October 26, 2021
Jokes are hard
JB has been on a real joke telling kick but they have zero idea of what makes a joke funny or how to replicate joke patterns.
Why do quesadillas need so much water?
Because they hate water!
Why do sandwiches need to work so much?
So they can get killed!
Knock knock
Who’s there?
Apple.
Apple who?
Apple head!
That’s not really a joke, you’re just calling someone a name.
It is for a six year old.
Reading jokes from a book:
Why did Cinderella get kicked off the softball team?
JB: because she cheated!?
JB revels in being Smol’s favorite person
They rub it in actually. Reasons they are the favorite: Where mom and dad bat Smol’s hands away from computers, JB helps Smol touch the touchscreen. JB makes the most ridiculous faces. JB will shadowbox Smol and they will laugh so hard at this they fall on their face. And keep laughing.
A hero’s heartbreak. Smol was going through a bout of sickness AND teething. Normally JB swoops in whenever Smol is sobbing their baby heart out and two seconds of Big Sibling cuddles, rocking and soothing, produces a gummy smile and chortles. They usually sing a variation on “everyone is here, everyone loves you, Big Sib is here and I love you, momma is here and she loves you, daddy is here and he loves you, you’re safe and loved…”
This time, Smol paused for breath… Looked at me…and their face absolutely collapsed. JB was both horrified and betrayed. “I’m the Magic Person!! I make everything better! WHAT HAPPENED?!?” said their appalled face.
They brushed their hands off and gave me the baby back, singing, “Mama can handle youuuuu”.
Later we talked about how that was a sign of just how uncomfortable Smol just have been and a good lesson / reminder that we can’t make anyone feel anything different from what they’re feeling. We can’t take away their pain or their experience and we shouldn’t try. We should be there for them. We should support them and show our love, to help them get through, but they’ll ultimately have to get through on their own. (more…)
September 28, 2021
Social Media
Oh goody. I thought I had a few more years before the social media conversation. They have been learning drawing from this YouTube channel and they ended a video with “post your pic to Instagram!” So of course JB came over and asked if we could take a picture of their art to “send to the art people”.
I said no, we do not use that service. But also since we have already talked about how advertising and marketing works, I explained that sort of thing is partly about sharing but partly it’s about advertising and we do not do free advertising for companies.
In truth, sure we do sometimes, but we’re not starting now at age 6.
I guess I have to start laying the groundwork for a healthy way to use social media now.
Related: Squidding Around
PiC picked out a new graphic novel from Scholastic for JB. We were reading it together and it happened to have the perfect theme for us to continue our talk about social media and how people are motivated to do things for attention. Without giving away too much, Squizzard, the main character is angry about not getting published and goes on to pull a misguided and hurtful prank. We talked about how adults will even do foolish things for attention on social media (without getting into specifics), how people lose sight of who is really important because of a thirst for 15 minutes of fame (people who actually know and love them vs people they’ll never know or meet) and how people can make foolish choices for attention.
We also discussed how social media itself is just a tool and tools are neither good or bad overall (though biased algorithms absolutely are a thing, that isn’t something I’m going to dive into just yet with a six year old), it’s about how you use them about remembering that you don’t know all the other people who use them too. We won’t let them start using anything until we’ve had a lot of discussions about behavior, how social media works, all of that. There’s this Jack Prelutsky poem we’ve read in the past that I reminded JB of that’s very relevant:
I had a little secret
That I could not wait to tell,
I whispered it to Willa,
who repeated it to Nell.
Nell had to tell Belinda,
Who told Laura and Lenore,
I think my little secret
is no secret anymore. (more…)
August 24, 2021
Growth
We had a lot of discussions about trusting people and how you decide to trust someone this month. I can’t remember how it started but the conversation continued when JB was reading the graphic novelization of CoCo. They wanted to know why Ernesto yelled “Security!” and what Miguel did wrong for Ernesto to call security to take him away – what was the justification? It was a great teaching example. We talked about when we trust someone: We observe their words and their actions, how they make decisions, whether they believe (as Ernesto clearly did) that the ends justify the means where the means are “sacrificing literally anyone else” and the ends are “so I get what I want when I want it”. We shouldn’t trust people who show us that they are willing to hurt people to get what they want, and a lot of times, people / abusers will hide who they truly are from the rest of us. Miguel didn’t do anything wrong but he made a mistake in trusting someone because he thought they were family, and family doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. We talked about how Ernesto had power over Miguel, who was alone and too little to fight back, and power over Hector who didn’t know that his best friend was a sneaking slimeball, but he chose to hide that part of himself from his fans because he wanted something from them. Very classic abuser!
