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Surviving the Challenges of College and Colic as a Student and Parent

College can be challenging enough for dedicated students, but attending college as a new mom adds a whole new twist to this academic venture. I hadn’t finished college before my first child was born, but I knew I wanted to complete my degree as soon as possible. Knowing what I wanted to do and finding the resources to accomplish that goal were at times oceans apart from each other.

For close to the first two years of my daughter’s life I was a college student. She sometimes attended classes with me, had her own backpack with toys and books, and was my faithful companion during late-night study sessions. Being a mom and a college student is not an easy task, but if you are committed to both of them, you can be successful at both. I actually found that non-traditional students like myself tended to be more responsible, reliable, and focused at college – we had to be. If you are considering going to college or going back to college as a parent, consider the following ideas that helped me get the degree I wanted (and am still glad I have).

Pick a Program

Make sure that the program you select to pursue is your passion. This advice is for anyone – but parents who go to college most likely don’t have the time or funds for “do overs”. If you are certain you want a college degree, make sure it is something you love and think the job market will reward you for in the near future.

When I first began college I wanted to be a social worker. However, as a new mom I also quickly learned the emotional toll that would take on me, especially understanding my own personality. I also knew that I wanted a degree that would enable me to have job flexibility and utilize my skills and passions. I had also watched friends flounder and eventually leave school because they didn’t have a specific passion or goal they were pursuing. When I reassessed my college goals I asked myself the following questions.

• Will this degree enable me to have employment without further training?
• If something happens to my partner will I be able to use this degree to support my child?
• Will this degree compliment me as a person (and as a mom)?
• Can I afford to go to school full-time and still be an involved mom, both financially and emotionally?
• How will my life be better because of this degree?
• How will my life be more challenging because of college?
• How will my child’s life be different because I am attending college?

Create a College Time Budget

If you think about your time like you think about your finances, you can budget the hours in your day and be less likely to fall into time debt – when you simply don’t have enough hours in the day to be a parent and student.

Consider your class schedule so that you account for 4 basic factors:

1. In-class time
2. Childcare time
3. Home time
4. Homework time

Some semesters I took night-classes 4 evenings each week so that my husband was home with our daughter. I did homework during her naptime as much as I could. Other semesters when this was not possible, I arranged my class schedules so that there were as few hours as possible spent on campus, and the extra hours in between classes were my study breaks. Then when I came home my attention was back on my family.

Consider Online Options Carefully

Way back in the day when I was attending college online classes were not prevalent and not even yet offered in my field. Today they offer many options, but you still need to consider several points.

Make certain that the online classes are from an accredited and recognized university.

If you are looking to supplement with online classes make sure that the credits earned will go toward your on-campus credits.

Don’t assume that college at home as a parent will be infinitely easier than taking on-campus classes. You still need to devote time to classes and homework, and just like being a work-at-home mom, it isn’t always as easy to carve away that time when you don’t physically leave the house.

Make a Homework Plan

My first semester of college as a mom was so much more difficult because I didn’t have a doable plan (unless you consider just waiting until my daughter fell asleep on my shoulder and studying while she slumbered in my arms).

Use in-between hours for homework – those times when you have breaks between classes are valuable minutes that you are already away from home and mom duties.

Consider paying a babysitter for 5 hours each week for homework time. I know the finances can be an issue, but in the long-run you will save your sanity and your grades.

Get creative with what you can do as a mom and student. I would bring my daughter to the library and spend the first half-hour reading and exploring with her, then as she tired put her in a baby-pack and do my own searching.

Host study groups. Toward the end of my college career I had to work on several group projects that required hours of outside collaboration. I invited classmates over and provided an easy meal and we did the studying at my home – allowing me to still participate as a student and as a mom.

Find Flexible Childcare

No matter how creatively you arrange your class schedules, there will most likely be times when you have to find childcare for school responsibilities – either classes, meetings, or finals. Formal daycare settings are not only expensive, but they rarely have the flexibility you need. I was extremely blessed to find a neighbor and friend who could watch my daughter when I had classes.

• Find a neighbor with whom you and your child are already comfortable and ask if they are interested in babysitting occasionally.
• Ask a stay-at-home mom. It can provide her with extra income without being a full-time commitment.
• Check with your college. Many of them have childcare programs for students.

Look for Scholarships

Attending college as a non-trad (non-traditional student) puts you apart from the rest. Look for scholarships where the goal is to support non-trads. Search for organizations like these that are specifically focused on providing funding to moms and single parents.

