CIPA Regulations

Chrissie's last blog about the dangers of the Internet for children is right on target. Dr. Barbara Staggs, former legislator and school superintendent, has been trying to educate the public about the dangers of allowing children unlimited access to the Internet, unregulated by any adult supervision. We all begin accumulating an Internet dossier the minute we sign onto any website with a login and password. Making sure children know about the dangers of the Internet, as well as practical things like using a pseudonym on Facebook, restricting their Facebook view settings, or not giving out personal information such as addresses and phone numbers over the Internet is a must, especially since their lives will be increasingly lived via the virtual world.

The federal government has also issued school regulations for protecting our children against Internet pornography. The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) is a federal law enacted by Congress to address concerns about access to offensive content over the Internet on school and library computers. Our public schools try hard to protect children from exposure to harmful sites and have filters in place to deny access to any questionable Web site. The guidelines are in place not only to protect, but also to educate our students about proper safeguards and use of the Internet.

Cyberbullying is also a threat and is another good reason to monitor your child's actions over the Internet. Bullying can take many avenues, including text messaging, emails, chat rooms and social networking sites. The safest way to protect your child is to stay educated yourself. We could all fall prey to Internet malefactors who try to hijack the fun and fabulous possibilities the Internet holds, just because they can.

Chatroulette-Perverts Welcome

Chat rooms are about as old as the Internet. Either strictly in text or, more recently, via video hookup, they've been used for years to solve problems, hold meetings, meet people and communicate in positive. negative and even illegal ways

Enter Chatroulette. Suddenly, this ancient Internet activity has been retooled for the social-media-obsessed 21st century.

Here's how it works:You don't need to sign on to anything, just go to the site with your webcam-equipped computer to find yourself face to face with a total stranger somewhere else in the world. You may be introduced to a yodeling soccer player in Russia, snowed in college students in Minnesota or a sexually deviant weird-o who asks, shows or demonstrates things you never imagined would come through your computer. You may be propositioned, insulted or merely clicked off by your internet contact. Voyeurs welcome.

This site is free. This site is easy to access. This site is totally uncensored. This site is probably not a positive place for your tweens and teens to visit. One commentator for a national news show went on the site. She reported out of every 25 contacts, 24 were either unusual, indecent, pornographic or illegal.

Ernie Allen, national director for the Center for Missing and Exploited Children strongly warns parents to make this site unavailable to their sons and daughters. Exposing kids to adults with such a variety of issues, problems and obsessions is not a good thing. Children begin to see these bizarre and outrageous individuals as accepted and normal. They desynthesize the language and the acts they see on their home screens. Plus, with the whole weird internet world out there, who wants what these perverts chose to say or do in the heads of our kids?

Some steps to take from Mr. Allen. 1. Children do not need a computer in their room. If they do have one, 2. make sure there is no web-cam accessory. 3. You can also lock the site on your web browser. Also, a discussion about the site and why you are opposed to it would be my suggestion. Discussions are always better than ultimatums.

If you want to check the site out to see what everyone is talking about, just use your search engine and type in chatroulette. Those of you who read us often know I am a a reality TV groupie. I, however, have no interest whatsoever in meeting any "real" person who is on this site. To be a little graphic- to me, it seems like chancing a run in with a flasher. Not that I haven't seen such "flash" before, but setting myself up for someone else's perverted and selfish satisfaction just isn't an option. It gives the creepy-crawlies. I can't control coming around a corner and be "surprised", but I can control turning my computer on to this site.

If you do go on the site, send your report to Care and Feeding. I may not look at this new form of communication (sic) but I would love to know what our readers think. I'm Thinking Spring! Chrissie

What's for Dinner??

Hope Valentines Day was a happy one for you and yours. It can't help but bring memories of paper covered boxes, the smell of steaming radiators and the feel of glitter stuck to your fingers. Remember those huge jars of paste in your teacher's "supply" closet. We would go, one by one and put a big glob on a paper towel, take it back to our desk and start creating. Homeroom parties were a simple affair-a cookie with red sugar crystals, a cup of Hawaiian Punch and Conversation Hearts to take home with our valentines.

