Well, I did it: I kept my son out of school on Friday even though he had two tests and a project due. And I hope I’m not getting him in trouble by posting on it.

Okay, so the truth is I arranged with his teachers to have him take both tests on Thursday, and hand in his portion of a team alegebra project the same day. So, the damage was minimal, if there was any at all.

But in the end I reasoned that he wouldn’t remember that day at school in years to come. He will, however, always remember our day: We went to the free Green Day concert at Central Park for the Good Morning American summer concert series.

Needless to say, it’s his favorite band, and pretty high on my list as well. And I can’t ask for a better day, nor a more fun outing for him (above). No, that’s not me on the right. I took the photo. (I still have a tad more “coverage” on my head—no offense to the man in the photo.)

Anyway, this has been a periodic judgement call for me, as it is for many parents, I suspect. I had the day off, so it was no issue on my end. But education is important, and occasionally parents may opt to keep the kid home. I handle it on a case-by-case basis, but it’s something I take seriously.

I spoke to a couple of other parents at the show who had done the same thing, and they had all made the same decision: That it was a treat worth cutting school for the day.

Is it something that can be abused? Certainly. I have friends who were periodically kept home from school for a “mental health day,” which I think is of limited value for most kids, depending on age and circumstances.

But the question is when do you think it’s okay to have your kid play hooky?

One final note on the show, it really was a treat. I’ve blogged on the music element of it on The Listening Room, our music blog. But for those that didn’t see it, here’s a clip from GMA:

The folks at Child Care Aware sent out a reminder that next month will bring National Provider Appreciation Day, when child care providers we entrust with our kids get honorable mention.

Not a bad idea, depending on the care the kids receive. We’ve been lucky that way, so I figured I would send CCA’s press release along for your consumption:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 11.3 million children under the age of 5 that spend some part of their week in child care. If this number includes your family, chances are you’ve added an extended family member or two to your daily routine. And you’ve selected a person that you feel will provide the best care for your child.

Child care providers put a lot of love and hard work into their careers, and they’re often rewarded with little hugs and a “thank you” every now and then. As your child spends time with his/her child care provider, a special bond begins to form. This person is an additional teacher, friend and trusted caregiver. Your child shares many special moments with the child care provider, and you enoy the benefits of these relationships on a daily basis.

This year, take some time to show your child care provider how much you appreciate what she does for your family. On Friday, May 8, 2009, the nation will celebrate National Provider Appreciation Day – a day set aside each year to honor those who are caring for our young children.

For more information on Provider Appreciation Day, go to www.providerappreciationday.org.

No, not from me. But this is something that really moved me and I felt it was worth sharing.

A co-worker today attended the Westchester County Women’s Hall of Fame Awards luncheon, at which his daughter was receiving the Merrill Lynch Westchester Leadership Award.

I think her words best relay why she was worthy of the honor and the scholarship it brings. These are excerpts from the essay she submitted as part of her application for the award:

“I have always been different. In books and movies, being different is always good. The hero and heroine are never ordinary people, they are special and gifted.
“But being different in real life is not always a good thing; most of the time it’s painful, lonely, and just plain hard. I have cerebral palsy and other learning disabilities including difficulty reading and writing.
“I would have to say that my disability, and more importantly people’s reaction to it, has had a big impact on my life and made me who I am today.
“It’s amazing how being different can be like holding a magnifying glass up to reveal those who are kind as well as those who are cruel. While I consider many of my ‘disabilities’ to be ‘abilities,’ I have had to spend much of my life learning how to be like others so I will be accepted.
“I hope to become a teacher, a special education teacher or maybe a social worker or an advocate for people with disabilities. I’d like to help other people like me get the help they deserve. Maybe I’ll even get a PhD.”

Wow. That’s some young lady.

Last week I discovered how to stop my youngest son from being late to school. At least it’s worked so far. You can say my youngest son, a high school freshman, has a chronic lateness problem. He hadn’t been on time for school since October.

We talked to him about his lateness; The school sent home notes about his lateness; He lost the privilege of leaving school for lunch; And we took his electronic games, except for his computer. None of that made a difference.

Then last week, a school staffer suggested a solution that went to the heart of being a high school freshman – not wanting to be seen with your parents. The plan was diabolically simple: If he couldn’t be responsible and get to school on time, treat him like a second grader and bring him to school.

To make sure this scheme worked I upped the ante, saying I would accompany him all the way to his classroom, the better to be seen with him. The fact that we live only two blocks from the school made the plan easy to carry out.

The first morning, last Friday, I woke my son and reminded him that we’d walk to class together if he was late. I said I was looking forward to our walk: It would be like the old days when he was younger. He was not similarly nostalgic.

