NYC Moms

Don't Get Mad. Get A Blog?

The other day I went on to my Facebook account and changed a privacy setting on just one "friend."  I clicked the option to NOT let that person see any links or updates that I post on my wall.  Why?  Because I really wanted to write about them and I needed the space to do it without fearing for the fallout.  Now this person is not a true friend in real life but they are more than an acquaintance; someone whose life intersects with mine for a couple of reasons but none of them of my choosing exactly.  I wasn't going to name names, but the situation I wanted to write about had enraged me and they were a central figure, and to explain the background of my frustration would make it patently clear to anyone involved exactly what and about whom I was angry.

 My husband thought this was a terrible idea.  He felt I shouldn't write about it at all because it was stirring a pot that was already boiling over.  And in the end I didn't write about it because it blew over in real life, and it worked out the way I had hoped anyway.  But still, I couldn't help and think what am I blogging for if not to write about the personal?   For me writing has always been about getting "it" out - whatever that "it" may be.  What I realized though is that my blogging self is much more cautious and self-aware than my normal writing self.  When my kitchen appliances by a major brand failed and basically fell apart I tweeted my disappointment, but I never railed against the company by name in a blog post. (And honestly, after their completely lackluster response I probably will take them to task because now they deserve it)

Momsomnia strikes again

Maybe it’s those peri-menopausal hormones (the 3 month countdown to 50 has begun), or the to-do list not done, or all the coffee that gets me through the day, but I have been up in the middle of the night waaaay too much lately.  I thought when my father passed, things would finally ease a bit, that some of it the insanity would finally release, but that seems to have actually ramped things up instead.  Everything I put on the back burner to care for him and support my mother in his final, faltering, increasingly dependent months is now aflame.  My children really need me present and I am swimming back to them slowly through the muck of feelings long pushed underground to just grind through those last gruesome, awful days.  Two months since he has died and I have really just begin to mourn him. 

The biggest flaming pile in my life is that my son with special needs, the one on the Autism Spectrum does not have a school for next year. Yes, you heard that right, it is now MID-MAY and I have no idea where he is going to school, nor how it will be paid for.  We are transitioning in the middle of elementary school, which is none too easy.  Friends ask “Can’t he just stay where he is?” and I want to bang my head into the wall (wait, who’s autistic now?)  Hindsight is always 20-20.  No, he can’t, he’s in a school that only goes K to 2, forcing a change at this point.  We had been hoping that he’d be ready now to go to his twin brother’s public elementary school, which has wonderful CTT classes (for the laymen: Collaborative Team Teaching by a Special Ed and regular teacher, kids w/ IEPs integrated into the regular classroom), but no such luck.  He still needs more support and a less chaotic environment. So here we are in limbo.

Sometimes Parents Do Know Best

 Never in a million years did I think I'd find myself siding with NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.  For most of our overlapping tenure - mine as a parent, his as the "leader" of the NYC public schools I have whole-heartedly disagreed with him.  His non-stance on class sizes astounds me, his celebration of standardized testing confounds me and his infatuation with charter schools dumbfounds me.  Don't get me started on the simplest things like snow days.  But a recent NY Times article has me agreeing, shockingly, with Mr. Klein.

It seems layoffs of some 8,500 public school teachers are planned for this year (see what I mean about class size reduction? - maybe Goldman Sachs could fund reduced class sizes - sorry - I digress).  It seems Mr Klein has suggested eschewing the "last in, first out" method of deciding who gets laid off - meaning the most recent hires will be the first laid off, in favor of a performance based system of evaluation and lay off. 

Frankly I could not agree more!  

So what if he's Japanese??

So, I'm a little miffed with my school district.  Let me tell you why.  Now prepare yourself for a ranting, because it's coming, I can feel it...

Last month my son came home with a homework assignment and one of the questions that he was supposed to answer was "By looking at the pictures in the story, why might you think the illustrator is Japanese?" 

I'll let that sink in a little...