Is attending college while being a new mom easy? No. Was it the right choice for me? Absolutely. I earned the degree (Technical Writing/Computer Science) that supports my passion and now my ability to be a work-at-home mom. Just make sure the decision is right for you and your family – no one else can make that call for you.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BetterParenting/~3/IXGmxy26zXE/

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It is a horrible image. A child with a noose. But the reality is that children across the globe are considering this a game and a way to achieve a legal, free, and easy high. The Choking Game is probably one of the scariest games I have heard about as a parent, but it is definitely not the only one I have had to warn my children about as they grow older.

Childhood games used to just consist of friendly Go Fish and Duck, Duck, Grey Duck (yes – in the Midwest we don’t all say Goose). Today, however, parents and their kids are facing dangerous games that have real, detrimental, and sometimes deadly consequences. Have you ever heard of the Choking Game, Funky Chicken, Chubby Bunny, ABC Game, or Rape Tag? While a few of these might sound harmless to you, as a parent all of these names make me shudder. Our children are living in a world where we need to know what these games are, who is playing them, and how we can teach our children to walk away from these games that are anything but friendly.

The Choking Game

The Choking Game is pretty much what it sounds like, but it is anything but a game. Children (and adults), choke themselves or their peers until they feel lightheaded and on the verge of passing out in order to get high. When the choking pressure is released, the blood that was held back quickly floods the brain. The high they actually feel in the form of a tingly, warm, or hazy feeling is from their brain cells dying, but few adolescents who play this game know and understand the grim and dangerous facts. Kids use this technique with ropes, belts, scarves, or bare hands. Some use pressure on the chest or purposely hyperventilate in order to feel these effects.

The kids who are doing this are often typical or above average students who want the thrill of experimenting with a high but don’t want the risk of using drugs or alcohol, or think that the effects are not dangerous. Parents of children who memorialize their children on GASP (Games Adolescents Shouldn’t Play) tell vastly different stories. They tell of kids as young as 9 years of age who died from self-suffocation as they sought this brain cell killing high. Smart students with bright futures from across the globe are dying from this activity.

This dangerous game is also known as: Funky Chicken, Fainting Game, Space Monkey, Roulette, California High, Dream Game, and Airplaning. Some of the warning signs include abrasions on the neck, headaches, bloodshot eyes, attempts to hide the neck with clothing, and agitation or mood changes. A child’s body can in essence become addicted to the high feeling that this dangerous game elicits, so while they may begin playing it with peers for a social rush, they can end up playing it alone – an even deadlier decision.

I urge all parents and children to watch the chilling video online put out by GASP. My own 13 year-old had heard of the game from news reports, but didn’t have all of the facts. The video includes a heart-wrenching audio of an actual 911 call made by a sibling who found his twin after inadvertently hanging himself after playing this game, and is directed at teaching children and their parents about this very dangerous trend.

Other Games I Hope My Children Never Play

Chubby Bunny

While the Choking Game is an obvious danger to our kids, other seemingly harmless games have also cost parents their children. The game Chubby Bunny, where players must gradually place increasing amounts of marshmallows (or as my son informed me, Peeps) into their mouths and say the words “Chubby Bunny”, is a choking hazard. The Fish family knows all too well this danger. Their 6^th grade daughter died after choking during this game at a school carnival. We all know stuffing things in our mouths isn’t the safest approach, but the hidden danger is that when marshmallows are used they tend to heat up in the mouth, sometimes almost expanding, and become a gooey consistency that just can’t be removed with the Heimlich remover.

While this isn’t a game that kills children at the rates of the Choking Game, it is one more example of the type of activities that we as parents need to forewarn our children about and give them the correct information and details.

The ABC Game

Sounds fun and innocent, right? In fact, I recently played a version of this with other families around the bonfire in our backyard. The big difference is that our version didn’t involve incessantly scratching the players with our fingernails.

The ABC Game consists of players taking turns naming objects that begin with consecutive letters of the alphabet. The catch is that the kids are scratching the letters of the alphabet into each other’s arms as they go through the game, seeing how far they can go. Not only is the scratching painful, but it can lead to potentially fatal skin infections, as was this case with a 14 year old girl who contracted necrotizing fasciitis and almost lost her life.

Rape Tag

The name alone makes me cringe. Rape Tag is one of those instances where kids just don’t have the maturity to understand the potential consequences of their actions, and where adults need to make sure they are paying attention and making sure these things don’t happen. Just recently a group of young students were found to be playing Rape Tag on the school playground. It is much like Freeze Tag, but instead of a casual “tag”, students were making sexual gestures to release players from their frozen tag state.

