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Apr
24
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 Is it just me, or does it seem like schools have lost their perspective when it comes to authority? Did we all hear the story about the Wyoming middle-schooler who surprised her dad with a $4,000-plus bill due to her text messaging? The dad didn’t even think his cell plan offered texting…He smashed her phone to bits! I’d don’t know if I’d have done that…rather the wrong role model for how to deal with anger or solve problems…but I could imagine a pretty strong reaction. | |||
Blog Posts by Toni Vitanza
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Jan
30
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A couple of years ago, I spent a great part of a school year substituting in sixth-grade classrooms. In our district, this is the first year of middle school.Β To this day, I’ve never visited the elementary schools from where these students come.Β But I can guess that they’re full of teachers with bags of candy, gold stars, little (or big) charts with smiley stickers, and pizza parties for the class that gathers the largest number of cans for the food drive. I can guess that these teachers are really worried about making these kids all feel “good” about themselves. | |||
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Dec
15
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As a flight attendant and the mother of a very experienced traveler, I am offering the following information to parents traveling with kids during the holiday season: | |||
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Nov
10
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As a parent blogger for EP, I’ve mostly drawn upon my memories of parenting my 15 year old son for material. But a recent post by “Mandy” under the blog about “Bullying and Sportsmanship” made me recall a truly seminal series of events in my childhood. It concerns bullying, group dynamics, school politics and how these things can make our children miserable, but how they can also make them into the kind of adults I think we need more of in this society. | |||
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Oct
24
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My last blog posting included a list of “15 Things I Want To Do With My Son Before He Is 16″. So, as you can guess, I am a member of that breed known as Listmakers. The story I want to share with you in this posting has stayed in my computer desktop-diary for a few years. But it’s worth sharing, I’ve been told. It makes the point about how important it is to praise our children, and also about how closely our children are listening to us, always. | |||
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Oct
09
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Well, we’ve finally gotten our back-to-school routine going, and that has brought with it a set of not-so-unusual challenges. We are coping with an increase in the amount of responsibility a 15-year-old boy (now in ninth grade) should be expected to fulfill in terms of a morning routine. (I’ll be writing more about that soon!) We are also dealing with a severe case of what I am calling Get-Your-Stuff-Togetheritis, which is especially bothersome to me. | |||
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Sep
18
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I guess this comes up because, if you’re watching “Nancy Grace,” or even just the news and have heard about the Casey Anthony story, you have a front-row seat to a family where parents have been listening to a child lie for, well, apparently quite some time. | |||
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Sep
04
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Now, look, I know this isn’t a political blog. But Sarah Palin’s situation — having a 17-year-old daughter who is pregnant – provides a teachable moment for ourselves, and, more importantly, for our kids. Obviously the abstinence-only message didn’t work for Palin’s daughter. Do you think that abstinence-only education works, in general? I’m looking not for statistical evidence — it’s easy enough to find on either side, and easily biased and easily skewed — but rather for anecdotal evidence. For a gut feeling. What do you want your kids to know? Do you want to teach them, or do you want their school to teach them? Do you think that a pro-abstinence message is compromised by a follow-up that includes information about birth control — how to obtain it, how to use it — or do you think the abstinence-only message has to stand on its own to be effective? Read more » | |||
