Category: Family

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Family

Testing Us Both

STOMP!

We had just start on our way to school this morning when the boy angrily stomped his foot down. Then he lamented how he forgot a picture for his “Share Day” and how he always forgets to bring in something for his “Share Day.”

STOMP!STOMP!

I sat quietly by for the moment, trying to judge the situation. The boy has a long, storied history of a temper that he either can’t, or simply refuses to, reign in. It can start out very benign, no more than a tad bit of frustration. Five minutes later he’s in the corner for smart-mouthing one of us. Or worse.

STOMP!

He wasn’t showing any signs of getting out of control, but the stomping was getting on my nerves, frankly. The words formed in my head like they had so many times before “Stop doing that- it won’t accomplish anything” and the many variations thereof. But this time, I held them back. I was suddenly curious, would he continue? Would it get worse?

STOMP!KICK

Now he’d kicked his backpack. We were about halfway to school. He hadn’t whipped himself into a frenzy yet. Plus, another thought came to mind: what if he’s just doing it for attention? What if he’s just trying to provoke a reaction from me just for some kind of weird emotional satisfaction? That might explain the “slow burn” nature of what he was doing.

He reached forward and roughly opened the glove compartment, perused the contents for something, didn’t find it and slammed it closed. Hard, but not too hard. Could have been comment worthy, but he clearly had restrained himself.

STOMP!KICK!

If he’d been a linebacker, there would probably be a hole in the floor at his feet. I was tempted to tell him he’d smoosh whatever he had in his lunch box but I didn’t. We were at the light just before the school. All I had to do was a right, 200 feet and I’d be turning in to drop him off.

He didn’t stomp or kick anymore. We arrived at the drop off and I told them both to have a good day. The boy roughly picked up his backpack and rushed out the door. He muttered some barely intelligible, dark words about how he couldn’t have a good day. The lass was her usual chipper self, all enthusiasm to be going to school. The boy had a frown etched on his face that was almost comical because of how mad he looked.

SLAM!

So does that count as passing?

EPILOGUE:

I was at the doctor’s when the boy got home. I talked to the Wife and asked how the boy’s day went. She told me when she asked him he replied “Superb.”

“Really?” she asked.

“Do you know what that means?” he answered, “It’s a synonym for ‘good’. I prefer ‘superb’ because it sounds better.”

Superb.

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Family

Elbow Update- A Minor Setback

So, the elbow had been feeling great the past several weeks. Generally, it would be almost impossible to know that I’d had surgery at this point. That said, I’m still not supposed to be doing any active lifting with the arm- for extension or bending motions. I have been doing isometrics as part of my PT though.

But on Saturday, I started noticing some discomfort in the elbow area. In particular, the elbow got stiff very quickly if I left it in a bent position for any length of time. Reading a book, or my Nook, was difficult actually by the end of the day. I hadn’t done anything to hurt it though. Or at least, not to the best of my knowledge.

On Sunday, it was worse. I’d lost 75% of my range of motion. Basically, I had a small arc of about 45 degrees I could move it through. I couldn’t straighten it out, nor could I bend it fully. When I allowed my arm to rest at my side, it almost looked like I had some kind of brace on it because it couldn’t extend. I had swelling just above the joint on the backside of the arm and there was a fair amount of pain in that area if I tried to move it out of the range it was limited to. Icing and compression were of little help.

Yesterday saw some improvement, though I was still a long way from normal range of motion. Today brought further improvement. I was at PT today and they ceased the normal routine and used some electrical stim and ice treatment and told me to call if it didn’t improve.

They felt it was a result of breaking down more scar tissue from muscles that hadn’t been in use. Essentially, they called it a form of tendonitis. I’m somewhat skeptical, since I’d been deliberately using the arm- though not to it’s pre-injury potential- for the express purpose of preventing something like that. Perhaps my efforts were in vain. Or perhaps something else is going on.

