On the Young Wan and the doggie

I STARTED this post with the Young Wan writing random things about our doggie and then realised before I do that I should actually do it about the Young Wan and finish with the doggie. Although Honey the dog is part of the family, she is not top of the pecking order so it is over to the Young Wan;

On the Young Wan:

• She is an absolute stunner, I know all parents think this, but it is true.
• She listens to music that make my ears want to bleed.
• She has lost countless numbers of my CDs as well as scratching and ruining them.
• Her approach and easy nature with all sorts of people is something to see indeed. She is amazing.
• She makes me lovely cups of tea at the weekend.
• She is very funny.
• There is perfectly round oil stain on our high ceiling from when she threw a dollop of butter up there. I didn't find that funny at all.
  
• She also talks a lot of teen rambling nonsense.
• Sometimes her make up is too heavy and then other times I think WOW I can’t let her out of this flat.
• Her room is currently the biggest kip in the world, seriously it really is.
• When she was three she emptied our bean-bag and pushed the polystyrene balls around every corner and nook and cranny of the living room, I kept finding them for months.
• She could say I love you from she was under a year old.
• She has always been an affectionate and loving child.
• She is silently stubborn.
• She thinks I am a pain in the arse.
• She is a great reader except for the fact she often reads Harry Potter over and over and over again.
• At the age of 7 to 8 she had a reading capacity which matched 12 year olds according to school tests.
• She is very quick minded and smart.
• She is a wanna-be goth.
• She hates me saying that, which makes me say it all the more.
• She is a lot of fun.
• She is a great travelling companion.
• She has travelled much more than I have.
• She has two boyfriends on the go at the moment.
• She speaks Irish, I don’t.
• She loves YouTube.
• She is growing up too fast.
  

On the Doggie

• When we are having dinner she does this mad roll around the floor bending about the place move while making all sorts of doggie noises, she stops and then looks at you as if to say ‘aren’t I really cute?
• When she wants to get up on a Saturday morning as you are trying to have a lie-in, she will sit right up at/on your head touching your nose with her nose.
• Sometimes she has a complete small dog syndrome and barks like crazy at big dogs walking past.
• She has regular wars with our cushions and pillows, I think she wins.
• She knows a couple of tricks including roll-over, walking on two legs, burling, give me five and we are working on more.
• When she thinks she is going to get a lovely treat and you say ‘sit’ she gets all excited and does all her tricks at once in record speed, it is so funny.
• She will sit and let kids pat her too hard, pull her tail, slobber over her because she loves being loved by wee people.
• She loses all rhyme and reason around footballs. When she sees people playing with one she will howl, pull away hard, go mental to play too.
• She has burst every ball belonging to my pal’s kids and I should say a couple of pal’s kids. Once again sorry!

• She can’t swim but she kinda likes the sea.
• When I am not home she apparently runs to the window with every bus that passes.
• She recognises suitcases being packed and does not like it.
• She isn’t too fond of her travel backpack but associates it with going to a beach sometimes.
• She loves the beach.
• She can get travel sick.
• We get the best welcome home in the world ever, every night.
• She loves apples and will play with it like a football, take a bite and play some more.
• She would play all night and all day if you let her.
• She loves chasing pigeons.
• When she is allowed to sleep with me she will force me somehow away from my side of the bed while I am sleeping.
• Sometimes I wake up in the morning and she is lying with her head on the pillow beside me.
• Her hair/fur is everywhere, everywhere.
  

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs daughter doggie

Young in ears - RM column June 29

JUST before Christmas I wrote here that all I wanted for Christmas was the Mosquito.

This is a device which emits a sound that young people under a certain age find very uncomfortable to hear and is being used to deter groups of young people from congregating outside shops and places like that.

Apparently the Mosquito’s effects were so strong in a Spar shop in Wales where it was being tested that teenagers would come in with their fingers in their ears pleading for the machine to be turned off.

At the time I stood up for young people and called the brains behind the venture as a killjoy. Because while I can understand how teenagers can appear threatening it does not follow that they are, far from it.

What else is there to do in many areas except hang about when you are a teenager? I did it myself and the worst thing we did was pool out money together so we could collectively buy the whole gang a Mars Bar.

How and ever that was then and this is now.

Looking through the Sunday papers I spotted that some bright spark has decided to take this idea, turn it on it’s head and develop it as a ring tone for young people that only they can hear.

The ‘Mozzy Tone’ or ‘Teen Buzz’ as the ringtones are called have since been reclaimed by the original inventor who have come up with their own version called the ‘Mosquitotone’.

The tone works because of something called ‘presbycusis’ or aging ear and it operates by emitting ultra high-pitched sounds that most people over 20 cannot hear.

The practical uses for this for the anxty teen are limitless I suppose but I can only think of being able to get text messages in school while being taught by an older teacher.

If you are interested in whether or not you have an old ear you can listen to it on the internet.

I tried as an experiment with the Young Wan only she didn’t hear it. The dog did and I felt/heard something however the Young Wan was oblivious.

I went to the page on the internet (which I discovered via Gary Shewan's blog who was also writing about it) and I turned down the telly to get it’s full effect.

Then I asked the Young Wan ‘did you hear that’ and she looked at me with that expression akin to cows looking over a hedge saying ‘erhm hear what?’.

