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NEVERENDING ♾️ The NEVERENDING Raising Children Thread

cch - it's normal for little kids to push one of the parents away, all 3 of my kids have done (the youngest still does) - they are testing your love, to see if you'll come back anyway - so always come back!

kids also look to you for different needs than your spouse - last night my 3yo son had a bad dream and he wanted Daddy because he was mighty scared that the "little people were going to take him away" - of course, at 3 AM, I was only happy to have Daddy go to his aid ;)

my tale for today is my 3 yo son asked to wear his big boy underwear that has been patiently waiting for him on his changing table - but he isn't thrilled about using the potty in order to do that - so onward through the fog of accidents we go as we had 2 daughters before him so he's our first and only boy and we are as clueless now as were when we had our first, lol! :-|:-c:p:-x
 
cch I would say that your wee one is doing something that many kids do. Mine did it although it was between me and my mother, her Nana. After a couple of months it subsided. I wouldn't worry too much.
 
on the potty training gig up here:

yesterday, upon donning his big boy pants, he never used the potty but sat on it throughout the day and then had lots of accidents. I made him wear a diaper to bed and then in the morning he wanted his big boy pants again. I let him wear them and needed to change into a new pair before we left, though he did sit on the potty a lot this morning. So when I dropped him off at daycare, they said that they would keep him in a diaper until he’s trained. What the ____ is that about? How can you train a kid on nights and weekends only to wear a diaper to daycare? This is a royal pain – how can we train this kid? Argh - :-@:-{:-c:-(
 
luckless pedestrian said:
on the potty training gig up here:
This is a royal pain – how can we train this kid? Argh - :-@:-{:-c:-(
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He just may not really be ready and it isn't necessarily a problem to wear diapers in one setting but not another. In my experience, once they are ready, there isn't much training to do. When my oldest was 2, I tried to get him to use the toilet. It was a huge failure. A few months later, I tried again. It took 3 days and he used the toilet after that. And the only thing I did was this: When his cold feet hit the warm bath water, he always peed in the water. So I pulled the pot out of the potty chair and stuck it under him so he peed in it. I did that two days in a row. On day three, I suggested he pee in the potty BEFORE getting in the bathtub. That was it. It took another six or eight months to get him completely out of diapers. He would use the toilet at home but wore diapers if we went somewhere. He didn't like using strange bathrooms and I think it's more complicated to try to use a public toilet for a small child who will have to notifiy mommy..etc. At home, he didn't need to have enough warning to discuss it with me, find a public restroom, etc. He just went.

My second child began emulating his older brother well before he was really ready to use the toilet. It was a game, not an indication of readiness. It was a long time before he was really physiologically ready to use a toilet.
 
LP, I hear ya on the potty training. I'm sure my daughter would be trained now if she had more consistency between home and daycare. Now I'm in a real pickle because our daycare lady is retiring at the end of the year. We've got our daughter signed up for a daycare/preschool center, but they only take 3-year olds who are completely potty trained :-c.

When we are home on weekends I have her in underwear as much as possible, have her sit on the potty every couple hours if she hasn't gone on her own. She totally knows when she has to go, and what she needs to do. But if she is busy playing she will never tell me she has to go. Then come Monday she is back in diapers at daycare. She does use the potty at daycare occassionally, but I'm worried she will never be fully trained unless we take the diapers off and never look back.

If she isn't using the potty by Jan. 1 I have no idea what we are going to do with her.
 
Technology is wonderful, I can go online and see what the kids spend their lunch money on, check grades, email the teach and wo whats this discpline tab?

wha ow, we have a discipline note from march 2006 put in the then second graders file. "was heard calling isiah hopkins a stupid student of the month and other names...blah blah blah":-o

I was never told about this then. I jjust found it today. It explains a lot as it was the day of her older sisters birthday and she was all out of sorts. No wonder, she was sitting in the principals office. :-{
 
Jen said:
Technology is wonderful, I can go online and see what the kids spend their lunch money on, check grades, email the teach and wo whats this discpline tab?

wha ow, we have a discipline note from march 2006 put in the then second graders file. "was heard calling isiah hopkins a stupid student of the month and other names...blah blah blah":-o

I was never told about this then. I jjust found it today. It explains a lot as it was the day of her older sisters birthday and she was all out of sorts. No wonder, she was sitting in the principals office. :-{
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I agree on the technology deal. We had one that did not turn in her assignment. We talked to her about it, she said she did. We went back on and still nothing but the teacher said she did not have everything entered. We looked again, still nothing. We told the daughter get it turned in and have the teacher email that she has it. Email came through a few hours later.
 