Fortunately, it’s documented with PT and I’m going for my next check-up with the Doc on Friday. Hopefully, he’ll have a better idea. Until this, I’d been expecting him to green-light the next stage in my recovery. Now, I’ll have to wait and see.

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Family

Toys and KISS

The lass received a gift the other day that she and the boy have not stopped playing with since she opened it. It’s a construction type toy that consists of approximately a bazillion straws along with various connectors to link the straws together. That’s it.

So far, they’ve built a house, a car- with and without a passenger seat, a rocket and several other things that I’m not really sure what they were. One of the projects was big enough that we let them leave it out overnight so they could finish it the next day.

If I was asked by a prospective parent what kind of toys they should purchase their kids, I’d advocate strongly for wooden blocks, a box big enough for them to climb in, various bouncing balls and paper and pencils. That’s about it.

We’ve purchased many toys for them and we have friends who’ve done similarly for their kids. Most of those toys go unplayed with for long periods of time. Some never get played with. Thinking back on it, most of these toys were too 1-dimensional for play purposes or they were too complicated- taking too much time to setup or too much effort to understand how to play with.

Even something like Lego’s is almost too much anymore because the kits are so intricate. Those are best left until they get a bit older.

Contrast those with a cardboard box. Both the boy and the lass still ask for us to hang on to the larger boxes they can fit into. They can hardly wait to get their little mitts on it and make it into something.

Perhaps that’s the key- that they can make something with whatever they choose to play with. The easier it is to do so, the more they will tend to use the toy. They just take advantage of the opportunity to stretch their imaginations a bit.

Whatever the reason might be, “the simpler the better” seems to perfectly describe the dynamic.

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Family

Kids Abhor a Vacuum

UPDATE:
I’ve modified the title to this post because it wasn’t obvious I was alluding to the saying “Nature abhors a vacumm,” which means that Nature tends to fill a need for something, somehow. So to with kids.

One of my more unusual talents is card magic. I learned a handful of pretty high quality illusions when I was in high school and I’ve retained the mechanics, if not the polish, ever since. These aren’t the mathematical variety of tricks where a selected card gets moved around enough to the point where it’s possible to locate the card. These are actual close-up illusions.

Most any kid is fascinated by magic, mostly because they’re still naive enough to believe it’s real. The boy and the lass belong in that category. I’ve done a number of my simpler illusions for them and they immediately want to know if I can make cards vanish and reappear and teleport and all that other stuff. Afterwards, they spend about 15 minutes repeating the what they’d seen me do, but obviously without the same results.

At which point they always ask me to teach them magic.

I’ve always declined them for a simple reason: once they learn the art of illusion, then the magic is gone. It sounds tedious, but even as an adult watching “magic” is entertained by the illusion, precisely because it seems like magic.

But once an understanding of the basic techniques are attained, the effect is gone. Instead, what is seen is the logical result of the techniques used that a layperson has no idea to look for. I’ll never forget shortly after learning some of the initial techniques watching a local magician perform a trick. I noticed something that no one in his audience did. Afterward, I went home and based on that one thing was able to completely reverse engineer the illusion.

Anyway, my point is I didn’t want to ruin magic for the boy and the lass at so young an age. Unfortunately, events have transpired that forced my hand a bit.

One of the boy’s classmates has been “teaching” him magic. I don’t know where this friend learned these tricks. The boy was then trying to duplicate whatever his friend had shown him. In the process, he was missing all of the little details that make a piece of magic believable. The Wife took me aside and pointed said “I know why you don’t want to teach him, but he wants to learn so badly that he’s getting stuff from another kid. You might want to teach him something so you can show him the right way to do this stuff.”

I realized, much to my chagrin, she was right. The boy had decided to fill his desire for knowledge from a different source. My denial of any knowledge was actually working to his detriment because he was learning all the wrong things about magic.

