Tag Archives: Teens

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Edited For Clarity – The Lost Show – Sexting & Parents

Transcript below the video:

Transcript

Thanks for hanging around…

Last week, teachers in some Clark County, NV schools had to have a talk with their fifth grade classes. It wasn’t about academics, no reading, writing or ‘rithmetic. No, the talk was about…

Sexting.

Yes, fifth graders, 10- and 11-year-olds had to be admonished on the topic of sexting and its dangers. Why? Because some had been caught sexting each other.

Again, these are 10- and 11-year-olds. Look I’m not naïve. I know kids learn about sex at a younger age. I know they are surrounded by the marketing of sex, bombarded with sexual images on a daily basis. But there’s a whole other problem here, isn’t there?

First, why do these kids have cell phones to text with? They’re 5th graders. What could they possibly need to have a cellphone for? If you need to get hold of them, you call the school. If they need to get hold of you, the school can call.

So the only reason I can see is that for some reason, the parents feel they need to have a cellphone before and after school. In other words, these kids aren’t necessarily going home.

Now I understand that child care is expensive. During the school year, I spend around 10% of my take home pay on childcare alone during the school year, so I understand the cost. And I understand that many, many families need two incomes to make it. So I understand parents not being able to pick kids up after school or be home when they are. But I was one of those kids. I came home every day, and I had to be there to answer the phone when my mom called. Took about 45 minutes to walk home, so I had to hustle.

It’s not like I didn’t get to play with friends, go to the pool, ride my bike around the neighborhood. No, I got to do all those things. But I came home first.

So like I said, I’m understanding of the situation. But I think a lot of folks are allowing things like cellphones take the place of responsibility for their kids. And I hear teachers complain about it as well.

Since the ill-conceived No Child Left Behind Act, teachers have been spending way too much time teaching to tests, meaning the more advanced kids get to twiddle their thumbs while the others work on scoring well on the test. Last week, the school district in Washington, D.C. Let go about 200 teachers for under-performing. The problem? 50% of their evaluation came from a single test score. I’m all for holding teachers accountable. It’s necessary. But I don’t think a single standardized test is going to do it.

But what does it have to do with parents? Well, a big problem with why schools are failing has to do with parents. Parents hold sway over school administrators, complaining whenever their kids get an unsatisfactory grade.

When I was a kid, if you got a bad grade, you didn’t want to go home. But more and more, I’m hearing of situations where the kid gets a bad grade, and the parent comes in to blame it on the teacher. They move the kid to a different class, ask for extensions on home work beyond the deadlines, ask for accommodations of every sort. And they get them, leaving teachers wondering what excatly they’re supposed to do. They are supposed to get these kids taught and have them pass standardized tests, but the kids get excused by their parents for their failure to work.

Remember when you actually worried about not passing to the next grade? Not anymore. No, apparently kids are no longer held back. It might hurt their self-esteem.

Did you catch that? It might hurt their self-esteem. Because it doesn’t hurt your self esteem more when the other kids are brighter than you are or can spell and read and you can’t. But they don’t get held back anymore. I’ll give you a guess where the whole self-esteem thing comes from.

Parents.

These are the same parents that have removed scoring from little league games, or soccer games. “They’re ALL winners”. No. No they’re not. Some kids are not going to be the next Landon Donovan. They don’t have the coordination. And that’s ok. But there are winners and losers in life. They’ll be good at something else, I promise. It’s not fair to them to give them a false sense of their abilities. It’s also not fair to the kids who are good to not be able to celebrate it. And how do you teach sportsmanship and being a good winner – if you don’t even have the chance to win. Or to be a good loser. Most importantly, the kids KNOW who won or lost. Do we really think we’re fooling them?

But of course, this came from parents. I’m sure it was well-meaning. No one wants their kid to feel bad. But it’s the wrong extreme. And so it is with not keeping kids back when it is warranted. If they’re held back, it’s for one of two reasons – they either are having learning problems, and need some additional help and time to catch up, or they have behavioral problems that are causing them to miss work or not pay attention.

Are there mitigating circumstances? Sure. Kids diagnosed with some type of problem such as dyslexia or ADHD can get accommodations and put into plans that will help them get to where they need to be scholastically. So it’s not like there isn’t a way to help those who really need it. But the kid who goofs off in class, refuses to do homework, and lies to their parent about it? That’s not something that needs accommodation. It’s something the parent needs to deal with. Instead, many of these parents are putting the blame on the teacher and are shocked to find out their student has been lying to them. And even when they do find out, they try to mitigate the consequences for the kid.

What exactly is this teaching the kid? If you complain enough, you can slack off and not have to do what’s expected? That the rules don’t apply? Just wait, these parents will be shocked -SHOCKED – when these kids have issues with authority in high school. They already know how the game is played, and they’ll work it.

So the issue comes down to parents. Look, I’m not a perfect dad. I try. Maybe it was my upbringing. Maybe I’m old fashioned about some things. But these kids are getting away with stuff we never would have dreamed of. And the parents are acting as enablers. Maybe it takes too much of their time. Maybe they’re overwhelmed. But either way, they’re doing their kids a disservice by letting them off the hook. And the teachers get to deal with it.

The sexting comes from a gap in supervision. Kids see this stuff, but we as parents can have a strong influence on where they take it. Kids might learn about it, but with good supervision – asking questions and being involved with their kids, we reduce the chance that they make bad choices.

What do you think? Should kids have cell phones? What age? Do you think parents are the problem? Leave us a note in the comments – we’d like to hear what you think.

We’ll be right back.

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Edited For Clarity – V1 E7 – 7/19/10

Movin’ on up…! This week we were able to put together a teleprompter, so we changed the set around a bit and actually WROTE the show prior to shooting. Took a little getting used to, but the results will get better.