I personally heard an uncomfortable high-pitched noise that hurt my ears, the dog didn’t like it either. So where does that leave the ringtone. It would certainly appear to be useless for some people and particularly for those with dogs because they will alert older people to the sound.

And why didn’t the Young Wan hear it, or maybe she is older in her ears than she is in her years.

(You can listen to the tone here .)

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo June 29

Bits and pieces and Bryan Adams too RM column June 22

[Another cogged together column which some may have seen her already.]

BEHIND my cooker is one of those moveable butchers block (well in fairness that is a VERY big description for something so very small) but anyway behind the moveable storage yoke are things like my massive soup pot and other kitchen implements because I have nowhere in the corner that is my kitchen to store them.

And this unit is packed nearly flat against the back of the cooker and wedged at the corner of my bay window.

So there isn't much room in there.

I had occasion to pull the unit out recently because I dropped something behind the cooker and while retrieving it I had to pull everything out, move the table, chairs, and plant on stand. Which was probably a good thing because corners like that in our home tend to be magnetic and pull stuff from everywhere into their abyss.

Or so it would have appeared until tonight. I realise someone has been helping this magnetism with their own brand of recycling. I discovered empty yoghurt cartons, discarded by the Young Wan who somehow has an aversion to bins.

Seriously what is the deal with that? I just do not understand.

Why go to the trouble of throwing them down the back of the cooker knowing they WILL be found never mind the fact that the bin is actually closer and less hassle to throw away properly.

So I retrieved my dropped item, poured a glass of wine, sat down and informed the Young Wan the corner would be cleared of all that rubbish NOW.

I went on to add that 'if we ever get rice or mats I know who is responsible'.

Shish wish I could speak proper but at least I know that in our house I am not the only one.

The Young Wan has come up with a couple of very quotable sayings recently.

The first one is "the tears hurt my eyes" – in true wanna-be Goth style! What can you say to this except to attempt to sing it in a kinda-dark and menacing way ala Marilyn Manson

Later on I asked her: "Am I allowing you to use the phone or am I being a pain in the arse?

This was a rhetorical statement to back up the fact that she could phone her friend but she was told to rinse out the dishes first which was met with the stroppiest manner ever.

So to my question she said 'Yes'.

I replied 'pardon' and she went (louder) 'YES'.

Then she realised she was actually agreeing that I was allowing her to use the phone and I was/am a pain in the arse and laughed heartily to herself.

And why is it that at home sometimes when I ask her something she mutters, mumbles and I have to keep asking her to repeat herself louder and louder.

Yet when we are on a bus, she happily tells stories very loudly that she has to be asked ‘are you telling the whole bus or just me?’.

She also recently found the microphone of her long-abandoned karaoke machine and has been singing along to Brian Adams because *ahem* it is (allegedly) the only tape she can find.

Thankfully she has stopped serenading the street and appears instead to be making some kind of farting noise that is travelling out her bedroom window and through the air into the living room window where I am trying to chill out.

She just came in and asked me if she can sing. And she always could, though you cannot hear it from this evening's performance.

I remember during one holiday Karaoke event where she sang Leann Rimes (or however it is spelt) 'How can I live without you' where she hit perfectly and held that mad high note in 'how can I ever, ever surrRRRVIIIVVEEE'.

However her singing along with Bryan Adams has been a different matter.

She asked me can she sing and I said 'well you used to be able to, I don’t know what is happening in there now'. It appears she wasn't happy with her accompaniment to 'Summer of 69'.

“I thought I could sing, but well just then…”

Then she said 'wouldn't that be a good Redmum column? The Young Wan discovers she can't sing!

Already on it darling, already on it.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo June 22

Exam Pressures - RM column June 15

[Apologies in that this column is way out of date but it was published on June 18 and I am only get around to posting it here.]

AS some 115,000 young people sit their Junior and Leaving Cert and the sun is shining (well it is at the time of writing) exam fever is well and truly in the air.

Thankfully the Young Wan’s big and first State exams are a year away. While I do not wish to lessen the importance of class tests there is no doubt the full stress of exams has not hit the Young Wan who remains completely un-phased by it all.

Well maybe that’s just on the surface and underneath she is a bag of nerves, but I don’t really think so.

I think before her Junior Certificate next year I might audition for Big Brother to try and get away for the guts of it.

Ah but seriously I have had a job trying to get her to study and we had moments, well I say moments, it was more like Mum turning into the Incredible Hulk going bananas.

I spent the weekend telling her to get to her books and there was one stall tactic after another, and it has been this way for weeks and weeks and weeks.

At one stage over the weekend I went into her rooom and she was lying flat on her back, on the floor, book covering her face, head resting on her bed-sofa out for the count. Completely out. I was way too stressed out to even think of taking a picture but it would have been a good one.

So I roared 'Young Wan' (well I didn't I of course used her name but I did roar - I'm a mummy hear me roar) and she woke up comically only I was not in the mood for it.

As she sprung up, her legs flew up, so did the book and she shouted dazed 'what' before looking around her like she was seeing heavenly visions. Unfortunately for herself the reality was me and I was far from heavenly-looking.

I do not know which was worse the fact that no studying was being done or the fact that for the rest of the day she looked at me liked I had asked her to kill her granny.

