Teach Your Children Well

I know trying to be serious does not become me, but neither does trying to be funny when there are so many (see www.patriotboy.blogspot.com) who are so much better at it. The following is my Top Ten Things Parents Can Do to Raise Healthy Children.

10. Reflect on what they see you do and how they will interpret it. ethically and morally, because they will.
9. Feed them nutritious foods if for no better reason than to have the satisfaction that MacDonalds is wasting advertising dollars. These folks are trying to bypass you, the parent.
8. Monitor and reduce their time in front of the TV and the computer monitor. You might need to reduce your own. The advertisers on TV are trying to bypass you, the parent.
7. Go outside and get exercise with them. You need it and they do, too. The schools don't have time for it any more; they're too busy leaving no child behind.
6. Go to the library with them and read to or with them. Introduce them to the authors you had to read--Faulkner, Wolfe, Dickens, . . .
5. Involve them in doing for others, whether that means working in a shelter, picking up litter, visiting the elderly.
4. Communicate with and support their teachers, keeping in mind that you may be more or less sane than the teachers and must temper your message accordingly. Sometimes, some of these folks will try to bypass you, the parent.
3. Do not model paranoia for your children. You're supposed to be the adult. There is no vast left/right wing conspiracy. There is no secular humanist conspiracy. There is capitalism, which is getting better and better at selling stuff. There are fearmongers who are demonizing everything from the ACLU to what I would call Christian charity. You don't have to join. You can be happy, sane, and constructive and your kids will be the beneficiaries.
2. Cheerfully activate your and your child's crap detectors. There is plenty of crap to detect from the Left, the Right, and the Commercial. No need to be paranoid or angry just because you're being alert.
1. Think for yourself and you will raise a child who does that too, scarey as it is.

I hope this doesn't sound patronizing. It is not intended to be and is only the advice I wish I'd had to raise my own. I didn't rail against rap music, or drugs, or chat rooms because they may not be the most insidious or dangerous aspects of the culture our kids live in.-