This morning as I was getting ready for school I watched, as I always do, "Today on NBC." While I was watching I saw two things that really caught my attention. First was a story about a softball player who hit a homerun and then injured her knee on the way to first base. She couldn't run and it was against the rules for her teammates to carry her, so the opposing team carried her around the bases. Now I know that there are some people who maintain that she should've drug herself around the bases to score and not relied on anyone else...those people have the opinion that American's are too soft...we need to toughen up and "pick ourselves up by the boot straps and do it ourselves." I mean, after all, Kerri Strugg vaulted and landed without a hop, skip, or jump to clinch the gold medal for the American team in the 1996, and she had a broken foot, right?
What's wrong, though, with teaching our kids that it's ok to help someone? There's a saying that goes "It takes a village to raise a child"...well, I maintain that it takes a village just to survive. Our world is getting smaller and smaller and we are connected by the internet...why can't we go deeper than half-hearted communication and get involved with each other? Bravo to the girls who carried their opponent around the diamond! They just get it!
The second thing that caught my attention was this: A teenager (13 years old) was at home when two people broke into her house to burglarize it. The smart girl that she is decided that if the burglars were going to steel things they would go through the closet in her room, so she hid under the covers in her bed...I'm assuming that she has a big, fluffy comforter that could hide a person. Ok...I get that and I'm impressed that she thought about that. This is the part I don't get...rather than use her cell to call 911, she texts her mother...who is at work 15 minutes away. Why??? Why would she do that? I talked to my students about it because they are old enough to be at home alone now. I said "FIRST...be SURE all the doors are locked! SECOND...don't text your mom...call 911!" I explained that as a mother I would really want to know what was going on with my children, but that there were some instances that I'm not trained to help them in! I do not have a clue how to rescue my children from a fire safely, how to repair severly damaged body parts, or how to stop thieves or robbers from getting my stuff. I could ram their vehicle with mine...that's what this mom did...and I might even wrestle with someone, but I can't arrest them...I'm tough, but not that tough.
Please make sure you are talking to your kids about this stuff. It's a scary world we live in!
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