JB very quickly connected the dots to: “You trusted your dad and you didn’t know he was going to hurt you! And Auntie trusted her husband, who isn’t her husband anymore, because she didn’t think he was going to hurt her!”
Yep.
Yep. People hide the bad parts of themselves from some people, notably the people they aren’t abusing. They hide it from the people who they want something from. So we can be fooled sometimes, it happens. It’s not doing something wrong – it’s a mistake because you don’t have all the information or the experience to know to be more careful around that person but then you’ve got to do something with the information when you do have it.
Responsibility
Nicole and Maggie bestirred my brain cells to thinking about helping JB develop a habit of maintaining their own paper planner. I don’t know if they’re actually the right age developmentally but they do use our family calendars to see what is scheduled so I think it’s just another step from using what’s in front of their faces to developing the skill/habit of writing those things down for themselves. I should have started earlier in the summer, though, more fun things to add than school things probably make this more fun? Oh I don’t know. I started when I started!
(more…)
July 20, 2021
Growth
How is this child about 3/5 my height????
My parenting growth: I caught myself saying “see? Wasn’t that much easier than you made it out to be??” to Smol and stopped before I committed to it. It reminded me of all the similar sounding comments people make when you come out of your shell and try something, which just makes me never want to try again. I changed it to “well, look at that. I’m glad you tried it!”
Responsibility
JB is on this kick where they are trying to stay up until midnight. WHY. (“Because I’m a vampire!” Great. Just great.) I guess it doesn’t matter much during the summer, and it’s fine if it’s just a phase, but I definitely don’t want to be dealing with this when school starts up again. I did enjoy siccing a happy Smol on their sleeping sibling early one morning though. Revenge for all those early morning wake ups when they divebombed me! Muahahahah.
*****
Being back in the real world is hard. We walked through an unexpected craft fair, and JB saw some really cool things. This would have been fine but their friend also saw the really cool things and their parents bought some for them. We did not. JB was JEALOUS. AND MAD. I sympathized but we weren’t paying $50+ for an unbudgeted impulse buy. We’ve had many talks about picking and choosing where we spend our money, and accepting that we’re going to feel disappointed from time to time while we focus on our bigger goals, and they do remember those principles. But we’re all going to learn to live with feeling the actual disappointment as we actually experience this in real life.
They were able to set it aside and go play with their friend but I know we’ll have a lot more of these kinds of talks and incidents as we ease back into being around other people and seeing what other kids and parents do that we don’t do.
(more…)
June 22, 2021
Growth
We’ve had to have the “don’t catch things with blades when they fall” talk. After they tried to catch a five-bladed razor when it was knocked off a shelf. š¤¦š»āāļø We then had a talk about bandaging technique and clotting.
*****
Why do parents say “I’m not going to say this again” when we absolutely will be saying it again?
*****
JB had a big fuss-fit over being told to write up their notes after a Spanish lesson. I was frustrated that after a lot of lessons, they still haven’t retained hardly anything. They were angry about having to copy down notes from the class notes to practice later.
After a cooldown period we sat down and talked. They complained that they didn’t WANT to have to write the words and they didn’t WANT to have to practice and they HATE writing.
I didn’t argue about whether they do or don’t hate writing. I don’t think they do but that’s beside the point. Instead, we had a long talk about how learning something new is always at least a little frustrating and it’s always going to require some struggle and being challenged and that for important things, we don’t give up on it because it’s important and still worth doing. I reminded them that writing was hard, learning to read took years, learning to ride a bike was frustrating but all of those things have resulted in their having so much fun getting to pick up new stories, getting to send mail to people, getting to ride bikes with their friends when we don’t get to do much else.
At first they were resistant because they wanted to fuss about how they HATE writing unless it’s getting to do her own thing but they really love riding bikes with friends and that they’re allowed to independently create correspondence that people like receiving so that turned it around.
I didn’t say it wasn’t hard to learn, just that it’s worth doing even though it can be hard. And there are things in life we will pick and choose to do. We don’t have to do everything. But the important things, even for adults, we have to stick with.
I shared that I have to learn hard things at work that I don’t like, too! It’s not easy and it’s not fun but sometimes, some things, you just gotta do. Even if you can’t see the payoff right now, there is often something pretty cool as a result of that effort later. An old friend and former teacher invited us to spend time at his house in Mexico. They can go make friends in Mexico if they learn Spanish! (This is where knowing your audience is key. That proposal for me would have fallen flat.) They perked up a little: I haven’t gotten to make new friends in a long time!
