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Monday, February 25, 2013

Asteroids to Avoid





My husband puts it best when it comes to avoiding the asteroid parenting style. Indications to revamp your parenting: If you're child is whining a lot to get your attention.

"I hear parents constantly saying no and don't.

…focus on the positive and tell them
what they can do
and offer them corrections with explanations.

Children are curious creatures.

Just think about the overwhelming number
of questions they have in a day.
Now imagine their frustration when they are
simply told no or stop that, etc. etc.
without
explaining to them why they should stop or what
could happen if they did this or that.

Imagine your own frustration if your boss
simply said no or stop with out explaining
what to do
and so on......

Take parenting seriously. Approach it professionally.
Respect your children, listen and explain everything to them,
teach them how to appropriately request audience from you,
(excuse me Mom......, Dad..... may I.....?  could you......?).  
Before you know it, you will have respectful, well behaved children.

As Bon says, Good Luck, Good Parenting!!
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  1. You can read more at www.sentinelandenterprise.com/columnists-avoiding-asteroid-parenting

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Excerpt from Growing Up Crazy by Bonnie J.Toomey

Freeze Pops



Winter 1972







There’s ice on my bedroom window in little cornered crescents. It’s still dark out, but it is time to get up for school anyway which I happen to like a lot.



I wriggle out of my pajamas and pull on a hand me down sweater and jeans from my aunt who works as a nurse in Boston. She was always giving us bags of clothes which I would pull apart and alter to fit my style and size. This gave my wardrobe an eccentric and eclectic look all its own which I thought was quite individual and even artsy.



I hated to leave the warmth under the pile of blankets and old coats I had layered on for extra insulation at night. It could get pretty cold upstairs this time of year, and the transition from clothes to no clothes to clothes again was a little unpleasant in the wintertime. There’s never been heat up here, Dad didn’t put it in, but instead cut a hole in the floor the size of a wood stove chimney pipe to let whatever heat rise up from our wood stove down in the kitchen.



“Heat rises,” was how Dad explained it to us. I kept thinking, well maybe it does, but I sure can’t feel it up here.



It is colder than usual this morning. My fingers don’t work as quickly as I want them to. I head downstairs where mom and dad are hunkered under some blankets on the couch which they must have dragged in front of the fireplace during the night. They’re still sleeping. Dad’s head at one end of the couch and mom curled up at the other end.



I grab my bag and step outside into the ice cold morning and my nostrils form tiny icy needles on the first breath in sticking together like metallic glue. Luckily, the bus arrives in less than a minute but long enough to finish turning my toes in my sneakers into ten freeze pops.



I slide in next to Claire careful not to break off any digits.



“Vaugn, you look really cold,” she says, very concerned. The newscaster on the bus radio says that it’s five degrees this morning over central New England, and that it warmed up from the overnight low of zero.



I explain that I think our furnace broke again and she offers me her mittens with the fancy rabbit fur cuffs.



“Thanks, Claire,” I say, and between her offering and the noisy over head heater blowing puffs of warmth into the air, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.



Excerpt from Leaf Landing by Bonnie J. Toomey

French Lesson







French is not the easiest class to miss.



I missed almost two weeks straight



after Mom died



and a lot of other days before that



and now I am really behind.



Mom wanted me to take French



because she thought it would help



in ballet class.



Dad lost a couple of bids.



He says people are losing



their jobs,



the economy is bad



The TV keeps warning



unemployment is up,



gas prices are up



and people are fed up.



I don’t know why Dad



has to watch



it only makes him



yell at the TV



Dad says we need to conserve more than we have been



now the house feels cooler.



When I complain,



Dad says



to go outside and come back in ,



then I’ll feel warmer.



Harriet and I spend our time bundled in



an extra layer of clothes



or dragging an afghan around



like giant moths in cocoons.



We are out of butter again.



Dad says



to try using peanut butter.



Well, isn’t the word,



butter,



in it?



Harriett won’t eat her toast



and it just sits on the plate



getting cold



like the floors



in this house



and suddenly the one phrase



in French,



“It is cold.” comes back to me:



“Il fait froid,



la maison est fait froide."