ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

Shakey Mo, I have no experience in breaking that kind of observation to parents. But I've worked with a lot of kids of that ilk and... you should tell your friends to send their kid to a screening. Not a professional, mind you, but just a kind of neuropsych check-up. For the kid's benefit. All the signs you observe are, indeed, flags (although for autism or something else is super hard to predict) but allowing the parents just the possibility of a screening as a release, and a maybe transitional step toward greater intervention. If they're resisting, it's likely they know that something is wrong, and fear medicalizing/diagnosing/Rxing/stigmatizing their kid, and that pointing them in the direction of a specific pathology may make them resist more. IOW just kinda say 'better to do it now and be reassured or risk the possibility that maybe maybe there's something time-sensitive you aren't catching, and w/o early intervention these situations can rapidly degrade.'

no WmC I don't think he's dangerous. I mean, he's only 4 he's not really capable of inflicting serious damage on anyone (besides himself I guess). and it's not that he's mean or cruel or abusive it's just kinda like other people don't, I dunno, exist to him, in some ways...?

and thx Remy - yeah at the moment what we're wrestling with is how to convince the parents, without ruining our relationship with them (we like them! they are nice people!), that this is maybe something that they should check out, and the sooner the better. But I think even broaching the subject is problematic, we don't want to appear like we're disparaging their parenting or stigmatizing the child or anything like that. it's... tricky.

id be really v. surprised if a caretaker hasn't brought it up already.

theres no way you can broach this and come out unscathed. its their kid after all.

I don't know, but we used to have this thing that was like basically two wedges of foam rubber covered in white cloth and it created two little "walls" that kept the baby from rolling over

yeah, ours was called the "lil snuggler" but it may not be sold anymore, saw something similar called the snuggle nest. should be able to get one fairly cheap.

Thanks, Buzza and Hurting...putting it on the list.

FINALLY easy, convenient compostable diapers: http://www.earth-baby.com/summary.php?go=products

the whole toxic-disposable-diaper thing really bothered me

So, Ms. BLAM and I are having a daughter. She's scheduled to arrive July 5th, but if she's anything like either of us, she'll be early.

I am so very very stoked, but also so very very freaked the heck out. This board has made me feel very good today, though.

Congratulations, T&JS, and H2!

congrats blam!

congrats!

(her name better have nothing to do with the ravens)

Thanks guys!! Nope - No Ravens references, but I have offered a bonus payment to those who provide any Ravens swag to the little miss.

I will be forthcoming with her name when she arrives. Kind of want to keep it a secret until the day. We are entirely sure its going to be a girl, however - the sonogram tech was like "Its basically like she's sitting on a glass table. No questions here!" And I hope this is true, because her "aunties" have been extremely generous in providing a Pepto Bismol themed wardrobe thus far.

Yeah that compostable diaper thing looks like a good solution -- I hate using mass landfill-fill diapers but the usual alternative is cloth, which is labor and water intensive, so imo not necessarily a great alternative.

Congrats, BLAM!

awww many congrats to you BLAM :)

Congrats! Someday you will get to have this conversation with your beautiful daughter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry-LwxR746s

Oh yeah and congrats BLAM!

congrats blam!

more congrats blam! It's going to be a fun next several months for you!

earlier than july 5th? I believe this short video best conveys my congratulations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGiYEWRzTik

thread derail:

my preschool co-op has monthly meetings about various issues, my wife and I alternate who has to go. The last two have been about dealing with race/cultural sensitivity, etc. While both of us found the facilitator and her tactics to be extremely irritating (trust circles! role playing!) even MORE irritating has been the exposure of some really unfortunate/unbelievably blinkered attitudes, most of which can be summed up with "rmde @ white people"

like, guess what, white people don't want to talk about race! People actually unironically parrot Stephen Colbert's "I don't see color" routine! White people have a hard time identifying ways in which they might be priveleged, have more power than others! White people don't understand why they should have to do this at all, cuz aren't we all sensitive, conscientious (ie, liberal) adults in this community? argggh

seriously made me want to stab

How culturally diverse is your preschool? I'm very interested in this topic concerning children.

Enrollment people clearly work REALLY hard to get a diverse mix of children in the school - while the majority is white, there are latino, black, asian, and a number of mixed-race children. I'd say the population distribution is roughly equivalent to the US as a whole. Even so, it's mind-boggling how it doesn't seem to register with various white people that the ones taking the "I don't want to discuss this at all" angle are all white. gee, why is that... like people actually say things like "my kid will just figure it out!", "I tell them skin color doesn't matter" etc.

like what fucking world are you living in!? so infuriating.

I find it difficult to teach our five-year-old about racism without teaching her racism, if that makes any sense.

Beeps has been doing this thing where she switches around phonic sounds and makes spoonerisms, kinda cute. She's also one helluva contrarian.

The other night, I told her to eat her chicken nuggets. She retorted They're chicken NIGGETS!

I turned to her and said, "Don't say that, please." She says WHY? I tell her "because they're called nuggets. Use the correct word."

"But I wanna call them NIGGETS."

How do I even cross over this bridge with a five-year-old? She didn't technically say anything wrong and she certainly didn't mean anything by it. Maybe I was being too sensitive. Still.

She finally got it out of her system, but I dread the phone call from school we're bound to get one of these days.

(Good thing they've got sunny's cell and not mine.)

lol, yikes! not racially unsettling, but my 2 1/2 year old has had some similar things she's said, where we just try to ignore it. like she went through a kind of gibberish-spouting phase where she was basically saying: "tittay tittay tittay" ... got some weird looks in restaurants for that one.