We can’t safeguard our children from everything, and we can’t keep them in bubbles of security. I’ve watched my children get sports injuries, had one with a walking cast after getting  stepped on by a horse, and even had one take a stick to the eye falling while tree climbing. I know that there are dangers everywhere for our children. I also know that there are some dangers we can do our best to help them avoid, especially when they aren’t even aware that the game is not really a game at all.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BetterParenting/~3/aZjXJCXAseQ/

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Decisions, decisions. As adults we can weigh the odds and use our years of experiences and (hopefully) levels of maturity to make the best decisions possible, whether it is which job to pursue or which book to read. However, our kids don’t necessarily have those years of experiences or developed the maturity needed to make solid, sound decisions. So how can we give them the tools to make choices that will enhance their lives, nourish their souls, and take them one step closer to a better life than they were before?

As a mom to 4 children I am constantly looking for ways to strengthen my children’s independent thinking skills and abilities to make positive decisions. Drawn to the book title, Lighting Their Fires, by Rafe Esquith, I was pulled into this quick read and left the last page with a renewed sense of enthusiasm for teaching my children decision-making skills.

Morals and Decision Making

Rafe touches on something that is so paramount in parenting: children make decisions based on their moral codes of behavior. He describes in his book how he uses Lawrence Kohlberg’s six levels of moral development to in essence mark the moral development of his children, including his students. This basic structure includes the following six points.

1. Obedience through Punishment Avoidance – Young children often learn, even inadvertently, that obeying the rules is important because you then won’t be punished. This is the very earliest point of moral development.
2. Exchanges and Favors – Children are motivated to act a certain way because they perceive there will be a reward for their actions.
3. Relationships – This is sometimes known as the “good boy/good girl” stage where children are developing their moral compasses and learning to conform to social expectations for the most part because the actions will please others (without necessarily a reward beyond that).
4. Social Order – At this stage of moral development children are learning to make decisions based on their considerations for society in general. Children at this stage are developing the moral code of respecting authority and making decisions that reflect duty and order in society.
5. Social Contracts – At this higher stage of moral development people not only respect the expectations and guidelines of society, but are able to account for different values and opinions. They are considerate of others and understand that social agreements sometimes need to be changed.
6. Universal Ethics – This is that stage in moral reasoning where you get that gnawing feeling in your gut because the ethical principles to which you have learned to adhere don’t always follow the rules. You are more inclined to follow the internal set of ethics – your conscious.

How Do Morals Affect Decision Making for Kids?

According to Rafe, “Children set off on the path to extraordinary when they dedicate themselves to reaching level 6 on Kohlberg’s scale.” Our children are not born with the tools they need to make the best decisions, so we must equip them and consistently help them move throughout the levels on Kohlberg’s scale. Even if you don’t buy into every level of this model, it is easy to see that if we only make decisions based on a fear of consequences that we won’t ever be able to demonstrate the consideration and ethical focus required of higher decision-making processes.

How Do I Teach My Children Decision Making Tools?

As parents and caregivers we are the first and strongest influencers in our children’s lives. If we are complacent and base our decisions on the status quo – we choose to attend college because it pleases our parents, or landscape our yard to win the neighborhood lawn-care trophy, our decisions are based on external factors and lack the shaping that consideration and ethical principles bring.

Set good examples. You’ve heard it before and it is not always easy to do, but it is necessary.

Remove distractions. Limit mindless activities (such as endless hours in front of the television or video games). It is much easier to make decisions with all of the facts in hand and an on educated platform.

Teach children the value of time – both their own and that of others. Kids who value time, even understanding that it is not fair to make others late because they overslept, understand that consideration is important in relationships.

Read great works of literature with your child. Countless studies have shown that when children learn to assess the situations of characters and empathize with their emotions that they are building their own conscious.

Rely on faith. If you have a faith foundation, use it to teach your children about your beliefs and the reasons for them. Simply dictating rules is not enough – truly open your own heart about your values, fears, and faith.

Work together toward emotional intelligence. Identifying the emotions of themselves and others is a higher level of thinking that leads to better decisions.

Honor their feelings, even when you don’t understand them. Sometimes I have no idea why my child might be acting a certain way – maybe melting on the spot and at risk of crying into a puddle. However, when I demonstrate empathy they learn how to recognize their own feelings, and in turn, have respect for the feelings of others.

Give them opportunities and time. Let them sort out their own opinions and weigh their options, and try to let them make the decision. It might only be which activity to do on a weekend, but they need opportunities to consider the benefits and downsides.

It can be so difficult to watch children flounder as they struggle to make decisions, especially when we feel like we have the right or safe or best answers. I have even heard at least of my kids say, “I just wish I didn’t have to decide!” However, even when the situations are difficult, I always try to remind my kids that they should feel grateful they have a decision to make, because then their life is truly more their own.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BetterParenting/~3/ibq7PwsfVR8/