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It was sunny and warm and I wanted to go outside. I asked Spencer, and he said he just wanted to stay inside – as he had been all day. I suggested tennis, or playing catch, or basketball, or anything outside. He didn’t even look up from his Nintendo DS to reply, “I just wanna stay in.”

I recalled when I was a child, especially in the summer, I couldn’t wait to get outside to ride my bike, dig in dirt, play with trucks, and, yes, blow up plastic army men. I would frequently join the ‘gang’ of children from my street to go explore the neighborhood, play basketball, tag, hide and seek. What is wrong with my child? Or, am I just remembering my childhood differently.

My consternation was relieved a bit after reading the article by Meagan Frances, “How to Get Kids Outdoors.” I say relieved only a bit, because, while she writes my child isn’t alone in his aversion to the outdoors, she did say I, as a parent, will have to put more effort into persuading my son to go outside. Just what I want, more work as a parent. I’m not lazy, it’s just that it takes a lot of work already trying to be a good parent. And, this is just one more thing to be piled on.

Frances writes about the reasons kids are inside more today than when she was a child. She also provides some solutions. I found that most of her solutions are unworkable in my situation. I live in an apartment in the city. I don’t have a backyard to customize for Spencer. Also, there isn’t a lot of kids his age in the neighborhood. So, enlisting the ‘village’, to help watch the kids play in the front yards of our street, just doesn’t work out. And, while I do take him camping several times a year, it doesn’t seem to have changed his desire to go outside, or rather, his desire to stay inside.

But, I will try some of Frances’ ideas, albeit modified somewhat. I will try to arrange play dates to occur at parks, rather than inside. And, maybe I will supplement weekend camping with day (or partial day) hikes. I can hear his moaning already.

Other than firmly stating, “we’re going outside and leave your Nintendo in the apartment,” (over Spencer’s protests), I want more ideas that may help me get him off the couch. But, I do prefer ideas that don’t require me to be a community organizer.

Comment with your thoughts?

Ok, don’t laugh, for I found this PBS site, Understanding and Raising Boys, full of useful articles. I think it is a great website from PBS with a lot of good information.

It’s tough being a boy in America today. The PBS Parents Guide to Raising Boys will help you understand what it’s like. Discover how to help your boy feel confident, succeed in school, and grow up resilient and responsible

The most pertinent to me was the section on Boys in School. I fretted that Spencer always seemed more challenged in school than the other kids in his class (mostly the girls). Turned out it wasn’t just me. At his age, there is a general discrepancy between boys and girls in school and their ability to do school work. The articles helped me to breath easier.

For example, the opening page for the school section points out there are more boy “geniuses” in school but, also more dropouts. Subsequent articles follow up with determining how to recognize a problem and ideas for helping one’s own son, including a piece on Practical Strategies.

I have the link to the PBS Parents home page in my blogroll. The Raising Boys section is under their “Issues and Advice” menu tab.

When Spencer was a pre-schooler, correcting undesired behavior could be a challenge. I read several books on ‘discipline’ and time-outs. But, the methods didn’t work as described. I especially remember time-outs not working at all. He hated time-outs. He would cry incessantly or worse. Sometimes he would go on a tirade and become a tornado in his room, throwing stuffed animals, ripping the sheets off his bed, and yanking all his clothes out of his dresser.

I was extremely worried. Either I was doing this time-out thing incorrectly or I had a psychopath on my hands. I refused to believe the latter, so I must have been executing the time-outs wrong. Or, so I thought.

Then I read Mary Sheedy Kurcinka’s book, Raising Your Spirited Child, and I was very relieved. It wasn’t me! And, Spencer wasn’t a crazed child. He was, as she states, “spirited”. She says that what distinguishes a spirited child from other kids is that they are more. More intense, persistent, sensitive, perceptive, and uncomfortable with change; what people used to call a “difficult” child.

As I read the book, many of the ways Kucinka described a spirited child fit with what I was experiencing. And, it provided me solace to know I wasn’t alone or crazy or a horrible parent. From his incredible sensitivity about the way his clothes felt to him (yes, he could feel the seams of his socks and they really bothered him) to his intense dislike of change, Spencer fit her description.

The book helped me identify tactics to make it easier raising Spencer, and how to better deal with his intensity and sensitivities. But, the biggest help was just providing me understanding about my spirited child’s ways and thought process.

At times I still feel overwhelmed at his sensitive intensity, but I keep referring back to this book to help me gain the proper perspective. I especially find her line on page 11 consoling: “Send him to his room for a ‘time out’ and he is liable to tear it apart.”

Click on the image and you can read other reviews, or purchase it, from the Nubze Store.

