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We understand there are 5 physical senses that the human body has. People have tried to introduce various things as a 6th sense, but that is still nebulous.

Having observed current culture, I see the need to document the 5 cultural or social senses.

• Sense of entitlement
• Sense of outrage
• Sense of unoffendability
• Sense of awareness
• Sense of immediacy

But these 5 senses have come at a cost – they replaced other senses that had withered due to lack of use. Here are 5 senses that people used to have, and what they should have instead of the senses listed above:

• Sense of responsibility
• Sense of direction
• Common sense
• Sense of shame
• Sense of purpose

It’s not unusual for one or more of our boys to grab some sticks or leaves to play with and then try to bring them in the house. So when my wife came home and saw this:

she assumed one of the kids was playing with some nature and left it outside the front door.

Then she looked up.
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For some reason, I’ve been reading books when it’s not summer vacation. Rather than wait until my annual summer book review and write an interminably-long post, I decided to write about them now.

Here they are, approximately in the order that I read them.

• No Talking by Andrew Clements
  Story about kids in elementary school. I read this just because Alpha was. It was mildly amusing. Nothing objectionable that I remember.
• A Love that Multiplies by the Duggar Family
  This is not a sequel to 20 and Counting. It is about one-third rehash and two-thirds new stuff. The other book was more about their life stories and this one is more about how and why they do the things they do. Not necessarily for children to read. Most parts are fine, but some topics are geared more towards those familiar with, umm, childbirth-type topics.
• Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax
  I laughed, I cried, I worried.

  What is our transition event for manhood? What ritual must American boys complete in order to be considered a man? And I mean a good, positive cultural event. Killing his first antelope maybe?

  It’s a little reminiscent of the point of the movie Courageous.

  There are a lot of things working against males in the world today – that was the part that had me worried. Mainly the various chemicals. Don’t believe me – read the book.

  Not for kids, but I think parents – especially parents of young boys – should read this book. And his previous book Why Gender Matters. His religious and cultural views don’t always align with Christianity, but his conclusions are good.

• Good Pictures Bad Pictures by Kristen Jenson
  Preventative maintenance is recommended for a number of things – your car, your water heater, your furnace, etc. How about preventative maintenance for your child’s mind? Specifically your child and the internet. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right? A few minutes here and there going through this book with your child and discussing expectations and preparing him to avoid bad things online will save him from bigger issues later in life.

  This book is for a parent to read to a child. Have it on hand and go over it with him before you hand him the keys to the internet.

• Your Legacy by James Dobson
  This reminded me a little of what Rob Rienow talks about. Interesting background into his family history. The stuff that’s not family history is stuff you probably already know but need to be reminded of anyway. It’s meant for parents, but if your upper elementary-aged child wanted to read it I wouldn’t see why he shouldn’t.
• The Search for WondLa by Tony DiTerlizzi
  Good book. Interesting and imaginative world.

  This is the first book of a trilogy, but it stands on its own – the ending is satisfactory without any other books.

  I’d say 3rd or 4th grade on up. There is a bit of violence, but most of it is of the dissection-of-animals variety.

• A Hero for WondLa by Tony DiTerlizzi
  Second book of the series. It doesn’t stand on its own – the ending does not feel like an ending. There is one bad word – but it is not so bad that the FCC bans it.
• The Battle for WondLa by Tony DiTerlizzi
  Third book of the series. And the final book, as far as I can tell. A little more violent than the others, but nothing particularly gruesome unless your child is a vegetarian for humanitarian reasons.

  One of the characters does go into some vague musing about truth and it could possibly confuse young minds. Set those minds straight with the poem of the Blind Men and the Elephant. And evolution is mentioned in passing – more of a synonym of “change” than of a belief.

• Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
  Science fiction by a classic author not normally associated with stories of outer space. It was more interesting than I expected but, as it was written before people actually flew into space, it feels dated. I’d say high school on up.

We went to the science museum in Toledo recently. The lower level of the museum has a section set aside for temporary exhibits. Temporary can be days or weeks or months. This particular exhibit seemed to be one of the longer ones at 3 months, since it was rather extensive.

It was a museum of guitars.

They had a giant guitar, some things to play with and try, but it was mostly guitar displays.

Early guitars, classical guitars, electric guitars, modern guitars.

I don’t know that there were many guitars of exceptional importance or value, but they had a wide range, all with placards indicating their places in history.

They did, however, have one rare guitar. It’s not the best photo, but it will give you the idea. I think they managed to get one of the original models for this display, so it is somewhat rare as there aren’t that many surviving from the early years.

That was my favorite guitar display of the day.

It is tempting to give an electronics device (iPad, Kindle Fire, anything else that has games) of some sort to youngsters who act up, in order to get them to sit still at an event.

But don’t.

That ends up being a reward for misbehaving. It should be this: sit still, and then you can play afterwards. Not this: you get to play if you’re being disruptive.

Which behavior do want to reinforce?

If I may try an analogy here: Raising kids is like firing a gun. Assume the kid is the bullet. You as a parent have a target for them to hit.

You do have a target, right?

