Momentum is building as we anticipate our service in Mexicali over Easter Break. Attached you will find our emergency communication plan. Let me know if you have questions or comments.
Middle school is when the right friends may matter most | Media Relations February 8, 2011
Researchers at the University of Oregon may be on to something middle school teachers and parents need to focus on – the shifting friendships happening as their fifth graders move into the sixth grade. Read the full article here:
Middle school is when the right friends may matter most | Media Relations.
- As the early adolescent moves from one teacher to multiple teachers and classrooms, his or her social radar gets finely tuned into a plethora of new friendship possibilities. This is just the place where new friendships begin to blossom, for good or for not.
- One of the profound conclusions is that young students who engage in friendships that are “pro-social,” [meaning that they are socially active friendships that respect rules and enjoy activities planned and monitored by caring, attentive adults], do better academically in high school and are better adjusted into their early twenties.
- Academics are a vital focus during middle school but teachers and parents need to pay specific attention to the development of healthy, positive, social friendships among their children and students. Know your children, know their friends, and meet their friends parents.
- Parents are wise to plan and support wholesome activities and establish clear behavior boundaries, while monitoring compliance and holding to consequences for misbehavior.
- Parents, teachers, and youth workers will wisely collaborate and communicate about the friendships developing in their sphere of influence. Intervention is appropriate when friendship bonds lead to a sudden increase in rebellion and rule breaking.
Jim Liebelts Youth Culture Watch: Kids Texting in Class is the New Normal September 15, 2010
Jim Liebelts Youth Culture Watch: Kids Texting in Class is the New Normal.
What we do is often more powerful than what we say. It is so tempting to pick the phone up and check email or a text while driving, but we usually “get what we are.”
msnbc video: Are 20-somethings afraid of growing up? August 25, 2010
msnbc video: Are 20-somethings afraid of growing up?.
What are the implications for parenting and for secondary school teachers and youth workers in our churches?
Raised by the Pack July 27, 2010
Common sense, research, and Biblical tradition reveal that having at least five adults who relate to an adolescent with a “beyond-performance” agenda greatly enhance his or her movement toward responsible and interdependent maturity. All kids need a pack.
Vicki Hart writes for Bicycling Magazine and zeroed in on a young Thomas Jondall, who turned 18 in July. Thomas has grown up in challenging circumstances including estrangement from mom and dad, sleeping in parks, missing school, and yet, excelling in bike road racing. A group of cyclists and neighbors noticed and then took Thomas under their wings, including Dave and Katie Jonsson, who adopted young Thomas. He now has a home, a family, a high school degree, and a promising cycling career. This is a great story worth reading and emulating.
Gradually, the cyclists realized that the kids who seemed to have a great future ahead of him didn’t have much of a present.
Getting More Kids Riding to School July 3, 2010
How did you get to school as a kid? I remember both walking and riding my bike, but also weathered a short season on the bus. The Department of Transportation reports that in 1969 about 50% of children rode or walked to school, while today barely 13% do. Parents’ fear, bike-unfriendly streets, and distance are reasons given for the decline. Drive, walk, or ride past schools as they start today, but be careful, because their driveways [originally designed for a handful of cars] are packed with impatient and speedy parents dropping their kids off. Riding and walking are healthy alternatives to the crush of cars, helping kids not only slow down but get in shape.
Michelle Hamilton, in the recent issue of Bicycling Magazine, writes that it is possible to get more kids out of cars and riding more between home and school. Here are a couple examples Hamilton highlights:
- Alpine Elementary School in Alpine, Utah received a $12,000 grant from Safe Routes to School to partner with their city, adding “crosswalks, school-zone signs and bike racks, and organized parent-led biking and walking groups – key components in easing parents’ fears.” The number of kids getting out of cars and onto bikes or their own two feet increased from 32 to 50 percent.
- Starkville, Mississippi is stripping bike lanes from all its sub-divisions to city schools.
- Taylor, Texas is in the process of completing a network of trails connecting city institutions for ease of riding and walking.
- The League of American Bicyclist’s (LAB) Bicycle Friendly Community program increased their program from 48 to 140 cities in the last five years.
- Michelle Obama is encouraging more kids to walk and ride to school through her Let’s Move initiative.
