Spring 1996

Helping Your Children with Math

Summer 1996

More on Kumon Math

Fall 1996

More on Education

Winter 1997

Ensure My Children Can Read

Spring 1997

Education and Job Applicants

Summer 1997

Parental Involvement in Education

Fall 1997

Finding Time To Read With Kids

Winter 1998

Motivating Your Kids

Spring 1998

Teaching My Kids About Lying

Summer 1998

Math Update

Fall 1998

The Job of Being a Parent

Winter 1999

My Idea of Self-Esteem

Spring 1999

Some Child Motivational Success

Summer 1999

Spanking Your Kids

Fall 1999

TV and Family

Winter 2000

Listening To Children

Spring 2000

Teaching Kids How to Succeed

Summer 2000

Gradual Progress on Self Motivation

Fall 2000

Taking the Wife For Granted

Winter 2001

Father and Son Talk

Spring 2001

Where Your Kids Really Are

Summer 2001

Getting My Sons to Read this Summer

Fall 2001

It's Not Easy to Say No

Winter 2002

Getting Beyond Basic Reading

Spring 2002

Thoughts on Teenagers and Cars

Summer 2002

Another Look at Teenagers with Cars

Fall 2002

Getting the Boys to Do Housework

Winter 2003

The Thankless Task of Being the Family Cook

Spring 2003

Mike's Wife Speaks Out

Summer 2003

Changing Environments

Fall 2003

Father and Son Trip

Winter 2004

Teaching My Boys Value

Spring 2004

A College Visit with My Son

Summer 2004

Final Chapter on My Son and a Car

Fall 2004

Our Teenager's Curfews

Winter 2005

More Contrast in Schools

Spring 2005

Laundry Lessons

Summer 2005

More Lessons from a Car

Fall 2005

My Boys and Dogs

Winter 2006

Attempting the Impossible

Spring 2006

Yet Another Lesson on the Car

Summer 2006

Working at HCSS with My Wife

Fall 2006

The Final Chapter

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Helping Your Children with Math

Last fall, my wife and I discovered an after school supplemental math education program that enables our children to become superior math students even though they attend public schools. We are so pleased with this program that we wanted to give this information to our customers.

This program called "Kumon" and originated in Japan in 1954 by a couple who wanted to improve their son's math skills. They developed some math exercises for their son and soon found their neighbors also wanted to use these materials to teach their own children. Today, over 2 million students world-wide use these materials, mostly in Asian countries, although about 56,000 are in the U.S.

My boys are 8 and 10 and have worked over 30,000 math problems each since September. Each has easily gone to the top of their class validating my fear that they were not learning much math at school. Every evening they work 200 problems in about 30 minutes. The lessons are timed, and they have to strive for completing the assignment in the required time with a specified accuracy.

Kumon math goes up through high school calculus. I highly recommend this as a systematic way that you can insure that your children excel at math. Kumon also has a reading comprehension program. For more information call Kumon at (800)628-4284 Ext 321 or call me if you wish to talk about it.

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More on Kumon Math

Over 200 of you called Kumon from the article in our last newsletter. Because of this interest, I think that it may be helpful for me to explain my experience with Kumon.

Kumon provides math worksheets suggesting doing 100 to 200 problems in 15 to 30 minutes per night. They use tedious repetition in insure each subject is mastered and then gradually move on to slightly more difficult material. Answer books are provided so you can grade the work immediately and then have your children correct their errors. Time constraints are also provided, and the goal is for your children to complete their lessons on time with a maximum number of allowed errors thus indicating mastery of the material.

Here are some benefits of this program:

• Direct influence over at least some of my children's education(math);
• By grading their work every night, I know how well they are doing;
• My children are now in the habit of doing math EVERY night;
• In less than a year, my children have become outstanding math students;
• The timed material insures that my children score well on all timed standardized math tests.

He worked 17 lessons (17 days) before he had any trouble meeting the time objectives and 30 lessons before he started having to repeat lessons on a regular basis. This allowed him to establish a daily pattern of work and develop confidence that he could successfully do the work. Now since the problems have become more difficult, he repeats every lesson 2 to 10 times as required until he meets the goals.

Another example is my forth grader's 8 lessons dividing by two digit numbers. He did those 8 lessons a total of 47 times in two months to achieve a satisfactory level of speed and accuracy. He is now very good at what terrifies many kids.

I had forgotten how hard long division could be. For example, when you watch your child try to divide 64,975 by 78 you can understand why a child is going to hate math if he cannot quickly multiply, subtract, and make an intelligent division estimate (how many times 78 goes int 649). Similarly, you will learn how easy the most difficult operations with fractions are after all necessary concepts have been gradually mastered and how difficult they would be otherwise.

Kumon is not computer software, but is an old fashioned paper and pencil method which will require 5 to 10 minutes of your time each day just to grade the work. Although this may seem like a wasted of time in the computer age, I like the feedback I get as I see what kind of errors my children are making on each individual problem.

Because the Kumon material is introduced so gradually, this is a long-term program. I would recommend anyone who wants to try it to make the commitment for at least one year. If your child is in high school and poor at math, the tendency would be to think this method too slow to help catch up. But if the problem is lack of fundamentals, there are no short-cuts. You might have to start all the way back at multiplication (or even addition).

For more information about Kumon, call (800)222-6284.

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More on Education

When I wrote about Kumon in the past two newsletters, both of my sons were in public schools. Since then, my oldest was accepted into a local parochial school. Because many of you may know as little about educational option as I previously did, you may be interested in our experience of going from 4th grade at a public school to 5th grade at a parochial school.

Compared to the public school, the new school is very structured. Each hour of the day they cover a subject, such as math, geography, grammar, etc. and every hour of the semester has been mapped out at the beginning of the school year. There is a test in every subject every week on set days so we, as parents, know exactly when the tests are and when to expect to see the results which we must sign promptly. There are no computers in the classrooms, no internet connections, and they read from the McGuffy readers published in 1879. In fact, one wonders if the school would have been run any differently if it had existed in 1879.

We love the school, as does our son. He is having to take totally new classes such as French, Latin, and Sacred Studies, however he never even thinks to complain because they are always busy and the rules for success are very clear - you study, you make good grades; you don't study, you probably won't. What we particularly like is the clarity in what it takes to succeed and the self-confidence it gives the student in correlating success with effort.

Our son is not a book-worm, but he likes this type of school and its structure and we like it because we see very clear educational progress. The school work is not particularly difficult (this is not an elite school), but just doggedly consistent. Like the Kumon math, the formula seems like it should work for most kids even if it is 100 years old. If you have doubts about whether your children are learning in their present environment, investigate some of the alternatives. We're glad we did.

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Ensuring My Children Can Read

In the December 17, 1996 ìWall Street Journal there was an editorial entitled ìMTV Math Doesn't Add Upî in which the writer talked about her math research after discovering that her straight - A 6th grade daughter needed a calculator to compute 10% of 470 and did not know how to turn one fourth into 25%.

Similar experiences prompted me to write the articles about Kumon Math in a couple of previous newsletters, and that you, as estimators and therefore good at math, would appreciate knowing about Kumon as one way to insure your children excel at math regardless of what goes on in their school.

I also found that my children were not doing much reading in school and that if it were not for a popular series of childrenís books unrelated to school ("Goosebumps"), my oldest boy would still not have read a complete book by the end of 4th grade.

When he started 5th grade at a private school, the headmaster suggested he read the "Chronicles of Narnia" which is a seven book set totaling about 1700 pages. As this was too difficult for my son, I started reading with him such that we took turns reading every other page and now that we are on the sixth book I am amazed at the benefits:

• I now know exactly what my sonís reading capability is.
• We talk about the meaning of new words which saves him either skipping them or constantly going to a dictionary.
• We discuss the meaning of passages that he would not have understood if reading on his own.
• I get to read children's books I never read as a child.
• We get to do something else together as father and son.

It seems to me that doing this as little as 1 to 2 hours per week over a period of years will ensure that any child is an excellent reader regardless of what happens in school.

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Education and Job Applicants

Recently we ran an ad for Entry Level Technical Support. Of 240 resumes, we quickly eliminated 200, narrowed the remaining 40 down to 5, and called those applicants in for interviews.

The first had 5 years of help-desk experience, wrote well, and did well in the interview. However, when we gave a simple test of reasoning ability, the applicant got only one question correct out of 14. We were shocked but certainly glad we gave the test.

The next 3 applicants also wrote and interviewed well, but on our simple test they scored only 7, 8, and 8 which we decided unacceptable with questions such as:

1. Joe makes 20% more than Mary made before she got a 60 cent raise to $8 per hour. How much does Joe make per hour?
2. How many seconds are in a week?
3. What is the surface area of a cube with sides of 4"?
4. Tom bowled a 247 game, Fred 240, and John 244. What would Henry have to bowl to make an average for his bowling team of 250?

Deciding to test applicants first before talking to them, we sent out 35 letters to the remaining applicants describing the job in great detail. We also warned them they needed good problem solving skills in order to take support calls and if still interested to call in and schedule a test time. Seven of them responded; their scores: 2, 0, 6, 6, 11, 9, and 5.

Although the average person does not need the reasoning ability required to be

a support person at HCSS, we were still shocked at the low scores by the some of the most impressive 40 of 240 applicants. Many of these people had college degrees including the person who scored zero.

This further confirms some of my concerns about education discussed in previous newsletters. These people were all industrious people with impressive work histories whose parents probably assumed they were being educated at school. Although math skill is not the only aspect of education, and some of these people did write and talk very well, it is hard to imagine how anyone spending at least 12 years in school would not learn enough to answer these questions.