it's so sad because he is our 3rd child so you'd think we'd be professionals by now - :-o:-$

our first was trained at daycare when she turned 3 and we really had nothing to do with its success - they just took her to the bathroom every 20 minutes until she figured it out - it was great

our 2nd child, also a girl, literally woke up one morning, said she wanted to wear big girl underwear and I didn't take her very seriously and said that's fine but you have to pee and poop in the potty and not in your underwear and she said okay and that was it - no accidents, no issues

so now, after being scot-free 2 times, we have our 3rd, he is a boy so I know that's a different gig from the outset and he has a completely different personality from the other 2 - so with the daycare not following our suit, and he being more stubborn than the other 2, I feel like a first time Mom again - :-c:p:r:
 
I am nt even sure when mine were potty trained,...it had to be around 3. BUT my youngest still wets the bed every single night...we go through phases where he wont need a pull up for about 2 nights, then its back to pull ups and even peeing through them...I was a bed wetter (yes I know TMI) until I ws aobut 7 I think...but I am going to go crazy if he doesnt stop...I dont know what to do. I wake him in the middle of the night, sometimes he goes, sometimes not, but the time when he gets the bed wet (and yes its my damn bed, thats a whole other issue :-$:-$:-$) is in the morn right before he wakes up...hguhgughgughu my matresses, my sheets, his matress his sheets, all of it is driving me crazy....
Anyone else have a late bed wetter? And I dont want to hear about the buzzing sheets, my mom did that to me and I still to this day do not sleep well....
 
Jaxspra said:
...
Anyone else have a late bed wetter? And I dont want to hear about the buzzing sheets, my mom did that to me and I still to this day do not sleep well....
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My son had the problem. The doctor put him on a very low dose of Imipramine, an antidepressant with the side effect of curing bed wetting. It worked from the first night. He stayed on it for a year or so and when we took him off of it it was over.
 
Jaxspra said:
Anyone else have a late bed wetter?
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Bio-feedback
When one of our boys was smaller, the teachers wanted to put him on ritalin. Some research found biofeedback could have similar results without medication. After a few sessions, the teachers thought he was on ritalin. Biofeedback is also used to treat bedwetting. It is an alternative treatment that is met with criticism, but you may want to look into it.
 
Well one day ( I mean night) down...he slet in underwear and did not wet the bed...I made sure to get him out of bed and to the potty before I turned the water for the shower on (I really think this may trigger the early morning bed wetting)....he did fine...going to try again tonight....he's a heavy sleeper, thats the real problem...

I am glad the meds worked for others, its not for me (or Sammy); the real problem is him being a heavy sleeper but since he startd kindergarten he goes to bed much earlier and I don't think he is as exhausted or fighting sleep like he used to, it may be the best time to try no pull ups again right now....
 
cch said:
Now for my latest child-rearing issue... our little girl (just over 3 years old) has started telling my husband that she doesn't like him. He'll lean down to kiss her goodbye and she'll push him away and say "No. Don't kiss me. I don't like you!" When we tuck her in at night she says "No, mommy will stay and give hugs and kisses, but I want you to leave daddy!" He disciplines her the same I do, only his voice is probably a little scarier. He is always playful and sweet to her. He's really torn up about this, and as gone so far as to accuse me of turning her against him. He's desperate to figure out why she acts like this.

What say the throbbing brain? Any insight?
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I agree with luckless. My son did this (alternatively between me and mom) and I think there are probably a number of reasons behind it - testing the unconditional love of the parents, gender identification, focus on cultivating the "special" relationship unique to each parent, etc. I would not worry about it in the slightest (though it can hurt pretty bad when it is happening). Our daughter (almost 2) hasn't done this too much yet, but I expect she will and I'm already preparing my ego not to take it personally...

For reference on things like this, we really like the Sears' book series (http://www.askdrsears.com/). Of all the literature we have consulted over the years, they have seemed the most reasonable (ie. not alarmist) in that they acknowledge that no two children are alike and that there is no one good way to be a parent. They also give good background about why children exhibit certain behaviors at certain ages which I have found very helpful and reassuring at times. I can't remember if they discuss this issue or not, but I would expect so since it is so common.
 
Jaxspra said:
he's a heavy sleeper, thats the real problem....
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That was the root of the problem with my youngest. He would wet the bed and sleep in it until it dried without it ever waking him. When my oldest was little and wet the bed, I always knew because his bare cold, clammy bottom would wind up in my bed. He would ditch the wet clothes and come sleep with me. That was my signal to go strip his bed. But my youngest never, ever woke up from wetting the bed.

Because he needed a lot of sleep and I was typically up until midnight, I found that it helped reduce such incidents if I got him up at midnight and made him go pee. If he did wet the bed, I made him help me strip the bed and stuff. When I realized he just couldn't help it, I felt like an abusive parent for scolding him (or whatever I had done -- this was a long time ago) and after that I never got upset with him or mad or whatever.

Your plan -- to get him up and take him to the toilet before showering -- sounds like it has very good odds of working.