So we have had words, did I say we? I mean I had words. Most of which concerned the fact that I was actually just asking her to try to prepare for her exams, that is my job, get over it.

So now plans are being hatched for next year and how I am going to get her into a studying routine where she will not feel under pressure so much so that she actually does nothing. Yes some people handle pressure that way, by running away.

And I am dreading next year and that’s only the Junior Cert. But the Leaving Cert is a worry for two years time, not now; I have enough on my plate as it is.

It is hard enough to do all these State exams for yourself first time around as a youngster without the worry of being a Mum and wishing you could them for your child, particularly when they are as inclined to study as I am to date Kevin Myers.

What can you do? Nothing except encourage them to study, make sure they eat and sleep well and try to make life as easy for them during these periods as possible.

But as a Mummy, here's my last word on exams AAAAaaaaarRRRrrrrrrrrrgGGGgggghHHhhh. And of course the best of luck to all of you who are sitting exams.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo June 15

Another bedroom post - RM column June 1

Those of you who swing by will be more than aware of the Messy Bedroom and I have I am sure bored any readers of my Echo column with tales as well and here is another.

Another bedroom post

The Young Wan’s bedroom has been the subject of more than one column and judging by the amount of people who come to my website looking for untidy bedrooms, I’m far from the only parent to suffer from unitiditis.

Then Nanny said she was coming to visit and she was ordered in to sort it out as Nanny stays in her room.

Twelve hours past of the Young Wan tidying which was more lifting stuff from one part of the room to another part of the room, shoving things into nooks and crannies, and storing huge amounts of stuff on her bed.

Having been popping in and out all day I didn’t really see the extent of how much energy was being wasted by not doing it properly. Until I inspected it properly at one stage and I went ballistic.

So there was only one thing for it, a real and proper clear out and if it took all night, so be it.

I cleared out all the hidey-holes, cleared the shelves of the shoved in clothes, cups and whatever else was shoved there and she ended up facing a pile which was nearly as big as she was.

And in fairness to her she ploughed on until bedtime and then got up again the next morning and continued.

The end result looked great, sadly it didn’t last. But that’s one thing about teenagers and their bedroom; you have to sometimes, a lot of the time, just shut the door and keep walking.

Teenager’s bedrooms are their refuge and even though it may kill and it may, as parents we have to respect their privacy but up to a point.

When there are no glasses left in your cupboard because they are now living under your teenager’s bed, then it is fair enough to go in hammers blazing.

There is also nothing like rearranging a bedroom to clear out a decidedly messy and unorganized bedroom.

I have also found the best results came when I told her to clear the shelves, then they were done she would get instructions to do something else. It is almost as if it is less overwhelming when the work is carried out in stages.

It’s funny how different parents cope with teenagers bedroom, some gather up all the junk into black bags and put them away somewhere like the garage, others declare that part of the house a parent-free zone and others just try to ignore it.

I am trying a mix of all of the above, it doesn’t appear to be working, but I doubt that any one action is a solution. I think the only solution is growing up and possibly not living with you anymore. Then the room will be spotless and the house will lose some of its life. Mmmmh maybe it’s not so bad living with the messiest person in Ireland.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo June 1

Where it used to be Dr Spock it's now Ask Jeeves - RM column May 25

THE internet is a fantastic resource for parents, with all sorts of advice from all sorts of people. The beauty of it all is that you can read something that makes you think ‘why didn’t I think of that?

Years ago people turned to Dr Spock I am more like to turn to Ask Jeeves or Google.

One recent site I came across had some really good advice about dealing with a teenager in six easy points and they generally made a lot of sense to me.

Firstly the website said to stop focusing on what you are going to make your teenager do, it doesn’t work.

While this may sound vague I realise I spend probably too much time spotting things the Young Wan has or hasn’t done about the house and they turn into a mental checklists which invariably never gets ticked off.

So a lot of energy and frustration goes into this for me and maybe there is a lot to be said for this point. My only question is how does anything get done then, is it because it is all down to me then? Mmhhhh think I will think over that for a while.

Stop lecturing is the next one and I wholeheartedly agree with this, but will it mean that I stop, probably not.

I suppose that when I was a teenager and was on the receiving end of a lecture, I probably switched off just as much as the Young Wan does now.

Unfortunately though much of a parents’ interaction with their teenagers could be seen to be lectures. So does that mean we just shut up? Would that work better? The advice on the internet tells parents to impart information to their teenager in short bursts, possibly in the car when the parent has a captive audience.

Is that not more akin to ambushing, sounds good to me.

When talking to teens parents should stop using adultisms. You know them, they are the phrases when you were young that you never thought you would say to your kids.

Then one day you find yourself saying something that you heard from your parents. ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees’, ‘Ask my friend am I a liar’ or ‘I’ll give you (insert word here)’ as in ‘I’ll give you new mobile’, and we all know that doesn’t mean you are going to get them a new mobile.

If your teen has their teen monster moments, you may have to punish them by grounding them and the site tells you not to ground teenagers for long periods of time except for the most enormous of teen-crimes.

It says: “For adults, two weeks is like a snap of the fingers – gone. For most teens, two weeks seems like forever, which causes diminishing positive results the longer the grounding. Consequences need to be strong enough to get their attention, swift enough after the infraction to have an effect and short term so they can have another chance to do better soon.”

