Master Smarty-Pants
Posted by aaronjen | Filed under Family
Our almost six year old son, Noah (pictured left on his first day of school), has become quite the smarty-pants of late in two recent episodes of “Dad, pull your head in”. The first episode occurred a week or so ago when I stepped outside the front door briefly to put something outside. I heard Noah’s voice travelling through the door only seconds after stepping out…”Dad! Were you born in a tent?!”. The second episode happened yesterday, and was significantly more subtle than the first. We were washing our hands in a public restroom, in basins next to each other. I finished before Noah and was drying my hands when Noah politely asked: “Dad, what do you say to someone if you splash water in their eyes?” Assuming Noah was relaying a story from school, I told him “well, splashing water in someone’s eyes isn’t very nice, so I think you would say sorry to them, wouldn’t you?” Noah seemed to like this answer, then said, not quite as politely: “Dad…you splashed water in my eyes and didn’t say sorry.”
Jen and I are in for real trouble with our children if they end up like us - I remember being slow at getting ready for bed and being asked “Aaron, what are you doing?!” and replying, very cheekily “getting my act together.”
It would seem the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree… - ALR
Summer brain drain
Posted by aaronjen | Filed under Family
One blog I regularly frequent is Momformation. Several writers contribute to it, and it covers all things parenting. As it is summer break over in the States at the moment, one topic of interest is how to help your child avoid ‘summer brain drain’ (see article). Apparently, a child can drop back two reading levels over the summer break, due to not having the regular brain stimulus that comes with school. This is especially evident in poorer families, as the richer families can afford to send their children to summer programs.
While we thought it was an American phenomenon, as the summer break is much longer over there, I came to find out that wasn’t so, and worse, that Noah had probably experienced it himself. We had a Semester One parent-teacher conference with Noah’s teacher on Tuesday, and when we were talking about his progress so far this year, she mentioned that the reading level she recorded for him at the start of this year was probably not indicative of his actual reading level, which she commented was likely two levels higher than that. I was shocked, and slightly embarrassed!
Quite often, I find myself to blame for Noah’s progress at school rather than him. He is a keen learner (this is a child who cries because he wants to do his homework). And looking back over our summer break, I realized that he hadn’t been doing the reading, I had! Determined to avoid this happening again, I asked his teacher for some advice. While her advice amounted to ‘keep reading to him (at two levels higher than he’s at)’ and ‘get him to read to you’, she also said that Noah is over the hump where that would likely affect him, saying that aspect of summer brain drain is really about learning to read, and Noah is a fluent reader now, so we need not worry.
Just another way that Caleb will benefit from Noah being the first child. - JRR
Tags: parenting, reading, school, summer brain drain
Derek Webb, Stockholm Syndrome
Posted by aaronjen | Filed under Music
We downloaded Derek W
ebb’s latest album Stockholm Syndrome today and looks like it’s gonna be his best to date. The physical album doesn’t hit stores (those who will sell it…) until September, but the complete album is available for download right now from Webb’s website. There is going to be two versions of the album - a “clean” version and an “explicit” version due to controversy with INO, Webb’s record label, surrounding the song “What Matters More”, which apparently won’t be included on the INO released “clean”/Christian bookstore version.
We have watched a 60 minute documentary “Paradise is a parking lot” about the making of the album and the snippets of tunes we’ve heard from that point to a great sounding, lyrically challenging, album.
One thing we’re trying to work out from the documentary is whether or not DW is playing a Maton for one or two of the songs - we’ll keep you posted!
More to come after we’ve had a good listen to the album. - ALR
Tags: Derek Webb, Maton, Paradise is a parking lot, Stockholm Syndrome, What Matters More
