Slow Week ... Weak Post

It's been a slow news week around our neck of the woods.

Everyone is sick with some sort of daycare concoction of cough and sniffle and Christmas is taking up all of our time. Shopping is almost all done, the Christmas cards are in the mail and Santa should be on his way soon; 11 days left to be exact.

ELEVEN DAYS!!!!

My family is leaving me this weekend. Not for good mind you, but they are going to visit some family in Georgia for 5 days leaving me to my own devices alone in a house with two dogs for a long weekend. What shall I do while they are gone?

It's funny how things are so much different these days. B.C. (that is before children for the layperson) I would have been cutting it up at the bar all weekend wasting money and having "fun" with friends.

The only thoughts that crossed my mind about this weekend was "I am gonna be so lonely" and "I guess I can play hockey Friday and Saturday night".

Am I getting old?

I told you it was a slow news week ... I (loosely) promise to be better next week.

This Aggression Will Not Stand ...

A nose only a mother could love.

I am sure most of you are aware that the new fad out there is "anti-bully" everything (they've even got Bieber in on the campaign). As a parent I am all for the progressive behavior that is involved with this campaign to curb bullying in our schools and in our daily life, but someone has gone too far.

I am not so sure if you are aware of George Giuliani and his new book "No More Bullies at the North Pole". My guess is that if you listen to the radio then you have heard of this guy and his mission to destroy our Christmas Classics.

Dr. George Giuliani (according to his online profile)  is the Director of the Graduate School Program in Special Education and a full-time tenured Associate Professor at Hofstra University's School of Education, Health and Human Services and he has written his own version of the story of Rudolph, sans bullying. Dr. Giuliani feels that the original version of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" (Rankin/Bass 1964 stop motion) promotes bullying through Santa Claus, Comet and (gasp!) the reindeer school children. I can't say that I didn't notice the ever present bullying in the movie when I watched it this year.

Apparently (I haven't read it because I tend to try and not read such garbage) "No More Bullies at the North Pole" retells the story of Rudolph in a more favorably less dream crushing way with no teasing or bullying (which I thought was what ultimately made Rudolph who he was).

Of course, the conservative news media is alllll over this guy this week; thus making themselves look even more jackassier than they ever have. This guy has gotten coverage from Michelle Malkin who has a ridiculous interview with the guy and a comedian named Brad Stine (who looks like he would jump you in an alley to take your lunch money) to lambaste this poor old fool on national TV through the outlet of Fox and Friends.

Granted (and I hate to say this) Michelle and Brad are correct to rake this guy over the coals. This whole concept of revising classics because they do not seem to be in line with todays PC thinking is just ridiculous. These classics serve as a lesson that bullying can lead to someone using the negativity to prevail and overcome.

If I am correct Rudolph becomes "the most famous reindeer of all" by the end of the story. Do you think that would have happened if none of his peers would have taunted him or if he didn't have to overcome something severe in his life. Yes I know I am waxing intellectual about a fictional clay figure on a television screen.

Let's take it one step further and say we start revising television history and taking out what we don't want our children to learn (I think the Nazi party burned books for this very reason) and we change the story of "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas".

That whole tale is loaded with bully tactics and a negative attitude towards one individual. The bullying he suffered as a child at the hands of the Who populace eventually led him to literally steal Christmas from them. The message of this story for the children watching it is to not be a grinch and to enjoy the holidays and share with your fellow man.

Maybe it should be to include everyone and not alienate your peers because one day it might lead them to break into your home and steal your stockings and all of the food from your refrigerator. Heck they might even go as far as stealing your tree because you sang a song calling them mean and "as charming as an eel" even going so far as to say that they are a "three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich, with arsenic sauce". I mean who says that kind of stuff. Let's ban it in these United States. Our children can't listen to this crap, it might lead them to ... smile. Heck they might even laugh at it. God forbid they learn something.

