Day 261 - 11/08/2007

Although N's baseball season is over, we signed him up for a class at Frozen Ropes to (hopefully) give him better instruction than his coaches were able to give him over the past two seasons. I arrived at the facility a little past 5p and from what it looked like, N was enjoying himself. In the car on the way home he was upset that he couldn't get the ball in the net during the throwing drill, but from what I saw, there was a vast improvement in just the one session. As I said to Mike (the other coach of N's team), I wonder if they offer a coaches clinic so that we (the coaches) can become better in teaching the kids the right skills.

Tonight there was a parenting session at school that I attended. The speaker was Dr. Patricia Dalton, a clinical psychologist in private practice in Washington. She also writes articles for the Washington Post. (I'm sure if you googled her, you'd get more information on her.) Anyway, she spoke at the kids school last night on being a parent in today's day and age. Since we're always on the lookout for tips and tricks in the parenting department (and since D is still not moving as fast as she'd like to), I went ahead and attended. She covered a lot of topics over the 90 minutes she spoke and it was quite reassuring to hear her validate some of the methods we're using.

Over the course of her discussion, she mentioned some books that might be helpful in the parenting department (The Explosive Child, The Nurture Assumption, The Way to Behave, and The Blessing of a Skinned Knee). I'll have to check them out and see if I can't glean some additional information from them. (I'm unable to find the one listed without a hyperlink; maybe I put the wrong title in my long-term memory. If I find the correct title -- or if you're able to provide it -- I'll come back and add it.)

Hopefully I'll be able to put some of her thoughts to work with the kids. One of the things she mentioned was that even though your primary responsibility is to raise socially responsible children, being their friend after they leave the nest is important as well. While the line you walk as a parent isn't all that fine, it can easily be destroyed should the parent not take the right approach in raising the child. Once it's destroyed, it's not very easy to rebuild.