A Stay At Home Dad
Kids, Woodworking and Electronics- Oh My!
Exploiting Injuries
May 20th
I’ve recently observed virtually identical behavior in a couple of kids I wanted to comment on.
First, a girl in the boy’s martial arts class, probably 10 or 11. She’s a red belt in the class, a very high rank. Red is the last belt level prior to becoming an apprentice black. That means minimally, she has 3 years of effort invested in her training. As do her parents.
My observation is that she ends up sitting on the periphery of the class in almost every class I’ve seen her in lately. She’s usually got an ice pack and is nursing some sort of injury. Though some times she doesn’t even have the ice pack, at which point my guess is she told the instructors that she wasn’t feeling well.
As it happened, I was watching the class a couple days ago with a black belt who often volunteers to help teach the kid’s class. The girl in question had once again become injured and he made a comment that she’s always injured. Apparently, she no longer wants to pursue her black belt. Her parents, not unreasonably, have stuck to bringing her to the classes. Hoping that she’ll come around and choose to finish her training and achieve a black belt. The head instructors think that it’s only a matter of time before she is able to convince her parents to pull the plug.
Now the second observation. This one occurred yesterday at a coach pitch game I volunteered to help out with. One of the boys on the team was in the outfield. It was hot out in the sun, but hardly brutal. For my part, I was wearing a black T-shirt, a remnant from the lass’ coach pitch game earlier. Her team has black team T-shirts. The kids were wearing bright orange T-shirts.
Anyway, I overheard this kid complain that there was a bee flying around him. I didn’t catch it all, but one of the other coaches was compelled to tell give him the age-old wisdom to simply ignore the bee.
A couple minutes later, the kid wasn’t feeling well. He was complaining about shortness of breath. He ended up going to the dug out to sit down and relax, get some water and calm down.
When it was his team’s turn to bat, the choice was given to him if he felt up to batting. He did, and took his normal spot in the rotation, the 2nd or 3rd batter in the inning as I recall. He got a hit and got on base as a result. When the inning was over, he remained in the dugout rather than going out into the field with his teammates. He didn’t want to take a chance.
In both cases, I see a kid using the one trump card they have in their formidable arsenal to get what they want. The claim of injury or sickness. Nowadays, this is the one thing that a parent or teacher cannot mess with lest the child actually be telling the truth. I’ve noted on many an occasion that kids are clever critters. Particularly when they really want something, or to avoid something. Consider these further evidence of how far they will go.
My own tactic for dealing with these situations is to communicate to the kid that I know they are bluffing. I’ll typically ask them some misleading questions, basically putting them in a situation where they are clearly concocting a cover story. Once they are at that point, I’ll good-naturedly dismiss them, perhaps even mock or shame them a bit, and allow them to continue with their ruse. I’ve done this on numerous occasions with the boy and the lass. If they choose to resume participation, then everyone’s a winner.
If not, well, at least they know they haven’t gotten away with it cleanly.
Profane But Amusing
May 18th
An essay about feeding the baby, over at Deadspin. It’s a bit profane, but has some real funny parts. The following in particular had me laughing out loud:
So you’ve got your formula, now you have to carefully take one level, unpacked scoop of the shit and add it to two ounces of water. They sell bottle warmers to help you warm up the formula for your kid, but I use warm tap water because I like to live DANGEROUSLY. In a perfect world, I would use pristine filtered water distilled from a distant lake in Finland, then lovingly mix the formula inside a Hamilton Beach blender in order to ensure consistency. But it’s 5 a.m. and there’s a baby in my hands that’s screaming to the point of bleeding out of its f***ing eyes, so that plan goes out the door. The baby will get 2.3 ounces of fluid and a half a jigger of powder, served CHUNKY STYLE.
Hilarious. I chuckled just reading through it.
This, too, is chuckle inducing:
They barf all the time, and yet I still fall for it when I’m rocking with them peacefully and waiting for them to shut their eyes and then WHOA HEY HOLY S**T HE’S BARFING PEOPLE.
So true.
Siblings- Friends and Enemies
May 17th
The Wife made cupcakes when she was done with work today. The cupcakes happened to be for the boy’s birthday tomorrow. So she let him have first dibs at licking the mixing bowl. She let the lass lick the beater.
But the lass wanted some more, so she tried to get a pinch or two from the bowl that the boy was working on. Things quickly went downhill from their. The boy defended the bowl like he was the MVP goalie of the Stanley Cups playoffs. The lass resorted to every trick in her arsenal to penetrate his defenses. Including whining.
