Good Parents Raise Only Gifted Children! (The Story of Little "Drunk")

(See above--Kid who does NOT belong to a Good Parent, i.e., my kid.)

Good parents must have gifted children. As everyone knows, children of good parents are to be little "mini-me's" of their brilliant, multi-talented, wildly successful mom and dad. Nothing validates good parents like a gifted child.

The goal is to be sure the child knows, from a very young age, that they are the "goodest". Certainly better than the under-achieving riff-raff (i.e. kids like yours!). A superior "snowflake." The annoying ones--errr, "anointed ones."

Watch one such parent in action in this clip from the old movie, Parenthood. (You need only watch it from the 4 minutes, 35 seconds mark through 5 minutes, 40 seconds).

Good parents spare no expense to ensure their child is gifted. On the way home from the hospital with their golden child, they drive immediately to get the child on the waiting list for the exclusive, private daycare "academy" in the city. You know, one of those "hoity-toity"(sp?) elite places that promises by the time your little Morgan-Elisea enters kindergarten, she will be fluent in three languages, be a piano or violin virtuoso, excel in one or more sports, and will test in the top 2% on all measures of "smarty-pants-edness." (All for a mere $1,200 a week per child!)

Good parents will not be dissuaded from the belief that their child is gifted. Call it tenacity (or clinging like grim death to a dream). Even if their kid ends up running around with a bucket on his head rather than learning French, tanking in his grades, and more interested in Guitar Hero III than the violin--that is all just evidence that he IS gifted, but acting out because he is so FAR HEAD of the other kids he is bored. Yes, what a magical fairy-land to live in.

I remember when I realized the death of my dream, realizing that my kids were NOT gifted. At first, I just felt DEEP disappointment in both of my children. How could they have let me down! (I heard Marvin Gaye in my head singing, "Makes me wanna' hollah'...the way they do my life!") Utter despair. After all my hard work, I was not to be a good parent--I was out of the club.

Looking back, I should have seen the warning signs. It was that birthday "party," my son attended when he was 4. The host child had invited a number of his "gifted" posse. I knew this because they had proudly written "(GIFTED)" on their name tags..."Hello! I'm: KIN or 'Golden' (Gifted)"

I wish I'd noticed this BEFORE I wrote on my son's name tag: "Hello! I'm: DRUNK!!" (It was a JOKE!) AT one point, Mike got too loud and host mom called out, "Little DRUNK!" You make brain hurt with loudnesss. Quiet manners please, okay?" She approached me for conversation later, "So you are DRUNK father?" Ummm... :)

The party hit full gear, with the "gifted"-tagged kids quietly discussing quantum physics and creating a scale model of a magical city called "Tokyo/ DC", using only Lego's. My son gave this about 30 seconds of focused thought, then found a hula hoop, a length of rope and a kid that was also not "gifted"-tagged and they were soon in the yard "lassoing" each other.

There were other clues. I've been to other parties over the years. Same deal. Good parents holding me captive spouting on and on about their gifted child. In response, I experience the temptation to self-harm. Followed soon after by a profound sense of losing my will to live. Ultimately, I resorted to sarcasm just to make the bloated, ultimately self-glorifying monologues STOP! Some examples follow:

GOOD PARENT: My son (pre-K) just had his first oil painting entered in the County art fair. He won top prize!

SARCASTIC ME: My son (same age) just colored a house with stick people--he didn't even trace! And he only ate one crayon! We are SO proud!

GOOD PARENT: My daughter is skipping 2nd grade, going straight from 1st to 3rd grade! Hopefully 3rd grade will challenge her, at least a little bit!

ME: My daughter gets to repeat the first grade--once she gets out of juvie! So you know, we're happy.

GOOD PARENT: My oldest daughter, Melissa is busy with so many extra-curriculars: She tutors junior high kids, heads up the debate team, edits the school newspaper, is on the school swim team, and...

ME: Extra-curriculars...hmmm, my daughter is really into talking on the phone and texting--she texts REAL FAST! It's amazing...

GOOD PARENT: Suzette is now fluent in French--imagine that--fluent at 7!

ME: My daughter just learned a new curse word in French!

(Yes all lies...but it made me feel better.)

Recent research shows that like 98% of parents think their child is gifted, while the real percentage closer to like 5% at best. (See the excellent article below "Is your kid really gifted? Probably not." ). Oh yeah, you'll want lots of copies of that for all those good parents you know out there :)

In COMMENTS below, tell us about your gifted child! Actually, please don't. :) Seriously, how do you know what is fair to expect from your child?

When might a parent be pushing too hard or expecting too much? Expecting too little?

