by Matthew | Mar 20, 2014 | Parents' Roundtable |
Hello, fellow parents:
As I write this post on my phone, I’m sitting at the gate at Washington National, waiting out an indefinite delay. I might be agitated, but I feel content to sit and relax. It’s a matter of perspective and contrast.
I took this same trip a year ago this time, but last year, I brought all three kids with me so that Robbi could have a free week to catch up on work (and awful romantic comedies). The kids were pretty good, all told. But they were kids. Loud, wild, enthusiastic, creatures in constant motion.
As I sit here grateful not to be juggling three kids while waiting for a plane, I am already bracing for the next time it (inevitably) happens.
So here’s the topic for this week: what are your go-to kid travel tips and strategies? From games and toys to gear and techniques, what has worked? And, equally important, what has not?
This morning I’ll be content to consider your ideas in the abstract as no children scream, jump, and clamor at my feet.
Of course, if I am to be entirely honest, I miss them already.
In the abstract, of course.
by Matthew | Mar 6, 2014 | Parents' Roundtable |
Our kids don’t need money. For now, we have decided to provide for their care and feeding.
But they are fascinated by money nonetheless. They find it on tabletops and in dusty corners and add it to their “collections,” one of which is shown below.
They have a vague sense that money is used for exchange, that taking a sufficient number of pennies (for Kato, every coin is a “penny”) to Twigs and Teacups results in the right to walk away with a delightful plastic object of one’s choosing.
But for now, money is mostly just another toy, no different from a marble or a building block. Something to sort and admire and stockpile.
How do I know that money is still mere object to my children and not a form of currency? They still prefer coins to bills.
But I know that a new day is coming. Soon, my children will grasp the function of money and will seek it out not for what it is but for what it represents. And that will be a slightly sad moment. But an inevitable one.
Since my children still live in money wonderland, I have questions for those of you whose kids are more savvy.
What and how do you teach your kids about money: how it is obtained, how to use it wisely, what sort of value to place on it? Also: Do your kids get an allowance? How much do they get? What do they have to do to earn it? What sorts of restrictions (if any) do you place on how it may be used?
These are my questions, but there are probably many I’m not even considering. Please share your experience and advice on the kid money front in the comments below.
by Matthew | Feb 20, 2014 | Parents' Roundtable |
Ok folks, it’s time for another round of Roundtable. The topics so far have been born of my pain of the day, so today, I think we’ll switch to a point of pleasure, if one that’s tinged with a nagging question.
Alden, my almost-six-year-old daughter has recently turned a corner. Over the past few weeks, she has suddenly started seeming much more adult-like on several fronts.
She has suddenly gotten much more rational, for one, capable of recognizing that she is older than her brothers, capable of doing things they can’t and willing to be held to a higher standard of behavior, responsibility, etc. Along these lines, she has started spontaneously cleaning up her room, putting away the toys in the living room, etc. She seems to really enjoy the praise and appreciation that follows. And reasonably so. But I wonder to what extent it’s motivating her.
I want her to be helpful and respectful, not just at home, but anywhere she goes in life.
But I don’t want her to turn into a pleaser, by which I mean, someone whose actions are guided by a desired reaction from others. There’s a fine line between helpfulness and obsequiousness, and, left unchecked, the latter has a way of becoming a soul-flattening character flaw.
But what’s my role in this? On one hand, I want to encourage her to be helpful and generous, but on the other hand, I want Alden to maintain her free spirit, her independence, her ability to decide for herself when to do things to make others happy and when to follow her own inner compass.
It’s a tricky balancing act, and one I need to watch closely. On one hand, it’s nice to have a kid who cleans up her room. But on the other hand, I want a kid who is capable of free thought and standing up for herself when the stakes are higher down the line.
For now, we are trying to be measured in our praise and reasonable in our requests. And to model free thinking combined with thoughtfulness as much as possible.
Does anyone else have this worry? Any other ideas for how to approach it? You know the drill. Chime in below. And please feel free to pass this discussion along to any other parents you think might be interested in joining.
by Matthew | Feb 6, 2014 | Parents' Roundtable |
Here’s the scenario:
I ask Kato (recently turned four) to do something, anything. Maybe it’s to pick up his shirt off the floor. Maybe it’s to go downstairs and put on his socks. Occasionally, he’ll go along with my suggestion with a cheerful “ok.” But almost always, I’ll get a whine. A sharp, shrill sound of complaint. A performative half-cry meant to 1) connote displeasure, and 2) irritate everyone.
I’m only half joking about #2. Of course whining is irritating, but I have a sense that the irritation is part of the point. Real crying is an overwhelming reaction to emotional distress or physical pain. It sounds different. It invokes sympathy and the desire to comfort. Whining is the opposite. It invokes hostility, and I think that’s the point. It is intended to serve as a deterrent. As in, “not only will I refuse to do this thing you want me to do, but I will make this extremely unpleasant sound, over and over, thus giving you every incentive to never ask me again.”
I try to not support this logic by giving in, but I must admit that sometimes I do. Sometimes I am too weak, too tired, too depleted to bear the bracing sound of the full-fledged whine. And so I do whatever it takes to make the sound stop. Even if it’s picking up the shirt myself.
We’ve tried many tactics to combat the whine, the most popular of which is to send the offending party into the hallway until such time as whining ceases. This works to remove the primary source of irritation, but I can’t tell whether it’s curing the problem. Kind of like taking a Tylenol when I suspect we need some penicillin.
