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NEVERENDING ♾️ The NEVERENDING Raising Children Thread

Zoning Goddess said:
Today I dropped the kid off for his first driving lesson with a professional instructor. No, he didn't get the one with the tits, he got a retired guy who he said "looks like a stoner". He had the kid master parking lot basics,learn the 3-pt turn, then had him drive around a residential neighborhood for awhile. Apparently the kid was doing so well, the guy had him drive back to the driving school. Across a busy bridge with lanes closed due to repairs/construction, then down the busiest road in town, at 2:30 in the afternoon. 8-! I don't care how good he did, I was so floored there was no way I could let him drive home as he wanted to do. That would have been panic attack time. Which is why I don't mind paying a professional to teach him.
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NJ actually mandates that the teenagers receive 6 hours of "professional" driving instruction. I really liked RT's driving instructor, he was in his 50s and as calm and collected as I could never be trying to teach her how to drive, especially on the Turnpike and Parkway. I gladly forked over the $200 for him in order to not have an anxiety attack teaching her how to drive so I totally understand where you are coming from. Start out slow when letting him practice, do the simple trips and travel during an off peak time. One thing that RT said was very helpful was that I pointed out the particular traffic hazards around town and how to navigate them safely.
 
kjel said:
NJ actually mandates that the teenagers receive 6 hours of "professional" driving instruction. I really liked RT's driving instructor, he was in his 50s and as calm and collected as I could never be trying to teach her how to drive, especially on the Turnpike and Parkway. I gladly forked over the $200 for him in order to not have an anxiety attack teaching her how to drive so I totally understand where you are coming from. Start out slow when letting him practice, do the simple trips and travel during an off peak time. One thing that RT said was very helpful was that I pointed out the particular traffic hazards around town and how to navigate them safely.
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I still remember my NJ driving instructor taking me out on Route 22 driving to Newark Airport and back for highway driving experience. :-o 8-!
 
JNA said:
I still remember my NJ driving instructor taking me out on Route 22 driving to Newark Airport and back for highway driving experience. :-o 8-!
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Yeah, my big wake-up call was merging onto I-4 in the middle of downtown Orlando at 15 + a month. Holy crap, that was scary. I guess I will have to take the kid to learn interstate driving.... since we don't have an interstate in this county, it's 45 min to the north of us. Oddly, that never occurred to me;I've just lived in places where the interstate is right there!
 
If all ya'll didn't learn to drive on the curvy, mountainous, two lane roads of northern California, ya'll ain't experienced nothing. That's where you learn to drive.

I bet there's a song there...
 
JNA said:
I still remember my NJ driving instructor taking me out on Route 22 driving to Newark Airport and back for highway driving experience. :-o 8-!
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Route 22 is mostly a parking lot these days, at least between Watchung and the airport. I will have to say that the Route 22, 1 & 9 and I-78 interchange is one of the more wicked ones in NJ :-c

Richmond Jake said:
If all ya'll didn't learn to drive on the curvy, mountainous, two lane roads of northern California, ya'll ain't experienced nothing. That's where you learn to drive.

I bet there's a song there...
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Lots of roads like that in Oregon and Montana which were my first two proving grounds for driving.
 
Driving update this evening: kid has agreed to take the driving course where he took his first lesson last week. Thank god. I don't have to teach him, only take him out to practice.
 
Zoning Goddess said:
Driving update this evening: kid has agreed to take the driving course where he took his first lesson last week. Thank god. I don't have to teach him, only take him out to practice.
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That's the best way. My parents sent me to driving school rather than teach me themselves - which they had done with my two older sisters. However, by the time I was of an age to learn, we were living in the 'burbs of D.C. and the cold weather was new to all of us. I learned to drive on the Beltway in winter, baby!

Hope the driving lessons and practice sessions turn out a smart driver!
 
I still remember being a bit scared when my Dad had me merge onto the Dan Ryan expressway in Chicago. The fact that that man trusted a 15 yr old kid on that road without having a heart attack is pretty impressive.
 