- Ray LaHood, U.S. secretary of transportation, is determined to integrate the needs of bicyclists into all federally funded road projects.
Here are six ways Hamilton suggests cities and individuals can get more kids riding to school:
- Make it a group effort – with city government, parents’ groups, neighborhood coalitions, and bike clubs working together.
- Champion the cause – it takes an individual to step up in any city and make it happen.
- Get help – explore available grants listed at SRTS’s guide [saferoutesinfo.org/guide/steps/index.cfm].
- Use incentive programs – gifts made available by schools for miles ridden or walked, potentially combining incentives with support of worthy causes.
- Involve kids – using students as safety officers, with parental or school supervision.
- Educate – by holding education classes for kids and parents. One school launched a “drive-safely” campaign and lowered the percentage of parents exceeding the 25-mph speed limit from 59 to 21 percent.
Changing mindsets and lifestyles takes lots of time, but cities across the country are discovering the joy of using their own power to get to and from school. Get out and ride, and take your kids along!
Low-quality child care can have lasting impact May 14, 2010
Using day-care seems inevitable and and mandatory for many. This research indicates that quality matters, but maybe more important is the duration of care outside the home and the intimacy of family relationships when the child returns to parent’s care.
“Researchers had speculated that the negative effects of lower-quality care would disappear as the influence of other factors, such as peers, teachers and maturation, overcame the early childhood experience. But in the latest analysis of the data, they discovered that teenagers who had received higher-quality child care were less likely to report engaging in problem behaviors such as arguing, being mean to others and getting into fights. Those who spent more hours in child care of any kind were more likely to engage in impulsive and risky behaviors.”
Distracted driving: cellphones and texting May 3, 2010
Fact: Distracted driving causes an estimated 6,000 fatalities each year in the U.S., and some of the more common distractions include texting, phoning or fiddling with a GPS.
Fact: An estimated 500,000 people are injured each year by distracted drivers.
I’ve made a vow to not pick up my cell phone while driving and have not been completely successful, but am making progress. Since I do a fair amount of road biking I’ve grown familiar with what it looks like for a driver to be distracted while fiddling with tech gadgets. I know I will be the big loser in any confrontation with a car.
The featured cop in this article waxes philosophical about the reasons he thinks people refuse to put down their phones and obey the intuitively practical need for the hands free law–he states that “people don’t like down time.” This speaks to a deeper issue–we may have allowed the ability of technology to keep us connected to determine our pace of life. We are more hurried, fragmented, and anxious about productivity than ever. One key to the effective, efficient, and overall healthy use of technology is an internal ability to know when it is appropriate to turn it off and disconnect. Adequate downtime is vital to productive and healthy uptime.
See also–teenagers want help to stop texting: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/30/earlyshow/main6447065.shtml
Independence day comes late for millennials – washingtonpost.com March 28, 2010
Independence day comes late for millennials – washingtonpost.com.
If you are 18-35, what is your financial arrangement with your parents? In what ways is it helpful? In what ways is it potentially harmful? Is financial independence a final marker of adulthood?
In Youth Sports, Players Are Playing for Fun – NYTimes.com February 15, 2010
In Youth Sports, Players Are Playing for Fun – NYTimes.com.
I like what Mark Hyman writes about kids and sports. The article also mentions Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA), whose stated goal is “transforming youth sports so sports can transform youth.”
Kids play sports mostly to have fun, which is easily lost on us parents as we impose our competitive goals on our children. PCA hosts a number of workshops which have helped youth sports organizations become places where kids excel not only at their chosen sport but also in character development.
We claim we are all about character development, but often our drive to see kids excel blurs the lines between our agenda and what is ultimately good for our young athletes. Do you remember the days when you gathered your friends and agreed to meet at the playground after school for a pick up game of football or baseball? No uniforms, no coaches, just choosing sides and playing till the sun went down. Many kids don’t share this memory and feel somewhat uncomfortable organizing a game without some kind of adult initiative.
Youth sports, when run well, produce great good for kids, but adults must be clear about our desired outcomes, and able to self regulate when egos and schedules get over blown. I commend Positive Coaching Alliance to you, but also just scooting kids outside to play once in a while.
