I feel like I need to apologise seeing as my entire December posting content has been on that classically festive topic of gun control.
The truth is that this month has been a difficult one in different ways for some people close to me, so I've been helping them where I could. Christmas has naturally been a distraction as well, and our household has been going through three or four cycles of the common cold between us. In essence, there's not been a whole lot of quality parenting going on.
However, I'll round up the year with some general updates. 2012 was to be my last year as a stay at home mother. I anticipated that my daughter would probably start school at Easter, so I'd start work around then also, but that date has been brought forward to January, at least as a short-term measure.
Right now, going back to work seems like a huge, intimidating step. How the hell am I going to get everything done? Of course, I'm only working mornings, so I've got the afternoons. I am not an afternoon person though, so this should be an, er, growth of character experience.
Other updates... my whole food improvement project has totally gone out of the window. I want to bring that back on board, but I don't want to pile too much pressure on myself until I get into the swing of the job. No new year's resolutions for me!
My son's reading is almost taking off. He's on the 'pink reading' at school, which seems to mostly be cat, sat, mat. He's still reluctant to make the effort to read the words as opposed to memorising the text for a page, so I feel like we're still waiting for the breakthrough, but it's fun to watch. And he's very enthusiastic about anything with letters/sounds.
He absolutely loves writing. He had his birthday at the start of the month, and was really enthusiastic about doing the Thank-you cards for his friends. I wrote the message, he signed his name, and he wrote the name of each child on the envelope, while I prompted him through the sounds. A few letters I had to write down for him to copy, but most of them he scrawled from memory. We wrote all ten of these in one sitting, because he was so enthusiastic. Admittedly, you'd be hard put to recognise some of the names, but he had a vision in mind. I love that he does this, and I'm trying to be more visible about hand-writing stuff myself. (I hate writing by hand; viva la digital revolution!)
The room-sharing has, by and large, remained a success. Transitioning my daughter from the floor mattress to the bed was a bit trickier. Originally, we left the mattress by the bed in case she fell out, but what was happening was that we'd put her to bed, and she'd climb down to the mattress to actually go to sleep.
This had never been an issue with my son, who also went from floor mattress to bed (though he'd been on the mattress for only a couple of months). He was just excited to be in a big boy bed. Our daughter was happy to have her own big bed, but she wouldn't try to sleep in it. After a week, we took away the mattress and replaced it with a pillow--as it was, she's only fallen out a couple of times anyway. That's not been a problem at all.
We had a couple of rough nights with the bed transition, though nothing major, but she's never quite been so good about sleeping since. Oddly, while my son became more secure having her in his room, she's become less so. However, she's been extra clingy in general, so I think this might have more to do with the round of colds than the sleeping arrangements. She's been better the past couple of nights, which is great. Of course, I know now that it's only as good as the latest phase!
Anyway, roll on 2013. A year in which I will get my career on track, my son will learn how to read and ride a bike and my daughter will become potty-trained. Or such are my expectations. Let's see what I'm saying a year from now.
Monday, 31 December 2012
Saturday, 22 December 2012
Gun Control and Gun Culture Across the Pond
As a teacher and parent, I found the Newtown shootings disturbing on several different levels, and I'm still running through those events in my mind, thinking what if it were my child, what if I were a teacher in a similar position... all that terribly depressing stuff that probably isn't good for me, but I can't help doing it anyway.
As a US resident Brit, I've had a mixture of reactions on my facebook feed when it comes to how a change in gun control laws could prevent the tragedy: everything from banning guns to arming teachers. Technically, both sides of the spectrum have a point. If the gunman had been unable to get a weapon, or if somebody had shot him in the head as he entered the school, many innocent lives would have been saved.
The Logistics of Guns in Schools
Of course, that's over-simplifying things. Let's start with allowing guns in schools, as the NRA suggested yesterday. I've no idea what safety requirements the NRA envisions for this, but at my preschool, medications and cleaning supplies have to be kept in a locked cupboard out of the children's reach. The key to this cupboard must also be kept out of the children's reach.