I think this is possibly one of the best pieces of advice I have read and actually learned from our own household. Once teenagers are constantly punished they act out, they might as well because they are already in the bad books.

Another piece of advice concerns something I realised I did about a year ago and it concerns reasoning with your child about rules they do not like or when you say no.

The advice is there are times when because I said so is a perfectly reasonable statement from a parent and all a teenager should be told.

I found myself at one stage that I would say to herself ‘bring out the rubbish because when that is brought out I can brush the floor then I can get the dishes away and dinner on’.

Now I go ‘bring the rubbish out’.

I was misguided thinking that if the Young Wan understood my train of thought that things would get better and faster, wrong.

The last gem says stop making every issue a battle for control and who is in charge. If you do this your teen could make every issue a battle for independence. Pick your battles, leave the hard stuff for big things and make your stand then.

This is something I have realised also, and apart from anything if you were to pull rank over everything, your home life will soon be miserable for everybody.

Do check out the site here http://www.parentingyourteenager.com/parentsteens6stop.htm and do look for more on the internet, there’s a wealth of support there which can be invaluable even just to know that other parents are having the same issues in their home.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo May 25

The only thing dark about them is their clothing - RM column May 18

HAVE I mentioned before that my daughter is a wanna-be goth, I say wanna-be because she’s not really getting it right so far. (She absolutely hates me saying this, sorry darlin but its true.)

She has had more than a few occasions of walking around where we live with the white face and black lipstick. To me this isn’t style it’s more emulating how a heart attack would look. Besides it hardly being an individual, check out the multitudes of teen Goths at the Central Bank in town any Saturday afternoon.

I have to admit too that I just do not want my daughter walking about looking like an eejit, I want her to look the prettiest she can look while developing her own style. And for me personally this does not involve having black lipstick smeared on her beautiful mouth. Not to mention the fact that she appears to forget she has it on and accidentally wipes it across her face.

She went into town recently with a pal and they looked gorgeous. However when they came back, the pal looked as pretty as before (she’s a pretty Goth without the makeup) while my offspring came back looking like an extra from the cast of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.

It is also worth bearing in mind that not all, in fact few Goths look like the stylish and pretty Rosie Webster from tv soap Coronation Street, Rosie is lucky to have a stylist and makeup artist and she is one pretty goth. The vast majority I see in Dublin look well dirty and in need of a good wash.

I know that’s the mummy in me and I understand that and I also know I have had my black phase as a teenager, most of my wardrobe is still black.

As a teen myself and being pale skinned, I wanted my skin to be as pale as possible, but I never wanted to look like death and I suppose that’s the difference.

I allowed the Young Wan to go and get her first make up and she came home with white foundation, white powder and black lipstick, so that all went back and I got her more suitable makeup.

I have tried to tell her that I can make her look like a good Goth, (not to be confused with good witch Glenda or indeed a bad Goth) where I can make her skin pale, while emphasizing her beautiful eyes and mouth.

And she has the most beautiful skin, why or why does she want to hide it under a layer of real whiteness, not paleness, whiteness.

But it’s not all bad news according to some recent research from Sussex University which found that unlike many teenage clicks Goths are a very accepting and non-violent group, brownie points there for the Young Wan.

The research also found that “[Goths] are refined and sensitive, keen on poetry and books, not big on drugs or anti-social behaviour. They are also likely to carry on being Goths into their adult life.

“They have an ability to express their feelings and are believers in romance rather than one-night stands. The only thing dark about them is their clothing and their sarcastic sense of humour.

“They are usually intelligent youngsters who have rejected the idea that teenagers must fulfill certain criteria.” (From the BBC website.)

Goths apparently also grow up to be successful, sometimes more so than their peers and go into professions such as law or medicine.

I do not relish the day that I get examined by a doctor who looks in need of a couple of hours in the sun, if the stated research which says many continue in this subculture as an adult is true.
How and ever, maybe I should relax about the white makeup particularly if the Young Wan could become a doctor.

Ah who am I fooling. I hate the white look but I will show her how to do the next best thing, a pale face showing off her beautiful features, I think that’s a compromise, don’t you?

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo May 18

The Young Wan speaks!

THE Young Wan just posted a comment to my recent Schools out for summer post and she left a comment, well she is sitting beside me typing away and I have to say I am delighted at how well she is typing with two fingers. Anyway you can read what she said here and to top it all, she wants to write a post, so over to the Young Wan.

Ahhh the beloved summer meh
3 months what the hell am I gona do for 3 bloody months. So far ive read about 4 really long novels, hum simulating. books entertain for only so long. ive read wuthering heights, Johnny and the dead, starseeker (best book ever nearly made me cry) and Jackie love johnser. its ok for kids whos parents are at home because they can come in and out as they please but sometimes when my mam goes out I cant go out because she’s not at home and cant be there if anything goes wrong so I can understand why I cant do things that other kids do ive no prob with it really because we all have to do wht we have to do blah blah blah. turkey will be kool but I want to be here for a few weeks at the end of the summer so I can go out with my mate because shes doing her exams at the moment!!!. while we,r on the subject yes people im going into the dreaded 3rd year ahhhhhhhhhh run run as fast as you can you cant me im a young wan!!! How are we supposed to get stuck back in to this really hard secondary stuff after 3 months of doing absolutely nothing!!!!! anyway im hoping to start one of these blogger thingies bu bye mwah mwah xxx

Technorati tags: irishblogs redmum Young Wan

Snippets of thoughts from the Young Wan

WE have had a bit of a funny day with all sorts of random teenage nonsense, must be the sun - here is a snapshot of the day.

