Manners

School vacation week is drawing to a close . . . and once again I am not really looking forward to the children going back to school. The only bright side is that Braeden likes to do some online gaming and our only high-speed access here in the Styx is Hughes.Net. We have exceeded fair access (they limit downloading to 425MB) twice in the past 10 days and have been watching like hawks since and we teeter pretty close on a regular basis).

I found myself frustrated and making calls again for other options. It seems that Facebook is a very download-intensive website, but it has been positive for Braeden to be able to chat with friends that way. His friends are spread out, and some of the phone calls are long-distance depending on a family’s calling plan. I also see him chatting with friends online that he might not think of calling, so it seems positive so far. He’s needed a few manners checks – like don’t name the friend you’re glad has gone home because someone might tell him what you said!

Manners have been a big topic here this week. I’m starting to wonder if carpooling might be worse than riding the bus – not that a bus is an option in our case. Putting up to 6 boys between 9 and 12 in a tin can for 45 minutes just seems like more than they can tolerate. Friday was a bad one. We also have a situation where one child’s family tends to think the kid’s behavior is worse than it is, while another family feels their beautiful specimen of perfection can do no wrong. The latter child is the one dealing out words like “racist” or “Christians are dumb” or maybe it was “Christians are bad.” So I have been talking to people until I am blue in the face about these things because manners do matter, and powerful words should be understood but rarely, if ever, spoken.

I got Braeden a book on manners which is supposed to be geared toward the 9-12 crowd. In reality, it seems a bit too young for him, but some of the other titles discussed topics like who should bring the condom on a date and that seemed a bit beyond where he is (or where I want him to be!). Amazon had the book on its 4-for-3 promotion and I was so tempted to buy a copy for all the boys in the carpool!