If we applied similar restrictions to a firearm, it is unlikely that anybody would be able to get to it in time. Teachers seeking to attack would be better served grabbing the nearest blunt object. Compare the Tucson shootings, where the attacker was subdued by improvised weapons and brute force by the time a bystander carrying a concealed weapon arrived on the scene.
Could we ignore such restrictions and simply permit a teacher to carry a concealed weapon if they are licensed for such? Again, my experience is in pre-school, particularly toddlers. It was not uncommon for me to have to carry the children in my care, either to soothe them or restrain them. In one instance, I had to carry an out of control four year old, kicking and screaming, off the playground and into a quiet classroom so that they could be safely calmed. I can't imagine doing all that with a concealed weapon on my person.
In the case of older children, my concern would be them learning which teachers carried weapons and attempting to steal said weapon out of their own curiosity. But these are hypothetical concerns, and perhaps I am wrong in believing this would be an issue.
So what then happens when the weapon is used? To carry a concealed weapon requires a certain amount of training, to be sure the person can fire it effectively. Yet there's a big difference between firing on a shooting range and firing an armed opponent, particularly if there are panicking children around. Imagine if a teacher killed the gunman but also inadvertently killed one or more of the children under their care. What legal charges would they face? What could be done to prevent that?
It is one thing for somebody with a concealed carry permit to defend their own family (presumably much smaller than a class in any event). It's another thing for somebody entrusted with the care of somebody else's children to wield a firearm around them, however good their intentions. If teachers are to carry weapons in a school, then my expectation, both as parent and teacher, is that they should be trained in armed combat.
Finally, I should note that a teacher's responsibility is to the children in their care. Story after story has emerged from Sandy Hook of how the staff pulled children off corridors, hid them in bathrooms and closets and concentrated on keeping those children safe. Nobody abandoned a class to seek out the gunman; after all, nobody could be sure that there was only one attacker.
Two of the adult victims were not with any children and died attempting to stop the gunman. If one of them had been armed, things might have turned out very differently. But what are the odds that a staff-member with a concealed weapon would have no children currently in their care? As a security measure, this would only work with great luck!
The only answer I can see to this is to allow armed security guards to patrol the school, at what I imagine would be great expense. I don't have any major philosophical objections to this being legal, but as a parent, I would not want my child in a school that permitted guns on the premises. I imagine many Americans would share my sentiment.
It should also be noted that no amount of guns in the school would have saved his mother. Nor did the amount of guns in her home do so.
The Dunblane Comparison
For anybody British, the immediate comparison was to the Dunblane School Massacre. Sixteen children, aged five and six years old, were killed along with their teacher. In the UK, that's one of those "Where were you when you heard?" incidents. I still remember the paper spread across the kitchen table of my boarding house, showing the class picture of the children who had been killed.
The public reaction to this resulted in a ban of all handguns, and as numerous people have recently shared across social media, there have been no school shootings in the UK since.
This, of course, needs to be taken in context. There were no school shootings before Dunblane either. By comparison, here is a Wikipedia page devoted to school shootings in the United States. In a nutshell, the UK is not a country where school shootings are 'a thing'. The US is.
Instead, the Dunblane massacre gets categorised as a 'firearms rampage incident', with two comparable shootings sprees. Previous to Dunblane there was the Hungerford Massacre in 1987, where sixteen people were killed. After Dunblane, there was the Cumbria Shootings in 2010, which had thirteen fatalities. (In both cases, the gunman suicided, but I have not included that death in the tally.)
There simply aren't enough of these large-scale incidents occurring in the UK to judge if changes to gun control laws are helping or hindering them. Quickly pulling US shootings from Wikipedia, I find the Wisconsin Sikh Temple Shooting (six dead), the Aurora Shootings (twelve dead), the Oikos University Shooting (seven dead)--all from 2012.
It should also be noted that only a few months after Dunblane, the Wolverhampton Machete Attack took place at an infants' school. Banning guns does not mean that such attacks will not happen. That said, there were no fatalities in Wolverhampton, though seven people were wounded, including three children. Certainly an attacker wielding a machete is less dangerous than one wielding a gun.