Suggested Resource:
Your Child's Strengths: Discover Them, Develop Them, Use Them

Other posts:
Caring About What People Think
Good Parents Make Sure Their Child Stands Out

Superb article for enriching your child's life and for stimulating their desire to learn and more: Is your kid really gifted? Probably not

Nominate an inspirational family (preferable one with a gifted child...hee): Families That Inspire

How Being a Boy Almost Killed Me (If My Parents Had Known, They WOULDA' Killed Me!)

When I was growing up, I could have died. Real bad. A whole bunch of times. And my parents never knew it until now. ("Hi mom and dad!")

Oh and don't feel so smug about your kids. Chances are you won't find out until 20 years from now about the numb-skulled, death-defying craziness your child is into RIGHT NOW. I am talking about the kind of stuff that could turn them into a potted plant--or plant them six feet under. (Think of all YOUR death-defying "Jackass TV show"-like near death experiences!) And why don't you know? Because they are afraid you would KILL them if you found out!

Here were just a few of my near-death experiences:

Death By Hot Dog and Kool-Aid--I was 5-years-old, at my friend Bernard's birthday party. There were many hot dogs. Me and Bernard, being the party "clowns"--competed to see how many we could stuff into our mouths. I ended up with such a huge wad of hotdog and bun in my mouth that I could not chew or swallow. That LAST thing I was going to do was spit out the whole glob...but I swear it was about to gag me.

Some kids noticed and started making fun and laughing. I couldn't help myself and started laughing real hard which made me choke real bad. I ran to a bush, and spit out a real lot. I returned to the table and drank some Kool-Aid. I started laughing again--and Kool-Aid came out of my nose!! I was petrified--I thought it was blood. I seriously thought I could have died real bad--twice in 3 minutes.

Arrows From Heaven
There was this time when I was 5 or 6, playing with a big group of kids, when a teenage boy invited us over to his back yard. We were honored a cool teenager even paid attention to us without trying to take our money or push us around. So we went.

The game he introduced us to this day was simple: He would shoot target arrows up into the sky...and all us little kids would try to avoid them as they came back down. :)

What a blast! When his friend joined him and we had two arrows to stay away from it got really crazy! What a fun time--that is, until I got tired of looking up. That's when a falling arrow grazed my shoulder. Six inches over...at best I'd still be trying to re-learn my ABC's today, worst-case I could have been dead, real bad.

BB Gun Ricochet
Like Ralphie in, A Christmas Story, I TOO got a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. I was 9. Just like Ralphie, I put the target right up against a piece of scrap metal, pumped off a shot and I was HIT! On the arm...a foot and a half higher, it could have put my eye out...or gone through the eye and into my brain and I would have been dead, real bad.

Freewheelin' on Benton Hill
We had this steep hill in our neighborhood. We loved to freewheel down the hill on bikes at terrifying speed. (Freewheel=the bravest/ toughest kids put our feet up onto our handle bars--totally off the pedals and unable to brake). At the very bottom of this steep hill was a blind cross street--you couldn't really see the traffic coming in time to save you--you just tried to navigate into a certain long driveway--or you would meet the curb at high speed. Oh yeah, death was possible, by car or by curb.

I was ten when I went freewheeling down Benton Hill for like the hundredth time in my life. Maybe I was cocky. Maybe I just got careless... I almost hit a car. A braking driver, a curb, and a nice big bush saved me from being dead, real bad.

There were others--getting a dart stuck in my cheek--about 2 inches from my eye (I was throwing them into the basement ceiling): going headfirst over the handlebars of my 10-speed and landing on my head, and so on. But the point is made. Though being a boy almost killed me, I survived. You survived. And so did these boys...

COULD THIS BE YOUR CHILD IN THIS SHOPPING CART?



CAUTION: BAD LANGUAGE...VOLUME OFF TO AVOID...


Only "advice" I can give here is...protect your kids all you want. You can't keep them safe every second of the day--even if you're the BEST parent in the whole wide world, and you are constantly hovering. Protective actions are prudent. Freaking out too much due to over-protectiveness will introduce a weirdness into your relationship which will rob your kid(s) of some of the most important things you are to provide as a parent--a sense of safety, security, and confidence in facing life in this big, bad old world.

SO what can you do? Go give your kid(s) a hug, tell them how much you love them. And let them know that if they ever do something stupid that gets them dead real bad...you're gonna have to kill them. But then again, they know that already :)

Click here to read a post on this blog about the teen brain and risk-taking behavior--why it happens and what you can do to try and stop it!

In COMMENTS below, please:

• Tell about times when you were a kid and almost ended up "dead, real bad".


• How do YOU find peace when fear for your child's safety overwhelms you?


• What are some practical things you do to keep your child safe?

Need to compare notes with other parents on all things parenting? Visit the website every parent needs: Click here to visit now!