If you wish to download the entire test, it is available on our internet web site at www.hcss.com\test.

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Parental Involvement in Education

At the user's group meeting a customer said my newsletter articles appeared to be supporting his wife in their battle of public vs private education. My intent, however, was only to stress parental involvement in education.

There are good and bad public and private schools, and it is not even that simple. There are many different educational philosophies and some correspond to what you want for your children and some do not. If you are not paying attention, someone else may be deciding what is important for your children to learn and even what their values are.

I have found that there are things that I can do to insure my children get a good educa- tion outside of school. For example, like many parents, I helped my children learn to read when they were in Kindergarten and 1st grade. My mistake was in thinking my job was done. Although they could read as well as anyone else, they wouldn't voluntarily read anything. I started reading with my 5th grader this year and recounted the benefits in a previous newsletter. Now I have more benefits to report.

My son's first book report was on a book we had read together so I was able to help. It was supposed to be 10 lines long, but after about a dozen revisions, I was so pleased that he expressed the main points of the story in 30 lines that I let him turn it in. The next book report again required him to summarize a 250 page book in 10 lines. It took about 6 hours over several nights, but because we had read the book together, I was able to help him select events out of the story, prioritize them, and come up with a short and accurate synopsis of the book.

As we did this I often wanted to tear my hair out over my son's inability to tell what was important. Yet in the end, he got it, and it would take an extraordinary teacher in ANY school to accomplish this for all of the children in a classroom. I personally regard the ability to understand written and verbal communication to be very important throughout life. Because our current school requires book reports on outside reading, I have a chance to insure that my son is making progress towards something I think is important. In contrast, our previous school had homework that we regarded as a waste of time and detracted from our educational objectives.

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Finding Time To Read With Kids

One thing I have relearned since spending more time with my children's education is the power of habit; not only for them, but for me.

I now spend much of my evening with my children and it has become a habit. I suspect that once a pattern is established, we don't really care what it is, we just do it like robots. So the trick is to start a good activity, such as reading with one's children, and do it consistently until it is a habit. Not only do I now enjoy reading together and look forward to it every night, but hopefully my 9 and 11 year old boys are developing the habit of reading (a habit they badly need to cultivate).

We read about 30 minutes every night. I read every other page and often trade pages to let my sons have the pages with pictures so they end up reading less than 50% of the book. When your child is struggling and you are trying to make it through a 200 page book, it can try your patience. But getting to read yourself gives you a break, makes it possible to finish the book in a reasonable time period, and gives your child an example of good reading (we hope).

Sometimes I ask my sons to figure out what new vocabulary words might be by their context, other times I ask them about the meaning of a sentence or paragraph they have just read. In this way I can tell how well they are reading when they read on their own as well as help them with analytical skills. Most of the time I just tell them what new vocabulary words mean since, to foster a love of reading, I think it is more important to progress through the book and enjoy the story.

Where does one find the time if working long business hours? An hour per day more or less probably will not make much difference to your professional career (even though it always seems like there is never enough time). Besides, those of you using HeavyBid have more time available, right?

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Motivating Your Kids

As I've mentioned in previous newsletters, neither of my boys will read on their own, nor will they voluntarily do anything else academic, athletic, or artistic. Our 12 year old is motivated to watch TV and play video games and our 10 year prefers to play with his toys. Perhaps you have similar problems and would be interested in our experience.

Although my boys won't do anything voluntarily, they do many things invol- untarily because we won't let them quit or we think it is good for them (like read- ing). For example, both initially wanted to take karate because of TV heroes, but decided after a few months it was too much work and other sports would be easier. This is the pattern for everything they think they want to learn. So a prob- lem most of us are faced with is whether we should make our kids do something they claim not to like or keep trying sub- jects until we find something they do.

My 10-year-old wants to quit karate after three years. If we let him quit karate now, he hasn't really learned anything because the payoff is only now starting. Looking back, if we were going to let him quit, it should have been 2 years ago when he first wanted to. If we let him quit now, we put up with 2 years of complaining FOR NOTHING!

This experience prompts me to suggest a strategy: If you just want to expose your children to something to see if they get excited about it, a year would seem more than sufficient. If you want to make them do something and become good at it, I would think about 5 years would be a minimum. Anything in between may be wasting time that could be better spent in other pursuits.

I picked 5 years because adults I know who played piano as a child only 2 or 3 years usually cannot play now, whereas those who played for over 5 years usu- ally can.

As a parent with no genius-level talent, I know that success for most people comes through hard work and I insist that my children learn that lesson in some man- ner. Consequently, karate is one of the things we have chosen not to let them quit (we have let them quit plenty of other things). We also are operating under the assumption that children will eventually be motivated to do things they are good at and thus we want to insure they are good at several things.

Recently we have had some success to indicate our efforts may be bearing fruit. Our 12-year old boy has voluntarily gone to karate for the past four months because he is now the highest belt in the karate school and the other kids look up to him and call him assistant instructor. Hope- fully he has learned a lesson about what can be achieved by not quitting.

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Teaching My Kids About Lying

Having 10 and 12 year old boys who blame many things on each other to avoid responsibility illustrates to me how attractive a pattern of not exactly telling the truth is for a child. My concern is in how to prevent that habit from con- tinuing into adulthood.

I assume that there is no way I can prevent my children from lying. What I can do however, is insure they have no doubt what- soever what I think about it.

I have let them know how easy lying is to get away with and that most of the time they lie I will not be able to catch them, but if I do, they will be punished with 10 times the usual severe punishment because I assume that they got away with it at least 10 times before I caught them. Over the years they have heard my speech on this threatened punishment many times so by now they should have a subconscious feel- ing that lying is very bad.

In addition, like every parent I know, I have used the story of "The Boy who Cried Wolf" to illustrate the consequences of not being believed and have supplemented that story with lectures on how long it takes to trust someone again after catching them in the first lie. When my boys do something they shouldn't and tell me about it, I just lecture them rather than punish them (they don't like lectures so that is a kind of pun- ishment). I figure that punishing them for telling the truth will just insure I do not get the truth the next time, and I want them to get into the habit of telling the truth while there is no serious need to lie.

Because my boys will get into squabbles and each blame the other, it is obvious that they are not always entirely telling the truth. However, I have the impression that the distinction of who really starts squabbles is vague in their minds and that they do not really consider that lying applies here. For example, if one makes a face and the other retaliates by throwing a toy, one doesn't consider making a face an offense and the other really believes the face started it.

Applying some principles from a business management book, "Let's Get Results, Not Excuses", by Jim Bleech (800-659-1720), I have addressed this problem by telling the boys I don't care who started it, they both lose a night of TV when they fight for any reason. This has a number of advantages:

(1) I don't waste time being a judge and risk being wrong, (2) there is no point mak- ing up excuses (which, if not technically lying, is at least sloppy thinking and a bad habit), since I am not going to listen to ei- ther argument, and (3) I win either way, since they either don't fight, or they lose T V (including Nintendo & computer games), and have to do something more productive such as read or play outside.

As they get older and run into circum- stances where it is advantageous to lie, I am hoping that my boys will have devel- oped the habit of telling the truth so that it never occurs to them that lying is an op- tion, or, that at least they truly believe that the brave person tells the truth and accepts t h e consequences, and that lying is a coward's way out (even when they elect to be a coward). Regardless of how they behave in their teenage years when under intense peer pressure, I am counting on the lessons they learned as children coming back to them when they become adults.

I might add that the dumbest thing I could do as a parent trying to teach my kids not to lie would be to get caught lying myself - even once.

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Math Update

Several newsletters ago I talked about my positive experience with the Kumon math program. At this year's user's group meeting, several cus- tomers came up to me and told me they had also started the program and were very pleased with it. Although we now only do it in the summer, I am still such a believer in this program that I want to provide a further update on it.

My 12 year old son has now done about 10,000 fraction problems (counting re- peats) and is almost at the end of the 400 fraction pages. Here is an example of a problem for this week:

1 1/2 + [3/5 ÷ 1.5 ÷ (4/15 ÷ 5.6 X 1 1/20)] ÷ 2 2/3

He said this was easy (although he got the wrong answer the first time.) The current thinking in math that domi- nates most schools is that repetition in problems like this are a waste of time be- cause calculators and computers now do this kind of work. Also, it is thought that students should be "thinking" more about math and doing less "mindless" repetition.

Certainly there is some truth in the desir- ability of thinking more and doing less drudgery. But I must confess these kinds of problems do not insult MY intelligence. Try this one yourself, and better yet, have your kids try it. The answer is 4.5. The interesting thing is that a child who can only work a calculator probably can't solve it.

Like most of you, I am not an educator and don't know for absolute certain that I am making better decisions than pro- fessional educators, but my "common sense" is that working 10,000 progres- sively more difficult fraction problems gives my boy a better understanding of math than all but the sharpest students who don't. Also, I am pretty sure that Michael Jordan's success is not from just thinking about basketball alone - he surely has shot millions of repetitive bas- kets as preparation for the more creative shots he does.

One of the first long-division lessons my 10 year old boy did took 102 minutes and he missed 79 problems. Eight tries later he did it in 33 minutes and missed 11 (suf- ficient to pass him to the next lesson). Assuming his initial competence was equivalent to a typical good math stu- dent in school, note how far this puts him ahead of even good students in com- petency. This competency compounds to the point where my older son, when confronted with the problem above, in- stead of being terrified thinks it is easy.

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The Job of Being a Parent

After a hard day at the office, most of us would like to go home and relax. However, those of us with young children go home to our second shift job, and in my case, that can be harder work than the day job.

