Category: Kids
Tuesday, Mar 22, 2011 | Kids, Parenting |
Temper. Blaming. Complaining. Comparing. Name-calling. Stubbornness. Picking on. I’ve just been lying here, post-early-morning-exercise-nap, thinking about the negative behavior that can sometimes be observed in my children … and it occurred to me: wow, I’m guilty of much of that same behavior, only in more subtle, grownup ways.
Example. Blaming. I have a habit of saying, “Someone must have done such and such.” Someone forgot to close the front door. Someone’s made a mess of the bathroom. Someone must have put the scissors in the wrong drawer. What I’m saying is: hey, I didn’t do this and therefore one of you lot must have! Hardly a productive response to any situation, and not so very different from one child saying to another, “You lost my [insert precious possession here]! I know it was you! It was here when I left and now it’s gone!”
The opposite of blaming is taking responsibility. As I tell the child, owner of said precious possession, “If it’s very precious to you, you need to keep it in a special place, and not on the counter.” And if I don’t like that someone’s made a mess of the bathroom, I need to instill a greater sense of ownership and responsibility in my children for keeping the house tidy, rather than grumbling while cleaning it up all by myself.
(If someone can tell me how to do that–how to instill a sense of responsibility in my children–please let me know).
I’d like to think I don’t call names. But I do say things like “that was a dumb thing to do.” Which is next-door to name-calling, and even if it’s true (which let’s face it, in some situations it just might be), if dumb isn’t a word I want kids to use, why am I using it?
I won’t go through the whole list, calling out each of my less-than-worthy-role-modeling. Instead, I’m thinking about the alternatives.
Okay. Blaming. Taking responsibility.
Temper. Finding other expressions for emotional distress or disturbance. Apologizing as immediately as possible after the fact is helpful, too. Nobody’s perfect.
Complaining. Thinking of ways to change the situation causing the complaint, or at the very least to change my response to the complaint. There is always something that can be done.
Comparing. Celebrate and consider each family member as an individual.
The opposite of name-calling? Uh. Don’t do it, I guess. (Though there are some situations in which name-calling and poking fun can be positives and can reinforce relationships, and in fact are markers of a trusting and close relationship).
Stubbornness. Flexibility.
Picking on. I don’t believe that I do this. But I do see it happening in my family: two siblings subtly teaming up to bait another sibling. Not pleasant. And we call it out and separate them, but haven’t found a better way of curbing it. Maybe maturity will do the trick. I remember my brother and I picking on our younger brother (who we just knew was our mother’s “favourite,” and who was so darn cute and better behaved than us). And we’re all good friends now.
Friday, Mar 18, 2011 | Holidays, Kids, Parenting |
Check it off the want-to-do list:
We have hosted one friend sleepover (with the boys waking at approximately 5:30am to play wii in the basement, only to be foiled by semi-outraged, semi-amused mother who was leaving for spin class).
We have gone for walks in springlike weather, and visited our little neighbourhood park.
We have gone to the movies. Okay, so we were too late to get tickets for the one we wanted to see (Tangled), and thus ended up seeing the only other option (Yogi Bear), but it was friendly, corny, and funny enough to keep everyone happy, and the big kids were sent to the long concession line, by themselves, with cash, and returned with change and one treat for everyone, even mama (a Coffee Crisp–good choice, Albus).
We’ve had a family fun night (drawing, dancing), and a family movie night (School of Rock–who knew? It was the perfect movie for our sometimes ambivalent budding musicians).
We’ve had friends over for lunch, and vice versa, and everyone’s had a playdate or two sprinkled into the mix.
And now it is Friday. I fear the coming of the end of March Break, if only for the list of have-to-dos. We have to pick up all these toys, for example, the ones that have migrated around the house, along with blankets, pillows, art supplies, fort-building materials, and orphaned odds and ends of mind-boggling proportions. We have to memorize the times tables (well, one of us does, and if the rest of us come along for the rote-ride, all the better). There is much baking to be done (granola, pitas, bread). And there is the sense of: have we done enough with this magical week of freedom?
