Parental Marching Orders For a New School Year

Once again, summer has flown by in a flash! It's hard to believe that it's time to send our children back to school! Like many parents, I have gone into total "back-to-school mode" including a plethora of school supplies purchased, taking my kids shopping for new clothes and shoes, and the oh-so-important quest for the perfect new backpacks (see left, mission accomplished). The charm of the back to school shopping phenomenon is the idea that we want our children to return to school prepared and excited for the new academic year ahead. It's important to us that they start off on the right foot! Likewise, we as parents need to be excited and prepared to help our children succeed this school year. Here are a couple of "marching orders" to help us start off this school year on the right foot.

1. Step Up! to get started on the right foot-

Parents, we have to step up and keep ourselves informed this year! There are plenty of resources available to help us monitor our children's grades and keep updated on important dates and events. Here are the most important ones:

• The Memorial Junior High School webpage on the District 158 website has helpful links, resources, and a calendar. It includes a supply list, PTA info, and a staff directory. Make sure you check it often! http://www.d158.net/schools/memorial-junior-high-school/

• Power School is a fantastic resource for monitoring our children's progress and grades. You can connect with teachers, check attendance records, view lunch balances, and more. You received your child's username and password at registration. If you can't locate it, call the office at 708-474-2383. http://powerschool.d158.net/public/ 

• Go to Open House on Thursday, September 4th from 6:30-8:00 PM! This is such an important evening to visit each of your child's new classes and hear from each teacher about expectations and the year ahead. Be sure to get your child's schedule from Power School if they aren't attending with you.

2. Put Your Foot Down! to get started on the right foot

The "one day at a time" philosophy is really important as we anticipate the work ahead of us and our children to ensure academic success. We have to be committed, one day at a time, to holding our children accountable for their academic performance and healthy habits and behavior. We probably need to have a heart to heart talk with our kids as they head back to school and clearly lay out our expectations of them in this new school year. A couple of the highlights of my heart to heart will include:

• Prioritization of time- rest, homework, and limited screen time         
• Middle school students, no matter how responsible, need to be reminded occasionally that proper rest and homework trump TV, video games, social media, and texting!

• Expectation of best effort- preparation, organization, good choices 
• I've said it before and I'll say it again- "I don't expect perfection, but I do expect your best effort," is incredibly important to communicate to our children. Best effort probably needs a bit of defining for our kiddos. Preparation, organization, and good choices are the three things that I use to measure "best effort". On this point I would throw in the idea of, "progress, not perfection". Let's face it, middle schoolers are a wreck sometimes, aren't they?

• My availability to help- ALWAYS 
• It seems odd that we, as parents, need to let our children know that they can come to us for help! But it's something we need to clearly state over and over again. As we embark on the new adventures of this school year, I'm letting my daughter know that she can come to me anytime she needs help and with anything she may need help with- that covers not only academics, but all areas of life including situations that may arise with friends or teachers.

So, to recap, our parental marching orders are to step up and put your foot down to get the school year started on the right foot! And...............march!

Summer Bucket Lists!

I think I have a love/hate relationship with summer vacation! I'm always totally ready for the break from the daily morning rush to get the kids out the door for school, the grind of homework, projects, after school commitments, etc. However, I do feel like there can be a fine line between embracing and enjoying the carefree days of summer and giving ourselves over to laziness and overindulgence in things like TV, video games, and all things entertainment.

A few years ago, one of my facebook friends posted a picture of a family bucket list that she and her children had made for summer vacation. In the caption she shared that it was their way of making sure that they didn't waste the precious days of summer without doing some things that were important to them. I thought it was a brilliant idea, and it is a tradition that we have adopted as a family as well. It has been a lot of fun to work together and include a variety of ideas from each family member as we make our lists. I would encourage any family who wants to be intentional about making great memories this summer to take the time to do the family bucket list! Our family bucket list from last year is pictured below.

