Tag Archives: discipline

development, education

Emerging with the Sun

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The Ladies of Team Hokama at the Japanese GardensThe warm sunshine has felt so good lately. And what’s felt even better is an almost healthy family! I say almost, because I’ve just now gotten over phlegmy-phlegm-phlegm and Sarah is just now getting better from a cold as well. BUT, thankfully, the kids have gotten over the rotating wheel of badness, which has allowed us to enjoy and focus on some other things…

…for instance, Valentines was a lot of fun. Keana hand made cards for everyone in her class. We cheated a little by making one drawing for the boys and just coloring each one, but every girl got a custom picture of themselves with Keana. She had herself dancing, flying, and “going crazy” and no two were alike. I have to say, she did get a little stressed out when she realized the breadth of the project she had taken on. She tends to do that—get stressed out over long-term projects. It’s very difficult convincing her she has enough time and that “it will all be okay.” Right now she’s working on her first report for second grade. They’re studying goods/products and she chose almonds. I think it’s because Sarah’s been in the process of converting them to non-dairy milk (just to see if there are benefits for them, not particularly due to any terrible allergy). Keana really likes the vanilla almond milk, so there you go. Keana’s been literally harassing us about helping her research and type. All the research and writing is basically done and it’s not due until Friday, so for now, it looks like this girl is not our procrastinator.

Maia has been having a lot of success sleeping on her own, through the night, with the help of a tracking chart (with fun stickers). It’s something we’ve tried before, but this time it’s really working. We started out three nights in a row then a small prize, then upped it to four, then five, etc. It’s worked so well, we’ve started using a chart for Keana too, but she’s working on cleaning up after herself, particularly with clothes. I too have chart, and I’m working on not getting angry or being mean, and communicating better by acknowledging when I’m spoken to. The anger thing I’ve been working on for a while but I’ve still had my moments of frustration where I raise my voice. And with three kids talking at once, I have found it easier to just listen and not talk, but when I get busy I tend to not even acknowledge important things even if I do hear them. I’m not very good of thinking of reasonable prizes for myself though (like, an iPad isn’t really a fair prize for 5 stickers), but the chart is really helping me too. I attribute it to my competitive nature. Doesn’t matter what it is, I want to win dammit, fill up those squares!

Aliya’s much less cranky now that she feels better and it’s so much fun watching her learn new things and hearing the complexity in her thoughts and speech increase daily. Yesterday she pointed and called out “O!” in the word “stop.” She’s also been figuring out “how many”, mostly just up to two. Her sense of humor is coming along nicely too and I’m pretty sure she’s going to be cracking us up regularly as she gets older. She already appropriates jokes she hears from her older sisters. That being said, she can switch to serious in heartbeat. If you call her “silly” or some other thing, she’s quick to put on her stern face and say, “I’m not silly, I’m ALIYA!” We still call her “Babe-in” too, so sometimes she refers to herself as that. She mostly doesn’t nap anymore but by the time 4 or 5 rolls around, she’s very tired and does tend to get more needy. But at night, she goes straight to sleep and mostly sleeps until 6 or 7. Her sisters are really good about playing with her and she and Maia, especially, can play around the house together for hours, running from one end to the other, caring for babies, catering an event, or just following some other imaginative adventure. This last week she started calling Maia, “Maia Mama” and looks to her for help and comfort at times. It reminds me of when Maia started calling Keana, “Little Mama” around the same age.

This weekend was the first warm one in a while—where everyone was healthy—so we went to this huge park nearby called Woodward Park and had a picnic, ran around, explored, played chase, danced silly, and climbed trees. We also visited the Japanese Gardens and had fun crossing the bridges and checking out the koi. It was a great reminder of how important it is to get out as a family and be in the sun and just do kid-like things. When there’s sickness and it’s cold and hazy out, and there’s all that stress that goes along with that, it’s hard to remember that it will eventually pass, the sun does come out and warm things up, and better times are always just around the corner.

development

Six and Sassy

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Keana is six and sassy and not always in that cute, confident way. You ask her to do something and she does the opposite. Examples:

