Hurricane Florence came barreling through North Carolina and South Carolina this weekend. Wlimington NC and New Bern NC appear to have received most of Florence’s wrath, and there are current overall numbers of 14 dead, more than 796,000 without power and more than 20,000 people in SC evacuated and sent to shelters (NBC News), one is which located down the street from my home (a local high school). As I type this, Columbia SC has big ‘ol fat rain, as Forest Gump would say, and it’s windy, but not the catastrophe that is in NC. Please pray for everyone impacted and their journey of rebuilding. If you live near the coast, when Florence touched down, it was particularly dramatic, with mobile home rooftops and gas station rooftops blowing away like a fan blowing on an empty soda can. We still have been able to take the dogs out; Marley, Peanut and Moo try to immediately run back to the porch. Lisa roasted a turkey earlier in the week that we could eat for multiple days in case we lost power.
There are numerous instances of lost power in Florence SC (same name as the hurricane) where I commute to work, and I feel blessed. I’d rather stock up on water, non-perishable goods and batteries and end up not needing them any day. I called each of my work team members to make sure they were ok. Some moved to locations away from Florence’s path (the office closed early Thursday and all day Friday), and some had downed power lines which still have them without electricity. Communication would had been challenging without battery-powered cell phones. Be safe, everybody.
Now that a new school year has begun, I have been reading numerous facebook entries and group chats asking how some parents can get their children to read more. Some parents comment that their child is bright, engaging, can fix anyone’s cell phone/video system, but has difficulty reading at grade level or comprehending what has been read. I can sympathize with how a nasal or ear infection can effect the results of a reading test, and to make teachers and physicians aware.
Daddies, do you make reading a part of everyday life for your kids? Mostly anyone can afford a library with used books bought for pennies on the dollar at locations like Books A Million, 2nd and Charles or even Dollar Tree – 2nd and Charles has a bin where overstocked books are given out for free. The public library is open to anyone. Have you ever noticed homeless people with rich vocabularies? The library.
Start out with reading to pre-schoolers…and sound interested and excited about what you are reading. Kids at this stage are impressed by the amount of information and storytelling you can provide, and will want to do the same thing you do (that goes for just about EVERYTHING dads do). One of the reasons I am so fired up about the Marvel and DC universes is because they remind me of my dad buying me three comic books every payday(when comics were 15 cents). Having kids read what they enjoy (sports books, superhero stories, books based on popular video game characters or celebrities, books not on a “mandatory” school reading list) may turn into reading loftier stuff; it’s like a healthy gateway drug. I wet from comics to “chapter books”, to novels, to non fiction, etc.
When a child enjoys reading, it’s like the world opens up. And if you child ends up reading a lot, don’t freak out. Textbooks will become instruction manuals, research will not become a difficult task, and ANY question can be answered by reading (think Google). Lastly, show your kids that YOU support reading. Do your kids observe you reading? Do you talk about an article you read online or from a favorite book? Do your kids know the name of your favorite book (I hope it’s clean)? Sometimes, it appears that we live in a society supported by they. They say the weather will be, they say the president did, they say the best time to go shopping for televisions is…without a reference of where the info comes from. Reading is what enables a person to make sound judgements based on recorded facts. Then, based on life experiences, they can justifiably question what they read as well. Let’s get those bright, savvy kids on the honor roll, not by force, but because they desire to.
From the Desk of Daddy D 