Do you have to deal with children every day? What is the most rewarding and least rewarding thing?

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Answers

The best thing about them is when they're babies, and they're someone else's. They're fun to hold and play with, and then you give them back.

The worst thing about them is when they learn the meaning of the word no. Because then it becomes their favorite word, and they shriek it at the top of their little lungs at every opportunity. Especially in public.

Children are evil little midgets whose behavioral problems are best solved by lots of duct tape and a dark closet. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but not many.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Oy, thank God no.

Every time I come in contact with kids, particularly kids in that pre- adolescent "I am learning to be a huge pain in the ass and hate everybody" stage, it becomes harder and harder for me to remember what it was like when I was their age.

But there is something charming (for, oh...5 minutes)about a kid on the cusp of realizing their potential as an adult. It reminds me of that longing I felt when I would sneak out of my house in the middle of a hot summer night to sit at the end of my driveway and contemplate the world. I would watch the cars drive by and imagine the glamorous lives of their passengers. Beautiful girls with their hair whipping around there shoulders and dangerous boys who smoked and drove too fast. I ached to be a part of it all.

Of course the reality was not quite as glamorous as I had imagined, but it makes my memories of that time so much more poignant.

There's so much information out there for kids, why wouldn't they think they know it all? They think all of us are stupid uptight grownups, and in some ways we are. But we also want to take them aside and say "Don't do that. I've been there. You'll be sorry." And we can't. Or at least, it's difficult to communicate this to them in a way that they can respect or understand.

I don't have any kids of my own and I don't think I ever will. Too much pain (physical and mental), too much stress and too much responsibility. I would never bring a life into this world if I wasn't damn sure I could do right by them.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

i, for a long time, thought i would never have kids. i thought it was too difficult; i would never want to raise kids to be like the ones i saw in the malls or wherever. i thought i'd not have enough patience. i thought i'd lose my mind.

and you know what? for the most part, i was right. it is hard; my patience does run thin and sometimes i really do swear as if i'm going psycho.

but, there are tradeoffs for these feelings. and these pros by far outweigh the cons.

have you ever had a two year old come up and give you a great big hug and kiss, just because you're his mommy?

have you ever had a child shriek in delight when he sees you first thing in the morning?

have you ever marvelled at how, sometimes, a child will know the right things to say when an adult doesn't?

these are just a few of the numerous things that made me want to have another baby (due in july). i can't even begin to count how many pros there are on the child-bearing side.

granted, it's not for everyone. some people just plain should not have kids. believe me, i'm not one of those people who will say, "oh, you'll change your mind" when faced with someone who says they never want kids. in fact, if you have made that decision, i'm 100% behind you. i think more people probably should have thought about it a little more carefully before they did have kids.

have i gone off topic here? i'm not quite sure anymore. i'm all rambly. sorry.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

I don't know, Heather, I've gotten all of those same things from my twenty-eight year old boyfriend. Once I got him to stop calling me "Mommy," it got even better.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

All of my friends have kids, it seems, with ages ranging from two to 8ish. I am always around them, of course.

The upside of that is that kids are just cute, and fun to play with, and it's great when they learn how to say your name (I've known two of them since they were born) -- very flattering. It's also nice to watch other peoples' children be born and grow up; I learn a lot about parenting by watching my friends, and I learn what sorts of things to expect from children as they get older without having to go through it first.

The downside is that they're noisy, and it's often very, very frustrating that my friends with kids have their movement restricted by those kids. Infants are apparently not a problem, but when a two-year-old gets fussy, it's like they can't go anywhere and have to stay at home. We end up excluding someone or another every now and then because of kid-duty. I know, it's a choice, it's always a choice. My friends don't mind, of course. It's just something I notice.

The truth of it is this: I don't mind their having those problems, it just makes me nervous to think about having those problems myself, when I eventually have children. The idea of having a responsibility that monstrous is stifling and scary.

This digressed into the 'would you have kids' question, didn't it.

Another downside is how absolutely messy children are. Aigh.