Young Wan: "The tears hurt my eyes" – in true wanna-be Goth style! What can you say to this except to attempt to sing it in a kinda dark and menacing way ala Marilyn Manson

Later I asked her: "Am I allowing you to use the phone or am I being a pain in the arse?

This was a rhetorical statement to back up the fact that she could phone her friend but she had to rinse out the dishes first which was met with the stroppiest manner ever.

To my question she said 'Yes'.

So I replied 'pardon' and she went (louder) 'Yes'.

Then she realised she was actually agreeing that I was allowing her to use the phone and I was/am a pain in the arse and laughed heartily.

And why is it that at home sometimes when I ask her something she mutters, mumbles and I have to keep asking her to repeat herself louder and louder.

Yet when we are on a bus, she happily tells stories very loudly that she has to be asked ‘are you telling the whole bus or just me?’.

She has also recently found the microphone of her long abandoned karaoke machine and has been singing along to Brian Adams because *ahem* it is (allegedly) the only tape she can find.

Thankfully she has stopped serenading the street and appears instead to be making some kind of farting noise that is travelling out her bedroom window and through the air into the living room window where I am trying to chill out.

She just came in and asked me if she can sing. And she always could, though you cannot hear it from this evening's performance.

I remember during one holiday Karaoke event where she sang Leann Rimes (or however it is spelt) 'How can I live without you' where she hit perfectly that mad note in 'how can I ever, ever surrRRRVIIIVVEEE'.

Tonight has been a different matter.

She just asked me pointedly there can she sing and I said 'well you used to be able to, I don’t know what is happening in there now'. It appears she wasn't happy with her accompaniment to 'Summer of 69'.

“I thought I could sing, but well just then…”

Then she said 'wouldn't that be a good blog? The Young Wan discovers she can't sing!
Already on it darling, already on it.

[No mention of the world cup you will notice, I don't know whether to run away or go with the flow.]

Technorati tags: irishblogs redmum teenagers

Teenage Dramas - RM column May 11

THE Young Wan has had a pretty miserable time lately after falling out with some of her wee pals.

The incident preceding her isolation was full of the amateur dramatics associated with teen dramas and all began when one friend (a boy) fancied one of the other girls in the group.

To cut a long and boring story short the falling out occurred when my daughter told the girl something the boy said about something unrelated to his crush and he denied it.

Feeling umbrage for Ireland the Young Wan was not speaking to the boy and he was not speaking to her.

At first this was quite funny because the pals would call to the door and this particular wee fella would call too but ignore her.

This went on for weeks before I proceeded to ask the Young Wan to phone him up and talk to him about it and apologise for any misbehaviour on her part.
Only he wouldn’t speak to her at all and left her very upset.

The only thing I could offer her was to say that I didn’t think it gracious that he wouldn’t even talk to her let alone be big enough to accept an apology.

That was about six weeks ago and just before the prank phone calls started.

Because this young chap fell out with her, so did the rest of them. And not content with not speaking to her en-masse, they began to make nuisance phone calls to our house. To begin with they were just hang-ups but they progressed to something more sinister.

On one particular Sunday they phoned a number of times and even left a message when I was on a call and such a charming message it was ‘we all hate you, we hope you die!’.
The Young Wan wanted to take the phone off the hook to avoid the calls and I could see the whole thing was starting to have an awful effect on her with constant complaints of a sore tummy.

So I told her not to take the phone offline but instead to answer it and hand it to me and I would deal with it.

Lo and behold they rang again, I could tell by the awful look on her face, so I took the phone off her.

I informed the pranksters that the Gardai were notified about the prank calls and to keep calling because the more they did the more evidence we would have, besides it was a wet Sunday afternoon what else had I to do but listen to some eejits waste their mobile phone credit making stupid noises on the phone.

The difference in my daughter was massive, she had a big beaming smile on her face for the first time that week. She thought I was great. And I’d like to think I gave her a boost to be brave and move on from these obviously horrid children.

I’ve no doubt they think this is all a bit of fun, but I saw the effects of their fun on her and I was shocked by the ‘we hate you’ statement.

Later that evening whilst out walking the dog the Young Wan encountered the boy who made the nasty comments walking with the boy who originally fell out with her and his parents.

She went up to them saying hello and the parents spoke back asking about her and me. She then said: “We’ve been getting these awful prank phonecalls and we had to phone the Gardai. One even said they hated me and hoped I die, isn’t that awful?’

The parents agreed that it was indeed and who would do such a terrible thing. She then said bye to everyone and came back in looking like a different wee girl.
Children can be absolutely horrible to each other and I can easily see just how much this so-called pranking (I’d call it bullying, intimidation and harrassement) can drive a child to do something drastic.

They have phoned since and she said in a faux-American accent ‘I’m sorry there is no one to take your call, we are far too busy to deal with assholes’.

In this instance I have to say there was no correction for bad language.

