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Posts tagged under School. Show all posts.
Soothing School Jitters
Does your child have the back-to-school jitters? Do you have a little one going off for the first time? Maybe your child can’t wait to get out the door and you are the one having the ‘empty nest’ panic attack?
No matter what the scenario in your home, the end of summer and back-to-school routine can be stressful. Here are a few ideas to help ease the transition for everyone.
- Take any advantage of any offer to go to the school to meet the teacher and see the classroom ahead of time. Even without a formal invitation, schools are open and often teachers are setting up classrooms and don’t mind first-timers coming by for a peek.
- At the very least, walk or drive over and have a look to familiarize your child with the building, playground, correct entrance, etc.
- Try to find out the names of some of the children in the class. Give one or two of them a call, and arrange a play-date at the local park. Offer to host a couple of moms and children for coffee and then everyone will see familiar faces on the big day.
- Have your child do a practice morning run—get the new backpack and sneakers ready, find the camera, set the alarm clock, decide if playtime is going to be built into the morning routine and plan some breakfast menus.
- Develop a plan for breakfast. I found that the strategy of ‘Monday is toast and eggs day, Tuesday is bagel and fruit day’, etc. worked well, at least for the first few weeks. Let your child decide which options to have on which day to increase their sense of control over the process. (You provide the options.)
As a final consolation, don’t forget that children almost always manage better once you have disappeared around the corner than when you are still within sight. They pull themselves together and can focus on the task at hand rather than concentrate on missing you. The day will be over before you know it!
More on this topic — Parenting Solutions,
More on this Age & Stage — School Age, Preschool,
Handling Bullying
“My child is being bullied at school. What should I do?”
First of all, know that you’re not alone. Bullying is an all-too-common experience. A lot of parents are dealing with the same frustrating—and painful—experience as you are. Here are some tips on getting through this tough time with your child.
Empathize with your child, but do so from a position of strength. Let him/her know that you understand how awful it feels to be bullied—lower than low. At the same time, let him/her know that you’re not totally freaked out by the situation (something that’s easier said than done if you have a long history of being bullied yourself). Your child needs to feel that you can handle this and that you will be a source of support (as opposed to an emotional marshmallow).
Reassure your child. Let your child know that you take the problem seriously and that s/he has your support. Kids need to know that they no longer have to deal with this problem on their own. Teach your child how to respond to a bully (use humour that doesn’t put down the bully) and how to reduce the odds of being bullied in future (by coming across as a less vulnerable target, because bullies are notorious for picking on kids who come across as physically or emotionally vulnerable).
Arrange to meet with your child’s teacher. The school needs to know what is going on so that school staff can keep their eyes and ears open and be prepared to intervene when they suspect that bullying may be taking place. Your child needs to know where s/he can go and who s/he can talk to if s/he is being bullied physically (pushing, hitting), emotionally (name-calling, spreading of rumors), or socially (by being shunned by the group). You might also want to inquire about the types of anti-bullying programs offered by the school. Kids need to learn how to prevent incidents of bullying (by dealing with the underlying issues that can otherwise result in bullying) and how to defuse bullying situations when they first occur—by refusing to give the bully an audience.
Compare notes with other parents at your child’s school. Find out if any of their kids have had problems with bullying. Talk about ways to work together to deal with bullying at school, on the school bus, and online so that you can curb bullying together.
Find someone you can talk to about how you’re feeling. It’s painful to watch your child being bullied. You need an outlet for your feelings so that you can be strong for your child.
Keep strong and remember, you are not alone.
We just experienced Bullying Awareness Week last week, and while I applaud the attention being paid to bullying prevention, I sure wish it was a not confined to one week or one simple school assembly saying “bullying is wrong”. That ain’t gonna cut the mustard.
To fully appreciate the complexity of the social conditions that contribute to bullying, and to tackle it head on, we have to make huge changes as a society—not only on the individual and family levels, but also at the school and community levels. In fact, all our social institutions and all our human relationships must shift their thinking to loving kindness and compassion in a new way. I recommend people check out the awesome work being done by Raffi at childhonouring.org [http://childhonouring.org/] to learn more about how to make systemic changes to humanity that will create lasting change.
