Wichita Eagle: Suzanne Tobias

Parent-teacher conferences offer insight, perspective

By Suzanne Perez Tobias — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:12 CST

What do teachers make?

Spoken-word artist (and former teacher) Taylor Mali puts it this way:

I make parents tremble in fear when I call home at around dinnertime.

The secrets of talking to teenagers

By Suzanne Perez Tobias — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:07 CST

You hear and read and learn things, helpful tips about raising kids, little bits of advice you squirrel away and hope to remember when your child gets to that mysterious next stage.

And the one after that.

More life skills that kids, and maybe adults, ought to know

By Suzanne Perez Tobias — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:11 CST

Reactions to last week’s column about skills children should have before they leave home fell into two general categories:

1.) You’re absolutely right! Everyone should master those things and more. For example …

And, 2.) You’re absolutely right! But I’m embarrassed to say there are a few things on that list I need to learn myself.

Basic life skills: Don’t leave home without them

By Suzanne Perez Tobias — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:11 CST

Recently I had lunch with a friend and her daughter, who attends Kansas State University.

The young woman told me she probably could have gotten rich her first semester at college if she had charged a fee for cooking and laundry advice.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Martha said, shaking her head.

Middle school madness: Breathe in, breathe out

By Suzanne Perez Tobias — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:39 CST

I live with two middle-schoolers.

Two silly, sullen, funny, frantic, awkward and amazing little people — though truthfully not so little anymore, as my teenaged daughter is a scant inch shorter than I — remind me each day of that World War II slogan intended to boost British morale amid the constant threat of enemy invasion:

Keep calm and carry on.

Roll the dice on these board games

By Suzanne Perez Tobias — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:15 CST

A few weeks ago, I wrote about new board games your family might consider for the holiday season.

Since then, our family has tested, played and replayed a few more games (isn’t winter break lovely?). And because I take my role as this newspaper’s official Board Game Advocate seriously, I need to tell you about them.

So put down those new iPads, iPods and Playstations, gather ’round the kitchen table and explore one of these old-school time-wasters:

New Year’s resolutions for the lazy

By Suzanne Perez Tobias — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:05 CST

Here’s a little thought that’s been bouncing around my weary, post-holiday brain:

How can the same universe that spawned a shapeless sloth-sack known as the “Forever Lazy” be so intent on making sure we spend our late Decembers focused on self-improvement, resolving to be slimmer, fitter, kinder, smarter, smoke-free specimens of human perfection?

I mean, you could have just received a Forever Lazy for Christmas from some friend or family member who loves you and knows how much you love to be lazy. (I didn’t, but I’m not complaining, as I still use and cherish last year’s Snuggie.)

Song or no song, board games are fun for all ages

By Suzanne Perez Tobias — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:15 CST

There are so many wonderful things about playing card and board games with your kids: the family togetherness, the life lessons, the talking and laughing, the feeling that you’re doing something that doesn’t involve cords, screens or keyboards.

The best part for me, though, is the chance to randomly burst into song, such as when we’re playing the card game War and I can shout, “War! Huh!! Good God, y’all!! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Say it again …”

Or when I pull an Apples to Apples green card that says “Unforgettable,” and I croon, “That’s what yoooou are …”

Don’t fight it; kids will show yourself in them

Suzanne Perez Tobias — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:29 CST

I had this idea of writing about how my son, Jack, has inherited my special brand of neuroses.

Just recently we’ve noticed him biting his nails and picking at his cuticles.

He fidgets on the couch.

Be thankful today for family, meals together and conversation

SUZANNE PEREZ TOBIAS — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 07:23 CST

Today, families across Kansas and throughout the country will do something American families seldom do anymore:

They’ll sit down to dinner.

In our fast-paced, overscheduled, assembly-line society, traditions such as dining together are increasingly rare events.

Earth-shaking events are best when shared with family

SUZANNE PEREZ TOBIAS — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:16 CST

I grew up in hurricane country, moved to Tornado Alley and spent last Saturday night like many Kansans, marveling at the rumbling, shifting, surprising power of my first earthquake.

Now I definitely know which I prefer. And it’s not the latter.

Normally I’m all for go-with-the-flow surprises. In fact, I relish them.

Kids and I have much to learn from each other

SUZANNE PEREZ TOBIAS — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:34 CDT

We’re having one of those dinner conversations where Jack starts out talking about math, which leads to Spanish, which leads to Europe, which reminds him of this awesome book about Ancient Rome, and hey, have you ever heard of a vomitorium?