Exactly! How cool would that be to sing songs with a new friend in Spanish?
So we gotta try. Not for everything, for the important stuff, but we have to find a way. It doesn’t mean we keep doing the exact same thing, we’ll talk to the teacher and see if we can change our approach a little, but we’re not going to quit and we ARE going to try and practice.
I told them that I didn’t get to learn how to ride a bike so I don’t get to have that fun! They offered to teach me so I took the opportunity to point out that if they were teaching me, how would they feel if I flopped over and said no, I don’t want to try, I don’t like practicing, I don’t WANT to?
They seem to see that would be frustrating for a teacher and that we should practice respecting each other’s time by putting in effort and practicing.
Language
The last letter game. JB’s friend taught them a game where you pick a word and the next person has to pick a word that starts with the last letter of your word. So: hawk. Knight. Timpani. Italian. Noble. Elephant.
JB and PiC play it constantly and I’ve noticed an awful lot of common words end in n, e and t so when I play, I work really hard to find words that end in more interesting letters.
*****
They hear a fair bit of (light) cursing type language out in the wild, whether on TV or passing by other people talking or what have you. I’ve taken the stance that curse words aren’t “bad words,” they’re adult words that children aren’t allowed to say because they’re not mature enough to use them with discretion. Slurs are definitely bad words, though.
Responsibility
We’re incentivizing taking the initiative for doing chores and doing chores without whining again. There’s been some backsliding and I don’t want to hear it. But also I’m frustrated that we can’t seem to get one method to stick because we keep forgetting to reinforce it. That tells me the system doesn’t fit our lifestyle and we need to simplify or modify until it does but who exactly has spare brain cells for this?
(more…)
May 25, 2021
Growth
This month’s discovery: I’m not going to be able to hang them upside much longer. They’re too big. O_O
Emotionally, they’ve made great leaps and bounds. Some steps forward and some back too, of course. They were practicing mindfulness and communicating what they felt and what they needed. They’re also practicing appropriate choices given time and place.
Culinarily, I’m puzzled how we ended up with a six year old who thinks that when we split food, it should be three ways equally. But they’ve always been that way. The real question is how did a 2 and 3 year old eat adult size portions??
Language
Words have meaning but in JB’s world, they’re all the wrong words: “hitball” for baseball. “Ketchup loaf” for meatloaf.
You’d think they weren’t familiar with the English language. But they’re reading tons! Alvin Ho, Geronimo Stilton, Amelia Bedelia for young readers, Kitty and the Sky Garden Adventure, Superman Family Adventures.
Responsibility
We’ve been refining JB’s responsibilities. We’re not adding a lot, just a few small things here and there, but focusing on having them do a better job of the jobs they do currently have because what’s passable work for a 4 year old isn’t for a 6 year old who has more dexterity and can have more attention to detail. Folding laundry, for one thing, has to be neater. They should be hanging up clothes in the right places where, before, it was fine for them to make it to any closet. Cleaning more thoroughly and taking charge of cleaning up their own bigger messes: It’s easy to be in the habit of doing the big stuff because we’re adults but we want to be mindful to keep building their skills.
We’re also working on pushing them to take the initiative, in chores and in entertaining themselves.
(more…)
April 27, 2021
Nesting
Not me, JB. One of their favorite things to do since the pandemic started is making up their bed. I don’t mean making the bed in the traditional sense. I mean creating a giant nest atop their bed with every pillow they can get their hands on.
It’s escalated to thieving blankets from various parts of the house.
Responsibility
JB had a ton of chores over last summer to train them to be a contributing member of the family at an age appropriate level. It didn’t completely eliminate the whining but it cut down on most of the foot dragging and related whining. Now that Smol has arrived, and Seamus has gone š, I’ve reduced their regular chores to laundry, cleaning, and putting up clean dishes because these happen more frequently than before but I also want to make time for them to spend time with Smol. They’re already at a point where Smol would rather spend their waking hours with JB than anyone else and JB adores hauling this sibling sack o’ potatoes around so that’s good for all of us.
I have added things like loading the dishwasher when clearing their dishes, though, it’s good for them to keep adding life skills to their repertoire.
They also occasionally declare TODAY IS CLEANING DAY and pull out the Clorox wipes and go to town scrubbing the tiles or the countertops. I’m ok with this.
(more…)