Shelly // Loom

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

so far the most rewarding thing that has happened since working with my hoodrats is having a former student tell me that she is glad i am her teacher and that i make school seem not too sucky.
for this girl, that was a whole lot... i floated on that comment for a few weeks

the hard part is really more with the parents and trying not to get too close. especially with my kids, the tendancy is to involve myself with their entire lives to replace the parent (or lack there of) but you really have to learn to just let go. they are kids and are going to do things that dissappoint us. we just have to deal with it and hope they learn from it.
*caitlyn

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Ooh, Caitlin, I know exactly what you mean. It's so hard to watch great kids struggle with evil parents. To see their faces drop when dad misses visiting day at camp because of a golf tournament...or when mom doesn't even want to look at a project they've worked hard on. I have to keep reminding myself that I can't fix every problem, especially when I often work with kids for only a day, and at most a month.

I sometimes feel that I've spent the last 10 years building up a list of what kind of parent and teacher I want to be, based on all the good and bad examples I've seen. If I ever do wind up with kids of my own, I wonder if I'll manage to live up to any of my promises.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Bite me! There's nothing wrong with me at all! Just leave me the **** alone, mutha******s!

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

That was a great entry, Pamie. You might have think that your day was a disaster, but it sounds like you were a perfectly awesome role model and teacher. I love working with teenagers. I love being in a room full of people who obsess over things more than I do. I love being the one who "went through it" instead of the one who's all confused and stuff.

It's a much needed talent in today's world, to be able to work with teenagers. I guess you're not all jumping up and down about doing that again, but if you even liked it a teeny tiny bit, teenagers need people like you who have at least a part of a clue on what it's like to be them.

Except in my case, I didn't have the whole teen pregnancy thing, so maybe I don't relate as well as I'd like to think I do, but I love working with teens. Heh.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

you might have think.

Good thing I don't teach 'em grammar.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

I don't get to see my nieces because they're in NZ and I'm in London, but when I do spend time with them, they're awesome. The 4 year old is really cute and girly, and is already very good at using her cuteness to get her own way. However, the 7 year old is my favourite. She's super bright, and she reminds everybody of me - she has all my fidgety mannerisms, and her teachers (who also taught me 20 years ago) constantly call her by my name. This really cracks me up because my sister has always been highly annoyed an intolerant of my mannerisms, so karma has punished her for it!!

I can't get over how old kids are these days. Katie, the 7 year old, doesn't want toys for her birthday - she wants new clothes. She loves the Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys, and is basically a 14 year old trapped in a small girl's body.

This always amazes me. I was a little kid for much longer than that.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

Just remember that kids are just little people. That's why they're such bastards. :)

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

i have coached a couple of girls' sports teams (and one coed team - NIGHTMARE!!!)

depending on their age ranges, the experience was either like being a big sister to a whole bunch of girls who now want their hair cut all screwy lengths, wear old tshirts with random slogans and now speak without ever using the letter R, or a whole bunch of girls who hate me, hate their stupid parents for wanting them to play sport x, and hate every stupid person on this stupid team. i will never coach the bantam team again (ages 12-14), they are evil. evil evil evil.

the 10-12 year olds rock, cuz they actually listen to you, and think you, by virtue of being an adult, are both knowledgeable and cool...

the 15-17 year olds are ok, in that they need little teaching of the sport, standard amount of coaching and even less in loco parenting, so you're just there to keep score and yell at the ump when he has it in for your team...

but man, 12-14. i shudder just at the memory.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

What's with kids wanting to grow up so fast? When I was 10, I played with Barbies and Cabbage Patch Kids and all that stuff. Ten-year-olds these days all want Backstreet Boys CDs and clothes. It's refreshing to play with my boyfriend's 10-year-old neice, because she's from England and doesn't have a lot of the cultural influences that Canadian kids seem to have. Her 14-year-old sister is into this band called Steps (it's all she thinks about) and the 17-year-old is into Marilyn Manson and KORN. But Jus is still a kid, and I hope she stays that way for a while, because being 10 rocks.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

You are a high school English teacher. (Okay, really, I was a high school English teacher, but I'm still in denial.)

You decide to quit.

Rewarding Moment: A student tells you that you're his or her favorite teacher. Your head swells, and you decide not to quit.

Un-Rewarding Moment: You buck the system by teaching A Midsummer Night's Dream instead of Julius Caesar to your sophomores, because you trust that they will be swept away by its magical love stories and woodland adventures. They hate it, beg to read the tragedy, and ask you how you could have possibly thought they would want to read a play about a bunch of fairies.

You decide to quit.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

words diminish

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

I don't think they want to grow up faster than we did, I think the difference is that parents seem to tolerate it more. Parents used to tell their children that ten year olds didn't get to have expensive clothes, or wear makeup, or whatever. Now they seem more likely to tolerate it, or think it's cute or something.