Thankfully now the Young Wan doesn’t want to be friends with these people again, they are no longer her type and I am happy for that. But I do feel for her having to go through it in the first place.

I would not be a teenager again for anything.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo May 11

Helping your teen cope with exam pressure - RM column May 4

THE SUN is starting to shine, there is a warmth in the air, so it can only mean exam time again.

Luckily the Young Wan has a year to go before the start of her first ever official exams but her summer class tests are coming up and as far as I can see no studying has been done yet at all.

She is under that commonly held notion that the night before cramming will be enough at this stage of her academic career.. And maybe it would if the scholar in question had paid ultra attention in classes during the year and did the best homework in the world.

I doubt somehow this to be the case.

The first thing we, and I mean we if I leave it to herself it will not happen, need to do is draw up a study timetable. I have asked for this to be done for weeks and weeks and there is still no sign of it.

The Leaving Cert and Junior Cert to some degree are probably one of the more stressful times in your teen’s young life so far and as parents we can do so much to alleviate this stress.

I know people who have dreams, or should I say nightmares, of being back in that exam time when they are having a particularly stressful period in their grown-up life.

The stress of these exams can be bad enough without feeling unprepared, never mind the stress of knowing you should be studying but aren’t.

Paths in life can be decided by the outcome of exams. And while poor results is far from the end of the world, there are so many more options open to you if you are prepared.

So revision is the key and sometimes revision is not always as easy as having done the work in the first place.

One of the biggest problems I can see in our household is the studying of the subjects that she likes and is good at.

Despite explaining to herself that she would probably be better off spending time on the subjects that she finds tougher, the reliable favourites are the ones she likes.

Among the ways parents can help their child is to help them organise their workspace and their notes. Encourage them to study for an hour and then take a 10 minute break.

Rest is also very important during this time so get them to bed early as much as you can.

For subjects like English where they have to learn poems and quotations, help them dictate them on a tape so they can play them back while sleeping. I don’t know if this works but it would be worth a try.

Parents can also be invaluable by offering to help test their child’s knowledge and there are countless other resources which can also help test your child such as the internet, libraries, friends, revision guides and past papers.

I suppose the bottom line to tell your teenager facing exams is do not worry and just try your best. Doing their best, what more could a parent ask for?


Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo May 4

Teen Expectations - RM column April 27

THE Young Wan and I had cause to laugh recently following a post made by another blogger Irish Typepad on what a young person should be able to do by particular ages.

For example by the age of 7 a child should, in theory, be able to make their own sandwich, sounds fair enough but considering what the Young Wan makes at 14, I can imagine it being not the most appetising.

Though I should explain the Young Wan’s sandwich making has more to do with the fact that she doesn’t want to make the sandwich in the first place because she believes mine are nicer. I am probably being played like the largest violin with that and the bad sandwich making has more to do with laziness more than anything else.

Other gems include changing a bed by 10 (what happens when they are 14 and seemingly incapable of ever making a bed), or cook a meal by 13 (the Young Wan’s reaction to that suggestion was ‘I couldn’t cook a meal to save my life’) or sew a button by the age of 14.

As I have said any inability or reluctance to accomplish these milestones have more to do with laziness than competence.

The Young Wan will step over stuff in her doorway and it has become a leisure pursuit for me to watch and count to see how long these items remain. And I can tell you they never bother her at all, just me. But I know that is typical for most teens.

We just do too much for them. Even at times I think I expect too much, and then I realise that is a Mummy-guilt thing more than anything else. I had jobs to do growing up and so does she.

And while I am laughing at this, I should be laughing at myself, because as the mother I have somehow unwittingly allowed this to happen.

I always thought that I have given her chores, given her responsibility for things within the house that I was living by this mantra.

But we have slipped somewhere because right now I seem to be picking up after her more than ever. And it is driving me nuts.

Most stuff done by the Young Wan around our home is prompted. I have insisted on weekends that if she is up and about and there are dishes to be put away or done be put away or done before I get up.

At the moment we are about five times out of ten likely to see that.

But she does pull her weight in other ways, probably because they suit her but that is kinda okay as long as the other stuff gets done too.

She is a fantastic and second to none gopher, you know gopher this, gopher for that. And she also does the laundry, though that’s becoming sketchy at the moment.

We have to use a launderette living in one of Dublin flatland’s areas and after discovering during one expedition to the wash clothes that the Young Wan had provided skant offerings I sent her down the next day so she would have a fresh uniform going to school.

Since then it has become her job every weekend. She knows or should know about what to dry and not to dry and she should certainly remember to bring what hasn’t been dried back home.

Yet a significant proportion of what I wear was left in the launderette over the Bank holiday weekend.

My first basic mistake was thinking that if this was her job she would realise what it entails, how dumping clothes into the laundry because she cannot be bothered to put them away is needless work and how leaving clean clothes lying all over a messy floor just adds to an already heavy load.

Did she hell. What she has discovered is that a normal two-hour job in the launderette can be stretched to three, three and a half hours, with the extra time spent hanging about with her pals.

So there’s a lot of things the Young Wan can do and a lot that leaves much to be desired, a bit like the rest of us eh?