Back to the subject: Bullying. I was bullied, as were most of you out there raising children and reading this post. You can either take that experience and let it suffocate you or you can learn something from it and rise above.

We can't obliterate the act of bullying across the globe but we can moderate it. If your child is being bullied or they see someone (whether on tv or in person) being bullied we can help them learn from it. As adults our job is not to shield our children from the world around them. We are here to be a buffer and a moderator for the world around them but we need to allow them to experience all that is surrounding them for the good of their development.

I, for one, will allow my children to watch the original version of "Rudolph" and "The Grinch" because I believe there is something to be learned from the entertainment they provide. Who will teach them the morals of the story? Me, because that is my job as a parent. I am the primary (my wife included) teacher of my children and I will take that responsibility with great honor.

If one of my children is a bully I will take him or her aside and read them the riot act as it applies and they will be punished but I will not tolerate the media or some quack from Hofstra saying that my child can't handle the experience of bullying and that we can't show it in our media because it will pollute their mind.

Doesn't Hermey exact a little revenge for his mistreatment on the yetti by ripping out all of its teeth? Anywho ... Merry Christmas!!!!

Santa's Little Red Spy

It's that time of year again. The lights are hung and the tree is up. The mantle looks like an homage to the Three Wise Men (no not Jack Daniels, Jose Cuervo and Johnny Walker Black) and Old St. Nick, and it is crunch time for shopping for christmas gifts and convincing our children that they need to "earn" their gifts.

It is the time of year when we encourage good behavior not just for normal reasons but because Santa is watching and we all know what happens to children who are bad when Santa is watching. You get the dreaded lump in your stocking. Although I have never known anyone who has actually received coal in their stocking just the thought of it is a great deterrent to poor attitudes around Christmas time.

How does Santa possibly watch every kid everywhere?

Why he sends out his army of spies to watch over the children of the world, that's how.

Today we put the Elf on the Shelf up and started the whole run around with Felton (the name we chose so cleverly for our felted elf). Last year Ryker was a little too young to understand the concept of the Elf on a Shelf and we couldn't get him too excited to search for it every morning. The whole process ended with a disinterested shrug and "hey there he is" quickly fading to apathy for the little red man sitting in random places around our home.

I truly believe it was his age that rendered him incapable of excitement regarding a little red suited doll that was supposedly watching his every move like a sentry sent from Santa himself.

"What do you mean he is reporting my actions in detail back to the big man with the gifts"

This year will be different and he will be excited (or else).

My question is, why do we as humans only respond to fear when it comes to behavior? Rather; why do parents mainly use fear as a deterrent for bad behavior? Is the presence of a known spy from Santa (Felton the Elf) supposed to goad a child into acting a certain way out of fear, or is the act of finding said spy a form of positive reward?

I know from experience that the threat of getting coal in your stocking works. It worked for me because I didn't want to be that one kid who got coal for Christmas.

"Oh what did you get in your stocking this year?"

 "A big friggin lump of coal"

Somehow that scenario doesn't sit well with a young person showing off his new toys to the kids at school.

I don't know how this Elf on a Shelf is going to work. I haven't seen any studies showing that the Elf has any positive effect on a child's behavior during the Christmas season (I could see the study title now "Elf on a Shelf has blank effect on blank children" presented by Amway Global ). Maybe I could get a government grant to do the study; they give money to scientists for anything these days.



Such a creepy looking little thing.



I guess we are about to find out. It might be a little hard to determine the effects due to the fact that my child is an angel. No joke, I have been blessed with a child that says please and thank you and waits his turn and all that jazz. How this happened I may never know. Maybe my wife and I are truly good parents or maybe my kid is some freak of toddler nature that actually has a conscience but I can't complain because my kid really is a good kid.

We will approach it like a game. Games are fun and kids learn from games so it's a win-win. The biggest challenge is going to be convincing Ryker that he can't touch Felton or it will ruin his magic. The kid touches everything (I swear I don't know where he gets that from).