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Ain't Nothin' But a Twin Thang! (Sibling Rivalry x10...and what to do about it)

I have an identical twin. His name is Phil. Mine is James ("Jimmy" way back when, Jim now). So there was no cutesy name stuff happening, thank God. No Jimmy and Timmy, Billy Bobby and Bobby Robby, or Skeeter and Peter. One small grace in an otherwise graceless situation.

Many people would say to us "being a twin must be awesome!" We would just look at the person in amazement, and say (probably in unison), "Now you are just talking like a crazy person!"

Mom used to talk crazy too. I think we were 3-4 when mom started telling us stuff like, "If you ever need a kidney, your brother could give you one of his!" This brought up a few questions:

"What's a kidney?"

"How? Does he reach inside, take it out and hand it over?"

Mom answered our questions (but she had to be wrong--GROSS!) But I couldn't imagine my brother giving me a kidney--at least not without a fight. We fought over food, friends, toys and every other possession...didn't look good for kidney sharing.

You see as twins we were already conditioned in hundreds of different ways to to be enemies, adversaries, competitors...not charitable givers--at least not to one another. If you think sibling rivalry is bad...for twins who shared the same egg and DNA...it's rivalry x 10, I promise you.

It meant, separate birthday party tables (better be the same number of kids at each--and have friends switch tables at mid-party), separate birthday cakes (better be the SAME exact size), same IDENTICAL toys (though when possible, different colors), and absolutely equal treatment in EVERY area from hugs and snuggles, encouragement and praise, to food portions, parental time, attention, interest--everything.

Mom would talk with other mothers who would ask the typical...Who was born first? (me by 6 minutes...na-na-na-na-na-na!) Who walked first? Who talked first? Which one is/ was the best baby? Me and Phil treasured all this information...ammunition in the battle for superiority.

Here is just a small sampling of the constant reminders to me and Phil that we were competitors for the hearts and minds of everyone in our world...

• Mom says there were times when one of us was breast-fed twice...while the other one got nothing. That right there is enough to put us at each other's throats for a lifetime, but I will continue...


• Grandma gave our older brother and sister $10 each for their birthdays. She gave Phil and me $10 to split between us. Yes, this happened. This almost put me in therapy.


• Which of you is smartest? ("Me...duhhhhh!" If people who asked us this had been smarter, we'd have been nicer when responding...)


• Which one of you is the ladies man/ has had the most girlfriends? (This one was extended even onto our girlfriends, "Which one of you has the prettiest girlfriend?" We would also have girls come up to us and decide out loud who was cutest or who had the best personality...nothing like losing that one.)


• Which of you is strongest/ most athletic? Which is better at baseball? Football? Basketball? Faster? Throws farthest? Hits a baseball best? and so on. Might as well say it...who's the REAL man between you two...and who's the sissy?


• Which of you has the most friends? (Well, minus you now for asking, that means I have this many ____.)

And on, and on , and on.

Me and Phil share the same DNA, but we are very different. We have different personalities, temperaments, talents, gifts, interests, opinions--quite a list. At times we can still finish one another's sentences. But not as much anymore. The point is, we are very different and so is every child.

Each child has a different "love language"--a different way each needs to be nurtured, built up, guided, challenged, and disciplined--through hundreds of different words, actions and attitudes that ultimately say, "I love YOU!" The key is for us to strive to treat each child as an individual, to never define one child in comparison to another. We have to refuse to compare our child unfavorably with another as a motivational ploy as well (ex. "Why can't you earn better grades, like your brother/ __________ [someone else's kid]?")

Finally, if you ever meet a twin, look into their eyes with compassion, give them a sympathetic nod that says, "I know". Then give them a $20--or whatever cash you have on you...(cause if Grandma didn't short-change them, some uncle with a bad sense of humor did)

Please respond to the following questions in COMMENTS below...

• What struggles with sibling rivalry have you had in your home? What has worked for you in resolving them? In preventing rivalry?
• So what do you do to make sure your kids feel loved as individuals?
• Oh, or you can just tell us about your painful (or magical) twin experience...

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Two Tykes on Trikes Cross Highway on Quest for Quisp and Quake! Parenting and Nutrition

The plan was perfect:

• Snatch spare change from around house (steal from mom's purse if necessary).


• Drive tricycles to grocery store which was far away (2 miles).


• Purchase Quisp and Quake cereal because mom wouldn't buy sugary cereals for us.

I was 3-years-old when I hatched this scheme. Admittedly, I did have an accomplice, my identical twin brother Phil (that's us above in 1965--with trike!) To this day, I insist (to my mom) it was all Phil's idea.

What inspired our daring caper beyond the lure of sugary cereal? Why the ability to fly of course! You see, if we mailed in 5 Quisp box tops and a few bucks for shipping (we were also willing to take from mom's purse) we would get our own free beanie hat with propeller on top, enabling us to fly around like Quisp! (Watch the 1965 commercial below that got us ALL excited!) Through my skillful negotiation, Phil settled for sending in Quake boxtops for a construction helmet with light! We promised to share. You may remember, Quisp and Quake were always competing...like me and Phil. Watch this...