I grew up on a farm and had been driving tractors since I was about 8. When it was time to learn to drive an actual car, I took the driver's ed through my high school and never had any problems. However, a few months after getting my license, my dad sent me to the store in his truck which I had never driven before. It was a stick shift and I had completely burned up the clutch by the time I got to the store only a few miles away. Little did I know an automobile manual transmission doesn't operate like a tractor's and I cannot really go from reverse or neutral to 5th gear without bothering with the gears in between.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
I grew up on a farm and had been driving tractors since I was about 8. When it was time to learn to drive an actual car, I took the driver's ed through my high school and never had any problems. However, a few months after getting my license, my dad sent me to the store in his truck which I had never driven before. It was a stick shift and I had completely burned up the clutch by the time I got to the store only a few miles away. Little did I know an automobile manual transmission doesn't operate like a tractor's and I cannot really go from reverse or neutral to 5th gear without bothering with the gears in between.
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Ooops! Thats a lesson to learn the hard way!

I had a similar experience, though citified. For several years prior to taking drivers ed I had worked as a Caddy. My brother's job was to open the pro shop in the morning so we would get there around 5 am, pull out the carts, set them up, then take a break. I literally had countless of hours of driving prior to taking driver's ed. In Detroit, back in the 1980's they had already started to economize. They had one instructor for about 25 students at a time. We were not allowed to drive on roads as they were afraid we would just steal the cars. We had to drive around inside a course set-up in the schoolyard. Making the 3 point turns, the parallel parking, was cake for me. The only thing the instructor would yell at me for was driving the car too fast! I guess when you have 5 cars in a fenced in schoolyard full of inexperienced drivers there would be reasons to freak out. Later the State got out of the driving instruction business, but the remnants of the old schoolyard remain!
 
While I took driver's ed, I actually learned to drive from my cop father and my grandfather.:-c My grandfather has the dubvious honor of getting a speeding ticket while in his 60s:-c8-! Needless to say, driving with me can be an interesting experience.
 
How do parents with both sex children deal with hotel rooms and vacations? Do you just have them share a bed? At what age would that not work out so much?

The bf and I are taking our respective kids for a little vacation and reserving train tickets to Chicago for Spring Break, yay!!! The kids are 7 (girl, mine) and 10 (boy, his). At this point, we would each just sleep with our respective kids, but that seems kind of weird. Equally (or more) weird would be having the kids sleep in the same bed. I have no idea what is typical for this in a traditional family, much less a blended family.
 
SW MI Planner said:
How do parents with both sex children deal with hotel rooms and vacations? Do you just have them share a bed? At what age would that not work out so much?

The bf and I are taking our respective kids for a little vacation and reserving train tickets to Chicago for Spring Break, yay!!! The kids are 7 (girl, mine) and 10 (boy, his). At this point, we would each just sleep with our respective kids, but that seems kind of weird. Equally (or more) weird would be having the kids sleep in the same bed. I have no idea what is typical for this in a traditional family, much less a blended family.
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My sister was 5 years older than me and we went on several vacations throughout the years. My parents always got rooms with two beds for us kids so we would have a room and they would have a room - either that or a multi-room suite. I never had my own hotel room but I never had to share a bed with my sister, either.
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My wife is talking about us having children *at some point soon*. She's a special education teacher so she always talks about how you should have children before the man is 30 to prevent various problems. I am 29ish and she is 27 so I told her that time is rapidly approaching - faster than either of us know it. That and we have a big trip planned this summer, Christmas 2012, and then Vegas spring 2013 in which she'll want to drink. Did this ever stop anyone from having kids? Both our parents and siblings had children older than her target of 30 so I know she'll be okay with it if it plays out that way, but still it frightens me a bit. We go on trips regularly, even if it's just a weekend out of town and we enjoy eating out all the time so the prospect of a children limiting us frightens me. We're both still rather carefree (as carefree as you can be while both working full-time and paying a mortgage) but I know it's on her mind. The weird thing is yesterday she said "I like our dogs better than kids" so that got me thinking if she was serious about her target or not. On the other hand we don't know where we want to be in 5 years so we don't want to bring kids into that and then have to settle for something less than what we want. Did anyone else think these things or was it just "yup - let's have kids now". How much time went into the decision.
 
SW MI Planner said:
How do parents with both sex children deal with hotel rooms and vacations? Do you just have them share a bed? At what age would that not work out so much?

The bf and I are taking our respective kids for a little vacation and reserving train tickets to Chicago for Spring Break, yay!!! The kids are 7 (girl, mine) and 10 (boy, his). At this point, we would each just sleep with our respective kids, but that seems kind of weird. Equally (or more) weird would be having the kids sleep in the same bed. I have no idea what is typical for this in a traditional family, much less a blended family.
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When I was a kid, my mom and sister would share a bed, my brother and dad shared a bed, and I always got the rollaway bed. When RJ and I have travelled with my kid, he and I share a bed and the kid gets the other. Although one time we got a guesthouse through VRBO so he could have his own space (sofa bed) in a separate room.

