OK, so apparently cheaters DON'T prosper

Remember the whole thing where I asked you to click on the ads in my blog so I could make a few bucks? And how I even thanked you for doing it after my Google Ads account balance shot up?

I included this line at the end of that thank-you post when it suddenly occurred to me that what I was doing may not have been entirely ethical: "You don't think the Google AdSense people will read this and take away my cash, citing some obscure rule about soliciting ad clicks or something, do you? Maybe we should just keep this between ourselves..."

Well, guess what! (You already know where this is going.) I received the following note of reprimand from the Google Ads people:

Hello, 

We recently detected invalid activity in your AdSense account. As a result, we’ve temporarily suspended your account for 30 days. During this time, no ads will be served on your sites. 

Why was my account suspended?We found instances of one or more users clicking repeatedly on your AdSense ads which is prohibited by the AdSense Program Policies. Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest. Publishers may not ask others to refresh or click their ads. This includes asking for users to support your site, offering rewards to users for viewing ads or performing searches and promising to raise money for third parties for such behavior. Additionally, clicking your own ads, automated clicking tools or traffic sources, robots, or other deceptive software are also prohibited.

The note was actually much longer, but the gist of it was:

• We know what you did, smart a**.
• There's a rule against that to which you clearly agreed, but you never even bothered to read it, did you?
• Your account is suspended for 30 days, which means no ads will appear on your blog AND we're going to withhold the payment to which you were otherwise entitled AND we're probably going to refund all of the revenue you've recently generated to the affected advertisers.
• And there's nothing you can do about it. Nyah nyah nyah!

Yes, the earnings that pushed me over that magical $100 payment threshold are probably going to be rescinded. That's $40 in income gone in a flash, and there's no doubt I deserve it.

So yeah, I screwed up. I should have read the fine print a bit more closely and realized (as a marketing professional myself) that solicited clicks aren't of any use to advertisers.

I guess, then, my request to you is to stop clicking on the ads unless you're really, genuinely interested in something. I appreciate everyone chipping in with a few clicks, but them's the rules, you know?

I guess we'll put that classical CD buying binge on hold for a bit...

What we did right with each of our kids - Part V - Jack

(NOTE: Parents are forever lamenting the things they wish they had done differently with their children. "I should have been more strict about this" or "I wish I had let her participate in that." That type of stuff. I see nothing productive there, so instead I choose to celebrate the things that Terry and I appear to have done well with our children. Plus, it's a good way to fill five days of blog posts. So there's that.)

At the ripe old age of 11, my son Jack is still a work in progress. You can of course argue that ALL of us are works in progress, but what I mean is that, compared with my older kids, he's still fairly malleable in terms of how he sees the world and the values he absorbs from us, his parents.

Jack busts me up. I don't know if it's because he's so naturally funny (he really is) or if it's just because he's kid #5 and Terry and I are, in general, more laid back and relaxed in our approach to raising him vs. our older children.

I actually like to think we've been pretty laid back with all of the kids, since my wife and I are essentially laid back people. Maybe too laid back in some ways, though we've been trying to focus only on the positive in these "what we did right with each of our kids" posts, so I'll stay away from that.

So to wrap up the series, here are five things Terry and I may have actually done right when it comes to little Jack:

(1) We're letting him try a new family sport: cross country. Like everyone in the family at one point or another has done, Jack plays soccer. Like three of his siblings before him, he has done this since he was a kindergartner. But over the last couple of months he has started distance running through the Wickliffe Junior Olympics program, and it's obvious we've stumbled upon something for which he has talent and from which he derives enjoyment. Bingo. I have no idea what his sporting future holds, but I have a feeling that soccer and cross country will have a hard time co-existing in his life, and that he will eventually (maybe very soon) have to pick one or the other.

(2) We got him swimming lessons when he was a baby. A toddler, really, but still, he was much younger than any of the other kids were when they learned to swim. I think Terry started taking him to lessons when he was 2. I'm amazed at how well kids that age can do in the water, especially since I'm not exactly a fish myself. That was a good call.