I know that may leave you feeling a bit lost at what to do in the moment when your child arrives home with tear-stained eyes, so here are some immediate tips for those who must make a swift plan of action right now.
When You Learn Your Child is Being Bullied
- Assure your child that they are NOT to blame. Kids often internalize things, believing they somehow provoked or deserved it.
- Assure your child that you will work with them to make this situation stop—that it is not okay. Inform the other supervising adults of the situation.
- Your parental involvement can be assessed on a case-by-case basis. I have recommended children switching schools immediately in some cases, but we don’t always have to go to the most extreme solutions first.
- A child has the right to walk the halls safely and eat lunch in peace. It should not have to be the child who is being bullied that has to make strategic shifts, leaving the bully to continue with his behaviour. However, every child should know some tactic strategies can actually nip things in the bud.
Anti-Bullying Tactics You Can Teach Your Child
- Explain that countering bullying with retaliation is never effective; it only serves to amplify conflict. Many parents want to teach their kid to ‘stand up’ to a bully, but we know this doesn’t help.
- Tell your child to appear unruffled, even though they will feel it inside. The lesson here is to NOT let the bully engage you or get your goat. If you do, they win. Instead, practice peaceful, non-engagement tactics. Try looking at a school book, or root around for something in your locker, look busy—anything to act distracted and uninterested.
- Explain that we all have power in numbers. Bullying tends to happen when the target child is isolated, so be strategic in taking friends with you when you go to the washroom, walk between classes and eat with a group.
- Leave incentives at home. If the bully is stealing your money or taking your hat, don’t bring them to school until the situation improves.
Hopefully, this will nip the attacks in the bud. It’s not the only solution, and if things continue, or worsen quickly, there are more levels of intervention to try. Bullying is so prevalent that every child should at least know these protective tactics so they feel armed to deal with problems should they arise.
Now parents—join your Parent Council and bring your own commitment to making all schools a loving, safe, inclusive environment. It’s a child’s right (both the bully and the bullied) to feel safe and loved everywhere they go.
Digital Dilemmas
Our children experience enormous pressures to be online all the time. They are starting as young as 2 years-old on the iPhone and evolving to the 8 to18 year-old spending more than 7½ hours per day in digital activity of one form or another, and that doesn’t include cell phone use.
Some schools require children as young as 10 to have a Think Pad and to maintain a regular blog. They bring their schoolwork home on a digital stick and use the Internet for assigned research. Teens meets with their classmates via Skype to complete school projects because it’s more convenient than getting together face-to-face. To stay connected with their friends, our children keep their noses to the screens while texting and Facebooking. They entertain themselves online with video games, TV shows and YouTube videos. And we parents are putting the pressure on them, too. We ask our children to stay in touch with us digitally, and encourage them to distract themselves online when we want time to ourselves.
While accepting that our children’s lives will require a certain amount of screen time, we can be important advocates for off-screen activities to counter the weaknesses of a digital life. Already doctors are seeing young people showing the physical fallout from years of computer use—neck and back problems, carpal tunnel syndrome, diminished hearing, effects of inadequate sleep. Drama teachers are finding that today’s students are so dependent on texting they have trouble expressing themselves when they’re asked to communicate face-to-face.
To counter the sedentary, sometimes solitary screen-based lifestyle, our teens need social, physical and tactile experiences: making music or art, dancing or drama, sports, volunteering, time in nature. If your child is resisting reduced screen time, ask him or her to propose a solution that takes into account your concerns. If she argues that she needs to be online all the time because her career will be dependent on her cyber skills, you can counter with the example of Pierce Vallieres. He’s the 14 year-old who created a Rubik’s Cube app for Apple that is generating worldwide sales. Doubtless Pierce spent hours online fine-tuning his creation, but, according to media reports, he still manages to find time to play baseball, hockey and guitar, and is learning to fly an airplane.
