Good Parenting Advice from BizarroBlog

1. Make sure they know you love them, even when they screw up.

2. Make sure they know their life is their own not yours– if they succeed, the trophy has their name on it, not yours. If they mess up, the mugshot is of them, not you.

3. Don't lie to them. If you tell them that marijuana is as dangerous as crystal meth, they'll eventually figure out that isn't true and discard everything you ever told them. If you act all high and mighty about sex and they find out you lost your virginity at 17, you're sunk.

4. Give them knowledge, then trust them to use it to make their own decisions. Knowledge never hurt anyone who wasn't already going to find a way to get into trouble anyway. Tell them the truth about sex, drugs, politics, religion, history, and then tell them those are just your opinions and you're as fallible as the next guy. In the end, they'll have to weigh that info against their own experiences and make up their own minds.

5. Don't be a hypocritical simple-minded nitwit. Your kids are more likely to be like you than anyone else on the planet. Be the person you want your kids to be.

6. Treat your kid with respect, the way you would want their spouse to treat them one day. If you treat them well, they'll expect that from their friends and lovers. If a guy tries to treat your daughter poorly and she's not used to that at home, she'll kick him to the curb.

7. If all of the above doesn't work and your kid is still a complete jackass, always in trouble, torturing small animals in the basement and stealing from your neighbors, sell him or her to the black market organ trade and get some of your money back. Someone who might contribute positively to society could benefit from a new liver or kidney.

That's all I know, keep in mind I'm not an expert, only a cartoonist. Your results may vary.

When is a woman allowed to retire from parenting?

“There are some parents who probably don’t have a realistic expectation of how invested their parents should be in the grandchildren,” said Dr. Gail Saltz, a Manhattan psychiatrist. “But because this generation’s children are the center of their universe, it’s hard not to take the grandparents’ ‘why should I be bothered?’ attitude personally.”

I dunno.
I think that it's great when a grandparent is very involved with their grandchildren...but, I also think that an adult child shouldn't expect their parents to be "hands on" in their family.

After all, if you choose to have three children a year apart, why should your mother have to come in and save the day for you?

"In these parlous economic times, attitudes like that can have far greater consequences than hurt feelings. If a grandparent cannot or will not baby-sit for a working parent, day care or a nanny may be the only option, and may also be a financial hardship."

Boo hoo.
Last time I checked, people are supposed to make decisions based on what they are able to afford and realistically manage in their own lives.
If you have a parent who is willing to stay home with your children for free after their retirement, consider yourself lucky indeed.

Those post war grandmas are gone forever.

In some cultures, families live together...three generations in one home.
That's not what we're talking about here.

I wonder if these families who are complaining that their parents won't help raise their kids would take care of their parents at home when they're too old to manage independently?
Like some cultures traditionally do.

I'm thinking that if they're having trouble as young parents managing, they won't be very able with an ill, and aging parent.

It's an interesting topic.
I think probably what's irritating to me is the expectation that as a woman, you are never allowed to retire from care-giving without people thinking that you're a selfish bitch for wanting a life of your own.

Grandpa gets to play golf, but Grandma has to babysit grandchildren like it's a full time job...sounds like fair and endless fun retirement times, no?

I would think that by the age of 65, you might have earned some relaxation time.

5 Reasons to Stop Saying "Good Job!" to your kids.

I read this article at Education.com, and some of what is stated in the article helps explain why so many young adults have a lack of ambition, yet such a strong sense of entitlement.

Creating praise junkies.
Rather than bolstering a child's self-esteem, praise may increase kids' dependence on us. The more we say, "I like the way you'." or "Good ______ing," the more kids come to rely on our evaluations, our decisions about what's good and bad, rather than learning to form their own judgments. It leads them to measure their worth in terms of what will lead us to smile and dole out some more approval.

Mary Budd Rowe, a researcher at the University of Florida, discovered that students who were praised lavishly by their teachers were more tentative in their responses, more apt to answer in a questioning tone of voice ("Um, seven?"). They tended to back off from an idea they had proposed as soon as an adult disagreed with them. And they were less likely to persist with difficult tasks or share their ideas with other students.

In short, "Good job!" doesn't reassure children; ultimately, it makes them feel less secure. It may even create a vicious circle such that the more we slather on the praise, the more kids seem to need it, so we praise them some more. Sadly, some of these kids will grow into adults who continue to need someone else to pat them on the head and tell them whether what they did was OK. Surely this is not what we want for our daughters and sons.

