meganursula | Entries tagged with parenthood

http://www.mamapedia.com/voices/to-the-mom-who-wishes-she-wasnt-a-mom

Things that make you happy:
Mad (playing with her stuffed bunny family in bed, smiles)
Mom: 'I like seeing you smile. Its great to have you happy.'
Mad: 'I am happy. It was a really good day today.'
Mom: 'That's wonderful. I wish all of your days could be really good days.'
Mad: 'Most of them are.

I posted that to g+ the other day. True story. Madeleine does seem to find a lot of joy in her life, and to appreciate the experiences she has. I think Marie is much like this in personality.

What I didn't post is the other half of the story - the William turn of events where he only talked about how much he didn't like school, and how he didn't have a good day, and how he couldn't tell me anything good.

Here is the thing - on any given day Madeleine might have had an objectively worse day of it than William. But at the end of the day she is still likely to say it was a good day, and he is still likely to say it was a bad day. If we ask about best parts of the day and bad parts, she is likely to say 'I can't think of a bad part', and he is likely to say 'I can't think of a good part.'

It seems to just be a personality thing. And its consistent with other aspects of their personality - Madeleine embraces a new experience, William fears it. But it worries me. We know something about self-talk, and what we know is that dwelling on the negative and repeating or exaggerating the negative engenders dissatisfaction. We believe our self-talk. With positive self-talk we can face a challenging situation and deal with it, with negative we fall victim to it. I spend a lot of my life examining my own self-talk in an effort to stay sane and I don't want my kids to develop bad habits with theirs.

We have been talking with William about his dialogue. And we've asked him to be able to express some positive thoughts. Sometimes he tries. I want to be respectful of his negative feelings, while still trying to get him to admit the possibility of positive feelings.

The other night he said 'I am trying to be positive, but i really just don't like school. School just isn't very nice.' Well, fair enough. I'm not quite sure what to do with it. All of our feedback from the school is that he has adjusted well, and is happy and having fun while he is there. Usually I find him smiling at the end of the day. I am sitting on the idea of having him attend fewer hours of school per week. (I don't think zero hours would actually be the right thing, but perhaps more hours at home would?) There are a lot of things in our lives with William that work out this way.

mamagotcha

blk (I am wondering if LJ now notifies people when they are tagged in a post?)

Madeleine would like to grow her hair longer, but even I find that I am getting frustrated with how tangled it gets. She has a tender head and is miserable when i brush her hair. I dislike the drama that ensues, but I am sympathetic, having had long hair myself. I would really like to find some ways to make this easier on her, and help her have the nice hair she desires.

In recent months i have tried a new kind of brush (this seems to make the de-tangling less painful, but i find progress easier with my old brush). I have gotten her heavy-duty detangling conditioner to use when she washes her hair. If she doesn't choose that option, her other shampoo options are conditioner-included. We have two different spray-in detanglers (an organic anti-lice option, and no-more-tangles). I also have her get a book to distract her from the work.

I feel like we have made some progress in getting daily serious brushing. This does seem to help avoid large snarls. However, it seems like her hair is getting even 'stickier'. It gets tangled almost immediately, and each brushing is a challenge. It also doesn't lay smooth for very long - it will be shiny and smooth for a very short time after conditioner and brushing, but by the end of the day looks like she has just woken up after a week long bender. I think she might need a trim, but i'm more thinking i need to find a way to improve the texture of her hair...

Suggestions? comments?

Edited to add:
- Having had long hair, i know all the tricks to getting it out via brushing from the ends up, isolating a knot, holding at the scalp while brushing the ends, etc. But part of getting into good habits with her hair has been getting her to sit still enough for me to use those techniques. She is getting better at it, but you are also right that these things are easier to control on your own head.

After some web searches last night i sat with her this afternoon and worked our detangling conditioner into her hair and brushed it. That stayed in her hair until her shower at bed time. Her hair was softer and easier to brush after her shower, so, maybe we just need to do this occasionally? I wonder if working in cream conditioner is just better for her hair than using the spray stuff? We can try doing that before a shower and then sticking with water in the shower.

(I read one web review of no-more-tangles that suggested that the product was responsible for turning the reviewer's daughter's hair 'sticky and frizzy and knotted'. It was the only bad review, but the description of the hair was so close to what Madeleine's has been like that i wondered. I was curious if any of you would bring up the idea, even though it read to be as basically insane.)

Katje - am curious to know if you read that other book, and what you thought of it??

