Jonathan Peske

a music teacher who is curious about life

[Tara @EmbracingTara]

I'm pretty crunchy and practice non-violent parenting - but this is ridiculous 🤣

First of all, from a mama of four - always, always, tell children what TO do instead of what *not* to do. If you say "don't jump on the couch" all they hear is "jump on couch". Especially very small children. You're just reinforcing the undesirable behavior rather than giving them an alternative and setting them up for success.

Keep it short. No long ass explanations. No power struggle. Short, sweet, neutral, go help them listen, and then distract and meet the need. If you yell and carry on, they will learn this behavior can modify your entire mood. Not a good lesson for small children, trust me.

If they're jumping on the couch, the unmet need is that they have lots of energy to get out and want to be physical.

You know, like small children should. 🤷‍♀️

"Feet on floor, bud. Let's go jump outside on the trampoline".

"Couches are for sitting. Let's jump like kangaroos to the mailbox and see what came!"

"Feet on the floor. Let's go play hopscotch with sidewalk chalk!"

If they need help, physically lift them from the couch. Every time. It will take a few times. But that's actual discipline. Not hitting them, yelling, or delivering long-winded weirdo monologues that don't address the unmet need or tell them what TO do instead.

The need is to jump. So...let them jump where they can jump (off the couch).

[Jonathan Peske @JPeske]

@firecircular @musings_blonde Counting down is even better; creates urgency

[Lisa @lisavsworld]

"I will not allow you to jump on the couch."

As a speech-language pathologist who works with very young children for a living, this kind of language is insufferable. Simply because I will see parents use it with 3 and 4 year olds who do not have the ability to pick up on the nuance of your language. I am not opposed to treating children with respect and explaining consequences to their actions, but you cannot rattle off all of this info to a small child and expect them to grasp anything of what you're saying. You need nice short sentences with direct language. Not a paragraph of grammatically complex information.

"Do not jump on the couch. You are hurting the couch. If you jump on the couch again, you're in trouble. Do you understand?"

I did a very similar thing with my second youngest nephew who was 3 years old at the time of this story. We were at the pool together and he was standing over the deep end, kicking things into the pool. The situation was dangerous as he could have easily lost balance, fallen into the pool, and possibly hit his head in the process.

My brother had been struggling to get him to follow directions all day... mostly because he uses this type of language with him. I put a stop to it immediately. This is what I did:

"Hey! T------. Look at me." *Gestures to eyes.* "Do not kick the toys. It is dangerous. You will get hurt. Now, you can stay here and not kick the toys... OR you can pick up the toy, and go play with it over there with your dad."

My nephew, T----- silently picked up his toy and carried it over to his dad. It's that simple.

[marqix ☆ @fwmarqix]

My son in-law asked me to teach him how to grill and I might have ruined him.

My daughter got married three years ago. Her husband, Kyle, is a good guy, works in IT, polite, laughs at my jokes even when they're not funny.

But the man cannot grill.

Last summer they hosted a Fourth of July BBQ. Kyle was in charge of the burgers, i watched him flip them eleven times in six minutes. They came out gray, dry, tragic.

I didn't say anything, my wife kicked me under the table twice as a reminder.

Two weeks ago Kyle calls me.

Kyle: Hey, Can I ask you something?

Me: Sure.

Kyle: Would you teach me how to grill? Like, actually grill?

I was honored, genuinely.

Me: Absolutely, come over Saturday.

He showed up at noon with a notebook, A notebook.

Me: You're not taking notes.

Kyle: I want to remember.

Me: It's grilling, not calculus.

I started with the basics, Charcoal vs gas, heat zones, when to flip, the importance of letting meat rest.

He's writing everything down.

Then I got to seasoning.

Me: Most people overthink it, salt, pepper, garlic powder. That's it. You don't need seventeen spices.

Kyle: What about marinades?

Me: Waste of time unless you're doing chicken.

Kyle: Really?

Me: You're adding moisture to something you're about to dry out with fire. Doesn't make sense.

He wrote that down.

