• 9 of the 12 families said they planned to assist their children with the acquisition of their first car.
• Of those 9, 4 expected to pass on or sell to their child a vehicle the familiy currently owned. 3 planned to assist with the purchase of a used car, and 2 planned to assist with the purchase of a new car.
• Of the 5 intending to help their child obtain a vehicle, safety and cost were the two most highly rated factors in choosing a vehicle.

This topic became the subject of an unScientific Study when some of our staff, with a 12 year-old child, mentioned that they were looking to buy a new car and were factoring into the purchase the expectation that it would become their child’s car in 5 years. This caused them to rule out certain types of cars, and they find themselves shopping for a fairly conservative sedan instead of the more “fun” vehicles they might have purchased. Similarly, their anticipated passing on of the vehicle is a factor in the options they are selecting.

What were your experiences with and feelings about a child’s first car?  Please share your thoughts below.

No parent wants to see their child get rejected or fail, and nobody wants to be left out of something they really like. As parents we encourage our kids to try things which they may be interested in. We even encourage them in things they may not be so keen on but through it all we hope they will be able to grow through the experience. What parents sometimes forget is that failure is a lesson our children must learn in order to grow.

It’s sometimes difficult (and heartbreaking) to teach our kids about failure or rejection. I remember when I was young I fell off my horse and did not want to get back on. I cried, protested, and begged not to get back on the horse. However, my father did not give up and eventually I got back on the horse. The lesson was that if I dwelled on my failure, I would have never ridden again. Rather, I learned from the fall and became a better rider.

Failure is part of life. Our kids will not succeed at everything and therefore they will experience rejection throughout their lives. As parents we need to be there for them when they fail and gently encourage them to overcome their own personal obstacles rather than to dwell on them. It is through this encouragement that our children will learn to find their inner strength.

I don’t know if my daughter will make the team but I do know that she will grow from the experience whatever the outcome may be.

Today, Sea Shephard shared this video interview.

Whether you agree or disagree with Sea Shephard’s efforts and methods, we felt it was important to share this because it seems to lend some credence to Parent X’s concerns.

What are your feelings about letting the internet create a record of your child’s beliefs, causes, and interests?

Okay, okay… I have no idea if the FBI really does put people who donate to Sea Shephard or are active members of their support community on a terror watch list. In fact, I suspect they don’t do anything of note… maybe log an ip or add the names to a list buried somewhere. But what about other countries? What about 10 or 15 years from now when Sea Shepherd finds itself on the wrong side of a politically powerful movement or individual? What about the way things on the internet seem to last forever? What if my daughter goes to apply for a job 15 years from now and her love of Captain Watson proves to be a reason she’s blacklisted? What if in 2030, her company does lots of business in Japan, but she is unable to enter the country because they are retaliating against those who fought whaling in the 2010′s?  Silly, I know… right?

Now, hold on… before you blast me with criticism, please allow me to make some important points.

1. I’m not saying any of this is really gonna happen. I’m just saying, who knows how the tides may change (no pun intended) 15, 20, 40 years from now and what will be held against who by whom?
2. I understand that part of being an activist is standing up for change and what you believe in despite the risk of repercussions and it being unpopular with some people. I get that. But, my daughter’s 11.
3. My daughter’s 11, did I mention that?  She’s not quite ready to make major decisions on her own, and I’m not looking to make them for her in this arena. The Whale Warriors can’t be that desperate for foot soldiers that I have to commit her to the cause before she fully understands what she’s fighting for and against. I suspect they’ll still be there and glady accept her assistance when she’s 16 or 18 or 21 and able to choose to give it herself.
4. My daughter is 11. I want to buy her a hat and a t-shirt, not declare the actions of another culture to be against nature’s lawas. Not that I condone some of what goes on, but I’m not fully informed, nor am I comfortable imposing my morals on another culture. Yes, what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong… but what’s right and what’s wrong is sometimes subjective.  And I’m sure some of the things I do and the actions of some people I support would be opposed by othrs. I’m not looking to engage in that war. I eat at Mc Donalds, I think leather seats are comfortable, and I just want to buy a cute t-shirt and maybe a bag for my daughter. She’s 11, she’s allowed to support “the cause” at only a pre-teen level.
5. My non-enlistment should not be viewed as condemnation of the actions of Sea Shephard. I think they’re great. And just like many of their supporters, I follow their actions online, I agree with a lot of what they do, I watch the show, I am learning more about some of the ways I can effect change and trying to do what I can… which is more than I used to do.  I’m a casual fan, and a moderately informed supporter. I just don’t want to put my daughter at the forefront of it all, and attach her name to something she doesn’t fully understand.