That question seems front and centre in the nine-year-old mind (almost ten). I’ve been sensing the pre-adolescent emergence this week; more than sensing it, seeing it, witnessing it, being slightly horrified by it. I keep working to emphasize the good, and call out the bad. I’m trying to figure out the balance between expectations and acceptance. If the grumpy nine-year-old has to howl about going for a walk in the beautiful spring breezes, because it doesn’t involve any direct pay-off for him that he can recognize, but then agrees to go for the walk, and comes along, and has a generally good time and is generally pleasant, should I get upset because the good was preceded by the bad?
I’m seeing the edge of mood swings. The precipice of myopia. The unlovely view of a sense of entitlement. I want to figure out a way to say, hey, I get it, but I expect more. You’re allowed to make mistakes, and lots of them–we all are–but you have to apologize, too. It’s natural and normal to want, to crave, to long for, but when you don’t get what you want, it’s good for the soul to look around and be glad for what you have.
Ugh. Are these just parenting cliches? Cliches generally? Well, they’re what I’ve got. If I find something more effective, I’ve let you know.
Friday, Mar 11, 2011 | Kids |
I put this on Facebook, so forgive the repetition between social media. Yesterday evening, I attempted to get all the kids in bed early, but the older two are used to staying up til 9pm. I pictured myself in pajamas and under the covers before that hour, so I requested that they put themselves to bed. They could read in the office/playroom, and they could use Albus’s watch as an alarm clock so they wouldn’t lose track of time. They were pretty pleased with the idea, and when I came to check up on them, the alarm was set, and the two kids were sitting together on the futon surrounded by books. Heavy books. Books from my office shelf.
“What are you guys doing?”
“We’re playing a fun game!” said Apple-Apple, and she went on to explain that she was looking up words in the thesaurus and reading out all the similar words, and Albus was guessing the original word–to which end, he had several dictionaries on the go.
I’m sure there are equivalant moments of delight for hockey parents and soccer parents and musical parents, and etc. This was just such a moment for me. My kids, playing with words, spontaneously, for fun.
One of the books in the pile is a book of fairly tales–originals–which I bought a number of years ago when I was a grad student interested in the history of children’s literature. Earlier this week, Apple-Apple said she’d been trying to find real fairly tales at her school library, “not the Disney kind,” and I remembered this book. She’s been poring over it, very excited to be reading the “real” stories, though I need to caution her that in the case of fairy tales there probably is no “real” version, in the sense of there being an absolute original. That could be the start of another interesting conversation.
:::
On a different subject altogether, I am thinking about people in Libya and Japan, among many other troubled places here on this planet of ours. Thinking, praying. The security we hold to and assume to be rightfully ours is so fragile. I am not sure whether it is right or wrong to feel gratitude for the ordinariness of today, with its ordinary problems and ordinary pleasures that might not seem so ordinary under different circumstances. But I do feel gratitude; it is mingled with a kind of helpless grief.
Saturday, Feb 19, 2011 | Confessions, Kids, Siblings |
Did I ever tell you (confess might be the more appropriate word) that we got our children a wii for Christmas? Yes, despite my determined rhetorical stance against electronic gadgetry, screentime, and giving in to the whims of trend, after much consideration and discussion, Kevin and I decided to get a “family gaming system.” Even just typing out those last three words makes me sigh. Kevin was the more enthusiastic of the giving parents, but I did indeed agree. What swung my vote was the fact that the children were already exposed to screens in a variety of forms. They watched movies, and played games on online sites like Poptropica and TVOkids. Albus played a computer game on Saturday mornings with the others gathered around the tiny screen to watch. We had limits in place on these other uses of the screen, so we figured we could treat the wii in the same way.
And it’s been … fine. Actually, in some ways–not to endorse family gaming systems–it’s proven to be a place of bonding between siblings.