Then I said, "And if anyone ever tells you to flip a steak more than once, you walk away from that person."

Kyle: Why?

Me: Because they don't respect the steak.

He stared at me.

Kyle: Are you serious?

Me: Completely.

I could see his brain trying to figure out if I was messing with him. I wasn't.

We grilled for three hours, burgers, steaks, brats. He did great, listened, didn't rush, the kid has potential.

At the end I sent him home with leftovers and a meat thermometer.

Me: Use this, don't guess.

Last weekend my daughter calls.

My daugther: What did you do to Kyle?

Me: What do you mean?

Her: He's obsessed, he bought a new grill, he's watching YouTube videos, he tried to explain 'heat zones' to his mom, she had no idea what he was talking about."

Me: That's good.

Her: He grilled chicken at 9pm last night because he wanted to 'practice his sear.'

Me: Sounds like he's taking it seriously.

Her: Dad, He told my coworker her husband was 'disrespecting the steak.'

I started laughing.

Her: That's not funny, she thought he was crazy.

Me: He's not wrong.

Her: You created a monster.

Me: I created a man who knows how to grill.

She hung up on me.

Yesterday Kyle sent me a picture of a ribeye with perfect grill marks.

The text said: "Flipped once."

I've never been prouder.

[Ashley Zavala @ZavalaA]

The way CALeg and Gov. Newsom quickly took the CA Department of Education away from the elected Superintendent and gave the power to the governor-- was that Democratic?

Assembly Education Chair Dr. Darshana Patel defended it.

"The timing is never going to be good for this"

[Ashley Zavala @ZavalaA]

"Quite frankly I wish the people who dreamed this up in the governor's office talked to me about it."

California's public schools chief Tony Thurmond says he was completely left out of decision to hand all power over the Department of Education to the governor.

[ESPN @espn]

Breaking: Folarin Balogun will be available to play in USA's Round of 16 match against Belgium on Monday, FIFA announced.

The FIFA Disciplinary Committee has suspended the red card issued to the USA striker during their Round of 32 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[OMOBOLANLE 🤍 @BolanleStories]

My brother has Down syndrome. He is thirty four and he bags groceries at the same store he has worked at for sixteen years. He knows every regular by name. Last year a new manager transferred in and started cutting his hours. Said he was too slow. Said customers wanted efficiency. My brother came home confused and quiet. He kept asking what he did wrong. He did nothing wrong and telling him that did not fix the hurt in his face. Then something happened I still cannot talk about without crying.

[Selene Mariposa @Selene_Mariposa]

America turns 250 today.

Let me read back the resume.

We started by telling a king to pound sand, in writing.

By 1803 we bought half a continent from France for about four cents an acre.

We fought a war with ourselves and somehow stayed one country.

We strung a railroad across the entire thing.

We handed the world the lightbulb, the telephone, and the airplane in about thirty years flat.

Then a man named Willis Carrier invented air conditioning and made half the planet actually livable.

You are welcome, Texas. You are welcome, Dubai.

Twice the whole world caught fire, and twice we showed up and helped put it out.

We split the atom.

We put men on the moon in 1969.

Then we went back and hit golf balls up there, because why not.

We invented jazz, blues, rock and roll, and hip-hop, and the whole planet is still dancing to it.

We put a burger and fries on every corner of the earth.

We built rockets that fly themselves home and land standing straight up.

We flew a helicopter on Mars.

We launched a car into actual space and it is still out there cruising.

We also invented ranch dressing and somehow talked the entire world into putting it on pizza.

Priorities.

We even invented three of our own sports so we could win them.

Baseball, basketball, and football.

Real football, the kind with hands, because we named it and we are not taking corrections.

The rest of the planet can keep soccer, which is fine, we are hosting it in our backyard this summer anyway.

And yes, Canadian football exists, wider field, extra man, one fewer down, and we try very hard not to think about it.

Frankly it was generous of us to invent our own games.

If we put all that energy into soccer, nobody else would ever lift that trophy again.

We would win it so often they would just rename it the America’s Cup and hand us the keys.

You are welcome for the suspense.