You might try the VRBO or similar route if you're going to be in Chicage more than a few days, or an all-suites hotel, where you and the BF could have the bedroom, one of the kids could have the sofa bed, and get a rollaway for the other kid. Also, some hotels are setting up in a more kid-friendly way, with a bedroom for the adults and bunk beds for the kids; there are a lot of those here in FL, mostly Holiday Inns, I think.

If you end up in a traditional room, you're better off each sharing a bed with your own child.
 
stroskey said:
My sister was 5 years older than me and we went on several vacations throughout the years. My parents always got rooms with two beds for us kids so we would have a room and they would have a room - either that or a multi-room suite. I never had my own hotel room but I never had to share a bed with my sister, either.
______________

My wife is talking about us having children *at some point soon*. She's a special education teacher so she always talks about how you should have children before the man is 30 to prevent various problems. I am 29ish and she is 27 so I told her that time is rapidly approaching - faster than either of us know it. That and we have a big trip planned this summer, Christmas 2012, and then Vegas spring 2013 in which she'll want to drink. Did this ever stop anyone from having kids? Both our parents and siblings had children older than her target of 30 so I know she'll be okay with it if it plays out that way, but still it frightens me a bit. We go on trips regularly, even if it's just a weekend out of town and we enjoy eating out all the time so the prospect of a children limiting us frightens me. We're both still rather carefree (as carefree as you can be while both working full-time and paying a mortgage) but I know it's on her mind. The weird thing is yesterday she said "I like our dogs better than kids" so that got me thinking if she was serious about her target or not. On the other hand we don't know where we want to be in 5 years so we don't want to bring kids into that and then have to settle for something less than what we want. Did anyone else think these things or was it just "yup - let's have kids now". How much time went into the decision.
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Well having kids is a personal decision. Once you have kids you won't be going on as many trips or going on the weekends as much. You will be dedicating more time and money to your family. That is a choice that shouldn't be taken lightly, so it is very frightening. For us, we knew that we wanted to have kids when we were young. We don't have much money now, but we will when we retire, so we put off traveling until then. I wanted to retire and not have my kids in the house still. It is a huge decision. Probably the biggest in your life. It will change your life. Don't let anyone fool you that you will have the same life, but with kids. Your priorities once you have kids will change because they have to. (For the better I think, but to each their own).

As for the 30 thing. There is a much smaller chance that you will have "issues" for a guy over 30 than a woman. Studies have shown that at 30 the risk for women to have complications, early babies, autism, and a slew of other diseases raises slowly until 35, and every year after that it is much greater. Multiples are also more common in "older" women. So if you have any multiples in your family you are just asking for twins/triplets/etc. Women were built to have kids at 15-20. It just turns out that most are not financially fit or ready at that time (who would have guessed).... evolution is funny in that way.

I have not heard of any risks for men over 30, but will ask the wife about it.
 
stroskey said:
That and we have a big trip planned this summer, Christmas 2012, and then Vegas spring 2013 in which she'll want to drink. Did this ever stop anyone from having kids?
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Stop them? Heck no, that has caused many of them to have kids!
 
SW MI Planner said:
How do parents with both sex children deal with hotel rooms and vacations? Do you just have them share a bed? At what age would that not work out so much?

The bf and I are taking our respective kids for a little vacation and reserving train tickets to Chicago for Spring Break, yay!!! The kids are 7 (girl, mine) and 10 (boy, his). At this point, we would each just sleep with our respective kids, but that seems kind of weird. Equally (or more) weird would be having the kids sleep in the same bed. I have no idea what is typical for this in a traditional family, much less a blended family.
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My mom and sister shared a bed. My dad and brother shared a bed. And I got to sleep between two chairs. :not:
 
SW MI Planner said:
How do parents with both sex children deal with hotel rooms and vacations? Do you just have them share a bed? At what age would that not work out so much?

The bf and I are taking our respective kids for a little vacation and reserving train tickets to Chicago for Spring Break, yay!!! The kids are 7 (girl, mine) and 10 (boy, his). At this point, we would each just sleep with our respective kids, but that seems kind of weird. Equally (or more) weird would be having the kids sleep in the same bed. I have no idea what is typical for this in a traditional family, much less a blended family.
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You sleep with your daughter and he sleeps with his son, and be glad that you don't have a son and he doesn't have a daughter. Will they let you add a roll away bed for a few more dollars?
 
