Posted by Richard Kuhlenschmidt
Tue, 05 Dec 2006 14:09:33 GMT
It must be as a result of all the bad PR lately about trans-fats and childhood obesity, but two giants of the fast food industry are getting into the fitness care.
First this, McDonald’s is experimenting with mini-gyms in several of its U-S restaurants.
A Side of Exercise With Your McD Fries?
It opened the first R Gym – that’s R as in Ronald McDonald for those who missed the clown plug – last March in Tulsa, Okla., and now has six more, at McDonald’s in Santa Ana, Whittier and Elk Grove, Calif.; Broomfield, Colo.; and Chillicothe and Woodridge, Ill.
Now this,
Konami and Burger King Team up for kids Fitness
“Dance Dance Revolution is a unique, entertaining resource that allows kids of all ages to have fun while being physically active,” said Martha Tomas Flynn, senior director of sponsorships and promotions, Burger King Corporation. “By providing DDR toy premiums with BURGER KING Kids Meals, the DDR promotion encourages families to share in both meal time and play time.”
Just getting the old corporate image in shape for the holidays!
Posted in Parenting
Posted by Richard Kuhlenschmidt
Mon, 06 Nov 2006 00:47:31 GMT
Why is it that after years of safe sex classes, drug abstinence seminars, anti-smoking campaigns, teens still go out and get involved with self-destructive behavior like drinking and driving, smoking, having unprotected sex, and so on.
The prevailing thought is that it is because teens feel invincible. They are young, strong, and smart. “It won’t happen to me!” they tell themselves. They have weighed the odds, assessed their own skills and smarts, and feel like they can get away with it, at least this time.
But a new study being done by the Association for Psychological Science discounts this idea and actually claims that teens overestimate their risk of getting HIV or lung cancer. But, they underestimate the consequences. Maybe they will get lung cancer, but how many years do they have to smoke before they get it? Maybe they will get an STD, but how bad can that really be?
Social acceptance and rebellion are also factors. Peer pressure can sway a kid who knows the dangers of drunk driving to do it anyway, regardless of the odds. The Cost/Benefit factor doesn’t even come in to play.
Adults, on the other hand, through experience, knowledge and insight, have an intuitive reaction to avoid risky behavior. It is a “gut” feeling that stops them from getting involved in these activities.
So how do we impart this intuition that has taken years to develop in adults, into our kids?
There is currently a study being conducted by Valerie F. Reyna and Frank Farley at the Association for Psychological Science where teens are being subjected to positive images of healthy behavior and negative images of risky behavior. It appears that this strategy may work better than the tactics that are currently being used.
To dig into this more, click here.
Posted in Parenting, Setting Limits | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Richard Kuhlenschmidt
Sun, 05 Nov 2006 03:53:22 GMT
There is an e-mail going around claiming to contain a speech given by Bill Gates to a high school graduating class. I did a little investigation and found out that it is in fact, not from a speech by Bill Gate, but rather from Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, or Add by Charles J. Skykes.
Nevertheless, it bears repeating:
Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will
expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about
yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school.
You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents
had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t
whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are
now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and
listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you
save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try
delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life
HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll
give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This
doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers
off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF.
Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave
the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for
one.
Good advice. Guess it just sound better coming from Bill Gates.
Posted in Parenting, School | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Richard Kuhlenschmidt
Sun, 15 Oct 2006 22:14:57 GMT
Having some free time this weekend, I did more research on my Parenting Blogroll project and came up an astounding list of over 300 parenting blogs!
I’ve taken my prior list off the sidebar, since it would be too long to be practical, and placed a link to another page.
To be honest, I’ve only had the opportunity to look over about 50 or so of them, there may be broken links, old links, and of course, the need to be somehow categorized.
If you see any errors or ommissions, please let me know.
Posted in Parenting | Tags blogs, parenting | 2 comments | no trackbacks