Gun Control in the UK
So what effect did that ban of handguns in the UK have? A 2001 study suggested that gun crime rose by 40% in the two years following. Indeed, a 2008 BBC News analysis showed that gun crime had been rising up until 2006 before 2007 finally saw a fall (still several thousand incidents higher than ten years earlier). However, such incidents tended to be concentrated in certain cities, where gang culture is an issue. Gun crime reportedly fell in many areas around the country, and the most common weapon used in violent incidents was a knife.
According to the latest statistics released by the Home Office, in 2010/2011 gun crime has fallen for the seventh consecutive year. (This doesn't tally with the earlier BBC report, but this blogger lacks the time and resources to hunt down the discrepancy.) That said, the homicide figures had increased from the previous year:
So compare the attitude towards guns in the UK to that in the US. The wikipedia article on Gun Politics in the UK notes that public opinion favours stronger control, and there has been little opposition to the changes in gun law. Although the American right to bear arms has its roots in British politics, the modern Brit is hardly passionate about it. The Prevention of Crime Act 1953 declared that self-defence was not a reasonable excuse for carrying a knife.
In the US, opinion is typically divided, with many Americans feeling the same way as the Brits. However, many other Americans wish to carry a gun for their own self-defence, and believe that this is the best way to protect themselves and their family. A point that is repeatedly raised is that if you ban guns, you take them away from law-abiding citizens while the criminals will still find ways to obtain them.
That's a gross generalisation, of course. The gunman in the Newtown shootings reportedly tried to get his own gun, but was not patient enough for the waiting period, so he used the guns that his mother legally owned (and had taught her sons to use). Had that option not been available to him, he might have gone to the trouble of procuring an illegal firearm, but he might also have decided to go on the rampage with a machete instead, the result of which would have been much less devastating (and almost certainly means he would not have gained entry to the school).
However, I think there's a bigger conclusion to be drawn here. If guns were banned in the United States, a number of law-abiding citizens will prefer to keep an illegal firearm in their possession than give up their right to self-defence. In other words, the numbers of guns in circulation will not drop dramatically. The UK has frequently had amnesty periods where illegal firearms may be turned in without charge, but again, public opinion is different there.
A shift in US public opinion would be needed for gun control laws to be effective. While a few politicians have shifted their attitudes in the wake of the Newtown Shootings, it's clear that the majority of the pro-gun lobby are even stronger in their resolve to bear arms.
Statistics: Global and Domestic
One statistic I've seen mentioned is that Switzerland has similar gun control laws to the US, yet the gun crime is much higher in the United States. Going by the Wikipedia article, I'm not sure how comparable the situation is, since Switzerland actively trains a people's militia in lieu of an army. Gun ownership is obligatory for citizens in the militia, which includes the majority of males, but so is military training. How much difference would this make to the gun culture?
However, even Switzerland has a higher rate of gun crime than countries with tighter gun control. Wikipedia provides us with a List of Countries by Firearm Related Death Rate. Please note that this list does not use one standard year, and it seems impractical to compare the death rate in 2000 of one country to that of another in 2012. Nevertheless, even if you bear in mind that it can only be considered a broad generalisation, it's clear that the countries with tighter gun control laws have a lower rate of gun ownership and less gun-related deaths. The UK has one of the lowest death rates, while the US has the highest among developed countries.
Should we take into account the statistic that most of these gun-crimes are from illegally owned guns (so I am told)? I've never been sure what bearing that has on this. Even within the States, firearm homicides are reportedly higher in areas with higher gun ownership (source) and tighter gun control laws do have an effect on gun deaths (source though this seems to me a very casual study).
For the record, here is the most recent Firearms Death Rate by State. Top of the list is DC which is strict in its gun control laws. Connecticut also has strict gun control laws and is appropriately low, but that didn't stop the tragedy happening on 14th December, 2012.