My youngest didn't stop wetting the bed until he was 5 1/2. I have heard that boys tend to get with the program later than girls, on average. And it really is a developmental thing: one day, their body just works better and it stops being an issue without mom doing anything at all. In the mean time, waking him up and taking him to the toilet saves time and energy spent on doing laundry.
 
Michele Zone said:
That was the root of the problem with my youngest. He would wet the bed and sleep in it until it dried without it ever waking him. When my oldest was little and wet the bed, I always knew because his bare cold, clammy bottom would wind up in my bed. He would ditch the wet clothes and come sleep with me. That was my signal to go strip his bed. But my youngest never, ever woke up from wetting the bed.

Because he needed a lot of sleep and I was typically up until midnight, I found that it helped reduce such incidents if I got him up at midnight and made him go pee. If he did wet the bed, I made him help me strip the bed and stuff. When I realized he just couldn't help it, I felt like an abusive parent for scolding him (or whatever I had done -- this was a long time ago) and after that I never got upset with him or mad or whatever.

Your plan -- to get him up and take him to the toilet before showering -- sounds like it has very good odds of working.

My youngest didn't stop wetting the bed until he was 5 1/2. I have heard that boys tend to get with the program later than girls, on average. And it really is a developmental thing: one day, their body just works better and it stops being an issue without mom doing anything at all. In the mean time, waking him up and taking him to the toilet saves time and energy spent on doing laundry.
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Ughughu I do know what you mean about realizing they can't really help it. I can't help myself but to get mad at 9:00 p.m. and I go upstairs to get into bed only to remember there are no sheets on the bed and sometimes no clean ones around if its been a busy week and I get mad at him. I feel terrible for getting mad, he doesn't like it anymore than I do...I have been trying really hard to stop getting mad and made sure this morning when I woke him (for real, not to pee before my shower) I told what a "big boy" he was and to get up he didn't wet the bed...a bit of positive reinforcement after all my crabbiness at sheet washing :-$:-D
and yes, the few minutes it takes to "go potty" (as much as I hate it at 1:00 a.m.) takes MUCH less time and stress than washing sheets and comforters every single day.
I really think waking him up PRIOR to the sound of running water in the morning is the key...I'll have to see.
 
Jaxspra said:
Anyone else have a late bed wetter? And I dont want to hear about the buzzing sheets, my mom did that to me and I still to this day do not sleep well....
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My son wet the bed until he was nine. He was and still is a very heavy sleeper, and wouldn't wake up even after he wet the bed. It was almost like the day he turned nine, he just stopped. I don't know what magic it was, I guess just maturity of the bladder. It's ironic though, because he was easier to potty train than my daughter. He took three days with no accidents, she took a few weeks with many accidents.

My husband would always scold and belittle him for wetting the bed. I would get mad at him for that, because it wasn't the child's fault. He wasn't intentionally not waking up and going to the bathroom. We tried the potty pager, which slips into the underwear, and that helped to wake him and stopped the peeing activity prior to a full bed wet. It didn't really solve the problem though.

I've read not to wake the child in the middle of the night, especially if they are a heavy sleeper. They aren't fully aware of what is going on, since they aren't really awake, and this activity just takes away from the deep sleep needed by growing children.

Just be patient, do a lot of laundry, and they will grow out it if. It wasn't such a nuisance after I discovered water proof mattress pads.
 
plnrgrl said:
My son wet the bed until he was nine. He was and still is a very heavy sleeper, and wouldn't wake up even after he wet the bed. It was almost like the day he turned nine, he just stopped. I don't know what magic it was, I guess just maturity of the bladder. It's ironic though, because he was easier to potty train than my daughter. He took three days with no accidents, she took a few weeks with many accidents.

My husband would always scold and belittle him for wetting the bed. I would get mad at him for that, because it wasn't the child's fault. He wasn't intentionally not waking up and going to the bathroom. We tried the potty pager, which slips into the underwear, and that helped to wake him and stopped the peeing activity prior to a full bed wet. It didn't really solve the problem though.

I've read not to wake the child in the middle of the night, especially if they are a heavy sleeper. They aren't fully aware of what is going on, since they aren't really awake, and this activity just takes away from the deep sleep needed by growing children.

Just be patient, do a lot of laundry, and they will grow out it if. It wasn't such a nuisance after I discovered water proof mattress pads.
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Hhhmmmm, I did NOT know that about deep sleep!! Thanks!!! I will continue to wake him when I get up provided he is still dry...I am convinced he pees when he hears the shower water running.../and that would tell me he isnt in a really deep sleep IF that is when he is doing it...thankls for the advice, I did not know that!!

And a "potty pager"; that sounds a lot like what I had...I had these plastic sheets of some sort that would buzz like an alarm clock when I would pee on htem...mom would come in the room (pissed off) I would be cold and wet; shed change my sheets, I d take a bath and get back into bed...it scarred me..I do NOT sleep well to this day..I am so afraid of wetting the bed that I do not sleep well, never have...
 