I have many theories...one is that everyone in our culture is hurried and rushed and if parents can believe that their children are practically grown up, they feel better about not having enough time for them.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

I choose not to work with children for the same reason you WILL be a great mother if you choose to someday--it is easy to love your own kids. Shit. Your cats are treated better than a lot of kids.

The most rewarding thing is when they tell you that they love you or that you are the most awesome mom, or when they do something that really makes you proud.

The least rewarding thing (right now) is my 14 year-old's smart mouth. And listening to KORN (ugh)and BSB. Or when the baby picks his boogers and wipes them on stuff. Just a little irritation is all.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

Funny you should ask this so soon after I got an earfull of new info. Tuesday, while I was going to work and listening to the radio, NPR's Michelle Trudeau reported that scientists have discovered new information on brain development in teenagers. Like the infant years, the teen years show a burgeoning of cell growth in the brain, especially in the frontal lobes, an area that controls judgement and decision-making.

A quick web search turned this info up:

"Rat-a-tat-tat. rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. If scientists could eavesdrop on the brain of a human embryo 10, maybe 12 weeks after conception, they would hear an astonishing racket. Inside the womb, long before light first strikes the retina of the eye or the earliest dreamy images flicker through the cortex, nerve cells in the developing brain crackle with purposeful activity. Like teenagers with telephones, cells in one neighborhood of the brain are calling friends in another, and these cells are calling their friends, and they keep calling one another over and over again, "almost," says neurobiologist Carla Shatz of the University of California, Berkeley, "as if they were autodialing."

But these neurons--as the long, wiry cells that carry electrical messages through the nervous system and the brain are called--are not transmitting signals in scattershot fashion. That would produce a featureless static, the sort of noise picked up by a radio tuned between stations. On the contrary, evidence is growing that the staccato bursts of electricity that form those distinctive rat-a-tat- tats arise from coordinated waves of neural activity, and that those pulsing waves, like currents shifting sand on the ocean floor, actually change the shape of the brain, carving mental circuits into patterns that over time will enable the newborn infant to perceive a father's voice, a mother's touch, a shiny mobile twirling over the crib.

Of all the discoveries that have poured out of neuroscience labs in recent years, the finding that the electrical activity of brain cells changes the physical structure of the brain is perhaps the most breathtaking. For the rhythmic firing of neurons is no longer assumed to be a by-product of building the brain but essential to the process, and it begins, scientists have established, well before birth. A brain is not a computer. Nature does not cobble it together, then turn it on. No, the brain begins working long before it is finished. And the same processes that wire the brain before birth, neuroscientists are finding, also drive the explosion of learning that occurs immediately afterward.

At birth a baby's brain contains 100 billion neurons, roughly as many nerve cells as there are stars in the Milky Way. Also in place are a trillion glial cells, named after the Greek word for glue, which form a kind of honeycomb that protects and nourishes the neurons. But while the brain contains virtually all the nerve cells it will ever have, the pattern of wiring between them has yet to stabilize. Up to this point, says Shatz, "what the brain has done is lay out circuits that are its best guess about what's required for vision, for language, for whatever." And now it is up to neural activity--no longer spontaneous, but driven by a flood of sensory experiences--to take this rough blueprint and progressively refine it." (More here: http://www.nku.edu/~johnston/timebrain.html)

So we knew babies' brains are extremely productive, but now we also know there's a resurgence of this sort of neural activity and growth when you're a pre-teen.

"A study published in the March 9, 2000, issue of the journal Nature revealed that key learning areas in the brain continue to actively develop, and in some cases double, well into a child's mid-teen years. It marked the first time that scientists had successfully mapped the growth patterns and development of the human brain in children ranging in age from preschool to puberty. Earlier theories had held that brain development peaked and organization of neural pathways was essentially completed by the time a child entered the first grade.

The study--a continuation of two earlier studies published in late 1999--examined brain activity in children between the ages of 3 and 15. The research team, headed by Arthur Toga and colleagues at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C., and McGill University in Montreal, Que., used high-resolution three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of boys and girls at intervals ranging from two weeks to four years.