To the issue of kids sharing beds, I have not been in the position of having opposite sex kids from different families, but at their age, it doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. If they are ok with it. A good childhood friend had a blended family much like the Brady Bunch (3 from her, 3 from him) but they were ALL BOYS! So, those issues really didn’t come into play. More of an issue was preventing them from breaking things…

My kids sometimes share a bed in hotels, but usually each sleeps with a parent (and we often switch off for some sense of fairness). This is largely because they can’t seem to share such close quarters without getting in a fight or otherwise causing problems. But at home they do share a room. He is 11, she is 6. They enjoy sleeping with us and so do I. Its very sweet.

VRBO is also a good option. Depending on the time of year and where you are going, it may actually not be any more expensive than a hotel. Especially if you are staying a few days and factor in the added savings of being able to cook meals instead of eating out every meal. We just did this in Moab and had a great time.

As to Stroskey’s concerns about having kids, I would say also that before I had children I would look at other young families and think that there was no way I could handle all of that. But then I realized that kids don’t come out at 5 years old with all the joyous and terrible behavior that comes with that. You do get a chance to warm up and grow into the whole concept. But it is a big change, I won’t lie. Still, I know plenty of parents who value their grownup time out with each other, going to movies, seeing live music. Many of these folks have families around to help watch kids or a trusted babysitter(s) so it is doable. Especially if these are hours the kids are asleep, you really aren’t sacrificing any valuable family time. The reality, though, is people are often just too tired after a day with the little ones to rally for a night out. But it is doable. It just depends on how hard you want to work to establish those possibilities. I will also say that having children introduces a new set of entertaining and joyous experiences that you are not privy to yet. I say that a little tongue in cheek, but not entirely. It really is an awesome experience...

I expect your wife would know better than me, but I was not aware that having children over 30 was such a high risk. I do think that Autism risks increase notably over 30 and Down Syndrome risk increases notably after 40. Aside from that, I think most of the risks are to the mother and not the children (increased risk of hereditary breast cancer, ectopic pregnancies and diabetes, which in its gestational form does put the fetus at a very high risk). However, I don’t have a single family friend in my current pantheon who had a child before 30 and they are all healthy. Not exactly a scientific study though, I realize. My wife was 32 and 37 when we had our kids. I know a number of people who have had children in their early 40s as well. Interestingly, one of the other things that does increase in your 40s is the chance of having twins. Now THAT is an experience...

We decided to have children around the time my father-in-law was declining and we knew he was not going to last much longer. We talked about the possibility and then, without getting into too many details, decided to "see how it goes." We were pregnant within the month. And alcohol may or may not have been involved...
 
wahday said:
And alcohol may or may not have been involved...
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Indeed. While alcohol consumption by the mother-to-be during pregnancy is frowned upon, I wonder what are the statistics as to the percentage of babies conceived while the parents-to-be had a snoot-full. I know in our case we can pinpoint the day our son was conceived. We had been fighting for a couple days - about the fact she wasn't yet pregnant (hey I was doing my part with no complaints ;) ). We went to the town's centennial celebration, where we had more than our share of the local microbrews. After the fireworks show, we went home. About nine months later we had a boy.

Let us not discount the effects of alcohol to impair women's judgement that having children with us is somehow a good idea!
 
Today I discovered that bringing your 17-month-old daughter in to the office for the first time is a good way to win some brownie points with the bosses and any female in the building within earshot of a giggling little girl. :D
 
Wee P has been having nightmares the last couple nights about Zombies - Zombie Dolphins, Zombie Doggies, Zombie Cars, Zombie Giraffes, Zombie Penguins.

I don't know if ts has been channeling her zombie thoughts this way or its the d@mn Disney Channel's Wizards of Waverly Place show :-{
 
Planit said:
Wee P has been having nightmares the last couple nights about Zombies - Zombie Dolphins, Zombie Doggies, Zombie Cars, Zombie Giraffes, Zombie Penguins.

I don't know if ts has been channeling her zombie thoughts this way or its the d@mn Disney Channel's Wizards of Waverly Place show :-{
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That sucks. We've never had to deal with nightmares with our girls.