I was invited to not one but two Valentine Parties this year. Wagner's three-year-old party was stimulating, creative and bountiful. Games, stories, songs, food and favors were in abundance. Also in abundance were parents and grandparents. We were circling the room, cameras rolling as the children partied. My Wagner seemed a little confused. He kept singing Happy Birthday to Me and looking for presents. After all, his birthday was only 3 weeks ago. It's hard for a boy to keep all his parties straight.

Big sister Annebelle celebrated the next day. Her party was in the gym and amazing to behold. There were bouncy houses, carnival games, a valentine luncheon and a cupid-clad mother, sprinkling Love Dust on the heads of all the revelers. There were decorated cookies in individual gift sacks and cupcakes with icing in red and pink and purple. Every little girl had some kind of Valentine- Themed ensemble on and a bow the size of a fist on their head. It was a grand affair.

I want my grandchildren to have a wonderful life. I will do everything possible to insure they do. Their parents and all of us who love them will sacrifice anything so they grow up safe, secure and protected. However, I just could not help to see the irony in my activity in the very same building, the very same day.

I joined other friends at St Paul to pack backpacks. Did you know that churches in Muskogee provide "take home" food for every school in our community, even MHS. Children are identified who might not have enough to eat over the weekend and they receive ten items including fruit, milk, proteins and starches. We packed puddings, granola bars, Vienna sausages, pretzels....certainly better than being hungry but not a hot meal.

I certanly trust the people who tell me this is needed in our community. I also know this is certainly not limited to Muskogee. A friend who teaches in OKC shares their Food Service provides the items for the weekend. I just question our very expensive but obviously inefficient welfare system. All that bureaucracy and American children are actually going hungry. I also question priorities in some families. Addictions and lifestyle choices often put children last in the hierarchy within a family.

Everybody responded to Haiti with millions and millions of dollars. They needed it. However, as a country, we must address our own issues. A Human Service system that has proven to be ineffectual. A segment of our population that does not know how to be self -sufficient and how to work toward an effective solution. A nation of children who eat their supper from a plastic wrapper or they get no supper at all.

American needs to figure this out and quickly. Children learn what they live. These children are walking wounded and the situation becomes more critical every day. I wish I had the answer. Shoot. I wish I knew what the questions were. chrissie

Imagine a World with No Books

Not even John Lennon could have imagined what the technological world would dream up in the not so distant future. Technology is transforming our lives - and our children's lives - in a magical way here-to-fore only seen in a Harry Potter novel.

Take for instance the book. Since Gutenberg's miraculous technology - the printing press - people have gained greater access to ideas and information. The printing press posed the same threat during the Renaissance that the computer posed (and continues to pose) in our day. Scribes were afraid of losing their jobs, just like skilled laborers were afraid they would be replaced by computer systems in our day. Both fears came to fruition.

Now the fear is the loss of books as the computer subsumes the printed word from the newspaper to the novel. Just this fall one school library announced it would sell all 20,000 volumes in its library and go digital. (See Times article here http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/do-school-libraries-need-books/)
A library without books? That shakes the very etymological core of the word library, which after all comes from the Latin word "liber, -bri" meaning "book".

But as textbooks move to online versions, exciting opportunities exist for bringing not only better graphics into the books, but moveable graphics, videos, and 360 degree photos that could transport students back to ancient Rome or the Battle of Bull Run or demonstrate how the circulatory system works. Just with the click of a mouse. New technologies, such as Kindle or the iPad are making it possible. It will undoubtedly be the way we do business in a paperless society.