So I’ve now begun teaching him one trick. But I won’t allow him to use it on anyone until he can perform it well enough in front of me. That was the deal struck. If nothing else, at least I’ll get to see just how badly he wants to learn. So far, he’s practiced it a little everyday. He’s a little frustrated with my attention to detail, but I just keep telling him that he only gets one shot with a magic trick. If his audience detects the secret to the illusion, there is no second chance.

But even at his young age, it appears children will fulfill a need. With or without you. Best if it’s with you, says I.

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Family

Learning to Cut Losses

In our continuing attempts to instill some semblance of table manners into the kids, the Wife and I have been using “penalty minutes.” Basically, a violation of our etiquette rules results in 15 minutes subtracted from there bed time.

Our efforts worked initially, but over time our discipline slips a bit. Naturally, the kids discipline follows.

So tonight at dinner when the boy violated one of the rules, I asked the Wife “What’s the penalty for rudeness at the dinner table again, Mom?”

“I believe it’s 15 minutes off the offender’s bedtime,” she replied.

“Huh? I thought it was 10!” the boy blurted, somewhat incredulous.

“It could be 20,” I told him.

He didn’t argue it any further.

There were no further violations either.

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Family

Wrong Side of the Planet

There’s getting up on the wrong side of the bed, and then there’s the lass this morning.

It all started innocently enough. She was eating her breakfast, but at a snail’s pace because her attention was on the TV and the show her brother was watching. He had already finished his breakfast and was dressed and ready for the day. The lass, by contrast, was still in her PJ’s and barely ready for the next mouthful.

I told her to eat her breakfast, which simply resulted in her turning to take mouthful of food and then turning back to the TV, jaw barely working. Beginning to realize the foe I was up against, I enlisted my Nook Tablet in deploying a counter measure: I had the boy turn the TV off and handed him the Nook so he could watch his Netflix show on that.

My strategy had the desire effect of prompting the lass to finish her breakfast. It also had the side effect of darkening her mood considerably. It’s almost like one of Newton’s laws: for every action, there is a disproportionate reaction.

She had hockey this morning at 8:50. So naturally, it being around 8:00 at this point, she decided to sit down and turn the TV back on so she could watch “her show.” When I told her to go start getting her under garments on for hockey, she groused, stomped around the house, declared that she “couldn’t find her stuff” and went back to watching her show.

My blood pressure was rising, but I kept myself in check. Remember- don’t feed the monster. I located her clothes for her, told her where they were and told her to go start getting them on. She started moving and, satisfied that things were kinda-sort-of on track, I decided to go take a shower.

When I finished up, the Wife informed me that she’d gone downstairs to find the lass sitting in front of the TV, again, still in her PJ’s with some of her hockey stuff sitting next to her. The Wife had her turn the TV off and that’s when things started to go downhill. Fast.

The lass started complaining, loudly, that her thermals were itching her. She even declared “That’s all this stuff does is make you itchy- it doesn’t keep you warm at all, just itchy.” Then she wanted to know why she needed to go to hockey. The Wife ignored her. The lass persisted. The Wife continued to ignore her. The lass persisted louder. When the Wife continued to refuse an answer, the lass sat down on the floor, folded her arms across her chest and declared she wasn’t going to hockey.

So I stepped back into the fray and told her she’d lost Wii and DS privileges and she’d be going to bed early tonight. She countered with “I don’t care.” Total, unadulterated BS, to which I simply replied “You will.” She started getting dressed again. Then she stopped. We prompted her to get going because she was going to be late for practice. Even the boy had realized they’d normally have been on the way to the rink by now. The lass started to cry because she wanted the Wife to put her hair up.

I took this as a sign that the tide was turning, slowly, in our direction. Thankfully, I was correct. She continued to drag her feet, but she was moving forward, not stuck in neutral anymore. After a final few altercations about elbow pads and her jersey, she was finally ready to go and out the door.

By that point, the Wife had commissioned the boy to start the car to warm it up. That move had as much to do with removing him for the scene as anything. I’d say it helped since he wasn’t there to tweak his sister about her mood.