Drugs

Because I tend to have some "Libertarianish" views, the topic of drugs and how it relates to my son is a tough nugget. Here goes.....

My son only lived with me until he was about two years old. His mother (my first wife) eventually found her way to Ann Arbor, MI, settling in for a very long time on Ann Street, on the edge of a very-hip and quite liberal downtown "Double A".

When my son was in high school he attended Ann Arbor's "artsy-fartsy" school and eventually got caught up in the drug culture.

My ex-wife is quite liberal about drugs, too.....but we both agreed, after meeting with counselors, that our son needed to go to rehab. He was beyond the point of being a casual user.....he was a heavy user and it was affecting his grades, her personality, and his attitude about parents and authority, etc.

We agreed to send him for a month to a highly-acclaimed rehab center in Minneapolis. The plan was for me to drive up to Ann Arbor and when he walked out of the school on that "special day", I would get him in the car and take him to the airport.

He saw me and he knew something was going on. He would not get in the car. He said a few words about, "Not going to fxxxing rehab!" and ran off. He missed the arranged airplane flight.

That night, the police in Ann Arbor found him hiding in a parking garage, still carrying a "nickel bag" of dope. With their assistance, we got him on the plane and on his way to downtown Minneapolis.

The parents were not allowed to visit the kids in rehab for the first 3 weeks of the 4-week stint. At the beginning of the 4th week I drove to the Twin Cities, met the ex-wife there, and walked in to the rehab center, for "Parent's Week".

We both had already noticed a positive change in our son and we were allowed to spend a day with him, outside of the walls of the center. We had a nice day, talked a lot about life, drugs, family, relationships. We also talked about the possibility of our son moving to my home in very rural Henry County, OH. He really struggled with that thought.....he was still looking froward to getting back to see his "pals" on the streets of Ann Arbor. (We knew what that meant.....those pals, 15-17 year olds just like our son, were going to drag him back into a life of heavy using.)

During our week at the center we spent a lot of time in small group sessions, often with other parents (and often without our children in the group). You certainly can guess the motivation.....get to some of the underlying causes of addiction, including parents who use or allow use.

Side-Bar: Haunting story about one of the small group's members, a beautiful little 14-year old blonde girl named Dawn. During one of the sessions she talked about the night she was picked-up by the police. She had been gang-raped in downtown Minneapolis and the gang that did that stole her dope and stole her "boom box". She went on-and-on about the boom box, never seeming to care about the real violation of her young body.

Side-Bar, Later: A year or so later my ex-wife showed me a letter from Dawn's mother. Dawn had killed herself. Seeing that letter.....and thinking about it so many years later.....still gives me the chills.

When we all returned to Ohio and Michigan, we hoped that the rehab helped. A few weeks later I received a phone call from my son. "Dad. I'm coming to live with you. I cannot hang with all of my old friends or I will start using again."

He moved in with me and within a year he was in to hunting, fishing, motorcyles, an occasional beer.....but he no longer did drugs. Now he is approaching 40 years old and I am just so damx proud of him and how he turned out.

But Dawn's story went in a different direction.

Moral to all of this: There is no moral. Your children will be what they are. You can have a huge influence. You can try to have a huge influence and not have one. Their environment and the people they "hang" with will probably do a whole lot more to their "life presentation" than anything you say or do.

But never stop trying.

Bear
 
Jaxspra said:
Ughughu I do know what you mean about realizing they can't really help it. I can't help myself but to get mad at 9:00 p.m. and I go upstairs to get into bed only to remember there are no sheets on the bed and sometimes no clean ones around if its been a busy week and I get mad at him.
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If it were me, I think I would seriously consider getting one more set of (extremely cheap!) sheets to save wear and tear on the relationship and on you. Being a single mom is tough enough. You both need your sleep.
 
Bear Up North said:
But never stop trying.

Bear
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Thanks for the inspirational story Bear. We are having an extremely hard time with our youngest teen. Skipping school, drugs, getting in fights, getting arrested. Everyone keeps giving him 'one more chance'. He takes none of them seriously. Until he sees consequences for his actions, I'm afraid his troubles will continue.
 
Michele Zone said:
If it were me, I think I would seriously consider getting one more set of (extremely cheap!) sheets to save wear and tear on the relationship and on you. Being a single mom is tough enough. You both need your sleep.
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Doing that this weekend...accident last night...checklist: pull-ups and cheap sheets....huhuhgghugh...he'll get it soon, I know he will...
and your right we do need our sleep....he and I have been getting a lot more lately, I notice I am feelin better than I have in quite a while...
 
I have taken a few trips with people going to treatment and or changing living situations.

Child Guard locks are not just for little people. Those are the hardest rides in the world but when they won't listen to you something has to happen.
 