One thing I found hard getting used to was the idea of having almost no personal time. However, in the four years since I started spending my entire evening with the children, it has become simply my night-time job which I do every evening without thinking about it. I now believe this is the most important thing I can do for my children outside of earning a basic living, and I no longer would rather be doing anything else.

Just like we have business goals, my wife and I have goals for our 10 and 12 year- old boys. We want them to learn to: (1) read well, (2) do math well, (3) not lie, cheat or steal, (4) be nice to everyone, (5) think well, and, (6) be better than everyone else at something. While significant, these are rather modest goals and would seem achievable as long as we are shooting towards them.

The first two are easy, it just takes putting in the hours. As mentioned in previous newsletters, this can be achieved at home regardless of the competence of the schools. The next two don't seem that hard if we set a good example, constantly remind them of proper behavior, pay attention to who their friends are and what they do together, and keep them too busy to get into trouble (hopefully I never have to eat these words). The last two are much tougher, but we feel if we succeed at these, our children have a complete set of tools to do anything in life they want.

Being the best at something usually requires hard work, gives a feeling of accomplishment, and gains the respect of others. I am hoping these feelings, if experienced a few times, will become infectious and spread to other life endeavors.

Recently we have had some considerable success with our 12 year-old, although not without some bribery. This year, he made the Dean's List for the first time in order to get $50 to spend on his first love - video games. Although he does not let on that this is a big deal, he seems to be pretty pleased with himself. For another $50 he tried out and made first chair violin in his orchestra and seemed to be excited that his is the hand the conductor shakes after a concert while the crowd is applauding.

Compared to his motivation in the past, these are huge achievements and we are crossing our fingers that these successes will make him want more. We were surprised the money worked, but think maybe it gave him an excuse to succeed without looking too much like a good kid.

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My Idea of Self-Esteem

One of the buzzwords in education for the past few years is self- esteem. Because it is so popular, there must be some common background in we baby boomers because even I am afflicted somewhat with this concern.

However, my idea of self esteem is much different than the current version of prais- ing kids when they don't deserve it so they feel good about themselves. It is important to me that my kids grow up able to make an accurate assessment of them- selves so they can differentiate between those things for which they deserve praise and those they do not.

With good self-analysis, they should have self-confidence knowing where they stand and not be prey to flattery, vanity, and all those traits associated with try- ing to fool oneself.

One day my 10 year old informed me he was the 2nd best soccer player on his team. I felt it my duty to delicately inform him that the 2nd best soccer player on the team usually kicks the ball more than 5 times in a 45 minute game; that he was in fact, the worst player on the team. That prompted him to go out in the back yard and practice until he kicked a tree root and broke his big toe. Nevertheless, that was the response I wanted. There is no shame in being bad at something. Either give up on it and try something else, or do something about it.

As I mentioned in the last newsletter, I want my boys to be the best at some- thing. But I figure even being one of the best 3 at something is ok. Look at how many people are covered if you counted the top 3 in each of these activities for each grade:

Soccer , Chess, Comedian, Speller, Math, Science, Violin, Guitar, Cheerleading,Ice Skating , Skateboarding, Swimming, Writer, Photographer, Magician, Drum- mer, YoYo, Video Games, Gymnast, Fast- est Runner, Strongest, AnimalTrainer, Karate, Tennis, Artist, Crossword Puzzles, Jeopardy, Wheel Of Fortune, Singer, Piano, Cards, etc.

The list is endless, particularly once they go to high school. And if you are one of the top 3 in your area and are better than most everyone else, they look at you with awe. And in most cases, to be one of the best , you had to work at it and have earned their respect.

I want my boys to work hard to become the best at something, and to then feel good about themselves because they know they deserve it.

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Some Child Motivational Success

In the past two newsletters I talked about wanting my boys to become the best (or one of the three best) at something to give them a feeling of ac- complishment and earn the respect of their peers, thus motivating them to be- come achievers.

Actually this is not my ideal motivational technique because it relies on others to provide competition, praise, respect, etc., whereas I would prefer motivation based on love of the activity itself, or goals such as determination to master a subject or pursuit of excellence in all things.

However, the only activity my 13 year old boy is passionate about is video games which I don't discourage because I fig- ure any passion is better than none.

In order to motivate him to do other things, I see three choices: (1) wait to see if he develops more interests as he gets older, (2) keep trying new activities until he shows a real interest in one, or (3) make him do a few activities until he gets so good that they become enjoy- able.

Item (1) has not succeeded for other par- ents I know, so I am unwilling to take a chance. We don't have time for item (2) on a large scale, so I have elected item (3) and thus look for ways to motivate him to do something he otherwise doesn't want to do. Competition and peer respect seem to work very well.

Because of the popularity of the "Power Rangers " and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles " several years ago, my boys started karate. After a few months they wanted to quit but I told them they couldn't until they had earned their black belts.

My 13 year old was recently to be tested for his black belt in karate and all he talked about was finally being allowed to quit. However, on the day of the black belt test, he kept telling me to hurry or we would be late, thus betraying more interest in the test than he had led us to believe. After he received his black belt with his name embroidered on it in gold, he was so excited that when he got home he called all of his friends to tell them about it, and then took the belt to school the next school day to show everyone. That night when going to bed, he confided "I can't believe I got a black belt" when normally he just tells me he is too old to be tucked in and wants me to leave.

The moral of this story is that he is now very pleased with himself and no longer wants to quit karate which supports my theory (3) above.

He is also now being paid to tutor a class- mate in math which shows a payoff for all of the Kumon math he never wanted to do.

Although he isn't going to say so, I have the impression from an improved attitude that he now truly appreciates many of the things we have been making him do over the past several years and under- stands why we did it.

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Spanking Your Kids

Spanking is one of my favorite subjects partly because I feel so rebellious in the current culture by continuing to do it.

One day three of us discovered that our chil- dren had all been taught in school that it was not ok for us to spank them. Since our schools were at least 10 miles apart from each other and in different school districts, this would suggest that maybe all public schools teach this.

Although I disagree with the schools, I have made some mistakes spanking. When my older boy was small, I would spank immedi- ately upon some offense. Then when he went to day care and started telling other kids "No!" and then striking them, I figured that he learned that from me. As a result I started calmly walking him to the bedroom before giving him a spanking (unless he was doing something dangerous).

Once they were old enough to understand what they had done wrong, I would explain to my boys on the way to the bedroom what they had done and why they were going to get a spanking and whether it would be a "me- dium" spanking or a "hard" spanking. This got their undivided attention. While in the bedroom they usually begged for me not to spank them and promised to be good. I didn't always spank them. I let them talk me out of it at least half of the time. Some people think I was wimping out, but I had their attention because they were not sure whether I would spank them and, of course, around half the time I did. My objective was to get them to listen to me and to modify their behavior. But I didn't really want to spank them so I didn't if I could avoid it.

A couple of years ago when the older boy (then 11) stopped crying, I could not tell if spanking was working because you had to hit so hard to make an impression on him. Tak- ing away TV and video games works so much better now.

One thing about spanking is to remember the objective is to change the child's behavior. If you spank all of the time and it is not work- ing, that would suggest trying something else. It feels helpful to spank because we think we are doing something good for the child, but it has to feel helpful AND work.

We spanked our boys about once per month. After a good spanking, threats were effective for awhile. But about a month later that would no longer work and I would have to spank them again.

Because we know children that were never spanked and turned out ok, it would appear that spanking is not necessarily essential to raising good kids. However, almost everyone at HCSS was spanked as a child and we turned out ok also.

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TV and Family

One issue that we and most of our friends wrestle with is how TV fits into our family life.

Before having children of our own, we observed a friend being unable to get his boy to study because of the cable TV in the child's bedroom. This went on for years (apparently removing the TV was not an option). We also read that many children were spending many hours a week isolated in their bedrooms playing video games.

So we wondered how we could either re- strict or integrate TV and video games into our family life. Here is our solution. We have elected to watch TV during meals because our 11 and 13 year old boys have so much homework and other ac- tivities that meals are usually the only convenient time to watch TV. Although we have friends who don't allow TV at all, we often like to watch it ourselves and particularly like how well taking it away works as punishment.

Even though we have many TV's in the house, we all agree on the shows we are going to see and watch them together. We insist on this so that TV viewing be- comes a family event. We also let our kids watch shows that some people think are a bad influence on children, but we like the ability to point out what is good and unacceptable behavior by using the TV characters and situations as examples (this only works though, if a parent is watching).

Two of our TV's are in the den hooked up to PlayStation and N64 game computers. Our boys can have up to 6 friends play- ing video games at once. Not only are they playing in our family area, but also we can see what they are doing at all times.

Their PC and Internet connection are in the living room which is less used than our den, but still in the middle of our house as opposed to back in a bedroom. We don't monitor their Internet activity but since anyone can walk through the living room we know approximately what they are doing.

We are absolutely amazed that our boys have never even asked for a TV, an Internet connection, or a phone in their room, even though many of their friends have some or all of these. But our family is together in one room most of the time which is what we set out to achieve and everyone seems to like the arrangement. We are hoping that this result is because we have clearly set some ground rules that don't seem too onerous that they can accept. After all, they watch plenty of TV, play plenty of video games, have plenty of friends over, and can get on the Internet when necessary.

Meanwhile, if your child says that every- body has a TV in their room, you can show them this article and say, "Not ev- eryone".

