The visiting Sages rally in the second half to spoil Spartans' homecoming weekend. Here's 20 photos from Friday night's Week 6 Illini Prairie game.
First half | The Big Play: Kaden Wedig hauls in a pass on 42-yard touchdown play for St. Joseph-Ogden in Friday night's homecoming game against Monticello. Going up 21-7, it would be the last time the Spartans would be able to put the ball in the end zone. The Sages would go on to score three times in the second half to defeat SJO 28-21 in the Illini Prairie Conference game. After the contest, both teams need just two wins for a guaranteed spot in this year's IHSA football championships. See 19 more photso from this game below.
Tim Blackburn-Kelley and Willis Canamore break through the Spartan banner during team introductions before the start of the game. Blackburn-Kelley finished the Week 6 game with three catches for 21 yards.
Brennan Oleynichak lifts quarterback Kodey McKinney to celebrate the Spartans' first TD of the game against the Sages. The senior signal caller scored two of SJO's three touchdowns, finishing the game with 68 rushing and 230 passing yards in the home loss.
SJO junior Jackson Ennis and Monticello's J.D. Bailey battle on the line of scrimmage in the first half.
Monticello's Nolan Buehnerkemper finds an open receiver to throw to during first quarter action against the Spartans. After scoring on a 1-yard blast into the end zone with 13 seconds left in the first quarter, he added two more touchdowns to the Sages' side of the scoreboard in the third quarter on runs of 5 and 2-yards.
Spartans' Coy Hayes tries to get around Sages' Will Osborne to make a tackle during the game.
Monticello's Maddox Utley takes a handoff from quarterback Nolan Buehnerkemper during second half action against the St. Joseph-Ogden. Utley finished the game with 118 of the Sages' 167 rushing yards to help his team improve to 4-2 on the season.
Monticello lineman J.D. Bailey celebrates with Nolan Buehnerkemper after the quarterback's touchdown, making the score 21-6 in the first quarter.
Monticello lineman Nate Darnell tries block St. Joseph-Ogden defensive lineman Liam Carter who was blitzing on the play. Darnell was called for holding moving the ball behind the original line of scrimmage.
With only one player between him and a touchdown St. Joseph-Ogden's Logan Umbarger carries the ball for a first down in the second quarter. Defensive back Nolan Buehnerkemper made the stop for the Sages. Umbarger, a sophomore, finished the game with 30 yards on seven carries for SJO.
St. Joseph-Ogden High School inducted four new members into their Hall of Fame. This year's inductees honored at halftime included (left to right) Bobbi (Duval) Busboom, Morgan (Finn) Gooding, Bianca (Truitt) Green, and former principal Mike McKenzie.
A clarinet player from the SJO Marching Band performs during the halftime show.
Keeping the beat, a St. Joseph-Ogden percussionist stays focused during the halftime performance.
A marching band flag team member performs during halftime, adding color and precision to the show.
SJO marching band flag team members add color and excitement during the final song of halftime.
A St. Joseph-Ogden fan smiles as fans sing the school song with the band after halftime.
St. Joseph-Ogden football fans and family clap during the school song before the second half.
Monticello's Maddox Utley losses the ball after running into a wall of Spartan defenders. Maddux Musselman (not pictured) recovered the ball, but officials blew the whistle, ruling the ball dead before it slipped from Utley's grasp.
Playing on the defensive side of the ball, Spartan Jameson Ennis quickly works his way around Sages' J.D. Bailey while trying to get into the Monticello backfield.
4th Quarter | The Final Blow: Monticello's Maddox Utley avoids a tackle attempt by Lane McKinney. After slipping away, Utley took the ball 48 yards down the field for the go-ahead, game-winning touchdown with 7:24 left to play in the ball game.
TAGS: St. Joseph-Ogden football photos, Monticello Sages football, Illini Prairie Conference Week 6, high school football photography, SJO homecoming 2025, Maddox Utley Monticello, Kodey McKinney SJO quarterback, Central Illinois prep football, The Sentinel sports gallery, SJO marching band halftime
Practical strategies to encourage independence in children include giving age-appropriate responsibilities and letting kids navigate challenges on their own. Trust and guidance help them thrive.