Sidebar: A previous attempt to fly had not gone well. Me and Phil were convinced we could fly by jumping off the swing set slide trusting an umbrella (and magic!) to not only stop our fall, but to lift us to the rooftops! Yeah. That didn't happen. Phil went first, but being twins, I thought I could succeed where he had failed (competitive). Yeah, so we both suffered the reality of unhindered gravity.

Sidebar to sidebar: The inspiration for this act was not Beavis and Butthead or Bart Simpson, but another show that surely led to surge in child mischief and trips to the hospital --you guessed it--the movie Mary Poppins...but I digress. Back on track...

We had the money. Time for phase two. We revved up the trikes and starting down the road toward Highway 17 in Paramus, New Jersey. We were 10 houses away from our home, down the road and just about to cross a VERY busy avenue that fed right into the 17.

And we would have done it too...had we not been stopped short by a "bossy" crossing guard who stuck her nose where it didn't belong (after all...aren't there 3 year-old's committing serious crime that she SHOULD have been looking out for?). That and she knew mom--yikes!-- (this was back when people knew their neighbors--a long, long time ago, when neighbor=friend, not like now where neighbor=nuisance). Yes, this "crabby lady" was trying to keep us from our adventure and fun. It quickly became clear to us that she did not recognize our advanced trike skills on sub-highways. (What a killjoy!)

Anyway, we were tazered and cuffed...I mean we were walked to a nearby home, and mom was called, and boy did we get a spankin! (Oops, all that was an extended typo, so to re-interpret what I just said--and to please the child and protective services types out there--my mom "proceeded to persuade us, through verbal reasoning and AND 'manually applied physical motivation' that our behavior could be improved--but that we were so special and good!")

Right now you are asking...why? WHY do two 3-year-old's come up with a knucklehead scheme like this JUST for CEREAL? (Aside from the fact that men and boys have a relationship with cereal I don't think any woman understands...) Simply this--the forbidden fruit principle--that and the lure of the exotic and exciting--(remember how exciting Quisp looked on TV!!).

Our parents did not allow us to eat sugary cereals. It was like treasure to us and we were on the hunt! Soft drinks were rarely found in our home. Oh, and there were no debates on what we ate...we ate what mom cooked. Corn Flakes and the like for breakfast. No McDonalds either...that was a rare treat. Dairy Queen, hardly ever. Maybe a few times a year we would get that. I can remember every one I think. Some would define this as abuse.

After twenty years of parentin' I grudgingly admit my parents got this right. Yes this parenting "expert"* is serving himself up as a cautionary tale for you. Me and Karen got it wrong with our kids--we of the "kindler/ gentler" parenting generation--a generation that said too often, "my dad and/or mom used to MAKE us ____________ so I will NEVER make my kids _______." (Fill in the blank with stuff like: "eat vegetables", "go to bed a certain time," "wear non-designer clothes," "share toys," "be nice," "do chores," "go outside," "respect 'elders'--even imperfect ones," "go to church", "realize the world does not revolve around you," "eat dinner as a family." On and on it goes...add your below in COMMENTS)

Too often we allowed the food our kids ate to be debatable. Sometimes we dug in our heels on it, but we blinked before our kids did. They've had way too much McDonalds. Way too many soft drinks, too little agua (water). And their dental bills tell the story. (Did you know that one KEY reason why kids are so tired and unfocused at school is because they are not properly hydrated, i.e. they need to drink more water?)

PLEASE, avoid our mistake. Be sure your kids, from a young age, learn proper nutrition and develop healthy eating habits. This will require a lot of discipline on your part, and you will be denied the warm fuzzy of being your child's "friend", instead feeling the cold sting of the realization that you are the "parent", but in the long run, your good work will be rewarded. Hang tough! Don't be a push-over on this. There is too much on the line.

Chances are your 3-year-old won't come up with a scheme involving stealing, driving a trike across a busy road on a quest for cereal...but if they do...you've done your job.

(* A friend of mine defines "expert" as an "ex" (used to be), "spurt" (water squirting) or, "a has-been drip under pressure.")

In the COMMENTS below, please tell readers good, practical ways to teach children to eat healthy. Share some of your own house "rules" and best practices for sticking to the healthy eating plan for your home.

To see the #1 book for training your child to eat right, click on this link: Toddler Café: Fast, Healthy, and Fun Ways to Feed Even the Pickiest Eater

If you are a blogger with a legitimately helpful health and nutrition blog for parents and families (not an ad dump or a product review/ promotion site), please leave your link below so people can find you.

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The "Pre-Perfect" Parent

I am 46 and I still battling my middle school nemesis--acne. This keeps me in touch with the whole teen experience and sometimes makes me question God about the unfairness of life (Why God, WHY???). Though I love taking skinventory as much as the next TEENAGE guy...gets a little old at 46.


