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WTF?
My youngest son is seven-years-old and he has made it his mission this year to find out what all those “bad” words are that he’s not supposed to say. When my daughter came to me last year and asked me about them, I knew she was just expressing her curiosity and was mature enough to take in the information and not then go out and use it. My son, on the other hand, would not think twice about immediately putting those words to use if he thought the other boys would think he was funny for using them. So, the approach I have taken with my son on this topic has been very different than the one I took with my daughter.
At least once a week, my son will come home and try to guess at what he’s determined one of those “bad” words to be. And I have decided to agree with him if he comes up with a word that is at least not as bad as what the actual word is. It typically goes like this: “I know what the “s” word is, mommy.” “Really, honey, what is it?” “It’s “stupid”.” “You’re right that’s the “s” word. Now I don’t like to hear you using that word.” Then he promptly dances around the house repeating it with glee, “Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.” After awhile, all of a sudden, he will stop and look at me and say, “That’s not really the “s” word is it?” “No, honey, it’s not, but it’s still not a nice word to say.” The day he decided the word was “sex”, and started singing, “sexy, sexy, sex”, I started questioning what the real “s” word was. Because the idea of him singing his new song on the bus to his friends, seemed to be just as bad as him writing the actual “s” word in marker on the back of a bus seat – like my peers used to do, way back when I was in school.
I have found when he comes upon a word that is not cringe-worthy, my first instinct is to drive it home, “Yes, that’s it. That’s definitely the word.” Which was the case when he decided the “f” word was “Fix”. I’m not sure where he got that from, but I was happy for him to go with that. That is until during the recent past holidays, when we were standing in line to get the kids photo taken with Santa and I tried to pat down my son’s hair before his close-up. My son fidgeted away and said, “Mommy, what are you doing?” I replied, “I’m just trying to fix your hair, sweetie.” With that, his mouth dropped open and his eyes got wide as he said in a whisper, “Mommy, you just said the “f” word in front of Santa.”
So, my son still doesn’t know what the “f” word and the “s” word are, and thank goodness he doesn’t even know to ask what the “c” word is, but I’m thinking the mature thing to do, on my part, is to sit him down and have a truthful conversation about what those words really are and why it’s not appropriate to then go and chant them on the bus. So, that’s what I’m thinking, doesn’t mean I’ve found the courage to do it yet though. But I better do it quick, cause I have a feeling if I don’t, one of his peers will beat me to it – and if that happens the song he comes up with might make “sexy, sexy, sex” sound like a nursery rhyme by comparison.
Choosing a Path
When I started this blog, I was at that metaphorical “fork in the road”. My kids were in school full time, I knew I wanted to do something that would flex my creative and intellectual mind, but what was that elusive perfect pathway. I didn’t want to go back to work full-time, my kids are still relatively young, but I needed to give myself something that I could say I was accomplishing. So, what do you do when you come upon that fork? You know you want to go in some direction but you’re not sure which one.
My theory is to hang out in the intersection for a little while. You don’t want to idle there, though. You need to be active, keep revving your engines, get a feel for the road, an understanding of your options. If you don’t have a clear idea of what you want to do, make a list of all the things you are interested in, then throw them out there and see what sticks. That’s what I did with this blog.
I liked the idea of designing a blog. I liked writing. I liked the psychological journey of self-discovery. I liked creating self-help workbooks. I liked using humor. I liked writing about the creative things I do with my kids. So, I put all of those things together within this blog. I then spent the last few months getting feedback on what resonated with my readers and tuning into what parts of this blog I liked doing the most and which area I thought I could turn into a viable pathway for myself. And that has turned out to be sharing my thoughts on how to raise a more creative child.
So, it’s always good to hang out in the intersection for awhile, but at some point, if you want to move forward, you need to narrow your road ahead and choose a path. You may find that once you’re down the road, the path you have selected isn’t quite right for you. That’s o.k., just turn around, go back to the intersection and choose something different, but you need to keep making active decisions and taking actions that keep moving you forward.
I will keep working on this blog because it is here where I will be able to share my business ideas as I move down my selected path, and I always have to have somewhere to share my daily-life rambles. However, I have also started on a new journey, my chosen path to help raise awareness on how important it is to help your child build their creative mind. In 2010, Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary shared the results of her study of 300,000 Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) scores of children and adults. She found that over the last two decades, as we’ve entered this new electronic age, the measure of creativity in our children has been spiraling downward. Kim says, “It’s very clear, and the decrease is very significant. It is the scores of younger children in America – from kindergarten through sixth grade – for whom the decline is most serious.”
The good news is that all children are born with some degree of creativity. When parents become educated about creativity, they can help their children preserve their natural inclination to it. Research has shown that creativity can be nourished and taught and that creativity training can have a strong effect. Real improvement doesn’t happen overnight, but when creativity is fostered through a child’s everyday process of home or school, brain function improves. It is to this end, that I created a new blog called “www.RAISECREATIVEKIDZ.com”. In that space, I will share more research on creativity in general, and supply ideas and activities to help you nourish your own children’s creativity.