Raising a Sensory Smart Child: The Definitive Handbook for Helping Your Child with SensoryIntegration Issues by Lindsey Biel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a very complete reference for parents who have a child severely affected by sensory disorders. (Or, I suppose, individuals.) It had a ton of information and ideas for seeking therapy or dealing with school issues. The book does throw out a number of concrete examples of things that can be done to help with a variety of sensory issues.

My biggest gripe is that I don't think it had very specific information for children who might have sensory difficulties, but aren't likely to seek out professional treatment. (Sensory disorders appear to be functional to me - that is, everyone has weird sensory processing to some degree, and only in some of those people does it cause enough trouble to get a professional diagnosis and expensive treatment. In my case, I am reading to help figure out how to address some problems that are mostly likely sensory related, but not terribly severe.) I found it a bit frustrating that most of the home-solution ideas seemed to be good for ANY child, and it was hard to match up which techniques to use for which sensory-behaviors. (Do we do this for hypo, or hyper sensitivity? etc.)

Still, I think it is well worth the time for someone who feels like they may have to deal with these problems, even if further research for more specifics for their individual problems will be needed.

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Madeleine has been earning accolades all over. Just before break we got her first report card, and she scored high marks in absolutely every category. Josh and i were especially proud of her health and fitness report (she was lauded as a 'first time listener', for trying her best in everything, and for always being there for her friends). This week her teacher stepped aside with me at pick-up and told me that Madeleine was doing so well in math, and that perhaps I could come in next week and see her work. Madeleine's reading skills have also grown exponentially in December, and it is so fun to see her exploring the new worlds that are open to her. We will have to start cracking down on lights out, i fear, as I can tell that she is staying up later than she should be reading. Honestly, Josh and i couldn't be prouder of her - in the midst of all this learning and growing she is just also a really good and fun kid.

William has been a lot of fun. We worked really hard with him in the fall to address some behavior issues that were getting in the way of being able to do things with him. Now that we have a few more techniques to help him listen and stay calm we are just really enjoying his enthusiasm and spark. He loves rockets and baseball. For Christmas he got Josh some model rockets, and the grin he gets on his face every time they work on the rockets is worth everything. William is also entering his third month in pre-school. He seems to be enjoying it a lot, and he is definitely learning something; if only that he can exist and be successful outside of home. My favorite part is the big grin and bear hug that he greets me with every time i pick him up. This week Josh took William to an ENT specialist at Children's hospital, in the hopes that we can address his near-constant sinus problems. The plan is to treat him aggressively for an infection and allergies for a couple of months, and then to work with the specialist to back off on medication to find a level that allows him to stay healthy. We are really excited and hopeful that he will start to feel better for the long term.

Marie is just a total sweetheart. We get comments all the time about what a happy and easy-going baby she is, and we agree. She is pretty happy just to kick around the house, following the other kids or parents as she pleases. She's getting stronger on her feet, excellent at crawling, and basically into everything. She has a curiosity and enthusiasm that is just fun to be around. And amid all that, she is pretty cheerful and snuggly. This past week Marie spent a few days at Children's hospital being treated for a series (three) intussusceptions. This, of course, was not very pleasant for everyone, and a bit scary. However, it is a thing that seems to happen with kids, and the doctors at Children's were very capable in handling it. Except in a small percentage of cases where there is an underlying cause, there are no expected long term effects, or an expectation of further intestinal issues. The doctors performed a test that ruled out at least one of the possible causes, and felt fairly certain this was just the result of a small viral inflammation. Now we are happy to have our cheerful smiling girl around again. Her mischievous grin is even almost enough to make me forgive the inevitable glasses grab.

The kids had a great holiday. They are really having fun and constantly appreciating their presents, and Josh and I appreciate the love that you all showed to them. The lack of Thank You cards thus far is all my fault - its still on my list, so THANK YOU from all of us. The kids and I also enjoyed having a long break; Madeleine had two full weeks off from school, and Josh took an extra week to coincide with that. As a result, we had a great and luxurious break as a family. We are getting into the full swing of winter now, and I'm sure we will all be busy and happy as always.

Raising Your Spirited Child REV Ed by Mary Kurcinka

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was recommended to me by the fine folks at UW-CHDD, as a result of some discussion I had with them about my son (who they felt might be 'spirited'). It is one of the most helpful parenting books I've read, period, and certainly the best one lately.

Interestingly, by the books definition, I'm not sure I would call my son 'spirited'. This personality is defined as having strong expression of a number of different traits. From my perspective, my son only has a couple of those traits (but has those in spades), and has fairly mild expression for many of the other traits. Still, I found this book to contain useful ideas and perspectives that were applicable to him, and perhaps to all children.