This added to the fact that as I get older, perhaps predictably, I am getting more tuned in with the whole disease and sickness thing. A little bit of blood on the toothbrush? (Mouth cancer?) A persistent headache? (Brain tumor?) A pain in my calf muscles? (Deep vein thrombosis?) Chest pain? (Was that a heart attack? Was that? Is that a cold sweat? Is there a sense of impending doom?-?-?) That mole is bigger...I measure it every day...it IS bigger (skin cancer?) Red patches on my legs? (Flesh-eating disease?)

That last one was what brought me to the dermatologist yesterday (well, and the acne...and that mole). I was sitting in the waiting room and looking at the guy with the big bandage on his nose (is there still a nose left under there?--note to self: 1) SUNSCREEN!! 2) No more "Fake & Bake" in tanning beds), people with severe acne who refused to make eye contact (still, even a decade or so after their teen years), and other people whose affliction I could not see, but imagined was probably something scabby and rashy. I was disrupted from my gross-out imaginations by a young girl my son's age who called for me and walked me back to the exam room.

Once there the young woman wanted me to SHOW her my "problems," which I very self-consciously and reluctantly did. (Sidebar: I have this problem. Unlike every woman, and like every man, I still like to delude myself into thinking I am attractive and I've still got game. Why? I don't know. I am happily married and love my wife.) Nevertheless, having to show this young woman my physical flaws pushed me pushed me right out of my delusion. Put me in my place basically--reality check.

The doc walks in. I make a joke, pointing to the illustrated guide to skin on the wall that names all the parts that make up this, the largest organ (average human skin weighs 6 pounds by the way), I say, "Wow, I didn't know skin was THAT complicated."

He looks and says, without missing a beat, "Wow, me either!"

I know right away, he's the doc for me. I want a guy who can crack a joke before he tells me the bad news about that mole.

The 5 minute, $50 exam is rapid-fire. The mole is okay. A new spray should work for the psoriasis. As far as the face, "well, we'll just have you use a little Elidel" (it costs $133 AFTER insurance for 6 ounces). "We'll clear up your face (my face ia always red) so we can see if any of this is "pre-cancerous, and..." he continued on, but I didn't.

"PRE-CANCEROUS??????" I KNEW IT. All this worrying, hours on the internet examing skin cancer and every other sickness, pestilence and plague had paid off.

So BEFORE I got home and Googled this all out, I played around a little bit with the whole idea of "pre-cancerous." What does it MEAN???:
"Pre-make out your will?"
"Pre-you are so gonna die?"
Or is it a more kinder, gentler, like...
"Pre-just keep rubbing a little bit of this on it?"

Because I am easily bored, even by ruminations on the fear of imminent death, I also started playing around with the word "pre" in other, more positive contexts, as in:
I am possibly a "Pre-genius" or
I could be a "Pre-President of the United States"
I am for sure "Pre-insane (as is any parent of middle-schoolers or any teen girl)."

I finally struck on, "I could be a 'Pre-Perfect' parent."
A bunch of things came flooding in. I wish I was a better dad. I wish I was smarter about it and that I had more wisdom. I wish I was more loving and more attentive. I wish I knew how to handle more situations for sure. I wish I felt more confident in my role (I feel like an impostor sometimes--will the "real dad" please take over!) I wish I didn't lose sleep when I take a tough stand with my kids and I know they "hate" me at the moment.

At the end of this negative rumination, I got back on the right track by reminding myself:
1) Parenting is a LEARNING EXPERIENCE for us, thank God not pass/ fail. It's gonna be messy sometimes. There is room for mistakes, weakness and finding our feet.
2) I am a better parent than I used to be. And far more confident. I remind myself of specifics.
3) I think about how much I love my kids. Love covers a multitude of sins.
4) Since I've begun reaching out to other parents, in real life and through my website http://www.parentconsensus.com/, I have far fewer "negative rumination" times than I used to. (One big reason I started the website was to see if I was on track and to get wisdom and help from other parents--who are better at this than me.)
5) Parenting perfection is a myth. We are just all at varying levels of doing this thing wrong--yes even you.


(By the way, according to my Googling and Ask.com-ing, "precancerous" means "showing pathological changes that may be preliminary to malignancy" BUT that early recognition of these is key to preventing skin cancer AND exercise and caffeine work together to kill off precancerous skin cells.) On that note..



...I have to leave all you "pre-perfect" parents, I am running off to Starbucks...then the gym...fighting the "pre-cancer."





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Go Dutch on Parenting?

