Category: Teenagers

English Language Arts, Parents and children, Teaching and Learning, Teenagers

William Shakespeare for Parents

by KathyLeave a Comment on William Shakespeare for Parents

I bet you’ve never thought of looking to William Shakespeare for parenting help, but I have.VG.Onions-and-drawing-table-1889

When one of my daughters was a teenager, she fell in love with Shakespearean sonnets. Sonnet 116 was one of her favorites:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
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Inside this sonnet, on line five, I found words that I clung to when the going got tough:
Love…is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
Those are true, supportive words we parents need to whisper to ourselves when we are overwhelmed and don’t know if we can handle one more conflict. They are also words that every teenager must hear from us, repeatedly.
No matter how we argue, fight, or disagree, I will love you no matter what.
William Shakespeare wrote over 150 sonnets.  Which one speaks to you?

 

 

 

Grandparents, Parents and children, Social and emotional development, Speaking and listening, Teaching and Learning, Teenagers

School Dress Code Wars

by Kathy1 Comment on School Dress Code Wars

Back to school and new beginnings feel exciting, except for one thing—the dress code wars! I wonder if parents know how much time teachers and administrators invest in enforcing these rules. We want our children to dress safely and “appropriately,” a word that has different meanings for many.kids getting dressed  I hold two perspectives.

When principal of a K-8 school, I enforced a dress code of uniforms that were part of the school’s mission. Parents loved the uniforms because they were affordable and the parents associated it with high standards, belonging, and pride. However, many children came to school with shoes, shirts, pants, and other items that were not dress code.

Much of my communication with students became about what they were not wearing and to fix it. Go to the nurse, call your parents, borrow the right item out of the lost and found. As the year wore on, so did these tiresome, negative conversations.

Callout-round-leftIn contrast, my daughters attended a junior-senior high school with no dress code. Saggy pants? Go for it. Tank tops with spaghetti straps? Perfect. Shorts and flip flops in the snow? No problem.

Except that “belly shirts” were the fashion and my younger daughter fought me mightily over wearing them. It was extremely hard being a parent and holding the line.

What began to change her mind? A teacher, who began a conversation with the students in his class:

“What message are you sending with your clothes? Why?”

This teacher kept the conversation going for a few weeks, until the students had taken enough time to talk and really understand the issue, and from many points of view.Callout-round-left

That school’s mission was to teach students how to think. Doing this takes time and thought.

A teacher’s relationship with students should be deep enough to talk them through struggles that affect them daily. Let’s think about this. Consider the message. Is it one we want to send? Let’s think about who we are. How do we want to present ourselves?

A dress code may not be part of the curriculum. Teaching students how to think? It’s never out of style.