The book starts out talking about rhetoric - why one should call these kids 'spirited', not 'difficult', why my son is 'persistent', not 'stubborn'. I tend to feel that all this stuff is a bit bogus; I buy the arguments to some extent, but don't believe there is anything magical in a change of vocabulary. It is also the case that much of the advise is stuff that I know or read before - prevent trouble instead of reacting to it, your kids aren't to get you, emotion coaching is useful, etc. etc. As a result, I have a hard time putting my finger on why I walked away feeling so glad that I read this book.

But I have a few ideas:
1. The stories are from real people, who admit to yelling, or losing it, or taking a while to catch on to their kids. It is a book that admits to aspiration - to do better as a parent, not be perfect. There is a reality here that i have had difficulty finding in other books.
2. The book analyzes personality traits (both in the child and the parent) and how those traits might lead to problems. (In my case, i realized that my child was persistent, but didn't recognize until i read about it that he also responds to each new thing with a 'no'. Giving him time to process and change his mind was a hint worth the price of the book in itself.) It addresses each trait with ways to use it to the child and parent's advantage, not disadvantage.
3. There are a fair number of very concrete suggestions for modifying behavior to improve things.
4. In the end, I find myself hugging and appreciating my kid more, and getting frustrated with him less. And that's awesome.

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As an aside, i'm currently reading http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Emotionally-Intelligent-Child-Parenting/dp/0684838656 which is a book that i am not enjoying nearly as much, but one which has advise that i believe dovetails into the previous book's advice fairly well.
I also read this blog sometimes:
http://www.ahaparenting.com/_blog/Parenting_Blog/post/Preventive_Maintenance_to_Keep_Your_Child_Out_of_the_Breakdown_Lane/
and while it seems to have the same advice in some ways, i usually leave reading one of those posts thinking 'have these people ever actually met a child?!'.

Current Mood: happy

http://birthtothrive.thrivebyfivewa.org/post/2012/01/04/Children-Done28099t-Get-Enough-Exercise-at-Child-Care-Parents-Teachers-Worry-about-Safety-Academics.aspx

Somewhat of a placeholder, because i want to hang on to the study and don't know where to put it. Interesting for some people. Also a reminder to myself of why Waldorf is ok. (Good?)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7623230.stm

This is a nice thought. Although, the headline made me more hopeful for ways to have my kid eat or bathe in the supplies, since thats what she likes to do anyway.

http://www.clementineart.com/

http://www.nwsource.com/shopping/kids-stuff/world-baby-foods-let-future-gourmets-sample-new-tastes-and-cultures?cmpid=2628

I like these, Madeleine likes these, and i'm happy to have something that isn't applesauce (even though i'm really looking for the next age by now).

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_washington_new_laws.html

Although, i was still thankful when Madeleine got to the age where is was reasonable to limit our sessions to closed and private spaces.

http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2009/07/chowbaby_organi.php

Right now, on Weekday (KUOW) they are interviewing Gloria Steinem and Amy Richards about modern feminism. I am amazed at how what they are saying resonates with what i have been saying about the state of gender equality today. If only i had her facility with words, perhaps i could express these things in a more compelling way. I must say, i am quite pleased, too, because these people see the same problems that i see, and some how that justifies my sense of injustice. Its not just me feeling out of sorts, but, something that, at least some educated people, really do see as a societal issue.

If you'd like to know more about what i'm trying to say, go find my recent posts of women in the work place, and on motherhood.

One of the things that they talked about today, that really resonates with me, is that our society's balance of work/personal life is out of whack. Its out of whack for everyone - not just working moms. The imbalance punishes working moms more visibly because this group of people is not usually able to compromise on the personal to meet the work demands.

The goal should be that EVERY person has the ability to perform well and succeed in a career, as well as to pursue an outside interest. The goal should be that both fathers and mothers can be working parents, and have the same ability to work and support the house hold. When polled, usually both men and women agree with this concept, but progress towards the ideal is slow.

I also appreciated the comment that, while we see a lot more contribution to parenting by fathers today than we used to, this doesn't mean that it is an equal contribution. This really is my perception, but it is validating to hear someone studying the field agree with me.

Finally, i was interested in the comment that it shouldn't be either/or - you shouldn't have to be EITHER a stay-at-home-parent OR a fully engaged member of society. It is worth remembering, that even parents who choose not to earn money by working outside of the home can still be engaged members of society.

I'm not sure what i'm saying here, but, perhaps if you listen to the recording of this morning show you will also get something out of it.