| Message from the President Tired of Political
Campaigns? Think About This
Have you heard this?
Whootie Owl's Script
Writing Contest
Competition
So Much to Do...So
Little Time
Outsmarting Stress
September Links |
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So Much to Do...So Little Time
 In the fast-paced world in which we live, adults often are
hard pressed to find the time to work, manage a household, raise a family and pursue
leisure activities....all within the confines of a 24 - hour day. Children are no
different. Between going to school, doing homework, working part time, visiting with
friends, attending athletic practice, participating in school clubs, taking music or dance
lessons, doing household chores and watching a favorite television......a child can find
himself without a minute to spare during a typical day.
Children need their parents’ help in
learning how to organize their time. By equipping them with some vital time management
skills now, they will be better prepared to meet the increasing demands placed on their
lives as they grow older.
- Weekly chart. Map out a schedule
each week, with specific times allotted for school, homework, work, chores,
extracurricular activities, television, dating and going out with friends.
- Permanent work space. By
mid-elementary age, your child should have his own palace for studying.
- Organized notebooks.
- Regular homework time
- Learning comes first. If your
child starts producing incomplete assignments, neglecting his homework or slacking off in
his grades, it is time to make hip drop some activities. If schoolwork improves, he can
resume the disrupted activity.
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It is back to school time again. We’ve enjoyed watching
the youngsters in the neighborhood prepare for another year. It seems their back packs get
bigger every year. I wonder what all that weight is doing to their backs. 
About half of the
teachers we have worked with, really "get" the importance of a unified district
curriculum plan. The others, while going through the mechanics of curriculum planning and
development, are more content to keep to their routines and continue to use what has
worked for them in the past. They tend to mistrust what appears as a change in the status
quo. This creates problems for districts and schools that want to coordinate and have an
articulated curriculum throughout the grade levels. Well intentioned though they may be,
the days of going into a classroom and doing what "one" deems best, must give
way to programs that serve all of the children in the district throughout the grades. All
instruction should be coordinated with a district or school curricular plan.
"Human history becomes more and more a race between
education and catastrophe." 
Does using shorter sentences
and smaller words make a political candidate more attractive to voters? According to a new
study by two college researchers, it makes candidates more successful in getting their
messages across to voters. Mary-Ann Leon and T. Harrell Allen of California State
Polytechnic University studied the speeches of President Bush and Michael Dukakis during
their two 1988 debates: They found: Bush’s remarks scored at the 8th grade
level....making them clear to more than two-thirds of the audience. Dukakis tested at the
10th and 12th grade levels....comprehensible to less than 50 percent
of Americans. The difference: Dukakis used longer, more complex sentences and words than
Bush did.
Puberty is when
your youngster stops asking where he came from and refuses to tell you where he is going.
We are pleased to announce a
fairytale script writing contest that will showcase the creative talents of young writers.
Absolutely Whootie: Stories to Grow By 
With the beginning of school, comes another season of
sports of all kinds for our youngsters. We have come to believe that competition is good
for us. But research show that "offensive competition." which involves
aggressive gamesmanship, can be counterproductive. A study conducted at the University of
Texas disclosed that people who were more concerned with winning than with performing well
had lower levels of achievement. If you are competitive or your child is competitive,
consider the following:
Do not let your child over structure her time after school
and on weekends. Children need a few moments to wind down between activities. Encourage
them to have a healthy snack, listen to music or read a magazine before rushing off to
soccer practice or a music lesson. Remember that part of the joy in being young is the
freedom to do nothing at all. 
Relieve stress by understanding which brain hemisphere is
stressed. If you feel depressed or emotionally overwrought, your stress is in the right
hemisphere....the creative, emotional, holistic side. 
If you feel time-stressed and overburdened, the left
hemisphere is involved. Switch to your right brain by singing or playing a sport. 
Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not
every teacher can make him learn. He will not work joyously unless he feels that liberty
is his, whether he is busy or at rest; he must feel the flush of victory and the
hear-sinking of disappointment before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful to him
and resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull routine of textbooks.