Help Save Sex Ed in NYC Public Schools

Last week I let my daughter watch the Lindsey Lohan movie Mean Girls. 

Yikes.

First, my daughter asked why the girls looked in the mirror and said bad things about themselves. Then she asked what a "bee-yotch" was.  Then she asked what a condom was. I told her.

"It something men put on their penises so that their ingredients won't mix with a woman's ingredients when they have sex, and they won't get a baby."

"Well then," she said "what's the point?  If you're not gonna have a baby why do it?"

Would that her innocence would last forever. Alas (for me, if not for her) it won't.

To Hold Back or Not to Hold Back, That is the Question

It was exactly a year ago that our dilemma started.  We were in a quandary over whether or not to move our son forward to kindergarten in the public schools.  I went ahead and filled out the public school application, not sure of the path we would take. 

Based on our son’s birthday, social development and overall readiness, we strongly believed he would be better off waiting a year.  The problem was that no one could give us a definitive answer on what to do.  As far as other schools were concerned, our choices were narrow.  Many were too expensive, and we had no desire to repeat the year at the school where we were.  We were continuously told by random people to beware of the stigma of not moving him forward with his peers. 

The decision was stifling, also given the fact that the public school was determined to have him attend. It was a difficult time.  Not even his teacher could tell us what was best for him.  There was also no perfect fit.  I  looked at a Montessori School which seemed overly academic and another school with a class that would possibly provide poor role models.  

One consideration was to move him into the public kindergarten and to repeat kindergarten the following year.  Our school said that it would be no problem if we decided to hold him back the following year.  There is not usually a social stigma when you hold a child back so young.  Knowing that we could repeat was helpful and reassuring to hear.

In the end, I had a lucky encounter with an acquaintance at my daughter’s end of year school picnic.  We got to talking, and she told me that she was holding back her son, who’s a few days younger than my son, and was putting him in a private kindergarten about 20 minutes away from home.  They would be able to get a bus there and be in a class of no more than 15 kids with 3 teachers. 

I ran to see the school and enrolled him immediately.   It was a more affordable option that many others I had seen, but of course, not cheap.  But, of course, you can’t put a price on the gift of time that will help your child.

It turned out to be the best decision we have ever possibly made.  He has thrived in the class socially and he gets a lot of support from his teachers. 

Last year, I could not get him out of the house in the morning to go to school.  He wouldn’t eat, get dressed or leave the house.  I used award charts and all kinds of ploys to get him up and out.  He just didn't like school.  This year, he dresses himself and runs to the bus as soon as it arrives.  After school, he gets off the bus with the biggest smile ever and it makes me so happy, serving as a confirmation that our decision was the right one.

In the U.S., many states dictate that a child must be five by a certain date to enter kindergarten.  It’s usually during the month of September, but the problem is that that the deadline varies from state to state.  Our son’s birthday is in November and he missed our state’s cut-off, so he would have been entering kindergarten not even yet five.  Children with birthdays in the latter half of the year, usually boys, can only benefit from extra time. 

Twelve months is a long time in the development of a child.  My daughter is only a year and a half older than my son, so I was able to see what the boys in her class were like last year when she was in kindergarten.  I saw the younger ones struggling with the work.  They were also the ones causing disruption during lessons.  The kids who were already 5 upon entering school seemed more ready maturation-wise.

Many evaluators did think that my son was kindergarten-ready.   But I think as the parent, only we know what’s best for our kids.  For me, it wasn’t so much about the difficulty of the kindergarten that is offered in my district.  Our kindergarten actually focuses on play and transition.  It’s not a tough year academically. We just felt that he needed more time to mature, and we truly believed that an extra year would do no harm.  We only heard positive feedback from other parents who had made the same decision for their children.

Our son knows that he is repeating kindergarten in our public school next year.  Since it is a different school, he has never really questioned why.  He’s excited about going to the same school his sister is at, where they’ll now be two years apart as compared to the one it would have done had we moved him forward.  Personally, I’m glad to be able to get them to and from school at the same time for the most part.  It will good for him to go to school with his friends from the neighborhood and hopefully he will thrive given the year that he has had to grow.