With our recent relocation, our girls obviously started at a new school. It's a charter school run by the same parent company as the one where we used to live, which has been good. Our youngest started Kindergarten this past fall, so the new school wasn't really a big deal.

Our 3rd grader is still having a hard time with the change. There was an older girl bullying her a little, which we put a stop to with the teacher's help. No big deal really. And she hasn't been able to form any close friendships so far. She went to a b-day party a couple of weeks ago and had a good time. But then comes home yesterday and says 2 of the girls at the party told her they don't want to be her friend. She had a real close friend where we moved from, and she's still looking for that replacement.

This was my biggest fear when we moved - how it would affect her at school on the social side. It doesn't help that the school they go to seems to have a disproportionate # of male students, as well as what appears to be a lot of "problem students".

If we get the house we're trying to get, we'll seriously consider putting them into the public school system. It would be another new school, but I think it may be for the best, based on what I know of the district.

Needless to say, as a dad, it kills me seeing my daughter unhappy because of a decision I made. I know we're only 6 months in and it will get better. But it still sucks.
 
Wow, I had forgotten I posted about sleeping arrangements, thanks all for your responses. I'm surprised by how many slept with parents, but coming from a small family wiht just a sister it's just not something I ever thought about. At least I feel validated that it's ok to sleep with the kids on vacations (or some other options).

btrage said:
Needless to say, as a dad, it kills me seeing my daughter unhappy because of a decision I made. I know we're only 6 months in and it will get better. But it still sucks.
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I can imagine how hard that would be to see your daughter struggling. It's tough to break into a new crowd/school but she is young and things will work out. Have you considered (or would she even be interested) in signing up for outside events - sports, girl scouts, 4H (do they even have that down there?). Maybe there are other activites she could be involved in that would help her meet some other people.
 
SW - I'd probably just make the kids sleep on the floor and the two adults can have their own bed.
 
SW MI Planner said:
Wow, I had forgotten I posted about sleeping arrangements, thanks all for your responses. I'm surprised by how many slept with parents, but coming from a small family wiht just a sister it's just not something I ever thought about. At least I feel validated that it's ok to sleep with the kids on vacations (or some other options).
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I was an only child and never slept with a parent. RT never really did either until we went on an extended trip to Asia. Most hotels their have the idea that a double occupancy room means 1 large bed and nothing else. So nearly all the places we stayed at we had to sleep in the same bed. It got interesting when we were in the village doing field work because we rented a house that had three rooms with three double beds and there were 9 of us so we ended up 3 to a bed. Trust me sleeping on the floor there was not an option nor was it safe.

I can imagine how hard that would be to see your daughter struggling. It's tough to break into a new crowd/school but she is young and things will work out. Have you considered (or would she even be interested) in signing up for outside events - sports, girl scouts, 4H (do they even have that down there?). Maybe there are other activites she could be involved in that would help her meet some other people.
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Having moved when I was in 2nd and 5th grades having a group activity to get to know other kids outside of school was important as I was not that sociable. Girl Scouts and youth bowling were my activities. RT has moved in the 3rd and 8th grades but she's a natural social butterfly and is a very adaptive kid.
 
The kid's last driving lesson was today. Road test Monday and he should pass, then will have his full license. OH, and then I have to add him to our auto policy. Ack.
 
Zoning Goddess said:
The kid's last driving lesson was today. Road test Monday and he should pass, then will have his full license. OH, and then I have to add him to our auto policy. Ack.
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Can you hold it back until after March? We are driving through Florida then.... ;)
 
Zoning Goddess said:
The kid's last driving lesson was today. Road test Monday and he should pass, then will have his full license. OH, and then I have to add him to our auto policy. Ack.
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Most insurers have a young driver program that they can complete through your agent or online that will provide a bit of a discount. Him taking the driver's ed program should also help. I have RT rated as just an occasional driver so it's less than $20 per month for her, otherwise it's KA-CHING!
 
SW MI Planner said:
can imagine how hard that would be to see your daughter struggling. It's tough to break into a new crowd/school but she is young and things will work out. Have you considered (or would she even be interested) in signing up for outside events - sports, girl scouts, 4H (do they even have that down there?). Maybe there are other activites she could be involved in that would help her meet some other people.
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kjel said:
Having moved when I was in 2nd and 5th grades having a group activity to get to know other kids outside of school was important as I was not that sociable. Girl Scouts and youth bowling were my activities. RT has moved in the 3rd and 8th grades but she's a natural social butterfly and is a very adaptive kid.
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My girls are very adaptive, and I'm probably making it out to be worse than it is. I think part of it is my 3rd grader only tells me about the negative things that happen throughout the day, so that's all we're hearing. If something good happend, we almost have to force her to tell us what happened.

