threadwalker | And there it is

Parenting.. Just when you think you've got a grasp on it.

Super N got in a fight yesterday AND today. In one case totally his fault and a result of his lack of impulse control when he was mad. In the second, he was retaliating, the other kid escalated and got a friend involved, and Super N continued to fight back after he was outnumbered. It shouldn't surprise me given who his parents are that he didn't back down when he was outnumbered. But still... . argh. There is punishment. One of the things is that he will have to fill a box with his prescious toys and I'm donating them to charity. F thinks it's harsh and commented that he (F) wasn't sure he could do that and that I was harder than him. But I shared my perspective: I'd throw away every toy, game, and gadget in his room if it meant I never have to go to the morgue to ID his body because he didn't back down from the wrong gang punk. From my fear comes my strength.

Miss E has been hiding at recess because two boys have been continuing to pick on her for weeks now because she made a mistake on the playground at school. They delight in embarrassing her and reminding her of her mistake and in telling others while she can overhear. She even got herself sent to the nurses office on Monday saying her tummy hurt; the nurse called me and relayed that Miss E had commented she was glad she missed recess. That was the cincher for me because, being the alert mom, I've been piecing together that all is not well is the land of Miss E and tonight I finally got the whole sordid tale of first-grade drama. It's horrible to be holding your sobbing child and being unable to console them because they know you can't be there to protect them from bullies; she feels alone, scared and helpless on the school yard. She sobbed in my arms about how mean these boys are and when I was surprised because of how I've seen her stand up to Super N, she cried harder and said they were meaner than Super N. She was crying so hard, I couldn't tell what she was saying at times, but she did squeak out that everyone should just be nice and try to help each other instead of being mean. Tomorrow I'm calling her teacher to see if she can intercede and/or offer suggestions. I also promised I would drive from work to Miss E's school to talk with these kids, their teacher and Miss E's teacher if it didn't get sorted out. She cried harder (!) because in her eyes it was now going to be public and everyone would know of her "shame". Imagine my surprise at how driven she was to hide her "shame" from everyone. Now I'm afraid of what she might want to hide from me when she's older and the possiblities for making mistakes can be so much worse. Yikes... I'm going to have nightmares tonight. So I pinkie promised that it would be handled "discreetly" and not in public. (I had to explain what "discreetly" meant). And I made her pinkie promise to tell me sooner next time. I told her that mommy was smart, tough, sneaky and experienced at dealing with meanies and bullies. She wrapped herself around me and sighed into my shoulder. She said that I was the best mommy ever. (Then she added, bizarrely, that I'd even be the best mommy ever even if I died... I gave her a "look" and she said it was even better that way because no matter what, no new mommy could ever be better than me. Imagine my response.. what I did was I told her I wasn't planning on leaving a vacancy. Kids are so weird. I hope she's not holding auditions for my replacement.)

All this on the heals of a really aweful afternoon which was capped off when I addressed one manager in a room of managers and saying, "I'm leaving at 4pm. I'm not working overtime to review your report. If you left it at my desk after I left for lunch, then I suggest you go get it and bring it to me because I'm scheduled solid from 1pm to 4pm. And since I got in before 7am, I'm leaving straight from my last meeting to my car. Otherwise, you can wait until tomorrow." That was QUITE sassy given who the audience was. Was it "aggressive" or "assertive"? It wasn't ranty, so it probably depends on how comfortable the listener is with plain honesty. The manager sent his report writer zooming off to my desk to get the report because it really was THAT important. And since I was determined to throw myself off the cliff, I followed THAT up with, "Let's all be clear about expectations. I generally get here before 7am. I leave at 4pm. I have a lot of meetings. If you know you have something due, do not wait until lunch time the day it is due to give it to me because it's unlikely it will be signed. If it's so important that you think I should work overtime, then please show me that you worked overtime before you waited PAST the last minute to give it to me. Otherwise, if it's not urgent to you, it's definitely not urgent to me."

My boss was out today, but regardless I'm SURE I'll hear about this behind closed doors tomorrow. I just don't see the point in rewarding bad behavior. And yet... I'm kind of not worried. Cuz, frankly, I rock. And I wore my 5-inch HarajukuLovers to work today and they gave me 4-5 inches of added height.. which made me feel really tall and I could loom... or flash my sexy ankle straps...

I love shoes... I do. I totally do. And amazingly, almost every man I bumped into today aged 30+ complimented me on them... I was very surprised. Maybe someone else has some insight into that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

maybe because those shoes are hawt!?

Oooh!! Cool shoes!

wooo hooooo --- hawt hawt hawt

I think you're making a major mistake taking away N's toys. Is the message he's receiving "don't fight" or is it "Mommy can take away something that's precious to me"? You're potentially rocking his trust while removing a source of comfort (his toys) when he's angry. He now has something else to be mad about.

Studies have shown that positive reinforcement and guidance into new paths of behavior work while negative reinforcement causes additional problems.

