by, Carl's childhood hero. Eventually, Carl learns the lesson he needs in order to get back home.

This movie is about letting go:  of the past, of expectations, and especially of material possessions. Only, when Carl lets go of the need to get the house next to the Falls was he able to rescue Russell and his other companions. Up, more than its contemporaries, demonstrates what really matters in life:  the friends you make, the love you share, and the spirit of adventure to really get out and enjoy life.

Kids Movies That Are Actually Good For Your Kids #1: School of Rock

School of Rock is one of the best Jack Black movies I have ever seen. In it Black's character, Dewy, makes a rock band out of the private school class he is substitute teaching. He uses their natural musical talents to get them into the Battle of the Bands. It's a cute movie and, unlike most of today's comedies, the jokes are funny instead of just stupid-funny. All of that is great for a movie in general and a kid's movie in particular, but what really makes School of Rock stand out is the evolution of Jack Black's character, Dewy.

Dewy starts off as a desperate guy trying to make his rock dreams come true, and it only gets worse for him when his band kicks him out. He pretends to be his roommate in order to pick up a substitute teaching job to raise money while he tries to get a new band together. He can't get anyone to play with him, but he realizes that the kids in his class can play classical music so he teaches them about rock and convinces them to be his band. This clearly starts out as a revenge fantasy for Dewy:  he is trying to get back at the band who kicked him out. But as he spends more time helping the kids find their individual roles in the band and shows each one how his or her role is important, he begins to focus on what is best for them, and less on using them as a vehicle for his own self-aggrandizing scheme. By making the band more about them and less about himself, Dewy becomes a better person.

I'm not going to give away the ending, but this movie clearly shows what's best about working as a team and why you don't have to win the big prize to be successful. Watch this movie with your kids, and then talk to them about it to make sure they understand why it is a more uplifting movie than it seems at first blush.

Belated Family Friday Post: Rolling Thunder

Yesterday we had thunderstorms all day long, along with several brown-outs and one black-out, so I didn't turn on any electronics just to be safe. Hence the belated post.

When we have kids, out of all the things you worry about, one of the last is what they might be afraid of. After all, we are likely many years away from our own childhood fears. Shawn is afraid of zombies, just like me (I still am), but he is not afraid of thunderstorms; he is just annoyed by them because it means he can't play video games. I was never afraid of thunderstorms either, except for one specific time that I can still remember.

A thunderstorm hit while I was at the Acme with my dad. I can't remember how old I was, maybe five or six. We had to run out to the car with the cart in the pouring rain. My dad got me and the groceries safely in the car, but then he shut me into the  car and went to take the empty cart back himself.  Now this was years before anyone thought to put cart returns in the middle of the parking lot, so he had to go all the way back to the store. It was dark and raining too hard for me to see outside of the car. I only knew that there was thunder and lightning and my dad was in the middle of a wide open parking lot with a metal shopping cart. I was terrified that he wouldn't come back, that lightning would hit him and he would die. He made it back of course; the chances of him getting hit were more astronomical than my child's mind could comprehend. I'm sure he was only gone for a few minutes at most, but it felt like an hour to me as I was caught up in the fear.

Oddly enough, this experience didn't change how I feel about thunderstorms. I loved them before and I still love them now. I always found them exciting to watch, and I love how clean the world feels afterward, like the very air has cleared out.

Family Friday: The Absentee Post

Derrick and Shawn have gone down to North Carolina with Derrick's parents for a cousin's wedding. They aren't going to be gone for very long, and since I don't actually live with them normally, it's not like I'm spending much more time without them than I usually do. Nonetheless, under the circumstances, all I can bring myself to say is this:  I miss my guys. That is all.

Family Friday: The Things We Do...

This post is dedicated to the crazy things that parents do to look cool for their kids. I think that, even more than showing off for a romantic interest, parents are driven to jump through hoops in the hope of gaining their children's approval/pride. The words, "That's my mom/dad. He/she is the coolest," rank right up there with, "I love you." How do I know? Experience.

I was talking with one of Derrick's roommates about a video game he was playing, one that takes more time and skill than I possess. I'm mostly a casual game-player. I enjoy puzzle games, fighting games, as well as some other games that don't require skills above button-mashing. More on that in a different post. So I say to the roommate, "I haven't played that game. I'm not really much of a career gamer," and Shawn pipes right up with, "You're not much of a gamer at all."