This is the path I have chosen to explore. I hope you will visit me there, as well as, keep on coming here to this blog for my perspective on being a mom in general – the good, the bad, the funny, the sad – and maybe pick up a tip here or there to help you choose your own path.
http://www.raisecreativekidz.com Research shows children’s creativity is declining at an alarming rate. Luckily, as parents, there is much we can do.
Bracing For Hurricane Sandy
In case we end up being without power for a number of days, as they are predicting, I just wanted to get a quick post in. They’ve already canceled school for Monday and Tuesday. So, besides making sure we are equipped with emergency supplies and enough food and water for a few days, I’m also being diligent about making sure I have things to keep the kids busy. I always like to have a toy or two hidden in my closest to take out for a rainy day – and I think Hurricane Sandy qualifies for that. Currently those items consist of a new board game and video. The new stuff will be my go-to if the kids get scared during the storm, that always works to get their mind off things. I’m also collecting books, other games, and kid-size flashlights. We may be without power for awhile so I’m also making sure all their hand-held video games and my iPad are fully charged.
They are already getting excited for the “sleep-over” we will have, as I like everyone to sleep in the same room during a big storm – otherwise I’m up all night anyway, checking on them all. I’ve put my youngest son in charge of the compass, in order to calculate which part of the house is in the pathway of the wind direction so that we can determine which room we should occupy, as all our rooms in our house have very large windows. It’s never easy getting through a storm with three young kids but thinking ahead and making sure you add to your preparedness plan some diversionary items in case they get scared and some back-to-basics games, books, and toys to keep them from getting bored, cooped up in a house without electricity for a few days, will be well worth your time now.
To all those in the affected area, stay safe!
How “Phat” Are You?
I started off this morning writing a blog about having a business plan for success. But I ending up going on such a tangent that I thought it best to let this be a post in itself. Now, if you’ve read most of my other posts, you’ll see how important the titles of my blog posts are to me – that’s my marketing side coming out. If possible, I like to come up with my title first and that gives me an idea about where I want to go with my idea. My first title doesn’t always stick, but at least, it gives me a starting point. For instance, for the post I started to write, I thought I would do a play off of the urban slang word “business”. With there being no place less “urban” than Westchester County, I like to consult the urban dictionary – the true experts – just to make sure I’m using the word correctly. Good thing I did, because what I hadn’t realized is that the urban slang for “business” is actually what us mommy’s like to call “going number two”. Now, after having three children, I can probably tell you more about “going number two”, than most people. When my 8 year-old-daughter was a baby, if you didn’t get her out of her crib fast enough when she woke up, you would be greeted by a smiling baby girl, standing up holding onto the rails with her diaper half pulled off and “number two” smeared all over her crib. She was always very proud of her creation, not surprisingly she is growing up to be quite the artist. However, since that wasn’t supposed to be the focus of the post I was trying to write, I thought I would go with a different title there.
What it did tell me was that I better be doing some serious reading of my urban dictionary before my kids get to high school, because apparently I’m a lot less “cool” than I thought – and I don’t even think they use the word “cool” anymore. In fact, in an effort to appear more hip, I thought maybe I would use the word “phat” – even though a “mature” mother of three doesn’t like to be called “phat” no matter how you spell it – but I thought I better look it up first. Ahh, I’m not that out of touch, the first definition to the word “phat” is “cool”. I knew it. But wait, here’s something i didn’t know. Did you know that “phat” actually stands for “pretty hot and tempting”? I never knew that. After reading that, I’m thinking, I guess if anyone would, per chance, want to call me “phat”, I suppose I could live with it sounding like that “other” word. At 7:30 in the morning, in my long, wrap-around Ralph Lauren sweater, fuzzy Ugg slippers, cup of Cinnamon Dolce coffee, and bowl of oatmeal, I’m starting to feel more urban than ever, as I take pride in the fact that I am indeed down with the kids’ slang.
But then I read definition number two, which I will reproduce verbatim here from my handy Urban Dictionary. It states, “The problem with “phat” is that it is no longer in really. It has kind of phased out and is mostly used by wannabes, lowerclassmen in high school, or middle schoolers. It is now considered a slang faux pas. I wouldn’t use it if I was you.” It goes on to say that “phat” got “old” in the late 90s. What? The slang I was already too old to be using, was already “out” over a decade ago? Can you imagine ten years from now when my kids are in high school, how totally lame/uncool/not phat I’m going to be to them then? What a rude awakening I am having this early on a Sunday morning – I’m going to need more coffee.
But just as I am having a complete middle-aged moment, I decide to see what my urban “bible” would say if I looked up my original word “cool”. Perhaps it would give me insight into what ridiculous acronym I’m supposed to be using. And here’s what it said, “The word “cool” is the best way to say something is neat-o, awesome, or swell. The phrase “cool” is very relaxed, never goes out of style, and people will never laugh at you for using it.” Well, thank goodness for that. Nothing to worry about here, folks. You can all go about your business (and to be clear, I don’t mean the aforementioned slang word for business). I am happy to state, that I guess I am still pretty “cool” after all… for shizzle.
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