Posts Tagged "kids"
Independent Thinker
In the car in the preschool parking lot, Rain tells me he doesn’t want to go to school. He fakes sleeping in his carseat. He tells me that he’s sleepy and can’t go to school. I distract him and get him unbuckled. The day before he told me he was sick and couldn’t go. But there are no tears, no theatrics. He marches confidently down the hall, past the door to his class, trying another stalling tactic. When he sees me waiting at the door, he moseys back. Once through the door, he doesn’t hesitate. He takes off his coat, finds a hook, turns to kiss me goodbye, and tells me he is going to make some art. I watch him go. He heads straight for the back corner, then veers in a wide arc round back to the shelves of toys by the coat hooks. He looks up at me as he reaches for a large wooden tray filled with coloured blocks, dowels and cards with patterns, and informs me “This is new.” I follow him to the table. “How come you decided not to do art?” “There were too many kids,” he explains as he sits at an empty table. “So what do you do with this new toy?” I ask him. The preschool director sees us and comes to sit with Rain. “There are a few things you can do with this,” she begins. Rain already has two dowels and has started to fit them into holes on the tray. “I’m going to do this.” He ignores the pattern cards and starts loading all of the square blocks on the first dowel. The director laughs, “Of course you are.” and looking up at me, says, “We’ve got an independent thinker here.” I laugh too. “We’re certainly not worried about that.” Talking to Rain again, she says “You like to do things your way.” Turning her attention back to me, she tells me: “You’re going to get a call from the Kindergarten teacher.” She ruffles Rain’s hair to make him feel included – we’re not talking about you; we’re talking with you. “Sometimes you have to do things the way the teacher asks you,” she goes on. She smiles when she sees he’s got the whole dowel filled with just square blocks, leaving the round and rectangular blocks on the tray. “Wow. Can you tell me what you’ve done here?” she asks. Rain says “I put all the squares on.” I kiss him and take my leave. On the drive home, I’m even more convinced that public school is a bad idea. ————————————— There are a couple of things going on here. (Okay, more than a couple so I am going to do several posts and only focus on one at a time.) It concerns me that Rain is increasingly reluctant about school. Is it the number of kids? The structure? Something else? Is it totally normal? I really truly believe that kids love to learn and that school should be set up to facilitate that. Getting to the bottom of Rain’s reluctance about school could make all the difference in whether he retains his love of learning into adulthood. With Kindergarten looming, I am beginning to worry about how this will play out for him. Especially as a spirited, independent thinker. I recently read Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka and found it incredibly helpful in working with Rain at home. We discovered what we already knew about him being slow to adapt to change, but also that he is perceptive (“often accused of not listening”) and energetic. The book has a chapter on Success in School and it begins with this quote: I didn’t want him to be “discussed.” I wanted him to be treasured. This chapter raised some flags for me about how Rain’s personality will likely be met in Kindergarten. A boy who is loud, full of ideas, talks a lot, moves a lot, dislikes changing from one activity to another. This is the boy that will be disrupting the Kindergarten....
Read MoreNagging or Something Noble
Last week, I posted another one of my son’s witticisms whereby he gave me a back-handed compliment for my nagging. I had praised Rain for having picked up the bath toys and he responded, “And I’m proud of you for asking and asking until I did it.” Truthfully, that is how it had all gone down. I had asked him several times to empty the tub. First he ignored me. Then he flat out refused. I pulled out my this-is-serious voice and told him he had to do it or else it was straight to bed. Leave it to a four-year-old to tell you he is proud of you for nagging and threatening. Essentially, Rain was jokingly pointing out that he hadn’t willfully done anything for me to be proud of. But I was proud of him. He had done a really good job despite not wanting to do it in the first place. I called the post Pride in a Job Well Done and later, I got to thinking about the whole dialogue. You know, beyond how funny it was. It occurred to me that the joke was all in whether or not I believed Rain was being sarcastic or sincere. As Aaron put it: “Either he doesn’t know what the word ‘proud’ means or else he was lying.” Maybe he wasn’t lying or joking. Maybe he was being sincere. Maybe he was telling me that I too had done my job well. Because really, if we look past the odious nature of my nagging and threatening, isn’t that my job as a parent: to ask and ask until my child learns? It’s easy to get worn down by the repetitive nature of parenting, of trying to get through to our kids, of attempting to be consistent and to follow through. Our kids are meant to learn by pushing boundaries and testing their limits. They are continually checking to see what they can get away with. I often get frustrated and I’m pretty sure I’m not the first mom to utter “You should know better!” in exasperation. My sister has pointed out to me a few times that the problem is in my expectations that it should be different. All we can really do as parents is to keep working at it: Keep reminding our kids about what is acceptable (and what isn’t) and hope that by the time our babies go out into this world they will have learned some of what we have tried to teach them. My job is just to keep showing them the way, modelling the behaviour we hope for, redirecting, and yes, asking and asking. You know the cliche about our children being our teachers? I wonder if this was another one of those cases where my son, my four-year-old, had the wisdom to see the truth in the situation. The truth that it is his job to see how far he can go and that it is my job to show him the way. I would have been happier if the whole story had involved less nagging and admittedly, a little less of me losing my temper. A couple of days later, I said to Rain “It would make me happy if you drained the tub and put the toys away” and he did it right away. I only had to ask once. Maybe we both learned a little something last week. How about you? Learned any great parenting lessons from your kids this...
