I realize this is a potentially nosy question, but I’m not talking about what you pay in childcare or how much your nanny costs or anything like that. I’m talking, you and your man want to go out to dinner and you get the neighbor girl, the daycare teacher, or your cousin’s daughter to come over and watch your kids. How much do you pay her or him? Perhaps more importantly, how much do you tip? The other night, I arranged to go to a cooking class with some friends. Based on my son having school and my usual watchers being unavailable, I realized I needed to move into the babysitter world. I …

Does your child think he is fat? A growing number of children, usually pre-adolescent and adolescent girls, believe they are overweight – but they aren’t. This reality came to my attention when my 8, almost 9-year-old son, who weighs 45 pounds, told me he didn’t want to eat his dinner because he did not want to be fat. I was miffed by the comment. Of all the things my son is having to worry about, weight is not a concern I have for him. Actually I monitor him to ensure he is gaining weight (one of the side effects of some of the medication he takes is that it causes a weight decrease at least…

The economy is rough everywhere and while Caledonia has low unemployment, Racine is at 14 percent unemployment. This makes finding job opportunities difficult. I worked in Brookfield for three and a half years before I was laid off and let me say, being a single parent with a commute that long is difficult. Here’s the deal, I do not want to commute to work anymore. More than that, I only want to work when my son is in school, which was what I had before my old company started to go under. Here are some options, I have considered working from home, starting my own business, making odd cash …

As a generation, we are trying hard to be the best parents we possibly can. This daunting task is being made even more difficult because we Americans have unwittingly bought into the idea that an over-scheduled, frenetic, hyper-parenting child rearing style is the best way to raise children. Actually, rearing kids in this way has damaged our family lives and has harmed our children’s capacity to create and to be self-reliant. Parents often wonder, at what age my child should begin an activity? But are we too focused on activities? This is especially common when children are in sports because …

Perceptions can be very misleading, especially when you have limited information. I went out this week and visited three public schools, Starbuck, Gilmore, and McKinley. Equipped with my perceptions and the WKCE test results, I went to the schools prepared for the unexpected. Recall if you can the scene from “Lean on Me” with Morgan Freeman where he walks into Eastside High school and no one is in class. The hallways are loud, rowdy, and full of mayhem. This is what I expected to see when touring Racine’s middle schools. I am not sure why I thought it, but I did. So as me and some other …

Waiting for Superman is a controversial movie that has made its way to the local Redbox. I picked it on Tuesday, and watched it on Wednesday. I was saddened to watch many children who have dreams of grandeur waiting on the lottery. Now without even seeing this movie, think of the local lottery. You buy a ticket, and you have a one and a million chance of winning. This is the case for many charter schools, and the chance for our children to get a good education can all come down to luck. But I don’t wantt that for him. So I am looking for a school for my son, I decided to look into charter …

When you have a child with special needs the search for schools becomes that much more difficult. In an ideal setting, I would send my son to a private school and that would be the end of it. But here is the issue my son has special needs and he requires additional assistance, which is not always readily available in a private school. So then I wondered, if a private school possibly can’t meet his needs and public could aggravate the situation, what are some different education options that I may wish to consider? I have not ruled any schools specifically in or out. But I realize with the …

As parents, we try to give our children the best advantages we can.  We look for the best schools, sports teams, and extra curricular activities that are available to our children.   Some parents believe that the steps and advantages that they provide to their children now will have a significant impact on which they will become.  There is one main concern for many parents: middle school. I am particularly concerned about middle school as I have a child who needs more individualized attention. To begin, the first place I started was to gain a quantitative measure of the middle schools.  I …

Are you a parent of a student at Gifford?  Or perhaps you are one of the many unlucky motorists who travel down Hwy K at school dismissal time?  The chaos, confusion, and unsafe driving practices leave most drivers unnerved. I’ll paint a clear picture for you:  As you pull onto school, property there’s a two-lane circle to the left and a parking lot to the right.  Above said circle is for drop off and pick up; curb side lane allows children to exit and enter vehicles safely and the other lane for cars to exit.  Ideally, vehicles should follow the circle around and exit right, turning onto …