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo April 27

Keep your kids internet safe - RM column April 20

I have been very lax about posting the Echo columns so here's a couple from the last nunber of weeks, I haven't scanned them hence the delay so apologies in case you have been waiting ;)

Red Mum Column April 20

CONSIDERING the fact that an estimated 6,000 people sign up to the internet community site Bebo every day in Ireland. Also consider the Microsoft equivalent MySpace has grown from 4.9m visitors in 2005 to more than 67m currently, so it is worth exploring what your teenager is doing on the internet.

Many parents haven’t a clue where to begin to find out or indeed what they can do about it, but there is a lot you can do.

Parents must be more aware of the information their children are imparting on the internet And we need to hammer home to our children that certain behaviours are just not safe, such as posting pictures of yourself on the internet.

I suppose some people could put this down to hysterical Mummy but I have said before that I love the internet and I am grown up enough to realise the dangers and take the necessary precautions such as NEVER giving out phone numbers and the like.

It is frightening the amount of personal information our teenagers are giving away from phone numbers to information on where they’ll be at any given time, what they look like, what they like, take one look around Bebo and see for yourself.

While the vast majority of what goes on in Bebo or MySpace and the like is totally harmless, fun and sometimes informative, there are occasions where this is not the case.

I read recently about an incident where a 17-year-old female Bebo member from a small town up North has been linked to by a man in his mid-20s who told her that he had seen her about the town and suggested they should meet up. Now if that is not frightening, what is?

So let us imagine that you bought the apple of your eye a PC or a laptop for Christmas. Did you buy it and that was it?

Or did you install some of the Internet Nanny programmes where you can set what they can and cannot view on the internet?

Internet Nanny programmes allow you to set with a password the kind of sites that can be viewed on the internet.

And come on remember what it was like being a teenager. For most teenagers the draw of the more shall I say savoury side of the internet is great. Of course it is and even if your teen isn’t interested in that at all, their friends might be and peer pressure is very tough to handle.

Besides it is actually easy to stumble across the dodgier sites on the internet.

A scary statistic from Netsmartz.org showed that one in five children have received a sexual solicitation online.

Now without scaremongering this is an American site and in Ireland we do not have the level of internet participation as in American so the statistics I have quoted are somewhat watered down here. However they do give food for thought.

You can also check what your child has been looking at by checking the computer’s internet history. Once you are in the internet press the CTRL button and at the same time press the H button.

This will give you an idea of where your teenagers have been surfing. Of course they may be a step ahead and have already removed the history.

So if you are worried check out some of the programmes that you can install easily which will prevent access to particular sites.

And talk to your child about the dangers of the Internet; everyday is Halloween on the internet, people are often not what they appear.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo April 20

Socks

I HAVE a socks post which I will do over the weekend but it involves the outrageous amounts of unpaired socks in this house.

But here's a sneaky preview showing me, Nanny and the Young Wan relaxed for the evening and not a pair between us.



[I should say we are all in relax mood and have changed into non-work/school clothes and just grabbed socks and this is the result.]

I have more on socks coming over the weekend.

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Drumroll please...

TA DA, get your peepers around this, the room taken during mid-work then nearly-finished, the final pic will be posted tomorrow once it is light.

And what a day...

Half-way home.

Nearly there...


The Before picture, well actually taken after the before picture though this is much worse.

The Young Wan played a blinder, now at 10.30pm her room is nearly finished, my room is nearly finished (she is in there now hanging up some errant articles, we did a supermarket shop, we did the laundry and her room is cleared out, YAHOOOOO.) She's wasmpottering about putting away laundry for an hour before jumping into the shower.

Tomorrow after meeting Nanny, making her a lovely breakfast and going to work, I will be ensuring at some point to stop into a music shop to buy Ville Valo's His Infernal Majesty for her good and hard work today. Don't know who they are but they are apparently her 'current' most favourite band in the world, ever...

(I probably should have posted the bedroom pics in black and white to save blushes, if that could have helped.) OH and did you even realise the red thing in the middle of the pic was a single sofa-bed?

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs messy bedrooms teenagers

Nanny's coming, get tidied quick

IT'S Mothers' Day in the States, we had ours here back in March and at the time I was posting about the bedroom and how the only thing I asked for was a tidy and clean room, I got it a week later. Now it is as bad as ever and Nanny is coming to visit tomorrow.

So why am I posting now when I should be acleaning and atidying? Well the bathroom's done, its tiny but still its done, the halls are done, okay okay they are small too but they are cleared out, brushed and scrubbed.

So there is my room, which because the bathroom is in my bedroom, it is like another room for the Young Wan to do her deeds in. And of course there is her room (did you hear the drumroll there?).

She made what looked like a reasonable start yesterday until I saw where she had hidden and shoved away stuff. So I cleared all her shelves, all the hidey-holes and now there is a pile on the floor. Now the old clothes, too-small clothes, all sorts have to be sorted.

And I have pictures. But I should stress in fairness to the Young Wan this is the madness before the final product, you know when you clear out stuff and somewhere an hour into the work things look 50 million times worse.



So here is the room as it looks (not how it looked before the work - it wasn't this bad before, have I stressed that enough) and more pics to come later on. (But thats not to say it hasn't been before.)This particular pic is for all those people who swing by here looking for pictures of messy teenage bedrooms.

Wish us luck.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs messy bedrooms teenagers

Sinister threats on Bebo following murder of teen

SLUGGER's Belfast Gonzo reports on quite sinister going-ons on Bebo in relation to the awful and tragic murder 15-year-old Michael McIlveen in Ballymena.