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Listening To Children

When I was a child my parents told me that "children were to be seen and not heard" when we made a lot of noise or bothered them all of the time with the stuff children think important but that adults are uninterested in. Now that I am a parent, I can see how attractive that idea might be, especially when families were larger and 6 to 12 chil- dren were common.

For years, my now 12 and 14 year old boys would bother me in any of my at- tempts to have quiet time. Whenever I was watching a favorite TV show, or try- ing to read the paper, they took that time to come bother me with something. It always seemed to me like it was a plot, as if they said to each other: "Let's bother daddy now that he is trying to do some- thing HE wants to do."

For years it irritated me for them to bother me with stuff I had absolutely no interest in such as the power of their latest Pokemon card, or what happened to a "Dragon Ball Z" cartoon character in the last episode.

However, in the past couple of years I have decided it is a good thing that they want to talk to me. Instead of plotting to bother me, they are probably more likely thinking something like "Daddy is not doing anything now so I can go talk to him." It still irritates me to be interrupted constantly, but I now have a better atti- tude about it. It also occurs to me that reading the paper and watching TV are

rarely more important than interacting with the children. I figure the more the kids talk to us about the things they are excited about, the longer that is likely to continue until the subject matter IS rel- evant to us.

For example, one day my younger son told me how he had tricked one of his friends and instead of paying off the $5 he should have lost in a bet, he only paid the friend $1. I informed him that not only had he cheated someone, but that the person he had cheated was a friend.

He didn't see it that way; he just thought he was being clever. So it took me half an hour to get him to understand that he was doing something wrong. I then told

him he was going to have to give the friend the extra $4. However, figuring that punishing him too hard might make him reluctant to tell me something like that again, I contributed $2 of the $4 he was going to have to pay.

Although it may seem silly for me to give him $2 in this case, the money is less im- portant to me than the opportunity to teach him a lesson and have him inno- cently tell me such stories in the future.

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Teaching Kids How to Succeed

One controversy we have with friends is whether it is ok to force activities on our children. We have elected to do so because we want them to succeed at a few things to see how success is achieved as well as ac- quire earned self-esteem.

In their early years, our now 12 and 14 year old boys expressed an interest in learning soccer, basketball, and karate. After they quit soccer and basketball, and wanted to quit karate, we decided they were probably going to quit all activities because eventually they would regard them as work rather than fun.

So we wouldn't let them quit karate. The public school offered free violin lessons, and when we discovered they were not learning any math, we started the Kumon math. So for years we have been making them do karate, violin, and math, none of which they have wanted to be doing.

The older boy is now excited to have a black belt in karate, likes making the high- est scores in his class on math tests as well as getting paid well to tutor class- mates, and has made many new friends in the city orchestra; however, largely these are still activities we make him do. The only activity he does of his own choosing is soccer which he started again in fifth grade when he transferred to a private school having a soccer program. Recently, however, he expressed a desire to start weight-lifting because one of his friends does. We bought weights and a bench and he has been lifting since Janu- ary 1st. His workout bench press has gone from 65 lbs to 95 lbs in only two months and thus he is seeing a very di- rect correlation between hard work and results.

Our school also started a track program this spring and he was very enthusiastic about joining that program. He is now working hard on track and ran 5 events in the first track meet.

The weight-lifting and track are activities he wants to do and he is willing to do what is necessary to excell at both. Be- cause of his success in earlier activities not of his choosing, he appears to have the tools to succeed at activities that ARE of his chosing.

Of course, it is possible that when he turned 14 he would have had an interest in weight-lifting and track anyway even if he had spent his first 14 years exclu- sively watching TV and playing video games. But I would like to think that we have had something to do with his abil- ity now to succeed.

Our goal is to teach our boys that sys- tematic and persistent hard work is the key to success in virtually all of life's en- deavors.

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Gradual Progress on Self Motivation

Motivating my 12 and 14 year-old boys is a constant struggle. Last newsletter I reported that my 14 year-old voluntarily started weight-lifting and track. I was delerious with excitement at being a successful parent. That didn't last. He quit weight-lifting after 3 months, and although I am proud of his effort in track, he coasted on natural talent rather than a desire to work hard and be the best.

This summer he expressed an interest in internet programming. I paid him and a friend who knew web programming $200 each to develop a web site for his Orchestra. This worked great. They got to work/play together every day for two weeks, the friend taught him something useful, and they made substantial money. My son even read a couple of internet books for dummies .

Then he and another friend spent 3 weeks developing a web-site for the friend s dad who paid them $100 each. To add animation, my son had to read another book. These are the first books he has voluntarily read since he was 9.

Although he might appear to be doing this for the money, he is putting in much more work than that amount of money would warrant. He is finally showing some enthusiasm for doing something fairly difficult on his own. That cannot be said about watching the Republican National Convention. I was unable to convince him how lucky he is to live in the U.S.A., what sacrifices it took to make this country great, and that it won t just automatically remain great forever. So I had to make him watch the convention. He watched without much interest, but I feel a duty to acquaint him with part of what has made America great. He will be required to watch the Democratic Convention and the debates also.

However, my 12 year-old son, who was not required to watch, asked a very good question: Can Bill Clinton be Al Gore s VP nominee? I complimented him for asking such an excellent question, got to discuss with him Presidential Succession and the 22nd Amendment, and then informed him I didn't know the answer. He is very proud of himself for his question so we ll see if he pays attention to the next convention.

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Taking the Wife For Granted

This is the story of a dense husband (wife might say insensitive ) and how he came to be enlightened.

In the first five years of HCSS, I worked 120 hours per week. I did absolutely nothing to help around the house and my wife understood even though she herself worked 60 hours per week, took care of the two boys, cooked, and cleaned. (I worked out of the house so the boys were not orphans).

After 5 years I cut down to only 70-80 hours per week and my wife was down to 40 hours plus everything else. However, I started watching some TV and reading the paper while she worked.

She tried to let me know in those subtle ways that wives do, that this situation was unfair. Unfortunately, it never occurred to me that she was trying to send me a message by getting upset all of the time. After over a year, it dawned on her that subtlety was never going to pierce my thick skull. She told me outright that I was being unfair. It was instantly clear to me that she was right.

So I started washing the dishes after every meal, keeping the kitchen clean, and preparing breakfast on weekends. Her attitude changed enormously. I cannot say enough about what an effect such a simple change had.

I now do other things to help out and she no longer feels that I am thoughtless and don t care about her. For example, every night I search her out anywhere in the house to give her vitamins and a glass of water. It takes only a couple of minutes per day, but lets her know that I will help her do something she wants to do but keeps forgetting. It has become a ritual that I also enjoy because I know that I am helping her in a direct way.

I have learned that doing little things that show affection to those you love makes life really enjoyable. And the little things rarely take much time. They simply show your spouse or others that you care. My guess is that a big problem in relationships is that someone thinks the other does not care and then misinterprets harmless actions as being proof of that. When I was working hard, my mind was on work. I was not a bad person, I simply assumed that if my wife wanted something, she would ask for it. Silly me.

I remember seeing the term help-mates somewhere. This is what I think a good marriage ought to be.

With this information, perhaps some of you will become enlightened much faster than I did.

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Father and Son Talk

Recently I had a 3-hour talk with my 15 year-old son. It went better than I expected, so I am providing my experience in case it is of value to any of you.

Part of my plan was to try to give my son a big picture image of his life now, and in the future, letting him know that he will be more or less grown up and free when he is 18. By giving him a goal of independence to look forward to, I was hoping that he would better tolerate short-term situations that are not to his liking. Of course, I may regret that when he is 18.

I prepared an outline for us to talk about. It happened to be things that struck me important the day I wrote it. The content seems to me to be of less importance than that we had a number of serious subjects to talk about. We then went to the office on a Saturday and used a marker board.

I led in by telling him that if he was lucky, he would live 100 years if he didn't make any serious mistakes, and that our job as parents was to see that he acquires the skills in his first 18 years to insure that he has a good life for the next 82 years.

I used 100 years so that the first 18 would look small compared to another 82 and therefore look like a short investment in growing up. I also told him he would have the same responsibility to his children hoping to get him to think, if only for a few seconds, from a parent s perspective, or at least to realize that such a thing as a parent s perspective exists.

He obviously knows the first point is true. He can also see that the second item is true, although he doesn't have as much freedom as he would like. He therefore should have no reason to doubt my credibility for the remaining two items. He also sees that he has less than 4 years to total freedom, and should be able to forecast the consequences if he handles freedom poorly in that period of time. We then discussed the subjects in my outline which consisted of 7 major subjects with 21 topics related to girls, sex, drugs, etc. I introduced them by writing on the board, Here are some of the things that may stop you from having a good life: I would think that most teenagers would then at least be curious what was on the list and my son seemed to be.

I tried not to lecture, but rather to engage in conversation. He thought this was stupid at first, but after only a few minutes, seemed to actually enjoy the conversation. I did ok this time, but think I can do better the next time by asking him more questions and letting him talk more.

I assume that as a typical teenager, he did not take most of my serious subjects seriously; however, one thing should be clear to him from this conversation, and that is that we are trying to help him avoid messing up his life. Thus he probably understands that the restrictions we place on his life are not totally arbitrary, and that they are there because we care about his well-being now, and in the future. I would think that is a comforting understanding to a teenager.

If you think I have made any mistakes here, e-mail them to mike@hcss.com and I may publish them in the next newsletter.

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Where Your Kids Really Are

Last year when our older boy was in the 8th grade, we learned a lesson about how our kids try to mislead us.

One day my son and several friends wanted to go to AstroWorld and said that a parent would be staying there with them. I called the parent and found she had been told another parent was going. I called that parent and found that he had been told I was the parent going. I thought this was pretty clever of the kids, but told my son he couldn't go without a parent.