We're still in the process of finding a permanent place to stay, not with family. Once we do, we do plan on getting both of them into outside school activities. Thanks!
 
Tick Tick Tick

Katie's son ("the thing that lives in the basement") and his live-in GF indicate that they will be moving to an apartment "within a year". :):):):):):):):)

That means that I can count on.....

Drawers getting closed.
Cupboard doors being closed.
Dirty towels not inhabiting the bathroom floor. Next to dirty underwear. :-{
Food that disappears, almost as if by magic.
Lights turned OFF. (Who'da thunk?)
Dishes all stacked in the dishwasher.
Dirty pots and pans cleaned and hanging in the correct place.
Empty pizza boxes somehow making it to the trash can.

Looks like I have a "happy dance" in my future.

Bear :)
 
Bear Up North said:
Katie's son ("the thing that lives in the basement") and his live-in GF indicate that they will be moving to an apartment "within a year". :):):):):):):):)

That means that I can count on.....

Drawers getting closed.
Cupboard doors being closed.
Dirty towels not inhabiting the bathroom floor. Next to dirty underwear. :-{
Food that disappears, almost as if by magic.
Lights turned OFF. (Who'da thunk?)
Dishes all stacked in the dishwasher.
Dirty pots and pans cleaned and hanging in the correct place.
Empty pizza boxes somehow making it to the trash can.

Looks like I have a "happy dance" in my future.

Bear :)
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You'll miss it when it is gone... ;) At least that is what they always say...
 
What would you consider the minimum appropriate age for letting your kids watch the movie 'Star Wars' (you know, the original 1977 one)?
 
Maister said:
What would you consider the minimum appropriate age for letting your kids watch the movie 'Star Wars' (you know, the original 1977 one)?
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1 day old. You cannot withhold the pleasures of Star Wars from any human being. That is practically criminal.

[size=-2]Says the woman without any wee ones yet :([/size]
 
Maister said:
What would you consider the minimum appropriate age for letting your kids watch the movie 'Star Wars' (you know, the original 1977 one)?
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I started showing them to my sons at age 3. Casey loves Star Wars...and is already bugging me about going to see the 3D versions in the theater. Wes typically doesn't have the attention span for the films, but stims (arm flapping and vocal stims) like a madman during the podrace scenes in Ep I. :D
 
Bullying

Question for the throbing brain:

How do you as a parent deal with bullying? Over the last few weeks my daughter has been dealing with a gal from her class. My daughter can be a bully herself at times as she has an alpha female personality, but at the same token she is caring for others and likes to "talk" it out and is very expressive of her feelings. This other gal also has a dominating personality. At the beginning of the year they were the best of friends but she than left. "the bear" as i call her was devastated, but moved on and starting playing with her friends she made back in Kindergarten. This gal was new to the school, so my wife and i suspect that she took the girl "under her wings".

For whatever reason the girl came back mid-way through the year. We have met the girl's mother once. On her comeback, things just haven't been the same, simply because "the bear" prefers to play with her other friends, and even the guidance councilor who is assigned to my daughter to help with her social issues mentioned that the two just don't "click". Over the course of the last few weeks it has gotten worse. We have directed my daughter to just "walk away" and go find and adult to help with the situation. She came home a few weeks ago and told us that the other girl called her "ugly" and she started crying because she mentioned she is constantly trying to get her in trouble and is not listening to her repeated attempts to leave her alone.

On Friday everything came to a head. My daughter, being frustrated with the lack of respect of communication, finally slapped the other girl. Now, i know violence is not the solution to anything, but as a parent i was torn because 1) the girl has constantly harassed her and 2) the school punished her by sitting out the Monday recesses in the principal's office. She has been on a sticker chart to track behavior over the last few weeks and her punishment was she didn't earn a sticker (not to mention the fact that when she did it, she received an award for outstanding language arts performance for the trimester and recognition at an assembly, which soured my mood since i surprised her by going). I am sort of glad she put this girl in her place (yanno, playground rules) but again, different time, different era and i did not ever tell that that was okay, because she should never hit another child, and that was the message we sent her.