You’ll be strengthened in your resolve by the position of many Silicon Valley computer geeks who are sending their children to schools like Waldorf that don’t use computers. According to a recent article in The New York Times, these parents are aware that their children will need computer time to compete in the modern world but say “What’s the rush, given how easy it is to pick up those skills.”
More on this topic — Parenting Solutions,
More on this Age & Stage — Toddlers, School Age, Teens,
Your RESP Rule Book
You don’t have to be Kate Gosselin, an unemployed reality television star and single mom with a brood of eight kids, to be stressed about the costs of paying for your kids’ post-secondary education. Most parents are concerned (and confused) about how to set aside money in a Registered Education Savings Plan. Enter Golden Girl Finance expert Rhonda Sherwood, a Wealth Advisor at ScotiaMcLeod in Vancouver, to help sort through the RESP rulebook and provide savvy ‘school-savings’ tips to get started!
- Sign up the aunties. Have you always wanted to be an extravagant Auntie Mame? Are you a doting godmother or a grandmother extraordinaire? You can set up an individual RESP for other people’s kids (OPK)—all you need is the child’s social insurance number. You decide how to invest the funds and if the kid decides not to go to school, the money you’ve contributed is still yours and can be moved into your RRSP.
- Per kid, not per plan. If your child does have a generous relly or family friend contributing to her college funds, make sure you know how much is being invested each year. Within an RESP, the annual government credits and contribution maximums apply on a ‘per kid’ basis, not on a ‘per plan’ basis.
- Know the limits. You (and any other benefactors) can contribute a lifetime maximum of $50,000 towards a child’s education within an RESP. The Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG) will match your funds by 20% to an annual maximum of $500 per year, up to a lifetime maximum of $7,200. Remember again, this is per kid, not per plan.
- Types of plans. An individual beneficiary plan is an RESP for the use of only one child. The subscriber (person who sets up the plan) can be any adult, not necessarily related. A family beneficiary plan can only be opened by a “blood relative” (related through birth or adoption). The family plan is more flexible with multiple kids involved—funds can be applied to each sibling’s tuition as needed.
- Don’t use it—don’t lose it. Suppose you’ve diligently saved for your kids’ education through RESPs and then they all run off to Europe or Hollywood, forsaking post-secondary education. Well, you’ve done your best. The government contributions will have to be returned, but the funds you’ve saved can be redirected to your RRSP (if you have contribution room)—so at least your retirement nest egg will get a boost.
- Invest early, invest often. Many couples think about RESPs when a child is born, but they can be opened at any point—you can even open one for yourself if you have plans to go back to school. Government grants such as the CESG however, are only applicable for those up to age 17. In order to make the most of compound interest, start the fund as early as possible, even if it means only contributing as little as $25 or $50 a month.
- Get the free money. In addition to the CESG, there are a range of Canadian grants available depending on your eligibility. Check into the Canada Learning Bond (CLB), the Alberta Centennial Education Savings Plan (ACES), the Quebec Education Savings Incentive (QESI) and the Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB). Ask an advisor to help you find any other grants you may qualify for.
- Tax shelter yes; tax refund no. RESPs provide tax-sheltered savings, so that any dividends or interest you earn will not be taxable while you’re saving. Unlike an RRSP however, your annual contributions are not tax-deductible. If you close the fund prematurely, any dividends and interest will become taxable, along with a penalty fee of 20% on those earnings—likely wiping out any gains you may have made.
- Using the money. When it’s time to go to school, the student will choose which portion of money to withdraw from the RESP. The money you’ve saved is called Post-Secondary Education (PSE) contributions. The portion that comes from government grants is called Educational Assistance Payments (EAP). The latter is taxable in the hands of the student, the former is not. The trick is to use up the EAP first, since any unused EAP will have to be returned. With the student in a low tax bracket, the effect should be negligible.