Photo: Volant/Unsplash
Want to raise confident, capable kids? Children learn self-sufficiency through everyday opportunities. These experiences strengthen confidence, emotional resilience, and decision-making.
by Casey Cartwright Contributor Writer
Children grow up so fast, as every parent is painfully aware. One moment your baby is babbling on the sofa, and the next they’re out the door on their way to their last day of school. Along the way, they become the person they’re meant to be, and you play a huge role in supporting their healthy development. Specifically, fostering independence in your child is a great way to set them up for confidence, resilience, and success later in life. You’re probably already doing more than you think to support this growth. But if you want to go even further, we’re here to help.
This article explores some practical ways to encourage independence in your child. We will discuss age-appropriate opportunities that help children develop problem-solving skills, self-confidence, and the ability to handle challenges. These small steps create a foundation that will serve them well as they grow. The best part of going through this process is that you’ll strengthen your relationship with your child. When kids feel capable and trusted, they’re more likely to come to you when they truly need guidance.
So where should you start? Well, think about your daily routines. What do you currently do for your child that they could also handle? For instance, if you pick out your child’s outfits, maybe they can take over that task. To make it easier but still foster their independent decision-making, you can let your child choose between two outfits that you lay out the night before.
Giving your child freedom in their free time is an important aspect of helping them feel trusted.
Now, turn your attention to the bathroom. Your kid’s independence in the space develops naturally when you make the room more accessible to them. Put a step stool by the sink and a toothbrush within their reach. Teach them how to wash their hands, then let them practice without hovering over their shoulder, counting to 20. Let them comb their hair each morning. These small tasks are usually manageable for small children, and they instill daily confidence through autonomy.
Aside from what your child needs to do to take care of themselves, consider what they can do to help out around the house. That’s right—chores. No kid likes chores. In fact, very few adults like chores. However, these tasks are golden opportunities for teaching your child to be independent because they foster practical skill development. Maybe they can set the table for dinner, pick up the living room each night, feed and water the dog, or put items on the grocery list when they run out. These are things every person must know how to do if they are to be truly self-sufficient, and teaching the jobs early gives your child a head start.
Then, there’s independence in recreation. Many parents want to watch their children like hawks at the playground or playdates, but it’s important that you prove to your little one that you trust their judgment. Let them pick their friends, say yes to sleepovers, have them decide their hobbies, and encourage all healthy interests, from painting to soccer. Naturally, you should be mindful of their safety and set boundaries when it’s necessary. But giving your child freedom in their free time is an important aspect of helping them feel trusted, which translates to a more independent mindset.
If you want to start small in this area, Christmas is coming up, and it’s a great time to give your child a gift that shows your confidence in their self-sufficiency. For instance, ride-on cars are great winter gifts for kids because the toy is mature yet safe. Your child can feel uniquely independent as they drive around the yard and neighborhood in a mini Jeep, and you can peacefully observe their safety from a distance.
You should teach your kid that independence includes asking for help when they need it.
Now, as your kid navigates these big and small opportunities for independence, they will probably run into problems. How you encourage them to overcome these obstacles is a valuable part of the process. When your child faces a minor challenge, pause before jumping in to fix it. For example, a puzzle piece that won’t fit can be a learning opportunity. Wait to see if your child figures it out. If they’re stuck, ask questions instead of providing solutions. You might inquire, “What happens if you turn it around?” Only step in with the answer if your child makes a thoughtful attempt before requesting your help. In doing so, you let them know that you trust their capabilities and that you are a resource, not an omniscient, overbearing problem-solver.
Frustration is an expected part of this process. Your kid will probably get very annoyed and even start to cry when they face problems. This is always distressing to see as a parent, and it makes many guardians immediately jump to the rescue with a quick fix and coddling. But that’s not going to teach your child how to handle challenges for themselves. After all, emotional intelligence is inextricable from true independence.
When your child melts down over a broken crayon, acknowledge their feelings. Say, “You’re really upset about your crayon breaking.” Then, guide them toward solutions without laying them out on the table. Ask, “What could help you feel better?” and help your child workshop.