So we quietly fight the fight. We pick up plastic bags from the beach, she writes her essays in school about ocean conservation issues, and we try to be good, nature appreciating people.

And I feel badly for it… like I’m doing something wrong, or not enough.

But my daughter is my number one priority, and we can enjoy and support the work of Sea Shephard from a distance, with her name off any watch lists.

I hope that’s enough for now… it should be. And if it’s not, then maybe I need to take a closer look at who I’m supporting (passively) and what they really stand for.

I think it’s fine… I don’t think anyone who matters has an issue with our casual support. But I’m a worrier, and as I said… my daughter is my number one priority, and she’s only 11.

I love summer and I love summer vacation. Unfortunately I’m not a student, nor do I get summers off from work. As a result, the summer vacation phenomena is quite a disruption to our normal family routine.  Where my kids will be out of school for 2-3 months, I will be lucky to take a week off during this time.

I work from home. When the kids are at school,my “office” is fairly quiet. However when the kids are home it’s sometimes difficult to maintain the boundaries between Mom and Career Woman. If I hear the kids argue my first reaction is to intervene as Mom.  And, if they need something their first reaction is to come into my office and bug me.  “Mom, can I go to a friend’s house?” “Mom, can I watch a movie?” and so on…  I’ve learned it takes approximately a week to re-establish boundaries so my kids understand my working time vs. Mom time.

Another adjustment required during the summer vacation is overcoming boredom.  Last year, it took 4 hours after my daughter was out of school before she said, “Mom, I’m bored”.  Ugh. I try to instill that they need to work on entertaining themselves, but I do feel for them – we aren’t wealthy enough to do something extravagant every day and finding something inexpensive to do (or better yet – FREE) is difficult.

Then there’s the reminder of the upcoming school year. Children forget the lessons learned, and it’s a difficult battle to explain to my kids on why I’m having them do homework during their summer vacation.  Educators say it can take up to two months in the fall for teachers to review old lessons and bring students up to par. By providing them a little homework throughout the summer I’m attempting to minimize the re-education process and also combat summer boredom.

There will be time to spend with family, friends, and maybe go on the occasional trip during the summer. But for those of us parents who work during the summer it’s difficult to balance work and family life, especially when the children are not attending school during the day.

All things being equal, we lean toward the “healthy” looking variations – Simply Jif, for example. Lately we’ve been buying Jif with Omega-3 added.

We do it, because we feel like we should, but to be honest… I’m not so sure we’re doing the right thing.

The value of buying this product is debated by various sites. This one in particular outlines just how “not so good” the omega-3 enriched peanut butter is.

My main goal is to get my kids to realize that there are various degrees of healthy foods.  That some food choices are wiser than others. We talk about misleading advertising all the time, so at some point I will get into whether this is really that good of a product. But for now, I’m happy to have them thinking that the green jar of peanut butter is the healthy one because it has that extra oil in it. (do they have to declare it’s fish oil right on the label? geez!)

Whether that particular ingredient really does make the food better for you is something we can discuss as they get older. Similarly, we can talk about the moral aspects of misleading people and what parts of the pitch make it so alluring. I know that it’s not as good as advertised, but I’m using them just as they are using me in a way… I’m using the advertising to begin (just lay the groundwork, I’m saying) to educate my kids on healthy eating.

In the meantime, I’m trying to stay aware that in many ways I’m just loading them up with sugar saturated peanut butter flavored icing.

My husband and I established early on, way before we’d even brought our son home, that ours would be a non-spanking home. And we’ve stuck to that, though my husband has had his moments when he’s reconsidered, wondering whether it might be just the thing to turn around a child who clearly already thinks corporal punishment is a-okay considering his history of biting, pinching, kicking and hitting. The thing is that you can prepare yourself as much as possible, reading every book available about the best way to discipline a child, but once you actually have the child in front of you, all bets are off. Not to mention that the authors of those books tend to wildly disagree with each other, and occasionally even themselves, sometimes within the same book.

Since we brought home a child of two years of age who had already been unbelievably spoiled by his foster parents and had essentially never received any form of punishment, we had to try several methods before finding the right one to suit his needs, personality, and understanding – particularly as he spoke no English at all to start with. Sadly, brainwashing, while effective, is one of those techniques that will get you a little visit from Child Protective Services, so we had to stick with other options like time-outs, rescinding privileges, removing toys, and spending large swathes of time alone in his room. Unfortunately, this last one is hardly a punishment considering what most kids’ rooms look like these days, filled with toys, computers, televisions, and stereos. What every home really needs is an extra room with no windows, padding on the walls so the child can’t hurt himself when he flings himself at it repeatedly in an attempt to garner your sympathy and attention, and possibly some sort of protective wear to keep him from hurting himself, like, say, a straight jacket.

