Kids only want ninja shows?

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Don't they say, 'Once a ninja, always a ninja'? The same is the case with my kids too (especially the elder one). Making ninja sounds and prancing around the house is something she specializes in. And she is doing her best to teach her younger brother primitive versions of ninja sounds too; and I can't really seem to do anything about it. So the situation is like this - while I'm trying my level best to introduce my younger one to something constructive like preschool games like these or plain basic alphabets, what he ends up imbibing is ninja sound effects. I give up!

Why can't he do both? You just need to make sure that he knows that when it's time to play then he can play, but when it's time to learn, he needs to sit down and learn. My brother is obsessed with and pretends to be superheroes and characters from the "Super Mario" games all the time and he never stops talking about them. While it does get annoying sometimes, it hasn't hindered his ability to work. Kids will be kids, don't expect them to think about school all the time. But if what you mean is that your kid hasn't been learning and you can't get him to, then maybe you should try teaching him about something he's interested in, and then he might be more interested in learning the other stuff you want him to learn.

 

[Drtooth]

That reminds me of a particularly annoying "ABC Mouse" ad where the woman was so upset her not quite hyperactive child wasn't "interested" in learning. I think I'm getting a welt in my forehead for slapping it every time that commercial is on. I'm sure the entire block can attest to it, but it's also followed up by a loud "BECAUSE SHE'S A LITTLE KID!!!" from me. Sitting still and quiet is a hard thing to instill in a young child. That's why Sesame Street did that whole thing about self regulation. Some kids can sit quietly and listen, some don't. Even the ones that can don't like it. I could get into a whole side rant about how the educational system is essentially about crushing the individuality of children and a side rant on that side rant about how everyone that complains about how terrible Tall Poppy syndrome is gleefully accept it. The thing is, kids don't like school. They have to go, they have to sit and pay attention, and that's how life is. That stuff gradually grows up with a child, and they still hate it. Heck, most people who are employed hate their jobs but do it because they have to. That's why they pay them.

We have to remember we were kids too, and we're all horribly unreliable narrators when it comes to the "I was always a well behaved kid" rant. We know those who were were either creepy or those obnoxious kids we hated that kept getting good grades because their parents sucked all the fun out of their lives, making them think only of the future, thus making them grow up too fast. Yet, there is a time and a place for running around and doing kid's stuff. School just isn't one of them (at least how school is done). That said, raising kids is hard. And things like this are why it's so hard. Also things like that why I don't want kids.

 

[D'Snowth]

The thing is, kids don't like school. They have to go, they have to sit and pay attention, and that's how life is. That stuff gradually grows up with a child, and they still hate it. Heck, most people who are employed hate their jobs but do it because they have to. That's why they pay them.

Yeah, when I was a kid, any place I had to go, I didn't enjoy it. School, church, the doctor, the dentist. . . . if I had to go, I didn't like it, lol.

And when I was a kid, I always felt that they should had paid us to go to school, because the way I saw it, how was kids going to school any different from adults going to work? Adults have to get up at a time when most people want to be dead, kids have to get up at a time when most kids want to be dead; some adults use public transportation to commute to work, some kids use public transporation (school buses count as public transportation, right?) to commute to school; work is a crummy place where they lock you up with awful people for hours at a time; school is a place crummy place where they lock you up with rowdy kids for hours at a time; adults sit at desks and do paperwork as such when they go to work, kids sit at desks and do their lessons which is kind of like paperwork; adults get a lunchbreak at work, kids get a lunchbreak at school; adults have deadlines to meet, kids have deadlines to meet; adults have bosses they have to answer to, kids have teachers they have to answer to; adults have to meet dresscodes at work, kids have to meet dresscodes at school (though they must not be strictly enforced anymore, as I see school kids wearing things like tanktops, sleeveless dresses, short shorts, mini skirts, tights, and skinny jeans, stuff that was forbidden when I was in school); adults get paid for their work, kids get . . . and education for going to school? I mean, to my kid logic, it only seemed right that they paid us kids for going to school. If anything, they could have taught us the value of a dollar, and taught us how to manage our money for the real world, because y'know what? I'm an adult, I'm in my twenties, and I don't know half of the stuff that adults have to do with their money, like income tax and stuff like that.

