Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2004-01-14 07:32 am
azurelunatic) wrote2004-01-14 07:32 am
Entry tags:
Parenting diplomacy, applied with large trowel
Other co-parent (male) described how Little Fayoumis read with him.
Evidently it typically takes an hour, and he stresses over words and wanders through the book and generally makes a big hairy deal over it.
My response: "If I didn't know better, I'd think we were talking about two different kids."
In my world, Little Fayoumis is bright and happy and doesn't make a fuss about bedtime and is getting damn fast at reading, and is generally a pretty well-adjusted kid except for some stress over homework and schoolwork.
I pointed out that often, from my perspective, it sounded as if LF were answering questions not with the actual answer that he felt, but with the answer that would please him.
Evidently he's "talked to him about that".
I shudder to think of that conversation.
Thought, but not said: "Until you stop the fuck asking questions where there is only one acceptable answer, and that is the one you want, he is going to keep doing it because you make him feel like shit when he gives the wrong answer, you bloody fuckwad!"
Yes, I do my share of telling LF what to do too, but ... I try to explain the rules of society, not emotionally whack him around until he figures out by guess and fail what they are!
School's a big, big stress. He's been saying stuff like "I'm worthless" over getting stuff wrong on things, and I don't know what to do about it. I've been trying to reinforce that no he is not, everyone makes mistakes, and it's OK, and to keep working... some of it's taking, some of it's not.
*stress*
Evidently it typically takes an hour, and he stresses over words and wanders through the book and generally makes a big hairy deal over it.
My response: "If I didn't know better, I'd think we were talking about two different kids."
In my world, Little Fayoumis is bright and happy and doesn't make a fuss about bedtime and is getting damn fast at reading, and is generally a pretty well-adjusted kid except for some stress over homework and schoolwork.
I pointed out that often, from my perspective, it sounded as if LF were answering questions not with the actual answer that he felt, but with the answer that would please him.
Evidently he's "talked to him about that".
I shudder to think of that conversation.
Thought, but not said: "Until you stop the fuck asking questions where there is only one acceptable answer, and that is the one you want, he is going to keep doing it because you make him feel like shit when he gives the wrong answer, you bloody fuckwad!"
Yes, I do my share of telling LF what to do too, but ... I try to explain the rules of society, not emotionally whack him around until he figures out by guess and fail what they are!
School's a big, big stress. He's been saying stuff like "I'm worthless" over getting stuff wrong on things, and I don't know what to do about it. I've been trying to reinforce that no he is not, everyone makes mistakes, and it's OK, and to keep working... some of it's taking, some of it's not.
*stress*
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So, anyway, um--hope you and LF hang in there and wow *salaams* You rock. Seriously.
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At three-ish, I remember the following exchange between me and my parents:
"You can't come up here and walk around, because you're too heavy, and you would make the boards fall through." (Regarding the construction site that was our house; the plywood for the second floor was laid out on the beams but not nailed down.)
And I was put in my playpen while up there, or left down below.
My outraged sense of logic and fair play protested, internally: "But you guys are heavier than I am! It does not follow, that I am too heavy and would fall through, when you grown-ups are heavier than I am, and you do not fall through."
Many years later, when I brought up the topic to my mother, she explained that in fact they knew where the beams were, and if they'd just gone wandering off not on the beams, they would have fallen through, and the paths weren't exactly well-marked. And that made sense, and my sense of fair play was satisfied, finally.
And yeah, that article makes a lot of general sense.
I do try to give names to the emotions it looks like he's feeling (he knows "frustrated" now, which he seems to be a lot at school), because first you calm down the upset kid, then you figure out what the upset kid is feeling, and then you figure out why, and then you sort it out.
Example from the article: the kid feels ugly. Maybe the kid is dissatisfied with the new haircut, waiting for a tooth to come in, or maybe there's some asshat at school, in which case the response probably ought to be, "I think you're handsome, and I think that kid at school is a meanie."
I've been harping on Cyteen, and I use that as a guiding bit in a lot of things related to child-raising. Kids pick up on the weirdest things, and need reassuring if they get scared about stuff they should be scared about, and usually demystifying stuff does a lot to help with the being-scared about stuff.
And rules that you don't understand are annoying, frustrating, and scary. And a lot of the social rules, especially for interacting with grown-ups, are like that.
And when a grown-up doesn't listen to how you do feel about something, it sucks, because then you're mad at yourself for feeling that way to start with.
no subject
Stop thinking it and say it before the kid gets out of the habit of being honest. He's learning that to be himself makes someone unhappy, what kind of message is that??
He'll never be this age again.
Straighten MarxDarx out.
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