Use the comments below to share your solutions or tales of whining woe. Sometimes solidarity is almost as helpful as actually fixing a problem.
by Matthew | Jan 23, 2014 | Parents' Roundtable |
Hello, everyone. And welcome back.
Today’s topic is sharing, but as those of you who have more than one kid know, the concept is hardly cut and dried, even within the walls of a single home.
Let’s review the interpersonal landscape of the barn:
Alden is almost six and old enough to understand the basic logic of sharing. If someone else wants to play with your toy, it’s good to let them have it for a while. Not only is it nice to do so, but they might actually share with you, too. Benevolence and utility in one neat package.
Kato just turned four and gets the benefits of sharing at a core level but can’t always move past that moment of emotional duress that accompanies actually handing your prized belonging to another kid. Or the frustration of wanting what the other kid has and not being willing to wait for that kid to give it up. He has the tools but is not yet qualified to use them in the workplace.
August is barely two and is, frankly, a rather generous kid. When asked nicely, he will usually share, mostly because he seems to enjoy the smiles that result on the other end of the exchange. But when he does not want to share, no amount of persuasion will change his mind. His logic: that’s mine and not yours. Alternately: that’s yours, but I don’t care. I want it.
All this makes sense developmentally, but herein lies the problem. Alden, who tries to be good and rule-following, often gets the raw end of the deal when it comes to a conflict over belongings that need to be sorted out by Robbi or me. We usually intervene when a crisis has already reached the boiling point, which is to say, without a complete picture of the precipitating facts. If August is involved, our interest in getting involved has probably been piqued by the crazily loud and high-pitched pig squeal he has perfected as a means of deterring any challenge to his will.
And the problem is, it usually works. Robbi and I are often so motivated to stop the horrible sound, that we will ask (or demand) that the older kids defer to August’s whim, even if the result is not technically fair.
We may try to reason that “he’s just a baby” or “he doesn’t know any better” or “you’re such a big girl; can’t you let him have his way this once?”
But the truth is, we just want that sound to stop. In which case, aren’t we just playing into his evil plans, thwarting true justice, and letting the squeaky wheel prevail?
The question is this: how do you deal with issues surrounding sharing in your family? And the sliding scale of fairness by age? I’m looking for pointers here, people. And empathy. And anecdotes about the truly horrible sounds (and other tactics) your children unleash to get what they want.
Share your thoughts in the comments below. Together, maybe we can figure this out.
by Matthew | Jan 9, 2014 | Parents' Roundtable |
Hello Bobbledy parents,
As 2014 begins, we’re trying something new on the Bobbledy Blog.
In addition to having a theme of the week, as has been described in another post, we’re going to try to tap into our greatest resource, which is you. The parents of Bobbledy club members form a natural community of people who care about good books, drawing, writing, music, creativity, and, most of all, our kids. We wonder what might happen if we start talking to each other.
To that end, we’re creating Parent’s Roundtable, a bi-weekly forum for sharing experiences, discussing ideas, asking questions, or anything else that comes to mind.
Each week, we’ll get the ball rolling with a topic or question with hopes that you all will chime in and create a conversation. We get the sense that there is a lot we might learn from one another.
So…to get the ball rolling. This week’s topic is:
New Year’s Parenting Resolutions
As most of you know, I’m a father of three. My kids are 5, almost 4, and barely 2. Every day, I participate in their care and upbringing. I make them food, I dress them for school (not well, mind you), and I give them my love. But am I doing it right?
After all, I wasn’t trained. I never read the manual. It a mostly instinct-driven enterprise, and who’s to say I’m not terrible at it?
Every once in a while (ok, pretty much every day), I stop myself and wonder if there’s a better way to do it. And sometimes I’m struck by an alternative approach that makes sense. When this happens, I feel relief. There is a better way!
But these moments of insight are usually doubling as moments of three-ring-circus, and so I slip into the next moment without changing my approach. And so I make the same mistakes again and again and keep feeling badly about them.
But one persistent piece of self-critique is the extent to which I use my phone around my kids, whether to check email or to play a game of Angry Birds while they put their boots on in the morning.
It’s only natural. I work from home, and so my phone is my tether to my livelihood. It’s how I know when I’m needed. It’s also my momentary escape when all three are in a bad mood and grumbling and I feel the need to turn to something as rational and predictable as knocking evil green pigs off of pedestals.
But they deserve more (the kids, not the pigs). They deserve me, present and accounted for.
My new year’s parenting resolution is to keep my phone in my pocket when the kids are around. I’m not saying I’ll never take a phone call in their presence, or that I won’t occasionally have to send an email, but my resolution is to significantly limit the amount of time I spend paying attention to my phone when they are around.
In addition to giving the impression that I’m more interested in a piece of electronics than I am in my kids, I’m teaching them habits I don’t want them to have. At least not yet. I know it’s inevitable that they will join the digital age, and probably sooner than I realize or am entirely comfortable with. But for now, I’d prefer they learn to recognize the pleasures of analog entertainment and the pleasures (and necessities) of genuine human relationships.
The Angry Birds will still be available when they are old enough to make their own decisions about phones, apps, and the like. (I can’t imagine how angry the birds will be by then.) For now, I’m the one who’s old enough to make the decision to keep the phone in my pocket when the kids are around.
—
What’s your new year’s parenting resolution? Any thoughts on my phone woes? Any helpful links you’d like to share? Let’s use the comments field below to start the conversation.
Write me if you’d like to suggest a topic for future edition of Parents Roundtable.
And be sure to check back tomorrow for a mashup of reader comments, pictures, and stories from Beaver Week!