The scans revealed waves of growth in the corpus callosum, a system of neural fibers that transmit information between the left and right sides of the brain. Changes in the fiber system are generally considered a reliable indicator of brain activity. Detailed images of the scans indicated age-specific changes in activity levels in different parts of the brain. In children between the ages of 3 and 6, the scans showed rapid expansion of the frontal circuits of the corpus callosum; these areas are associated with increased mental vigilance and regulate the planning of new actions. Brain activity in subjects between roughly 6 and 15 years of age revealed stronger activity in the temporo-parietal regions, which are found at the sides and back of the brain. After the age of 11 or so, the rate of growth in this region was found to slow down somewhat, though it still remained high. The temporo-parietal fibers are essential for language development and for understanding spatial relationships.

Experts were not sure of the practical applications for the new findings, though they had possible implications for educational practices. The age-specific growth rates in different brain regions seemed to explain a long-noted phenomenon: that children learn new languages more readily than do teenagers or adults. The finding suggested that the best time to teach children languages would be in elementary and middle school rather than high school. The technology used to make the scans could also prove helpful in tracing the effects of certain drugs on the brain."

Some different things happen when you're about 11. Just like an infant, your brain starts re-producing lots of cells, particularly in the front of the brain, the part located just behind the forehead (*grin*). This rapid and voluminous production continues until the sex hormones kick in at puberty. At that time, those cells become bundled in a type of shielding material that is both good and bad: it's good because it helps the shielded parts assimilate information more rapidly and to retain it longer. The downside is increased specialization. There's less of a fail-safe duplication of filed information and skills going on. If you can get to an eleven year old before puberty brings this second jolt of enhanced learning ability and brain growth to a near halt, you can shape the specialization of their newly produced brain cells.

If you're an eleven year old, and your environment is the "Thong Thong Song" and MTV and boys and little else, your brain will become specialized to appreciate a limited range of input, and that's what will be imprinted. People aren't kidding when they say we tend to be essentially ~eleven years old mentally and that everything afterwards is social skills, rote memorization and painfully- and tediously- acquired new skill sets. Not sure I buy that totally, but if you stop being receptive to new information while your brain is likewise getting prepared for puberty and hormonal freak-outs, it's going to be increasingly difficult to catch up and learn other things. On the other hand, if someone like Pamie tries to teach the 11-14 year olds new skills, it is the eleven year olds who will retain and be nurtured and enlightened far more than the older children--not because of any disparity in intelligence, but because they are physically and mentally more receptive to new information.

Or, nore scientifically put:

"With a few exceptions, the windows of opportunity in the human brain do not close quite so abruptly. There appears to be a series of windows for developing language. The window for acquiring syntax may close as early as five or six years of age, while the window for adding new words may never close. The ability to learn a second language is highest between birth and the age of six, then undergoes a steady and inexorable decline. Many adults still manage to learn new languages, but usually only after great struggle.

The brain's greatest growth spurt, neuroscientists have now confirmed, draws to a close around the age of 10, when the balance between synapse creation and atrophy abruptly shifts. Over the next several years, the brain will ruthlessly destroy its weakest synapses, preserving only those that have been magically transformed by experience. This magic, once again, seems to be encoded in the genes. The ephemeral bursts of electricity that travel through the brain, creating everything from visual images and pleasurable sensations to dark dreams and wild thoughts, ensure the survival of synapses by stimulating genes that promote the release of powerful growth factors and suppressing genes that encode for synapse- destroying enzymes.

By the end of adolescence, around the age of 18, the brain has declined in plasticity but increased in power. Talents and latent tendencies that have been nurtured are ready to blossom. The experiences that drive neural activity, says Yale's Rakic, are like a sculptor's chisel or a dressmaker's shears, conjuring up form from a lump of stone or a length of cloth. The presence of extra material expands the range of possibilities, but cutting away the extraneous is what makes art. "It is the overproduction of synaptic connections followed by their loss that leads to patterns in the brain," says neuroscientist William Greenough of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Potential for greatness may be encoded in the genes, but whether that potential is realized as a gift for mathematics, say, or a brilliant criminal mind depends on patterns etched by experience in those critical early years."

How's that for an explanation?

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

Oh, it has something to do with that existentialist dictum. You know, you're here, and you're imbued with free will, yet it was not an expression of free will that you exist. You know, existence precedes essence? So, you're here, you're living, and you're not given any choice or explanation. It's sort of that way with teenagers. We're here, we're definitely living, and then there are these people, these < i>parents who have given you life and thusly dangle that fact above your head at whim. What gives them that privelege? Who said they could breed and create me? What, just because they had sex without protecting themselves, that means they can tell me what to do? Just what the heck is going on? What, you're trying to teach me something? You're not that much older than I am!