  • Keana’s bothering her sister and I can hear Maia scream “Stop! Stop!” over and over, yet Keana persists. I know she hears us tell her to listen to Maia, and knows herself what “good” choices are, but she continues just a little bit longer.
  • She picks up Aliya and swings her around, and Aliya thinks it’s fun the first time, but of course the second and third time she’s not so sure. We bring Keana’s attention to Aliya’s signs that she doesn’t like it, but she does it again, a minute later.
  • She says she wants to do something like turn on the TV. You say it’s not a good time, that she’s already watched enough, and even as you’re talking, she walks away towards the living room to turn it on. Oh man. That one really gets me.

I get the sense it’s because she needs attention and/or she’s trying out the boundaries of her own power, but we’ve still struggled with how best to handle it. I find myself echoing what I was told growing up: “keep your hands to yourself” and “if you can’t do a good job listening, there will be consequences”. In these moments, my best examples and logic eventually feel like threats, and at the end of the day I worry about what I’m really teaching her. At the same time, of course, we need to keep everyone happy and safe.

Maia is now old enough that we’ve been able to have them work things out between the two of them, with one of us facilitating the discussion. We make sure they both get to talk and tell the other how the conflict made them feel and think of ways to remedy the issue together. It’s definitely going to take patience and discipline to work at this higher level, but I know the payoff will be much greater. The really tough times though, are those moments when Ms. Thang pulls her power play at the end of the day, when everyone’s tired, you’re cooking dinner, holding Aliya, and trying to mentally and emotionally wrastle with her.

I really need to get that book, How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen, and How to Listen so Your Kids Will Talk. I’ve been saying that for years to myself, but I think it’s finally at the time where I need some back-up. And of course it’s especially difficult, because most of the time Keana is a brilliant, sweet angel, so the contrast in behavior is striking and therefore harder to handle at times. We’ve come to trust and expect a lot from her and maybe that’s part of the problem too. Then there’s always that part of any situation with all of us, really, that we can chalk it up to development. We are all learning and growing, not just the kids, but Sarah and I too. For me though, labeling it as “normal behavior” sure doesn’t make it any easier to know how to deal with it. Basically, I guess, there are just going to be these challenges as a parent, and I really do need to just keep at it with everything I’ve got to avoid falling into bad habits, complacency, and handling these difficult situations with my own damaging behavior.

[big sigh]

development

Sometimes it ain’t easy

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Note: This is a little bit of a rant, so for those of you who just want the feel-good stuff about parenting, skip to the last paragraph.

I feel like we go on a roller coaster of frustrations. The majority of these moments of frustration don’t stem from new issues, but issues we deal with day in and day out. That makes sense of course, because most of us learn through repetition, so when one of our darling children is working something out, we experience it over and over again. One of the most difficult things we’ve been dealing with Keana on is possession. Since she’s been on the planet longer, she has more toys than Maia. To be fair, I think if we added up all instances of “toy interaction” with Keana and Maia, on the whole, Keana would be considered a phenomenal sharer. However, it seems like every day, there’s some sort of altercation—or on the worst days, many—where Keana rips a toy out of Maia’s hand because she wants it. Or she performs what I call “mental warfare” on Maia, where she doesn’t necessarily take something outright from Maia, but she constantly pesters Maia to trade or share with her, asking her over and over if she can have it. Eventually Maia is worn down or confused by the verbal assault and ends up forfeiting her possession. This issue is especially hard for me because when I was growing up I didn’t have a lot of toys and I feel like my brother and I shared really well. Of course we were closer in age, so maybe that makes a difference? Boys vs. girls? General temperament and personality? I see so clearly how much Keana has, but it never seems to be enough and at times there is no reasoning with her. She could have every toy but one in the sandbox, and she’d want that last toy too. We definitely need to do some research on this one.

