Sexual assault on college campuses.

It's that time of year - almost - when kids are getting ready to send their college acceptance letters in. Here's one thing that parents of daughters are going to want to read about: sexual assault on campus.

Slate published a great article on sexual assault within athletic programs. The main cause, evidently, is a rape culture where women are viewed as a reward and college officials are reluctant to do anything about the situation because athletics is a major part of college revenue.

There are a few ways to deal with this: 1) Force colleges to investigate rape claims in a timely manner - and to have someone unrelated to the athletics department do it, 2) Have outside investigators come in to deal with rape and sexual assault. By outside, I mean outside the college and college town - since the police in college towns can be just as lame as the colleges, and 3) Take sports out of college.

There's another way too - change the culture of sports in America. When there are high school teams accusing of wholesale rape and cover up, there should be a call for change in the culture of sports. My dream is that sports uncouples from school - after all, kids should go to school to learn and sports should be separate from that. But since that's not going to happen, coaches and parents and other officials need to take this seriously.

Rape is serious. Sexual assault is serious.

Colleges have to release these numbers in accordance with Title IX. So before your daughter sends in her acceptance letters, look at the statistics. And talk with her about rape and what to do - and what not to do - if it happens to her.

We all know, as parents, that there's a chance it happens to our daughters. Then we, as parents, have a job to do - to educate our children to deal with what they need to do if it does happen.

Do I hope that my child never drink, never puts herself into a position where she might be impaired, where she might be raped? Sure. But sometimes it's not about what she does. In fact, rape is a crime committed mostly by men. It's almost ridiculous that we have to speak to our daughters about how to prevent rape - it should be speaking to the sons about not doing it.

It should be the coaches saying, "No raping. No sexual assault. Women and people and should be treated as such." It should be that players accused of sexual assault are banned from practice, investigated, and if found to be perpetrators, are expelled.

Unfortunately that's not the way it works. Rape has become a "women's responsibility to prevent," and there's only so much a woman can do to prevent it.

So take a look at the statistics and have that talk - before your daughter sends in her acceptance letters.

Abby is quite adorable.

Sometimes we forget how adorable our kids are. That's why it is always nice when someone takes pictures of our kids that we'd never be able to get and the kids are all smiling. Mark Oliver, one of the wonderful dad's at our karate studio (anatoliafamilytkd.com) took some pictures of Abby during her Little Dragon's class yesterday. She's so adorable and looks awesome! Here's the fabulous pictures of Abby, future black belt.

My home away from home

My home away from home. I spend a lot of nights, afternoons, and Saturdays here. It's Anatolia Family Taekwondo. It's my martial arts school. I'm one month into my training program. It's one month of solid training with under the guidance of my physical therapist. I had a big foot injury and an appendectomy last year in November. So my physical therapist sets limits so I don't over do it. 

Currently I am limited in jumpin jacks, jumping, and running. My stomach restrictions have been lifted, but my foot ones haven't. 

So I work around them. 

I'm also one month into my continued weight loss journey. I'm 8 lbs down. So that's nice. It would be nicer if clothing sizes wen down. But I'm trying not to focus on that so much. It doesn't always work, but sometimes I can get my mind off it. 

I'm doing more squats. Lots more. I like the way my butt looks :) it's important to a girl to have a nice bit. So squats are doin I for me. I'll keep those up. 

What else is working? Martial arts. 

Martial arts is a whole body workout and is doing wonders for me. I go early twice a week and get a good big workout in. Sometimes with others and sometimes by myself. It takes me an hour or so to do my 30 forms. And then I have weapons to practice. But mostly I do kicking and bag work when I'm there on my own. 

Bag work has a rhythm all it's own. It's stress relie and a great workout. After working out in bags your arms and legs are sore. It's a great feeling. 

So I'm still at it. Not always successfully some days. But I'm working hard to work out every day. 

Amazing talk.

It's that time of year when the TED talks are talked about online and published everywhere. I like looking through the index and seeing what was talked about. Sometimes they have great talks and I listen to them online. Sometimes they make me scratch my head. But here's one talk that everyone should listen to:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/14/the-sexy-lie-tedx-talk-sexual-objectification_n_4597316.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

I included the link to the article because it highlights the main points of the talk for those who don't have time to listen to the talk itself.

The main point is this: Being sexually objectified isn't a good thing, no matter how hard we try and convince ourselves it is.

I hear many parents, young adults, and even kids (yes, that includes kids as young as 5) talk about sexual objectification. The younger ones might not know that's what they are talking about - but it is. How many times do young girls talk about "having pretty dresses" or "being a pretty princess?" It's not that the idea of "pretty" is bad in and of itself. It's that the idea of using looks as a substitute for other things is bad.

We do it everyday as parents. It takes a concerted effort not to.

When your daughter is dressing Barbies (or whatever dolls she has) - what's the comments we make? Do we make more comments when she dresses them in the pretty dresses? What about when our daughters get dressed. Everyone likes to hear that they are looking good- but is that our only comment?

I've had to work hard to make sure that I use other words with my daughter than words about looks. Do I like her to put in ponytails because she's adorable with them - yes. But what do I tell her? I tell her that ponytails help keep her hair out of her eyes so the hair won't get in the way at karate, or while we are cooking, or while we are doing a science experiment. I need to work actively to make sure  that the focus is off looks.