A month later they tried something similar and again I caught them simply by calling another parent. After this, I told my son he could not go anywhere unless I talked to the parent in charge.

So one day my son wanted to go ice skating at the mall with a dozen other kids, and as required, he arranged for me to talk to the parent. The parent (whom I did not know), told me she was just going to drop a group of teenagers off at the mall. I told my son he could not go and he was very disappointed. So my wife and I decided we would shop in the mall and let him skate. This was a real eye-opener for us. The kids were 7th and 8th graders and several disappeared into the mall without even skating. We wondered what they had told their parents they would be doing.

The others skated for an hour and then disappeared into the mall except for my son who was required to stay around the rink (fortunately someone stayed with him). They all showed up again at the rink two hours later when the parents came to pick them up.

Since we knew that my son and several of his friends had already tried to fool us on more than one occasion, we wondered how many of the parents really knew what their kids were doing. Running around the mall is not particularly dangerous; however I suspect that at least some of the parents really thought their kids were ice skating all night.

My son now is in 9th grade and claims to be the only one who is still required to have adult supervision when he goes somewhere.

Amazingly, this does not seem to particularly bother him and it sure has made 9th grade easy for us. It may seem over-protective, but it has eliminated bad influences so far and given us a little more time to build the character that we hope will help him when he has more freedom.

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Getting My Sons to Read this Summer

My 13 and 15 year-old boys never voluntarily read books, so my plan this summer was to get them to read. Fortunately they badly wanted a high-speed internet connection and I had turned them down numerous times in the past, so this was a perfect incentive to get them to read.

My 15 year-old is required to read three standard books during summer vacation for his school, so I added five more books to that. Three were normal books of 200 to 300 pages, one very difficult 800 page Russian novel, and a Shakespeare comedy that he had to read with me in the original Shakespearean verse.

Original Shakespeare is interesting to read together with an older child because you have to work together to figure out many of the 17th century English words. Many are hardly recognizable; however, they are not so difficult that two people together cannot figure them out. Knowing the words is only the start. Shakespeare is difficult for most people (including us), and it is fun to try to figure out the story together. It s also good that the plays are relatively short because an older child thinks reading out loud is a terribly inefficient way to read a book.

The Russian novel was way too difficult. Perhaps I should have waited a couple of years on that one. Nevertheless, by the time he had finished it, there was no doubt that he had worked for his high-speed connection. The 13 year-old, who really dislikes reading, still managed five books of classic literature that were a little more difficult than anything he would have ever chosen to read on his own.

I had no difficulty in getting them to read these challenging books because they considered the ultimate objective worthwhile. However, I am still at a loss as to how to get them to read great works of literature on their own.

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It's Not Easy to Say No

Recently my 8th grade boy was invited to a girl's birthday party for the first time. I asked to talk to the parent in charge and was told that all of the kids were to be dropped off at the movie theater without any adult supervision. Apparently none of the other parents had a problem with boys and girls unsupervised together at the theater. I said my wife and I would talk and call back later about whether our son could attend.

When I called back to say that my son could not go without supervision, the birthday mom informed me that they had canceled the boy portion of the birthday party. My son said somewhat sarcastically, "Thanks Dad, now I'll never be invited to another birthday party because you might call around asking questions and get it cancelled."

The reason I mention this story is because of all the grief we must bear in order to say "No". Of course my son thinks we are too strict, and points out that none of the other parents has a problem, so what is wrong with us. Several of our friends think we are too strict including one who thinks we might be socially scarring our kids. It would be so much easier simply to say "Yes".

However, we don't happen to think "Yes" is the right answer in this case.

Regardless of your position on this particular incident, there are most likely times you want to tell your child "No" when everyone else in the world appears to be saying "Yes". My opinion is that you should act according to your beliefs regardless of what everyone else says. If you have plausible rules and are consistent, it is my feeling that the children will accept them. In our case, the rule is simply adult supervision until 10th grade at which time more liberal rules go into effect.

One advantage we think is going to come from our being fairly strict is that when the boys finally acquire more freedoms, they are going to be reluctant to risk losing them. However, we are not really that strict. Both boys have many friends and get to do almost everything they want to do. The vast majority of the time they ask us if they can do something, the answer is "Yes". They try to make us feel guilty about the exceptions, and I don't blame them for trying to manipulate us, but it is our job not to give in.

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Getting Beyond Basic Reading

You may recall from the summer newsletter that I bribed my 13 and 15 year-old sons to read several books during the summer with the promise of a high- speed internet connection. However, they have read nothing since because now that they can read they see no further reason to do so unless it is required for school. My own experience is that their current level limits their career options and, like most parents, I want my boys to have more opportunities than I did.

I warned the boys that if I did not see them reading on their own, they would be reading with me again. They elected to spend their free time playing video games, so we are now reading together again.

I have chosen Shakespeare plays (in the original) because they are relatively short, but difficult. I let each boy chose his plays and his characters and then we read aloud. Usually I read more than half to prevent their complaining, but regardless of who is reading, I may stop at any time and ask them what is happening. From this I have verified that my 15 year-old does not understand much of what he is reading.

While Shakespeare is difficult for me also, and I often don't understand what the clowns and choruses are saying, most of the main character dialog is easy to figure out for an adult. The plays are difficult for children because they deal with people and emotions which non- reading children are completely unfamiliar with (apparently TV is not enough). Since each dialog is usually only a few sentences in length, they make perfect little lessons in which to discuss with my sons some aspect of human behavior. In addition, they provide practice in decoding complicated and unusual sentence structures, an ability that will make future difficult reading material much easier.

For example: Use well our Father: To your professed bosomes I commit him, ... . I asked my 13 year-old, what does Use well mean. He doesn't know. So I helped him and he figured it out. What does professed mean? He doesn't know so I define it. Then I ask why the speaker uses the word professed in this sentence. He doesn't know so I help him figure that out.

Sometimes I just tell them what difficult passages mean, and I always compliment them when they surprise me with their understanding. I try to strike a balance between learning something and getting on with the story. I am convinced that these reading sessions will make my boys excellent readers and will leave lasting memories of times that we have had together.

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Thoughts on Teenagers and Cars

Our older boy is 16 and could be driving. However, we will not buy him a car and he has no interest in driving ours.

He says he needs his own car to drive the 3 miles to school. We tell him it is a bad investment to own a car that is only used 10 minutes per day, and that if he would use our family cars in the evening, it would bring down the family equipment cost per hour of use. He is unimpressed with our arguments.

We are fortunate that most of the parents we know make their children work for at least car insurance money before providing them with a car. Thus our boys have some expectation that acquiring a car entails some effort on their part.

We too, could let our boys work toward a car. However, working during high school seems to be a poor use of a high schooler's time, particularly if it is only to acquire a car.

Instead, we think they should be acquiring an education that will serve them throughout the rest of their lives. After all, they are going to get ample opportunity to work soon enough.

Getting our 16 year-old to make good use of his time is still a struggle, but we are much more successful with his education than we would be if he were working 4 hours away from home every evening.

I'm not actually opposed to work. It took 7 years for me to graduate from college because I worked 50 hours per week, and it turns out that my work experience proved to be as valuable in my future as anything I learned in the classroom. My wife also worked her way through college. However, we had already acquired in high school the academic skills we needed to succeed. Our concern for high schoolers is that work is inevitable; knowledge, skills, and good learning habits are not.

So, if we do not want our boys to work for a car, shouldn't we then just give them one? Well, we aren't. This way they can learn two valuable lessons: (1) they don't really need one, and, (2) cars are expensive and require sacrifices to acquire and maintain.

Once again the boys try to make us feel guilty for not making their life easy enough, and once again it does them no good. We do, however, plan to give them sufficient cash for their high school graduation present to buy a modest used car if that is what they judge to be the best use of their money.

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Another Look at Teenagers with Cars

In the last newsletter, I said my high-school aged son would not be getting his own car.

Recently, we were at a large dinner gathering, and while I was away from the table, my son was complaining to an adult about how his father wouldn't let him have his own car. The adult told him if he wanted something from me, he needed to find out what I wanted in exchange.

When I came back to the table, my son told me about the conversation and asked what I wanted from him in order to get a car. I thought this was a great idea, so in a quick minute, I came up with: (a) make the honor roll 3 out of 6 grading periods, and (b) run a 400 meter in under 53.5 seconds. He agreed, and now the ability to get a car is entirely in his hands.

I set the goals fairly high but reachable. He is taking several hard classes next year for the first time, so making the honor roll will be harder than it was in the past when he also wasn't making it. If he can make the first 3 in a row, he can get his car sooner so he should start the year out strong. I want him to continue athletics to reduce the time he spends playing video games, so I set an athletic goal that is hard, but reachable simply by working out hard for 90 minutes a day for a couple of months. Again, the sooner he achieves this time, the sooner he gets his car.

His allowance for a car will be $6,000, and I will buy the car in my name for his use, and pay for the insurance, but not the gas. That way, I can always sell it if his behavior becomes such that he doesn't deserve a car.

I am thankful for the person who told my son to negotiate with me for a car. I like this approach a lot better than simply refusing to get him one. Hopefully, this is one of those win-win arrangements you read about in the management books.

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Getting the Boys to Do Housework

Our 14 and 16 year-old boys have never done any work around the house. So when we decided to terminate our housekeeper, who did a poor job for 3.5 hours per week, it seemed the perfect time to get everyone to clean for 1 hour per week for a total of 4 manhours.

