Oh god, where to start.   
       I guess I covered most of the disaster that's hit lately in international   
   chat, so I'll just move right on to where I'm at with my son right now.   
       Despite being amazingly resilient for everything that he's been through, it   
   seems like the last two years of intermittent homelessness are finally starting   
   to have a behavior effect upon him.  Things first started getting this way a   
   year ago, in Minot, ND (actually a little over a year ago, now), when we were   
   staying with my sister for a bit.  The primary reason for this, I think, was   
   not so much isolation and transition (he knew his cousins well and they loved   
   spending time with him), but the fact that they were raised on the 'electronic   
   teat', if you will.  That is, they spent all of their time, 95% of the days,   
   playing video games and eating junk food and nothing else.  Unfortunately, my   
   ability in Minot, ND, to get him out to do anything other than this was pretty   
   limited...  :P   
       Things got better for awhile, when I was with my fiancee, as spring hit.    
   He had to change schools _during that one school year_ four times, so that   
   certainly didn't help anything.  However, he met another bi-racial kid that   
   lived just one apartment down from us at his school.  So although he got a few   
   more videogames than I would like, he really did spend a huge amount of times   
   with his friend and other friends from the school outside playing.  However he   
   suffered a bit of verbal abuse, and definitely neglect, from my fiancee when I   
   was working, which I later found out about.   
       Since I've moved here, things have gone downhill a bit.  There were   
   starting to be some behavioral changes, at this point, due to the 'addictive'   
   nature of video games, and how they activate the same brain instant-reward   
   pathways as any sort of stimulant drug does.  You can tell.  :|  You could tell   
   last year, but it wasn't even really a problem yet.   
       The main problem in this area is the fact that no other parents seem to   
   give much of a shit about getting their children out to play with others here.    
   'Helicopter parenting' is in full effect.   
      
       My son actually needs to use the computer here for a little bit, so I'm   
   going to send this out right now so that I don't lose it if there's a BBS crash   
   (they've started up again since I enabled Synchronet's SSH server again for my   
   users' security).  I'll define 'helicopter parenting' (if it isn't   
   self-evident), and continue where I left off in a little while here.   
      
       -Damo   
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