In a recent article, "Why are Dutch children so happy?" children in the Netherlands were rated #1 in the world in "happiness", according to UNICEF's league table for child well-being (United States rated #20 of 21 industrialized nations). And though this may surprise you, they are NOT happy due to the way cool wooden shoes, windmills, cheese, or tulips :)

Just a few highlights of how The Netherlands compares to other industrialized countries. We'll start with the "good" stuff first:

• Less pressure is put on kids at school--teachers expect less of them. (I bet they accomplished this through F-CAT, C-CAT, tulip-CAT, whatever testing...ahem.)


• They are rich. Schooling is excellent. Good careers are not hard to find. (Okay, good. Of course, this is a lot easier with a country of 16.5 million versus, say 305 million in the US--and I guess if we went legal a lot of our kids could grow up and sell drugs legally too!)


• Low percentage of young mothers in the labor force, comparatively. Strong tendency for mothers to raise children--take a long time off work after children are born. (Cool.)


• Families are very open and communicative. (Good stuff!)


• Parents provide a highly protective, highly positive, caring family environment. ("Good things!")

Now things get controversial:

• Children almost rule the family--deciding what happens in the family. ...there can be a lack of balance between the happiness of the child and that of the parent, as the parent works harder to grant the wishes of the child." (hmm, maybe we in the US are going Dutch...)


• Liberal attitudes toward drinking, drugs and sex. These things are not serious matters to Dutch parents. (Hmmmm, I mean you put these things together--kids dancing in them wooden shoes, drugs and so on--well nothing but trouble will come of it.)

So what do you think about all of this? Comment below!

Here is the link to the article, dated 8/22/08: http://www.inform.kz/showarticle3.php?lang=eng&id=168856

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Parents: Are You Good TV or Bad TV?

Last week, police officers in Trenton, New Jersey were called to the home of Evelyn DeLeon, after neighbors reported hearing a woman's persistent cries of "Help me! Help me!" When police officers arrived, they kicked in the door to make the rescue...and found a caged pet cockatoo named Luna who had mastered a very convincing call.

This was not the first time.

Apparently, almost seven years ago, police were dispatched to the same home due to reports of a possible abandoned baby. Sounds of a baby's cries had been non-stop all day long. Police and state child welfare workers were dispatched to the home to intervene, only to find Luna practicing a newfound sound.

Apparently Luna knows a lot of phrases--in English and Spanish--due to watching TV. (Source, AP, Sep. 5, 2008)

I'd like to use Luna as a reminder that our kids are like her--taking in all that they see and hear, deciding what to imitate, what to try on for size...words, emotions, attitudes, actions, all of it. And they love imitating us the most.

Sometimes our children's choices of what to imitate are a source of pride for us, but sometimes, their choices can be humorous or, yes, even embarrassing. (And sometimes, let's face it, they make up their own material and we fear people might think they are imitating us!)

We are the TV our kids are watching. But there is no DVR picking and choosing what they can see--no instant replay. No "erase" to get rid of what we "done did." There is no fast forward or rewind to try and gloss over or minimize our bad example moments. (And we can't slow-mo and bask in our shining moments.)

There we are, on the screen, in living color, in real time, for better or for worse. Little eyes and ears are locked onto us. We are must see TV for them.

What an incredible opportunity we have, as parents, to mold and shape young lives. Let us never take that lightly. Let's make sure we are always "good TV."

Check out the webite every parent needs, www.parentconsensus.com !

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Parents: You Are What You Click...

It used to be said, "You are what you eat." Bill Tancer , author of the new book, Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why it Matters. insists that nowadays, "You are what you click."

Tancer leads global research at Hitwise, an online market research company. His job is basically that of discovering the behavior of online users, primarily as a marketing tool, but much of what he discovers provides interesting nuggets on the impact of the internet on our culture, society and families.

Since I will not receive his book from Amazon until Thursday, I had to settle for viewing some entries from his blog, which I found on the Amazon book page. (To see Tancer's blog, go to http://blogs.abcnews.com/click/2008/07/searching-for-a.html )

Along with facts like at any point in time 30% of Internet users are grazing porn online, I also found some info you parents may value.

What are the top 10 internet queries containing "fear of." (As of July 7, 2008)
1. Fear of flying


2. Fear of heights
3. Fear of communism (???)
4. Fear of intimacy
5. Fear of clowns (who ISN'T afraid of clowns??)
6. Fear of dying
7. Fear of commitment
8. Fear of darkness
9. Fear of death
10. Fear of germs

(More on fear coming in my blog this weekend...ths was just the appetizer.)

Tancer also discovered these internet searches in common with people who searched for the current presidential candidates (form your own opinions):

People who went to the site barackobama.com also tended to make these searches as well:
News: Washington Post
Television: PBS online
Shopping: IKEA
Dating: Match.com
Music: Linkin Park
Apparel: DSW
Baseball: Red Sox

People who went to the site johnmccain.com also tended to make these searches as well:
News: USA Today

Television: Food Network
Shopping: Bed, Bath, and Beyond
Dating: eharmony
Music: The Jonas Brothers
Apparel: Footsmart
Baseball: Yankees

Good news--you can buy Tancer's book through the Parentconsensus store and get the low Amazon price: http://www.parentconsensus.com/index.php?p=Store the book is on page 3 of the store.