That's because all this is correlation, not causation. There is a larger issue than gun control at stake. As the NRA is fond of pointing out, it's the person wielding the weapon that is accountable for the murder. They don't become killers simply because they possess a gun. The bigger question is what leads people to go on such rampages in the first place. Is it the violence of video games and movies as the NRA suggests? Or is it the media's glorification of school shootings as Morgan Freeman has not suggested? Or is it failings in the mental healthcare system? Or is it the rise of Survivalism (the gunman's mother was reportedly a survivalist)?
So What's the Point?
I wrote this because I was provoked by the trite memes and quotes being posted on Facebook on all sides of the issue. Perhaps it's inappropriate for a blog that purports to be about parenting, but the argument coming out of Newtown is how to protect our children and how to prevent them from becoming killers themselves.
It's probably clear enough that I am personally in favour of gun control. Yet I'm not writing this post to change anybody's mind--if nothing else, a few hours of googling and browsing wikipedia hardly makes me an authority on the subject. I wrote for the same reasons I usually blog: to get people to think about it.
Sharing solitary statistics that favour our preferred side of the debate only promotes extremism. A number of people have said we shouldn't politicise the issue, and that means we need to stop picketing a position and defending it. On a society level, it's not about choosing a side; it's about making an informed decision.
Further Reading:
Twelve facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States
What makes America’s gun culture totally unique in the world, in four charts
As a US resident Brit, I've had a mixture of reactions on my facebook feed when it comes to how a change in gun control laws could prevent the tragedy: everything from banning guns to arming teachers. Technically, both sides of the spectrum have a point. If the gunman had been unable to get a weapon, or if somebody had shot him in the head as he entered the school, many innocent lives would have been saved.
The Logistics of Guns in Schools
Of course, that's over-simplifying things. Let's start with allowing guns in schools, as the NRA suggested yesterday. I've no idea what safety requirements the NRA envisions for this, but at my preschool, medications and cleaning supplies have to be kept in a locked cupboard out of the children's reach. The key to this cupboard must also be kept out of the children's reach.
If we applied similar restrictions to a firearm, it is unlikely that anybody would be able to get to it in time. Teachers seeking to attack would be better served grabbing the nearest blunt object. Compare the Tucson shootings, where the attacker was subdued by improvised weapons and brute force by the time a bystander carrying a concealed weapon arrived on the scene.
Could we ignore such restrictions and simply permit a teacher to carry a concealed weapon if they are licensed for such? Again, my experience is in pre-school, particularly toddlers. It was not uncommon for me to have to carry the children in my care, either to soothe them or restrain them. In one instance, I had to carry an out of control four year old, kicking and screaming, off the playground and into a quiet classroom so that they could be safely calmed. I can't imagine doing all that with a concealed weapon on my person.
In the case of older children, my concern would be them learning which teachers carried weapons and attempting to steal said weapon out of their own curiosity. But these are hypothetical concerns, and perhaps I am wrong in believing this would be an issue.
So what then happens when the weapon is used? To carry a concealed weapon requires a certain amount of training, to be sure the person can fire it effectively. Yet there's a big difference between firing on a shooting range and firing an armed opponent, particularly if there are panicking children around. Imagine if a teacher killed the gunman but also inadvertently killed one or more of the children under their care. What legal charges would they face? What could be done to prevent that?
It is one thing for somebody with a concealed carry permit to defend their own family (presumably much smaller than a class in any event). It's another thing for somebody entrusted with the care of somebody else's children to wield a firearm around them, however good their intentions. If teachers are to carry weapons in a school, then my expectation, both as parent and teacher, is that they should be trained in armed combat.
Finally, I should note that a teacher's responsibility is to the children in their care. Story after story has emerged from Sandy Hook of how the staff pulled children off corridors, hid them in bathrooms and closets and concentrated on keeping those children safe. Nobody abandoned a class to seek out the gunman; after all, nobody could be sure that there was only one attacker.
Two of the adult victims were not with any children and died attempting to stop the gunman. If one of them had been armed, things might have turned out very differently. But what are the odds that a staff-member with a concealed weapon would have no children currently in their care? As a security measure, this would only work with great luck!
