Listening to: The absolute madhouse chaos of McDonald’s play place on a busy day
Mood: Content
My eldest daughter has a boyfriend. At 4. Well, to be fair, he’s not really a boyfriend, but he is a boy, and according to my daughter he is the love to her and a very good friend. He really likes to play with her at preschool, every single day! I find it both adorable and a little scary all at the same time. My daughter’s version of love, at a ripe old age of 4, is so innocent it’s amazing. He’s just a very good friend, but they are both extraordinarily fond of each other.
It also made me wonder what I’m going to do when she starts dating. We have a good 14 years until that happens (I know, I know, but I can hope anyhow), but I really wonder how I, and more specifically her father, will deal with it. I know I’m biased about my daughter, pretty much everyone is biased about their own kids, but I think she’s on the attractive side of the spectrum. I especially think she has pretty eyes. So after reviewing my own dating experiences and my knowledge of boys in general, I was trying to decide if I should stand at the door with a really big stick or just go right to a shotgun. Perhaps both….
It is my hope that I will raise both my daughters to know their worth and how to judge the nature of a man well enough that I won’t have to deal with any really bad choices, just them growing up. It’s such a fine balance to raise children between the beauty of childhood innocence and shattering it completely to try and protect them from the world by overeducating them about it. I was very sheltered as a child and as a result made some spectacularly bad choices the minute I was out on my own. I thought I could handle certain things that were way beyond my depth. I want to educate my girls to the point that they recognize that the world is a huge, scary, complex place, but not so much that they are scared to go out and make it on their own.
Everyone makes mistakes growing up – it’s inevitable. What matters is the kind of mistakes that you make. Let me give you an example. I’d say that deciding to drink way too much at a party when you’re under aged but then calling your parents to come pick you up is a much smaller mistake than going to that same party and trying to drive yourself home because you think you can handle it. I don’t want any hate mail for this – it’s just an example. I’m not condoning underage drinking or anything like that. In order for your kids to be able to make smart decisions like this, you have to talk to them about the hard stuff. My parents didn’t do this for me. They just said don’t do any of this bad stuff. Or else. I want to take an active roll in my kids thinking about drinking, drugs, and sex. I want them to make smart choices because we have discussed the consequences and they understand them. I’m not knocking my parents. By the time I got old enough to think about this stuff, my mom was on her own dealing with 2 teenagers, and did her best. But now that I have my own kids, I am definitely more prone to thinking how I want to handle this stuff with my own kids.
So until my daughter gets old enough to date, I think I’ll encourage friendships with boys too. It will be good for her to have some friendship experiences with boys too.
Becky
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
A Sigh of Relief
Listening to: Elder child whining, again.
Mood: Content
We have been having a bit of a difficult time around our house as of late. Most of this difficulty is revolving around my elder daughter, who shall be referred to as AA girl in the rest of this post. You’ll understand this in a minute.
For those who don’t know, AA is 4.4 years old. We also have a 3.5 month old, referred to as Squishy. As AA has been the only child for her 4 short years on earth, she had a reasonably difficult time adjusting to Squishy’s arrival. We were prepared for it though, and it wasn’t really that bad.
So the really intense time started when I had to bring both my girls to the pediatrician last Friday. Unfortunately for them (and indeed, me too) both girls needed shots. When I was a young girl, I had a severe phobia of shots. I could work myself into a panic attack just thinking about getting one. Unfortunately, AA inherited this terror. She had a rather traumatic experience at the Dr.’s office, partly due to her fear and partly due to some insensitive people at the office – but that’s a whole different rant. Since then, she has been the most angry, hateful little girl imaginable. I felt rather like we had slid back into the terrible twos, but with more tricks up her sleeve to hurl at me. She has always behaved in this manner, but not quite so rude and angry. I had really run out of ideas as to how to deal with AA too. On top of this, she is home all day right now for 2 weeks for Easter break. Hubby would come home at night and find me near tears, a rare event indeed, from dealing with both a demanding, fussy, infant and a four year old who argued and was extremely rude and defiant all day.