It finally got to the point that I told them both they were done. I shooed them out of the kitchen. Actually, it was more like ordering them out of the kitchen.
The boy didn’t take kindly to this situation. Apparently, he’s got some kind of 6th sense capability to accurately measure the amount of batter he’s consumed versus his sister. Something on the order of “A thousand-billion times” more. So he decided to take his frustration out on her by chasing her around with a rope and swinging it at her. The lass, or her part, ran around screaming at him to stop.
So, once again, I intervened. Telling the boy that it was just as much his fault as her fault that I’d made them stop eating the batter. I explained how he could have just told her to wait and that she could finish what he didn’t; that there had been no need for him to be so belligerent towards her. I took away the rope for good measure.
Anyone with experience with 8-year olds probably knows that my rational explanation had absolutely no effect on him whatsoever. He continued pursuing the lass around the house. The lass continued shrieking for him to stop. Finally, I’d had enough and confronted the boy a 2nd time. He finally relented his pursuit and went off to sulk. I also told the lass to stop shrieking and find something else to do.
Five minutes later I heard more shrieking from outside. I poked my head out. The boy and the lass were playing together on their play gym.
Disciplinary Laryngitis
May 16th
Last Thursday, I basically went insane for about a minute. I’d sent the kids upstairs to get ready for bed. We’ve had this arrangement for awhile now and it’s nice. They head up, brush their teeth and take care of other pre-bed rituals, and then we go up and say goodnight. It’s not one-hundred percent yet, but it’s getting close.
Well, that night ended up being a less than hundred percent night. I heard the lass whimpering. She’d started down that road just prior to going to be over her Lego project. Nothing like Lego troubles to thoroughly frustrate a child.
When I arrived in her room she was sitting in the middle of an unmade bed. Not unmade in the sense that it was a mess. Unmade in the sense that there were no sheets.
That was the beginning of the decent into insanity process. Frankly, I can’t explain why. It really wasn’t the lass’ fault that her bed wasn’t made. Although I was frustrated that she’d sat their whimpering rather than trying to do something about it. That frustration slowly ballooned into a full on fury where I was screaming as loud as I could.
When I was done, I hadn’t accomplished much. Both kids were completely silent, but the lass’ bed still wasn’t made. I was still upset as well, but I wasn’t screaming like a fool anymore.
So I made her bed, said goodnight to both of them and went downstairs to contemplate my absurd behavior. Definitely not one of my better moments in parenting. Kids can get under any parent’s skin, but in this case the lass really hadn’t done anything. Or, at least, nothing that directly precipitated my reaction. I’d taken a fairly minor offense, and blown it all out of proportion. Pretty child like, when you think about it.
My voice was done for the next couple of days. It finally started returning to normal in the last couple of days.
I Think I’d Hold It
May 15th
Some architects thought it’d be a great idea to one, make a bathroom at the top of an elevator shaft and two, give that bathroom a glass floor. The result is a 15 story view. DOWN.
Words fail.
Weather Terminology
May 14th
The boy received a camping radio as a birthday gift from his grandparents. It’s actually a slick little device that’s not a toy. It’s really a grownup kind of toy. That hasn’t stopped the boy from taking a shine to it.
This is the device here. It’s not a normal radio by any stretch. The grandparents got it for camping, but it’s actually more like an emergency device. It works as a normal radio, but it also picks up the 7 NOAA weather bands. It has a solar charger and a hand crank charger as well as a 3 LED based flashlight. Lastly, the hand crank can be used, via a USB plug, to charge a cell phone. Pretty cool stuff.
While on the way to his martial arts class, he brought the radio and was listening to one of the weather bands. He then proceeded to inform the Wife that there was going to be “30% participation.”
I don’t think he was talking about his martial arts class.
Snake in the Grass
May 13th
Well, it didn’t seem like last weekend’s real life Wild Kingdom experience with the garter snake in our garden could be topped. But then this weekend came along and offered a similar high drama.
This time, everything happened out in the yard. The boy called out “Look a snake!” The Wife looked out of reflex, and then quickly went back to what she’d been doing. In the meantime, I looked out in the yard and spotted the frog first. Then I saw the snake trailing behind it, keeping pace pretty well. It was another garter snake.
