Standing up to mean girls

Rose loves make-your-own pizzas and pink nail polish and inventing silly games at recess. She's beside herself with excitement over planning her sleepover birthday party. Until the two most popular girls in school announce they're not coming. At least not unless Rose uninvites her best friend Stacey.

If you have a little girl or have ever been one, prepare for pangs of recognition. This is the dicey realm of girl bullying - subtle, manipulative and hard for the grownups to detect. And it's brought to life in My Worst Best Sleepover Party, a new chapter book aimed at kids grade 2 and up and written by Toronto sisters Anna Morgan and Rachael Turkienicz.

It's a world where exclusion, ultimatums, bribery and jokes at someone else's expense are the weapons of choice. For the protagonist Rose, who's caught in the crossfire, the agony and guilt and confusion are all-consuming. Torn over what to do, she hides under her blankets, crying "I DON'T GET THIS!"

While bullying has become an increasingly frontline topic in the media and among parents, educators and others who work with kids, most of the literature and resources focus on either the victims or the perpetrators. Turkienicz and Morgan, drawing on their personal memories and experiences as mothers, wanted to address the gap.

"There didn't seem to be much for the kids who are caught in the middle who are the vast majority. And yet those are the ones with the most complex decisions to make," says Turkienicz, a professor in York University's Faculty of Education who has five kids.

As a discussion point for children, parents and teachers, My Worst Best Sleepover Party touches on all the key issues in a way that will keep kids (including boys) and grownups interested. There's the allure of the popular girls, who are so funny and crazy when they're not being mean. Rose's tortured attempts to guess what might be provoking them and fix it. The astonishing way that well-intentioned adults can make everything worse. And the cold, hard fact that while Rose is neither aggressor nor victim, her role as innocent bystander is in many ways the most difficult and important.

The 120-page paperback doesn't sugar-coat the issue. When Rose decides to do what she knows is right, things get worse before they get better. And there's no happily-ever-after ending where life goes back to exactly the way it was.

But what the authors manage to do is illuminate a pathway out of the situation that Rose can navigate - as long as she has the support of her mom and some of the friends and adults around her. Rose will probably be the hero to most readers. Her mom is mine.

And the sleepover? In Rose's words, it was the birthday party "where I only turned one year older but I felt like I really grew up." Even though it came with a tinge of sadness.

My Worst Best Sleepover Party ($7.95) will be available in major bookstores this month.

Making the connection on school bus safety

I drove under that sign again on my way to work today. The electronic one straddling the 401 that warns:

Make the Connection
Seat Belts Save

And just like every other day for the past two weeks, I thought of 10-year-old John Pham. The Brampton boy died of a head injury last month when the school bus transporting his class on a field trip veered off a highway onto the median, hurtling him and many of his classmates out of their seats.

Following John's death, there was a brief surge of public outrage over the lack of seat belts in school buses. But that was so many news cycles ago. Conrad's finances, Virginia Tech and Afghanistan have replaced those headlines.

Similar questions about bus safety were raised three years ago when four-year-old Allyceea Ennis of Thunder Bay was strangled on the school bus taking her to daycare. A coroner's inquest couldn't determine whether it was the result of her clothing getting caught or the actions of another child. But the coroner called for trained adult bus monitors to supervise kindergarten buses and suggested safety restraints for children under 73 pounds. Neither of which have been imposed.

I'm no transportation expert, nor a physicist. But something about a law that forces everyone on the road to buckle up - except kids on buses - seems ludicrous. Any parent who has ever accompanied a bunch of eight-year-olds on a field trip to the zoo can tell you the way kids are ferried around on these old yellow barges (with shock absorbers that feel as if they're past their best-before dates) just doesn't feel safe.

The decibel count alone is enough to provoke a Tylenol 3 headache, so how drivers are supposed to concentrate is anybody's guess. And the most common refrain heard from adults is generally along the lines of "get your bum on the seat!" and "Turn around! Turn around! Face the front!" Which tells you all you need to know about how effective a cushion the padding on the seat in front will actually be if the bus stops suddenly. And imagine the scene among kids bused to school daily - without adults there to remind them every 10 seconds not to bounce on the seats or spin around or steal each other's baseball caps.