But then again, it's like here in another couple of months, like always, they'll be talking about how they've calculated how much income women would make if they were paid for their duties as housewives and mothers and such, and every year it makes me say, "If you could calculate how much they would make, why can't you calculate a way for them to actually get paid?"

 

[Drtooth]

UGH. I tell you I had a lousy school experience. I don't know what I watched a few years back, I think it was a Target commercial or some preschool show with a "talk to kids" segment, and it set me off because they had these cute, energetic young teachers and I was like "Where the heck where these kind of young women when I was in school?" Lemme put it this way. I can't really watch that episode of The Simpsons where they how the flashback of Bart in Kindergarten because that's pretty much every darn teacher I've had for several grades. The bitter old "I could care less" types is what I got. And I was the kid that somehow managed to get a couple minor things wrong and get scolded roundly if I so much did the most trivial thing, yet when some kid was bullying another or doing something actually punishable they're all like (in the most Gene Wilder Willy Wonka "don't go. Stop." voice you can imaging) "stop that. cut that out or I'll continue to ignore you."

Yeah, I freaking hated school. I hated the teachers, I hated the school busy work, I hated the home busy work, I friggin hate to read because of the crappy curriculum they had back then. I'm sure things have improved, but school sucked in my day.

 

[mr3urious]

UGH. I tell you I had a lousy school experience. I don't know what I watched a few years back, I think it was a Target commercial or some preschool show with a "talk to kids" segment, and it set me off because they had these cute, energetic young teachers and I was like "Where the heck where these kind of young women when I was in school?"

I'm sure that over time, those cute, energetic teachers will be more like Ms. Krabappel or any of the teachers in Gumball that have that same passion for teaching, but over time learn just how mentally draining it really is.

 

[Drtooth]

I'm sure that over time, those cute, energetic teachers will be more like Ms. Krabappel or any of the teachers in Gumball that have that same passion for teaching, but over time learn just how mentally draining it really is.

Yeah, but it would have been nice to have fresh teachers growing up.

But yeah. Crappy teachers and lousy curriculum. The sit down and shut up style of learning (oh, so that's where the TV show got its name) just doesn't work for some kids. But like I said, we oh so hate the big evil Tall Poppy syndrome. Ayn Rand! Yet we have no problem beating the individuality and curiosity out of kids, and continue with the sit down and shut up busy work. Errr... well, at least my experience was that one. Now I'm going to leave it at that before I really start to pick apart my life experiences and get really low about it.

As for Ninjas... eh... I really don't see any Ninjas on television that aren't of the Teenage Mutant Turtle variety jelling with kids. There are the ironic parody style ones here and there. What I'm picking up on is a spy fad. NBarbie has a new line of Spy based toys and a movie. There's something called "Fresh Beat Band of Spies" for little kids. I kinda had a concept for a spy series but, eh... at this point I'd be lucky to go halfsies on a web comic no one would read.

 

[D'Snowth]

I don't know what I watched a few years back, I think it was a Target commercial or some preschool show with a "talk to kids" segment, and it set me off because they had these cute, energetic young teachers and I was like "Where the heck where these kind of young women when I was in school?"

I had some teachers like that in school. I remember my Grade 7 Language Arts teacher was actually an old acquaintance of my older sister, and she had just gotten into teacher, however, my middle school was in the middle of the ghetto, and a majority of the student body was unruly and disrespectful, and one day they drove her to over the edge and she suffered a complete mental and emotional breakdown and took a leave of absence for quite some time.

To be honest though, one of the older teachers I had once confided in my mother that had she known what she was getting into, she never would have gotten into teaching, because kids are a lot more rowdy and disrespectful in recent years than they were back in her time.