I've seen time and time again that more difficult praise is to get, the more it's valued. When you continuously blow smoke up your kids ass, your praise doesn't mean anything anymore. It makes a person lazy, it's internalized as "I'm great...I don't have to bother trying" or "It doesn't matter what I do...I'm great".

I realize that this isn't exactly what the article means to say, but it plays into what I perceive to be a part of the problem. For years, the importance of not damaging a child's self-esteem was pushed so hard, that even insincere praise was encouraged.
If it's insincere, it doesn't mean anything. What's worse, it creates a vicious circle of expectations for the child, and parental fear to the point that you cannot even tell your child the truths that they need to hear for fear of "damaging their self-esteem".

Does praise motivate kids? Sure. It motivates kids to get praise. Alas, that's often at the expense of commitment to whatever they were doing that prompted the praise.

What I can't stand is to hear children and teens praised for things that they should be doing anyway. "Thank you for picking up your toys!" or, "Good job putting your dishes in the sink" or worse, paying a child or teenager to pick up after themselves.

It's one of my pet peeves. It tells them that they're doing their parents a favour for looking after themselves...and then we sit and wonder where this attitude of entitlement comes from.

I was thinking the other day about how old my mother and uncle were when they came to Canada. My mother was 21 and my uncle was almost 18.
A lot of 18 year old's I know today can barely get themselves to school a few blocks away on time, never mind move to another country and make a life for themselves.

Whatever.
Just pointless pondering while I should be working...Ok, I did read the article for work...

Keith Sweat is a real parent...

"Her name is Lisa Wu-Hartwell. She is the ex-wife of singer Keith Sweat and the current wife of NFL player Ed Hartwell.Lisa currently stars in the reality television show “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” on Bravo"

The drama on Bravo’s new The Real Housewives of Atlanta series began long before the cameras ever started rolling.Lisa Wu Hartwell, one of the five women showcased in Bravo’s latest Real Housewives incarnation, tells me she was hoping to have all three of her children on the show, but her ex-husband, late-’80s R&B hitmaker Keith Sweat, has gotten in the way.Hartwell and Sweat have two sons together, 13-year-old Jordan and 11-year-old Justin. “He didn’t sign a waiver,” Hartwell complains. “He’s like, ‘Lisa, it’s nothing personal. I just really don’t know how they’re going to edit and if they’re going to make you look crazy. I just don’t want the kids to be, you know, overexposed or anything.’ “

What?
A non-custodial parent actually being able to do some damage control?
I can hardly believe it.

No kid needs to be on a reality show.
Not one.

"Worried that welfare costs are rising as the number of taxpayers declines, state Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, said Tuesday he is studying a plan to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied."

It's shocking when people say these sorts of things out loud.

But, in my business...I've seen plenty of people who have no business having children.
I would be lying to you if I told you that it didn't cross my mind while dealing with that mother who has never spoken to me without dilated pupils, or that mentally ill mother who is dragging her child through life with her, or that mother who puts your number on call privacy because she doesn't want to come and pick up her sick child, or the mother who calls and threatens you because she suspects you called Children's Aid because her child hasn't been bathed, or changed her clothes in two weeks, and has big bruises on her back, or the mother who...you get the picture.

...and while it doesn't have anything to do with being poor, none of the women mentioned above was working their way through school, or gainfully employed.

I'm not saying he's right.
I'm just saying it's crossed my mind when I see women who have no business being parents having multiple children.

That's right.
I said it.

While it's not popular with a lot of people who have a romanticized image or belief in human nature...Judges have been doing it.

"The best teacher in life is natural consequences," says former teacher and parenting coach Derek Randel. "We get those from the decisions we make."

If kids never have to face the repercussions of losing money or getting a bad grade, they can't learn what's at stake, says Mr. Randel, based in Chicago and co-author of Parent Smart from the Heart.

Duh.

"In spring of third grade, Mary was walking James and Claire home from James’s school when he demanded a lottery ticket. She refused to buy him one. “He started to scream and yell and rant and rave on a busy corner. We were crossing the street and the light was changing. Coming down 75th Street I saw this big white Hummer. James said to me as we were crossing the street, ‘If you won’t buy me a lottery ticket, I don’t want to live.’ He stood in the middle of the street and he faced the Hummer down. And the Hummer pulls over and the guy gets out and starts screaming.” At the psychiatrist’s office the next day, “James is speaking really fast and he’s mounting my leg like he’s in sexual overdrive,” Mary recalled. Pressured speech and hypersexuality are symptoms of mania. Shortly thereafter, when James was 8, his condition was diagnosed as bipolar disorder."