Practiced started at 8:50. They left the house around 8:45, finally.

I can hardly wait for the teen years.

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Family

Derby Wrapup

The short of it is, no winners. The longer version is we had 3 very fast cars that didn’t track true enough to win.

The boy had the best showing, cruising into the semi-finals. He won all three of his preliminary races making him one of 4 cars that were undefeated going into the semi-final round. But his axles loosened up or something and his car got squirrelly in the semi-final round and that cost him against the other fast cars that ran true.

The lass probably had the fastest car of the 3 of us, but also the most squirrelly. Her car led at the bottom of the ram in all three of her races, but the bouncing back and forth allowed her to be overtaken in the final stretch each time.

As for mine, I got a lot of compliments on the looks, but it didn’t run as good as it looked. I don’t think I got the weighting quite right, in retrospect. Also, it definitely could’ve tracked better.

Once again, lessons learned. I wrote this last year after the race and this year did nothing to change my mind: weighting and tracking are the keys to victory to the point of swamping out all other factors.

Zooming out a bit, it was a good afternoon of racing. Long, but good. We had a bunch of tight races, including a race with a tie where the cars tied again in the runoff. We finally got a winner on the 3rd match between the two. One of the other Dad’s told me it was the best batch of racing he’d seen in 8 years of bringing his kids to Scouts.

Despite the successes, the kids were still disappointed and acted the part, but it was more obvious to me that a good deal of it was an act. Since I was busy running things and the Wife was busy figuring out awards for the cars and taking pictures, neither of us had time to humor their act. It worked out for the better- turns out not feeding the monster kept it at bay. They tried it a bit on the Wife while they waited in the car to leave, but she called their bluff by telling them “Well, we just won’t race next year.” Neither one liked that idea and that was the end of it.

So ended this year’s derby. Despite enjoying the afternoon, I’m glad I won’t have to worry about it for another year.

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Family

Finished Derby Cars

So, here they are all finished up and ready to race. The boy’s is called “The Black Mobile”; we’re calling the lass’ “Lady Liberty” and I’m haven’t decided on a name for mine. I’ve got some candidates like “The Green Streak”, “Green Stiletto” and “Pea Soup”. Yes, the last one is a reference to, well… I’ll leave it to your imagination.

The lass still has to learn moderation where stickers are concerned. In her world, “more” equals “better” when it comes to that stuff. But it looks like a kid did it.

On that score, the kids were both involved in the final assembly and paint jobs, and stickers. I helped them as much as necessary for them to finish it up. Attention span was the biggest problem, since the work is quite tedious. Like polishing the wheel hubs, or lubricating the axles. The Wife and I alternated masking off for the paint job on the lass’ as well, but she operated the spray cans.

Tomorrow, weather permitting at this point, the race is on.

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Family

Profane- But Funny and True

Deadspin is a sports news site, mostly famous for their hatred of ESPN. That said, they also write about other things such as parenting. This article I found myself agreeing with just about everything in it. It’s a tad profane, but if you can stomach and f-bomb or ten, then it’s an amusing and an illuminating read.

I’ve committed all of these errors except for the chasing one. But don’t attribute that to any special insight on my part other than, we don’t live in a palace and there’s only so far they can run. I pretty much agree with all of them except the power-struggle stuff. For my money, the parents are the boss and the kids have got to learn that. Naturally, they will challenge on occasion and those situations need to be dealt with accordingly. Thus, power struggles are unavoidable.

Otherwise, no quibbles.

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Family

Cost of Raising a Child

Glenn Reynolds points us to an article at Shine about the cost of parenting:

Everyone who has ever become a parent can testify to the financial challenges that go with raising kids. In fact, the average cost of raising a child to age 17 is over $150,000 per year.

I’m calling BS on this. I can’t even fathom a way that it costs that much per year to raise a kid, let alone averages to that much. The only possible way that works is if parents making over $150,000 a year give up their job to raise their kids. But I’m pretty sure that puts the earner in the top 5%, meaning there just aren’t enough of them to skew the results that high.