Read MoreTo my babies: this year…
Welcome to the January Carnival of Natural Parenting: Parenting resolutions! This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month we’re writing about how we want to parent differently — or the same — in the New Year. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants. ****** Dear Rain and Noa This year, 2010, your fifth year and your second year with us, I resolve to: Let you help more and backseat drive less while you do Go for more walks Do my best to find the right place for you, Rain, to go to Kindergarten and Relax and give the school a chance once we make a decision Breastfeed you, Noa, until next New Year’s or as long as you’d like Shout less Spend less time on the computer during your waking hours Hold you in my arms and in my heart every day Wait and think before I react when you do something that upsets me Be patient about sleep and Continue to share the family bed with you Listen to you Never wish you were older but stay present with you right now today Take care of myself so I can be the Mama you deserve, so I can become the person you see in me Laugh more, play more, read more Teach by example and Follow your lead May 2010 be another year filled with togetherness. I look forward to learning more about you both every day. Much love, Mama ****** Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting! Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants: (All the links should be active by noon on Jan. 12. Go to Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama for the most recently updated list.) • To Yell or Not to Yell — The Adventures of Lactating Girl • It Is All About Empathy: Nurturing a Toddler’s Compassion Potential — Baby Dust Diaries • To my babies: this year… — BluebirdMama • Mindfully Loving My Children — Breastfeeding Moms Unite! • January Carnival of Natural Parenting: Resolutions — Code Name: Mama • Imperfect Mother — Consider Eden • Resolutions — Craphead (aka Mommy) • FC Mom’s Parenting Resolutions 2010 — FC Mom • What’s in a Resolution? — Happy Mothering • January Carnival of Natural Parenting: Parenting resolutions — Hobo Mama • Natural Parenting Resolutions — Little Green Blog • This year, I will mostly… — Look Left of the Pleiades • Parenting Resolutions — The Mahogany Way • I Resolve to Breastfeed In Public More Often — mama2mama tips • Moving to Two Kids — Megna the Destroyer • Use Love — Momopoly • My parenting resolutions — Musings of a Milk Maker • Talkin’ ’bout My Resolutions — Navelgazing • Parenting Resolutions — One Starry Night • Invitations, not resolutions — Raising My Boychick • No more multitasking during kid time — The Recovering Procrastinator • I need to slow down, smell those roses AND the poopy diapers — Tales of a Kitchen Witch Momma • Resolutely Parenting in 2010 — This Is...
Read MoreVision
2010 is our time to turn our eyes to the future, to look ahead and figure out where the road might be leading. The word for 2010 is VISION. This is the year to find our feet, develop our vision and begin the task of building. We are in a unique position to carry forward the lessons in being present and being mindful from 2009 and place them in the context of what do we need to do today to make tomorrow a reality? This is going to be an exciting year, not because a lot of things will happen but because we will be able to see what is coming. The big rocks for 2010 are: Rain starts Kindergarten – where and what that looks like TBA Continue with self-sufficiency and creativity projects Continue to grow our business Reduce/eliminate debt load Mindful parenting & positive discipline Self-care (reading, writing and figuring out how my hopes and dreams intersect with my hopes and dreams for my family) I have quite a few specific goals that I won’t list here. Maybe I’ll do a monthly goal post just to keep me accountable. At the very least, expect more news about the future vision and the direction of those calls with my sister as the vision gets clearer. How about you? What’s on the table for...
Read MoreWhen I Grow Up…
Some of the interesting and amusing future occupations of the fabulous Mr. Rain Wild: Midwife Inventor Santa “Mailman who helps other mailmen who have sore legs or broken legs” Surfer Diver That’s my boy! Do you know how happy and proud I am that this list doesn’t have anything lame like fireman* on it? I’m sure there are more to come. I will definitely update this post as I hear them. *No disrespect to firemen – it’s just not very original.
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