I am sure there are some great studies. I do appreciate your insight and the questions you posted here are very thoughtful. And I want you to know that I spent a lot of time thinking about exactly this stuff. But I'm backed into a corner; we are transfers to this school and I can't let him endanger his enrollment. I am VERY concerned about this so I'm escalating it now to the point where he understands that he has something to lose; saying "yes, I agree I won't hit again" needs to be tied to a specific consequence that means something to him. He says the right words and shows the remorse, but it's proving to be insufficient. This was NOT an easy thing do to. What I'm up against is that I can't be there to coach him and the public school child/teacher ratio is not equipped to give all the coaching he needs.

And as you percolate the situation and since you've put some deep thought into this (which I appreciate) you should also factor in I specifically told him that if it happened again that his first reaction was to hit in anger or to hit back, I would take away some toys. He clearly said he understood and that it would not happen again. But it happened the very next day under circumstances where a teacher was on hand. I have to follow through on my threat.

I'm all about the coaching. However, there also needs to be consequences and I've been making it as transparent as I can that his bad choices at school affect all of us, not just him. The first time (last month) I laid it out to him like this:

If you fight, you might get suspended. If you get suspended I have to stay home from work. If I miss work, it endangers my job. If lose my job, we lose our house. If we lose our house, everyone will have to get rid of stuff in order to down-size. Therefore, if you keep going in this direction we're going to start downsizing your stuff first and that means get rid of toys.

The trust thing is a 2-way street and just as he trusts me to protect him from harm, injustice, mean people, etc, (and trust me, I've confronted the entire day care program on his behalf) I trust him to behave in the way we've taught him. Since before they could talk I've coached both kids they they have to be responsible for controlling their own behaviour and I've been explicit ahead of time what the consequences are and that they are a result their bad choices.

It's not easy. Thanks for asking for more about my thoughts.

One thing I missed in your earlier post is that you told him in advance what the consequences would be. If he knew that, agreed that he understood, then did what he said he wouldn't do, you absolutely need to follow through.

Are you doing any role playing with him as to alternate behaviors? You know, when the other kid says this, show me other ways you can respond? That worked with M. when he was little, since once he knew what he should do and had a chance to practice it he did all right.

We do practice role playing for a lot of things. (Like turning in homework, which was a HUGE challenge at one point). I had him come up with 3 strategies for avoiding confrontations and/or for dealing with them last time around. Then we practiced them with role-playing. He's normally really good at using what he learns from this. I think the challenge with this situation is that he needs to be in the state of mind when he's surprised into anger/fear. When he can see it coming or it's happening at home (his safe place), he's great. It's when someone comes up and unexpectedly does something to him outside of home that he strikes. ALthough we talk and practice and reiterate our values, I can't bring myself to "jump" him so that he can work on his knee-jerk reactions.

I've decided he's going to get to pull weeds on Sunday as well. I think a bout of manual labor will give him a chance to dwell on what he did wrong. It worked with me. I will probably do it with him. good bonding/talking time.

That's the best thing I learned from aikido: how to respond in a stressful situation rather than react blindly. I now start to relax when I'm scared rather than tense up and strike out.

Oh - heh... in the midst of my own emotional turmoil over all this (and i have been completely freaking out and cried on someone yesterday) I didn't mention that

1. ALL toys are prescious to him, even the junk from fast food places. I would never get rid of his stuffed animals or deliberately take the favorite action figures. I'm tough, but not that tough.
2. He gets to pick what he's getting rid of
3. Every year at this time I force the kids to get rid of 1 box of toys anyway. They have sooo much stuff and they really don't play with all of it. So with Christmas coming and their fall/winter birthdays, there's no way they have room for all of it. So in a sense I'm disguising a routine annual activity as a punishment. Only no one else has figured that out.

And it's still going to make me cry because he's going to cry.

Sassy woman, sassy shoes. Go for it!

Does Miss E's school have an anti-bullying policy? I'd be surprised if they didn't.

I have read about some anti-bullying programs where the kids learn about the bullying behaviors andtold not to do them. They then are much more self-policing about being nice. It can be more effective than just punishing the bullies (tho' I'm all for that, too), since the kids don't just learn that they can get away with it as long as teacher doesn't know.

I called her teacher at 7:30 this morning. Her teacher was GREAT! Patient, gentle and sensitive to Miss E's sense of shame.

I don't have kids yet so often don't find it right to respond about parenting things since I don't have any experience as a parent but I do have to say good for you for following through..even though it's so tough, you're teaching good lessons here, even though the situation is a tough one!!! He's learning responsibility for his actions and so many other things and not just going through the actions of saying what he knows you want to hear, it's become a hard hitting lesson that he'll take with him all through life.

Glad to hear that Miss E's teacher is being sensitive to her sense of shame, hope things sort out well here too!

And those shoes, wow! I think many guys have foot fetishes and that's why the notice shoes.

And there it is

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject