http://finance.yahoo.com/

man.  i'm seriously in shock at how much i just lost in one day.

I'm sorry. really. I know today was a bloodbath.

The fact that we're going broke.  Thank goodness I moved 90% of my money out of the stock market.  It is bad bad bad. To top it all off, one of 401k's is closing shop.

That's the only blessing I have: when I got the chop, I had no option but to take my 401k and retirement money. At least it was, what it was, and didn't keep losing ground. It wasn't much, but it was a real help.

It just infuriates me.  I won't be in the poor house when I retire. Still so many other people have lost a lot more than I have.  I just need to continue to play the lotto.

I guess I'm screwed in the credit card department.  Some expert was just explaining that as credit dries up, even though you have a $5,000 credit limit on a card, if you're not carrying a balance, your credit limit could be reduced to zero.  So the next time you try to use the card, it will be declined.  I have two credit cards each with a $7,500 limit... the one I haven't used in over a year and it hasn't had a balance all that time, and the other I pay off each month, and even then I barely use it, so soon I may not be able to get an airline ticket online, rent a car, or reserve a motel room, etc.  So I will be punished for NOT being in debt to a credit card company.

Although I appreciate parental involvement, I also believe that children need to make mistakes, so that they can learn.
However, I find more and more that parents feel that they must have their children to get the best grade rather than to figure out what is wrong and try to fix it.  Often, the fault is with the child rather than the teacher.  

Many, many students today don't want to study; some tell me this outright when I tell them that they must in order to pass my class.  And when the parents discover that little Johnny or Janie is not passing or doing less than A or B work, they are appaulled, but don't want to see what is going on with their child first before exploring other options.

And more often, the progeny lie or otherwise obsfurcate the truth about their actions regarding how the offending grades were earned and this then sets off a whole lot of mess that usually ends where it should have, at the door of the child and the parents in shock and a whole year wasted, while the teacher and admins have been put through hell.

Please do not get me wrong, there are bad teachers.  But more often than not, I find that when a child is failing, the greater or whole part of that lies with the child.

So any parents out there and students too.  Stop lying to yourself about why things are not going your way.  Now, with all the accountability and procedural safeguards to protect students from bad teachers and unfair learning environments, if things aren't going well, the fault is not in the stars, as the Bard says, but in yourselves.  Look there before you look elsewhere.

Peace to all, Shaotie.

What I really like is when the parents think that their progeny is so advanced that the only reason they are failing is because the curriculum is boring them..what a joke.

I was supposed to be starting a new job, but my position has been wiped out because the entire department has been axed! >_<

Oh, no!  That's too bad.....in fact, that sux!  Poor Kai....

Poor Shaotie.  I've also heard teachers say that all parents think that their kids are above-average if not brilliant, and they've been telling them so all their lives.  You're just wonderful!  Our generation grew up with either hyper-critical parents or ones who said that we have to work harder to get more (better grades, better jobs, better results).  Hard work was the mantra.  

Now kids hear how extraordinary they are so with such talent how can they possibly be getter "average" grades?  Yes, it's everyone else's fault.  The teachers, the administration, the bosses.  

I think this new economy may just throw us all into a decade-long reality check.  Yes Bobby, you have to go to school today.  And yes Sally, you have to get to work on time or you will be fired.  And yes Dick and Jane, you have to do exactly what the boss requires of you!  It is definitely going to be an employer's market.

But I think it's even worse when a parent tells a child all their life that they are worthless, no good, ugly, nothing but a little whore (because she wants to wear lipstick), etc.  Low self-esteem can lead to more problems than over-inflating a kid's ego IMO.

I think both extremes are equaly bad.

Hear hear! I am so sick to death of people over-inflating kids, that none of them think they should do hard work. Everyone wants little Johnny and Susie to get degrees, and go to work in the white collar world. Why, manual labor is beneath their children! Then Johnny and Susie move a thousand miles away, have kids that grandma and grandpa never see, and the entire family unit falls apart. OR, bitch and moan about illegal immigrants taking the jobs, yet those same jobs are now supposedly beneath the status of their golden offspring.
My ex-husbands niece was so pampered that she believed she didn't have to pay sales tax. She wanted to buy a Barbie phone, and said she had enough money. The husband and I told her she needed to take extra for the tax. Her answer was, "Not me. I don't have to pay tax." And she was serious!

Here's an article that I found interesting. I think it's  relevant to the discussion:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm ... -raising-smart-kids

I think this whole build the kid's self-esteem generation has taken it to an extreme.  Of course what you described is absolute abuse (worthless, no good, ugly...a little whore?).  Of course no parent or teacher should say those things.  In addition, no one should say those things just as a rule.   But absent that abusive behavior I think a kid can grow up happily knowing he's loved and being encouraged to do the best he can.  

The article Kai linked is excellent---I've read something like that before and it dovetails with this article from the NYTimes which claims that overpraising kids or praising in the wrong way is actually harmful.  

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... t%20kids&st=cse


Low self-esteem from verbal abuse is detrimental.  But it seems that overinflated self-esteem is also dangerous.   Whodda thought?

Yes, you are right.  But it nearly as bad to not inform your child of the facts of life and tell them that are so special and to push them to go to college or to a particular college and so forth and so on.  

It is hard to explain why this overbearingness in parents is so bad.  If you've seen it, you know.  In the end, many of them can't compete precisely because they have never experienced any kind of set back or been required to work to get anything and so forth.

Raised expectations also need to come along with raised responsibility, independence and the like.  I'm not seeing this and neither are many of the teachers that I've dealt with.  Many teachers are leaving the profession behind this issue.  We're raising a nation of whiners and that's no go for anyone.

Peace to all, Shaotie.

I got the old, "Sleep is calling me, I'll talk to you another time  So, you doing okay?" from my brother and I really needed someone to talk to.




By the way, hello to all the oldschoolers.

[ Last edited by  Amaya at 2008-10-4 12:29 AM ]

doh.  hope all is well with you and AJ.

Thank you hphan.  It's been a long time.