OK, so not every teenager is aware of this fact. Most of them only have a vague feeling of discomfiture; they suspect something is not right, but don't really have the facilities to vocalize it. So they poke at the lining of things. Gotta poke and prod a little to find out what this is all about.

That's when you give them 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'. Never ever give them 'The Fountainhead'. That's just asking for trouble.

Oh, and a word to the wise: never, ever try to relate to children by using expressions including but not limited to the following: "word", "total jerk", "dude", or "fresh". The kids will only laugh at you.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

I think one of the resons that I retired at such a young age from working in the prison system was due to the time I spent working in a youth facility. It appeared to me that these kids were from a completely different planet than other kids their age. This was mostly due to what they learned was ecceptable behavior from their family and peers.

I dealt with two brothers that were just viciuos and violent as well as habitual runaways. The mother could not control or relate to the boys in any way so they just got worse. A few years later when they entered the adult system they both had to go into protective custody because all the kids they victimized in the youth center had older brothers, fathers, uncles and friends in the adult jails. One night I was reading their files and read that the mother had been involved in forteen relationships during the boys lives. All were abusive and when they ended she would move to another city to start over. So she basically taught the boys that abuse is acceptable and that running away from your problems is ok.

One young girl I dealt with was a loud and arguementative. One day in the visiting area she was told that here time was done so she stood up and hugged her two brothers to say goodbye. Her single mother then stood up and shouted for all to hear "Oh sure you always have to be the centre of attention". I read her file later and realized that she and her mother began fighting at about the time the mother started to look at her as competition for men.

Lots of times while working the female unit these young girls would as most young girls try and flirt a bit as I was the only male they had contact with most of the day. Many of these 12 to 16 year olds have worked the popcorn stroll for a while as prostitutes and they just had no idea how to inocently talk to a male. They wanted to but it just came out very inapropriat. I could see the frustration in them but the vocabulary they had built up on the streets was all they had to draw upon.

The more files I read the more I felt that as much as parents tend to not want to take responsability for problem kids, most can be traced right back to the examples they have set. Not all, but most. I think it is wrong that you have to get a license to drive or buy a gun.(in Canada) but any two fools, drug addicts, losers, uneducated, welfare bums or criminals can have kids. In would go so far as to set an earnings scale for having children. Far to many problem kids come from families that just plain have no right haveing kids they can not afford.

While I am pro choice even though I myself was adopted, I think the best answer is education and no unwanted pregnancies to start with. Teach your kids. Give them morals, honesty, empathy, teach them respect for themselves and others (people and property) and love them,love them enough to show them what real love is rather than MTV love or movie or TV love.

Sorry that got a bit preachy but after four years in the adult system I saw every kid I worked with in the youth system graduate into the adult system. I realised I could do no good and I was only there to keep them locked up. I Retired at Thirty Eight

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

marijuana

-- Anonymous, May 04, 2000

Gosh golly, but it is refreshing to hear a woman say that she does not want kids. I say that and even the most liberal of people get all swivelly neck and big eyed and kinda sad and give me the "but you're so good with kids!" line. Why are the kids the thing you have to do because you are good at them? I'm perfectly good at haiku too, but no one is lamenting the fact that I don't write them. Kids are WAY more responsibility than Haiku, and yet everyone thinks I should "do it."

My feelings are compounded by the presence of an 8 year old son of my partner in my life. We have him every weekend, and it gets tired. Some days I DO worry that the uniquely icky world that is step parenting keeps me from seeing any of the good sides of things. Believe me, if you didn't want to parent in the first place, step parenting is NOT going to help you get all warm and fuzzy, 'cuz even if the kid likes you (which this one does, thank god) they aren't going to scream your name in joy when you walk in the room, etc. You both put up with each other for the 3rd person in the picture, and the co-existence can be unbearable. NO more weekends. No more going out. No more loud sex. Boo.

I SO admire people who are successful parents, but wish that people would be less cavaleir(spelling?!) about such a HUGE and LONG TERM project!

Lisa

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I love kids. They make me laugh, amuse me to no end. I guess the least rewarding part about them is that they don't understand the world like us. Kids today lack one major thing: respect.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000