First off, logically speaking, if it costs $150K per year to raise 1 child, isn’t that saying that only people who make more than that can raise kids? I can assure you from personal experience that’s an incorrect statement.

I gave up my job just prior to the lass coming along and at the time I was at $65K per year. On my trajectory at the time, I might be earning around $80K today, assuming I’d stayed out of management. That leaves another $70K just to hit the mark cited by the article. I manage the household finances and I can tell you that it does NOT cost $70K for both kids, let alone one.

Most of the stuff that really hurts when it comes to raising kids are 1 time kind of costs, like birth. But that only happens once per kid. At least, that’s how it was the last time I checked. Anyway, along those lines, things like camp, sports, dance and music lessons and the like are typically on the order of hundreds of dollars per year.

Taxes, you say? Not likely, says I. Sure, that’s a big cost, but there’s that “child deduction” thingy that reduces the tax cost, for one. And for two, taxes are still only in the $5K range (local taxes that contribute to public schools), and that likely way to the high side.

The only other big-time cost might be a Nanny or daycare, but then the situation is likely that the parent has chosen not to give up working. So the major driver of the cost goes way down. Daycare can run $20K to $30K depending on the frequency. A Nanny is essentially an employee, so that’s the most expensive option. But even then, they aren’t being paid anywhere near $100K, let alone $150K.

There are other hidden costs as well, but they still don’t add up. Buying a car big enough to haul the munchkins around, along with all of their crap (not literally, at least, not always…) and the booster seats or child safety seats, certainly cost a lot. But what parent is buying a new car on a yearly basis?

I’d like to see the work done to arrive at this number. It just seems preposterously high.

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Family

The Difference a Generation Makes

The boy came home from school in a good mood. After hanging up his coat and backpack, he took out his homework and completed it. He also has reading he’s supposed to do, so he sat down and read as well. A load of dishes had finished up and when I said “Could someone unload the dishwasher?”, he jumped right up and helped along with his sister. To finish things off, he went upstairs and, uh, plugged the toilet; then he unplugged it without anyone telling him to do so, and he made sure to tell me about it.

Then, he asked me for a reward, though not quite so bluntly. First, he listed all of the things he’d just done right since he got home from school. Then he “just wondered if that was worth anything.”

I was … puzzled. In my formative years, rewards, if they were given at all, were unexpected and never asked for. (At least, I don’t recall asking for a reward- I’m not talking about wanting something. I’m talking about doing a bunch of stuff and then asking to be rewarded for my efforts.) In fact, I’d say more often than not, the “reward” was not getting yelled at for not doing what I was supposed to have done.

In other words, certain things were simply expected. That list got longer as I got older and more capable. That whole while, rewards were reserved for moments that were truly noteworthy.

So, what to make of the situation with the boy? Is this just a failure in parenting? The inevitable blowback of trying to tease certain behaviors out of the kids? A sign of the times, where awards and rewards are used like currency with kids? Something else? Is it good or bad or does it not even matter in the scheme of things?

After he asked me, I asked him “What if I were to tell you that it’s worth a ‘Nice job,’ and that’s it?” A simple test question to see what I was dealing with.

He answered “Then I’d say ‘Thanks.'”

Either he knew the answer to say, or he was answering earnestly.

I considered him for a few moments and he patiently awaited my verdict.

Finally, I told him he could play Angry Birds for awhile.

Guess I answered at least one of my own questions.

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Family

Speaking of Video Games…

Hi, my name is Gerry and I’m addicted to Angry Birds.

Even though it’s the same thing over and over and over again. The pigs just don’t STOP. They keep coming in waves and droves and hords. Miserable swine. And just when I think I can walk away, along comes the Boomerang bird. Another bird to master. Then along comes a level with TNT and I just have to blow all those boxes up so I can turn those pigs into bacon.

