Helmets and Other Sources of Parental Dictatorship

Geoff was not a happy camper when he came home tonight.  Seems that Aaron and Ethan were outside riding bikes without helmets.  If you read the last post, I mentioned that Geoff was only really unyielding about one thing: safety.  So he was not in a good mood.  This resulted in a special presentation for all of the kids on the importance of wearing a helmet, courtesy of YouTube. 


That was about the coolest thing I've seen technology do for us as parents - backing up what we say with some street credit from people who upload stuff to YouTube.  And even though I always tell the kids to wear helmets and both Geoff and I wear one when we go riding, there was a part of this presentation that I really hadn't spent too much time talking to the kids about - what an injury to a child does to their family and friends.  It was really impressive in that it made the point, very well, that the injury is costly, scary, and difficult to overcome for both the person who was injured and their whole family. 

After they finished watching it, Geoff made the kids think of ways they could be safer while riding a bike/skateboard/scooter and apologize to us for not wearing their helmets.  Tough, yes, but I think the point was adequately made through the video and each of them seemed genuinely upset at what could happen just because they didn't take the time to don a helmet. 

This was all before dinner.  During dinner, Hunter entertained us all with his clowning around and I realized that he was enjoying the attention just a bit too much.  I quieted the others and put on my "mom" hat (because prior to that he'd almost made me choke with laughter at his extremely "on" Hunter-ness).  He calmed down a little and Geoff's mood hadn't really improved. 

After supper he was encouraging the kids to help clean up and someone must have said something because the last thing I heard from the kitchen was "Deirdre, don't make anyone supper tomorrow!" Which I'm sure was leftover grumpiness because he can see the menu on the fridge and he knows we're having fried chicken tomorrow.  Then again, perhaps he saw the "with broccoli bake" and figured it was worth the risk.  He eats his cooked vegetables but only because I told him he has to or the kids won't. My guess is he figures his minimal discomfort is better than years of fighting with the kids.

In any case, he's not my parent and I'm most likely going to ignore him and cook dinner tomorrow.  On a side note, he just stepped in and I asked him about his grumpiness.  Turns out he's oddly suspicious about telling me much while I'm obviously in the middle of blogging.  Huh.  Strange.