The boys did not think they should be required to do anything helpful around the house. Unfortunately, we have waited way too long to have them help. We should have started that as a habit when they were very small.

So we agreed to pay them $20 for their hour of cleaning (that is the rate housekeepers charge in Houston). Even at that they still complain. We do not require that they do a very good job, because we feel that cleaning together as a family and establishing a habit is more important than how clean the house actually is. It would be nice if they learned how to clean well, but we are not looking for miracles.

We are now cleaning with them, which hopefully gives the boys a good example.

We have always had a housekeeper in the past, because we spent so much time working. However, in retrospect, we should have taken an hour or two every weekend to clean the house ourselves and involved the children as soon as they were old enough to help. Presumably very young children would look at it as helping mom and dad, and they would never think to question why they have to do it.

The issue of cleaning the house never seemed to me to be important. In our case, we have a yard service and do not do any work outside either. Now, I think that helping the parents inside or out from an early age is a very good idea to get the children thinking about helping out simply because that is what families do. Then, hopefully the helpful attitude would generalize into helping people outside the family.

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The Thankless Task of Being the Family Cook

My wife does most of the cooking at our house. Recently it has dawned on me that she does not get all of the appreciation she deserves. In fact, she gets very little appreciation.

Periodically she gets excited and prepares a "new" dish. Unfortunately her reward is that the boys usually complain or outright refuse to eat it. They prefer to go without food, and, thus, make my wife feel guilty as well as discourage her from trying new things.

Sometimes, her experiments are total failures and then I join with the boys in complaining. That must be very discouraging. I am amazed how she still continues to try new things. I would like to point out, though, that communicating what you like or dislike is good. If you don't say anything, you will continue to get the same thing served. The other day she asked why I didn't eat all of what she thought was my favorite rice dish. I then informed her after 17 years of marriage and eating rice regularly, that I really didn't like rice that much and preferred potatoes.

What a surprise that was to her. Not saying anything about rice for 17 years was a huge mistake on my part. Since my boys have been raised on rice, they don't care for potatoes, so I am doomed to rice until they go off to college.

I now, however, try to make it a point to compliment my wife anytime I especially like the food (which is quite often), even when it is the same dish she has served many times before. I have really liked most of the food she has served over the years and am truly amazed how many wonderful things she can prepare. However, it never occurred to me to say anything about it until I started noticing how many complaints she receives versus compliments.

The moral of this story is that if there is something about your spouse that you really like, don't keep it a secret like I did - tell them. After all, it's nice to know that you're appreciated.

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Mike's Wife Speaks Out

After receiving many sympathetic consolations during the User's Group Meeting as a result of Mike's last newsletter article about my cooking, I felt compelled to write the newsletter article this quarter.

"What are we having for dinner tonight? How long til we eat? Can we eat at Taco Bell?" These are the questions I dread every night. Driving home from work every day, I have to think about what to cook for dinner that my whole family will enjoy. It's always a challenge to fix a perfect meal when Mike doesn't like chicken and the boys don't like fish, potatoes and vegetables. And now I learn after 18 years that Mike never really liked rice!

Since I rarely receive any recognition for slaving in the kitchen, whenever anyone compliments me on a dish, I file it away in my brain as a "perfect dish". I then serve that dish at least once a week. Apparently, however, I serve it until everyone gets sick of it. My shrimp dishes, salmon dishes, rack of lamb and mu shu pork, which at one time were perfect dishes, are now only tolerated, if eaten at all. After 18 years, my dinner repertoire is shrinking.

I was glad to see in the last article that Mike has started to recognize that I am not complimented enough for my cooking efforts. But, he only knows the half of it - the half after the cooking is done. He still doesn't know the half about figuring out what to prepare. Perhaps he should help but I prefer he stays out of my kitchen.

Before Mike met me, he took an Indian cooking class with the intent to meet women. He never met a prospective wife in that class, but he claimed he learned how to cook some Indian dishes. When we were dating, he tried to impress me with his cooking. He exhausted himself in the kitchen for over an hour, and he served me a steamed chicken with green grape dish topped with all kinds of Indian spices. (He likes to use all of them in the same dish - in fact, in every dish.) The entire kitchen counter top was completely covered with spices and debris. I barely ate the dinner and decided to end his cooking career by marrying him. Mike has not cooked another Indian dish since.

We all take too many little things for granted, and sometimes we forget to thank others for what they have done for us. Cooking is just one example of how Mike and I learned to communicate with each other and understand the important things in a marriage - compliment and appreciate each other at every opportunity and have a sense of humor, even when I learned after 18 years that Mike doesn't like rice. Best of all, I learned what to serve him for dinner when

I'm not happy with him!

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Changing Environments

My wife has been telling me for some time that the environment that the boys are in is critical. She finally convinced our younger son to change his school environment for 10th grade and the change thus far has been remarkable.

Previously he was in a very strict parochial school that did not fit his personality. He did not care for school, did a minimum of homework, rarely studied, did not make good grades and regularly got detention for trivial things like talking in class.

In his new school (also parochial), he now starts at 6:30 a.m. running cross country, stays until at least 5:30 every day, studies a couple of hours every night, and is making good grades. He has also joined a couple of clubs and recently went to a community service function where he danced with mentally disabled people. Part of his improvement is the school, but a large part is the people he is around; for example, even though the school provided the opportunity for the dance, it was his friends that got him to go.

One of my son's friends from his previous school was also a poor student and "trouble maker." He started this same new school as a 9th grader and was immediately elected class president. He also was the lead actor in the school play and a star on the track team. The change in this boy was dramatic. He was nobody at a high school with 200 students and now he is a popular and outstanding student in a high school of 600 students.

There was not necessarily anything wrong with the previous school. Many students thrive in that environment and my 12th grader is doing fairly well there because he is math and computer-oriented, areas in which the school is strong.

In fact, my 12th grader started that school in 5th grade, and came from a public school where he had been doing poorly. Thus this school was well suited for him. Unfortunately, it was not appropriate for my younger son.

So, I have to admit that my wife was right in wanting to change our younger son's school environment. And, I can't say enough about how his outlook on life has changed. This could be the single most important decision we have made in his educational career and I wouldn't have thought of it without her. My attitude would have been to change the child not the school. However, changing the school turned out to be so much easier.

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Father and Son Trip

Recently, friends invited us to drive from Houston and join them for the San Antonio International Piano Competition. The finals were on Friday - a school day (and Halloween). So I asked my boys if either would like to skip a day of school to go. Fortunately my high school senior, John, said he would go, mostly because he liked our friends who asked him personally.

This precipitated an argument with my wife over whether this was a good reason to skip school. She felt that school was more important, whereas I thought that a chance to talk to my son for 6 hours plus see several incredibly good pianists would have more value than a typical day at school.

It looked like it would be more complicated when my son got invited by girls to two different Halloween parties. Now he would be missing both school AND a Halloween party. I was very proud of him for telling them he could not go without even trying to get out of the trip.

We talked all 6 hours of the drive both ways. At one point he turned the radio on to music, but I asked if we could turn it off and he said ok. He had a list of words he was studying for the SAT test. He read to me words that he already knew and words he did not. I was very surprised and pleased to find what a large vocabulary he has - particularly because he does not read much.

He said he wants to major in business in college so we talked a lot about business - something we had never done before because he had shown no interest. This led to talking about college courses that would be most beneficial for business and thus our first significant conversation about college.

We talked some about girls. I was surprised about some of the things he told me (without mentioning any names). I was pleased that he seemed to have some analytical ability when it comes to girls and will likely have good judgement in the future.

We saw four pianists play one hour each performing several major works from memory. He said it was "ok." Because it was in a small university concert hall and we were close to the pianists, it was an experience he may never have again and hopefully was an illustration of what hard work looks like.

The next day back in Houston, everything was back to normal again. I cannot compete for his attention in our every day environment where a really good conversation would be five minutes. I talked to a friend who took a college tour with his son. His experience was similar. They talked a lot during the trip, but when they returned home, everything went back to the way it was.

I very much enjoyed our trip together. Fortunately, my wife agrees that this trip turned out to be a day well spent.

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Teaching My Boys Value

Like many children in America today, my boy s have grown up without many hardships. Therefore, we have endeavored to create some obstacles for them.

In this newsletter about a year ago I related how I would not buy my then 11th grader a car, but that an adult friend had convinced him to negotiate with me, which I did. If he met 2 out of 3 goals that I chose, I would get him a $6,000 car.

One goal was a certain score on the SAT test. He did not study for the test and missed the goal by 15 points. No car. He tries to make me feel guilty that everyone but him has a car, but still: no car. Had he learned the lesson from the adult who told him to negotiate, he could have negotiated for a car by now by accomplishing something I regard as worthwhile. However, he did not perservere, but rather waits for a car to show up. We insist that he learn that the car will NOT show up.

He also does not have a cell phone, and we don't have cable TV. He wants to know why. Our response is: "we don't need them; if you want them, buy them yourself". He does not want to buy them himself. To us, this is a great lesson. If he doesn't think they are worth spending money on, why should we?

He wants to attend private or out-of-state colleges which cost 2 to 4 times what Texas state schools such as Texas A&M, UT, and Texas Tech cost. He is currently miffed that we won't pay for any of these more expensive schools. We told him to get an academic scholarship or get a job if he thought the more expensive schools were worth the premium.

This may sound harsh on our part, but we don't have, and he has not furnished us with, any information to justify paying 4 times what a top school like the University of Texas costs. It is simply a question of value. If he wants to waste money, we feel it should be his money.