I finally turned to the internet to find some help or support in how to help my daughter deal with her anger. I happened to come across a page on difficult children. I read through the page on defiance first, but it really didn’t seem to fit my daughter all that well. I moved on to a page on Active Aggressive (AA) children. It was like the heavens opened up with the Hallelujah chorus. That was my daughter – to a T. It was such a relief to not worry that her demeanor was a result of me being a horrible parent. It was a huge sigh of relief. I also found some parenting tips on how to best deal with these types of children, and it has made a night and day difference in my daughter’s behavior. I had some adjustments to make too. It hasn’t been the easiest thing to accept – everyone thinks they know how they should deal with discipline – but sometimes it’s great to have an instruction manual that helps you deal with your type of child. In the past, it had been a constant source of frustration for hubby and I, because we simply ran out of ideas on how to deal with her constant energy and attitude. There really is no professional child person telling you, don’t worry, this method or that method will work, just give it a little time. Instead, we were just growing more and more frustrated as we flipped through ways of dealing with behaviors. It’s kind of sad though. Had I known this information, I could have dealt with some of the stresses in a much more productive manner.
I’ll continue to update you on how it’s going with AA. She’s got a long road ahead of her, but it’s a good one filled with possibilities. I was an AA child myself and I turned out okay. Hopefully her childhood will be even better than mine because her father and I have this info.
Becky
Mood: Content
We have been having a bit of a difficult time around our house as of late. Most of this difficulty is revolving around my elder daughter, who shall be referred to as AA girl in the rest of this post. You’ll understand this in a minute.
For those who don’t know, AA is 4.4 years old. We also have a 3.5 month old, referred to as Squishy. As AA has been the only child for her 4 short years on earth, she had a reasonably difficult time adjusting to Squishy’s arrival. We were prepared for it though, and it wasn’t really that bad.
So the really intense time started when I had to bring both my girls to the pediatrician last Friday. Unfortunately for them (and indeed, me too) both girls needed shots. When I was a young girl, I had a severe phobia of shots. I could work myself into a panic attack just thinking about getting one. Unfortunately, AA inherited this terror. She had a rather traumatic experience at the Dr.’s office, partly due to her fear and partly due to some insensitive people at the office – but that’s a whole different rant. Since then, she has been the most angry, hateful little girl imaginable. I felt rather like we had slid back into the terrible twos, but with more tricks up her sleeve to hurl at me. She has always behaved in this manner, but not quite so rude and angry. I had really run out of ideas as to how to deal with AA too. On top of this, she is home all day right now for 2 weeks for Easter break. Hubby would come home at night and find me near tears, a rare event indeed, from dealing with both a demanding, fussy, infant and a four year old who argued and was extremely rude and defiant all day.
I finally turned to the internet to find some help or support in how to help my daughter deal with her anger. I happened to come across a page on difficult children. I read through the page on defiance first, but it really didn’t seem to fit my daughter all that well. I moved on to a page on Active Aggressive (AA) children. It was like the heavens opened up with the Hallelujah chorus. That was my daughter – to a T. It was such a relief to not worry that her demeanor was a result of me being a horrible parent. It was a huge sigh of relief. I also found some parenting tips on how to best deal with these types of children, and it has made a night and day difference in my daughter’s behavior. I had some adjustments to make too. It hasn’t been the easiest thing to accept – everyone thinks they know how they should deal with discipline – but sometimes it’s great to have an instruction manual that helps you deal with your type of child. In the past, it had been a constant source of frustration for hubby and I, because we simply ran out of ideas on how to deal with her constant energy and attitude. There really is no professional child person telling you, don’t worry, this method or that method will work, just give it a little time. Instead, we were just growing more and more frustrated as we flipped through ways of dealing with behaviors. It’s kind of sad though. Had I known this information, I could have dealt with some of the stresses in a much more productive manner.
I’ll continue to update you on how it’s going with AA. She’s got a long road ahead of her, but it’s a good one filled with possibilities. I was an AA child myself and I turned out okay. Hopefully her childhood will be even better than mine because her father and I have this info.
Becky
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)