That day he was on time for class. So, too with the next two days. Tomorrow could be the fourth day in a row. I don’t know about you, but I sometimes find parenting a to be a little like guerrilla warfare. You’re in it for the long haul, so you need strategy and much patience. Change usually doesn’t come quickly. This battle was different, however, and now it feels like cause for celebration. But I have two things to do. First, praise him for his promptness; Second, hope he doesn’t lose his embarassment over being seen with me.

A couple of weeks ago I drove my oldest son out to Stony Brook University for freshman orientation. I’m not sure which of us was more excited.

It was a lot different from my college, the Brooklyn Center of Long Island University. That was a collection of buildings around a concerete yard, euphemistically described as “an urban campus.” This was in the early 1970s. when Brooklyn hadn’t recovered from the Dodgers leaving town and there was a dangerous scent of decay all around.

In contrast, Stony Brook is a big-league college campus that stretches out in all directions. This SUNY school won’t be confused with Georgetown, or Fordham or even NYU, however. There’s lots of utilitarian ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s architecture, though Stony Brook seems to be compensating with lots of greenery and newer buildings that have a friendly and generous feeling.

My son went to his orientation session and I went mine. It was thorough and ran 6 1/2 hours. They told us about about academics, meal plans, campus jobs, and dorms that sometimes squeeze three incoming students into a room meant for two. They talked about campus security, and if my son didn’t get the message that the dorm room needs to be locked when he goes out, I did.

Then they told us that the bill  for tuition, room and board would be arriving soon. Oh, and it needs to be paid by Sept. 15.  But since it’s one-third the cost of a lot of private schools, I’m a big SUNY fan.   I told my neighbor, and now she’s teachng her 4-year-old to say SUNY – over and over.

At lunch a few of the parents wandered around the campus. We liked what we saw and we wanted to go back to school. As for our kids? Let them wait their turn. They probably wouldn’t appreciate it as much as we would.

What is up with these backpacks that are so heavy that kids are being weighed down like mountaineers? At the risk of sounding like someone who should be leaning on a walker and eating dinner at 4 p.m., I’d like to point out that when I was a kid, we didn’t even carry backpacks! Somehow I managed to bring home all the materials I needed to do my homework without looking like I was ready to hike the Himalayas.

This is on my mind because it’s the time of year when, once again, the obligatory warnings about the dangers of the weight of these things are coming out. Consumer Reports, which is published in Yonkers, is way ahead on this issue. In their research, they found some sixth graders carried 18.4 pounds in the backpacks — about 17.2 percent of their body weight. Consumer Reports recommends staying closer to 10 percent of body weight.

What is in these backpacks, anyway? Pumpkin is several years away from homework assignments and all they entail, so I’m operating without first-hand knowledge. But I ask you other parents: Do kids really need to carry every book home, every night? Is that what makes up the load? Or, are your kids carrying mini survival kits on their backs? I know my daughter, given her druthers, would bring half the contents of her room with her in the car every time we leave the house for a half hour. So far, we’ve managed to keep it down to her Elmo doll (sometimes two Elmo dolls), a book, her sippy cup, a baggie of Annie’s Homegrown Chocolate Bunny Grahams and her purple blanket. Are your third-graders carrying their own equivalent of this in their packs? Is that why they are so heavy?

If you are buying a new backpack this fall, Consumer Reports recommends looking for these features:

• Shoulder straps that are contoured and padded to soften the load of the pack on a child’s back.

• A waist belt to stabilize the pack and transfer weight to the hips.

• A padded or quilted back or one with mesh fabric to make the bag less sweaty on steamy days.

• Compression straps on the sides of the pack to tighten a partially-filled backpack.

• Reflective trim on the back and sides of the pack to add visibility in the fall and winter months, when kids may travel to and from school in near darkness.

Here is the special section on back-to-school at Consumer Reports.

I’m thinking about writing a story about the growth in backpack sales and how these have become a must-have back-to-school item. If anyone would like to lend their insight to the story, send me an e-mail at jalterio@lohud.com or call me at 914-666-6189.

Otherwise, comment here about what the heck is in your kids’ backpacks — unless you’ve been afraid to look!

One of the advantages of having shared custody of your child is that there’s a limit to the number torturous school assignments you have to do for the kid. Obviously, my ex ends up with half of them because of our 50-50 custody deal.

And I don’t mean arts & crafts for art projects, or books to complete assignments, or visits to museums or zoos to complete written research projects. Those are concrete tasks that you can justify as advancing your child’s education and creativity.

But what’s the educational benefit to cooking three pounds of bacon?

I’m talking about the extra-curricular events like class picnics and holiday celebrations. You know, when your child comes home and tells you he volunteered to make six dozen blintzes, or hard boil 96 eggs, or cook french fries for 40 kids and teachers. A co-worker told me this morning that his daughter committed him and his wife to make fruit salad for 30 kids. She neglected to mention this until this morning, the day of the event. So take a swing by Super Stop & Shop and look for a mom frantically buying up all the fruit.