(3) We exposed him to electronics fairly early. Like most in his generation, Jack is a technological native. He was proficient in all types of hardware and software from an early age. And while he often spends too much time on various devices, he at least has a sense that there's such a thing as "too much time on devices." He'll learn to balance it all out as he gets older.

(4) We taught him to be affectionate. This may be just Jack's personality, but to this day he still hugs us and tells us he loves us every day. I'll be interested to see how much of that goes away as he hits his teen years, but right now he has no problem showing the world he loves his mom and dad. It's sweet.

(5) We taught him to lose. Now understand, when he was really, really little, I would arrange it so that Jack would win most games of Candyland or Chutes and Ladders. You don't want to crush their dreams quite that early. But for the most part, when we play a family game and Jack wins, he wins on his own. There's a lot of losing in life, and I don't say that in an Eeyore, whoa-is-us manner. It's just the way things are. The sooner you learn that, and the sooner you learn to deal with it, even if it's just a seemingly unimportant card or board game, the better.

What we did right with each of our kids - Part IV - Melanie

(NOTE: Parents are forever lamenting the things they wish they had done differently with their children. "I should have been more strict about this" or "I wish I had let her participate in that." That type of stuff. I see nothing productive there, so instead I choose to celebrate the things that Terry and I appear to have done well with our children. Plus, it's a good way to fill five days of blog posts. So there's that.)

My daughter Melanie is 16 years old and right on the verge of getting her driver's license. This does not scare me at all, in part because I've been through this before with three other kids, and in part because it's just so convenient having a child who can drive herself places.

But part of me will always think of Melanie as the four-year-old version of herself. She had this great little haircut that just screamed "CUTE!" And in fact everything she did and everything she said screamed "CUTE!" I love the current Melanie, but as parents do, I will always keep a piece of Little Tiny Melanie in my heart.

There is, incidentally, some variation in her name within our household. She is officially "Melanie," but I usually call her "Mel." And when she was a baby, Terry and I took to calling her "Melanie Moo," which somehow eventually morphed into "Schmoo." I don't know why.

Anyway, sticking with our theme this week, I'm here to tell you five things we did right with this particular child, so here they are:

(1) We let her be the baby of the family for a while. I used to think this was kind of a bad thing. Mel was the baby for so long before Jack showed up that she was treated like the baby for a long time after she had grown out of that role. Her siblings did a lot of things for her and we didn't push her especially hard. But now that I see her maturing into such a bright, goal-driven young woman, I realize we didn't do her any permanent harm. Let little kids be little kids for a while, I guess is the moral here.

(2) We're not forcing her to be in band just because everyone else in the family is/was in band. At this point it's iffy whether Mel, who quit band after her freshman year, will return to it next year as a junior. There's a part of me that wants her to, since I was a bando, my wife was a bando, and so were Elissa, Chloe and Jared. And Jack currently plays the trumpet. But if it's not something she particularly enjoys (and I don't think it is), why force it? She can make her own decision here, as far as I'm concerned.

(3) We let her go to concerts from a fairly young age. For whatever reason, I didn't go to my first rock/pop concert until I was 18 years old (February 1988, Sting, Cleveland Public Hall...what a show). Mel has been going to concerts since her very early teens. Live music is a fun and exciting experience, and going with just her friends teaches her to navigate large venues and downtown streets. Not bad things to know.

(4) We let her have a boyfriend. All three of my girls have what you might call long-term boyfriends, and I like all three of them. They're good guys, which I think is because my girls have good heads on their shoulders and can make wise decisions when it comes to dating. I've never understood the "you're not dating until your xx years old" rule some moms and dads impose, but then again, I don't claim to be the perfect parent. I just think my girls are learning the basics of healthy relationships by being allowed to engage in their own while still young adults.