Even if it is just “to become a productive member of society”, you should have a goal. You should have a plan to reach that goal, too. But that’s another topic.

So you want your kids to hit the target. The target is a long way off. What does a bullet need in order to reach the target?

Two main things: propulsion and constraint.

I’ll skip propulsion – the point of this post is boundaries. Constraint is the boundaries you give them.

A gun with a short barrel is inaccurate – the bullet has a low chance of hitting the target. Similarly, a child with no boundaries is going to veer off somewhere.

When is it easiest to correct the course of a bullet – at the beginning of its travel or near the end of its travel? At the beginning, I would expect. I’ve never tried to correct a bullet at the end of its travel. The same applies to people. Get them on the right course early, and it will save you and them much effort and grief later.

The right course at hand for this topic is being able to survive without being amused by a glowing screen.

And if you’re not familiar with the etymology of amuse, you should be.

For some reason, I’ve been reading books when it’s not summer vacation. Rather than wait until my annual summer book review and write an interminably-long post, I decided to write about them now.

Here they are, approximately in the order that I read them.

• 20 and Counting by The Duggar Family
  This is their life story, telling how Jim Bob and Michelle each grew up and met and everything. I don’t know what I expected before I started, but this book was more interesting than I thought it would be.

  If you have small kids, this book might give you some good ideas on ways to run things.

• The Closer by Mariano Rivera
  This was actually the youth version, not the full version. Beta picked it out at the bookstore. This also was more interesting than I expected it would be, although I did skip a bunch of about the last third of the book. The first part of the book was about his growing up in Panama and getting to the major leagues (not his plan, but he went along with it). Fine for all ages.
• Order of the Unicorn by Suzanne Selfors
  Beta was reading this through school. I forget if it was from the school library or a free-reading assignment or what. But I read it just to keep up with what is going into their minds. This is part of the imaginary veterinary series. The book wasn’t that memorable, but I suppose that’s okay because that means there’s nothing controversial in it.
• Wicked by Gregory Maguire
  Over 1 Million Sold!

  But not 1 million read.

  I doubt that many of the people who bought the book made it through that mess. We had tickets to go see the musical, so I thought I would get a head start and read the book. I started reading it but gave up. It was very crass. I thought it might get better, but about 10% of the way through it, my wife noticed I was reading it and said her friend told her not to bother with the book. So apparently it doesn’t get any better.

  If you’re thinking about reading the book: don’t do it.

  The musical is fine on its own, and does a fine job of removing the bad parts of the book. The currently-popular theme of villains not really being bad, just misunderstood, is still there. But there’s nothing you would censor for your kids, like you would for a lot of the book.

• Holes by Louis Sachar
  Good. One bad word. Interesting storylines.
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
  Not for kids. No reason for them to read it. What age is appropriate? Once they’ve had a government class in middle or high school, probably.
• Reclaiming the Sufficiency of Scripture by Rob Rienow
  Great book. I liked it so much I bought a few copies and mailed them to people. If you’re not going to watch his DVD series on marriage or his DVD series on parenting, at least read this book.
• A Reader’s Manifesto by B. R. Myers
  I thought this might be interesting, given a positive review I read.

  But it wasn’t.

  And the passages of bad writing that it critiques (or condemns) are not necessarily clean. I’d say avoid this book.

My wife looks forward to Christmas music. I used to try to hold out until after Thanksgiving, but she would turn to that one radio station that switches to all Christmas music the first week of November.

This year, I stopped resisting. But it seems to me that the radio station song selection is awful. If you want to hear the same few songs that aren’t really about Christmas, then go ahead and listen to the radio. Sure, they might have the word “Christmas” in them, but that doesn’t make them Christmas songs.

Anyway, disillusioned with the radio, I turned to our CD collection. Then, unable to find our CD collection, I turned to Amazon. (Amazon’s process for buying music digitally is way better than iTunes’ process, in case you want my opinion on that.)

All that to say this: I got to assess a number of Christmas albums and am giving you my favorites.

Top 3 Albums

• Evie – Come on, Ring Those Bells
  A classic. If you don’t know these songs then I am sorry for your sad childhood.
• Reliant K – Let It Snow, Baby… Let It Reindeer
  I was unfamiliar with this album before this year. But now this is my kids’ favorite album. I burned them a CD that has the slower angsty songs removed.
• Various Artists – Handel’s Young Messiah
  The one from the early 1990s. This is a very good way to be introduced to Handel’s Messiah. I hope you already have this CD, because it is out of print and you can’t buy digital copies of it. Not legally, anyway.

  I realize the whole Messiah composition is more appropriate at Easter time than Christmas, but it is not out of place at Christmas, so we’ll stick with tradition and allow it here.

Honorable Mention

• Mannheim Steamroller – Mannheim Steamroller Christmas
• MercyMe – The Christmas Sessions
• Sixpence None the Richer – The Dawn of Grace

Also, slightly related – if you’re looking for a recording of the Lord’s Prayer, I recommend Susan Boyle‘s version.

I don’t go through a lot of music, so I’m sure I missed or forgot some good ones. Any other recommendations?