I can't believe the things my kids share with me, or ask me. They wouldn't want to hear the same things from me! I'm satisfied knowing that the way I responded to my kids when they were young carried over as trust once they became adults.
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NEVERENDING ♾️ The NEVERENDING Raising Children Thread
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bureaucrat#3
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My dad grew up in the 1930s and 1940s. He told me that his mother put leashes on the when they went to department stores.
bureaucrat#3
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We had a kid leash. It was a cute monkey backpack with a strap. That thing was invaluable. The kid doesn't seem to harmed by the experience.
zman
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I see the kid harness works to age 10. I'm imagining one for my giant 10 year old...
Last year I saw something about booster seats being required for children up to 16 years old in California...? Was that true or just click bait seen as "look at what California is doing now..." sort of stuff.
Last year I saw something about booster seats being required for children up to 16 years old in California...? Was that true or just click bait seen as "look at what California is doing now..." sort of stuff.
dandy_warhol
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Itty Bitty will be away from me for 7 weeks this summer. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
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dandy_warhol
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She is going to be away doing fun cool stuff but she is still my baby!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
JNA
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Why can't you have fun too while she is away ?
dandy_warhol
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WSU MUP Student
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Neither of our daughters have ever really been too interested in riding bikes. Our 15-year-old hasn't touched a bike in probably 2 years and can barely stay upright for longer than our block. Until recently, our 9-year-old daughter didn't really care about her bike and much preferred her little scooter (which is admittedly pretty fun). I tried to teach her to ride without training wheels last year but it just never stuck... and I am not a good teacher anyway so that doesn't help.
This past Sunday it was really nice out and our youngest was outside playing with the neighbor girl (who's a year older) in the early evening and she came inside and said, "Dad, will you get my bike out? I'm going for a bike ride to the playground with Elaina." I responded with something along the lines of "Uhh.... no. I like your gusto but you don't know how to ride a bike."
She took that as a personal affront and decided she was going to teach herself in the next 5 minutes so she could go on this fantastical voyage. I got the bike out for her but told her I was wore out from our day (we had already gone "on an adventure" with a long walk into town to get a pizza, check out some parks, and use a Starbucks gift card she had) and she'd have to practice the bike herself. I did remind her of the tips to not go too slow because she needs the momentum and to keep her head up and looking/focused on where she wants to go. After about 4 minutes of going back and forth in the driveway she had it! She needed a hand to hold her steady to get started but she could turn and stop using the brakes.
The tires needed some air and there was a bit of rust on some of the chrome so when she was done I told her I'd air it up and clean it for her while she was at school on Monday. She got home from school Monday afternoon and had about 45 minutes before she had to be at dance and she spent it all on the bike. I went for a run late yesterday afternoon and when I got back, our daughter had gotten home from school and was riding around our driveway and the neighbor's driveway with the neighbor girl and she announced to me she was now ready to go for a long ride around the 'hood. I told her that we weren't quite ready for that yet then she wanted to show me how good she could do. She did a lap out of our circular driveway into the street... and immediately fell off the bike. That took the wind out of her sails for a bit but after dinner she wanted to get back on it. I let her ride out the driveway to a longish dead-end street where there isn't any traffic a block away and she was able to do a bunch of laps back and forth but still had some trouble making the tight turn around at one end.
She's basically got it but I'm still not letting her go all around the neighborhood just yet. I've gotta see her be a bit more comfortable on there first. The next time we have an afternoon with some nice weather, I think I'll take her over to the school parking lot a couple blocks away where there's plenty of space to ride and practice turning.
This past Sunday it was really nice out and our youngest was outside playing with the neighbor girl (who's a year older) in the early evening and she came inside and said, "Dad, will you get my bike out? I'm going for a bike ride to the playground with Elaina." I responded with something along the lines of "Uhh.... no. I like your gusto but you don't know how to ride a bike."
She took that as a personal affront and decided she was going to teach herself in the next 5 minutes so she could go on this fantastical voyage. I got the bike out for her but told her I was wore out from our day (we had already gone "on an adventure" with a long walk into town to get a pizza, check out some parks, and use a Starbucks gift card she had) and she'd have to practice the bike herself. I did remind her of the tips to not go too slow because she needs the momentum and to keep her head up and looking/focused on where she wants to go. After about 4 minutes of going back and forth in the driveway she had it! She needed a hand to hold her steady to get started but she could turn and stop using the brakes.
The tires needed some air and there was a bit of rust on some of the chrome so when she was done I told her I'd air it up and clean it for her while she was at school on Monday. She got home from school Monday afternoon and had about 45 minutes before she had to be at dance and she spent it all on the bike. I went for a run late yesterday afternoon and when I got back, our daughter had gotten home from school and was riding around our driveway and the neighbor's driveway with the neighbor girl and she announced to me she was now ready to go for a long ride around the 'hood. I told her that we weren't quite ready for that yet then she wanted to show me how good she could do. She did a lap out of our circular driveway into the street... and immediately fell off the bike. That took the wind out of her sails for a bit but after dinner she wanted to get back on it. I let her ride out the driveway to a longish dead-end street where there isn't any traffic a block away and she was able to do a bunch of laps back and forth but still had some trouble making the tight turn around at one end.
