This is something that I’ve been saying for years and so I was so excited to see the website of this exact name – ParentInvolvementMatters.org! How amazingly cool is that? I love the whole concept of this program! Parental involvement is so very important for our children! In my opinion, it can literally make or break a child – how involved their parents are in their lives. I’ve seen some very sad and uninspired and very needy children, during all my hours volunteering at the school, whose parents just did not involve themselves in their children’s lives. Once the parents get involved, though, the changes are awesome!

There are many ways to get involved in our kids’ lives. Parent involvement in schools is a good place to start, but, really being involved in your child’s life and education means so much more than just bake sales and PTA meetings. The people from the Parent Involvement Matters website run this great program called ParentNet®, which is a parent-led program in which groups of parents of same-age children get together and support each other and help each other out in their parenting techniques and efforts. This is so cool, because so often moms will get together who have very different age and grade children – so they’re not having the same experiences. It would be so awesome to get together with parents of children the same age/grade, from our own school. The experiences would be so similar, that we could really help each other out!

This program was started in 1996 by two moms of middle schoolers. They were working together to make their children’s school better, and the program just blossomed and has helped more than thirty schools nationwide! There are lots of free resources on their website to get you started, including a community newsletter. They also have a ParentNet® starter kit for sale in their store, which contains a three-ring binder full of helpful information, a DVD that will help educate parents and staff, and sample brochures and stickers that you can use to educate the community and market the program to them. The binder contains an introductory guide for parents and trainers and educators, a ParentNet volunteer handbook, and a ParentNet® training manual. The whole program is available for free on the site, though, and you can, of course, sign up for the newsletter to learn more. I’m telling you, if we had this here, I would go to the meetings for all three of my kids! I think it would be wonderfully helpful!

Parent Involvement Matters is definitely a program that has me excited! I would have definitely tried to implement it in our schools when I was PTA president! Parenting can be so hard, but, I think when we come together as a community and help each other out, everyone benefits! The thing that really helped me to understand the program better was the video they have on the site that showcases the reactions to ParentNet by parents, educators, and students.

The other day I learned about a frightening new development in the street drug world. The newest thing out there is being called ‘Strawberry Quik’ – like the powder we used to mix in our milk. Well, I suppose it is still on the market – I just haven’t bought it myself in years. Anyway, they are making methamphetamines with candy flavors! And the stuff is even colored pink! It closely resembles Pop Rocks candy, and kids as young as 11 are being targeted with this drug! I just had the drug talk again with my kids after learning about this stuff. I want to do everything that I can to keep them off of drugs and out of drug treatment centers! They are making this junk in more than just strawberry, too! Chocolate, and who knows what else! It is so scary! The thing that really struck me about is that it very strongly lowers the children’s awareness of the severity of the drug, you know? If an 11 year old kid sees a needle with some ugly heroin in it, that is going to look pretty freaky to them. But if they see what looks to be Pop Rocks, it doesn’t look so daunting…and the next thing you know, they’re hooked! When I told my fourteen year old about it, he said he saw on TV that they are making marijuana flavored now, too. We have all got to just keep talking to our kids! Very scary stuff!

My sweet boys just had a birthday. The silly things were born on the very same day, one year apart. And they just turned 13 and 14. And for their birthday, they received from their grandma and from their grandpa, gift certificates from Amazon.com.

Well, they also received an xBox 360 from their father and I. Icky, I know. So it’s been video game crazy around here lately! And most of their cash and Amazon GC’s have been spent on video games. This evening they were doing some more shopping and they bought one game.

Then a bit later they came back to me and were begging me for five dollars to borrow, because, what they wanted to buy was five dollars more than they had. I was starting to get a little irritated and the conversation was going back and forth, when finally it came out that what they wanted was a trilogy – of BOOKS!

I said, “Books?! I’ll totally give you five dollars for that!” I was so excited to hear they were spending money on books. You know I’ve told you before that they are book-devouring monsters, but, they do love their video games. And since they got the 360, that is all I’m hearing about. So I was glad to have my little bookworms back in action!

I’ll try to remember to come back tomorrow and fill you in on the trilogy they bought – the name escapes me now.