Anyways, it’s been about 5 minutes since the last time I played…

Wait, I think I heard a snort…back later.

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Family

Wait on Video Games- If You Can

There are actually a number of things that I, personally, would throw into the “I’d do it differently now” category when it comes to the kids. But the one big one I always come back to is video games. In short, I really wished we’d waited before introducing them to the kids.

For one, both kids get nasty after playing with the game for awhile. I don’t know if staring at the pixels affects their brain or if there some kind of subliminal thing going on, but more often then not the kids get short tempered and grouchy after playing the game. It’s like they’re coming down off a high or something.

For two, the boy takes these games way to seriously and personally. There’s been many a time where the Wife and I stare at each other in slack-jawed amazement as the boy screams and cries in fury at a game. That’s usually followed by blaming the game for trying to cheat him. When we suggest to simply put the game down and walk away for a few minutes until he regains some semblance of dignity and composure, he refuses.

For three, there’s nothing more annoying than having one kid play and the other sit there and watch. And watch. And watch. If the one plays for 2 hours, the other will sit and watch for those 2 hours. The Wife and I have to resort to either pulling the plug on the games in general, or insisting the watcher go do something more productive.

Plus, there’s the non-stop “Can I play on my DS?” or “Can I play the Wii?” Then they get bored with the games they’ve got and want new ones, so that battle has to be fought.

I let myself be swayed by arguments for how the games encourage problem solving, eye-hand coordination and other such “benefits”. Plus, the friend factor works against the “nots” as well. Even if a game is refused them, thye will still get exposed to it via their friends. If only we could all get together before hand and agree that none of us will go in on the video game thing until their “older,” there might be a chance. Of course, some of them have older siblings, so that approach gets shot to hell in a hurry. Basically, everything is stacked against a parent where video games are concerned.

We all get assimilated eventually. But I’d make “eventually” a lot further out on the timeline if I could.

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Family

Derby Update

No updated pics yet, but the boy has started painting his, mine has 3 coats of paint and the lass’ is almost ready to paint. Once again, I underestimated the weighting game.

Cutting out the car shapes and polishing the wheel axles are piddling compared to weighting the car. You’d think that hitting something near a 5 ounce mark would not be so difficult. I mean, really, 5 ounces isn’t that much. How much weight can it possibly take? So far, the answer is “More than you expect, even after a test weighing.” It’s compounded by the difficulty in knowing how much weight is removed from the car after drilling out the bore holes for the weight to go into. Sure, there’s a net gain once the weight is in their, but it’s not the same as putting the weight on the scale along with an untapped car. I think a rough gauge is that you’ll need an extra 3/4 of an ounce of weight. But that varies with the car shape as well.

Even drilling out the car isn’t straight forward, since the amount of drilling is determined by the amount of weight needed. If the initial estimate is off, then it becomes a game of figuring out where the heck else the darn thing can be drilled.

Oh, and don’t forget that the car needs to be balanced so that it won’t pop-a-wheely out of the starting gate. Guaranteed loser then.

At this stage, the boy’s car has posed the fewest problems. Mine needs more weight, but I have no room left on the top, so I intend to epoxy some weight onto it at the race.

The lass’ has been very difficult. The car itself, prior to drilling it out, weighed less than 2 ounces (that included the wheels and axles). By the time I was done drilling it out so I could fill it in with the weight, there’s probably less than an ounce of wood left. When I added the weights, I also filled them with glue to gain as much extra weight as possible. Additionally, her car design puts so much weight towards the rear that I’m afraid it will want to do a wheely out of the starting gate. I put a some weight in the front, attempting to minimize the possibility, but I don’t know if it will work. The big bummer here is she couldn’t help a lot because the setup for the drilling was tedious and beyond her current capabilities. Though, in retrospect, I probably should have had her watch and explained what I was doing. Live and learn, as they say.