That is the best way to learn about value. We haven't won the battle yet, but we are not giving up. He repeatedly sees how my wife and I value things so it should be a part of his subconscience when he is grown. He also sees me work hard at running a business and engaging in hobbies. He sees my wife working for years to get an advanced degree. He sees very little of anything that appears easy. Therefore, we think he will eventually learn that whatever he wants, he must work for.

A very small victory for us the other day was seeing him and his 10th grade brother watch a movie in French with English subtitles even though the DVD had an option to watch with English voices dubbed in. They thought the value of having the lips synchronized with the speech was worth the extra effort to read subtitles. I was quite surprised, but very pleased to see them make that much effort to watch a movie.

Let's cross our fingers that they soon realize that nothing is free in this world and they have to work for things just like we did.

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A College Visit with My Son

My high school senior and I recently took a formal visit of a university together. It was an all day affair with one track for the admitted students and one track for parents.

Starting home in the car on the three hour trip, he turns on his music. Rather than telling him to turn it off so we could talk, I just turned it down so we could hear each other.

We started comparing our experiences for the day and perhaps he forgot that the music was turned down, or perhaps he was enjoying the conversation. In any event, he never turned it back up and we talked the entire trip. I asked him questions about what he had learned and told him what I had learned. It turns out many of the things I had learned were not covered in his sessions so he was actually interested in them.

This seems like a very good way to have a conversation with a teenager. Most teenagers (I assume), don't want to be lectured by us but don't like to be questioned by us either. format was simply talking about an experience that we each had independently that was of some interest to him. I discussed my day's experience, occasionally gave an opinion and also tied in some of my life experience. He didn't seem to mind listening to some of my experience as long as it tied into what we were talking about and didn't seem to be a lecture.

It turns out that he liked this school and has decided to go to it thus ending our college tour at the first school.

One thing all of the students on campus emphasized was that you had to get your priorities straight and budget your time. I had told him I would get him a $10,000 car if he made a 3.0 GPA his first semester, but he was not pleased about that. After the tour he admitted that he would have to make some transitions from his high school study behavior to succeed and that perhaps a car the first semester would be a distraction. I was impressed with his understanding.

This With teenagers, it seems there are so few opportunities to talk without distractions that long trips in the car seem to be one particularly good way to communicate with them.

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Final Chapter on My Son and a Car

After nearly two years of not meeting the requirements to get a car, I made my 18 year old son another offer. I started by asking him how long he would have to work at Wal- Mart for $6.50 per hour to earn a $15,000 car.

He answered 2,400 hours. I then asked how long that would take at 20 hours per week.

He responded 2.4 years.

Having gotten his attention with 2.4 years, I told him that if he would read 500 hours of books that I wanted him to read, I would give him $15,000 for a car. He thought that sounded doable, so he agreed to do it. However, he sat on the offer for 3 months. With 6 weeks left until college started, he decided to start working on getting his car but realized the $15,000 car would now be impossible. So I cut the reading back to 300 hours for a $9,000 car.

He then read from midnight to 7 a.m. every day for the next six weeks, slept until mid afternoon, and went out with his friends in the early evening. I picked books from a wide variety of literature, psychology, business, self-improvement, etc. and quizzed him just enough to make sure he had read the books.

He met his requirements on the day before he had to leave for college, selected a car, and went to buy it, but upon requesting a CarFax report, found that the car had been flooded. It was now too late to find another car before leaving for college.

So he went off to college without a car. But the story has a happy ending: he came back the next weekend and bought his car.

He's probably not too fond of me for making him work so hard for his car since none of his friends had to work at all for theirs. And sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing since not giving him a car made him the only high school senior without a car and thus "different" from the other kids. Logically he didn't need a car since he lives 3 miles from school and had the use of my car evenings and weekends. But emotionally he doesn't think it is fair compared to what the other parents did.

Time will tell if I did the right thing or not. I'm just glad that he finally earned his car.

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Our Teenager's Curfews

One of the issues that has gone surprisingly well raising our teenage boys is that of the curfew. I say surprisingly well because they say most of the other kids have curfews much later than ours so you would think they would be upset with our early curfews.

We require that they be home by 11:00 p.m. on the few week nights that they have a fairly good reason to be out that late. On Friday and Saturday night they have to be back by 12:00 unless there is some special reason for them to be out until 1:00a.m. The bars let out in Houston at 2:00 a.m., so they understand why we do not want them driving at that time.

What is surprising is that neither boy has any problem with these curfews. Other than an occasional remark about our early curfews, they don't complain. One is a high school junior and the other is now a college freshman who no longer lives at home, but was ok with the rules when he did. Even now, when he comes home for the weekend, he is still ok with having to be in by 1:00 a.m.

There were really three reasons why we set an early curfew: (1) we wanted them to be home before we went to bed, (2) we wanted to help them get 7 to 8 hours of sleep a night in their formative years before college, and (3) we just didn't see any good reason to be out much past midnight.

We had the same issue with "sleepovers" when they were younger. We would have as many as 25 kids and we required them to go to sleep by 1:00 a.m. We did this after we learned at our first sleepover that many of the kids would not go to sleep at all if you didn't make them. One year we called the parents of two of the boys to come pick them up at 1:15 a.m. when they wouldn't be quiet (we actually did what we said we would do). Every year after that, they promptly went to bed and were quiet at 1:00 a.m.

I don't know whether we are just lucky, or whether the 6 or 7 years of restrictions on sleepovers set the stage for when they started driving.

So if your child says other kids have very late curfews, while that appears to be true for some, I'm sure some others do not. And someone always has to have the earliest curfew. Don't feel bad if it's you.

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More Contrast in Schools

I remarked in the past how our younger son, now a junior in high school, changed schools last year and that it has made a dramatic change in his life. The change is so dramatic, I wish to talk more about it.

At his previous school he got detention regularly for talking in class and had no TV privileges at home as a punishment for not making the honor roll.

Since switching schools, he now finds that merely being on the honor roll is not enough.

He said too many people are on the honor roll and when they call out the names of those people with honors, he wants to be one of the few that are on the Dean's List. So he has worked very hard the 1st semester of this year to make straight A's. He just got the grades in the mail this week and saw that he made it and gave an excited, "Yes!"

Some of you may think, "what's the big deal making the Dean's List, my daughter does it all of the time". The big deal is that we're talking about someone who went many years without ever even making the honor roll, someone who was in detention almost every day, someone who absolutely refused to study, and someone who was frequently angry because he didn't get to watch TV.

I would like to claim credit for the change as a result of our brilliant parenting. However, nothing that we do or offer to do for him has changed. The only difference is his own self motivation. My wife gets credit for suggesting that he change schools and I get credit for agreeing. That is all that we have done. But it was enough.

I'm sure that simply changing schools is not sufficient for most kids to prosper. We were lucky in that he changed to the right school.

At the time he thought he wanted to be a film director and what attracted him to the school was that they had a blue screen. He is still into film, but this year thinks he wants to be an attorney and has joined the debate club and the mock trial club. The important thing is that he feels empowered and is driving his own future rather than doing what he thinks mom and dad want him to do.

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Laundry Lessons

by Sophie Rydin, HCSS Vice President

After reading Mike's last few articles about curfews and car issues with our teenage sons, I thought I'd relate my attempts at a more gentle approach.

In preparation for college, our son John needed to learn how to do his own laundry. Trying to give him more responsibility, I let him choose when to do that. He rewarded my trust by waiting to the last moment. Nevertheless, he eventually came to me for his laundry lesson that started with reading the labels and sorting out clothes for dry cleaning, machine wash, and hand wash.

I told John my favorite story about Mike and dry cleaning to ensure he would not make the same mistakes. When we first got married, Mike volunteered to do our laundry to impress me because he had been doing his own for years. He threw everything in the washing machine without reading the labels. When he took my nice cashmere sweater out of the dryer, it was small enough to fit a doll. Obviously Mike never had any clothes that needed special treatment and I wouldn't dream of letting him touch my clothes again.

I tried to make the laundry lesson fun and a special time for us. Instead of telling him what to do I explained to him sorting principles and then quizzed him about what clothes should be sorted together. He actually seemed to enjoy our little game. He was particularly interested in fabric softener because girls in his class had commented on how nice his clothes smelled so he wanted to be able to keep getting that kind of attention.

To make him pay attention to wrinkles, I told him that if he left the laundry in the dryer too long, he would have to wash the clothes all over again. One day he went screaming into the laundry room saying "Oh, no!" I followed him to see what happened and he said he had left the laundry in the dryer for 7 hours and would have to wash it all over again. Knowing that he had learned his lesson, I told him that he could just turn the dryer back on for 10 minutes to get rid of the wrinkles.

One thing I couldn't resist doing was buying little name tags to iron onto his clothes. Now if anyone finds his underwear, they will know whose it is. He didn't seem to be too pleased about that, but he left the name tags on. Maybe I went too far there being motherly.

On judgement day, his first day of laundry at school, John called me 4 times during that day for help. "The school does not have a Maytag Neptune washer and dryer so I don't know how to set all of the dials", was his first frustration. I was surprised that he expected Maytag Neptunes at school, but then I guess if you had never bought a washer and dryer, you really wouldn't know that all washers are not the same. So he had to read me all of the dials and buttons on his washer so I could tell him what to do. He successfully completed four loads of laundry that day. Mission accomplished.

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More Lessons from a Car

by Mike Rydin, HCSS President

You may recall from previous newsletters that my son failed to meet the requirements of a $15,000 car and had to settle for starting college last year with a $9,000 car he really didn't like.