Transport Canada says lap belts can do more harm than good. There's also the question of whether kids will put them on properly. And some experts warn they could trap kids in the event of a bus evacuation. The National Coalition for School Bus Safety in the U.S. counters that the transportation companies just don't want to face the high costs of installing belts.

Yet in California, seats are now equipped with mandatory three-point shoulder belts. According to this Star story, the American Academy of Pediatrics support three-point belts. So does the American Medical Association, the injury prevention centre of the Winnipeg Children's Hospital and other medical groups.

We shouldn't let this issue fall by the wayside again in Canada. We need to explore all the options. Because it makes no sense to advise everyone else on the road to "make the connection" while leaving scores of school kids vulnerable.

As Suzanne Tylko, chief of crash-worthiness research at Transport Canada, said: "As long as there are children being injured, we have work to do."

Do you worry about the safety of school buses?

Facing the perils of Facebook

In case you're short on dinner table fodder for tonight, here's the perfect opportunity to raise the topic of cyber behaviour with your brood. And yet another reminder that just because kids are smart as hell about navigating web technology and instant communications doesn't mean they're terribly savvy about how it can come back to bite them.

Last week, up to 19 teens were suspended from a high school in Caledon East, just northwest of Toronto, after they used a Facebook site for some vulgar venting about their principal, which included sexually explicit, demeaning and derogatory comments.

This is the latest example of a phenomenon that's not terribly new, i.e. kids who haven't figured out that posting their thoughts online is not the same as writing them in their diaries or spouting them aloud at their lockers.

You may remember the 14-year-old Montreal girl who was arrested a couple of years ago after posting a list of "people I want to kill." Or the mistrial declared in the so-called Johnathan murder trial in Toronto because one of the key teenaged witnesses talked about the case online and contradicted her testimony. Or the many reported incidents of cyberbullying, when the recipients of threatening MSN messages have printed them out, shown them to their parents, and suddenly the cops were involved.

In the latest online episode, much of the banter resembles the same kind of casual chatter you'd hear in a stairwell or read on MSN. So much so that it apparently didn't occur to the teens not to publish their full names with each comment. (In case you go looking, you won't find the site any more, but I've seen some of the postings.)

Somehow, lots of kids still don't get the idea that there's a difference between gossiping at the water cooler and calling your principal a "dumbass" - or worse - in text that all the world can read. A psychologist once explained the disconnect to me in a way that made sense. The blank screen can have the feel of an enticing personal canvas just waiting to be splashed with words and pictures. But in the split second it takes to press "send" or "publish," it morphs into an act of communication and goes from the realm of the personal to the public. Which is hard for a lot of folks to fully grasp. Even adults.

So ignore the eyerolling, endure the yawns and sighs and tell your kids again: Their friends can read, their family can read, their future employers can read, and yes, their teachers and principals can, too. So think twice or 10 times before clicking "Publish."

Media moderacy versus going cold turkey

There's an unusual kind of experiment going on in one grade 6 classroom in Toronto, where Bart Simpson, American Idol, instant messaging and the latest Xbox game were once fodder for daily chatter.

The kids are unplugging.

That's right, as this story today explains, the 11 and 12-year-olds recently signed a media manifesto that means no email, web surfing, TV, DVDs, videogames or GameBoy on school nights. Parents are on board, hoping the move will make way for more free play, reading and exercise. The teacher behind the move says he's already seeing more space in the kids' heads to pause, exercise their creativity and reflect on schoolwork.

Imagine that. Five days a week free of joysticks, blaring sitcoms and sibling spats over computer time. Respite from the 24/7 media blitz that leaves so many parents feeling powerless and frustrated.

But is a ban, or partial ban, the way to go? Or do you prefer a more moderate approach? Tell us your views about household media management for kids and teens.