The kids took turns polishing their axles on the drill press. That included putting the nails into the chuck and then filing them as well as polishing them with wet/dry sandpaper. Additionally, the boy drilled out the bore holes for his car’s weight, used the hacksaw to cut the weights to fit, helped seal up the filled holes and did the painting. A big step in the right direction from last year, where he wasn’t nearly as involved in the actual construction.

All in all, a decent weekend of derby work.

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Family

New Pinewood Derby Cars

A new year, a new crop of cars. Our Cub Scout pack is having 3 races this year: the Scout race, a sibling race and a parent race. Thus, the third car is my own.

From top to bottom, the cars are the boy’s, the lass’ and mine. Not sure how we all ended up designing similar cars. I came up with mine on my own. The kids chose theirs from a book we got about the Derby.

I cut the blanks again. The cutting was a breeze by comparison with last year, for which I was glad. Some other Scouts came over and I cut out there cars as well. Tough to beat a bandsaw when it comes to Derby car work.

Unlike last year, the kids traced their design onto the blanks and then did all the sanding themselves. So they’ve already contributed more to this years project than last year. They’re looking forward to the painting and they’ve started picking out stickers as well. The lass is going for a patriotic theme and wants to paint her car red, white and blue like the American Flag. The boy wants his jet black. I’m just figuring on painting mine using some of the left over paint. Probably blue.

The Derby isn’t for a couple of weeks though. So we’ve got time to get them done. Should be fun.

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Family

The Wimpy Gambit

I would gladly pay tomorrow, for a hamburger today.

Wimpy, from Popeye

The Wimpy Gambit is when a child attempts to procure a promise for the future. What the promise is can range anywhere from having a cookie, to playing a video game, to having a friend over, to something they’ve never asked before. Sometimes the Wimpy Gambit is presented as an exchange. For instance, the child will voluntarily do a chore now if you’ll promise them something for later. The key is always: what is the “something?”

Of all the various techniques kids use, the Wimpy Gambit is the easiest to handle with a variety of techniques at the parent’s disposal. There is no one best way.

The simplest method is to give in. Of course, this depends entirely on how benign the “promise” is, which, of course, falls into the personal taste flavor of things. Generally speaking, if it’s harmless and/or hassle free, there’s little to lose. Plus, the parent has now gained an advantage: they allowed the child to do something, and some form of recompense can be made later on.

Another common counter technique is to brush the request off until later. The main hope here is that the child will forget their request. Generally speaking, this doesn’t happen. When it comes to something they want, children have a memory like an elephant. When brushing them off, be prepared for them broaching the subject later. Also, be prepared for a “Flood-the Zone” attack, where the child will continue to ask the same thing over and over again.

Denying the Wimpy Gambit is another possibility. The main cost here is the hassle of dealing with some sort of blow-back. The child may do anything from stomping off in a fit of rage and disappointment, to start whining and asking “Why?” (Answer: always “Because.”)

There’s also a horse-trading technique where the parent can extract favors, or promises of their own, from the child in exchange for their own promise. Generally, if allowable, this is the best way to go. Making them earn something in return for a reward of their own choosing can make everyone happy.

Often times, the Wimpy Gambit will be deployed when the child thinks the parent is either distracted or tired. Or both. It is an attempt to sneak one over an unsuspecting parent when their guard is down. The child can actually become quite accurate at judging these moments of weakness. This scenario can lead to the worst case outcome where a promise is made that never should have been. Beware, reneging on a “promise” does not go well with a child. Ever.

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Family

An Admission

The boy was putting his clothes away when I walked into his room before bedtime. I watched him quietly for a few moments as he finished putting his pants onto “clip” hangers. When he finished, I chuckled and said “I remember when you first started doing that how you’d cry and carry on and complain ‘I can’t do it!!'” The last part I mimicked a pained, whiny voice for effect.

“Now look at you. Just getting the job done without any complaints,” I finished.

He smiled and replied “I just did that to get you and Mom to do it for me.”

Brazen!

I chuckled some more and said simply “Yeah- we knew.”