So based on what you click on the internet...who are you? And based on what your kids are clicking on the Internet, who are they? (See the software SpectorPro in the Parentconsensus store to find out what your children are clicking online.)

Visit the website every parent needs, http://www.parentconsensus.com/! (Sign up for the parentconsensus e-newsletter--see the header at the top of the page.)

Do you love movies? Do you love your teen? This book is for you: 101 Movie Clips That Get Families Talking. See more about this here: http://www.parentconsensus.com/index.php?p=Store

Parents: The Ticking Crocodile Chases Each of Us

Not long ago I was enjoying lunch at a local favorite Mexican restaurant of mine here in Orlando (Tijuana Flats). At the table next to me was a dad in his thirties, sitting with his daughter--a young girl of six or seven. She was wearing a nice blue-flowered dress, had a ribbon in her hair--she was dolled up, suggesting this might be a "special" time of some sort.

I loved it...a dad and daughter, sharing a lunch out together. I am a sucker for that stuff--seeing dad's "into" their kids. So I paid attention. I thought I just might have a warm observation/ entry for this blog.

Sadly, I was wrong.

Though this dad had the right idea about being "there" with his daughter--sadly, he never showed up.

Predictably, he was wearing his bluetooth earpiece. Since he hadn't arrived in a helicopter, and there was no briefcase handcuffed to his wrist, my guess was, he didn't have his finger on the nuclear button--so no real need to keep that earpiece in. When he received a call and yukked it up for a few minutes with "Carl", who apparently was a "Dumb s__ of a b___!" asking, "How the h___ are ya?"--I knew for sure he had no reason to wear it.

(Hey--had the discussion veered even once from the inanities of "Hey man, how much beer DID you drink that night?" into aerospace technology or miltary jargon, I'd have given him the benefit of the doubt--this guy was no rocket scientist.)

Almost immediately after the Carl call, our boy hollered a "Go Gators!" greeting to the Tebow-jerseyed guy at the next table, and, for the next 30 minutes talked about how great the Florida Gators would be again this year(which is by itself annoying to me, a Florida State Seminoles fan. We've become a little thin-skinned and extra sensitive around Gators fans over the last few years.)
"Tebow...he, he, he once threw a football 200 yards--a guy I know saw him." Blah-blah.
"Tebow, even if he had just one arm, I bet he could still get the Heisman." Blah-blah.
"Tebow, if he was like running for President...watch out Obama!" Blah-blah. You get the gist. BLAH-blah!

Our boy said not ONE word to his daughter the ENTIRE time. She sat there silently, having long-finished her food, sipping her drink. She tried to get his attention a few times...but even then, when he heard her, he shushed her.

As I left, the girl was begging her father "Can we just go???" Needless to say "Can we just go??" is not how any dad "sees" his daddy-daughter time ending.

As I drove back to work, I took a little stroll down memory lane...

It was a daddy/daughter "date" with my 3-year old daughter, Kristin, (now 15--going on 20). Back then, I set aside time each week to focus on Kristin for a couple hours instead of the usual few minutes at a time. Though we varied the plan--the playground, an ice cream shop, children's section at a bookstore, and others--her favorite destination for one-on-one time with dad was the Barbie aisle of the local toy store. (I did a LOT of time in the Barbie aisle--almost had to trade in my "man card.")

On the way she would happily chat my ear off with giggly stories, and questions ("Daddy, why is sky?"), mixed with sing-a-longs to Veggie Tales ("I Love My Lips") and Barney.

Every date would end the same way...with a chocolate milkshake. Milkshake in hand, I would say, "Baby, always stay little, okay?"
"Okay daddy!", she said with a giggle and little kick of her legs. (It was the first playful "banter" we shared.) I'll never forget her little red cheeks, chubby little knees and her fine hair styled in what I called a "bee-paw" ribbon scrunchy, giving her that "Pebbles" look.

I'll never, ever forget those smiles, those songs, those happy times. And when I face trials with my teenage Kristin...I call on these memories, of my little girl and I find new reserves of patience, and love.

Time marches on. Kids grow up. Hopefully, we are left with the deep connections we forged, and the memories we made (not those we didn't).

In the story of Peter Pan, there is a crocodile who swallows a clock, who pursues Captain Hook endlessly. But he's not the only one. That ticking "clock croc" pursues us all.

Randy Pausch, in his book, The Last Lecture, writes, "Manage your time well...Time is finite....Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think."

The croc is ticking...