The many ways to remember

Author Linda Granfield's website is a wonderful place to visit this Remembrance Day, or for that matter, any other day of the year.

Even better, get your hands on one of Granfield's extraordinary picture books - including In Flanders Fields and Where Poppies Grow. The former, written in 1995, is a stunningly illustrated story of the poem by John McCrae. The followup, published six years later, is a collection of photos, memorabilia and anecdotes of the Great War. The books are written for children but suitable for any age and especially for sharing.

The Massachusetts-born Granfield, who lives in Toronto, is a shining example of how it's possible to make the Remembrance Day message relevant to a generation who can't remember. And not only on Nov. 11 but throughout the year.

Yesterday, an article in one Toronto newspaper cited a recent poll as evidence that a growing number of Canadians are tuning out Remembrance Day along with knowledge and interest in military history.

But personally, thanks to Granfield and other writers, educators and historians, this isn't my experience. From an early age, my own kids were far more informed about Remembrance Day and interested in war history than I ever was as a child. I credit a combination of factors: recent initiatives taken by public schools to honour Remembrance Day, including visits by young soldiers to talk about history and peacemaking; a wealth of children's literature, including non-fiction books and novels set in war time; museums that offer hands-on experiences and engaging websites for kids.

This Toronto Star story includes examples of high school iniatives going on in the GTA this week, including a letter-writing campaign to families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Among the books that got my own children asking questions were: novels by Canadian writer Kit Pearson, especially her trilogy set during the Second World War that started with The Sky is Falling, Marie Mcswigan's classic Snow Treasure, and the Breadwinner trilogy, set in wartorn Afghanistan and written by prolific Ontario author Deborah Ellis.

Last spring, I accompanied a Grade 5 field trip to Ottawa and among the highlights was a visit to the Canadian War Museum, where the 10-year-olds were awestruck by everything from tanks to Hitler's limousine to the recreated World War I trenches and streetscapes. If you can't get there, visit the museum's online youth site.

In a newspaper story last year, Granfield said young people have shown a resurgence of interest in military history and a yearning to "take the torch and hold it high." She figured she'd spoken to 250,000 schoolkids in the 10 years since In Flanders Fields was published.

So maybe polls showing fewer folks can identify military heroes doesn't really paint a full picture. As military historian Terry Copp was quoted as saying, a lot of the details aren't important to kids' daily lives. “Learning bits of information about Canadians in the two world wars does not imply understanding,” he added.

Do you have any books, websites or exhibits to suggest? If so please post them in the comments link below.

Appreciating every child

At the end of a week in which there has been too much horror to contemplate, someone emailed me this link, which is definitely worth sharing. Click on the purple rectangle to see a short video - and welcome respite - called "Animal School."

It celebrates children, their diverse learning styles, their talents, both hidden and apparent, and the mysteries that lie within each one of them. It made me cry. Even more because the link was sent by a teacher.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Sometimes this new math just doesn't add up

When it came to times tables, the nines and the twelves always gave me grief. There was just something about 9 x 7 and 12 x 8 that required a bunch of extra time to retrieve from my poor overextended 10-year-old memory.

To this day though, I am grateful for Mrs. McGoey's Grade 4 drills. I can balance my chequebook and manage the household grocery bills (extremely high multiples are involved here) and figure out the interest we are required to hand over to various financial institutions each month. All without a calculator.

I can only hope for as much for my own children, schooled and raised during the "experiental learning" phase, when it was more important to "visualize" and "conceptualize" four groups of four apples on the kitchen table than to memorize the fact they equal 16. Not to mention being handed calculators in the classroom far too soon for my own Luddite tastes.

I do get why it's important for kids to understand the concepts behind the numbers and formulas - which is something we weren't really taught back in the day. That's why I grudgingly fell into line with the "family math" approach - helping them search the kitchen for objects shaped like cylinders and cubes, holding the end of the measuring tape while they figured out the length of their bedroom and participating in the family surveys of favourite pets so they could create their own bar graphs.