What this will do to the human brain, no one can imagine yet. But what it could do for relieving some of the boredom of reading dry textbook material holds endless possibility. Now if we could just get endless electricity and computers in every household. On second thought, don't burn those books yet.
-----Melony

Attitude Adjustment- Gates Style

Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things teens did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel--good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world. This is a subject both Mel and I have discussed over and over. We are doing this next generation no favors by enabling and excusing them. It is daunting to think about turning the wheels of the world over to young men and women who don't have a clue about hard work, responsibility and commitment.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2: The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with an expense account until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
And finally, the best of all- Rule #11.
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one. Have a great week. Chrissie

Peyton Manning and Birth Order

If you have more than one child, you may be very aware of distinct differences between their personalities. One is gung-ho, one is and quiet, one is always standing on his head and making jokes. Is it in their genes, or training, or an accident of nature that makes them who they are?

Time Magazine, in The Power of Birth Order, maintains that " in family after family, case study after case study, the simple roll of the birth-date dice has an odd and arbitrary power all it's own. " One study shows that firstborns are generally smarter than any siblings who come along later, enjoying on average a three point higher IQ advantage over the next eldest. ( I hope my two younger brothers are reading this). This is probably a result of the intellectual boost that comes from mentoring younger siblings and helping them in day to day tasks. Additionally, first children get more stimulation and interaction from their parents. The second child, in turn, in a point ahead of the third. Time states that "while three points may not seem like much, the effect can be enormous. Just 2-3 IQ points can correlate to a 15 point difference in SAT scores."

Studies show that later-born siblings tend to be shorter and weigh less that earlier borns. Peyton Manning is 6 ft. 5 in. and younger brother Eli is 6-ft. 4-in. Younger siblings are less likely to be vaccinated and last-borns are immunized at only half the rate of first borns. Elder siblings are also disproportionately represented in higher paying professions. 43% of CEO's are first born. Eldest siblings are also prevalent among MBA's and surgeons. and the U.S. Congress. Younger siblings, though less intellectual perhaps, are statistically likelier to live the creative and exciting life of an artist, a comedian, an adventurer, entrepreneur or firefighter. And middle children? Well, they can be a puzzle, even to the researchers.

In families, none of this comes as a surprise. There are few that can't identify a first-born who makes the best grades, keeps the other kids in line and winds up as caretaker and executor in their parents old age. Many "in the middle" are lost children and often the last is that "wild child". Look at your family scrapbooks. Are they stuffed with pictures and report cards of the firstborn with fewer entries and pictures of the children born next in line? The later borns notice it too.

It is interesting that younger off-spring find strategies to change the power system. They don't have size on their side, at least at first, but they get creative.

One method is humor. It's hard to resist the charms of someone who can make you laugh and lots of us can identify that last born clown who has learned to get his way by being funny. Birth-order scholars note that some of history's greatest satirists-Voltaire, Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain-were the youngest members of large families. Stephen Colbert is the last of 11 children. Personality tests show firstborns score well on general responsibility and follow through and that later borns score higher as what is known as agreeableness, or the simple ability to get along in the world. Something else interesting. Later borns are similarly willing to take risks with their physical safety. Prince Harry is a good example.

If the oldest are achievers and the youngest are the gamblers and visionaries, where does that leave those in between? Think about it. For a while, they are the baby. They're too young for the privileges of the oldest and too young for the leniency granted the youngest. They are expected to step up to the plate when the eldest leaves and generally serve when called. That Norwegian study discovered that should a first born die, the second-borns IQ actually rises.

Time describes middle born as "stuck for life" in a center seat. Time maintains middles are never alone and never get 100% of their parents investment of time and money. Self esteem issues may arise. One tendency cited in the study is that often the next born observes the one born before and then does the opposite. A middle child might become a slacker or rebellious if the eldest is a high achiever. This is called a "scape goat" in family dynamics. They often are less connected to family and more to friends.

Birth Order is of course just a theory. Some points may ring true. Others may seem the opposite in your own growing up or that of your children. It is still helpful to see what the studies have found and at least tuck it away as you relate to your own family. Any help as we raise them to be the adults they will become is a good thing. So get that middle child's Baby Book out and fill in all those blank pages! (And do check their vaccination records. I know my youngest was 6 months behind his shots at every appointment.) chrissie