ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

by the way, WE DON'T OWN A DRYER. no one is harder than us.

Any ILPers have thoughts on this?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204740904577196931457473816.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

When American families visited our home, the parents usually spent much of the visit refereeing their kids' spats, helping their toddlers do laps around the kitchen island, or getting down on the floor to build Lego villages. When French friends visited, by contrast, the grownups had coffee and the children played happily by themselves.

stopped reading. building lego villages is fun!

the article seems right to me, & accords with our "model of parenting" (aside from sleep "training", uggh what a horrible word). We lived in Paris a couple of years ago with our three kids < 10 & experienced daily this difference in behaviors, though a bit different as we lived in an immigrant-heavy suburb so the behaviors were shifted with a few other norms.

fuckin hate it when I spent time with other parents w/ the kids all together & the parents can't stop "dealing" with kid bullshit

didn't read most of it because that shit pisses me off but they really REALLY underplay this bit:

Of course, the French have all kinds of public services that help to make having kids more appealing and less stressful. Parents don't have to pay for preschool, worry about health insurance or save for college. Many get monthly cash allotments—wired directly into their bank accounts—just for having kids.

I hung out w someone's kid last night. He's adorable and smart and appealing, but he has to have something--a person to pay attention to him, or a video game, or something--to engage him all the time.

I've been thinking about this kind of parenting stuff b/c my sister is firm w my nephew, too, and my family kind of gets on her for it, but it WORKS.

the weirdest thing to me is when people act like there's one right way to parent.

(re: the article, not the comments on this thread)

Well, there are probably "better" ways to parent in order to achieve a desired outcome, if that outcome is "being able to visit with an adult for 30 minutes in the company of your child."

My Italian-Australian friend commented on this many years ago, years before she had kids of her own, that her parents acted like their 3 offspring were additions to an adult household, not the center of everyone's world. It seemed intriguing and potentially very effective to me at the time; she definitely thought it had been a good choice for her own family.

I tend to think / worry / etc. that parents who act like their offspring are "the center of everyone's world" don't really know how to enjoy adult company, or else have been accustomed to adult company that's not worth enjoying.

there are probably "better" ways to parent in order to achieve a desired outcome

this is basically saying the same thing i said? different parents are going to have different desired outcomes, which is ok. what's weird is acting like there's one desired outcome.

ME: "Turn off the TV and go use the bathroom NOW!"
…
Later,

BEEPS: "You hurt my feelings."
ME: "Well you keep peeing in your pants. Looks like we're even."

Feel like I've got it down until this morning when I take her to her pre-K classroom. She wants me to unbutton her coat and I instinctively go down on a knee to do so. Her teacher stops and says to her, "No, you open your coat. Show your daddy what you do when he's not around."

And I'm thinking the whole time, that little sneak.

let's be clear here, this article's main argument hinges on which style of parenting for the PARENT, not which style of parenting is better for the child.

that being said duh yes be firm with your child, teach them to entertain themselves, my daughter generally has no problem drawing/coloring/playing legos/pretending to cook/whatever for a little while while adults do something else

argh "is better for the PARENT"

And LOL at the headline and cover art for that WSJ story H2 posted.

interesting article, though obv filled w/ generalizations. I'm sure not every french parent is like that. but we are struggling w/ our 2 1/2 year old being able to do *anything* on her own. if she's off playing by herself for like 2 minutes, we're amazed and excited. just not very independent at all. if she's playing with something, she wants us to be playing with it too. if we don't go play with her, she wants us to hold her.

she's got a weird situation, though -- my wife stays at home with her and I work at home 90% of the time now. so we're *always* around. i can't really blame her for thinking we should just be there at all times. but the "no" thing is useful, we're trying to be more tough about not just dropping everything for the smallest thing she wants.

Yeah I think for me the trick would be feeling tender and affectionate toward my kid/s and yet saying "No" lovingly and not in irritation at all. You say it because you believe hearing "No" and being self-entertaining and uh more patient (although I don't know if I think it's that simple) is beneficial for your kid, not because they're getting on Mommy's nerves and she's trying not to open the bottle of wine until at least 4pm.

haha my 3-y-o is playing by himself more, talking to his toys, etc but virtually every time i listen in he's bossing them around parent-style! "now YOU sit THERE. for FIVE MINUTES. STOP IT." :/

basically between that WSJ article and the "tiger mother" book it seems clear that if you really want to coin it, write a big book telling parents they should be more selfish about their time and less sensitive toward their children

lol yeah. don't treat your kids like kids! you will ruin their childhood!

the funniest thing to me about the whole history of parenting-how-to guides is that overall, at any given point in time, large chunks of the populace have been convinced that children are being raised incorrectly.

like, it doesn't matter what you do, in 10 years it will have been the absolute wrong thing

tbh my sister-in-law is married to a french guy and they just had a baby and hearing her talk (second-hand from my wife) about their child-rearing philosophy is pretty depressing, it's very 1950s USA patriarchy where the SIL is constantly worried about "disturbing" her husband with the baby (who's like 6 months old) crying, etc., so i have trouble romanticizing the french parenting philosophy. but some of that is probably just their relationship, he's kind of a creep in general.