On my end, my 10-year-old volunteered to cook bacon for the class breakfast today. I’ll give him credit for telling me three days ago, so there was no last-minute shopping. Of course, I made it clear that blueberry muffins or orange juice would’ve been preferred. But the kid likes bacon. And that’s a good thing, because he’ll be smelling it around the house for weeks to come.

Don’t get me wrong: My ex has shouldered her share of these tasks since our divorce. It’s just that the time-intensive — and smelly — ones always seem to land on the days our son is with me. And the thing is there’s more to come, because my girlfriend’s 4-year-old will have to cook up his own batch of bacon sooner or later. Ah, parenting.

But such are the pleasures of a blended family. And it does make us a family, with all the annoyances, burdens and hurdles that come with any family. And that makes it seem less torturous, even if there are a few pounds of bacon here and there.

Remember the prom date? “In this earlier blog,”:http://parentsplace.lohudblogs.com/2008/04/23/the-prom-date-debate I spoke about a mom who put her foot down when her 15-year-old son was asked to go to the prom by a senior girl in his high school. Her thinking was that he was too young, etc., etc. That sparked some lively debate.

Well, the prom came and went, and the 15-year-old did, indeed, attend with the older girl. It turns out that the boy’s mom ultimately had discussions with the girl’s mom, discussed it with her son, and they agreed to the ground rules. So she relented.

How’d he do? Things went smoothly. He was a gentleman, there were no after-parties, and he was home at the agreed-to time. By all accounts, the two had a wonderful—and safe—time together.

So, does this make the concern some of you had moot? Or did the mom dodge a bullet?

Friday was the big night out for my son — his school dance.

This was my son’s second dance, coming on the heels of last year’s fourth grade gala. The fifth-grade version wasn’t much different, except that I have learned to be less intrusive. That is to say, the first time around my ex and I were both there, and she kept prodding him to go and pick a girl to dance with. Not sure what we were thinking, because I wasn’t exactly love-struck at his age.

This time around I was on my own, so I backed off and let him do his thing. I noticed that I was one of the few solo parents there, and actually felt like something of an outcast being a single parent. That’s something that rarely happens with me, so it was an odd sensation. One of the other parents — who I actually went to school with years and years ago — spent a bit of time telling me about his storybook marriage and the splitting of parenting duties he and his wife are able to do: His wife took their son to a Boy Scout event the same night, so he escorted his daughter to the dance. I didn’t take offense, but I wondered why he felt it necessary.

Either way, I did my own thing, and watched from the wings with great amusement. My son, to his credit, stood in the crowd and danced his butt off pretty much  all night. At that age, they’re not necessarily looking for girls to dance with. The girls themselves nearly all dance — again on their own or with other girls. There’s just a real gender divide at this age.

Looking around that room, I wondered when that will start to change. He had his first kiss in kindergarten, and was quite popular with two girls in first grade. By second, he showed less interest, to the degree that now he couldn’t care less if a girl showed interest. So when does that change? I’m sure by high school it’ll be THE issue, over what girl or other he likes or likes him.

In the meantime, I’m good with standing in the wings and watching him do his own thing. As for being one of the few solo parents in the crowd, I’m good with that too. My boy seems okay with it.

Looking for input on this one.

This is an issue that came up in a friend’s family, and I differ with my girlfriend and others on it. The scenario is this:  A 15-year-old boy was asked to go to the Senior Prom by a senior at the school. The parents know each other and the kid’s a good kid. He’s never been in trouble, very mature and the whole bit. The girl asked him, and he said yes.

Next, he told his mom, who said he could not go because he is too young to go to a Senior Prom. The boy never shared this with the girl, and told her he would be going. When the parents ran into each other, the boy’s mom found out he had not declined as she told him. So, he got grounded and will not be going to the prom either way.

The two issues are this: Is a 15-year-old boy too young to go to a Senior Prom? Secondly, should he have been grounded for defying his mother’s wishes and not telling the girl he wouldn’t be allowed to go? Frankly, I’m not sure how he would’ve pulled it off when the prom day comes around, but perhaps he hoped to convince his mother before then.

For the record, the parent here is in a traditional two-parent home, so it’s not a single-parenting issue. Of course, I always think of these situations as they would apply to single-parent or blended family homes, and I think that adds other potential elements. So, my third question is, does your answer to the first two questions change if I apply the situation to a single-parent household?

Anyway, what do you think?

Somebody’s got to stay home with the kid, right? That’s logical enough. But who misses a day of work?

A study last year by sociologist David Maume at the University of Cincinnati determined that moms are still significantly more likely to stay home than dads. Maume surveyed more than 1,400 parents and determined that 78% of women reported taking time off to stay home with a sick kid, compared to 28% for men. You can “read more about the study”:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070813162452.htm in Science Daily.

