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These are blog posts from our parenting experts and from our guest bloggers.
Digital Nation
Did anyone watch the Frontline episode called Digital Nation? If not, you should check it out online. It's quite enlightening and shows how wired our kids really are. Certainly not all kids, but a good majority of them. It is changing everything, from the way they are taught in high school and college to interactions in the workplace in the future. Even their hearing is being altered from being wired all ...
Imagine what could happen
Imagine the impact on our world....
Please watch this very powerful video. It's called the Girl Effect.
Meetings held in Mansfield to present options for school renovation
The Mansfield Board of Education will be holding a meeting at Mansfield Middle School Thursday, January 28th at 7:30 pm to discuss the four options that the Board is considering for school maintenance and construction. As you have probably heard, the choices include options for the construction or renovation of one, two or three elementary schools, as well as an option to maintain the current buildings. The projected costs of ...
Sweeney Todd To Be Performed At EO Smith
The E.O. Smith Drama Club will present Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, School Edition this February. The production will be directed by Lenore Grunko with musical direction provided by Ken Clark. The play is based on a book by Hugh Wheeler with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. This is the story of the Benjamin Barker, who is banished from London for a crime he didn’t commit. Barker returns ...
Are you checking out the bookmarks section of this web site?
I hope all of you are checking out the bookmarks section of this web site. I just posted a great article from the NY Times about the cost of raising an autistic child. Did you know that it costs parents $72K on average for each autisic child? Many of the recommended treatments are not covered by insurance. How do parents afford this? Especially when time is of extreme importance as early treatment of ...
Planning for College
Help with Planning for College at E.O. Smith
I would highly recommend that, if you are a high school student or the parent of one at E.O. Smith, that you make sure you are registered to use Naviance through the E.O. Smith High School Guidance Department.
A college/course planning software program, called Naviance, is available to parents of high school students through E.O. Smith. The program allows students and families to investigate, research, track, and ...
Time wasters - all of them!
Facebook. Twitter, MySpace, Cell phones, Blogs, iParentnetwork....
Time wasters. Time thieves. At least that is how the media has sometimes portrayed them. Not real. Online friends? Get serious. That's not really human contact. Those are trivial connections that take up time that we could be spent with our real friends, right? Those using social media, such as iParentnetwork, are the lonely folks, the isolated. Social media must adds to that sense of isolation.
Nope.
A ...
The Generation Gap of THIS Century
I read an article the other day that I just had to share. A little toddler picked up a book and said "Daddy's book!" How cute, you may think. Except the item in that toddler's hand was a Kindle, an e-book, not a book at all, in the traditional sense.
It was at that moment that I realized that each generation will have their own little generation gap to deal with and it all ...
Why Facebook may be unwittingly exposing your kid to underage drinking
Facebook wasn't even around five years ago and now it is may be a central part of your teen's social activity. With over 250 million users, it's doubtful that Facebook hasn't impacted your teen's life in some way, even if they are not registered users of the social networking site.
Roughly one third of active users are under the age of 21. One of the revenue streams for Facebook is through advertising. Facebook pages, applications, ...
Anything happening during the holiday school vacation?
Has anyone heard of anything fun happening during the upcoming holiday school vacation period? Please post your ideas here. The kids will be home for 12 days straight (including weekends)! That's a long time to keep them entertained. Let's share ideas here.
C'mon - who will be the first to post a great idea?
Power School - Have you been on the site?
Wow - what a great thing EO Smith had offered parents when they added Power School to their bag of tricks. Have you gotten your user ID and password and gone on the site yet? This is a great web site that allows parents to check the online status of your child's grades, their attendance history, the balance they have on their lunch card and whether they have an detentions on their record.
This ...
Even for the little ones: There's probably an app for that
Everyone today is running around and with little ones, even the simplest chores become challenging when you also have to make sure your preschooler or toddler is entertained and safe while you pay bills, make a meal, or even take a phone call. It's even more challenging when you have to wait in line at the grocery store or, now that it's the holidays, to buy a gift at the store.
I remember one December ...
This should be the online mantra for our kids
The FCC recently published guidelines for social networking safety for tweens and teens. There are some really good tips in here that every parent should read. We all know that we have to teach our kids to look both ways before crossing the street. That's a no-brainer. What is less clear is how to guide them through this new terrain - the world of social networking.
The first concept you must get across to ...
If You Think Sexting Is Fun
The following is an article that I came across on a blog in the Hartford Courant. It reports the second known "sexting" related suicide to take place in the country.
This is a dangerous practice that is engaged in by naive teens, and the consequences can be significant and far-reaching. I know of at least one local student who was involved in a similar incident and ultimately withdrew from school. Parents need to know about ...
Self-assessment
Self-Assessment 14.2: (Santrock, 2008, Life Span Development)
Think back to your adolescent years, especially when you were in high school. Rate each of the items for both your mother and your father on the following 5 point scale:
1 = Knows nothing
2 = Knows a little
3 = Knows many things
4 = Knows most things
5 = Knows everything
Write your ratings one the lines to the right side. Rate the "father ...
Listening isn't the same as hearing
I read recently that business people spend roughly 40% of their day listening. That sounds like a lot, but when you really begin thinking about it, it's probably correct. You listen while in meetings, on the phone, in the car (to the radio?), etc. That's a lot of time spent listening. But how much of that time is spent really hearing.
Pondering my own two kids and their technological gadgets and gizmos like cell phones ...
Saturdays
What to do on Sat? Asking each member of the family what they would like to do is a start!
Here are few ideas from in the Tri-town area?
play a sport
make a gift
bake, cook for the family and friends
design a room for a special activity
try something new...music, art projects, hiking, snowboarding, ice skating, bowling, singing? The sky is the limit!
Read or listen to a book on CD ...
Do you find iParentnetwork too difficult to navigate?
So I recently heard from some folks that they find iParentnetwork too difficult to navigate....that it's too "clunky" was the word. Others have said that they love the site and are thrilled to have a resource like this in town.
I'd love to hear from you how you are finding the site. Please be as specific as possible. Are there sections that you find confusing or difficult? Are their areas of the site you don't ...
underage drinking
What's unfair is that some teens develp an addiction and use of stronger pills, street drugs. This is less unusual then many think. How would you feel if your wondeful child developed an addiction?
PS When writing about this, one word or 1 sentence or question may start a disccussion with your friends.
Ungrateful Teenager In My House
This is an interesting article in today's Courant about parents using Facebook to vent about their teens: http://www.courant.com/features/hc-hartfordfacebook1118.artnov18,0,2160735.story.
I think it raises a number of interesting points: should social networking be used in this way, are teens today different, or is this just part of a developmental phase, and how can parents instill the kinds of values in their children that they would like to see them carry into adulthood?
I don't know what the ...
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