ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now

Guys, guys, I have discovered the most amazing restaurant in the world -- Benihana! You get to sit for an hour plus meal, during much of which your children are distracted by a juggling clown chef making your food! And the food itself isn't completely terrible!

sounds like they should franchise

Yesterday my 13-year-old kid fell off of his bike and fractured one of his vertebra. He's going to be ok. He's in a lot of pain, but mostly mobile. He needs to avoid strenuous activity for a month, which is going to be the worst part of it for him because he's very active.

He somehow managed to not hit his head when he landed, but if he had, he hadn't been wearing a helmet. The doctor warned us that with the force he hit the ground, a head injury would have been much more severe. We used to make him wear a helmet, but gave in because none of the other kids in the neighborhood wore one. I was excited that he was getting into bmx. I used to freestyle when I was younger and never wore helmets and managed to escape injury. So while we knew it was utterly fucking stupid to let him ride helmetless, we just got swept along.

So even though his back injury would not have been prevented by a helmet, it's been a hell of a wake-up call for me and my wife. Just wanted to put that out there for everybody.

― how's life, Wednesday, May 3, 2017 3:07 PM (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He recovered from this after about two weeks, by the way, and we've let him go back out on the bike as long as he wears a helmet. Of course twice since then he's come home crying about being the only kid to wear a helmet and how none of his 13-year-old friends had ever heard of anybody dying from not wearing a helmet. "You're taking away my freedom!" It's been fun, let me tell you. But at least his strife tells me he's wearing it.

Glad to hear hes recovered!

The arc-up reminds me of yesterday tho: bf had bouht a brand new big-boy bed for the youngest. All in flat pack parts of course so when they got home, he tells both boys they are going to help him put it together (I wasnt in a state to help much, my back's effed).

Older (12yo) kid threw an absolute shitfit, because he was being made to help his father and brother instead of spending time on the internet talking to his friends (which he'd been doing for HOURS at that point as it happens). FINE I WILL JUST HAVE TO GO WITHOUT SPEAKING TO MY BEST FRIEND IN ENGLAND WHO I NEVER GET TO TALK TO THEN he wailed dramatically (*this is complete bollocks he talks to this kid almost every effing day ad had been talking to him for hours just prior!).

Apparently having it pointed out to him that he should give helping his own family priority was "a fucking guilt trip" . I forsee the start of self-absorbed, selfish Teen Angst hoveing over the horizon and I am NOT looking forward to it. Its harder when it isnt your own kid for starters - I'm less attached, so I just get Really Fucking Annoyed. I'm worried as to how i'll deal with this shit.

😡

...did I come across like a bit of a cow with that rant? I hope not :/

HELP! My 4yo has suddenly become a frequently enraged pseudo-teenager, full of bile and insult. Is this normal? Will it pass?

Trayce: you come off fine.

James: I hope it will pass or that you'll be able to help her through it. There were a few times when we used to joke that my son was "seven, going on thirteen", but now that he's actually thirteen, the angsty teenager stuff truly is at a totally different level for us.

Trayce, I trick I've learned is that yelling does absolutely nothing to help the situation. Stay calm and just keep repeating 'You're going to help your father and your brother' in a calm voice even if he is yelling. If that doesn't work tell him if he doesn't help out he cant speak to his English friend for a week.

But, yeah, kids be frustrating as hell.

Anyone have any experience with those nighttime potty training alarms with the moisture sensors?

that sounds horrific

I know. Just not sure what else to do at this point. Will talk to his doctor first.

diaper at night til body figures it out?

That's exactly what those alarms are for. We used one for our oldest daughter, who still wet her bed several times a week when she was six years old. She just couldn't wake up when she needed to pee.

I think we has to use the alarm maybe 4 or 5 nights. After that she got it, and never wet her bed again.

*had*

well that sounds pretty good tbh

We had bed wetting with #2 until recently, age 9 or so? w some kids it seems like there's some hormone or w/e that has to kick in but doesn't until late. we just kept using pull-ups at night until it stopped. I really didn't want this to cause anxiety or worse genital loathing or something like that so we played it very mellow.

Er w #3, sorry, #2 is full ado now, night leakings more likely to be of another type for him

Yeah we're definitely not making an issue of it -- as you say don't want to cause any anxiety. We had been using Tru Fits (they're like underwear with an insert) for maybe three years and I guess in some ways I'd be fine just letting him use them until he's 9 or whatever but I was afraid of those causing anxiety if it ever came up at school or with his friends or something like that. Also thought maybe knowing they were there was keeping him from learning how to wake up since it didn't matter if he didn't. Anyway been without Tru Fits for about two months now and we've got sheets to wash in the morning more days than not. Seems to usually be dry when I get up at 5:30am so might just try waking him them to go to the bathroom and then back to sleep. 4 or 5 nights with an alarm trainer would be great though, will def. look into that option more too.

q) how do i know when dinner is ready? a) my daughter wakes up and starts crying.

Classic.

hmm in my house a) is "Judah shits his pants"

K (now 5) drew this little picture of me as a sun with heart eyes, and there's something about the gentle way she drew the face that just looks so unquestioningly loving, like I don't think I have ever felt as wholly loved as I did when I saw my daughter's love for me in that picture. I've been feeling very sappy about it all day.

aw

That's lovely!

aw indeed.

sweet

she can make your face into a sunheart

Bloody kids!