(5) We forced her to share a room with her sister Chloe. This isn't really a hardship, since Chloe lives at the University of Akron most of the time. But you know, it's not going to kill you to learn to compromise and share a living space with someone else from time to time. Now if we can just teach Mel not to leave moldy food, unwashed clothes and various papers all over her floor, we would be getting somewhere...

What we did right with each of our kids - Part III - Jared

(NOTE: Parents are forever lamenting the things they wish they had done differently with their children. "I should have been more strict about this" or "I wish I had let her participate in that." That type of stuff. I see nothing productive there, so instead I choose to celebrate the things that Terry and I appear to have done well with our children. Plus, it's a good way to fill five days of blog posts. So there's that.)

My son Jared, now 18, was as tall as me when he was 12 or 13 years old. This isn't saying much as I'm of exceedingly average height (5-9½, thank you very much), but now that he has topped out at around 6-1, "tall" is one of his defining characteristics.

There are many people taller than Jared, of course, but for our family, he's a giant.

Speaking of which – true story – one time when was about 10, he was playing soccer and one of the players on the opposing team urged his teammates to "cover the giant," referring to Jared. Every once in a while, Terry or I will exclaim, "Cover the giant!" And the other one will chuckle appreciatively.

For many years, Jared was my Man Child. He looked older than he really was up until high school, at which point he looked like someone who was exactly where they should be. Now, as high school winds down for him, he looks to me like someone trying to figure out where he belongs next.

Which is perfect. That's what you should be doing when you're 18.

Here are five things I'd like to think Jared's mother and I did right for him:

(1) We let him be who he is. Jared is a quiet guy. He talks to people now more than he used to, but he is still widely known as The Quiet Tennant. And that's fine. Jared is who he is, and any attempt to make him seem more outgoing would have been disingenuous and ultimately unfair. (By the way, he and I have always talked a lot. If you know Jared only in passing, you might be surprised to learn he is one of the funniest people I know. He has a dry sense of humor that just kills me.)

(2) We encouraged him to kick a football. In the grand scheme of things, the three years Jared spent as a kicker for the Wickliffe High School football team may seem unimportant. And yes, he will undoubtedly do far more important things in his life. But the experience of putting on the shoulder pads and playing under the lights every Friday night was one he'll never forget, I'm sure. He got there largely on his own. No one sought him out to kick. As a freshman, he asked the coach what he needed to do to become a kicker. He found out where he needed to be and when, and he showed up. He found what he needed to learn, and he learned it. All on his own. No kicking coach or anything, just Jared. Let's hear it for personal initiative.

(3) We let him destroy our garage with hockey pucks. OK, we did't let him do this, but to Terry's credit, she has kept herself from killing Jared for putting a variety of dents in our garage door and gouges in our garage walls. Jared never played organized hockey, but I played living room and driveway hockey with him when he was a lot younger, and to this day his love of the sport continues to grow. When I think back to my own sports experiences with my dad, most of the memories revolve around attending Indians games and watching Friday night boxing matches together. I hope that one day for Jared, one of his memories of his dad will be watching, playing and talking about hockey. It's our thing, as is a shared love for Cleveland sports.

(4) We told him what he should do and watched when he chose to ignore our advice. The older he gets, the more The Boy seems to follow our teaching (sometimes grudgingly). But over the years, he has more than once gone his own direction, often with less-than-desirable results. I'll say it again: There is value in screwing up. Let it happen.

(5) We taught him he is loved. Jared is not an outwardly affectionate guy. He will occasionally hug his mother, but it's not an everyday thing. Still, in everything he has done, and in every decision he has made, we tried to make it clear that we loved him no matter what. I think he gets that concept in his head for now. Someday he'll understand it in his heart, too.

What we did right with each of our kids - Part II - Chloe

(NOTE: Parents are forever lamenting the things they wish they had done differently with their children. "I should have been more strict about this" or "I wish I had let her participate in that." That type of stuff. I see nothing productive there, so instead I choose to celebrate the things that Terry and I appear to have done well with our children. Plus, it's a good way to fill five days of blog posts. So there's that.)