A couple of weeks ago, we went camping with one of Spencer’s friends and another family made up of a mom, a little girl, and a boy around Spencer’s age. Two adults, three boys, and one girl all enjoying the great outdoors. On Saturday afternoon, the females went on a walk, leaving the four males in the campsite. The three boys were playing a game, created from the minds of nine year olds, which involved running around in the bushes. Things looked under control, so I took my leave to the restroom.

Upon my return, I almost sprained my ankle by tripping in a hole in the middle of the campground. Where the hell did that hole come from. I stared at it and swore it wasn’t there before. Gophers? In the coastal forest? I looked around and several similar holes were dispersed across the forest floor of the campsite. I then noticed the three boys huddled over by the tent, each with a shovel, intently chattering away while digging yet another hole.

“Um, what are you doing?” I asked them. And, without skipping a beat, they replied, “We’re digging for gold!”

“Arr, pirates on a search to claim forbidden treasure, are ye?” I said. Spencer looked at me with an expression that said either, “well, duh,” or “Dad, don’t embarrass me in front of my friends. Again.”

At first, I was upset with all the holes in the campsite and with the boys getting all dirty and muddy. Then a few thoughts came to mind. First, at least the were not glued to their Nintendo DS video games. Second, they were not practicing knife throwing and taking turns at sending projectiles of death at each other. Lastly, I remembered what is was like to be a 9 year old boy creating my own adventures with my friends.

“Carry on,” was the only thing I could think of saying at that moment. “And, if you find any gold I want a percentage, since I paid for the campsite and all. Kind of makes it my mining claim.” They were too engaged in their endeavor to respond to my last request.

After about ten minutes, my phone rang. It was the ‘women’. They wanted us to come to the beach. So, I gathered up some beach gear and told the boys. I hated to have to interrupt an activity in which they seemed to be having so much fun. But, I was surprised by their response: “Yeah, let’s go see if we can dig up some gold on the beach.”

The true adult of our little camping group asked me about the shovels the boys carried and their muddy condition. I simply said, “They’re digging for gold.” What else could I say?

After a few minutes of digging in the sand, the boys became distracted and pursued other interests on the beach, except for Spencer. The other two boys were down the beach looking for seashells or chasing seagulls and Spencer was still engaged with the hole in the sand. He eventually stood up, and the hole was gone.

“Giving up on looking for the gold,” I asked.

“There’s no gold here, so I buried the shovels,” he said. And, then he ran off to chase the other boys.

I didn’t inquire further, but I hoped we would be able to remember the cache of shovels before we left the beach. Someone had to fill in those holes at camp and it sure wasn’t going to be me.

When the time came to return to camp, the shovels were in fact retrieved. I instructed the boys to fill the holes in camp, which thankfully they performed with as much enthusiasm in which they created them. They reported that they finished the hole filling job, and there the three of them stood. Lined up, looking like coal miners who just came out of the mine. Except, instead of coal dust, it was a combination of camp dirt and beach sand covering them from head to toe. Okay, maybe they weren’t as filthy as coal miners, but they were pretty dirty. All I could think of was what a mess that mud would make in the tent and on the sleeping bags.

I remembered when I came home from playing in the dirt, my mother wouldn’t let me walk into the house. “I just vacuumed,” or “you’re not getting that dirt on my furniture,” or something similar would emanate from her. Consequently, she would then hose me off on the deck in the backyard.

Luckily for the boys, I didn’t bring a hose. And lucky for me (and the tents), the campground had showers.

The AP article on The Cost of Raising a Child says it now costs over $220,000 to raise a child from birth to age 17. Tell me something I didn’t already know – it’s expensive having a kid. And, that doesn’t even cover the cost of college! As Raben Andrews of St. Louis, said “I still have to put the little buggers through college.”

I just finished reading The Hair-Raising Joys of Raising Boys by Dave Meurer. It was published originally in 1999, and enjoyed its seventh print in 2007. If you can over-look the Christian references, the book is a smart and funny look at those crazy things boys do. And, since all fathers were boys at some point in the past (some argue, men remain boys, just in bigger bodies), we find the humor in, and relate to, the way our sons think and act – much to the disapproval of their mothers. I enjoyed the book because Meurer’s anecdotes made me feel like I wasn’t the only father that: a) had a son who does stupid things; and, b) does stupid things himself.

The chapter on boys pretending to understand what you are saying as they wait for you to finally shut up so they can go play, is priceless. I say that only because it happens to me all the time. And, the chapter on camping with boys is spot on as he discusses that boys+dirt+wildlife+mosquito spray = mayhem. Even though I don’t fish, I totally relate to his discussion of his boys throwing rocks in the water. Spencer likes to do that, as well as hurl them at trees, squirrels, whatever, right at the same time I want to take in the quiet beauty of nature. In a future post I will share about the time I found big holes dug in the dirt all about the campsite as a result of Spencer’s and his friends’ search for gold.

Click on the image of the book to read more reviews or to order. It’s only six bucks, and I think it is money well spent.