But I would have been much happier if also called upon to assist with multiplication and division drills. Because at some point, there has to be room for just sitting down and training your brain to remember stuff, doesn't there?

"NO! We're not supposed to do it that way Mom." Oh.

Okay, but there's only so much you can sneak in by playing Yahtzee and Countdown, believe me, before you come to the shocking realization that your kid is heading to middle school and still takes seven minutes to figure out that 4 x 8 equals 32.

So I was most gratified to read this Globe and Mail piece about how the newest thing in math is - guess what - old math! Apparently, a U.S. council of math teachers has endorsed a return to focusing on the basics. A few years ago, a math professor I know lamented that while his university students were terrific on theories and concepts, they frequently botched up assignments and exams because they were so weak on fundamental math skills. So it's interesting to read an account of another with the same concerns.

The whole turnover in the math curriculum reminds me of the days of phonics freaks versus the whole language brigade. I'm a big believer in balance - using whatever methods are at your disposal in whatever combination it takes to help a kid catch on. So I never have understood this either/or mentality.

And when it comes to math, that means a little more old-fashioned memory work please. Because at some point it's just handy to be able to quadruple a recipe without requiring a high-tech instrument.

How does math go in your house?

In praise of Lunchroom Ladies

I used to have a little trick guaranteed to make my kids fall into line.

"Hmmmm," I'd muse on those days when all hell was breaking loose, or when there news in the wind of rowdy behaviour at school.

"I'm thinking maybe I should apply to become a Lunchroom Lady."

The response was usually something along the lines of "WHAT? Mum - NO! Ewwwwwwww!"

If you don't know what a Lunchroom Lady does, then steel yourself and head over to your local primary school. In the parts of the city where I live, you will likely find these special beings circling a stinky gymnasium or more likely in a concrete basement dungeon painted mustard yellow, where they preside over a shrieking writhing mass of juveniles downing Twinkies and desperate to tear outside and burn off their sugar high.

In some schools, teachers double as lunchroom staff, but in others, like the one my boys attended where most kids were bused and stayed for lunch, they are mothers or folks in the community who take on the job for minimal pay.

Either way, they're pretty much the equivalent of saints.

And under no conditions did my children want me to become one. Apparently, the thought of their own mother hanging around telling their classmates to chew with their mouths closed and stop spitting Koolaid Jammers at the girls was a fate worse than No TV For A Week. Hence, it was my threat of last resort.

In truth, I'm not sure I'd ever cut it as a Lunchroom Lady. During those years the meal scene in my own house was more than I could bear, between the shin-kicking under the table, spilled jugs of milk and toilet humour. And I never got paid for that.

Besides, being a Lunchroom Lady is not as easy as one may think. Witness this article about the poor folks at Howard Junior Public School in Toronto who apparently informed parents that this year the policy was no talking in the lunchroom. Anyone who has ever been in a room with 13 children, never mind 350, has probably already concluded that this was the equivalent of a little "back-to-school" humour, just to lighten everyone up. Apparently not, although the school soon backtracked and changed its edict from "silent" to "quiet," which is almost as funny.

Anyway, this whole mini-scandal reminded me that for a while there, rarely a day went by that I didn't give thanks for the Lunchroom Ladies. I felt better knowing they were there, urging my children to eat their crusts, keeping foodfights at bay, always with an ear out for snubbing at the girls' table and for swearing at the boys'. I felt grateful they were outside at lunch recess, picking their charges up off the ground, wiping tears, sharing a giggle, sending bullies to the office and making sure no one scaled the schoolyard fence. And I appreciated their discretion because not only did these ladies know who brought Pepsi and chips for lunch and which 9-year-olds could recite Eminem lyrics, but I shudder to think of the family secrets that come out at a Grade 2 lunch table.

And one more thing to the Lunchroom Ladies. My kids appreciated you, too. Almost as much as the fact I wasn't one of you.

