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teacher mojo

February 13, 2014 By in herding (my own) cats, teaching and coaching Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

having kids changes you…more than you can possibly comprehend at any point prior to the instant that they show up in your life…

one of the changes that i’ve experienced in regards to this–has happened on the job…working with and teaching high school students…more specifically, in how i work with and teach students…

i now refer to “the change” in this way (originally coined by my wife)…

having kids messes with my teacher mojo…

look, before my kids came along i thought i would be hell at work, less patient, and have a shorter fuse with the students in my classes…but, surprisingly, what’s happened has been the complete and total opposite…honestly, “the change”…caught me off guard, knocked me down, and rocked my world in ways that i never knew were possible…who would’ve thought?!

take the example from the hard lessons post…in the past, i would’ve been harder on those guys that we’re giving me trouble–i would’ve been less patient and understanding…and quick to drop the hammer…my patience might have lasted one or two months, max…not a full semester…

but that’s not me today…

i’m different…i’ve been changed…

when i talk to my students in class…all i can see are my own children in them, i see my students at one or two years old…so, it’s changed how i do things in my classroom…how i handle bad behaviors and challenging issues–because it’s harder to drop the hammer on a one-year-old…

now, some critics might say:

hey, d., you’ve lost your edge, man…

while i can see their point, i would disagree and say:

no, my edge is just different…it’s grown…it’s expanded…

i still ‘call kids out’ and hold them accountable, i just do it differently…my well is deeper, my heart is bigger…nowadays…i have a greater capacity to be compassionate and understanding–to be patient and merciful…

i have more grace to give…

hit me with your best shot

February 4, 2014 By in herding (my own) cats Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

along with the “i don’t wanna’s” and the “no’s” (as mentioned in the last post), another way that our twin’s behavior has turned is in the “physical aggression department”…

importantly, this is not the type of behavior that is described in the post titled love bites…this is different…this is intentional and deliberate aggression…

let me tell you about the first time that we saw this type of behavior in one of our kids…

well, it happened a couple of months ago, when the twins were 22 months old…we had just spent an hour visiting with a small group of people (that included family and friends)…we had been hanging out in our living room, having some snacks, and playing…it had been a good time…eventually, a few family members left and we were continuing to visit…

i remember looking across the room, my son and daughter were playing on the couch…at first everything was fine–they were laughing and having fun…my son had a thomas the train engine in his right hand and he was rolling it over one of the cushions…then, it happened…as i watched, i saw my son pull back his right arm, swing it towards my daughter and smash the train engine right into her face–hard…my daughter wailed and wailed…

and, i thought…

cinders and ashes!!! (the thomas the train version of profanity)

at this point, we took the train away from my son, scolded him, and set him in “time out” for 2 minutes…while our son was in “time-out”, we consoled our daughter…and when that was done, we brought my son out and talked to him for a minute (about what not to do) and had him ‘mend fences’ with our daughter…

it was the first time we had to discipline one of our kids for that kind of thing…and now that i think about it, it was the first time we had to discipline one of our kids for anything…since then, we’ve had to discipline them (yes, both son and daughter) for a variety of other aggressive actions…

because even the most innocent human beings, like these two, can take things too far…

love bites…

November 8, 2013 By in herding (my own) cats, observations Tags: , , , 6 Comments

while i have picked up some ‘tricks of the trade’ when it comes to working with other people’s kids…it is a whole different ballgame when it comes to my own…

basically, when it comes to herding (my own) cats, i have no idea what i’m doing…

sure, in the past, i’ve been kicked, punched, elbowed, grabbed, pushed, bitten, scratched, spit at, and swore at by young people in my charge…but, i hadn’t experienced any of these shenanigans by the little ones i had helped bring into the world, by my own offspring …until they started biting…it was something i wasn’t ready for and it rattled my cage a bit…

my son was the primary offender…and this kind of thing happened a lot before he could really talk or make words or knew how to show affection…at this time, if he was excited he would run at you (full speed), tackle you, and bite you–hard…often times, i felt like one of those poor victims attacked by the angst-ridden, brooding, pale-faced vampire kids in the twilight series…anyways, in one of his most exuberant fun-loving moments, my son bit his cousin–his cousin didn’t feel the love…so, we separated my son from his cousin and i gave my son a stern word…but, was that enough?