Jaxspra said:
Doing that this weekend...accident last night...checklist: pull-ups and cheap sheets....huhuhgghugh...he'll get it soon, I know he will...
and your right we do need our sleep....he and I have been getting a lot more lately, I notice I am feelin better than I have in quite a while...
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And from a health perspective:
I have to get up and go in the middle of the night more often when I don't feel well. My youngest son also goes to the bathroom more when he is under the weather. Scientific research has found that the old home remedy of drinking cranberry juice for urinary tract infections works because cranberry contains something which makes it hard for germs to latch on to mucus membranes. Because of my respiratory problems, I have used lots and lots of cranberry extract to good effect. If he takes pills, you can buy it in pill form. If not, you could see if he will either drink cranberry juice or eat dried cranberries (which are a yummy healthy snack).

I'm not saying he's got a urinary tract infection. I'm only saying that he may have more urge to go if he is moderately under the weather. At such times, cranberry MIGHT reduce this problem some. You would have to try it and see if it did anything. (I know being ill can make a kid wet the bed. My oldest once wet the bed when he was ill at the age of 10 -- many years after he quit doing so.)
 
"Poppa, how did Momma get pregnant?"

That was the question my six and a half year old asked me last night.

So first I tried subterfuge with the pat answer "you grew in Momma's tummy." He wasn't going for that.

"How did I get into Momma's tummy?"

Do I tell him the truth? When a man and a woman have been mad at each other for a few days and then get hammered at the town's 100 year old birthday bash, they have what is called "makeup sex." :p Okee doke. Probably would lead to more embarassing questions.:-$

"Go ask your Momma" seems like the chicken route, though it would have been really funny to see the wife field that one.

So, I just told him: "That is a question I will answer when you are a little older."

"Why?"

"It is about adult things you are not ready for yet."

Which he accepted. Not that he was satisfied. I think he just realized I was going to stonewall any more inquiries.

So Throbbing Brain of parents: at what age did you think your child was ready for a truthful explanation of sex?
 
my first daughter didn't want to know until she was in the 4th grade - we read a book together about it but it grossed her out - previous to that, it was a generic when you're married kind of thing and then when my sister got pregnant with her boyfriend at 42 yo, I had to add another layer :-o;-):r::p

my second daughter is a born medical professional - she wanted to understand the mechanics from about kindergarten onward - but we haven't talked about since then and she's in the 3rd grade so yeah next year I will likely re-start the conversation

so I think the answer is you do it in layers that answer their question to the level that you think they are ready to hear - if I had shown the mechanics of baby-making to my first in kindergarten, she'd be in therapy now :-$

and our little 3 1/2 yo? who knows when he'll be ready, he still poops in his pants :-@
 
That's a pretty tenacious kid you've got their Otterpop. We talked about this frankly with our son, I think, right around 6. Same kind of situation - trapped in a car with the wife and him pestering us for the details.

Up to this point, we had used "anatomically correct" terminology for the critical body parts involved, so that was helpful. I went the "flower pollinating" analogy route and this worked out well in terms of talking about how pollen gets into the flower, combines with its other half and starts cooking a seed. Only in this case, you were the seed and instead of growing inside a fruit or some such, you were inside mom. When you were ready to "sprout," you came out and starting growing on your own. Or something like that. He was pretty disinterested in the whole emotional element of things and more focused on the "mechanics" if you will. More of an intellectual exercise at this point in their development, I think.

Anyway, it went more smoothly than I would have expected. Occasionally he explains the process out loud to us and that is a little weird to listen through when he is saying words like "penis" and "vagina" (which was much cuter when it came out "pagina" but those days are over). Did I say all that?! Yikes!

But its all good. I would rather have him be informed than not. Not long after this conversation, I overheard him on the playground with some friends (boys and girls) and they were all talking about how people get pregant (must be a developmental thing). Some were saying that "the boys stick their pee pee in your belly button" and someone even said it went into their butt:-c, so I was pleased that he at least had the facts straight...
 
wahday said:
I went the "flower pollinating" analogy route and this worked out well in terms of talking about how pollen gets into the flower, combines with its other half and starts cooking a seed. Only in this case, you were the seed and instead of growing inside a fruit or some such, you were inside mom. When you were ready to "sprout," you came out and starting growing on your own. Or something like that. He was pretty disinterested in the whole emotional element of things and more focused on the "mechanics" if you will. More of an intellectual exercise at this point in their development, I think.
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This sounds like a very reasonable and appropriate explanation. I'm going to file it away for future use. Any little ones that may appear at our house will likely spend some time digging in the garden with Mom and Dad, so this would be a great analogy.
wahday said:
Anyway, it went more smoothly than I would have expected. Occasionally he explains the process out loud to us and that is a little weird to listen through when he is saying words like "penis" and "vagina" (which was much cuter when it came out "pagina" but those days are over).
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That's pretty amusing, though I'm kinda glad I heard this story long after meeting your family. Had I known in advance, it would have been a very tempting topic after a couple beers. ;-):-D
 
jmac said:
That's pretty amusing, though I'm kinda glad I heard this story long after meeting your family. Had I known in advance, it would have been a very tempting topic after a couple beers. ;-):-D
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This is the part where that beer (which I regularly enjoy in your glasses, thank you) comes out through my nose...