At home she revealed that this other girl has threaten her that she was going to "beat her up". Also she didn't want to go to school any more because the other girl was there. This is completely out of character with my daughter and she loves going to school. Spoke with the school official yesterday and they mentioned that they will be practicing "keeping them separated" but quite frankly at a small school i find this really hard to achieve. Are there any additional steps i can take to curb this bullying. I just don't want this incident and this girl to really bring my daughter down. She is smart and focused and i don't want this to get out of hand.
 
Wow, that’s a tough one. I was wondering first of all how old these kids are. I think that may shed some light on what is in the range of “appropriate” in terms of this kind of behavior. Not that any of it sounds appropriate, but a 5 year old saying and doing these things versus a 13 year old calls for a different kind of intervention. I’m assuming they are on the younger side…

My daughter has a similar but I think less troubling dynamic with another girl at school. We are friends with the parents and I would call them more frenemies than outright enemies. But the manipulation and intimidation these girls can get into at such a young age can be pretty disturbing. Definitely the physical contact is a no-no. Its an understandable impulse, but not the way to resolve anything.

I notice in your description that there is no mention of the teachers – just the counselors and the administration. Are these girls in the same class? It seems to me that these other folks (counselors and admin) are not present enough during the day to see something coming down the pike and to be able to head it off or facilitate resolution before it gets nasty. The teachers are the front line on things like this. The others are for support after things happen. IMO. At my kids’ school, the teachers are around and present on the playground and in class and because it is small enough they can be attentive to issues like this and intervene earlier to help them find better ways to resolve. They also facilitate a lot of actual, real discussions between the parties in such conflicts. For it really to mean anything, I think these conversations need to happen right away and not at some later time when feelings have changed.

Sorry I have no real good answer for you. If it helps, in the big picture, I expect both of them will grow out of this. But that doesn’t make the present any more manageable and its terrible to see your kid not wanting to go to school because of some intimidation fear. That the home and your interactions with your daughter continue to reinforce more acceptable ways of resolving conflict is really important. Children need to see good behavior modeled about a gazillion times sometimes before they internalize it. But if they never see it, they never develop those skills at all.
 
wahday said:
Sorry I have no real good answer for you. If it helps, in the big picture, I expect both of them will grow out of this. But that doesn't make the present any more manageable and its terrible to see your kid not wanting to go to school because of some intimidation fear. That the home and your interactions with your daughter continue to reinforce more acceptable ways of resolving conflict is really important. Children need to see good behavior modeled about a gazillion times sometimes before they internalize it. But if they never see it, they never develop those skills at all.
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Thanks...more so just needed to vent and what not. BTW my daughter is 6, we are talking 1st graders here. Same class, and the teacher is involved, but we have this feeling that she has been working with both children, however, this is sort of can't be there for everything. Uggh. This is really just burning me simply because i go into protection mode more so than anything else and at the same token i hate to bring this up, but a bit of "class" seems to also be at play here in between the two parenting styles of my wife and I and the other parent. (i.e. this mom seems to not be "with it", as in, umm how to put this nicely, doesn't share similar values to other parents we associate with at the school, considering that this is the most "diverse" school in the district, as in the most poorer/esl students in our district, thus our school has a clear divide between the have's and the have not's).
 
I really have nothing I can really offer CPSURaf and wahday's comments covered it pretty well. Besides I have a boy, which is an entirely different dynamic when it comes to bullying.

In previous posts I have expressed frustrations with school's bullying policies. Part of my frustration is we've seen to it that my son has the skills to deal with physical bullying, so when it comes to that, I would just as soon the school get out of his way and let him deal with it.

We recently had a problem with a kid in his class who hit my son (not a hard punch, but defintely unwarranted) and who offered to fight my son and to have his older brother come to the school to beat my son up. My son didn't retaliate (though I wish he had). I warned the teacher for a second time to separate them and ended up getting called to the principal's office for pointing out to his teacher that my son could handle the situation in any way he deemed necessary with my full approval.

In the principal's office it became clear that mostly I was there so they could tell me how it was going to be handled and not in a way that was going to benefit my son really. They gave me the sad story of how the bully boy had a bad family life and last year was in a terrible car accident that left him physcially and mentally damaged. I guess I'm not such a nice person. Basically I don't give a damn about the bad breaks the little snot has had. But they did separate the two of them, which is good.

