Picket Fence Post

Three events over the past several days which have been widely publicized and have provided parents with great examples which we can use to teach our kids how NOT to behave when you’re in public, particularly in front of a nationally (or internationally) televised audience.

Here are video snippets of the events, along with the chestnuts of wisdom I passed along to my kids about them:

Even if you don’t think the best person wins some award or honor, it’s best to keep your trap shut, especially when you’re at the event and the winner is about to speak. Don’t ruin that person’s moment. You have a right to your opinion that the person standing at the mike didn’t deserve the honor, certainly, but hijacking an event to express that opinion is plain wrong.

If you believe you were wronged by someone who’s judging you or who has authority over you — a teacher, a coach, a ref, a boss, etc. — it’s not wise to flip out, swear, threaten to shove various solid objects into other’s orifices and throw things, especially if you’re live on television. It’s unlikely that you’re going to get your way by acting that way.

If you’re sitting in the audience at a public venue, it’s rude to shout out to the person who’s speaking, no matter what, but especially if you’re going to shout out something negative. (We’re not talking about if you’re at a sporting event, though, just to be clear.) It’s one thing if you’re in a debate or you’re behind closed doors and you’re heatedly discussing something about which both you and another person are passionate, perhaps then you could challenge the veracity of what that other person is saying by using harsh rhetoric. But that’s only if it’s a debate or if you’re both engaged in an exchange of ideas. Screaming “You lie!” at someone, especially the president, when you’re sitting in an audience? Not cool.

Item #1: Old School Tooth Extraction

The tooth is hanging there. I mean JUST hanging there. The kid’s whining, refusing to eat, or is eating with her head cocked to one side so that food and liquids dribble out of that one side of her mouth and all over the kitchen table. And you, the kid’s parent, want the drama to end already. You just want that tooth out.

When one of my kids has a loose tooth, the little enamel beauty’ll be wiggly for weeks upon weeks. And our close relatives will be well aware that their niece/nephew/grandson/granddaughter has a loose tooth because the child will regularly provide them with breaking news updates by phone which usually consist of four words, “My tooth’s still loose.” Inevitably, one of the relatives — likely a wise guy grandfather or uncle – will suggest that the kid tie one end of a piece of string around the tooth, tie the other end to a door knob and slam the door shut. The loose-toothed kid usually responds with a lively, “No way!” as though it had been suggested that the child eat a well rounded meal or clean one’s room without complaint.

But they may change their minds about that technique after seeing my editor Heather Kempskie’s video of her son’s tooth extraction via a string and door knob. Or maybe not.

Item #2: Rude Kids

Are Gen X parents – the ones who are endlessly worried about their kids’ self esteem, who were warned by parenting experts never to criticize their charges and to avoid saying, “No,” who practice attachment parenting and are fiercely protective of their offspring — raising a bunch of ill-mannered miscreants? Yes, in fact, they are, according to MSNBC’s Susan Gregory Thomas’s piece entitled, “Today’s tykes: Secure kids or rudest in history?” An excerpt:

“. . . [B]y many accounts, Generation X may be the most devoted parents in American history . . . Yet their kids are, well, rude. It may be that today’s parents are so fixated on their children’s emotional well-being that they’re teaching them that the well being of others is comparably unimportant, says Dr. Philippa Gordon, a long-time pediatrician in Park Slope, Brooklyn.”

What do you think? ARE kids ruder these days than they used to be? More self-centered? If so, on whom do you pin the blame?

Item #3: Ankle Woes Cont’d

Regular readers of this blog are familiar with the saga of my 10-year-old daughter’s ankle woes. Since January 2008 when The Girl suffered a minor ankle sprain during basketball practice, she’s been dogged by ankle problems. She’s only played half-seasons of fall and spring soccer and winter basketball since sustaining the injury. Following periods of pain, she’d rest, sit out of organized sports, get better, start playing during the next season (or join a season already in progress), then experience pain again. (It’d also hurt intermittently during regular activity but not as much as during team sports.)

She has visited an orthopaedist and a physical therapist. She’s had X-rays and an MRI. And she’s still not better. So The Spouse and I pulled her off her spring soccer team before the season began and said we needed to try to get to the bottom of all of this.

This morning we took her to see a youth sports medicine specialist in Boston for his input. He ordered another MRI and has raised the possibility of acupuncture and other therapies to help treat her, depending on what information the new MRI provides. Upon learning that acupuncture involved needles, The Girl’s eyes bulged and she began shaking her head, “No.” I told her that if we actually get to that point and we decide to take her an acupuncturist, she can use it to boost her tough-gal street cred. “Yeah, so I get my skin covered with needles, no biggie, doesn’t hurt at all,” I said, pretending like I was a 10-year-old trying to be cool. Didn’t really convince her though, so I dropped the subject.

To be continued . . .

Item #1: First Granny

Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, is moving into the White House along with the Obama family in order to help 10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha adjust to their new situation while their parents settle into their new jobs.

Apparently the Obamas aren’t alone in forming a multi-generational household. The New York Times profiled several families with young children and two working parents who also have Grandma living with them, and cited statistics saying that this trend is heating up.

“A recent study by AARP shows that multi-generational households are on the rise, up from 5 million in 2000 to 6.2 million last year, an increase from 4.8 percent of all households to 5.3 percent,” the Times reported. An AARP official added: “Our cultural norms [about having grandparents moving in with their adult children] are shifting. There is a great renaissance of what we think about when we think about family.”

I wrote a column a few weeks ago about how I was coveting Marian Robinson and musing about how much easier my life would be if I had a grandmother like her, who was retired, ready, willing and able to cart the kids around to their activities, help out with the homework and dinner prep.

Item #2: Pediatrician Channels Miss Manners

A pediatrician fumed in a column in the New York Times this week that a particular patient of hers — who she nicknamed “The Rude Boy” — hadn’t been taught any manners. She fretted that if his situation was left unchecked, the child could grow up to become become a bully at worst, or an adult with grossly undeveloped social skills that could hinder him in the future.

“As a pediatrician, I worry about the trajectories of children’s growth and development: measuring a baby’s head size, weighing a toddler, asking about the language skills of a preschooler,” wrote Dr. Perri Klass. “Manners are another side of the journey every child makes from helplessness to autonomy. And a child who learns to manage a little courtesy, even under the pressure of a visit to the doctor, is a child who is operating well in the world, a child with a positive prognosis.”

Rude little heathens running around like maniacs in public make me crazy too.

As far as I know, my own three heathens aren’t rude in public; they save their savageness for me. However, if you hear or see differently, please contact me immediately.

Item #3: TV/Video Games for Recess

Guess I’d better re-work my kids’ TV/video game schedules. Typically, my three children (10, 10 and 7) are allotted one hour a day (give or take five minutes) for TV and/or video games, though that rule doesn’t apply to weekends when we have things like family movie night, or watch news or sports programming (a la NBC’s Nightly News or MSNBC’s Morning Joe, or a Red Sox or Patriots game).

Then I heard from The Girl yesterday that during indoor recess for her fourth grade class, they’ll be watching TV. Her twin brother told me he and some buddies have been playing video games on the internet during recess.

So when I told them that maybe I shouldn’t allow them to have their one hour of screen time on days when they’ve already had recreational screen time in school, that went over about as well as the matzo ball soup I served last week for dinner, which only one out of my three children would eat. (The two who found my homemade soup “gross” at cereal.)

Whatever happened to playing board games, games involving the class, doing something with arts and crafts or, horror of all horrors, reading during indoor recess at SCHOOL? I must just be horribly out of touch and old fashioned.

Image credit: New York Times/Gary Hovland.