Happy weekend:-D
 
"Papa, where do babies come from REALLY?"

Well, I knew at best I was in a delaying action. The last time he asked I was caught unawares and wasn't prepared.

So, yesterday he asked me again. This time at the end of his karate class with a twelve-year-old girl and her mom present. They both looked amused as my son explained that girls have an organ in their body where the DNA gets mixed and makes a baby.

But of course he wanted to know how that happened. So we had "the talk" sitting in my car. I tried to keep it as generic as possible but he kept asking more specific questions. We ended up discussing the mechanics of sex.

Finally he said, "Ewww. I am never going to do that!" Yeah, right, son, I was thinking, By the time you are 16 that is about all you are going to want to do.

When we were all done, he was looking at me like "how could you do THAT to my momma?"

It was good to finally get it out of the way. This morning he was back to discussing with me the merits of teleportation.
 
Wow, the part of being a parent that tugs at your heartstrings!!! Me and the kiddo (she's 4 now!) went to a friends house that was having a party and there were a ton of kids there. Well, all of these kids know each other (ages 2-7) and play together a lot. So, they weren't really including my daughter. So, she comes up to me and said "mommy, they don't want to play with me". She wasn't sad about it, and just said it matter of factly, but I almost started crying because I felt bad :( I told her to go up and introduce herself and just start playing with them; she did, and they were all playing by the end of the night.

Her and I have talked about sharing, being nice to others and including others, but how do you deal with it if your kids are on the other end of it? Any other suggestions on what to say or do?
 
otterpop said:
Well, I knew at best I was in a delaying action. The last time he asked I was caught unawares and wasn't prepared.

So, yesterday he asked me again. This time at the end of his karate class with a twelve-year-old girl and her mom present. They both looked amused as my son explained that girls have an organ in their body where the DNA gets mixed and makes a baby.

But of course he wanted to know how that happened. So we had "the talk" sitting in my car. I tried to keep it as generic as possible but he kept asking more specific questions. We ended up discussing the mechanics of sex.

Finally he said, "Ewww. I am never going to do that!" Yeah, right, son, I was thinking, By the time you are 16 that is about all you are going to want to do.

When we were all done, he was looking at me like "how could you do THAT to my momma?"

It was good to finally get it out of the way. This morning he was back to discussing with me the merits of teleportation.
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When my wife was a little girl she was given some sort of generic birds-and-bees talk by her parents. When she was at a shoe store holding a baby doll the saleslady said to her "I wish I had a little baby too." She answered "then just have a man put seeds in your belly." :-D

My kids are little and still believe in a generic "miracle of love" philosophy but that won't satisfy the older one for much longer.
 
So what do you do when an "A" student starts getting "F"'s. I understand when a kid just doesn't get it but to "F"'s! Usually I would look at a change in behavior. She does not seem emotionally changed.

I have always said that you have to work pretty hard to get "F"s.
 
Queen B said:
So what do you do when an "A" student starts getting "F"'s. I understand when a kid just doesn't get it but to "F"'s! Usually I would look at a change in behavior. She does not seem emotionally changed.

I have always said that you have to work pretty hard to get "F"s.
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run to the school and meet with the teacher(s) ASAP - something definitely is awry - good luck - let me know
 
SW MI Planner said:
Wow, the part of being a parent that tugs at your heartstrings!!! Me and the kiddo (she's 4 now!) went to a friends house that was having a party and there were a ton of kids there. Well, all of these kids know each other (ages 2-7) and play together a lot. So, they weren't really including my daughter. So, she comes up to me and said "mommy, they don't want to play with me". She wasn't sad about it, and just said it matter of factly, but I almost started crying because I felt bad :( I told her to go up and introduce herself and just start playing with them; she did, and they were all playing by the end of the night.

Her and I have talked about sharing, being nice to others and including others, but how do you deal with it if your kids are on the other end of it? Any other suggestions on what to say or do?
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We have this issue even among my three kids. Jack is now 4, twins are almost 3 - and the boys leave their sister out quite a bit, ie: "This is the BOYS room, you can't play with us Maddie.", etc.

We've been having a lot of talks about how it doesn't feel nice when people don't want to play with you, and how important it is to be kind and respectful to other people and their feelings. This is all way over the twins' head still, but Jack gets it.

I think that it is great that you daughter advocated for herself - its important for kids to learn, even at such young ages.
 
luckless pedestrian said:
run to the school and meet with the teacher(s) ASAP - something definitely is awry - good luck - let me know
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Dad works at the school. The gathering is being arranged.