(Special note: You know the Barbie aisle has a special place in my heart :) Well it does for a blogging friend of mine as well. Check out the blog Barbies4Sale at this link: http://barbies4sale.blogspot.com/ )

Be sure to check out the site every parent needs: http://www.parentconsensus.com/


Need good quality time with your teen? Use the book, 101 Movie Clips That Get Families Talking. FInd out more here: http://www.parentconsensus.com/index.php?p=Store

Things Good Parents Do: (#1) Good parents...dress kids in the hottest labels and designer gear (thus avoiding the end of the world as they know it)

The good parent must be sure their child stands out from the nameless, faceless rabble (your kids) with only the best, hottest, most popular brands/ labelled clothing. Abercrombie, Buckle, and Hollister (where "models" work!) and the rest of that ilk. Clothes are not just clothes of the "food, shelter, clothing" level for these folks--they are status, success, even an entire identity. These clothes say "winner." Good parents reason, "$100 for a pair of athletic shoes for my precious child is a small price to pay for his or her happiness, well-being, and social standing." This makes them feel all warm inside.

Righting the wrongs of the past

These are the the people who made the $60 t-shirt and $100 jeans a reality when the previous generation doubted it would ever happen ("You'd have to be nuts..."). People in the old days were such cheapskates! These good parents are bound and determined to right the wrongs of the past and make sure their kids have the best--that they are denied no good thing.

In their defense, good parents are deeply scarred from their own personal childhood experience of being "forced" to wear $5 "sneakers" and $9 "dungarees." It went something like this...

"$20 for sneakers?! Converse(TM)? I don't care if you want CON-verse, RE-verse, UNI-verse, or any other "verse" shoes--are you CRAZY?"

"Pay $20 for Levi's(TM) dungarees??? Do I look high to you?" (It was the 70's--parents said this) "You are wearing these $10 Sears(TM) Toughskins with the patches on the knees (on the OUTSIDE) and you will like them!"

You can understand why this was so emotionally damaging for them. To not have something that others have is...well, it's just un-American for one, and just downright abusive for another. Just one more way their parents plotted against their child's happiness.

(Remember the first wave? Jordache(TM) jeans for $25, Calvin Klein(TM) jeans for $40? I do. Most thought--it's just a trend. My dad just laughed and said "No idiot will ever pay that much for dungarees!" "Only the CHEAPSKATES like you won't pay that!" I pouted and sniffed.)

Good parent's biggest fear--school uniforms
The biggest fear for these good parents, as it concerns their kids, is only one thing--the school uniform. You want to get all the parents to a parent meeting at your school? Establish a school uniform policy.

The shot heard 'round these parent's world is when little Madison rushes home after school, in tears, with the news that her middle school is reverting to non-designer uniforms. These parent's minds race...how could this be happening? Now how will their child stand out? They see their status--oops their child's identity, and FREEDOM being taken away. (Psychiatrists, personal trainers, lawyers, "prescription" doctors are variously called.) What will we do---oh dear what shall we do??? The local Starbucks(TM) is abuzz.

Good parents get involved
The principal gets to know these parents very well over the next few days. Strangers to the PTA (too busy) these parents find "bandwidth" for this catastrophic issue. (One parent overheard saying. "There comes a time when you just have to stand up and say enough is ENOUGH! This is AMERICA!") Yes it is--and if there was ever a time to become engaged with our child's education and patriotic...

There are tearful, passionate pleas at the next school board meeting presented by community pillars dressed in Polo(TM) (even the shoes and socks)and moms adorned in their best BCBG(TM) (Big Cash Bigwig Glamour?) or INC(TM) (I Need Compliments??). Lacking any other case except the most seemingly altruistic, they finally join forces with unlikely allies--the poor, whose kids can only afford Aeropastale(TM)--passionately pleading their case before the school board of the "economic hardship" this would put on these poor parents to purchase uniforms.

Bottom line: If you are spending less than $300 on a single outfit for your children...(ESPECIALLY your teenager) how can you possibly consider yourself a good parent? Are you nuts? Join us good parents in making sure no child is left behind. Image is everything, after all.

Need parenting ideas, advice, opinions or help? Check out a great new parenting site: http://www.parentconsensus.com/ and be sure to participate in a forum or vote in a few polls there on all things to do with parenting, marriage and more.

Get your family talking, sharing, and interacting on a fun new level with 101 Movie Clips That Get Families Talking, available at this link: http://www.parentconsensus.com/Store.php

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Help for Parents: Understanding the Teen Brain

Ever have absolutely no idea what your teen is thinking, and why they do some of the things they do? Whether you need to better understand teen impulsiveness, rebellion, high emotions, risk-taking, or decision-making--a great new, free online resource can help. "A Parent's Guide to the Teen Brain" is the first in a series of interactive products to be introduced by The Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

Check it out at www.drugfree.org/teen brain!

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