Back in the swing of things

Every Labour Day, when I clear my throat at the dinner table and attempt to give the "tomorrow is a brand new start" speech, the audience usually responds with a combination of eye-rolling, sighing and extremely loud chewing. Mostly because, really, is it possible to come up with a single original thought about going back to school?

So even though I'm dying to, I'll spare you any tortured efforts at deep reflection. Instead, I'll share some of the memories that drifted through my head this morning as I lay abed, listening to various clock radios getting punched by sleepy teenage limbs, and the autumnal sounds of bickering over who gets the bathroom first.

Favourite back-to-school supply: The Pink Pearl Eraser. When I was a kid, you only ever got one. But nothing smelled more like September more than that pristine chunk of rubber with the bevelled edges.

Favourite year: Grade 3 with Miss Culbert. Phonics, story writing and a teacher who read aloud every afternoon. What more could a dreamy 8-year-old want?

Saddest moment: Being pried off my mother on the first day of kindergarten. And the second, and the third, and the fourth . . . Thankfully, the lure of the play kitchen with its miniature Campbell Soup tins won out by the time all the leaves had fallen.

Slackest year: Grade 6. I recall 10 straight months of nothing but playing chess and doing skits. But hey, isn't that practically math and English?

Best field trip: To Alberta. By bus. A bus, I should add, that had NO bathroom. It was the month of July following grade 7. Six teachers and about two dozen 12- and 13-year-olds. We camped. We mountain climbed. Went to the Calgary Stampede. Saw the Prairies. There were bears, but other than that no wild behaviour. Total cost: $150. Still waiting for these teachers to receive their medals of valor.

Proudest assignment: Grade 10 book report on Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Blech. I got an A. If you don't remember the book, you probably never saw Love Story or wore a maxi coat either.

Worst subject: Grade 11 physics. Still gives me an involuntary reflex that rivals my response to snakes.

A top 10 humiliating moment: Getting presented with the "Miss Flatsy" Award in Grade 8 at the beginning of music class when the teacher wasn't looking. The guy who drew it likely went on to be a professional cartoonist. But boy, middle school sucks. Especially when you're a late bloomer.

Happy first week back folks.

NO, summer is not over

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go AWOL for so many days. It was not the plan. Yes, there was some delicious holiday time somewhere in there. Then kids coming and going, a long weekend, an out-of-town visitor and newspaper deadlines to meet. The result being a dreadful breach of blog etiquette. My bad.

Just because it's been awhile though, don't go thinking that I'm over my earlier grumpiness about what's currently on display in store windows across the city. You'd think that by now I might have gotten used to the grossly premature back-to-school marketing blitz that I whined about last month (before the summer was half over). Nope. And it doesn't help that two press kits about Christmas products just landed on my desk. At least I'm not the only one who's irritated. Check out this great rant.

But how comforting it was this week - amid the piles of back-to-school inserts falling out of the newspapers - to come across this intelligent approach to helping your kids prepare for September. It's written by Karen Sencich, one of the most practical and helpful folks I've ever come across. (Scroll down her Havoc to Harmony website until you find the entry called "The New Year.") Sencich, who has two kids and a flourishing business as a professional organizer, distinguishes herself by being grounded in reality rather than perfectionism when it comes to dispensing advice. In other words, she thinks like a mom.

Her take on back-to-school is NOT about buying jean jackets or Dora lunchbags or Crayola markers. Instead of tips for heading to the mall and opening your wallet, Sencich gets at the heart of what the dog days of summer should really be about: helping kids prepare mentally and emotionally for the transition. That could mean gently prepping a Grade 1 child for her first experience of recess by visiting the schoolyard, taking a test run of the public transit route to middle school, or teaching a teen the finer points of laundry to prepare for dormitory living. But as Sencich notes, there are plenty of ways to do that without spoiling what's left of August or wishing the summer away:

"Don’t make a big deal about all of this or add to the hysteria of the 'back to school hype.' I’m suggesting that you subtly integrate these life lessons into your daily routine. Everyone will benefit."

Now there's a back-to-school message worth listening to.