Not that I’m saying all children are insane and should be locked up, but… well, maybe that is what I’m saying. Certainly children can go through phases of behavior that seem like utter madness to adults.

Personally, I’ve always been a fan of allowing the punishment to fit the crime, which can sometimes be wickedly effective. Although there are some instances, for instance your child attempting to ride your basset hound without a saddle, that don’t resolve well into related punishments, unless you really want to saddle up your kid and let the dog drive him around the house for a bit. Though this may involve much duct tape (to keep the dog on board, of course) and may possibly end badly. One of the most genius moments that I remember of my childhood was the “candy diet” my parents put me on. If I remember correctly, it was after Halloween and I was whining and complaining about not being able to eat all my candy at once so that I’d be up all night barfing it right back up (but damn it, that was my right, having done all that begging to earn it.)

So my parents introduced the “candy diet”, under which rules I was only allowed to eat candy. Nothing else. If it wasn’t sugary or chocotastic, it wasn’t on the menu. I believe I lasted about three days before begging for a plain old sandwich, possibly of the tuna variety. And I still believe that that “diet” is the reason behind my lack of love for chocolate and sweets. You have to admit, it’s pretty genius.

The problem with these kind of punishments, is that the kid has to be old enough to really understand them. Now that my son is five, I think it’s time. If he says something insulting to me, I’ll be walking him to kindergarten in a house-coat and gold lamé leggings, possibly wearing fringed cowboy boots and curlers in my hair. And I can’t wait to make some really thrilling public service announcement-type plays and puppet shows using his favorite characters. No sense waiting until he’s an adult and allowing Hollywood to ruin his childhood heroes, right?

And one day, maybe he’ll even have enough fodder to write a book about his childhood -before he passes these same penal codes down to his own children.

I paused, not sure how to answer the question. Should I be truthful with her, and spoil the fun of believing in the typical imaginary things of childhood? Or should I continue the charade? She told me that many of her classmates have been telling her that there is no such thing as the tooth fairy or Santa, that it is actually just your parents giving you money under your pillow and gifts under the tree and in your stocking. The thing is, kids seem to really love believing in the “magic” of these things. Is there any harm in this? Are we just lying to our children, only to leave them disappointed later when they find out the truth?

So, I beat around the bush for a while. I read her a story called The Real Tooth Fairy by Marilyn Kaye, which deals with this issue. In the book, a little girl named Elise wakes up in the middle of the night to find her mother taking her tooth and putting money under her pillow. She then believes that her mother is THE tooth fairy and has the important job of traveling all over the world and putting money under all the children’s pillows. Then Elise’s friend at school says he woke up to find his father putting money under his pillow. Elise asks her mother about this, and she tells her that the tooth fairy transforms to look like someone the child knows so that if they wake up in the middle of the night, they see someone they know and trust so that they don’t get scared and think it’s a stranger in their room.  She enjoyed the story, but then asked me, “Mom, what is the genre of that story: realistic fiction, fantasy, or nonfiction?”

Wow! Kudos to her third grade teacher for teaching her about genres, but I also think this was Ashleigh’s way of asking me if the tooth fairy is really real!

I told her that it is up to her to believe or not believe, but if she doesn’t believe in the tooth fairy or Santa, she will no longer receive gifts from the tooth fairy or Santa. I reminded her about how this happened in movies like the Polar Express, Miracle on 34^th Street, and The Santa Clause.  I pointed out to her that is her choice to believe or not believe, but children who choose not to believe can sometimes miss out.

I am still debating on how to answer Ashleigh’s questions. She has told me that she wants to know the truth. I feel like I should honor her request, but I also don’t want her to be disappointed, or even upset that she has been “lied to.” One thing I know for sure – my little girl is growing up!

We found it interesting was that all of the films were older films, and none were seen in a movie theater. Among the films parents allowed their pre-teens to watch were The Rock, Not Another Teen Movie (featuring a cameo appearance by Perspectives’ own Paul Goebel), Animal House, Beverly Hills Cop, The Breakfast Club, Caddyshack, Air Force One, Sudden Death, Judge Dredd, Timecop, and Starship Troopers. All of the parents surveyed commented on how much standards had changed and wondered if those films would earn an R rating if released in their current state into today’s market.

We recognize that each household has its own criteria for determining what is appropriate entertainment, and clearly much depends on the maturity level of the individual child.

What films have you, as a parent, decided were too harshly judged by the MPAA? Do you disagree with the choices of these 5 parents? Please share your thoughts below.