It is not all her grades but in one class it is A F AA F A F C (on a test review ) then an F on the test. I am about to pull my hair out.
 
I know - our school has Power School so you can check on your kids' grades from home on every assignment and such - I refuse to go on it because my hubby is addicted and if there is an incomplete, he and our 15 yo get in a fight about it -

"but Dad, I handed it in she just hasn't entered it"
"I know you didn't get it in, get it in tomorrow"

blah blah blah

it's not that I don't like knowing what's going on and I wouldn't want to wait until the report card comes to know there's a problem but this daily looksie, yuck - :r::p
 
Queen B said:
Dad works at the school. The gathering is being arranged.

It is not all her grades but in one class it is A F AA F A F C (on a test review ) then an F on the test. I am about to pull my hair out.
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Be patient and try and get to the root of the problem. I am quite certain that it has nothing to do with the academic work itself but perhaps something with the teacher or someone else in the class. Teenagers are great at hiding things that are going on.
 
I am just going to ground them all...including dad.
Usually one of the most wonderful people and loving father...I came home last night after a 14 hour day to find that my husband had been at the bar all night because the oldest and he had gotten into a fight.
Lets just say that she was not the only one to get a chewing...:-@:-@:-@:-@:-@:-@
 
Queen B said:
So what do you do when an "A" student starts getting "F"'s. I understand when a kid just doesn't get it but to "F"'s! Usually I would look at a change in behavior. She does not seem emotionally changed.

I have always said that you have to work pretty hard to get "F"s.
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Is she in the 8th grade??? My son pulled this when he was in the 8th grade - from A's and B's to failing. Evidently a group of them had gotten together and decided to see what would happen if all of them refused to do any work. What happened was the majority of them got in heaps of trouble. The x-box (or whatever gaming device he had at the time) came to work with me until the end of the next marking period when his grades came back up. The good news is that he never tried that again.

She may have new friends at school you don't know about who think it is "cool" to fail, or want to perform a secret social science research project (see above). The trick is making the consequences at home exceed the percieved benefit of doing lousy at school.
 
My little girl (3 years and 8 months old) has asked me how this new baby got into my tummy. I've just told her that Mother Nature put her there. When she asked me how the baby is gonna get out. I went ahead and told her "There is a hole she will come out of, down by where pee comes out. All girls are born with this hole, for babies to come out." That sufficed. But she still talks about the baby coming out of my belly button, occassionally.


Queen B, are you sure she is handing in her work? When I was in school it seemed the only way to get Fs was to not try at all. Maybe there is some sort of distraction, or maybe she is cutting that class, for some reason.
 
Oh the consequences are home are severe. Small school nothing really new. One of the issues was a substitute. That was only one of the classes.

I really like to give concrete punishments but as this isuue has blown up and we find out more and more things that she just wasn't getting around to I am having an issue setting the peramiters.
Her cell phone is off. This is one of the issues. She was spending so much time on it that she just was not getting around to the work she needed to get done.

No driving. Which mortally wounded her because she has to ride the bus...

The only issue I am still having trouble with is Prom. It is this weekend. She is going with a Senior. As much as I would just like to punish her, I can't do that to the gentleman that asked her to go. I have told her that is my feeling. So she knows it isn't about her. It is about him and his family. He is a really good kid. He doesn't deserve to be let down a few days before the event. But no other dates.
 
No driving. Which mortally wounded her because she has to ride the bus...


Well you just scored yourself a place in the Mean Mom Hall of Fame! ;-) (You can stand by me if you'd like...)

The humiliation of having to go back to riding the bus clearly exceeds the percieved benefit of slacking. Good call on the prom. You are right - it wouldn't be fair to her date, especially with the cost of going to Prom these days.
 
Let me run this one by you people.

My son is in first grade. He is doing well. He absolutely rocks in math. His reading is average. He brings home his papers and reading tests. Mostly he scores at least 80 percent, usually higher. The teacher thinks he is a great kid.

Whne he comes home with a paper that is perfect, my wife is very sweet and complimentary about it. When he comes home with a paper that has one or a few mistakes, my wife doesn't take it well. She jumps all over him. Never a word about the things he did right, only about his errors. They fight about it a couple times a week. I am sick of it.

When the paper is less than perfect, I take the approach of telling him that he did a good job. Then I ask him about the mistakes -- why he made that mistake, what does he think he could do to not make the same mistake or mistakes again, etc.

I cannot say that my approach is or is not working to improve his performance. I do know it works as far as me and him being able to talk about his performance.

I've tried talking to my wife about tempering her criticism with a positive message. However, she can be recklessly stubborn when she hear something she doesn't want to hear. So is my son. The two of them are at loggerheads. She yells and he yells back. My son is very angry with his mother.