- Statute of limitations. An RESP can remain open for 35 years—plenty of time for that kid of yours to take a ‘gap year’ or figure themselves out before embarking on a four-year program. If, after 35 years, university just ain’t gonna happen and there is no other sibling to whom you can transfer the funds, the RESP must be closed. The EAP will be returned and the earnings taxed. Or use the funds yourself and go back to school!
Rhonda advises that RESPs are pretty standard, since they are such highly regulated plans. Therefore, you won’t gain much from shopping around. Choose an institution where you have a relationship, bring in a budget of what you can spend and ask an advisor to help you to choose investments. Hopefully, your prodigy will go on to make you proud!
Nothing is more exciting and terrifying than the lead up to back to school: new classmates, new teacher, new subjects to learn, and for some, even a whole new school. One way to help alleviate some of these transitional stresses and ensure kids and teens have more confidence as they pick up their new books, is to keep learning over the summer. After all, it is understandable that some of the skills learned have fallen wayside—particularly in reading and writing. Jeanette Podolsky, Director of Speech Therapy Centres has some activity ideas to help you and your kids as they get back into the grind and feel confident heading back to the classroom.
‘By incorporating activities for listening, language expression, reading and writing into your daily routine, and creating a language-literacy rich environment, you can help ensure smoother transitions at school,’ says Jeanette.
Here are her tips:
Preschool age:
Simon Says: This is a great game to sharpen many of your child’s skills; from listening to improving verbal attention and from following directions to self-regulation. Based on your child’s skill level, you can make the game easy to challenging. Start simple with one task—‘Simon says clap your hands.’ Then as each level is mastered, add a degree of difficulty,such as multi-step directions—‘Simon says take your dishes and put them on the counter.’ Or perhaps you can tease them by throwing in some directions that require good listening such as, ‘Simon says don’t clap’ or ‘Simon says tell me a word that rhymes with bat.’ With a little imagination, the possibilities are endless!
Reading together: One of the messages every parent hears from the time their child is an infant is ‘read to your little one.’ As your child grows, so too can reading time. You can work on site words, or you can encourage them to use the pictures in the book to help them tell you the story. If you want quiet reading time, ask them to predict what will happen next or when you are done ask them to recall the main ideas, characters and the plot of the story.
Junior School Age:
Name-Place-Animal-Thing: Here’s a fun group word game that stimulates vocabulary and targets literacy skills. Ask one person in the group to call out a letter of the alphabet. Then everyone takes a couple of minutes to write down a ‘name,’ a ‘place,’ an ‘animal’ and a ‘thing’ that starts with that letter. When all members in the group have finished writing down all four fields, each one calls out their list. There are many ways to build on to this game, from describing how the members of the category are related to including adjectives, verbs, synonyms and antonyms.
Young writers in the making! What did your child do this summer? Something new? Exciting? Or did they simply frolic in the sun and enjoy the laziness of no school. Whether they travelled to a new place, enrolled in a summer camp, or visited some exciting local attractions, ask your child to write about it. Support their writing with a topic and conclusion sentence (e.g., Topic sentence: ‘This summer, I had a lot of fun.’ Conclusion sentence: ‘I can’t wait for another fun-filled summer next year). Watch them as they write. If you see them struggling with their spelling, encourage them to sound out the words. Once they have finished, have them to check their work for punctuation and proper capitalization.
Middle School Age:
Movie Reviews: Challenge your child to summarize a recent movie they have seen. Not only will this activity target organization of thoughts (beginning, middle and end), but it will also help with verbal memory, descriptive writing and presentation skills. Remember—encourage them to provide reasoning for their thoughts and likes or dislikes.
Summer trip comparison: Wonder what your child liked about their summer holiday? Here is your chance to find out. Over dinner or some quiet time, have a discussion with your children where you compare this summer to last. Encourage them to talk about what was liked or not liked and how they can make next summer even more memorable. This activity uses comparison skills, problem-solving and generation of ideas for next summer!
