youth

Yesterday my son went to the Dry Spot indoor skatepark in Vancouver and spent nearly an hour psyching himself up to "drop in" on this ramp in the picture. He said he felt "scared as all hell" when he decided to try it.

Do you think it’s disrespectful to the Mad Carver to not wear a helmet in his memorial bowl? That’s an opinion I heard today from someone who wrote in to the Province newspaper about how upset she was to see the paper’s

It's Car Free Vancouver tomorrow - and I'm going to be on Commercial Drive watching Slowpoke and the Smoke at the East End Food Co-op at 2 p.m. Slowpoke's "psychedelic doo-wop" gets me every time, with all those wacky Frank Zappa covers and more...

Last night my son and I went to the IGNITE! Youth Festival at the Cultch – and I was truly surprised by how good it was. My son heard about the performance yesterday from one of his friends at Windsor House and begged me to take him. The theatre performance was at 6 and...

A couple hundred people gathered in Vancouver’s Grandview Park last night to party, dance, and protest the park’s one-year closure and redevelopment. A Facebook Group called “Defend Grandview Park on The Drive” outlines its opposition to the City of Vancouver’s plans for the park upgrade. “Defend Grandview supports a park upgrade, in phases, that...

The words of a mom who lost her adult son have stayed with me today. Her 30-year-old son Devon Clifford died after collapsing on-stage at the Rickshaw Theatre in downtown Vancouver on Friday night while drumming with his band You Say Party! We Say Die! The young man suffered massive bleeding in his brain...

I’m sitting on a loveseat in the lounge of The Dry Spot indoor skatepark using their wireless connection. This is my second day coming here, and today we brought my son’s pal. They are super excited and impressed to meet the owner of The Dry Spot, Ben Chibber, who also owns Monke Skateboards. Now...

At first it seemed like a bad idea to buy darts for my son. Visions of darts stuck in the flooring, the drywall, and human flesh frightened me. But he really wanted them, and promised to be safe. He Googled “Vancouver BC dart store” and found Billiards Plus in south east Vancouver. Oh why...

What a privilege to have this treasure of sound right in my own living room! My good friend Michelle Pegg came over for a visit yesterday, and granted my wish for music. She brought her Mendelssohn sheet music and played while I leaned back on the couch and drank in the beauty of it....

It seems like an increasing number of people – like me – are taking an alternative approach to their kids’ education. My son was so unhappy in regular school that I pulled him out in Grade 3 and started in the SelfDesign program. Other families start off right away with home schooling or “unschooling”...