Why didn't French children throw food?

xp That sounds kind of awful. :(

I guess one reason the "french parenting" article appealed to me in part was that I feel like I see a lot of parents around Brooklyn who act a little too much like kids around their kids, like as though they see their primary role as being especially manic and entertaining playmates. I still think a parent probably ought to be modeling aspirational behaviors for their kids, although obviously parents should also have fun with their kids and be silly sometimes. I get the impression sometimes that the parents I'm talking about are not only confusing their kids but getting them kind of hyped up and anxious.

At the same time, the image the article projects onto French parents seems awfully conveniently suited to the parent who wants to avoid being bothered too much by this whole parenting thing.

I have a suspicion that you become the kind of parent you can handle being. I know it makes you be better than you are, every day that you can, because that's the kind of love you feel for yr children, but I also know my brain breaks down from too much noise and chaos and interruption--I have so much sympathy for my dad, in my own adulthood.

I get the impression sometimes that the parents I'm talking about are not only confusing their kids but getting them kind of hyped up and anxious.

Yes, I've seen this, saw it last night from the other guests, too. I get mad when people don't take children seriously and answer them seriously--that 4-yo isn't on this earth to be a joke for you, you know. If you want him to be polite and learn about social interaction, you should maybe stop LAUGHING AT HIM.

"While some American toddlers are getting Mandarin tutors and preliteracy training, French kids are—by design—toddling around by themselves."

This doesn't seem particularly middle-class to me...

it's the wall street journal

My daughter has a Mandarin tutor:

http://www.nihao-kailan.com/img/kailan.gif

I agree with the lack of "no"-ing and the inability of parents to allow children their own space. I don't know how peculiarly American or middle-class they are, but I've definitely observed both pretty frequently even in my short parenting career.

this article is my first exposure to the term "kindergarchy". not sure what it means, but it makes me feel a little sick to my stomach.

literally = rule by children

not sure how i feel about german/greek linguistic mashups.

My mother taught us table manners and how to behave through play. We'd have tea parties and teddy bear dinners, that is how I learned how to behave at the table.

We were never allowed to eat all day or when we wanted to. I think we were actually too poor for that. But after a nap we did get a bowl of pudding or ice cream and so we looked forward to nap time, which was also story time then would wake up to a treat and Mighty Mouse. My mom never carried snacks in her purse.

My paternal grandmother definitely had the whole polite but firm thing going on. At my grandmother's house we wouldn't dare open her fridge or kitchen pantry, would ask to turn her television on and would never wander through the house or ask for snacks. But we loved going there, we had fun. At my maternal grandmother's house, we were completely wild, made anything we wanted in her kitchen, went through her drawers and closets, pulled out boxes of personal belongings...she never said no.

I am interested in reading the book , see how it compares to Dr Sears and attachment parenting.

guh the snack thing. sylvie just went through a phase where she said i'mmmmmm hunnnnnnngry every 10 seconds. part of it was just an attention-getting strategy, but i think she was also going through a growth spurt at the time. really difficult to deny her food when she asks for it constantly, though we tried to have a more rigid schedule for snacks. more than one a day, though, that's for sure.

reading this right now

it's interesting, some good stuff. also some entertainingly dated stuff (late 70s/early 80s depictions of moms with handkerchiefs tied around their heads, casual allusions to hitting children, etc.)

Met with a mid-wife on Monday at a birthing center and loved the facility. She was also very warm and knowledgeable so we decided to go with a water birth at this center.

Yesterday we saw the ob at my scheduled appt and ugh...ended up telling the billing agent we were going with the midwife. I think we even said we were thinking of going with a midwife and this might be our last visit.

When the ob came in he just measured me but didn't follow up on the tests done at my last visit nor was a question I had phoned in between the last visit and yesterday's visit addressed. He asked if I had any problems and I mentioned some pain and he suggested a support belt. Weird since at the last visit I was wearing one and he condescendingly said they just really didn't offer much help or relief but to go ahead and use it if I thought it was doing any good. I then asked if the measurement was normal, if "everything" was normal referring to the urine test, blood pressure and weight taken. He just said yes. I felt I wasn't specific enough.

I don't attribute his flakiness towards us to leaving although I guess it could have been. The office has been really unfocused as has the doctor since day one. So then he said he had heard that we were transferring and we said we were transferring to a midwife. Awkward pause and stares followed then the visit was quickly over after that.

guy sounds like a tool

a friend lent me that book Shakey but i couldn't make it past the first few pages; the author sounds like she had problems we don't really have, and her advice on how to overcome those problems is very much common sense. though it can sometimes be helpful to be reminded what common sense actually is - sometimes you can outthink yourself.