Likewise, letting children experience natural consequences builds essential emotional resilience. If they forget their jacket despite you reminding them again and again, feeling chilly could be what they need to learn the lesson. Of course, be reasonable in what consequences you let your child endure. They don’t need to be rescued from manageable discomfort, but pain and authentic distress are not appropriate. In these cases, you should teach your kid that independence includes asking for help when they need it. Teach your child that requesting assistance with truly difficult tasks or outcomes shows wisdom, not weakness. This prevents them from entering or staying in dangerous situations.
Start small, stay consistent, and trust the process.
A final important consideration is knowing when your child is overwhelmed by self-sufficiency. Some kids latch on to every freedom and thrive, while others are much more hesitant to leave any part of the nest. You might encounter resistance as you encourage them to do things on their own, and this is normal. However, it might signal a need for more attention, not less freedom or more support. Remember to frame setbacks within the context of the bigger picture. On the whole, if you do your part to trust and empower your kid, they will grow up to be a confident, autonomous adult.
In the end, encouraging independence in your child will create an adult who can handle challenges, make good decisions, and maintain healthy relationships. The patience you invest now in letting your child struggle reasonably with age-appropriate tasks pays dividends in the years to come. Start small, stay consistent, and trust the process. Your child’s growing independence reflects your excellent parenting, not your decreasing importance in their life. You’re raising a capable human being who will always need your love and guidance—just in evolving ways.
Casey Cartwright is a passionate copyeditor highly motivated to provide compelling SEO content in the digital marketing space. Her expertise includes a vast range of industries from highly technical, consumer, and lifestyle-based, with an emphasis on attention to detail and readability.
Tags: how to teach kids independence, fostering independence in children, raising self-sufficient kids, age-appropriate chores for children, building confidence in children, helping kids solve problems, promoting emotional resilience in kids, parenting tips for independence, encouraging responsibility in kids, guiding children to be confident and capable
From personal assistants to algorithmic influence, AI challenges human autonomy and highlights the need for education, ethics, and regulation.
byNabajyoti Narzary Guest Commentary
The trouble with living in 2025 is that the future doesn’t knock politely anymore — it barges in, makes itself at home, rearranges the furniture of our lives, and leaves us wondering when we agreed to let it in.
Artificial intelligence isn’t arriving tomorrow; it has already moved into our lives, humming in our pockets, inboxes, the search engine that finishes our sentences, the navigation app that anticipates our destination, and even in the dreams of people who think they’re immune to “tech trends.”
The world’s unease about AI is nothing new. We’ve always had a complicated relationship with inventions. History shows that every great leap begins with astonishment and ends with adjustment. In the 15th century, Gutenberg’s printing press shook society. Monks who spent their lives copying manuscripts became irrelevant. Scholars fretted over unverified knowledge, and political authorities feared pamphlets that could bypass approval. Printed words, they argued, lacked the sanctity of handwritten ones. In time, the press spread falsehoods — but it also ignited the Renaissance, transformed education, and democratized the written word. It was both liberating and destabilizing.
Einstein once argued that education should be about ideas, not just facts.
AI stands in a similar place today. The difference is that this time the machine isn’t confined to a factory or lab. It is intimate, personal, pervasive — helping your child with homework, curating your playlist, reminding you to drink water — and possibly selling those data points to someone you’ve never met. It follows our movements, records our preferences, and learns our habits until it can predict them with disquieting accuracy.
We call this “personalization,” but it is really a mirror showing how predictable we’ve become. Free will, so cherished as a human ideal, begins to resemble a carefully staged performance in which the lines are gently suggested by algorithms. The printing press gave control of ideas to the many; AI could reverse that, shifting influence back to those who design the systems. If free will was ever a pristine thing, algorithms now have smudged the glass. Nietzsche declared “God is dead,” and humanity took his place. Now our own creations, “powered by code instead of commandments,” test how it feels to dethrone us.
Its impact on education shows its paradox. Teachers admit that essays, lab reports, and even poetry assignments arrive in prose too polished for a sleep-deprived teenager. The deeper question isn’t cheating; it’s the gradual outsourcing of thought. If a machine can generate a flawless answer in seconds, what exactly is the student supposed to learn? Einstein once argued that education should be about ideas, not just facts. In the AI age, that principle is urgent: machines will always store and retrieve better than we can; what they cannot do is cultivate judgment, empathy, and context. Those are the skills education must protect.
