My To Do List for 2012

Happy New Year Folks,

Thanks to Make Me Wanna Holler Dad, I just had to re-post my response to his New year To-do assessment.

"I'd like to: 

finish my 21 day fast of no Facebook

continue getting closer to God

refinance our mortgage

get to the gym 2-3 times a week

eat more seafood

have more patience with tween daughter attitude

enjoy family game night at least 2 - 3 times a month

get a new babysitter for more date nights with hubby"

I'm giving God all the praise and the glory to help me complete my To Do list!!

Trying to get Mommy Arrested!!!

I know I'm being really dramatic with that title but I am so angry with my 10 year old right now, I've got to blog to keep my hands busy!!

While we were on break Maddy was bragging how she was getting really good at this game she was playing on one of her kiddie websites. I'm really good with keeping tabs on her computer activity and decided it was time to do a check using the parental controls. However, an odd thing occurred when I went to look at her daily activity....it came up empty!

Mind you, we were snowed in, on vacation, and she spent a lot of time on the computer all that week, so where was the history? It wasn't even showing her logging in! Hm? I did the typical mommy thing: Don't Say Anything, Catch Her In The Act...right?

Today she asked to go on the computer after doing all of her chores and I knew this was going to be the perfect time to catch her. I let her play for about 20 minutes then asked her to help with something downstairs. The minute she hit the bottom step, I was running up 2 at a time.

The first thing on the screen is the game she was talking about on pause...but...hiding behind it was an open hotmail account and a FACEBOOK page!!! I KNOW!!! She's 10!! How the @#%^$ did she get an email account and a Facebook page without the stupid parent control going crazy. And that's when I saw it. She wasn't signed on as herself. When we got our new computer we gave her the old computer with her own sign on and parental controls up the wahzoo. But...I never erased hubby's sign-on which had no password and no restrictions!! GASP!! CLUTCH YOUR PEARLS!!

After I got over that shock I took the liberty of browsing her FB page - EGADS!!! The cursing!! The stories of who's making out with who in the hallways! The "I can't believe so-and-so was such a bitch".....MY CHILD IS TEN YEARS OLD...HOW THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO MAKE IT TO HIGH SCHOOL???

You all know that you're supposed to be at least 16 to get on FB, well, honey, this child is attending Hofstra University, she was born in 1983, and she graduated high school with honors!!

The rage!!

MUST

GET

IT

ALL

OUT

TO

KEEP

FROM

SNATCHING

HER

OUT

HER

SLEEP!!!

When I finally confronted her, you know when you are so angry you're voice gets that almost eerie silence to it. She immediately started bawling as if I actually did put my hands on her. I made her watch me type this in her status:

"This is Madison's mom. Madison created this page without her parent's permission.

This page will be deleted today. I will be calling other parents!"

I deleted her account. Deleted her email account. Deleted hubby's sign-on. Changed all of her restrictions on the computer so that now she can only go online with my sign-on "permission". I then told her there was no more computer until I can trust her with it, and it will only be used now for school assignments. She had to shower and be in bed by 7:30. Screaming and crying the whole time like I went and found hubby's belt or something! The nerve!

I was stammering and stuttering in my angry calm so much because I really just had to rush her out of my sight. I did call one parent (had to keep my threat real) that told me "I despise that damn FB but I let her go on in small doses and then I use it as punishment". Seriously? If you hate it, why in the world would you allow your child on it?! It was like talking to someone who just wants their kid to be their friend. She informed me that the majority of the 5th graders have FB accounts, and I informed her that I would be calling the principal tomorrow!

Sidebar: Because Maddy is maybe 1 of the 5 ethnic kids in her entire grade (only about 20 in the entire middle school), my girlfriend swears it's the difference in how African-American kids are raised and how Caucasian kids are raised. These damn sneaky ass friends of hers! Ugh! All conspiring and happy about how cute it is to "act like teenagers LMAO"...Excuse ME?

Anyway, you all know how I feel about children on FB, now I have to go and let 'em know at the middle school.

I have to keep repeating that she's 10!! My mother says we need to just ship her sneaky ass to boarding school - Um, are you paying?

I've got 10 new gray hairs and an impending migraine now from suppressing the beatdown.

Here's the question: How old is old enough to be on FB, have a cell phone, have email?

Cyber Bullying Got Me Shoved Today at School

Hubby trying to make me feel better

I can't even believe the events that happened outside and inside my classroom today all because of a cyber bully on Facebook. Extremely long and tiresome story truncated...Approximately 30 students tried to "talk" to one of my boys from the program. One of them succeeded in shoving me out of the way to try to pull my student out of the classroom. This was by far one of the scariest teaching moments I've ever had, and I'm summing it up to get to the real problem. These students showed no fear of me and the other 2 female teachers that tried to get the situation under control.

Luckily one of my students from last term also came to my rescue and helped me to get my classroom doors locked as I waited for the deans to show up (only one did - whole other problem). The piece of the story that prompted me to post is to share as a warning. All of this happened because a male on Facebook, possibly made up because he doesn't show up on any school directory active or past, made a claim that my student was setting up some boys to get jumped. At the same time this same FB bully was threatening to shoot and kill several other students.

It took 4 periods to sort this mess out. Turns out that 10 out 11 students had never met their FB friend. One student was finally found to "may have known" the alleged male years ago and told myself, deans, and security that this individual "was a punk in real life but a real bully online" (thoughts of Columbine anyone?). He basically found one kid to friend him and then everyone else friended him seeing who was on his list.

He's known online for random verbal attacks and threats. This male had tried setting up parties for students, threats of violence, promises of protection and revenge on anyone that messed with "his friends". NOT ONE OF THESE STUDENTS EVER LET THEIR PARENTS KNOW!!!! Mind you my student never even heard of half of these people but, here's the connection, the FB male knew that one of my student's friends "had beef". This little mastermind essentially tried to create a lynch mob, and had it not been for my not backing down and my student's insanely cool thinking under the circumstances, this could have turned out very, very badly.

Parents and people in general, please, please, please DO NOT FRIEND PEOPLE ON FACEBOOK THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW!!

There are some really sick people out there! This poor mother of one of the boys that was going after my student was struck dumb when her son admitted that he almost went to this sicko's party! You know how many horrible pictures we had to paint for these kids for what could have been waiting for them. Not to mention the whole slew of what ifs. What if the party was set up by pedophiles? What if knowing where they all go to school and look like this guys showed up at school to fulfill his threats? What if one of our students decided to bring a gun in to have this "talk" with my student? What if my student in the middle of the melee with 30 kids calling him out decided to swing back on the kid that grabbed him? What if I had gotten injured? I mean the list goes on and on.

These kids lack all types of common sense and don't possess the necessary skills to be responsible members of an online social network such as Facebook. How does someone threaten your teenage life and you not think it important enough to tell your parents or some type of authority figure?!?!?!? I just don't get it!! I will never forget my student's face as all these kids kept asking for him to come out. That kind of fear will not leave that kid for a really long time.

I just...this is not why I teach...