“Not the place,” I tell him, shaking my head. “Look around. What are we doing?”

“Eating,” he says, then continues, unfazed, explaining a term I thought would be disgusting but turns out to be just “a passageway through which large crowds could exit an amphitheater.”

Suzanne Perez Tobias: The family that texts together...

SUZANNE PEREZ TOBIAS — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:04 CDT

If you listen to experts — the nameless, faceless people behind that ubiquitous phrase, “experts say” — you’d never let your kid touch a piece of technology.

Experts say Facebook rots your brain.

Experts say teenagers are texting zombies who can’t carry on a real conversation.

The end of times? Let us eat cake

SUZANNE PEREZ TOBIAS — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 11:26 CDT

A recent report from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture — what, you don’t subscribe? — predicts that coffee and chocolate could become luxuries few can afford if temperatures continue to rise thanks to climate change.

The report says an expected annual temperature increase of more than two degrees Celsius by 2050 will leave many of West Africa’s cocoa-producing areas too hot for chocolate.

That could mean $700 boxes of Cocoa Puffs by mid-century. And who dares imagine what a venti mocha might cost by then?

Confessions of an alleged scrapbooker

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 00:08 CDT

I'd tell you right off the bat that this column is about scrapbooking, but I don't want you to roll your eyes and assume I'm just another mom who cuts pictures of her kids into cheesy heart shapes and splatters them with bunny stickers.

For one thing, bunny stickers are so 1998.

For another thing, my photographer husband isn't keen on photographs being cropped into odd shapes or with zigzag scissors.

Homework can be painful, even for adults

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 07:39 CDT

Remember when you were a child, sitting at the kitchen table after school, working on math problems — I'm sorry, we should probably call them math challenges — and thinking to yourself, "I can't wait to grow up so I won't have to do this (grumble-grumble) homework anymore"?

I remember thinking that. Vividly. And I was the kind of student who savored a good algebra problem every now and then.

Once I graduated from college and got a writing job I love, I figured my days of trying to determine how many slices of pizza Alphonse ate or how far the red train traveled or the effect of colored cellophane on the growth of bean plants (my third-grade science fair project) were history — like the Gettysburg Address I had to memorize.

Work or play, families need to take it outside

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:46 CDT

Are you outside right now? Did you take the newspaper onto the porch? Are you surfing the Internet on a laptop or smartphone in the yard? Do you look for ways to get outdoors every day, in heat, cold, rain or shine, and take your kids with you?

Statistics say probably not.

Otherwise we wouldn't have events like Saturday's eighth annual "Worldwide Day of Play," an initiative designed to encourage families to turn off the television and play outside. (It was started and is being promoted, with no hint of irony, by Nickelodeon.)

Uncovering folders, files and jelly beans

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 08:29 CDT

Now and again — every 25 years or so, I'm told — the newsroom where I work undergoes a top-to-bottom cleaning and re-organizing.

We're not talking about your average, "The fire marshal's coming, so pick up that pile of papers."

This is a getting-new-carpet, moving-furniture, finally-clearing-shelves-and-delving-into-forgotten-file-cabinets sort of endeavor, and it has been fascinating.

Breaking bad behavior

SUZANNE PEREZ TOBIAS — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 08:09 CDT

Sounds like there are lots of grownups out there who are learning to embrace their inner Clint Eastwoods. Last week's column, in which I admitted that I sometimes speak out against littering, jaywalking and other forms of obnoxious or dangerous kid behavior, struck a chord with readers.

I figured I'd hear from at least a few people who'd accuse me of being unreasonable or intolerant. They'd say I was stodgy or hated kids, like Eastwood's Walt Kowalski in "Gran Torino." Perhaps they'd tell me to mind my own business.

What I heard instead were dozens and dozens of "amens" and "bravos."

Who will speak up against bad behavior?

SUZANNE PEREZ TOBIAS — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 08:09 CDT

It was just another morning in the carpool lane, and I was waiting to ease my car around the carefully choreographed circle to unload my kids and a friend who rides with us.

A van in front of us stopped. Three kids got out. One shifted her backpack. Another adjusted her ID lanyard.

The third, a boy, threw a half-full can of pop to the ground, watched it splash and gurgle on the pavement, and started to walk away.