Making the transition from the lazy, dog days of summer back to a new school year can be a challenge for both parents and children. Incorporating some of these activities into your family’s daily routine throughout the end of summer can make for a smoother transition back into school.
4 Steps to Greening Your School Routine
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It takes just two weeks to form a new habit (or break a bad one), so why not make a commitment to implement a greener routine that can save money, make a lasting impact on the environment and positively affect the health of your family.
So here’s my challenge to you—commit to making four small and simple changes which can be incorporated into your family’s daily routine that will make a lasting impact on the environment and the health of everyone involved. Greener doesn’t have to cost you more time or money, so get your family involved. Empower them to be a part of the change with these four easy steps and make sustainable living the new ‘normal’ in your home.
Step 1: The Litterless Lunch
As a mom, when I recognized the impact of prepared, packaged and processed foods on our bodies and the environment, I knew that I had to make a change. By swapping out disposable packaging for reusable lunch carriers and avoiding prepared foods, you’ll be saving money, the environment and improving the health of your child. Here’s how:
- Reusable lunch carrier – The SnackTAXI is a great option in place of the plastic or paper bags often used to carry lunches.
- Reusable containers – Stainless steel, glass or an alternative wrap like the Wrap-N-Mat can be used in place of plastic wrap or foil.
- Stainless steel or glass drink bottle – Opt for stainless steel, glass or my favourite—the Otterbottle—instead of single-use cans or juice boxes.
Step 2: Watch How You Wash
Keep in mind that while you are making an investment in a healthy and more sustainable lunch, it’s important to investigate what you are using to wash and keep your lunch containers clean. Many dish and laundry soaps contain petrochemicals (derived directly from oil). So wherever possible, look to wash your lunch bags and containers with plant-derived, non-toxic dish soap. I make sure the following on are my shopping list:
- A natural dish soap – Plant-derived dish soap like Free & Clear Natural Dish Liquid can effectively clean the grease, grime and dirt left in your child’s stainless steel and glass containers while making sure there’s no dangerous residue left to contaminate lunch.
- Natural all-purpose spray – I’m constantly cleaning my countertops of sticky fingerprints but want to make sure those same counters are safe to place food on, so I opt for a plant-based cleaner like Free & Clear All Purpose Kitchen Spray which lets me do both.
- A plant-based concentrated laundry detergent – At the end of the week when it comes time to wash lunch bags, cloth napkins and the kid’s clothes, I choose a highly concentrated detergent like Seventh Generation’s 4X formula which let’s me get more loads per bottle and is safe to use on my family.
Step 3: Choose a Fun, Fit and Sustainable Route to School
Getting to school has an enormous impact on our environment as well as our health. With an estimated 1.6 million children in Canada (26% per cent of children) considered overweight or obese, it’s a wonder more parents don’t look at making healthy transportation options a part of their daily lives. Here’s a few ways to work health, cost and environmentally-friendly options into your getting to school routine:
- Start a walking school bus with children or families in the area. Walking is the greenest way to travel and does the least damage to the environment. Find ways to either walk with or ensure your children join forces with other families who travel the same path to school.
- Make the investment in two and four wheeled methods of transportation such as a bike, new scooter or skateboard to make the trip to school fun and fit.
- Create a carpool. Find out which days work best for the drivers, and create a schedule and a system for notifying other members of the pool if someone isn’t riding on a particular day.
Step 4: Rebrand Responsibility
It’s important to engage your kids in the school preparation and planning process to help set them up for success. This means that kids must be involved in organizing their snacks and lunches for the week, they should help clean and select their clothing and should also be in charge of creating their weekly schedules (including chores, sports practices, music lessons, etc). Most importantly though, they need to understand why it is important that they choose environmentally-friendly products.
After having many conversations with my own children about the environment and what it means to do our part, I recognized that a big part of teaching stewardship is ingraining responsibility into the fabric of your household.
Overall, it’s never too late to set a new standard of what you and your family can do to help care for the environment.