My plan is definitely to apply the "go with your instincts" method of parenting, because I can pretty much never get through more than a few pages of a parenting book.

Kids are all different anyway -- I was naturally quiet and slow-moving, my brother was a perpetual motion machine. I was hold-it-in, he was let-it-out. I probably needed different parenting than he did.

the author sounds like she had problems we don't really have, and her advice on how to overcome those problems is very much common sense

yeah I don't really disagree with this. some of the examples given of things parents might say ("close the door! how can you be so stupid!") are like so over-the-top wrong - just stuff I would never say - lend the book a strange anthropological appeal. like jeez were these really common parenting tactics in the 70s, to constantly emotionally and physically abuse your child...?

for example:

I was so gung ho to get his new approach going in my family that I came home from a meeting, tripped over my daughter's skates in the hall, and sweetly told her, "Skates belong in the closet." I thought I was wonderful. When she looked up at me blankly, and then went back to reading her book, I hit her.

I've since learned two things...

uh, okay

hahaha WHAT

haha, no that's not funny, haha

how about

I was so gung ho to get his new approach going in my family that I came home from a meeting, tripped over my daughter's skates in the hall, and hit her. When she looked up at me blankly, and then went back to reading her book, I sweetly told her, "Skates belong in the closet." I thought I was wonderful.

tbf the book does have some helpful/common-sense things behind it - like, "don't insult your child", "acknowledge their feelings/help them articulate them" etc.

btw y'all i'm a dad now. her name is keren

congratulations, that is wonderful news! <3

congrats!

I second the call for a new thread.

:/

I had a hunch and tried to get my littlest one into Bow Wow Wow one day, but she didn't go for it.

I thought Shonen Knife would be a little kid's dream band, was wrong about that

worked for us, my daughter loves Shonen Knife

am attempting to wean son off of Man-Machine and onto Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat, so far so good

The first time Stet played Oxygène to F it blew his mind.

This one's also popular.

So... anybody have any tips on how to ameliorate the total shit show that brushing teeth/putting on clothes has now become? I basically have to put the poor child in a leg lock, then hold her arms down with my forearm to brush her teeth, and putting shirts is clearly torture as she has become screamingly ideologically opposed to clothing in general.

She had another fit this morning about getting dressed so I had to eventually physically restrain her so I could dress her.

― Immediate Follower (NA), Monday, July 6, 2015 12:56 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So no.

Get her dressed while she's still sleeping.

Charts have worked to help us encourage some behavior. A list of things she needs to do (brush teeth, get dressed, etc.) and if she does a good job on all those things for a week or two, she gets a reward. I don't know if this is "good parenting" though because the desired behavior often tapers off once the reward is given and the chart is no longer being updated.

Ivy's too young for charts, or reasoning such as, "You can't go to daycare without a shirt on. We are not hillbillies."

F was totally refusing to have his teeth brushed until I changed up how we did it. Now I take him through to the bathroom and hold him in my arms while we do it at the sink like grown-ups. Now he comes toddling over to me at bedtime doing the "brush teeth" sign and looking excited.

He also went through a phase of hating getting dressed; I think a big part of that is because apparently when teething lying on your back makes it much worse. Trying to keep him upright as much as possible during dressing definitely seemed to help.

Now that you mention it, Ivy does better at teeth brushing when we do it in the bathroom. Although she has screaming shit fits whenever I try to wash her hands and face so I don't know.

huh dunno Judah loves gettin his teeth brushed. have yet to use actual toothpaste but it's clear he just wants to do what his big sister/parents do which is stand in front of the sink, look in the mirror, etc.

P-q

how do i make it sleep for 3 consecutive hours

Still not entirely sure you do.

Nora did 7:30 to 11:30 last night, then until 1:30, then approx 4am, then 6:45. That's a good night. She's in her own room now.

my sympathies.

both my boys have discovered headphones. much hilarity at the broken acapella singalongs. "but the chair is not my son!!"

that's how that song goes, though

...what?

F has done one of those sudden physical and mental leaps that leaves you looking at him going "who has taken my baby and left this broadly similar kid in his place?".

Pro: he seems to be sleeping massively better. Con: I can see the terrible twos brewing.

http://www.tomheroes.com/images5/COMIC%20flaming%20carrot%205.jpg

Yesterday when I was FaceTiming with my wife and kids, J started saying "book" and began crying when my wife gave him the wrong one. Meanwhile, D gave the phone a fist bump when I asked him for one. These are astonishing little dudes IMO.

Oh man, that's adorable.

outis made a new parenting thread btw. ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now