The thing is that the study seems to have looked only at traditional homes, with mom and dad in the house. How does one handle the situation when they’re a single or divorced parent? Needless to say, this is a major problem if you solo parent. Unless there’s family nearby or a support group of some sort, you’re in a bind. And what are the rules on this in a blended family?

This has been on my mind this week because my girlfriend’s little boy has been battling the flu and hasn’t been able to go to his day care. She missed a couple of days, and her ex missed a couple and took him to his sister’s house for the day. Statistically, she ultimately takes more of those days on than her ex does, which seems to fit Maume’s study.

But at some point I wonder what my role is. I normally save my days off for when my son is sick, and juggle those with my ex. Is it my role as a stepparent figure to take off as well when my girlfriend’s son is sick? Or is that a responsibility that falls squarely  — and exclusively — on the little guy’s parents?

In the end I’m thinking gender isn’t all we should be looking at. Frankly, I’m thinking we need a new study.

So, the eighth-grader who was punished with pretty harsh measures for buying a bag of Skittles from a classmate against school rules has been cleared of wrongdoing. Unfortunately, the reprieve didn’t come soon enough to allow him to attend an honor society dinner he missed as part of the punishment. If you didn’t see the earlier post, young Michael Sheridan of Connecticut drew the wrath of school officials because of his love for fruit-flavored candy. He initially was suspended from school and was stripped of his class vice president title. His mom raised a stir, which turned into a media frenzy, and the authorities backed down. Here is the New Haven Register story on the aftermath. And here is a feel-good follow-up on Michael’s new celebrity — and the Mars candy company’s promise to give the boy a lifetime supply of Skittles.

Michael Sheridan, an eighth-grader in Connecticut, bought a bag of Skittles in the hallway of his middle school. Because this is against school rules, he’s been suspended from school, will miss an honors student dinner and will have to give up his title as class vice president. You can read all about it in the New Haven Register.

My initial reaction was: “Wow, is the school nuts? This seems pretty extreme over candy, a food all of us as adults enjoyed in childhood without anyone turning it into a federal case.” Then, I started thinking about federal cases, in particular the one that’s unfolding here in New York. There are some interesting parallels going on. Eliot Spitzer broke some laws and he’s going to lose his office over it. But, the question must be asked: Are the school’s rules regarding candy as reasonable as our nation’s laws regarding money transfers and prostitution? In other words: Should a student be punished as severely as Sheridan is being punished for breaking rules that weren’t even rules a few short years ago? (Plus, it’s candy! Moms buy their kids candy! It’s harmless — unless you happen to eat it in large quantities, but that’s another issue. I wonder if this school that’s so keen to prevent children from ingesting one stray sugar molecule also has fully funded its gym programs?)

(I want to add: I don’t think the child should receive no punishment. After all, he did break a rule. But the punishment meted out seems in excess of the crime. Missing a dinner to honor his academic achievements seems counterproductive and stripping him of his class title seems overzealous. The analogy with Spitzer would be, I think, if he had been caught speeding. Sure, he would have been embarassed and met with censure for breaking the law. But would he have had to resign as governor? I don’t think so. The punishment should fit the crime.)

The video was striking: Four teenagers beating up a fifth teen during a violent encounter at a church parking lot in Ossining. At some point local cops said the kid taking the beating got a seven-inch gash across his neck. A 16-year-old girl is also punched in the face, and is threatened with more, at which point she walks away.

This was from a story we ran in recent days. Police said neither of the teens were seriously injured: The gash was apparently not very deep. The video itself, which was posted on YouTube by one of the kids later charged in the incident, has since been pulled off the Internet.

So, why is this on a parenting blog? Well, my very first thought when I saw it was, ‘Oh my God. What if that was my kid?’ It’s a horrifying thought. And what if it was one of our children doing the beating, since peer pressure can be a powerful draw?

To be fair, here’s what doesn’t worry me about this incident: It seems to be a “gang assault” in circumstance only. That is to say, it was a group, or “gang” of kids who are charged. They weren’t Bloods, or Latin Kings, or Hell’s Angels. They weren’t a real gang in the most frightening sense. It was just a group of kids seemingly beating another.

But that’s enough for me. It should be enough for all parents. Because regardless of how the criminal justice system deals with it, it is unacceptable, frightening and brutally dangerous. And it scares the heck out of me.

It doesn’t help when the act is downplayed, as seemed to be the case with a “New York Times column”:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/nyregion/02towns.html?ref=nyregion on this in yesterday’s papers. Was too much made of the incident by my own newspaper? Some might think so, but I don’t. Should the Times have spoken to the Ossining police and not just one of the arrested teens, his parents and his lawyer? Some might think not, but I do.

Because while I know that schoolyard fights are going to happen, it shouldn’t happen this way. We, as parents, should care about it.