In addition to the family bucket list that will keep us on track for a summer of great memories, I'm thinking of secretly creating another little bucket list of my own that has a bit more intentional focus on making sure we continue to learn all summer long! Here are my top 5 Summer Learning Bucket List Items:

1. Reading- This is a given! Thankfully my daughter is an avid reader and doesn't need motivation to keep her nose in a book, but my two sons definitely require some effort.  Check out the American Library Association's SUMMER READING LIST for 6th-8th graders. We always do the summer reading program at Lansing Library (and I certainly recommend it), but it doesn't cover the entire summer and doesn't provide much accountability. So, I'm thinking of something pretty radical. I'm considering making my sons earn their TV and video game time allowance based on time spent reading!

2. Day Trips- Our proximity to Chicago affords us access to some of the best museums, nature centers, theaters, and cultural festivals in the entire nation. I grew up in western Pennsylvania and one of the biggest reasons I have stayed in this area is because of the amazing educational opportunities of living so close to a major city. Link to this list of MUSEUM FREE DAYS to plan a summer day that is inexpensive, fun, and educational. You can also use your Lansing Library card at www.museumadventure.org for museum discounts and passes!

3. Camps and Classes- My kids participate in a variety of great sports related leagues, camps, and classes during summer vacation. But this year, I want to be sure each of them tries something new in addition to improving their skills in areas they already know they enjoy. Lansing, Homewood, Munster, and South Holland all have park district programs that offer a wide variety of camps and classes. Their summer catalogs are available online. Most of them are inexpensive and don't require a big time commitment.The Center for Visual and Performing Arts in Munster has art and theater camps and classes. South Suburban College also offers summer classes and camps for students in elementary, middle school, and high school. There are tons of other incredible opportunities in the Chicagoland area if you have the time and money to invest, but the above organizations have a lot of potential for summer learning opportunities!

4. Websites and Workbooks- I am ashamed to say I have never consistently had my children work on math in the summer. This year I'm thinking I may order a couple workbooks and offer to take a chore off of their daily chore list for each page they do in the workbook. Amazon has quite a few workbooks that are targeted to middle school math skills. As for websites, www.coolmath.com is supposed to be a good one and I think 15 or 20 minutes on the website is probably equal to about one page in a workbook, right?

5. Volunteering- This is something that has been on my mind the past few months. Summer is a great time to teach kids about the importance of being active in the community and helping others without expecting anything in return. I think volunteering with my children on a weekly basis this summer would be a great learning experience. I need to take time to do more research, but Lansing Food Pantry could probably use volunteers. Link to their facebook page HERE. Many of the local churches that run Vacation Bible Schools for younger children use help from middle school students. Our church (in Dolton) just started a food pantry and needs help on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so I'm planning to make one of those days a weekly commitment. Even donating the proceeds from a lemonade stand or garage sale to a local charity can be a great way to encourage our kids to help others!

I'm excited for summer vacation and can't wait to see what types of exciting activities make this year's official bucket list! And I'm also excited to be more intentional than ever this summer to ensure that my kids continue to learn all summer long. I'm sure The Bucket Lists will make the summer of 2014 one to remember! I hope you'll join my family and create bucket lists for your family to enjoy this summer too!

Philosophy of Middle School Fashion?

Has anyone else noticed the neon yellow and orange Mustang T-shirts being worn around Memorial? I am genuinely amused with these shirts and their clever slogans to encourage students to adhere to the dress code. For the guys, "No Sag, Only Swag" and for the ladies, "Too Revealing Is Not Appealing".  The school dress code is set forth by our board of education. (See page 19-20 in the Student handbook.) A few highlights include: No pajama pants, no spaghetti straps, no bare midriffs, no sagging pants, and my personal favorite- no exposed undergarments. Most reasonable parents can agree on these points, right? Most reasonable parents are also willing to enforce these rules, right? CNN actually had a small article on school dress codes last Fall. (Check it out. ) But apart from enforcing the dress code of the school so that our kids avoid the consequences of a violation, I wonder if we need to consider our philosophy of middle school fashion outside of school too.