my daughter, of course, was not to be upstaged by my son’s antics…so, one day, she took her own pound of flesh…it was a day that started out as a normal one in our household …we had just finished a breakfast that included thawed/toasted/ buttered/syrupy waffles, diced fruit, milk, and random three-day-old cheerios that the kids scraped off the kitchen floor…

satiated, my daughter and i were playing on the living room floor, having a good ole time wrestling around and laughing…at one point during the melee, i rolled over to hide from her saying, “where did daddy go?”–and then it happened–she bit me, right between the shoulder blades–it hurt…so, i squawked, i screamed, i yelled– “stop it, let go!”…in my insulated, child-proof cranium it went more like “stop it, let fuckin’ go!” (it was a minor miracle that i didn’t shout it out loud) anyways, while she was clamped down on the skin of my back, i was twisting and turning–trying to reach behind me and grab ahold of her…but, she was elusive and determined and i couldn’t quite reach her…as i flailed about on the ground, images of jurassic park filled my head–you know the part, where the guy is mauled by the flesh-eating baby dinosaurs…

i was thinking–i’m not going make it out of here alive…

somehow, i endured and survived and got loose of her…i told her, “don’t do that” and she cried –i thought what just happened? why do they keep biting? what can we do to make them stop?  what else could i do besides separating them and giving them a stern word? 

then, i thought back to the day when we first picked up our twins at that curiosity shop in chinatown…now, what did that guy tell me?!

no, but seriously, i realized that there are some things in life that there isn’t a playbook for, or instructions not included moments…i also realized, hey, these guys are one–what do they know? they like you, they bite you…that’s how they show their affection, their love–they’ve got love bites…it’s a phase…we’re movin’ on…

present day: parenting…in the ‘third person’

October 23, 2013 By in thank you notes Tags: , , Leave a comment

before i was a teacher, i worked with kids in many different settings…coming through a gauntlet of years in youth work & (now) teaching, it takes a lot to impress and inspire me in this field…

but, i have been truly impressed and inspired over the past 3+ years…

with our in-home day care provider…

and yes, i said in-home daycare provider!  …in-home daycare programs are often regarded as marginal, “fly-by-night” operations that may be alright in an emergency….but not as a serious long-term consideration…because “they’re just not as good as centers” or a mom/dad staying home with their children…nor are they viewed as “safe places”–you get the feeling that this is one of the most horrific decisions you can make for your children–tantamount to sending a kid cross-country on an orphan train (esp. from my parent’s generation)…like your kids will end up abducted, abused, neglected, abandoned, in the emergency room, dead in the street and on the nightly news if you leave them there!!!  i heard the world saying, please report to the shame corner and turn in your parent card, now!

…this is not the case with our person, sharon–yes, her name has been changed to protect the innocent–or in the many cases of parents who use amazing in-home daycare providers each and every day…anyways, my wife did the first drop-n-go routine, through a river of tears (mind you, this is a person who cries over  the voice🙂 and i did the job three days later…and this is what happened…

i entered the house, took off my shoes, and proceeded downstairs to find my children…i was excited to see them…arriving downstairs, i made eye-contact with my son and daughter…they recognized me and smiled…but, they weren’t that excited to see me…they stayed where they were–by the side (son) and in the arms (daughter) of sharon…i thought, what the hell is this?!  i’ve been your father for nine months–you think that was a piece of cake–i was there when you were colicky, when you wouldn’t sleep, when you had that “projectile shit”–the rapid fire, .50 caliber shtuff that ‘took out’ the nursery room door–and this is how you repay me…how dare you?!  i mean, i had envisioned my children running from sharon, bounding towards me–their father–with outstretched arms (press play on can’t hold back by survivor)…but, it didn’t happen…so, i made funny faces, talked to them, waved for them to come to me…but still, they stayed with sharon…so, i hiked back upstairs, put my shoes on, went out to the van and grabbed the wonder bar…so-to-pry my children off of their in-home daycare provider!

…since those early days, we’ve seen and heard all about the amazing things they’ve learned from sharon…sign language, “how to wear a helmet with style”, music, how to pronounce their “t’s”, please and thank-you’s, “how to help”, potty training–you name it…she is unbelievable…so, let me just take this moment to say…thank you, thank you, thank you, sharon…for teaching our kids, for loving our kids like that…i am impressed and inspired…you’re the “+1” to my wife and i, you’re the best around…