My 20-year-old daughter Chloe wants to be a doctor. A pediatrician, to be specific, and of course she's doing it by first getting a degree in biomedical engineering. This makes some sense, I suppose, but it's just like Chloe to go at the whole thing just a bit differently from most people.

For Chloe herself is a bit different from most people. Always has been. It is one of the many things to love about her.

Allowing her individuality to flourish is probably one thing we did right for her. Here are five others:

(1) We allowed her to be an interesting person. As Chloe was going out the door to head for work just now, I told her I was going to write a post about her, and I gave her the topic. She suggested that letting her be an interesting person should be on this list. Actually, she just said, "I'm an interesting person." And I said, "Does that mean we actually helped you become interesting? Or did we just stand by and let it happen?" And all she said as she ran out to her car was, "Good point." I'm not even sure what the point is. But I guess you could say we never quashed any of her eccentricities. Chloe is Chloe. If you love her like we do, great. If you don't, she doesn't have much use for you.

(2) I introduced her to soccer when she was 6 years old. Technically, she introduced me to soccer. I had been coaching my kids in t-ball and baseball for a couple of years when Chloe the kindergartner informed me she wanted to play soccer. So I went to City Hall to sign her up, and through a chain of events that still confuses me to this day, I ended up as her coach, as well (another story for another time). Chloe played nonstop all the way through her senior year of high school, capping her career by being named Most Valuable Player on her team that season. Soccer proved to be an outlet for her both physically and mentally, as she learned what it means to truly work for something and strive to improve every day.

(3) I let her choose the baritone horn on "Meet the Instrument Night" when she was in 4th grade. Chloe's choice to be a low brass player serves her well even to this day, as she has played the sousaphone in the University of Akron marching band the last two years. Terry, however, started accompanying us to these Meet the Instrument Nights after that because she was afraid I was going to steer all of our kids toward weird musical choices.

(4) We got out of her way. I said in a blog post on Chloe's birthday a year or two ago that the best thing when you're dealing with extremely bright and talented kids is to just let them go. That doesn't mean you should disengage from their lives completely, but understand that you aren't (and shouldn't be) driving the train. You're just the conductor, man, and you'd better hang on for the ride.

(5) We taught her to play cribbage. Have you ever played cribbage? That's a fun game. Sailors on submarines have played it for years. It's a good mix of strategy, skill and a little luck (much like life itself). Teach your kids to play cribbage. And if you don't know how, I will take you to Starbucks and have you playing like a champ in less than 15 minutes while we sip overpriced coffee (on me).

What we did right with each of our kids - Part I - Elissa

(NOTE: Parents are forever lamenting the things they wish they had done differently with their children. "I should have been more strict about this" or "I wish I had let her participate in that." That type of stuff. I see nothing productive there, so instead I choose to celebrate the things that Terry and I appear to have done well with our children. Plus, it's a good way to fill five days of blog posts. So there's that.)

Elissa is my newly minted 23-year-old daughter. I don't mean "newly minted" in the sense of "we just got her." I mean she just turned 23 recently.

Also, you will note that I did not hyphenate "newly minted" in that first sentence. Long ago when I first started at The News-Herald, Robin Palmer taught me not to hyphenate "ly" words. I don't know if that was an AP Style thing, a News-Herald thing, or just a Robin thing. But to this day when I'm editing copy, I will remove the hyphen after a "ly" word.

Anyway, Elissa. When she was little, she was shy. A borderline genius, mind you, but shy and introverted. As she grew, she became a little more extroverted with each passing year. Now, the thing comedian John Mulaney says about Jewish women also applies to Elissa: You do not need to ask how she's feeling. She will tell you.

And this is an exceedingly good thing. Women are often conditioned in this society to believe that "shy and quiet" is more attractive than "opinionated and vocal." I will take the latter any day of the week, and I like to think we encouraged her to be that way.