The only answer I can see to this is to allow armed security guards to patrol the school, at what I imagine would be great expense. I don't have any major philosophical objections to this being legal, but as a parent, I would not want my child in a school that permitted guns on the premises. I imagine many Americans would share my sentiment.
It should also be noted that no amount of guns in the school would have saved his mother. Nor did the amount of guns in her home do so.
The Dunblane Comparison
For anybody British, the immediate comparison was to the Dunblane School Massacre. Sixteen children, aged five and six years old, were killed along with their teacher. In the UK, that's one of those "Where were you when you heard?" incidents. I still remember the paper spread across the kitchen table of my boarding house, showing the class picture of the children who had been killed.
The public reaction to this resulted in a ban of all handguns, and as numerous people have recently shared across social media, there have been no school shootings in the UK since.
This, of course, needs to be taken in context. There were no school shootings before Dunblane either. By comparison, here is a Wikipedia page devoted to school shootings in the United States. In a nutshell, the UK is not a country where school shootings are 'a thing'. The US is.
Instead, the Dunblane massacre gets categorised as a 'firearms rampage incident', with two comparable shootings sprees. Previous to Dunblane there was the Hungerford Massacre in 1987, where sixteen people were killed. After Dunblane, there was the Cumbria Shootings in 2010, which had thirteen fatalities. (In both cases, the gunman suicided, but I have not included that death in the tally.)
There simply aren't enough of these large-scale incidents occurring in the UK to judge if changes to gun control laws are helping or hindering them. Quickly pulling US shootings from Wikipedia, I find the Wisconsin Sikh Temple Shooting (six dead), the Aurora Shootings (twelve dead), the Oikos University Shooting (seven dead)--all from 2012.
It should also be noted that only a few months after Dunblane, the Wolverhampton Machete Attack took place at an infants' school. Banning guns does not mean that such attacks will not happen. That said, there were no fatalities in Wolverhampton, though seven people were wounded, including three children. Certainly an attacker wielding a machete is less dangerous than one wielding a gun.
Gun Control in the UK
So what effect did that ban of handguns in the UK have? A 2001 study suggested that gun crime rose by 40% in the two years following. Indeed, a 2008 BBC News analysis showed that gun crime had been rising up until 2006 before 2007 finally saw a fall (still several thousand incidents higher than ten years earlier). However, such incidents tended to be concentrated in certain cities, where gang culture is an issue. Gun crime reportedly fell in many areas around the country, and the most common weapon used in violent incidents was a knife.
According to the latest statistics released by the Home Office, in 2010/2011 gun crime has fallen for the seventh consecutive year. (This doesn't tally with the earlier BBC report, but this blogger lacks the time and resources to hunt down the discrepancy.) That said, the homicide figures had increased from the previous year:
There were 60 victims of homicide by shooting (58 by firearm, 2 by crossbow), an increase of 19 from 2009/10. This includes the 12 victims of the Cumbrian shootings.These bald statistics can't tell us what is influencing the rise and fall of gun crime in the UK, but I will draw the conclusion that gun control does not affect gun culture.
So compare the attitude towards guns in the UK to that in the US. The wikipedia article on Gun Politics in the UK notes that public opinion favours stronger control, and there has been little opposition to the changes in gun law. Although the American right to bear arms has its roots in British politics, the modern Brit is hardly passionate about it. The Prevention of Crime Act 1953 declared that self-defence was not a reasonable excuse for carrying a knife.
In the US, opinion is typically divided, with many Americans feeling the same way as the Brits. However, many other Americans wish to carry a gun for their own self-defence, and believe that this is the best way to protect themselves and their family. A point that is repeatedly raised is that if you ban guns, you take them away from law-abiding citizens while the criminals will still find ways to obtain them.
That's a gross generalisation, of course. The gunman in the Newtown shootings reportedly tried to get his own gun, but was not patient enough for the waiting period, so he used the guns that his mother legally owned (and had taught her sons to use). Had that option not been available to him, he might have gone to the trouble of procuring an illegal firearm, but he might also have decided to go on the rampage with a machete instead, the result of which would have been much less devastating (and almost certainly means he would not have gained entry to the school).