The frog hopped about half-way across the yard and then decided to stop. That was the only mistake it took for the snake, who reared up and snagged it. The kids and walked over to check things out. It was a tree frog, and was squeaking up a storm. The snake was a bigger version of the one from last week, probably about 2 feet long. I considered going to get the camera, but the snake made quick work of the frog. The whole thing was done in less than a minute.
By that time, our dog was circling and sniffing, trying to figure out what to do. Apparently, leaving well enough alone wasn’t an option. The dog would carefully scent his way in, the snake would flick it’s tongue and then the dog would jump back and bark, circle around a bit and start it all over again.
So I grabbed the dog and had the boy step towards the snake and it took it’s leave of the yard. Heading back to the quieter environs of the hedges.
Careful With those Animal Books
May 12th
Today was a day for getting things done outside. After the lass’ Tee Ball game this morning, I mowed the lawn, followed by fixing the collapsed wood pile (permanently I hope), then putting in edging around gardens as well as edging others.
The lass helped the Wife with some garden shopping and the boy helped out with some of the edging. But they were tired of it all by mid-afternoon. So after building mud puddles and playing in water, they took a break and started looking at one of their animal books.
I noticed the giggling, but didn’t think anything of it. They could’ve been looking at pictures of some weird animal for all I knew. I’d gone to grab a couple of stones I was installing as edging around a garden.
Then the boy asked “Dad, how come a cow poops out it’s baby?”
And it was about all I could do to not drop the stones. Dang, why can’t there be some kind of warning about incoming questions like that? Like a siren or something, or maybe a voice “WARNING: Impending question that will sound hilarious…”
So anyway, I recovered after a moment or two. Then tried to explain that cows don’t poop out their babies. It just looks like that in the pictures…
Connecting the Dots
May 11th
Since I’d written something similar in spirit a while back, I thought I’d link this article at the Daily Caller. Unlike my ridiculous idea, this guy tries to leverage the current college football infrastructure, which is probably a deliberate thing on his part. That makes it more plausible than my own scenario.
That said, word arrives this week that the USFL is returning. Never heard of the USFL? It was a Spring league back in the 80′s and lasted right up to the point where they decided to compete directly with the NFL by becoming a Fall/ Winter league. It was where Jim Kelly, Hershel Walker, Reggie White and Earnest Byner, among other future NFL stars, got their start.
So why am I bringing all these up in a single post? Well, “the end of football” isn’t coming anytime soon. But, with the increased focus on head injuries and the cash strapped schools that supply college football, it’s not impossible to imagine a future where state legislatures decide that a sport like football has no place at an “institute of higher learning.” So couple that with the timing of the reincarnated USFL and I’m wondering if we don’t have the makings of a hedge against the possible elimination of college football programs. In other words, the USFL becomes a farm-system for the NFL. It will be interesting to see where this updated USFL gets its talent from.
Note this would also solve the whole idiotic “college playoff” debate, a not insignificant bonus.
It should be obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: this is all purely speculative on my part. But if it does happen, remember: YOU READ IT HERE FIRST!!!
Linux Printing- An Important Detail
May 10th
A long time ago, right here in this galaxy I wrote a post detailing how to setup a CUPS client for printing through a CUPS server. For the post in question, it dealt with a USB printer connected to a CUPS server. I’ve had exactly zero problems with the setup since I figured it out.
We also have a network based printer that the Wife uses in her office. In order to ease setup issues(oh the irony of those words), I also setup the CUPS server to work with her printer. So now, from the server, I could print to either printer.
But for the longest time I have not been able to get a client to work with this printer using the CUPS server. It’s made no sense to me in all this time because I’ve been following the above mentioned post, double checking everything along the way.
I’ve taken shots at making it work off and on for many months now. It was always been a thorn in my side because it made no sense that I couldn’t make it work. I’ve always ended up walking away from the problem in disgust, unable to figure it out.
Finally today, I figured out the problem. And it just hits home a little debugging heuristic that I always seem to forget: the more baffling the problem, the more likely it’s the result of missing something simple. In other words, rather than having some strange imagined problem involving the network, the problem was a rather simple configuration setting.
Turns out, the printer has to be shared on the CUPS server. This is a simple checkbox option that appears during the printer setup process in CUPS. How I missed something that basic for so long, I just don’t know.
Is This Really Surprising?
May 9th
From Wired Science comes news of a study that shows that living in rural areas boosts immunity to allergies. Or, in other words, kids are less likely to develop allergies if they are exposed to a lot of biodiversity, er, plants and stuff.