Do any of you have a spouse who deals with your child's less than perfect school performance with a stick and never a carrot? If so how do you handle it?
 
otterpop said:
Do any of you have a spouse who deals with your child's less than perfect school performance with a stick and never a carrot? If so how do you handle it?
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Not on this level (spouse). But when I was a kid...my mom was the enforcer. She had a h.s. education and demanded that we all be straight-A students. Dad was a lawyer and did the "Just do your best" thing. It all fell apart when my little brother hit high school. My sister and I had the high grades, high SATs, etc. My brother truly did not give a damn. I thought my mom was going to stroke out. She took my brother out of the private school my sister and I graduated from so as not to "waste money if you don't care". At that point, I realized, I got bullied by my mom to make good grades. But then I got to thinking.... her educational level made her think college was a must-have, no matter what. My dad, who put himself thru college, realized that, but since he'd done it on his own, was a bit more gentle with us about finding our own way and what we wanted to do in life.

I was glad that my son made straight A's all thru elementary school. Since then, it's been a real struggle and he's been thru summer school a couple of times. At this point, I'd be happy with a "C" average. After all, that's average, right? At best, he'll go to the community college and maybe find what he wants to do later in life.

BTW, depends on the carrots. One of my son's friends, all the way thru elementary school, got $20 for every "A" he brought home. Stupid. The kid could make $200 twice a year and all it did was alienate the other kids because he bragged so much.
 
otterpop - your wife is exactly like my husband and it drives me nuts - my 15 yo gets the worst - what's odd is we are often saying the same thing to her but my delivery is a little less angry - so I don't know the answer but he and I do "discuss" our methods a lot - :-{

it's funny this is the first time we have ever differed on handling the kids too :r:
 
Well, I'm 2 hours into "gutting" my son's room. After repeated, and heated, warnings to stop all the foul language while playing online games.... the t.v. is being removed from his room and stored in the garage, his computer's been relocated back to the nook off the living room, and his game system is going into the living room. He lived this way before we moved and will have to get used to sharing again. And we're tossing his desk because in just 4 years, he's trashed it.

RJ will be home early to help move out/rearrange the furniture.

The we wait for the kid to get home and all heck will break loose, I'm sure.
 
Zoning Goddess said:
RJ will be home early to help move out/rearrange the furniture.

The we wait for the kid to get home and all heck will break loose, I'm sure.
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I'm tempted to make a comment about the hardship on RJ having to come home early but...this IS serious.

We were a typical family (Wonderful Father (ahem), Wicked Step Mother, and Self Centered Son of A (Wonderful Father). We had to evict my son during his senior year of high school to get his attention. Real life on the outside wasn't everything that he had hoped for and he was an acceptable citizen for the rest of the year when he returned. Damn near killed me but two or more of us and the marriage weren't going to survive otherwise. Good luck and hang in there. It does end eventually and most of them become pretty good people.
 
Zoning Goddess said:
Well, I'm 2 hours into "gutting" my son's room. After repeated, and heated, warnings to stop all the foul language while playing online games.... the t.v. is being removed from his room and stored in the garage, his computer's been relocated back to the nook off the living room, and his game system is going into the living room. He lived this way before we moved and will have to get used to sharing again. And we're tossing his desk because in just 4 years, he's trashed it.

RJ will be home early to help move out/rearrange the furniture.

The we wait for the kid to get home and all heck will break loose, I'm sure.
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You are doing the right thing. Hang in there!
 
otterpop said:
I've tried talking to my wife about tempering her criticism with a positive message. However, she can be recklessly stubborn when she hear something she doesn't want to hear. So is my son. The two of them are at loggerheads. She yells and he yells back. My son is very angry with his mother.

Do any of you have a spouse who deals with your child's less than perfect school performance with a stick and never a carrot? If so how do you handle it?
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My ex and my youngest are both very pigheaded. When my youngest son was 4 years old, he and his dad were locking horns one night (and our son was in tears). I physically removed my child from his father. I let him know later that he IS the adult and if an adult is locking horns with a 4 year old, that's pretty damn immature. He never was so asinine with the kids again.

In later years when we homeschooled, anytime my husband and I had very different ideas about what was important, we discussed it privately behind closed doors. When we first began homeschooling, my husband often sounded like a controlling jerk. Initially, it really bothered me. Then I concluded he was just very worried about his kids. He was at work all day and didn't really know what the kids were doing now that they were out of school. I made more of an effort to communicate with him about what we did all day and tried hard to view his "bad behavior" as an expression of caring/concern. Asking questions to find out what he was fretting about, communicating more, and getting him more involved with homeschooling the kids helped make him act less controlling.

So if it were me, I would sit down with the wife and try to find out why she is having such a hissy about the grades of a first-grader. This is not going to impact his ability to get into college. There must be something about this that is punching her buttons.
 
This thread is both great for me and very scary. I have an 11 month old son and a 16 week bun in the oven right now.

Proceed - oh wise and experienced. :-D
 
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