This article is incredible.

Parenting is hard business at the best of times...but, being terrorized in your home by the child that you love, must be torture.

The decisions a parent is forced to make for the family, for the child, and for their own sanity is unimaginable by the average person.

Wow.
Just, wow.

It's soooo lame just being a kid....

NEW YORK–On her blog, 12-year-old Tavi Gevinson posts photos of herself wielding a toilet plunger, posing in a room covered with newsprint and wearing a paint-splattered tutu inspired by Dolce & Gabbana's spring 2008 collection.

She's part of a young generation of fashion bloggers who display pictures of their outfits for all to see.

...because there's a shortage of shallow, vain and vapid adult women who are only concerned about how they look, and crave attention for the wrong reasons.

I find it alarming that Tavi's parents are so "confident" with their 12 year olds' decision regarding online posting...

Gevinson thinks kids like Tavi are stronger than parents believe. "I have a lot of confidence in her and in most kids, if not all kids, that they can figure it out if they have good guidance and caring people working with them," he says.

Tavi, after taking a short break in the wake of the attention, has returned to blogging with her father's blessing.

"I'd much rather have her decide to stop if she's going to stop than to tell her to stop," Gevinson says. "She'll grow out of it – maybe, maybe not."

It's official.
I wouldn't be a "cool" parent.
I would be an old school "get your 12 year old ass off the internet" kind of parent.

Amen

(Thanks Chris)

Samo napred, Terry!

Terrence Howard employs the Serbian parenting technique of sending your daughter away for the summer to put an end to henky-penky.

That's old school parenting!

"Latarian Milton, the 7 year-old who stole his grandmother’s Dodge Durango and went on a disastrous joyride because he “wanted to do hoodrat stuff with [his] friends” is back to his old tricks. Latarian is being held on mental evaluation after attacking the same grandmother in Wal-Mart. Jesus be an extension cord! I would lay his butterball ass OUT after all this."

This is the kid who should be the catalyst to reform child abuse laws.
If anyone deserves an ass kickin', this little miscreant does.

I like this trend

I generally don't blog about work...but...

A woman just called me to tell me that her daughter did her practicum with us in December and she forgot to get her time sheet for University...and could I send it to her.

Firstly...we have about 20 students a semester that come through here...and her time sheet is her own responsibility...
Secondly, why the fuck is a 20 year old having her mother call for something she should be taking responsibility for herself?



So...
I said:
"The time sheet was her responsibility, and frankly, so is this inquiry.
Please have your daughter call me at her earliest convenience"

Mom: "But, she's in school"

Me: "Aren't you at work?"

Mom: "I'll have her call you"

(Click)

Radmila; helping your future employees grow up.
One helicopter parent at a time.

Laugh?
I thought I'd die.

(Thanks Jdid)

"OLDS 1999 Intrigue

Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for 3 weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet."


That's right.

Helicopter Parents

I didn't know that there was actually a term for parents who do everything for their children.
I have complained about these parents often on my blog, and how they produce spoiled, weak adults who feel entitled to everything, and are incapable of functioning on their own.

These are the people who stay home until they inherit their parents homes, or in extreme cases steal them right out from under them like this spoiled little prick did.

In this article:

"Roger Tripp, a licensed professional counselor, said research on parenting types explains the issues surrounding what has become known as overindulgent parenting.

Tripp said children of "authoritative" parents - strong parents who allow children some bargaining power - are the most happy.

People whose parents are "laissez-faire," giving their children whatever they want, are the most unhappy, he said. They have low self-esteem and feel unworthy.

"What they said was, 'The message we got was we were incapable of doing it ourselves,'" Tripp said. "To me, that is the most enlightening story about spoiling our kids and why you shouldn't do it.""

I remember my mother once telling me that if she let me do everything I wanted to, it would mean that she didn't care about me.

I've had parents apply for jobs for their children.
I won't hire them.
If you send your mother in with your application, it tells me that you're lazy and irresponsible, and overindulged.
These are the same parents who do their kids homework, sell their fundraising chocolates or magazines at the office so that their kids don't have to do it.
These are the parents who run to school from their office at lunchtime with McDonalds or BK.
These are the parents who run to school and shout at Teachers and Principals on the words of their children, no matter how outrageous the story.

I have more than once had the parents of a volunteer or part-timer in their twenties call to argue some organizational policy that they didn't agree with.
They don't last long.
They get fed up with the demands and rules of the job, and it's never their fault.
They get upset when they get fired for not showing up to work a couple of times, or being consistently late, or because they phone in sick more often than they come to work.