Sometimes I think the schools, which I suppose are trying to limit their liability, do the kids and the parents a disservice by not letting the kids settle it themselves. Sometimes a slap in the face or a punch in the mouth is all that is needed to settle a dispute between little kids. As children get older, that is not necessarily the best solution, but it is out there.

The school's method of a stern lecture followed by forced insincere apologies solves nothing.

Guess I am just an old-school, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal when it comes to schoolyard bullying.
 
Tip from a woman who use to be a girl who had to deal with bullies:

Put in her a martial arts class or something where she can gain confidence over her physical abilities. The point not being to teach her to fight, but to teach her that she can defend herself. If she knows she can judo chop then she may be less intimidated by the other girl. It sounds to me like "getting beat up" is what she is afraid of. Teach her how to not be afraid by teaching how to stick up for herself. Most junior martial arts school teach kids strict moral codes too about self defense and when it is okay to use it.

It may just give her the confidence she needs to tell the other girl to get lost and for the other girl to know she means it.
 
Today my son will make his first confession, as preparation for First Communion. He got a late start (age 10), has a bad temper, cusses and has bent a commandment or two. I told him to just hit the highlights, but it could still take a while.

I suggested he might want legal counsel to be present. My wife rolled her eyes. My son's salvation depends on minimizing his bad influences, of which my wife feels I am one of them. :p
 
I've voiced my frustration before that my kid got kicked out of h.s. in 11th grade for truancy, and I didn't have a clue until he'd skipped a couple months and his h.s. never called me. They just threw him away. He's not dumb. Anyway, 2 yrs of him hemming and hawing, took the assessment test to get the GED twice, took some test prep and quit. Today we went to the tech h.s.that gives the test to see about him taking the GED next week and the counselor we know was out, and they said have to take the test again for "real-time"results. He did, and then another counselor called and said they had never seen anyone here with such high test scores.I guess a bit of studying paid off. He's on schedule to take the GED in early March.

It is still weirding me out that I was such a great student and we're having to force my kid to get a GED.
 
ZG your son spent the last few weeks preparing for some things and he's doing well. Those are great confidence boosters; I hope that he surprises himself and exceeds more of his expectations.
 
kms said:
ZG your son spent the last few weeks preparing for some things and he's doing well. Those are great confidence boosters; I hope that he surprises himself and exceeds more of his expectations.
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Thanks,and keeping my fingers crossed. We're meeting with the counselor tomorrow and hope all goes well.

Actually, I should just say he needs to get his s*it together and get his GED and a job to pay for his f*ckng video games and upcoming car insurance.

But he was really happy when I told him about the call from the counselor about his hgh scores.
 
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Zoning Goddess said:
Actually, I should just say he needs to get his s*it together and get his GED and a job to pay for his f*ckng video games and upcoming car insurance.
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Well, that may work ;) Don't be weirded out about the GED - sure it's probably not what you would have planned on but at least he went back to get it. And I agree with kms maybe the high schools and accomplishment will give him a boost.

I love my kid more than anything, but man can she get me fired up. She is a sweet and loving kid, but she's always been assertive, outgoing, and strong-willed. I think those are good qualities except for when she is adds the mouthy, emotional, and dramatic. She's relatively well behaved at my house but I'm also pretty tough on her (her dad has issues with her because he has no boundaries, no discipline, no consistency). This morning she got mouthy with me about a note that got sent home to all kids about show and tell (she's in second grade, eight years old), and then had a meltdown because her backpack was too heavy. I do my best to always remain calm with her to try to teach her coping skills, how to chill out, relax, etc. but sometimes it's hard because quite often I get to the tipping point where I'm also about to have a meltdown as well. (Beyond teaching her how to chill out she also gets in big time trouble for the attitude). I worry if it's like this now, how it'll be when she's 12 or 14 or 16. I'm sure the emotions and sassiness is probably normal with girls (I'm hoping at least a little!) but I feel like it's all up to me to to raise a happy, healthy, and productive child/adult, and I don't want to screw it up. No pressure there :-|

Our high school had a thirteen year old kid that hung himself last week. Thirteen. This scares the shit out of me.
 
Zoning Goddess said:
Thanks,and keeping my fingers crossed. We're meeting with the counselor tomorrow and hope all goes well.

Actually, I should just say he needs to get his s*it together and get his GED and a job to pay for his f*ckng video games and upcoming car insurance.

But he was really happy when I told him about the call from the counselor about his hgh scores.
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Fingers and toes crossed!
 
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