As I mentioned in my last post, there’s the sleeping issues. This last week Keana was sick and waking up more in the middle of the night with a runny nose and cough. So we put her to sleep in her room initially and let her switch to our room when we went to bed—moving her to her little mattress on the floor—as a way to provide some comfort for her while she’s sick, and therefore more sleep. Which was great, but that little change somehow triggered something that made it more difficult for her to fall asleep. She would call out and use every excuse known to four-year-old as to why she couldn’t fall asleep: “Um, I need another stuffed animal.” (when she already had about 20 on her bed), “The closet door isn’t open enough.” (we leave the light in the closet on and the door open so it’s less scary), “I need another hug and kiss.” We played sweet at first and accommodated her silly requests, chalking it up to not feeling well, but eventually had to take a stricter approach. I’ve said this before, and to new or non-parents it often seems like we’re being “mean”, but you give them an inch and they will go a mile (and then some).

Another good example of frustrating moments is bath time. First Keana doesn’t want to get in the bath, which we know is her just being “four”. Once she’s in, she and Maia often play well together. However, the time comes when things get too rough or she takes Maia’s toy or whatever, and we have to intervene. While we do our best to ask her to stop or explain why what she’s doing is a problem, she’ll make a face at us or stick her tongue out, which honestly really gets to me. We explain she has a choice to either stop the negative behavior or end bath time. She pushes and pushes and again, we try to “play nice” but the time comes when we have to be the parent and back up what we say by ending bath time for her prematurely (as we said we would if she didn’t stop). At this point we know full well there will be a tragic meltdown, but those moments seem to be really necessary lessons for her so she knows what the boundary is.

All of these things are related and like I said, I think some research might help us at least understand things better. But the bottom line is you have to be the parent and “lay down the law” which won’t always—if ever—go over well. It’s a really, really hard thing to do and it can keep you up at night wondering if you’re a saint for teaching your kids a valuable life lesson, or if you’re just a big, bad, mean old person.

You may have noticed that all these frustrations I’ve mentioned involve Keana. Maia has her moments- like when she hits or pinches you because she’s frustrated- but she’s not even two yet so she’s coasting on her cuteness for now, and hasn’t developed all the emotional complexities that Keana has.

The really interesting part of all of this—and really critical part—is that it doesn’t last. At the end of the day, usually starting with story time right before bed, the negative stuff just melts away. We have a chance to sit down with each other and just enjoy a fictional adventure accompanied by great artwork. Maia goes off with Sarah to nurse and have her bed time, and Keana snuggles into my armpit, leans against my chest, and is at complete peace with the day, me, and the story. We tuck her in, say good night, and embark on some time with each other. Mama and Papa. Sarah and Luke. Big, bad, mean old person to big, bad, mean old person. Sure the hard times and mistakes of the day still echo in our heads, but when our bed time comes, I replay all the cute, amazing things I experienced with Keana and Maia throughout the day and feel almost refreshed.

development

Sass Monkey

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Little Miss Keana is quite the sass-monkey. It’s not that she’s rude or disobedient, but the girl’s got some fire. The phrase “if you give them an inch, they’ll go a mile” was created for Keana. We are far from a militant household, but we have to run a pretty tight ship to keep things from spinning out of control.

Bedtime has been a big one on and off in Keana’s life, and it’s really interesting to see how her little ways have carried from infancy until now. For instance when she was 8 months old she would play with my lower lip while I rocked her to sleep, trying to distract me from the task at hand. The three-year-old version of that is saying things like, “I’m hungry!” even though she just ate, or (my favorite) “My eyebrows hurt!” Just about anything to delay sleep-time. Another interesting thing is I think she really got used to us all sleeping in the same space while camping, and she really liked it. So when we got home from the campout this year, sleeping alone in her room just wasn’t appealing. She would say, “Can I sleep with you guys” or “Can you just sleep on the floor next to me?” At first I would just lay next to her until she was almost asleep, but that evolved into waking up in the middle of the night, every night, to make this request. We finally got that one locked down and now we’re dealing with getting her to stay in her bed…ah the joys of running a happy dictatorship (i.e. parenting).

After saying all that though, Keana really is a complete angel and we still consider ourselves very fortunate to have such a smart, sensitive, and hilarious first born!