There are links to the people's bebo home pages in the Slugger post which will chill you.

I did mention cyber-bullying in my previous posts on Bebo and how easy the site can facilitate this, a fact that seems to be played down a lot by some of the other sites who linked to my posts extolling it's virtues.

The links provided by Slugger are plain frightening and so full of hate and demonstrate Bebo at its worst.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs Slugger O'Toole Bebo

Revisionism according to teens

I HAD a laugh on the bus today with a group of three young fellas going to play tennis in Donnybrook. Firstly they bought their tennis ball in a pound shop (I should say euro shop but it doesn’t have the same ring to it) and proceeded to see how much it bounced on the top deck of the bus. When we got to Parnell Square this was the actual conversation.



Teen 1: That’s the Garden of Remembrance where all the soldiers are buried.
Teen 2: Are they?
Teen 1: Yeah. That’s why they call it the Garden of Remembrance.
Teen 3: I thought it was for the Unknown Soldier.
T1: Nah there’s a statue for him across from the library (in Phibsboro).
T2: That’s Michael Collins you muppet.
T1: It’s not, it is the Unknown Soldier.
T2+3 (together): It’s Michael Collins.

(As far as I can remember it is actually a monument to the Unknown Soldier – must check that but it is not Michael Collins.)

At this stage we were passing the Ambassador.



Teen 1: Do you remember when that used to be a cinema?
Teen 2: Nah when was that?
Teen 1: Ah years and years ago. Did you know there used to be a cinema in Phibsboro.

(Even though I was already earwigging on this conversation, my interest pricked here, could it be the former ice-rink which now houses Des Kelly carpets? It seemed the likely choice.)

Teen 1: The cinema used to be at Doyle’s Corner where the Boh pub is.
Teen 2: Really how long ago?
Teen 1: Ah in the Dickie Rock days.

I nearly snorted out loud at this, Spit on Me Dickie will be delighted that not only is he a sex-symbol but he is now officially an era too.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs Dickie Rock teenagers

The bedroom has been done and so have I

I wrote this column about three weeks ago and it was published on April 13 and followed this Tears and Tantrums post where I misguidedly thought the room was tidied, alas it was an optical illusion as you can read here.

The bedrooms been done and so have I

I wrote recently about the Young Wan and her silent defiance in not tidying her room. I have lost count of the days waste not doing it, well I haven’t really it was 17 days before she copped on and finally did it.

Or so I thought.

It all began nearly three weeks ago when she asked could her friend come to stay the night as she was already drafted into cleaning up her bedroom I decided right okay you want someone over well that room needs to be done.

The Young Wan performed the worst-ever cosmetic job on the room, you know the kind where things and mounds are shoved into every crevice she can find in the room. And it is amazing how much rubbish fits into the tiniest of places.

So by the time the pal left the room was worse than before.

And since then we have been in a tidying/not-tidying stalemate.

Each day she has been told to get in there and just do it. But she has dawdled, daydreamed, talked, just watched the end of Coronation Street and fluffed her way into doing anything other than the room.

Unless I was standing over her nothing at all was done.

This all came to a head last weekend when I went mad. I had a busy time at work and I practically pleaded for her support and would she just do the room and make me happy.

She didn’t, that’s when I went bananas.

After that in fairness to her she finally, after 17 days, got stuck in, well so I thought as I said earlier.

While it was far from clean – she had picked up lots, cleared lots away and for the first time in months daylight was streaming into the room.

I should also say that I found the missing dinner plate mentioned in this column a couple of weeks ago, not under the bed, not near the bed or by the bed but actually on the bed.

I looked at her and got the blank look back.

Now in fairness while she has a big high-rise bed, and it is bigger than mine, still and all how can you not know at all that there is a dinner plate on it?

At a quick glance I knew there would need to be a final cleansing finishing touch from me to her room, but I can well handle that. I didn’t and don’t expect the Young Wan to tidy to showroom standards but some level of tidiness would be fantastic.

Once I don’t have to mountain-trek across piles of clothes to move around the room, a few patches of mess were nothing and nothing that can’t be sorted out in five minutes anyway.

Oh she had hugs and kisses and jokes and thank yous and she lapped them all up. I promised her a new MP3 player if she pulled her weight up to next payday; the mummy-world was her oyster.

Then I went in this morning and found two bin bags of stuff that should have been put away. I found a so-called rubbish bag with things that shouldn’t be thrown out. My heart sank to be honest.

So it will be a busy night in our house tonight.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo April 13

Young Wan doesn't want Bebo page

I JUST gave the Young Wan the news that I had relented and would allow her to set up a Bebo page and can you believe it, she doesn't want one...

Was this down to my talk/s on it, reading my column, or some mad maturity spurt?

While I would like to think it was any of the above I think it has more to do with the fact that she has since discovered that half of her teachers are on Bebo.

She is happy enough to use the false 14-year-old pretend profile that I established just to check out her pals, and I'll let her while I am watching.

Young people are mad.

Oh and full marks to the Young Wan for scoring full marks in a French test, the only one to do so in her class. From having an awful start to the week with the Young Wan acting all bold, I am sitting here on a sunny Friday afternoon before a bank Holiday weekend delighted.

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