More on this topic — Green Living,
More on this Age & Stage — School Age, Preschool,
12 Back-to-School Resolutions
When you have kids, September, even more than January, feels like the time for a fresh start. The arrival of a new school year brings with it the chance to do better, especially when it comes to juggling all the moving parts that make up our lives.
I have a bit of a history of starting the school year with a huge burst of energy and then slowly fizzling out by Halloween. This year we have a lot on the go and it’s my responsibility to keep us rolling.
So I’m making some ‘back-to-school’ resolutions that I hope will keep me honest and the whole family on track:
- Build on the momentum of our current physical activities. Continue with karate, swimming and find a nearby, affordable gymnastics program for both kids.
- Come up with a daily routine that fits everything in. This means time for homework and reading, practicing instruments, outdoor play, household responsibilities, hanging with friends and downtime.
- Walk with friends a few times a week to keep my own physical activity levels up. A good friend of mine and I were doing this last year and it was a great way to catch up and get exercise.
- Be better at organizing playdates. I’m such a bad planner and I feel like my kids are lucky to get one playdate a week, while it seems other kids are marching off holding the hand of a different child every day.
- Do a load of laundry every night. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard the refrain ‘I don’t have any clean underwear,’ I’d be writing this list under a palm tree while someone else folds our delicates.
- Prepare, prepare, prepare…the night before. This includes homework, library books, gym clothes, signed forms in backpacks and by the door.
- Keep easy-to-grab snacks stocked in the pantry and in the fridge. This way the kids can be in charge of packing their own school snacks. Preparing food takes a lot of my time and energy, and I’d rather spend a bit more time stocking up once a week so I can delegate this daily responsibility.
- Plan meals. In the past, I have looked at the clock at 5 pm on too many school days and realized I had no clue what was for dinner.
- Try something new. I might finally try tennis. There is a court right behind our house, and even though I like listening to other people play, maybe it’s time for me to get one of those cute little tennis skirts and join the party. There’s also an art class that looks interesting; I might give that a whirl.
- Make my 5-year-old walk. I’m not pushing or pulling that kid around unless we are going somewhere really far. Resolved.
- Get off the hamster wheel and play with my kids. Like all of us, I can get caught up in the never-ending list of to-dos. This is the last year that I will have a child at home in the afternoons and I want to spend that time playing with him.
- Be on time! When you live a five minute walk from school is there really an excuse for arriving late, sweaty and dishevelled?
Wish me luck. If I’m still doing half of these by December I’ll consider myself successful. I’ll keep you posted.
And let me know if I’m on the right track by sharing your strategies for a smooth, healthy and active school year.
Sara Smeaton is a self-proclaimed non-sporty mom to her 7-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. While working in advertising, as an interactive project manager, she avoided all company bowling outings and baseball games. Since having her kids, Sara continues to work as a freelancer and consultant; she is enjoying this new adventure writing for Active for Life.
More on this topic — Active Life,
More on this Age & Stage — School Age,
What Happened to Bedtime?
The kids are back in school. Why then is it so hard to get them into bed? If your bedtime routine went on summer vacation, now is the time to dig it out from under the winter coats and boots, shake it off and put it into action.
Here are a few things to remember:
- Children ages 2 to 6 need between 11 and 13 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. (Younger children may get a portion of that in a daytime nap). If we budget 11 hours of sleep at night then children need to be asleep at 8 pm if they are getting up at 7 am for school.
- Kids often get tired around 6:30–7:00 pm. If we push them past that sleepy period (because we are enjoying their company), adrenalin starts to kick in, and what was once a tired youngster becomes and intergalactic missile who cannot be stopped until the adrenalin runs out.
- Some families quit late bed times cold turkey. Others like to do it in stages. Choose a plan that works for you, even if that means starting the bedtime routine 5–10 minutes earlier each night. If your plan doesn’t fit you, you won’t stick to it.
- Be sure that the routine works for the child now (not the child of last year). Evaluate whether your little one still needs you to put her pyjamas on—maybe she can do it herself now.