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Family

A New Year…

… but the old routine. School, dancing, Cub Scouts, karate, hockey. Ugh.

Best to just knuckle down and get to it.

Categories
Family

The Center of the Universe

I was bringing a chair downstairs into our basement. The lass was already down there practicing with her new jump rope. She asked me what I was doing, because bringing a chairs back to where it normally resides definitely needs an explanation.

After telling her simply “I’m putting the chair back” she replied “OH! So you can watch me practice my jump roping.”

Yep. That was it.

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Family

A New Year’s Resolution for the Boy

For a change of scenery this week, we took the kids out to an indoor activity slash fun-park place. They’ve got little carnival type rides; games; inflatable slides; games; bumper cars; and games. It’s also got a ticket system where playing the different games earn tickets. The better the game is played, the more tickets are earned. When everything is done and said, the kids can redeeem all their tickets for junk. YAY!!!

But this isn’t about all the games they played or the good time they had or the rides they were on. Actually, it’s not even about the fact that we were at one of these indoor fun parks. It’s about the boy and his inability to accept that he’s going to suck at something the first time he tries it.

Now, to be clear, the Wife and I have no problem with him sucking at things. I suck at knitting and house cleaning. The Wife sucks at woodworking and bread baking. It’s impossible to go through life without sucking at things.

The boy seems to not get this rather banal concept. It was brought into HD-like focus yesterday when I introduced him to ski-ball. Now, you might be wondering how anyone could not have fun at ski-ball. Frankly, until yesterday, I just wouldn’t have thought it possible. That’s why I took him over to play it for a bit. The whole point is IT’S FUN! And just as importantly, it’s fun even if you suck at it.

But the boy proved me wrong yesterday. After showing him how what to do, I gave him 2 tokens to plunk in another machine and play a game. I plunked 2 more tokens into my own machine and started a 2nd game for myself next to the boy. Half-way through my game, I became aware of the fact that the boy was whipping the balls up the ramp at the speed of light, in the process agitating himself into a severe sobbing fit. I stood in amazement and watched him complete his game with tears rolling down his cheeks yelling at the game that it “was STOOPID!!!”

While dealing with his ridiculous tantrum, I came to realize that this is what he does with new activities. He does it regularly in karate when new self-defense techniques are introduced. (I spent this morning working with him on shoulder rolls- he was nearly in tears at several points and nearly quit on me. Fortunately, he finally had some success which led to more success and then suddenly it wasn’t “too hard” and he did 5 on his own. Total elapsed time from start to (successful) end: 10 minutes.) He does it with games on his DS and Wii. The Wife and I can oftentimes hear him upstairs in his room screaming/crying in frustration when Mario keeps biting the big one. He did it when first learning to skate and to play hockey and baseball (No- you can’t hit a homerun with every swing). He did it while learning to read and he’s done it with math as well.

The bottom line is, if he can’t be awesome at “it” right from the word “GO,” he descends into this state of denial, where the game or activity is to blame for his deficiencies at it. Frustration takes care of the rest.

What’s more, unless it’s a DS or Wii game, he will typically choose to avoid the activity for the rest of his life. That’s the point where the Wife or I have to intercede and provide some form of course correction.

The tantrum aside, the most frustrating aspect for the Wife and I is that he’s had enough examples of succeeding after practicing or sticking-with-it that we feel like he should recognize he doesn’t have to act that way. It’s one thing to try something and decide “Meh- not my thing. What’s next?” and quite another to have repeated mental breakdowns because stunningly, he wasn’t perfect on his first try.

It’s tempting to chalk this behavior up to his age and I’m sure it contributes. But he’s been doing it for so long now that I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s just who he is. I’m sure that time will temper his emotions, but more important he needs to learn that first, he won’t be great at anything the first time he tries it; and second, that’s OK.

Thus, his New Year’s resolution. And if he doesn’t learn it this year, well, I’m sure you can guess the rest…