Posts Tagged children

Getting old

January 20, 2011 at 8:17 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , ,

It’s stupid, really, but this past week, I realized that time hasn’t stood still.

Shocker, I know.

It started when my partner told me that his sister just got engaged.  She’s a wonderful person and I’m really happy for her, but I was thinking…wait, why are people getting married? Didn’t we leave school not too long ago? She’s also two years younger than me, so if she’s old enough to get married, does that make me really old?

I put that thought out of my head and went on with things, as usual. Then I found an old friend via Facebook….who is now engaged to her partner. “That’s cool,” I thought. But wait…we met our respective partners at around the same time. Wait….how long has it been? Oh my. A little over 5.5 years. Okay… I chalked it up to the fact that she was a year or two older.

Then temptation hit.

I clicked on the “People you may know” option. I found some old friends from high school so I went on an adding binge. I also Facebook-creeped some of my former classmates. It’s not quite the thing, I know, but I couldn’t help it. I needed to know, like a drug user needs his/her fix, if it was just these two couples I knew or if this whole marriage thing was a trend.

There were a surprising number of former classmates who used pictures from their wedding as their profile pictures. Then I started seeing kids. Babies and toddlers. Naively, I thought, “That’s sweet, s/he’s posing with her/his nephew/niece.” This lasted until I kept seeing the same kid, along with family pictures.

At this point, I’m having a heart attack and then I realized that this year, I’ll be turning 25. That’s a quarter of a century.

Obviously, I’m not as old as the oldest person on this planet nor am I as young as the youngest person. I’m also not generally hung up on age. What I found the most shocking was that I hadn’t paid much attention to the passing of time. I value time and make “to do” lists every day (I’m just that cool), but I hadn’t really thought about how days become weeks which then become months and years.

I hadn’t really thought about it, but when I did, I realized that I had:
a) finished university
b) found a job afterward…in a foreign country
c) signed a lease for my own apartment
d) bought my own source of transportation
e) bought some pets (which are not yet dead from neglect)
f) been in a stable relationship for a decent amount of time
g) a number of friends already married or getting married
h) a number of friends with kids

By most metrics, that makes me an adult. One doesn’t need all or any of those points to be an adult, but if one is keeping score, I’d probably fall into the “adult” category. (Which is something I still think is really strange.)

I know the grammarians among us are reeling as they get to this sentence, but I’m just so shocked, it’s all coming out, stream-of-consciousness-like. Maybe later, when I feel more normal, I’ll come back and edit. Or maybe I’ll just pretend this post has fallen into a deep dark hole.

Oh, and by the way, I’m going to take up the WordPress Blog a Week 2011 challenge. It’s cheaper than getting a therapist.

tick, tock...tick, tock...

 

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Education Partnership with Community Police

June 13, 2009 at 1:50 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , ,

I have been thinking more about the education angle – - giving younger teens the tools for establishing healthy relationships and empower younger children (and teens) if  domestic violence (which is sometimes linked with child abuse) is present in their homes.

Younger children seem to enjoy classrooms visits by police officers in uniform — I remember the excitement we would share just before such visits. These are even better if the officers bring along a member of the K9 unit (or Constable Chip the Chipmunk, as seen below). Perhaps, as is sometimes done with say-no-to-drug programs, we would be able to team up with community police stations and help address the issue of domestic violence together, head on.

top-constable_chip

Some of these lessons could include what to do if you (the kid) or a friend are in a dangerous situation at home, where domestic violence could easily become child abuse. How you would be able to help the parent being abused as well as yourself and your siblings. How to get out safely and where/who to call.  These questions and others would have to be addressed in a way that won’t scare the kids and be useful at the same time. It would give them resources and help them understand that it is NOT their fault.

The challenges are, again, both police officers and teachers are overworked. If this program is installed, we would need to make sure (as far as we are able to) that it will be effective and worth their while.  We would be able to evaluate the success of such a program by taking note of how many “new” incidents of domestic violence or child abuse are reported.

These are crimes that are often under-reported, and if there appears to be a surge of violence in a community, it is not because the adult perpetrators suddenly went on a rampage.  A noted increase in reports would potentially be a result of a successful program.  It would mean that the students understand that something is wrong, they now have the tools to deal with violent situations, and they trust an adult in the community to help them.

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Kids and Domestic/Relationship Violence

June 11, 2009 at 3:41 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,

I have been thinking about this idea for the last week or so. I’m not sure if it would work, but it seems to me that we need to give our kids the right tools for life. For example, in the later grades in elementary school or in junior high, there could be lesson plans designed to address relationship violence. The questions of how to deal with it, where to go, how to help a friend who is in a dangerous situation, etc., could be discussed.

The one memory that particularly sticks in my mind was when I was 16. It was my first relationship and I was completely over the moon. I also didn’t know how to deal with it and my boyfriend’s extremely short temper was starting to worry me. I tried to be a “better” girlfriend but it did not work. Looking back, I feel foolish, but at the time, I really did not know what to do.

Lessons could also be designed for children in the younger grades on anti-violence along with anti-bullying in general. Anti-bullying programs have been started in many schools in the Lower Mainland and in schools around the world. As was pointed out in a previous post, domestic violence affects children and we may not necessarily know which child in any given classroom has to go home to fear and pain.

By giving children the tools (in an age-appropriate way, of course), we would be able to help them and hopefully help their families. Children take their cues from the adults in their lives and may not necessarily know what is hurtful and wrong.

Naturally, there are some concerns with this potential innovation. Teachers are already over-worked — they may not have time to administer these lessons. Also, how do we teach children about this topic without scaring them? Would we have to ask parents to sign consent forms for this program? If we do, the program would not be able to reach the children who need it the most. For example, anti-homophobia programs have met with resistance in schools and the children who would most benefit from these lessons are not getting them.

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