Here are five other things we did right with Elissa:

(1) We made her play her oboe until she graduated from high school. She was ready to be done with the instrument by her junior year (maybe sooner), but we prodded her to stick it out. I believe studying and performing music is an inherently beneficial thing. As is seeing through something you started. Elissa would disagree with me, but I think we did right by her in this decision.

(2) We let her make her own decision about college when it came to living on campus. She could have saved a ton of money living at home while she attended Cleveland State University, but she wanted the on-campus experience, and it's clear how much less she would have grown over those four years had we made her live at home.

(3) I played Barbies with her when she was little. Whatever you think of Barbie and whether she actually imposes unrealistic standards of beauty on little girls (I happen to think most little girls are smarter than that), we had some of our most fun times together playing with the gigantic stock of Barbie merchandise stored under Elissa's bed. Of course, once I got sick of playing, I would concoct some sort of fiery death for Barbie, Ken, and whomever else joined us in our adventures. But PRE-DEATH, Barbie sessions were fun.

(4) We let her make mistakes. This one is going to come up a few times in these posts about my kids, because I see great value in being allowed to screw up in your life. Protecting your children from every stumble and fall is unrealistic and ultimately counterproductive. To Elissa's credit, she has made relatively few mistakes to this point, but she has learned from the ones she has made. I'm pretty sure, anyway...

(5) We helped develop within her a healthy appreciation of 80s music. Elissa listens to a lot of stuff I like and a lot of stuff I probably don't understand. But in the end, we can always find common ground in "Come On, Eileen."

Cross country runners are among the toughest people on the planet

And so are wrestlers, but that's another blog post for another day.

My youngest son, Jack, is running cross country for the first time. Well, officially what he's doing is known as the Wickliffe Junior Olympics program, but for all intents and purposes it's Wickliffe Middle School's offseason cross country training program.

(NOTE: Apparently there are people who think the phrase "all intents and purposes" should actually be rendered as "for all intensive purposes." What? Why? Why would you think that? What is an "intensive purpose?" What makes it so much more intensive than other purposes? I don't understand human beings sometimes.)

Anyway, the boy is running cross country. He's still learning the ropes, but the program is clearly awesome and well tailored to someone of Jack's age (11) and temperament (mildly eccentric and easily distracted).

His coach is Coach Todd, a great guy with whom I ran track back in the late 1800s at Wickliffe High School. Or maybe it was the late 1980s. It just seems like it was a long time ago.

Todd was a distance runner way back when and is still in great shape. He pushes the kids, but he doesn't drive them until they throw up or anything. He understands they're at an age where an experience like that will turn them off of the sport forever.

Jack and I go out running together a couple of times a week, and I can see his endurance and focus improving every time we lace up our shoes. It's kind of fun to watch.

I was a Wickliffe track athlete for six years, but I was a sprinter. As I've mentioned before, I thought distance runners were nuts (they are). I didn't join their ranks until I was older and perhaps a little wiser.

Cross country was and is a fall sport. During the fall I played football. Every once in a while I would see the cross country team practicing, which is to say they were out running. You "practice" cross country by running. Lots and lots of running.

Occasionally one of my football teammates would say something about the cross country runners and how they wouldn't last five minutes on a football field. I would laugh and suggest that he wouldn't last five SECONDS in a cross country meet.

I ran with these people every day during track season in the spring, and I knew what they were capable of. I also knew how hard they worked to get better. By the time kids get to high school, you can push them a lot more, but most of the cross country runners I knew pushed themselves. They didn't need a coach with a whistle and a clipboard to motivate them.

Which is to say that cross country runners are, for my money, among the most disciplined, hardest-working athletes in all of sports. And having raised a family of kids who were mostly soccer players, I'm excited at the prospect of having a cross country warrior in our ranks (I think old-time sports writers used to call them "harriers," by the way.)

If you're looking for someone with mental toughness and a true drive to succeed, find a distance runner. You won't be disappointed.