Veronica totally does that too, it's a verbal/language thing, just playing with sounds.

I woulda let that one go, probably. But if she inadvertently hit on a slur I would tell her not to use that particular combination of syllables and why.

xp

also discussing race is not quite the same thing as discussing racism, imho...? Like, acknowledging and recognizing differences in skin color, that's just teaching your child to be observant about race. This person looks like this, that person looks like that, you look like this = your child understanding the ways that people are different from each other.

How value is ascribed to that skin color is where the "racism 101" stuff comes in.

I think grown-ups' discomfort with talking about race stuff gives kids the feeling that it's bad!! They can tell when something seems off-limits, which is the same as when they do things that are shameful and you socialize them to do it in private: touch themselves, talk about pooping, pick their noes, I dunno, whatever it is. Anyway, lots of times adults shut kids down for talking about colors of people or w/e and it can make it seem "bad" to them. Probably there are more positive, open-ended ways?

otoh we are kind of at the end of a stage where we've taught Veronica that it isn't nice/polite to shout out characteristics of random people she sees. we try to emphasize that while she should recognize these things and feel free to discuss them in the proper context (friends, social situations, etc.) it's rude to just shout things at people. which is a good lesson in general.

xp

I think grown-ups' discomfort with talking about race stuff gives kids the feeling that it's bad!!

yeah this is totally what happens. And then they either make up their own weird theories or absorb the weird theories of their peers.

Beeps has done her fair share of yelling out "That little brown boy has a SpongeBob balloon!" in the parking lot. Shakey otm about just saying it's rude to shout like that.

also discussing race is not quite the same thing as discussing racism, imho…?

And this is true too. What I meant was, I didn't really want to teach her a new word while going on about how bad it is. We've gone over skin differences already with me making the comparison to differences in eye color, which is completely the same thing, amirite?

I don't know, does she need to know she said something similar to "a bad word"? It seems like a tenuous connection to try to make without confusing her.

We've gone over skin differences already with me making the comparison to differences in eye color, which is completely the same thing, amirite?

totally. hope you threw in that all redheads are demon children while you were at it lol

Congratulations, BLAM!

like, guess what, white people don't want to talk about race! People actually unironically parrot Stephen Colbert's "I don't see color" routine! ........
― be scientific, douchebag (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, March 6, 2012 10:29 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

PP and I were messing around joking about racists and crazily PC peeps and I said something like 'Hey, Dude. I don't know what race that person is. I'm like totally colorblind' when it hit me for the first time ever. 'Hey! wait a minute. COLORBLIND PEOPLE STILL SEE BLACK AND WHITE!!!'

Realizations of the 39 y/o

i don't care if you're black, white, purple -- only if you're red or green

that ep187 story about the woman who had the dinner party and was flirting with a dude she hadn't met before as everyone was leaving. After everyone had left she hears a noise from outside and looks to the side kitchen door.
(in Seth's high pitched girl voice)"AJ??"
(in Johnathon's super low crazy person voice)"I FORGOT TO RAPE YOU"

just
dying

wrong thread, imo.

T and I have been reading about attachment parenting and we're both really into this idea. Anyone have any knowledge of this, ideas about it?

i think we do attachment parenting? i don't really remember what it entails exactly, but a lot of it just seemed like common sense good parenting.

I haven't read on it in enough depth, but I'm skeptical of any totalizing parental philosophy. I also think it seems very anxiety-producing (and anxiety-driven), because the implied inverse of attachment parenting is that failure to sufficiently do all these attachment-forming/encouraging things to a sufficient extent will lead your child to be some kind of emotional cripple or insecure person. I mean at some point on the spectrum, of course, that's true. I generally think babywearing, breastfeeding, lots of time holding the baby, lots of positive interaction are all good and so far I can see that these things make our baby feel secure. At the same time I have watched friends wind up with a child who still sleeps in the bed with mom and dad at age 3. It's hard to say that this was "because" they were so gung-ho about attachment parenting. Maybe the root of it is really the underlying anxiety -- sending the child the message that he won't be ok without you and you won't be ok without him.

I also find it hard to believe that discipline and good behavior can be learned without any kind of negative feedback ever.

From what I understand you always keep your baby close to you, as in no baby carries or stollers. When at home, you have a lot of skin on skin contact with the baby, and when the baby cries you feed her/him. Some books we read seem to think you shouldn't feed the baby when ever it cries, to train it in some way. But this seems like a weird punishment since crying is the only resource the baby has to express itself.

But this is just for the first month or two, when the baby is still in a fragile state. Right?

I agree there should be a point where boundaries should be established, like we are Mom and Dad and you are a person. But I'm on board for these first months of closeness. A friend of T has a baby that is almost a month old and last night they went to see Radiohead, and it confused me. They are also planning on going to most of SXSW. I'm having a hard time with the fact I will have to go back to work, and can't imagine caring about rock shows.

I know that sounds pompous of me, but these people were trying to have a baby for a year, I dunno.

nah that sounds insane you are OTM

I am also suspicious of totalizing parental philosophies (ie, "WE parent like this!") although of course various tactics and practices should be tried to see what works for you and your baby. But I don't subscribe to some kind of parenting dogma, different kids require different strategies. Being all anxious and stressed about whether you are parenting the "right" way is going to be picked up by your kid.

I would also venture that feeding your baby whenever it cries might not be advisable, since babies cry for other reasons than being hungry....? Best to try and determine what they're crying about and then meet that need.