- Take time to write the plan down (with words and pictures for non-readers) along with times beside it so that everyone knows the plan. Your child can then take responsibility for telling you what comes next instead of you having to nag every step of the way.
Need more help? We have helped thousands of families with bedtime struggles. Like us at facebook.com/parentingpower to learn real life parenting tools for your family.
More on this topic — Parenting Solutions,
More on this Age & Stage — School Age,
Put the ‘Home’ Back in ‘Homework’
After a long hot summer, it can be tough to get kids back into a routine and focused on homework. But homework is a key part of your child’s education, and it’s important that they not only complete it, but also understand what they’ve learned.
Studies show that children’s achievements in school improve with increased parent involvement in education. So get involved in your kids’ schoolwork—you might even learn something new too!
ABC Life Literacy Canada offers 10 tips on how to make homework part of your daily routine:
- Develop a daily routine by setting aside a specific time each day/evening for homework.
- Provide a quiet, well-lit place with basic school supplies.
- Understand your child’s style of learning—this will help you develop a personalized homework plan for your child.
- It’s not uncommon for kids to get overwhelmed with big assignments or projects. Help them break the project down into smaller steps. Work on pieces throughout the week and do the hard parts on the weekend.
- Talk with your child’s teacher and be aware of their method of teaching. Help your child by using familiar terms and examples.
- Don’t reserve learning to homework hour. Make learning a part of daily life.
- If your child gets frustrated or distracted with their homework, allow them to take a short break. If this frustration continues, talk with your child’s teacher to determine if a tutor might be needed.
- To reinforce comprehension and memory skills, take 10 minutes to talk about the stories you’ve read together.
- Show your child that the skills they are learning relate to real life. If your child is learning math, for example, balance your cheque book or have them count out change for you.
- Teach your child to be independent. Offer to help them with difficult homework challenges, but then let them complete the remainder on their own.
For other family literacy tips and activities, visit FamilyLiteracyDay.ca.
More on this topic — Parenting Solutions,
More on this Age & Stage — School Age,
The Joy of Biking to School
I rode my bike a lot this summer. Mostly I was trying to keep up with my 5-year-old daughter.
She completed her third Pedalheads course in early August, and this year learned some great safety rules. Less than a month later, with daily practice, she’s riding comfortably—and safely—on the road and we’ve discovered some new trails in our neighbourhood.
All of this was part of a master plan to have her ready to bike to school when she started kindergarten, and I’m proud to say that every morning begins with us pedaling the short 10 minutes to her new school.
I was surprised to read that in 2009, only 35%t of American children living within a mile of school walked or biked. That compares to 89% back in 1969.
Those numbers came from a recent report that reviewed information from a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey designed to find out why parents didn’t allow their children to walk to school.
Reasons cited by parents for driving their kids to school included distance and weather, which are genuine concerns.
Many parents said they were worried about traffic and crime. But statistics reported in the study indicated that more children are injured and killed in motor vehicles than walking or cycling, and Statistics Canada shows that crime rates in this country haven’t changed since the 1970s.
Active & Safe Routes to School is the Canadian wing of an international effort to promote the ability of children to walk and bike to school. (The American association is SafeRoutes.)
Through education—of children, parents, teachers and administrators—and by helping to create routes to schools that are safe and patrolled, the organization hopes to increase the number of children who walk and bike every day.
For the kids, biking to school is energizing and empowering. And it’s an easy way to help them get enough daily physical activity, too.
Where we live—Vancouver—biking is a part of the culture. The weather is moderate enough that some families cycle everywhere they need to go year-round. Even during the winter month monsoons here, a simple rain coat (Mountain Equipment Co-op has great all-weather bike clothing) is all you need.
And my daughter has become very fond of her bike. She loves to be on it. It’s my hope that she becomes so used to cycling that she’ll never think to ask for a ride.
Blaine Kyllo has written for a variety of print and online publications including CBC.ca, the Globe & Mail, the Georgia Straight and Vancouver Magazine. Also an editor, producer and the father of two young children, he lives in North Vancouver.