 Shawn was born with a controller in his hand. Me... not so much.

I don't know what came over me. I had a sudden, intense, and overwhelming desire to take a game and play it until I was good enough to impress Shawn, despite the fact that I don't have the time for that kind of practice and I never had any previous inclinations toward marathon gaming.

The point of this example is to highlight one of the less common ways we show love for our children, because we definitely wouldn't behave so irrationally if we didn't love them so much.  

Family Friday: Food Fights

Is it me, or is it getting harder to get kids to eat? I don't just mean vegetables, I mean anything that doesn't come in a pre-printed package. At this point the only food I have made that Shawn will eat without complaint is meatballs. Even when Derrick made hamburgers Shawn refused to eat one. He only wants to eat hamburgers from McDonald's or Burger King. Does anyone else have this problem? True, Shawn doesn't see homemade food much when I'm not around, but does that mean that it's too late? Is there any hope that I can get this kid to eat a normal meal with us like a normal family? Anyone out there who understands what I'm going through, please feel free to share your story, solution, or perspective.

Family Friday: Field Day

Shawn running the cup-stacking relay

 

Shawn had a field day event at school yesterday, and Derrick and I were able to come watch. There were a bunch of relay races, a tug-of-war, and a bucket brigade. It was a lot of fun to watch Shawn in the games with his fellow classmates. He seemed very excited to see us there - pointing us out to all his classmates. Moral of the story:  Never pass up an opportunity to see your kid at an event.

Me at field day. Shawn is in the background with his water bottle and pretzel stick.

Family Friday: The Four Agreements and "Domestication"

I interrupt your regular waves of the Decepticon invasion to bring you Family Friday. I want to do a weekly series of family-related posts. Although I do not have any biological children of my own, I have plenty of exposure to an 8-year-old, Shawn. I have watched him grow from toddler-hood and I played a large part in his early development. So these posts will mostly concern my experiences and my thoughts about these experiences. On occasion, I will also spend time talking about children's media, since kids absorb so much from the media they are surrounded by, especially movies, television, and video games. But today, I'm posting a bit of parenting theory that occurred to me while I was reading The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.

A quick summary for those who have not read this book. Ruiz explains how the belief systems and social norms that govern our lives are made up of agreements that we have made with ourselves, with other people we know, and with society at large. Some of these agreements are positive in nature, while others are harmful to ourselves and others. Ruiz seeks to show us how to have less suffering in our lives by emphasizing the positive agreements and breaking harmful agreements until only the positive agreements remain. Of course, when you break all those negative agreements the will leave a void that you need to fill up to keep the negative agreements from coming back. Ruiz gives us four very powerful agreements to keep our harmful agreements at bay. They are:

• Be impeccable with your word
• Don't take anything personally
• Don't make assumptions
• Always do your best

What I like best about this book is how easy it is to understand and implement the concepts and strategies in the book. Ruiz uses plain language and clear examples. Best of all, four agreements are easy to remember and keep in your mind. If you read the book over and over again, it will act as positive reinforcement that will make it easier to honor the four agreements. It doesn't even get boring, as with each read-through you will notice new points that you missed before, and that can help too. That's a lot of bang for your buck since the book is short and relatively inexpensive (MSRP $12.00) as a result.

My only issue with this book is a parenting concern. Not surprisingly, we learn how to make agreements from our parents. We even learn many of our first agreements from them. Ruiz calls this process "domestication." He gives the impression that this domestication  process is harmful to the child and causes suffering later in the child's life. Adopting the four agreements is supposed to reverse this domestication and return us to our natural state. This sounds great, but those of us who want to avoid inflicting the past generations possible mistakes on the future generation are faced with a problem:  If the "domestication" method of raising children is wrong, what should we do instead? Most of us were raised by a system of punishment and reward - "domesticated" much like a puppy. I can buy into the idea that this method is harmful but I don't know any other way, and this is the one piece of vital information that is missing from Ruiz's book.

I don't have the answer, so I put the question to the collective consciousness of the Internet. Any thoughts or ideas of how to successfully bring up children without a system of punishment and reward? Please comment. For the children you have, the children you one day want to have, or the children you never want to have yourself but at least want to be healthy and pleasant enough for you to share the world with.