Fashion choices can be a major source of conflict in the middle school years. So how do we as parents decide how much we need to influence the clothing choices of our children? Should self-expression be the priority? Popular brands and styles? Modesty? Age appropriateness? Cost?

 Maybe the answer to this question varies based on the priorities and values of different families. I try to live by the "choose your battles" style of parenting when it comes to my children's wardrobes. My 7th grade daughter lives in jeans, T-shirts and hoodies and looked genuinely traumatized at the choir concert when she was forced to wear one of the not so lovely choir dresses. My sons (who are both still in elementary school) think that they are being forced to "dress up" if I suggest that they wear jeans instead of athletic pants. Apart from my standards of being clean with no rips or stains, and around the right size, I basically let my kids choose what they want from their drawers and closets whether or not they match or look stylish.

But what is available in those drawers and closets communicates a message to my children and when worn also about my children. Here's what I mean: The reality is that what we wear (and allow our children to wear) communicates something about who we are or who we want to be. I think it's tragic when parents allow their daughters to dress provocatively. I want my daughter to understand the kind of message that sends to her peers and also to adults. Young women (and almost all women) have the desire to feel beautiful. Unfortunately beauty and sexuality have been confused and at times merged in our culture. I reject that notion and when (if?) my daughter graduates from her "only jeans and hoodies" phase, the issue of modesty is one I'm willing to fight for. In fact, I'm willing to assert that modesty should be a universal priority for parents in the area of their child's wardrobe choices.

Another fashion issue that I have considered is the "everyone has it" dilemma. My recent inner conflict arose when my daughter wanted a North Face Osito fleece for Christmas- to the tune of $120. I'm not judging parents who dig North Face and buy their clothes for their children, we all have to consider what works for our family! But, the question I struggled with is twofold:

1) The value of money is a very important life lesson that I have to teach my children; and grappling with the whole "paying for the name" issue needs to be considered.
2) Peer pressure, fitting in, and wanting to be like everyone else is an incredibly vital discussion that needs to be addressed from many angles. Including fashion.

My daughter and I discussed both of these issues on several occasions, and ultimately I decided on a comparable fleece made by Columbia that was about $50 cheaper. My daughter still received a very similar item to what she asked for, and I feel like the messages of fiscal responsibility and peer pressure were addressed. The "everyone has it" dilemma isn't necessarily a universal that all parents must address, but do you agree that it is worth some consideration?

One more point that I can't ignore is the whole issue of self expression where fashion is concerned. It's a valid issue as these are the years that our adolescents are finding their way into young adulthood and carving out their identities-learning who they are and want to be. I want my sports obsessed, athletic son to be able to wear athletic wear daily, because it's a genuine reflection of who he is and what he loves. I would prefer for him to dress up for church on Sundays so I could put his good looks and great style on display for all to admire (hehe)- but our church is quite casual so forcing him to dress up would be about ME, not necessarily helpful to HIS character and development. So, I let him work his sporty vibe, even on Sundays! However, when he has a responsibility to attend a concert at school and is asked to wear something a bit nicer for a couple of hours on this special occasion, I think it's reasonable to insist that he complies. Self expression is important and valid, but learning to value and respect authority trumps self expression in many situations.

I am preparing my children every day for their adult lives. Respecting authority and following policies is a life skill that they need to learn as soon as possible. Respecting themselves by dressing modestly and considering the "everyone has it" dilemma are important life lessons. I want my children to express themselves- but in ways that foster self respect and respect for others.

It seems crazy that there is so much to consider regarding what clothing lands in my children's drawers. Okay fine most of it lands on the bedroom floor. But by taking the time to consider these issues with my children, I'm hopeful that they will learn to think for themselves and make rational, healthy decisions into adulthood. So if having and discussing a philosophy of middle school fashion helps accomplish that goal, then I think it's worth a few minutes of consideration!