More on this topic — Active Life,
More on this Age & Stage — School Age,
Canada is a great country. We have so much to be thankful for. But all is not perfect in our land. We are known to be a progressive and diverse culture, and in the bright-shining light of progression I speak to all the parents, administrators and educators of our fair nation.
We stand proud on our achievements in literacy and numeracy, for our children are among the most capable in the world when it comes to Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic. No surprise really, as the 3 Rs have been long-standing pillars of our education system and our Canadian mindset. From the Pacific to the Atlantic, we measure our achievement of the 3Rs using mandatory provincial examinations. We know where we stand, and we can rightfully stand tall.
Despite these marvelous literacy and numeracy achievements, the health of Canadians, child and adult alike, is being insidiously eroded. Sadly, our Canadian way of life has become sedentary for over 95% of us and more than 65% are overweight and obese, leading to the unprecedented development of ‘inactivity diseases’ such as type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis.
The true north isn’t strong, it’s weak
This unhealthy lifestyle—our behaviours—is a reflection of our Canadian values and attitudes. Thank goodness for our health care system which has, up to this point, been able to manage the negative consequences of our collective sloth and gluttony. But our health care system is beginning to fail under the burden of our lifestyles.
We want our health care but we do not want our health!
How do we rectify this? Well, thankfully the health and physical education (HE/PE) objectives that are a part of our provincial education curricula can provide the foundation on which we can create physically literate children that actively participate. Which could save the next generation of Canadian bacon, so to speak.
Parents and educators must start to insist on the delivery of the HE/PE objectives, just as we have insisted for reading, writing and arithmetic. Perhaps this would form the foundation of a new Canadian culture, one that is active and healthy.
The physical education curricula for all provinces can be found here. Parents should become familiar with what our children are supposed to know and behaviours that they should exhibit as a result of being enrolled in our health and physical education system. You will be surprised to learn what the learning expectations are. Parents want their kids to be healthy. We all do. We may not yet have provincial examinations for physical literacy, but if we value what physical literacy gives to our children we need to measure it. Just as we measure the ability of our children to read, write and do math.
Like most provincial HE/PE curricula, Manitoba’s has strands on fitness, movement, safety, healthy lifestyle practices, as well as personal and social management. For your interest, here are some of the learning objectives of the Grade 6 curriculum from three strands: fitness, movement and lifestyle. What you’ll notice is that the objectives are quite bold. If kids were able to do the things that the curriculum sets out, they’d be well prepared for the future.
The problem is that schools aren’t delivering on the curriculum. Our children are not able to do everything that the system itself expects. As parents, we need to work cooperatively with our education system to actually deliver on these objectives.
The recreation and sport sectors need to become integrated into our school systems via the parent advisory council to complement the physical literacy education process. Our teachers know which children are in need of improved healthy lifestyle behaviours, and they can play a very important role in guiding their students toward suitable, physically active leisure pursuits in the community.
We don’t need to worry about who is already active in sport and leisure activities. We need to worry about who isn’t.
So, parents, please politely get in the face of your teachers, engage your principals and superintendents, recruit your parent advisory councils. Leave them in no doubt as to your hopes and needs for your children and our country: ‘Hey, my kids have to be physically literate and active!’
We’d never tolerate our kids practicing reading only twice a week because we know that regular reading is what builds literacy. So why are we okay with our kids only getting physical education and activity in schools with only a couple of sessions a week?
As parents, we can do our bit outside school time. But schools can make a powerful contribution during the day.
Let’s make sure that Canada, the true north, really is both strong and free.
Dean Kriellaars (BPE, MSc, PhD, CEP) is faculty at the University of Manitoba and a scientist at the Manitoba Institute of Child Health. Dr. Kriellaars has received two University of Manitoba Presidential Outreach awards for meritorious community work and recently was awarded the Campbell Award for longstanding community service. Provincially, he was recognized for his outstanding activities in building community wellness in the province of Manitoba through the Healthy Living Award.
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