What's my problem?
Don't I understand that they're having a hard time with (fill in the blank with petty personal issues)?
One part-timer was actually shocked when I fired her for not showing up for her shift the second time. That was after she got a warning after the first time that she would be fired if she did it again.

I guess as the employer, I'm seen as kind of like mom...and mom forgives her when she doesn't do what she's supposed to do. I guess it comes as a big shock when I have higher expectations, and lower tolerance than mom does.

It sucks.

This article says:

Joey Green says, in The Road to Success is Paved with Failure:

“…Failure builds character, helps you hone your skills, tests your determination, fortifies you with eight essential vitamins, and gives you the inner strength and courage to go back out there and fall flat on your face all over again… Just remember, everyone falls down. You’re not a failure until you don’t get back up.”

Amen.

I swear to GOD...

...If I ever see one of these on a kid, I will report their imbecilic parents to Children's Aid so fast that they won't be able to get their heads out of their asses in time to think up a crackhead excuse for why they did it in the first place.

P.S....If you're in a foreign country, don't act like the asshole you are at home.
There might be a law against it.

Bad Parents on Parade...

Let's face it. 
Parenting is a crapshoot. 
Sometimes regardless of how hard you try to do the right thing, you still have a little demon spawn for a child. But, other times, it's clear to the rest of us that you suck as a parent, and your kid doesn't have a chance. 

Here are a few tips on how to screw up your kid.



1. Give your 12 year old son a lapdance.

So, here's PDiddy's 12 year old son Justin getting a lapdance.
See the rest of the pictures here.
I don't even know what to say about that.
I don't know where to start.
Just looking at those pictures makes me want to slap Diddy in the head.
Is that even legal unless you're in Thailand?
Money can't buy sense.

2. Have authorities threaten to take your son away because he weighs three times what a kid his age should weigh.

LONDON–British authorities may take an 8-year-old boy weighing 218 pounds into protective custody unless his mother improves his diet.

Social service officials will meet family members today to discuss the health of Connor McCreaddie, who has lost 20 pounds in two months but still weighs more than three times the average for his age.

3. Give your kid a stupid name that only you think is clever.

4. Teach your 2 year old how to handle a gun.

5. Shoot your kids computer instead of just taking away the power cord when you want him to stop playing.

Insane Parents

A little while ago, I read about a teacher who was lashed by media for refusing to allow birthday parties in her classroom.
She said that the classroom was an inappropriate place to have a birthday party, and that with twenty-five children in a class, it took away from valuable class time.
She also said that it wasn't fair to children whose parents could perhaps not afford to give out grab bags, and bring cupcakes or cake.
I understand her point...acknowledging a birthday at school is a good thing, going overboard is not.

Ok...so it's your kids birthday.
How many parties do you have?
One at school, one at home...maybe another at the non-custodial parents home...I've seen birthday celebrations last over a week.
How about the "half-birthday"?
A year is just too long to wait for a birthday party!

I read this article on MSN Money:

"Karin Urban of Westlake Village, California forked out $10,000 on a princess party for her daughter Sabrina, sending a Cinderella character out to the homes of dozens of children to hand-deliver an invitation along with a song. She hired 10 princesses that day, as well as a horse-drawn carriage, 12-foot-tall balloon sculptures of the Little Mermaid, 10 activity tents and characters out of "Alice in Wonderland."

"The balloons themselves cost $4,500," she said. "It was a little crazy.""

A little crazy?
Pssst, Karin...you're fucking insane!

I don't care how much money you have, a $10,000 party for a 3 year old is beyond nuts.

You know what this kind of person creates?

This:

I read that Shawn Hornbeck & Ben Ownby, and their families will be interviewed by Oprah on Thursday.

Is this responsible?

I'm assuming that perhaps the parents need money or something.
I fail to understand why we need to interview them or the teens about their ordeal. The public has questions because apparently, the children had access to e-mail, and telephone..so, the excuse is that people are starting to "blame the victim".

"The boy's parents told Ms. Winfrey they have not asked their son what happened on the advice of child advocacy experts, but are convinced their son did not contact them out of fear for his life, theirs or other members of their family"

So, what's going to happen?
If child advocacy experts have recommended that they not ask the children questions about what happened, why are you taking the kids on a national talk show that is famous for revelations?
Is he going to spill the beans on Oprah?

I dunno.
Hasn't he only been home a week or two?
Am I being overly critical when I say that I think this is an irresponsible move on the part of his parents?