I guess the idea is another demonstration of a counter-conventional wisdom. In this case, the conventional wisdom is to isolate kids from all that nasty pollen and dirt and Nature so they won’t develop allergies. If they aren’t exposed, they won’t get it! The only problem is I’m not so sure this is conventional wisdom.
We’ve seen a pretty steady stream of studies demonstrating that exposing kids to environmental stresses like dirt and pollen actually boost the immune system, ultimately making the child healthier, not less so. Seems to me this is just another example of that trend.
Where the Wild Things Were
May 8th
In case you haven’t been on the internet at all today, Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of *Where The Wild Things Are” has died. He was 83.
Until today, I had no idea who wrote the book, let alone illustrated it. Judging by the number of blurbs about his passing that I’ve seen during my own surfing today, he’d certainly attained to a fair amount of fandom. Looking at his Wikipedia entry, I see that’s the only book of his I know. Or at least recognize. He seems to have been a more prolific illustrator than writer, and managed to stir up some controversy with the illustrations in one of his books.
Aside from that, I skimmed through an interview with him and he struck me as pretty curmudgeonly. Perhaps he was having a bad day, although the article’s author indicated Sendak’s behavior was pretty typical for him.
The wild rumpus will continue without him.
What’s That About?
May 8th
Via Ann Althouse, Bank of America is forgiving mortgages for certain “qualified” borrowers. The program, or whatever, is the result of a settlement over abuses in dealing with foreclosures. There isn’t a whole heckuva lot of detail at the source article either.
I’ll admit my initial reaction was outrage. Another round of helping out people who got in over their heads making people like myself and the Wife sucker’s. But then, after seeing that it’s a settlement, I started wondering if there isn’t some angle that BoA is playing here that makes this much less than it appears. For instance, perhaps not that many people will ultimately qualify. Or perhaps those that qualify are also likely to end up losing the deal because they can’t meet some other conditions. I’m not a banker, so I can’t imagine all the ways this could be to a bank’s advantage.
On the flip side, there will undoubtedly be some people who make out, getting tens-of-thousands of dollars forgiven from their debt load. Having their bad behavior rewarded.
Seems hard to escape the fact that, no matter what side you choose, those of us who pay our debts get screwed. We pay the bank so they can go and abuse trust. And we also foot the bill for the delinquents.
The kids lament their lot in life as being unfair. Wait until they’re old enough to grasp this idea.
Sourpatch Bread
May 7th
I’d starting making up the dough for another loaf of the family favorite, white bread. Actually, it’s my own version of Wonder Bread and it really is quite good.
The lass came up and took a look at the dough and wanted to know what kind of bread I was making. After I told her she asked “When are you going to make the sourpatch bread?”
Technically speaking, I’ve never made sourpatch bread. Googling also reveals that no such bread exists. None the less, I’m pretty sure I know what she’s talking about, but rather than correct her I rolled with the punch. “Because I don’t have any sourpatch starter,” I explained.
“You don’t have any sourpatch?” she asked. I guess she wanted confirmation.
“In order to make sourpatch bread you need to make sourpatch starter. I don’t have any of the starter,” I explained in more detail.
“What’s a sourpatch starter?”
Oh boy.
“It’s just some flour and water that’s been allowed to sit around for awhile. It gets a sour taste. That’s why it’s called sourpatch.” No mention of yeast or it would have to become a full blown chemistry course. Or biology.
“How do you make it?”
“With flour and water,” I deadpanned.
“No, I mean…how do you make the sourpatch stuff?”
“With flour and water,” I repeated.
She thought about that for a couple seconds.
“Are you going to make some?”
“I’ve been trying to but haven’t been able to make a batch that works well,” I told her.
“After you make the starter you’ll be able to make the sourpatch bread?”
Back to where we started. I think that’s good because it probably means this line of questioning has just about run it’s course.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Daddy, I like sourpatch bread.”
This is news to me. Since it’s been awhile since I’ve been able to make it, I have my doubts she knows what she’s talking about. But that’s OK.
Now I just have to make up some Sourpatch bread.
Raw Nature
May 6th
Well, we had a ten minute mini-drama in the garden this afternoon. Don’t worry, I captured it all on, uh, film. Memory. SD card. You get the idea.