To encourage him to study hard as a freshman, I told him I would upgrade his car if he made a 3.0 GPA. When he did that, he apparently expected a $15,000 car, but instead he got the extra $6,000 he would have had with our original deal. He took his existing car to CarMax and found that his $9,000 car was only worth $5,000. He was therefore going to end up with the equivalent of only an $11,000 car. He was unhappy about it, but from my point of view, he was learning another lesson about cars - they depreciate, and free market economics - the car is only worth what someone will pay for it. I also wanted him to suffer some penalty for not initially working hard enough for his car.

However, there is a happy ending for all concerned. He found a Mitsubishi 3000 GT on eBay in a city in Texas, had a friend drive him there to check it out, and came home with his dream car for under $10,000 and with only 30,000 miles on it. Although it has 220 horsepower, it is not too fast and is not rated as a sports car for insurance, hence we are happy also.

Because it is the car that he wants, he now takes care of it much better than his previous car. He has put in an alarm system, tinted the windows, changed the oil, and is now looking for new tires. It's been a long struggle, but he has the car that he wants through hard work over a two-year period.

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My Boys and Dogs

by Mike Rydin, HCSS President

Dogs have been a significant part of my life since I was in college. In fact, I was probably a more than average self-centered college student until I ended up with a dog. Since I had worked since I was 12, I was already a responsible person, but being responsible for a dog that had feelings was a totally different experience. After the experience with the dog, I became a lot better dealing with humans also.

Consequently, I wanted my boys to grow up with dogs because I thought it would be beneficial. Even if they are not actually responsible for a dog, I see the following benefits:

• When playing, they are thinking of someone other than themselves
• They always have someone to be affectionate with (good for teens)
• They always have a friend
• They learn to be nice and not hurt the dog
• The dog always likes them even when they think their parents don't
• They learn not to be afraid of dogs
• They learn how to handle other dogs they encounter

Our dogs are house dogs and have become part of our family. It is my belief that it has been a very positive experience for my boys.

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Attempting the Impossible

by Mike Rydin, HCSS President

Our second son Eric was told by his high school counselor not to aim very high for his college choices and to be sure to have a backup school that was not selective. Although Eric is not a top student, he decided he wanted to go to a top school, so he took a college bus tour of schools and decided on The College of William and Mary in Virginia.

Since I went to Oklahoma State and most people would consider me successful, I wasn't really concerned with what college Eric chose. However, I supported his desire to ignore his counselor and go after whatever school he wanted. While his SAT scores and grades did not look good enough to get into William and Mary, I felt that he would be able to make a good case to the school that they should want him. I, as an employer, would want him, so I reasoned that a school should also.

In addition to having made the Dean's list a couple of semesters, he plays soccer and volleyball, runs track, had a substantial part in a musical, and participates on the debate team and other clubs. To me that sounded pretty good. But the counselors told us that everyone who applies to a top school has all of that, at least a 4.5 grade average (out of 4), as well as being class president, valedictorian, etc.

So Eric set about his sophomore year to improve his resume. He volunteered for the Special Olympics, taught in an elementary school one summer, was a tour guide at the children's museum another summer, went to several leadership conferences, visited with W&M representatives both times they came to school, and went to visit in Virginia a second time so they would know that he really wanted to go there.

He also signed up for every Advanced Placement class that was available to him his senior year regardless of whether he had any interest in the subject. Part of his plan was to apply Early Decision because he reasoned that he would be competing with fewer people. The only thing I could fault him for on this quest was that he did not study for the SAT and thus was not able to raise his SAT score.

Eric spent dozens and dozens of hours working on his admissions material including using his film background to make an impressive video presentation. The presentation package went way overboard and when we saw it, my wife and I thought that W&M was either going to think he was weird or that he badly wanted to go there.

On December 1st, he got the much awaited letter. He was in!

I was very proud of Eric for setting out to achieve what appeared to be an impossible goal, taking systematic steps towards it, and making it. Later I talked to other students who applied to top colleges and they said they did not do anything out-of-the-ordinary on their applications. Several of them did not get into their preferred schools.

So perhaps showing a huge interest is a key to getting into the college of your choice.

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Yet Another Lesson on the Car

by Mike Rydin, HCSS President

In a previous newsletter I recounted how my older son finally had his dream car. I too was excited about it because it had taken him a substantial effort to earn it. Unfortunately he got into an accident on the freeway and totaled the car (he was not hurt).

He did not get enough insurance money to adequately replace the car. Rather than waiting until he had enough money to buy an equivalent car, he bought an older higher mileage version of the same car on eBay for a lot less money. I didn’t approve, but figured he would now get a chance to learn about the cost of an old car.

It happened sooner than I expected. It broke down driving home from college and he had to pay $450 to have it towed to Houston. When he was told it would cost $1,700 to minimally fix it, he took it to CarMax and received an offer of $2,500 for it.

Since I gave him a total of $16,000 and he put $2,000 of his own money into his cars, he has turned $18,000 into $2,500 in less than two years.

It concerns me that John makes one mistake after another and doesn’t seem to learn anything from them judging from the fact that he usually blames someone or something else and never admits that he has made a mistake. My wife, on the other hand, is more sensitive and patient with John, and thinks that he is learning from his mistakes, but is too proud to admit it. She thinks this is part of his developmental process to adulthood and that he needs to internalize his own life experiences including mistakes to learn the lessons in his own way.

So when he waited until 1:00 am to start his drive back to San Antonio from Houston with a car that barely ran, and it broke down after an hour and he and his girlfriend were stuck in the middle of nowhere, we got up at 2:00 am to take him my 1999 sedan to trade him cars so he could get back to school. He seemed to appreciate it and he didn’t blame me for his car breakdown, so maybe my wife is correct and he is making progress.

To show John our support during these trying times we are letting him keep my sedan, which, although he doesn’t consider it cool, is a much nicer car than any of the three cars that he has owned so far.

It is certainly frustrating though as a parent to watch a child learn everything the hard way, but perhaps my wife is right about John. She thinks that to learn well he has to fail many times to internalize the lessons and that following our advice is not really the best way for him to learn. Hopefully John learns to share his problems with us and let us help him develop his problem solving skills. Most of all, we hope that he learns that we love him and want to see him succeed.

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Working at HCSS with My Wife

by Mike Rydin, HCSS President

My wife, Sophie, joined HCSS 15 years ago. She was an occupational therapist and manager of a rehabilitation clinic, but I needed her at HCSS to run the administrative side of the business. Since then she has worked tirelessly to make HCSS a great place to work.

In the last newsletter we noted that Texas Monthly Magazine had awarded us #24 of the 50 Best Places to Work in Texas. Below is a picture of Sophie with Texas Governor Rick Perry. The 50 companies were invited to take pictures with the governor, but upon arriving learned that individual pictures only applied to the 1st three companies. However, Sophie managed to get hers. So in the end, companies #1, #2, #3, and #24 got their pictures taken with the governor. Way to go Sophie! I am so proud of her.

When Sophie joined the company, she immediately found us health insurance even though there were only 7 or 8 employees at the time. For years now, she has seen to it that we have had top quality health, dental, and vision insurance. She has also brought in medical personnel to speak, brought in a local hospital to do annual health assessments, provides annual flu shots, and sponsors weight reduction and smoking cessation programs.

Because of her we now have an aerobics instructor in the office three times per week, company-sponsored softball and indoor soccer teams, and company paid entry fees for employees and their families to run/walk in 5K/10K events. Sophie has even arranged a new health care plan where if all 78 employees reach a minimal level of fitness, our insurance premiums will go down 10% next year!

Sophie and I have had offices next to each other for the entire 15 years. We see each other all of the time and enjoy spending a lot of time day and night trying to figure out how to improve the company. Unfortunately for me, Sophie will be getting her PhD in Occupational Therapy in December and will start as a professor at Texas Women’s University in January. However, she will still work at HCSS part-time to keep us ship-shape.

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The Final Chapter

by Mike Rydin, HCSS President

Since both of my boys are now in college, this will be my last regular article about my experiences with them as they grew up.

My column got started innocently enough back in 1996 when I discovered that my 3rd grade son was not learning much in school and enrolled him in a supplemental math program which did wonders for him. I wrote an article about the math program that resulted in over 200 calls to them indicating to me that I wasn’t the only one having these kinds of problems. So I wrote a follow-up article giving more information. As customers kept telling me they liked these articles, I kept writing about the difficulties I was having raising my boys.

I worked very hard trying to give my boys advantages that I never had. Unfortunately, most of my attempts were only partly successful which you know if you have been reading these articles. Nevertheless, they have both turned out to be fine young men and are positioned to do well in life. So while I was unable to help them take a fast track to success, I am still very happy with how they have turned out.

One of the biggest mistakes I believe that I made was not reading enough with them when they were young – I sort of assumed that was the school’s responsibility. Possibly that is why neither boy is a reader. In my opinion, reading is the fastest and easiest way to knowledge. Learning from other people’s experience avoids having to learn everything the hard way and learning what many other people know gives many more options in solving the problems that come up in life. When the boys were young, I was working 120 hours per week, but in retrospect, it wouldn’t have hurt me to spend 30 minutes per night reading with them.

Of course reading seems pretty dull compared to all of the multimedia available to children today, so I may still have failed. But it looks even harder now with new distractions such as iPods, camera phones with text messaging, MySpace, and YouTube. I’d like to think that a lot of this multimedia is educational, but most of it seems to me to lose any educational value after about a week and then just becomes an addiction.

Thanks to all of our customers over the years who have encouraged me to keep writing these articles, and thanks especially to my wife Sophie, who helps make running a business fun and rewarding, and has helped me raise two fine young men.