And in 2026 we threw a birthday so big a German tourist live-tweeted our gas stations to 750,000 people.

Not every chapter was clean.

We argued, we stumbled, we fixed what we broke, and we kept building.

That is the whole trick.

Two hundred and fifty years in, and we are still the loudest, brightest, most improbable experiment on the map.

Not bad for a country that started as a strongly worded letter to a king.

Happy birthday, America.

🦋

[Adam Singer @AdamSinger]

Economists have done such a poor job explaining free-market capitalism that we're now re-litigating it with a generation taught socialism is preferable. It's like the medical profession having to convince people bloodletting isn't good medicine and to stop asking for leeches

[Chef Andrew Gruel @ChefGruel]

This is nuts!! Voters chose @realSonjaShaw for State Superintendent in the primary, but instead of respecting the fact she may win, Newsom is fast-tracking legislation to shift key powers from the independently elected Superintendent of Public Instruction to a governor-appointed official. That’s an end run around the voters.

[The Redheaded libertarian @TRHLofficial]

For me, this has unseated ‘the young homeowners becoming their parents’ commercials as the best commercial on earth.

[Brian Roemmele @BrianRoemmele]

The ringtone was loud and filled the concert Hall and a pianist decided to improvise around it.

The pianist had two choices: 1- choose to get angry or 2- choose to be flexible in this situation.

Always choose option 2.

[Denise Aguilar @InformedMama209]

California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction is a constitutional office that Californians vote for. Recently, California legislators voted to move that position under the authority of the Governor’s office.

I can’t help with stating as fact that this was done because Governor Gavin Newsom knew a particular candidate would win.
@realSonjaShaw believes California schools should be focused on reading, writing, and math, with parents having a stronger voice in their children’s education and social justice programs should be kept out of school.

It’s also disappointing to me that this wasn’t just supported by Democrats. Can the Republican legislators who voted for this explain why? I’d genuinely like to understand the reasoning behind those votes. Jeff Gonzalez Assemblyman @JuanAlanisCA Office of Assemblyman @joshua_hoover

[Jonathan Peske @JPeske]

@mrmikeMTL In high school anatomy class we dissected a cat! I think I actually did a frog in middle school. Elementary school we did a squid and then fried it up as calamari

[Jonathan Peske @JPeske]

@SevierlyBlessed @musings_blonde We just visited my parents for a week. We had a rotation for cooking dinner and planned which days I would cook, which days my sister would cook, and which days my mom would cook. Just send them a sign up sheet for who wants to cook which nights. Any not filled in you order pizza

[Lou 🫦 @LouAZMerrijul]

ShyHippieGirl from TikTok put out a song called “Best Sleepover”

For years to come we’ll be telling the stories about the Summer we invited the World to have the Best Sleepover Ever! ❤️🇺🇸

[PoIiMath @politicalmath]

Michael Crichton is such a fascinating figure and it is a goddamn shame he died so young

This guy got into Harvard Medical School and said "actually, I want to write stories" so he wrote one of the most harrowing long short stories, the Andromeda Strain.

This guy was addicted to research. He read scientific journals for fun and researched everything that captured his interest. He was curious and skeptical. He thought hard about the implications of technology all the time.

And, instead of being a dork and writing a blog, he wrote entire novels warning about the dangers of emerging technologies. And they were great!

He wrote a `Prey` about the dangers of combining AI with nanobots 24 years ago. It's tremendous. You could publish it today and it would be relevant.

I miss him. I miss technically competent authors who can spin a good yarn while informing the reader about how technology is changing the world.

Crichton was a generational talent and we are poorer for his absence.

[Victor Bigham 🇺🇸 @Ravious101]

A U.S. Army soldier sprinted through Dallas Love Field Airport carrying a stranger's toddler so a desperate family could make their flight. 🏃‍♂️💨Final boarding call. Mom weighed down by luggage. In pure survival mode, she asked the uniformed soldier for help.
He didn't ask questions he just grabbed little River and ran. The internet tracked down the soldier (Daniel) to say thank you. This is what real character looks like. 🦅