It started with the Wife, noticing that one of the dogs was in a pointing position. So she turned to look at what he was fixated on, and jumped from the garden all the way into the house uttering some kind of noise that communicated disgust, revulsion and other rather strong, emotions. As I went outside she simply said “A snake caught a toad in the garden.”
My initial reaction was “Really?!?” I’m pretty sure she was heading for the shower.
So the kids and I were treated to a little bit of Nature at her rawest. Well, maybe not rawest, but how often do you get to watch a snake eat a toad in your backyard?
When I got there initially, the snake had the toad by one of it’s rear legs. It looked like the toad should have been able to make a good jump and escape. But when it did that, it was unsuccessful. Only escaping up to its foot. The snake quickly recaptured its lost ground.
And that’s where the pictures pick up from. If you are a snake-o-phobe or bear any of Indiana Jones’ attitude toward snakes, do not click on the jump link.
You have been warned.
Admit It
May 5th
After seeing this, you want one.
The ad is unintentionally hilarious. They show off the device and explain that the laser is the real deal. They show two Jedi wannabes duking it out with a couple of “lasersabres” (at least, it looks like it), and then quickly go into an explanation about how dangerous the lasers are and that no one should use them as a sword or for dueling and blah, blah, blah.
Still, it’s very cool. If we could slice the Thanksgiving turkey with it, it would be hard to turn down.
You Never Know
May 4th
So a couple of weeks ago, I noted that I was disappointed with the math the boy had learned this year. Mainly, I felt he hadn’t learned some fundamentals like borrowing and carrying for his addition and subtraction. I got a couple of suggestions that I should just show him myself, which is so obvious that I’d ruled it out.
More seriously, I’d refrained from doing it because the boy is typically pretty touchy about that stuff. I didn’t want him to get frustrated, shutdown and turn the thing into a nightmare.
But yesterday, an opportunity presented itself and I decided to roll the dice. Right after dinner, the boy was sitting around so I grabbed a pencil and paper and wrote a problem down for him that involved carrying. But I presented it that I’d reward him for his efforts. He wanted to know if as long as he tried that meant he’d get rewarded. I opted to put the screws to him and told him it was all or nothing.
Of course, he didn’t get it quite right. But he was close and I showed him what he did wrong. Then I gave him another one. Mind you, I was having him add 3 and 4-digit numbers to try and maximize the practice while minimizing the number of problems. Once he seemed to get it, I told him “Double-or-nothing on this one.” Even though, technically, he still had nothing. But his curiosity had been piqued and I kept going with it.
After a bit more, he asked about borrowing. So I showed him how that worked and gave him a few practice problems there as well. When we were done, I informed him that he could now add and subtract any numbers together. Which isn’t quite true, strictly speaking. But it was close enough for my purposes.
I even rewarded him with a little ice cream when it was all done.
So then when he came home today, he asked for a few more problems to practice with and told me he’d informed his teacher that he’d learned how to carry in addition. He even got her to give him a couple of problems.
So I guess it worked out OK.
On the End of Football
May 4th
It appears that Junior Seau’s suicide has sparked a rash of renewed interest on the topic of “The End of Football.” John Gruber links to an article at Grantland and an older piece in the New Yorker. Of the two, the New Yorker piece is by far the more interesting, talking about incidents of head trauma in boxing and football. Mainly football. The Grantland piece basically says the that football will eventually be sued into oblivion. I’ve also seen other blog posts discussing the general topic of football eventually becoming extinct.
Certainly it’s plausible. As a parent, reading the above linked article about head trauma, it certainly gives me pause. The boy had become much more interested in football this past year. Really, the first time he’d shown any interest in it. He’s asked a lot of questions about playing football and, if I were to guess right now, he expects the opportunity to play some day. Assuming there’s a program available, he’ll get his chance.
Of all the scenarios discussed, the liability angle seems the most likely to bring about the end of football as we know it. In particular, I can see a concerted effort backed by medical research that results in high school football slowly being eliminated. Followed by the college game. At that point, assuming football maintains it’s current form, the NFL will have to sink money into some kind of farm system. When that happens, the quality of play will drop off because the money will be drying up and the top athletes will no longer want to play football. Perhaps it swings back to baseball. Or maybe US soccer gets a big shot in the arm.
Mind you, I’m not predicting that end. I’m just saying it won’t surprise me. As a society, we’ve become extremely risk averse. In particular, our intellectual leaders (aka: pundits of all stripes) don’t have much tolerance for it. The safe thing to do is not play football. And really, who could argue?