Left entirely to the pursuit of profit, it will entrench the disparities it claims to solve.
Half-literacy in the digital age is more dangerous than illiteracy ever was. A person who can read but cannot discern misinformation, or who can navigate a device but cannot question its intent, is more vulnerable than one who lacks access. As AI advances, truth and fabrication will blur with greater sophistication. The challenge will not be finding answers but knowing which questions are worth asking.
What makes AI’s rise feel different from earlier technological revolutions is its intimacy. We don’t just use it; we confide in it. Chatbots have become companions to the lonely, brainstorming partners to the overworked, and sometimes more rewarding than speaking to another human. The machine never interrupts or takes offense. But comfort has a price. Time saved is rarely spent on rest or reflection; it is reinvested into more screen time, dependence, and anxiety about being left behind.
Meanwhile, tech companies frame this as empowerment — “democratizing knowledge,” “upskilling communities,” “bridging the digital divide.” Sometimes these initiatives are genuine, other times akin to the colonial “free railways” — convenient for the empire, less so for the colonized.
The danger isn’t only in surveillance or job loss. It is in the erosion of inefficiencies that make us human. Progress is messy, contradictory, full of detours. A society optimized to perfection may function better, but it would lose the unpredictability that sparks art, discovery, and change.
We now see the appetite for ranking people with algorithmic “merit scores” — a digital caste system where privilege and productivity are weighed and tagged. The Gold Class gets the plum opportunities; the Bronze Class is told it’s still “included” while quietly excluded from anything that matters. Technology, we’re told, is the great equalizer. In practice, it magnifies the inequalities it claims to erase. Facebook’s “Free Basics,” meant to connect the unconnected, was accused of enabling propaganda and deepening divides. AI could do the same — faster, more precisely, and harder to catch in the act.
Photo: Markus Spiske/PEXELS
AI is a powerful tool with the potential to expand education, healthcare, and access to marginalized voices, but unchecked profit-driven use could worsen inequalities. The key is cultivating wisdom to guide it through strong regulation, public literacy, and discernment about when machine learning is appropriate. Ultimately, its impact depends on how responsibly society steers its development.
Yet to see AI only as a threat is to miss its potential. Like the printing press, it is a tool, not a destiny. Used with transparency, accountability, and imagination, it could extend education to the remotest villages, deliver healthcare to those without doctors, and give voice to silenced communities. Left entirely to the pursuit of profit, it will entrench the disparities it claims to solve.
The real question is whether we can cultivate the wisdom to steer it. That means regulation as ambitious as the technology, public literacy campaigns beyond “how to use” guides, and the humility to admit that not every problem needs a machine-learning solution.
Human history is a long conversation with our inventions. At first, they astonish us. Then we adapt. Eventually, we forget who began the conversation, and the creation becomes background, like wallpaper we no longer notice. The printing press, steam engine, light bulb — each began as a wonder and ended as something ordinary.
AI will follow the same arc unless we choose otherwise. What feels extraordinary today will be mundane tomorrow, but in this brief in-between moment, we still have the chance to decide the terms of our partnership with it. The future is shaped not only in public breakthroughs but in what we accept, automate, and what we stop questioning. If we surrender those choices to the machine, it will not need our consent. It will keep speaking long after we have stopped listening.
Nabajyoti Narzary works in administration, where he explore the intersection of people and institutional systems at the grassroots level, uncovering untold stories of governance and everyday resilience. Writing is his sanctuary, flowing from daily observations and reflective moments, often captured in a personal diary and complemented by long evening walks with their dog, Nia. A college trip to Serbia sparked a lasting interest in Eastern European culture and history, inspiring a deep appreciation for the region’s complex tapestry shaped by centuries of conflict, coexistence, and cultural evolution.
Tagged:AI in daily life, AI and education, artificial intelligence 2025, future of work and AI, AI ethics and regulation, technology disrupting society, human free will and AI, AI and digital literacy, AI opportunities and risks, living with artificial intelligence