So, without further ado, here’s this week’s show. You’ll notice additional links starting this week – one byproduct of using the teleprompter is that there is automatically a transcript! So, for those that don’t have lickety-split Internet speeds, you can read the show!

News Update:

News Update Transcript: Click Here

Segment 2 – The Republican Strategy:  Video /   Transcript

Segment 3 – “Global Warming” Is Wrong:   Video /   Transcript

Segment 4 – International Grownup Field Trip Day:   Video /   Transcript

Segment 5 – CRANKED UP! – Unions:   Video /   Transcript

Segment 6 – Rock Sugar!:   Video /   Transcript

Segment 7 – Wrap Up and Contest:   Video /   Transcript

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Transcript: International Grownup Field Trip Day – 7/19/10

Thanks for coming back

My daughter went on a field trip last week, and it got me to thinking. Why don’t adults get field trips?

You remember them – those days you waited weeks, even months for. You’d be gone from class most of the day, with your friends, doing something fun. No schoolbooks, no tests, and you might even learn something.

Often it was to a museum or a performance of some type of motivational group for kids. But sometimes – the really good times- it was to someplace fun. For my daughter, it was Soak City.

Soak City is a waterpark, with the slides and the wave pools and the lazy rivers you can float on. She spent the better part of the day there. Got a heck of a tan too!

So why don’t we get those days? Why can’t we get a field trip. We work hard, we do what we have to do as responsible adults. We should get to have a day to goof off too!

So, we have launched International (shoot for the moon, I say..) Grownup Field Trip Day. The idea is simple. Take the day off from work, preferably with friends, and make a day of it doing something fun and silly. Go to a water park, head to the beach, visit an amusement park.

But the key is- you have to treat it like a field trip. Get everyone in matching t-shirts. Carpool, or even better, get a bus! Stick together as a group and have fun as a group.

Our first International Grownup Field Trip Day is slated for August 20th – but it’s still flexible. You can sign up for updates on Facebook, just search under Groups for International Grownup Field Trip Day.

While you may not be able to attend the specific event we are planning, try to plan your own on the same day. Get your friends together for a good time. But remember, this is GROWNUP field trip day. Taking the kids is missing the point. We all love our kids, but this is intended to be a day away from work, away from our own kids, so we can be a kid ourselves for awhile. Do something goofy and make a day of it. Get Grandma to watch the kids, or send them off to a friend’s house for the day. This field trip is for you!

You know, it’s important to get yourself away every once in a while, to go out and be a kid again. We get so caught up in our day to day grind that we forget some of the simple joys of being a kid. Like a chocolate dipped ice cream cone on a hot summer day. Water balloon fights. Just hanging out under a shady tree. All the kinds of things we used to do as kids. These are all all things we can still do as adults, but never seem to get back to. And I think we’re worse off for that.

On one hand, we miss out on those joys and an opportunity to lift our spirits and feel good. And we all deserve that. Nowadays, life is a test, and sometimes when you’re getting ready for a test, you need to take a break. Just getting out and doing something silly, something fun, something out of the ordinary from our daily lives lets our psyches recharge a little. And that recharge keeps us a little more sane when we get back to the grind.

We also get to build more memories. As the saying goes, you never hear someone say on their death bed that they wish they had just worked a few more hours of overtime. WE need to have those other experiences as a balance in our lives, and to strengthen the bonds to our friends. It’s just plain healthier.

But I think there’s another aspect that’s just as important for those of us that are parents – playing like a kid lets us remember what it was like – so we can make sure our kids get to do it too.

At lunch today the conversation turned to kids and how they are almost forced to grow up too quickly. I’ve seen 7-year-olds – same age as my daughter, with cellphones. Really? I mean, the school has a phone if I need to get hold of my daughter, and if there’s a problem they can get hold of me. Where exactly is my daughter going to be that she needs a cellphone? Does the kid really need to be able to text before they hit 2nd grade? Most kids are still learning to spell and instead they’re using text-speak. They start using sentences like “R U gng 2 D fair?”. I’d like to hear from teachers how many kids are using text-speak in essays or written answers.

Another example came out of the teen survey we did a couple of weeks ago. We asked what the biggest issues for teens are today. In retrospect, this wasn’t worded quite right. We got responses from teens, but we also got them from adults, who wanted to tell us what THEY thought should be important to teens. These included the socialist downfall of the US, the soaring deficit, and liberties being taken away.

This is what adults wanted teens to be focusing on. Any wonder these kids look at us like we’re fungos? The biggest issues to these teens are the same things that were issues to us – appearance, sex, money, family, fitting in. And yet, some have parents that want to make sure their kids are prepared to defend themselves against the onslaught of institutionalized socialism – like the kids are gonna care.

And that’s why I think it’s important for us old fogies to go out and be kids every once in a while. We need to remember what it was like so we don’t try to shove kids forward into adulthood before their time. Life is gonna slap them in the face soon enough. We need to give them the time to just be kids.

So, here’s an official invitation to join us, whether physically, in your own area, or just in spirit, on International Grownup Field Trip Day, August 20th 2010. Join the group on Facebook and chime in as what you’d like to do. We also invite you to drop a comment in and let us know what you think would make a great Grownup Field Trip and what fun things you’d like to do.

And if you do celebrate it, we want to hear what you did! Upload pics, spill dirt – we want to know what kind of fun you had. If it’s a good one, we’ll do another – and another. So be sure to snap lots of shots, plenty of video, and send them to us – we’d love to see them.

And yes, we’ll be issuing permission slips soon.

We’ll be right back.