But if that day were to come to pass, it will be a sorry day. What football players do, at the college and especially the pro level, is not something that just anyone can do. Sure, hitting is a part of the game (BTW- I refuse to use the word “violent’ regarding football. Violence is senseless, chaotic and brutal. Violence is getting beaten on the street, or worse. Football is not violent.) But it’s only part of the game. Watch a running back follow his blockers down the field reading the blocks and seeing his lanes; watch a quarterback throw a 35 yard laser on a deep crossing pattern to a receiver perfectly in stride; watch a defensive lineman charge full speed 10 yards upfield, and then turn around and spring in the other direction and still make a tackle, all in less than 4 seconds. That stuff isn’t just luck. It isn’t something that can be duplicated by a bunch of guys playing touch football.
Football players aren’t just ordinary people. They’re men who have committed themselves to something and made themselves the very best at what they do. Sure, a bunch of guys can go out on a Saturday and play flag football. Someone might even do something noteworthy, like make a long run or catch a pass. Maybe that guy gets bragging rights for the weekend. But he pales in comparison to the guys we watch on Saturday and Sunday. That weekend hero can’t even get on the same field as those guys.
There’s glory waiting for the athlete that chooses to go there, where lesser beings fear to tread. As long as they continue to do so, people will watch them if only to see how far he can make it, to be amazed at what can be. They’ll watch just based on the slimmest of hopes that they’ll see something they’ve never seen before, be it a big hit, a one handed grab, or a winning touchdown as time expires.
Yes, there’s a price to be paid. But it’s the athlete’s choice, not the pundits and their medical studies.
Junior Seau- RIP
May 2nd
This bit of football news is everywhere, so no links, but the reports are that Junior Seau committed suicide earlier today. By all accounts, he was a great locker room guy, player and teammate. He was also divorced, so he obviously had some family issues, and I was also reminded of his strange incident a few years back where he supposedly fell asleep while driving and drove off the road. So while he was by all accounts a great NFL player, his life after football was somewhat more muddled.
It’s certainly a sad day for his family, friends and fans. It’s also a waste that someone with so much energy and capability couldn’t find a worthy pursuit to channel his personal resources towards. So while he can certainly be held up as a model for how to play football, he falls short of the mark when it comes to how to live a life. That’s a shame.
Finally- The Boy Handles a Little Adversity
May 1st
Lost in the shuffle a bit last week was that the boy had belt testing at his Martial Arts school. In particular, this one was significant for the boy because it was to advancie to the red belt level- the final one prior to becoming an apprentice black belt.
The school takes the testing seriously at this stage of the kid’s development. A point that was made apparent by the fact that when he went on Monday expecting to test, he was told he could only be tested by one of the 2 head instructors for the school and neither was scheduled to be there that night. So he had to wait until Wednesday to do his testing.
He ultimately ended up failing his testing that day. He was unable to perform a couple of the self-defense techniques requested of him and the instructor also felt his forms needed a little more work. The boy was a bit confused initially because he thought he could test again the next night to earn his advancement. In reality, he has to train and test again next month to earn his next belt.
When reality finally sunk in to him, he was upset. Partly because he gets things in his mind that “this is how it will be” and he doesn’t always deal well when things don’t go as he intended. He was also upset because he wants to earn his black belt before I do and now he thinks I’m going to get there “first.”
So I sat him down and did my best to explain a little more of the reality he was in. Namely, that there is no competition between him and myself. Also, that it was OK to fail- because all it meant was that he had to work another month to earn his red belt. In the scheme of things, another month means nothing; after all, he’s already been at this for 3 years. I also tried to reassure him that as long as he kept at it, we would eventually earn his black belt.
Usually, when he’s upset about his sort of thing, the boy is nearly inconsolable and refuses to hear, listen or comprehend anything. This time was different. While he was clearly upset, he seemed to be willing to listen and understand that his space-time continuum was not going to collapse.
The proof of the pudding came last night when one of the instructors came up to the Wife and asked what had happened with stripe testing. The instructor had already spoken to the boy and told her the basics, and impressed her with the fact that he was handling the “setback” well. After a quick discussion, the instructor said she’d look into what happened so she could help him our for the next testing cycle.
So for those of you out there with similar “ability to handle failure” issues in their kids, wondering when things will start to improve- I have a completely non-scientific answer. About 8 years. That’s all. And mind you, this was only a single instance of coping well.
Hooray for progress.
