My 13 year old daughter has been working very hard on a social studies project that is due next week. She spent the past few days creating her own, mini-encyclopedia and I must say that it has turned out really well.
Except for the dedication page.
The saddest part of this whole thing? I don’t even know who Billy Burke is.
My ten year old son has always suffered with developmental delays; you name it, he did it late. He pretty much survived off of baby food until he was four. ‘Nuff said.
Lately he’s been lying a lot. Actually, “a lot” doesn’t do it justice. Even though we have a rule in our house that you won’t get in trouble as long as you are honest, he has been tossing untruths around like they have wings. I am hoping this is a developmentally-delayed phase and not something we’ll have to deal with much longer.
I should stress that these lies are usually about nothing. Like, absolutely nothing. For instance:
Me: What was that noise?
Him: Well, I think I heard something…
Me: Just tell me the truth. What was the noise?
Him: Okay. I bounced a ball.
I finally grew completely weary of his games last night and he is entering his second full day of no video games, computer or television. As we sat at the dinner table I explained that we will tolerate a lot in this house, but dishonesty is not one of them; then I detailed his punishment.
When I finished I gave him a good, hard glare as if to ask, “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”
And, he understood exactly what I was saying with that look because he replied, “I think it would be easier if I just went to live with a family of liars.”
My 8th grade daughter needed some help with her algebra homework tonight. Because I can barely remember what I did yesterday, let alone what I did in math class 27 years ago, I had to Google the question in order to find the formula, which would help her find the equation. Confused? Me too.
One of the first websites I came across was called something like “Math is Fun!” which is where I sat and stared at my computer screen for a good three minutes before I could even figure out what I was looking at. It was basically a collage of letters, numbers, exclamation points and parentheses; then my brain exploded. Math is not fun for everyone. Just ask my brain.
The truth is, if it weren’t for the internet I wouldn’t be able to help her with algebra at all and I highly doubt that my parents would have been able to help me nearly three decades ago, either. You know, if parents had been inclined to help with homework back then. They didn’t drive us anywhere either. We rode our bikes. Uphill. Both ways.
I digress.
My point is, some people complain that modern technology is a detriment to the minds of our children, but if we didn’t have it in this house, the detriment would be all mine.
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