However, I think there's a bigger conclusion to be drawn here. If guns were banned in the United States, a number of law-abiding citizens will prefer to keep an illegal firearm in their possession than give up their right to self-defence. In other words, the numbers of guns in circulation will not drop dramatically. The UK has frequently had amnesty periods where illegal firearms may be turned in without charge, but again, public opinion is different there.
A shift in US public opinion would be needed for gun control laws to be effective. While a few politicians have shifted their attitudes in the wake of the Newtown Shootings, it's clear that the majority of the pro-gun lobby are even stronger in their resolve to bear arms.
Statistics: Global and Domestic
One statistic I've seen mentioned is that Switzerland has similar gun control laws to the US, yet the gun crime is much higher in the United States. Going by the Wikipedia article, I'm not sure how comparable the situation is, since Switzerland actively trains a people's militia in lieu of an army. Gun ownership is obligatory for citizens in the militia, which includes the majority of males, but so is military training. How much difference would this make to the gun culture?
However, even Switzerland has a higher rate of gun crime than countries with tighter gun control. Wikipedia provides us with a List of Countries by Firearm Related Death Rate. Please note that this list does not use one standard year, and it seems impractical to compare the death rate in 2000 of one country to that of another in 2012. Nevertheless, even if you bear in mind that it can only be considered a broad generalisation, it's clear that the countries with tighter gun control laws have a lower rate of gun ownership and less gun-related deaths. The UK has one of the lowest death rates, while the US has the highest among developed countries.
Should we take into account the statistic that most of these gun-crimes are from illegally owned guns (so I am told)? I've never been sure what bearing that has on this. Even within the States, firearm homicides are reportedly higher in areas with higher gun ownership (source) and tighter gun control laws do have an effect on gun deaths (source though this seems to me a very casual study).
For the record, here is the most recent Firearms Death Rate by State. Top of the list is DC which is strict in its gun control laws. Connecticut also has strict gun control laws and is appropriately low, but that didn't stop the tragedy happening on 14th December, 2012.
That's because all this is correlation, not causation. There is a larger issue than gun control at stake. As the NRA is fond of pointing out, it's the person wielding the weapon that is accountable for the murder. They don't become killers simply because they possess a gun. The bigger question is what leads people to go on such rampages in the first place. Is it the violence of video games and movies as the NRA suggests? Or is it the media's glorification of school shootings as Morgan Freeman has not suggested? Or is it failings in the mental healthcare system? Or is it the rise of Survivalism (the gunman's mother was reportedly a survivalist)?
So What's the Point?
I wrote this because I was provoked by the trite memes and quotes being posted on Facebook on all sides of the issue. Perhaps it's inappropriate for a blog that purports to be about parenting, but the argument coming out of Newtown is how to protect our children and how to prevent them from becoming killers themselves.
It's probably clear enough that I am personally in favour of gun control. Yet I'm not writing this post to change anybody's mind--if nothing else, a few hours of googling and browsing wikipedia hardly makes me an authority on the subject. I wrote for the same reasons I usually blog: to get people to think about it.
Sharing solitary statistics that favour our preferred side of the debate only promotes extremism. A number of people have said we shouldn't politicise the issue, and that means we need to stop picketing a position and defending it. On a society level, it's not about choosing a side; it's about making an informed decision.
Further Reading:
Twelve facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States
What makes America’s gun culture totally unique in the world, in four charts
Monday, 26 November 2012
Lamenting Lost Solitude
During my high school years (eleven to eighteen) I went to a boarding school. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but living with a few dozen other girls in one house means that you don't get much alone time. Early on, I learned where the nooks and crannies were, the places you could go when you just wanted a moment to yourself. In my first boarding house, the bathrooms had high windows with a wide stone sill, which were set behind the door. I must have scrambled up to that perch dozens of times, not to cry or hide in particular, but to sit and think in a place where I was unlikely to be bothered.