B and the 2 boys went off to the shopping mall about an hour ago. Not 15 minutes later, Mo's little english friend who is here seeing his dad, knocks on the door. I am confused. "none of them were here... was Mo expecting you?". A replies "well yeah, we were gonna take him camping with us but he hadnt answered any of my texts so we came over to check, I guess he's still sick"

Me, to myself: sick? Mo isnt sick wtf. Kid slinks off sans his friend. I disctincly recall them talking about maybe doing this weekend camp thing a few weeks ago. How could he have forgotten to arrange it properly raaargh!? Hes twelve. He should know better now.

haha don't get your hopes up... My 26 year old brother forgets to arrange literally anything. I think he's supposed to be staying at mine tonight after some hideous all-nighter but I had to ask him how he was getting home (he lives hours away) and he said " oh yeah...." and I think means to stay here but...? He was going to tell me when he'd arranged the journey here, which he hasn't yet so who knows where he'll end up.

lol :) Men!

As it turns out B had already texted them back and said "no Mo isnt free today hes not well" (which explains that comment) and the bloody kid turned up at the doorstep anyway!

There are many aspects of parenting that have made me feel old and out-of-touch, but maybe none so much as becoming the guy who tells a sleepover party of six-year-old girls "I'm not kidding! It's time to go to sleep!"

lool

btw my brother ended up not here, but in London, then rang me to say he'd missed the bus back to his (my parents') home and didn't know when any others were. (Left him to it and he ended up on a later bus)

There are many aspects of parenting that have made me feel old and out-of-touch, but maybe none so much as becoming the guy who tells a sleepover party of six-year-old girls "I'm not kidding! It's time to go to sleep!"

― how's life, Monday, August 28, 2017 4:39 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sometimes when I start doing my "tough parent voice" and get self-conscious about it, it reminds me of that Richard Pryor routine about being a naïve kid and threatening mafiosos to pay him:

I busted into the office with this motherfucker. Talkin' about... "All right. Give me the money. Motherfucker!" Doing my best black shit. You know. You know. That shit usually scare whitey to death. And these motherfuckers didn't do nothin'

I always feel like I'm "doing my best parent shit" and the kids don't flinch.

I tried hardmanning my older kid last week about what time I needed him home and he completely called my bluff and continued to argue his position for 45 minutes until I gave in.

omg I'd have lost it well before that point.

It was tough. I've lost it before - sometimes for good reason, sometimes not. In all, this was over something pretty petty so I didn't want to make it worse than it was. It was essentially a case of trying to convince a hungry and tired child that they're hungry and tired.

I feel a lot of pain around starting my daughter in kindergarten. Seeing her go from this nice little sheltered small preschool to a mega-sized public elementary with 200 kindergartners. Seeing her experience so much anxiety around the change. She has friends at the school but none wound up in her class. I feel like maybe I am reliving some pain I went through as well, because there was something unplaceably painful about the whole experience of public school, even well before I got to the age where actual bullies made it painful.

I don't know, I just feel this terrible existential anguish about it like, "welp, you've reached the point where I have to send you into a chaotic and strange world for reasons that you can't understand and I can't completely understand either."

it's just crazy to me that you have a child in kindergarten so maybe it's just we're getting old

When did/does she start? You say she's experiencing anxiety about it - has she already been through a few days?

I totally understand the angst about sending your kid off to school though. I spend every first day of school off from work, waiting for the bus - THE BUS - to bring them back to me. And then every day after that waiting for whoever is supposed to meet them at the bus to let me know that they got back home ok.

But I think that schools have gotten a lot better about bullying. Even though there is some of it there, it's not as bad as it used to be and the schools have better systems in place to handle conflicts that arise.

Our littlest, 11 now, has started middle school, entailing a métro ride across the city (~30 mins each way). We're taking her and picking her up this first week, and probably some of next week, but then we'd like her to be on her own. It's pretty normal here for kids to ride the train to school, but it's still a bit of a leap of faith for us.

Our oldest has started her last year of high school too! We had kids early for our peer group (mid 20s) & I have plenty of friends my age still having their first. It's weird.

Sometimes I just feel like the entire apparatus of school is a terrible thing to put children through, even when there's no bullying. For example, I hate the way they have different teachers each year, different classmates each year, so much change every single year for like 17 years of their lives. It seems so destabilizing.

Dropoff today was bedlam. The K kids wear tags with their name and class to make sure they get to the right room because they can't even accommodate parents bringing their kids into the school, it's so over capacity.

K was fine when I picked her up fwiw and said she had fun in school, but later in the afternoon had an extreme meltdown, which I guess is pretty typical for how kids her age process stress.

Oh god having the same classmates every year would have been horrible

Wait wait... you dont have the same class mates each year? In HS i get that, youre picking subjects but when I was in primary school, we more or less had the same set of kids going thru the same classes unless they like, moved or something.

Actually even in high school I did up til year 10.

Well in my elementary school actually it was a relatively static group -- we might shift back and forth btw classes but there were only two or three teachers in a grade so we were mostly with the same kids in K-6. Middle school fed from a bunch of different elementary schools and also some kids I was friends with left and went to private school. I guess had I gone to my neighborhood high school instead of a magnet school I would have stayed with a lot of the same kids.

K's school has 8 fucking kindergarten classes of 25 kids each. Also the area is just more transient and a lot of people move to the suburbs somewhere btw K and 5th grade/

Not sure about elementary, because we moved so many times when i was in K-5, but def staring in 6th grade we had multiple teachers throughout the day and different kids in each class.

8 kinder classes! yikes thats a heavy load of kiddies :)