This is an original NYCMomsBlog post.  Holly Rosen Fink lives in Westchester with her family and also blogs at www.theculturemomblog.blogspot.com.

Being ADHD in the NYC School System

My son was recently diagnosed with ADHD.

My son is in third grade and has always done well in his gifted and talented school.  He is a voracious reader, highly analytical, and a budding gamer.  He's also generally easygoing, cheerful, caring and pleasant.  Compared to my strong-willed, oppositional daughter, he was always the easy kid.

But there were signs.  This year, he's been more moody, less sure of himself, angrier.  He's had some behavioral problems in school.  And our normal homework battles became Western-type stand-offs.  I had him tested for ADHD and other learning disabilities because he has been increasingly inattentive and unfocused in school and when doing homework, and hard to get and keep on task.

Cool, He’s Going to be Bilingual! Well, Maybe Not.

“Oh, how wonderful!” was the only thing my mom could say before she choked up and started to cry. Those were happy tears. I had called my parents in Germany to tell them that I was pregnant. My father’s first words were: “You better teach him German.” Well, maybe it was the second thing he uttered. But he hasn’t let up reminding me about the importance of raising my son bilingually since he was born almost 3 ½ years ago.

My father told me to speak German to my unborn son every chance he got during our weekly pregnancy-update phone calls. Yes, Papa, I get it. Great opportunity I shouldn’t miss. My 85-year-old father, who doesn’t speak a lick of English, wanted to make sure he can communicate with his first grandchild. Which is understandable — but also hilarious given the fact that he hardly ever speaks (my poor, inquisitive husband learned some German to impress my father only to find out that he doesn’t talk more than eight words in a day). Opa keeps pointing out how much of an advantage my son will have in life knowing two, and later on possibly even more, languages.

Who Wants a Reading Baby?

One of my biggest pet peeves is the Your Baby Can Read® series.

My kids chuckle every time the commercial comes on, because they know I'm going to shout at the TV before it ends, "Nobody wants a baby that can read!"

Setting to one side my skepticism that the program actually works -- I mean, the babies on the commercials who are supposedly "reading" just sound like babies making baby talk to me -- what's the point of forcing an infant or young toddler to read?  If your child's age is still told in months and not years, he or she is probably not ready to read.

Your Baby Can Read® is the new Baby Mozart.  Baby Mozart promised to make your baby smarter through classical music.  Playing classical music to a young child is a wonderful thing, but parents shouldn't do it just to try to make their children smarter.  Just like you couldn't turn your baby into a genius by showing them videos of moving shapes set to Mozart, it's equally unlikely that a 12-month old who learns to "read" using this method will be guaranteed admission to NYC's top Gifted and Talented programs.

I am one of THOSE PTA moms - and Proud of It!

In the last few months I've read several blog posts railing against the PTA moms at various schools.  The complaints are usually the same - they're overbearing and pushy, busy bodies trying to vie for the principal or teacher's attention, do-gooders who get off on making the rest of the parents feel bad.  Yeah, yeah.  I get it.  At my very first Parents' Association (PA) meeting at my daughter's private preschool I actually raised my hand and told the PA President that I thought she was condescending and wrong when she made a derisive comment about how no one gave enough to the school and not to count on scholarship parents for anything.  That led to quite the nasty back and forth, and needless to say confirmed all my worst fears about those kinds of groups - and let's be honest, those kinds of moms.

However, a year later, I was roped into co-chairing the school auction.  It was an ungodly amount of work, but in the end it was hugely rewarding when we raised more money for the scholarship fund than ever before.  When my daughters started public school in Kindergarten there was no doubt in my mind that I would be involved.  I didn't exactly know how, but I felt so lucky to have gotten in this school that wasn't our zoned school that giving back and ensuring the school's success was a given.