Sexualization of women - and men too - is focused on looks. Especially when the kids are younger. We have a duty to bring our children out of the sexualized world. This means changing the way we talk with our children - boys and girls. If the boys constantly hear their parents praising the girls for looking pretty, then that is what they will do when they grow up with women. It's a reinforcing cycle.

Do I tell my kids when they look good. Sure I do. But do I also tell them when they are doing something smart, that it's awesome when they read, that I like the colors they chose, that they can jump very well, and all kinds of complements. I try hard to not make all my compliments about looks.

It's my little way of contributing to the world by making sure that my children aren't going to be part of the over-sexualization problem.

Or at least that's my hope.

Random Sunday thoughts.

It's the first Sunday after Christmas and I'm sitting at home with Nicholas, helping him rest. He needs rest because he lost his voice yesterday. It might have been all the yelling and excitement of having his telescope put together and getting to look through it and see stars. It might also be a cold. So to be safe, I stayed home from church with him to rest.

We watched GI Joe - the original one from the 80s - for 3 hours. I had so much fun with him.

Which made me think: What matters the most for me with my children?

The caramel might have turned out differently than I wanted, but it was more important that the kids and I did it together - that we had fun together and spent time doing something. The memories matter more than the caramel.

The answer: Having fun with them, raising them right, and showing them that I love them.

Those three things don't always go well together. Sometimes we have to punish so that they know they pushed their limits. Consequences come because I love my kids. I want them to understand there are limits. Consequences are the natural thing that follows when you break the limits. Rewards - good consequences - come when I see wonderful things happening.

So my New Year's Resolution to my children - the one about them - is that I will spend more time showing them that I love them. It's important. probably the most important thing I will do from here on out.

I mean more than just telling them that I love them. Showing love is totally different from saying love. They should know I love them when they jump at me and I catch them. When we cuddle on the couch, in a fort, or on a chair and read. When we pray together at night. When I take them outside and hike and go slowly so they can enjoy everything. We go on walks and take our time. When I slow our life down so that they have time to enjoy things.

It means that I have to focus on them - almost wholly - when they are awake. Not my computer, not my job, not work. Just on them.

This might mean less "stuff" going on at the Wunderlich house. But that's fine. It might mean more time outside- which is awesome. But what it means is more time doing the love stuff and less time just saying love.

It's going to be the one thing I can do for them that's going to matter the most in the long run.

Adolescent brains....

There's an interesting article over on Huffington Post today about adolescent brains and how they form ideas. The article states that so much emphasis has been placed on providing rich, stimulating environments for youngsters as their brain develops, that people have forgotten that the brain still develops as people get older.

Specifically, the adolescent brain is still developing the major pathways for making decisions. So how we, as parents, deal with their good - and bad - decisions will help them develop those pathways.

I wish there was a little more substance to the article: A little more research on how best to support these developing brains. Everyone seems to agree how to support younger brain development - but the older brain development doesn't get as many recommendations. I wonder if this is because people are scared of making others mad?

After all, if science came out and said something like, "When adolescent brains are developing, they need clear divisions between good and bad," - can you imagine the firestorm that would stir up? I certainly can.

It's funny that any number of political science and humanities studies have shown that the best indicator of how people behave and what beliefs they hold is......what their parents hold and how their parents behave. Is it possible that by surrounding adolescents with people who behave in "good" ways will make them good? The answer seems to be yes.

And if that's the case - then why would we surround our children with questionable things? Twerking and superstars who can't follow the rules of decency (like don't do drugs, don't spit on people, don't call people names) are not the people we want around our children. We want our children - especially our adolescents - around people who value themselves, who use their brains intelligently, and who behave with grace and friendliness.

If we, as adults, think we get influenced by our friends and surroundings - imagine how much more adolescents and children are influenced by theirs.

We have a role to play as parents - we must control what our children have access to. I'm not advocating full on censorship. But I'm advocating limiting access. We wouldn't let our children watch porn - so why let them read it in a book? We wouldn't want our children standing by while someone hurts another person - so why teach our children to do that with uber-violent video games? These are all things that we, as parents, can control.

But most of all, we can control what we tell and show our children through ourselves and the friends we have around.

If adolescent brains are still developing, just like toddler brains, then we need to be more careful, not less, with what we expose our children to.

Amazon subscribe and save/Amazon Mom.

I just discovered- and I know I'm late to the party - Amazon's Subscribe and Save feature. It's like Costco - but it delivers on a schedule to your house. For people like me - who hate to go to Costco with their kids but have no other option - this can save a bunch of time. I no longer have to deal with the toilet paper taking up so much of the cart that there's no room for everything else.

I also don't have to deal with going to Costco for it.

Best of all - I get 20% off my purchases.

How? It's easy.

First, sign up for the Amazon Subscribe and Save feature. Click here for a link.

Then sign up for Amazon Mom.

Then schedule your items so at least 5 arrive in each batch. If less than 5 arrive, you get 5% off. If 5 or more arrive, you get 20% off.

I've scheduled our toilet paper, clorox wipes, epsom salts, GF non-perishables (flour substitute, pasta), potatoes, soap, bottled water, kid's juice boxes. paper towels, laundry soap, baking soda (because we use it all the time - for lots of different things), vinegar (because it's used all the time too), lemons (my tree doesn't produce enough for me), shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, and all kinds of fun stuff through here.

I no longer have to worry about these things - or forgetting them when I head to the store. They will simply show up on their scheduled times and at my house. I don't have to do anything else.

I'm loving this. It's great.