Dating Daughter - Will You Say No?

The scenario is that your daughter is asking your permission to go on a date for the first time. She's 17. Will you allow her?

I will.

Let me qualify my answer. I firmly believe children should be given freedom to make decisions and choices. However, that should not prevent us parents from giving them advices. If you don't allow them, you also curtail your chance to guide them.

Chances are, when teens are not permitted to do something, they hide their activities from their parents. When they hide things from us, we can't tell them what to do nor how to react. But when they do tell us because we have allowed them, then we are able to give them their limitations.

I think many people find our style of discipline to be odd. However, when it comes to our children, I guess I have a better relationship with mine - we about a lot of things even about her crushes and all, we enjoy each other's company, I know her friends, and my daughter does know how to handle situations quite maturely than most of her peers. Even her friends' parents trust her. They normally allow their children to leave when she's in the group.

She's 17 and according to Freud, Piaget and some other psychologists, they will be attracted to the opposite sex at this stage. Thus, it is for us parents to know how to guide and regulate their activities. Better to say yes and put limitations than to say no and be cheated by them, right?

Child Stress

My daughter had to submit her assignment last monday. It was an oratorical piece on "The Youth of Today in a Fast-Paced World". To help her without depriving her of the chance to develop her own writing skill, I asked her to writer her own version and I'd write mine. After that, we'd just fuse both materials together.

As I was working on merging our works, I realized just how stressful it is to be a child nowadays. Demands from both school and home have deprived my child of her youth. Clearly, it is a result of being goal-oriented and the drive to excel in everything that she does.

Stress leads to many wrong things - mentally, physically, socially, etc. It would be unfair to expose the children to so much at a young age. gradually would be better.

What am I saying? well, it's just that our children need our love, support and time. But above those, they also need time to be themselves, to be children, to be carefree and be with friends.

I'm glad Ikee has that with her friends from her swimming team. Perhaps, I should just give her more time to spend with them.

Oh my! Where Do You Find That Stuff?

Kids in my daughter's school find it hard to source out answers to assignments and homework given by their teacher. Even I find it difficult to look for the answers to their assignments. How should I know the answers now when the last time I saw those was about 30 years ago!

I can't say enough of how the internet has helped. I'm glad there are sites such as elaput.org, or Webmanila.com, teachers.net, educationworld.com, The Physics Classroom, Teachers Domain, Home School Online Scien Library, the NASA website, cosmeo, discovery, and the various search engines are around and within reach.

Usually, I search for the tutorial on a subject. There's bound to be one in the internet. One time, my daughter had to review for her Physics exam. She had been complaining previously about not understanding the principles enough. Well, she did but she can't really apply them on word problems. So, I told her to view the physics classroom and another tutorial site. Happily, after just 1 hour, she announced that it wasn't so hard to learn physics after all. Guess what? She topped her physics exam with a grade of about 95%.

After all the help we've gotten from surfing, I've decided to make a blog or a website to upload some of the research work that we've done to help others too. Hmmm... the question now is when will I be able to do that? I'll just keep my hands crossed.

Should Parents Help Children with Their Assignments? - Raising Achievers

Today my daughter announced that she will be awarded with the 2nd Academic Honors in her school. Not to brag, but this award means she has bested more than 95% of the whole freshman level of about 300 students and it is her 3rd time to receive such a recognition this school year. Naturally, I feel delighted. But more importantly, I got to reflect whether what I am doing for her is right. So far so good.

Since she started in her science high school, I have been helping her out with her assignments. At first, my friends kept commenting about why I do so. Now, they ask me how they should do it. hahaha, I guess having your kid high up in the Honor roll makes for a great convincing power.

She's still in her teenage years. 13 to be exact. Even as she looks so grown up with her built, she is still technically a kid. And we know that all kids need guidance. They don't know how to act, how to do things, how to treat others... what's so confusing to the teenage is the fact that they have just barely adjusted to childhood, now they are being "forced" into maturing - to act and behave like adults. But not for me. I'd like my kid to be a kid while she still can. But I'm not saying that she should not change. I just want her to learn because I have guided her well.

Studying is a skill and as with all other skills, it has techniques that one should learn. why let the children go through the rough time when the method is already there up for grabs?

Yo! Yogurt

I've just recently discovered (or rediscovered) how wonderful home-made yogurt could be. Not just me, but both my husband and daughter love its rich, creamy flavor specially with fruits. It's a good substitute for cream for salads and has recently become one of the staple in our breakfast table. I remember how my mom used to prepare it for us and how I (naturally!) despised it then because it really takes some getting used to. These days, kids are exposed to a so many flavors that it doesn't take so much for them to acquire new tastes as the case with my daughter.

Not only does yogurt taste good, it is in fact healthy. It has helpful bacteria known as probiotic that your digestive system can benefit from. It actually encourages the growth of normal flora in your gut. Wikipedia has a long list of its benefits that you may want to

Here's how to prepare it:

slightly heat by constantly stirring 1 liter of milk (whole, low fat or skimmed) to slightly above room temp.
add 1/2 cup natural plain yogurt and mix until yogurt has been dissolved.
cover and keep in a warm spot (such as an oven)for about 8 hours. serve cold.

We love adding fresh fruit to it. The family's favorite is pineapple.