She's basically got it but I'm still not letting her go all around the neighborhood just yet. I've gotta see her be a bit more comfortable on there first. The next time we have an afternoon with some nice weather, I think I'll take her over to the school parking lot a couple blocks away where there's plenty of space to ride and practice turning.
bureaucrat#3
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We've been bad parents with our youngest. We're on bike number 3 and still haven't convinced her to ride without training wheels. She's 10 and 5 ft tall, but just hasn't gotten it yet. Maybe we'll push during spring break next week.
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That's a great story. But...what would your Silent Gen parents say about your concern? When you were her age, we barely knew where you were most of the time, but knew you'd return....plus we didn't really care.
My 18.5 yr old son (oldest of three, 6'1", ~175lbs) didn't get the hang of a bicycle. He's been rocking a full size trike since about 7 and it's just fine. It's about the exercise and independence a bike/trike provides more than anything. Ask if she'd like to try a full-size trike. They even come with large rear baskets and are actually really practical and utilitarian.
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I think Junior fell maybe one time when learning to ride. He pretty much rode instantly. He wanted to do it so very badly and was a natural I guess. I can't take any credit for it. I definitely took more of an old school hands off approach to parenting.
WSU MUP Student
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That's a great story. But...what would your Silent Gen parents say about your concern? When you were her age, we barely knew where you were most of the time, but knew you'd return....plus we didn't really care.
My 18.5 yr old son (oldest of three, 6'1", ~175lbs) didn't get the hang of a bicycle. He's been rocking a full size trike since about 7 and it's just fine. It's about the exercise and independence a bike/trike provides more than anything. Ask if she'd like to try a full-size trike. They even come with large rear baskets and are actually really practical and utilitarian.
I grew up in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road where people drove way too fast. I did not learn how to ride a bike until I was in junior high. My dad never tried to teach me. I'm not sure if he has ever ridden a bike in his life but he was also considerably older than most parents of my friends and just didn't have the energy to teach me... and I never really tried to learn because I had nowhere to go. If my friends and I were playing outside, we'd usually go off into the fields and woods to explore. A bicycle wasn't much use back there. One day when I was in 7th or 8th grade my oldest sister's boyfriend was over and when he learned I couldn't ride a bike he decided to teach me. He gave me a few tips and helped me steady myself while I was getting started and off I went... I think it took him about 15 minutes to teach me. Maybe it's just a lot easier after a certain age.
My parents were still a little apprehensive at first about me riding on my own on our road but they got over it pretty quickly.
I told our daughter that she'll be able to ride on her own (or with the neighbor girl) soon enough. Our neighborhood is pretty quiet but we live at the one spot in the whole neighborhood where a few roads come together at a curve and people sometimes drive a bit too fast, especially in the afternoon when the kids are leaving the Catholic high schools a block away. I want to see my daughter be a little more sure of herself and better learn the rules of the road before she goes off with her friend.
Our youngest is also lucky that she has a lot of friends that live in our neighborhood and the next neighborhood over. I think that will help motivate her to improve her bicycling skills. She'll be 10 next week and that's old enough that we don't mind if she explores on her own. We already let her walk on her own to her friends' houses or to the park.
Regarding the full size trikes.... When I was a kid we'd go stay with my grandma in Florida a few times each year and she had a bicycle and a full size tricycle. Before I could ride a bicycle I would always ride her trike around her neighborhood and my sister would ride the bike. I remember the first time going down there after I could ride a bike and I told my sister that I was using the bike to get to the pool and she could take the trike. After that I realized how much more fun the trike actually was but so did my sister and then we'd fight over who got the tricycle.
The tricycle doesn't turn as sharply but man those things can get some speed going!There is some guy that appears to be my age who rides a trike like that around our neighborhood in the summers. I'd seriously consider getting one if I had a bit more storage space. And you are right that they are more utilitarian - you can put a pretty good size basket on the back and carry a lot more with one of those than you can carry when you're on a two-wheeler. I occasionally see an older woman at the grocery store near our house on a tricycle and she always has a ton of bags in her basket when I see her.
bureaucrat#3
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I was also out in the middle of nowhere. I road a bunch on the one gravel road, dirt roads, and cow paths. It was much more mountain biking than anything. We also had a bunch of elevation changes. This meant until I got a geared bike, I typically rode down them and then walked back up. Biking with cows can be a dangerous and messy affair. More than once I either hit a frozen pile which was a rock or a fresh one which meant I was covered.I grew up in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road where people drove way too fast. I did not learn how to ride a bike until I was in junior high. My dad never tried to teach me. I'm not sure if he has ever ridden a bike in his life but he was also considerably older than most parents of my friends and just didn't have the energy to teach me... and I never really tried to learn because I had nowhere to go. If my friends and I were playing outside, we'd usually go off into the fields and woods to explore. A bicycle wasn't much use back there. One day when I was in 7th or 8th grade my oldest sister's boyfriend was over and when he learned I couldn't ride a bike he decided to teach me. He gave me a few tips and helped me steady myself while I was getting started and off I went... I think it took him about 15 minutes to teach me. Maybe it's just a lot easier after a certain age.