Here’s what’s happening right now: Albus is playing a game with CJ that is easy enough for CJ to play, too. They are active and bouncing and laughing and taking water breaks. I’m not saying this bonding couldn’t happen in many other ways, because it can and it does. But this is okay, too. Okay. Guess that’s as enthusiastic as I can get in my acceptance of the family gaming system.
Compromise. Even I can do it.
Wednesday, Feb 16, 2011 | Blogging, Kids, Music |
I’ve been re-reading old blogs as I attempt to organize them into a format that is printable, and I’m wondering, fellow bloggers, do you do this, too? Do you keep your blog entries in hard-copy? Do you have a method for organizing old material? Or do you trust in the online world to hold your posts in perpetuity? In looking back over this blog, it feels like a public diary, like a scrapbook of our family’s life, and I want to have it available to leaf through. There’s nothing like paper. But then, I’m an old-school girl. I like my books as books.
Which is not to say that I don’t like reading online, too.
In reading over the old entries, I was struck by how much this blog has changed. It used to be much more about the children, and it’s shifted over time to be more about me. I’m not sure whether that’s because as my children get older, I feel less inclined to invade their privacy by recording things that they may disagree with; or whether I’ve shifted in my own priorities away from the daily parenting. When I started the blog, CJ was four months old. Fooey wasn’t even three. We grow. We change.
In the spirit of the older blogs, I have to record a few CJ sayings. He’s just so articulate and lovely, my almost-three-year-old big boy. “I’m a big boy. I’m a little brother.”
As I was putting on his socks this morning, he looked at me, and said, “I see you down there!” It was the down there part that pleased him especially. It made me realize how in his world, he mostly sees people up there.
He is usually the last one out of bed, and a few mornings ago we were treated to the sound of his door opening and closing, and his sturdy feet hopping down the stairs (yes, he hops from stair step to stair step), until he arrived on the landing where he stopped and, taking in his admiring audience in the kitchen below, he began to sing. He sang a full verse and chorus to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, but with made up words, his long blond hair fluffed around his head like a halo, wearing his red footie Christmas pajamas. Then he jumped into my arms. I asked, “Did you learn that song at nursery school?” and he said, “No. I just made it up in my bed!”
Tuesday, Feb 8, 2011 | Books, Kids, Play, Reading, Siblings |
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| Big boy reading to little boy. The lovely thing about this was that it happened after supper, when CJ was begging for entertainment, and Albus right away offered to read him a book: Green Eggs and Ham. Albus has become such a reader over the past year or so, devouring chapter books, but reading out loud is yet another step. |
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| I gave the kids a mental health day awhile back, and this is one of the activities we did: colouring, water-colouring, and drawing on a large single sheet of paper. The end result was not overwhelmingly amazing (I did not hang it on the dining-room wall, as the kids requested), but the process was a lot of fun. Reminiscent of the kind of hands-on directed-activity parenting I used to do on a regular basis, that is now fairly rare. It’s nice that it’s rare, because it means the kids play independently and creatively all on their own, but occasionally it’s also nice to get to be a part of that play, too. But only occasionally). |
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| Snow day/P.D. day play. |
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| Fooey was out for an hour, along with several other kids (I was babysitting that day). They ended with a game that involved jumping off the porch and swinging on the chain that in summertime holds up one of the hammocks. I didn’t find out about that til later. Hands-off parenting/babysitting has its downside. Though everyone came in unharmed, glowing, and happy, and devoured a snack of hot chocolate, marshmallows, and apricot cake. Is there a lesson in this? |
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| Tuesday and Thursday mornings. As soon as the big kids head out the door, the little kids throw themselves into play. (What will we do next year when Fooey goes to school all-day, every-day?). This morning. Started with puzzles. Moved on to cooking and baking. |
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| Followed by eating, of course. And nope I’m not involved in this game. I’m sitting at the computer nearby, typing this post. (They’ve moved on to naptime right now. Sounds good to me …). |