My parents were still a little apprehensive at first about me riding on my own on our road but they got over it pretty quickly.
I told our daughter that she'll be able to ride on her own (or with the neighbor girl) soon enough. Our neighborhood is pretty quiet but we live at the one spot in the whole neighborhood where a few roads come together at a curve and people sometimes drive a bit too fast, especially in the afternoon when the kids are leaving the Catholic high schools a block away. I want to see my daughter be a little more sure of herself and better learn the rules of the road before she goes off with her friend.
Our youngest is also lucky that she has a lot of friends that live in our neighborhood and the next neighborhood over. I think that will help motivate her to improve her bicycling skills. She'll be 10 next week and that's old enough that we don't mind if she explores on her own. We already let her walk on her own to her friends' houses or to the park.
Regarding the full size trikes.... When I was a kid we'd go stay with my grandma in Florida a few times each year and she had a bicycle and a full size tricycle. Before I could ride a bicycle I would always ride her trike around her neighborhood and my sister would ride the bike. I remember the first time going down there after I could ride a bike and I told my sister that I was using the bike to get to the pool and she could take the trike. After that I realized how much more fun the trike actually was but so did my sister and then we'd fight over who got the tricycle.
There is some guy that appears to be my age who rides a trike like that around our neighborhood in the summers. I'd seriously consider getting one if I had a bit more storage space. And you are right that they are more utilitarian - you can put a pretty good size basket on the back and carry a lot more with one of those than you can carry when you're on a two-wheeler. I occasionally see an older woman at the grocery store near our house on a tricycle and she always has a ton of bags in her basket when I see her.
My step daughter is extremely athletic, great balance, and fast twitch muscle. She makes everything athletic look easy, provided its not high (she's 5'1"). She never needed training wheels and rode right away. My youngest daughter has no balance, slow reaction, and is pretty gangly. Athletic events for her can be hard to watch. So we're not pushing, but where we live now a bike would open up a lot of space for her in the coming years.
Whenever I started getting upset or anxious as a kid, Dad would have me “count from 200 (or some other integer) down by 7’s.” So I eventually memorized the sequence and spit it out rapid-fire Micro-Machine style: “200193186179172165158151” etc. I also learned the way to do it is to subtract ten and add three, as it was easier than subtracting seven.
But he’d stop me and tell me slow down, focus, and try again.
I now wonder if what he was doing was trying to get me to refocus on something else, just like the “5-4-3-2-1’ grounding technique commonly used today. (Five things you can see, four things you can hear, etc.)
= = =
Another time, I was being a bit of a wiseass in math class, so the teacher sent me to the corner desk until I came back with the answer to the problem: “What is the sum of all integers from 1 to 100?” and I came up with the answer in about 20 seconds. He seemed surprised. (What was I supposed to do? Add up 1+2=3+3=6+4=10+5=15, etc.? That would take forever.)
Here’s how I did it: the sum of 1 to 100 is basically just finding the sum of fifty sets of numbers (1 and 100, 2 and 99, 3 and 98, etc), each of which add up to 101. Therefore, the answer is 101 x 50, or 5,050.
For a kid who was not good at math, I was really good at pattern recognition.
But he’d stop me and tell me slow down, focus, and try again.
I now wonder if what he was doing was trying to get me to refocus on something else, just like the “5-4-3-2-1’ grounding technique commonly used today. (Five things you can see, four things you can hear, etc.)
= = =
Another time, I was being a bit of a wiseass in math class, so the teacher sent me to the corner desk until I came back with the answer to the problem: “What is the sum of all integers from 1 to 100?” and I came up with the answer in about 20 seconds. He seemed surprised. (What was I supposed to do? Add up 1+2=3+3=6+4=10+5=15, etc.? That would take forever.)
Here’s how I did it: the sum of 1 to 100 is basically just finding the sum of fifty sets of numbers (1 and 100, 2 and 99, 3 and 98, etc), each of which add up to 101. Therefore, the answer is 101 x 50, or 5,050.
For a kid who was not good at math, I was really good at pattern recognition.
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Never heard of it. Looks like Tetris.You would likely excel at the board game Blockus.
I do tend to enjoy puzzle games. Keeps the brain sharp.