The great thing about boarding school was that there was so much company available that it was unlikely somebody would be seeking yours out in particular, so solitude was obtainable if you desired it. As a middle-class mother, I have ample rooms to disperse myself and the children in, but my company is highly coveted, and solitude has become a commodity rarer and more valuable than diamonds.
This is obviously not something unique to me; it's standard parenting procedure. Going to the toilet with an audience (and sometimes audience participation) is par for the course. Having a few toys or activities in every room of the house is a common tip. And, obviously, clinginess is desirable in general, since you want your child to stick near you when you're out and about. Never mind the fact that my children are usually quite happy to go off on their own when we're out of the house. Perhaps it's a reverse psychology thing; should I insist on holding their hands while we're in the house too?
However, I'm an introvert. One of the reasons I blog is because the spoken word isn't something I'm comfortable with. I do enjoy talking with friends and I definitely need a sympathetic ear on a regular basis, but I will eventually find conversation wearing. When I've got something preying on my mind, I usually need to get some time to myself to think about it in peace and quiet. Or I'll need to write about it. In those moments, I hate being disturbed... I'm not good at switching focus.
I've accepted that this is something I have to sacrifice for the sake of having my children, and to an extent, I've learned to take my introspection while cuddling a child or to have my switch off moment while reading aloud. I'm guessing that the transition from my presence being necessary to my presence being unwanted will be shockingly brief, and I want to cherish this stage while I have it.
Yet sometimes I quietly fail at dealing with it. Like the past week, or so when colder weather has brought with it sore throats and congested noses. None of us have really been sick, but my daughter and I have definitely been scratchier than usual, and she's been incredibly clingy. I don't know whether that's due to the change in sleeping arrangements, or because she's feeling lousy, but what I do know is that I've spent a good proportion of my time wandering around in frustration with a toddler glued to my hip and preventing me from doing anything I want to do.
Of course, my son hasn't outgrown the wanting my company stage either, so I'm just as likely to be trailed around by him babbling away as only a three or four year old can. I was always petrified of this verbal diarrhoea stage, but it hasn't been as draining as I expected. Partly because it's worryingly easy for me to zone out when he's talking. My son has a habit of yelling "Speak!" at me, since I ignore him without realising I'm doing it. It's a huge guilt trip.
I should be more capable at this point really. I can do lots of things one-handed, and as a woman, I am supposed to multi-task as a matter of course. Nevertheless this past week I've been tired and inclined to headaches, my mind is taken up with a million and one things to keep track of (Christmas! Birthdays! Flood damage! Survivor!). The weepy toddler is enough to keep me from focusing. The weepy toddler and vociferous child is a devastating combination.
Suffice to say the housework is suffering. It's incredibly demotivating when there's a child wailing into my knees. Either I stop to soothe her, or I keep going and am slow and ineffectual. Then I get stressed, and because I'm stressed, I want a moment to myself. Because I want a moment to myself, my daughter gets insecure and becomes more clingy and I become more stressed and hello, vicious circle!
At the end of the day, it's up to me to break that vicious circle because I'm the grown up (darn it). Besides, one way or another, the house has got to be clean and tidy for my son's birthday party this weekend. So I'm pushing through, and trying to resist the constant temptation to slip away from the children for a moment of peace. Unlike love, it's better never to try for solitude than to find it and lose it again.
The great thing about boarding school was that there was so much company available that it was unlikely somebody would be seeking yours out in particular, so solitude was obtainable if you desired it. As a middle-class mother, I have ample rooms to disperse myself and the children in, but my company is highly coveted, and solitude has become a commodity rarer and more valuable than diamonds.
This is obviously not something unique to me; it's standard parenting procedure. Going to the toilet with an audience (and sometimes audience participation) is par for the course. Having a few toys or activities in every room of the house is a common tip. And, obviously, clinginess is desirable in general, since you want your child to stick near you when you're out and about. Never mind the fact that my children are usually quite happy to go off on their own when we're out of the house. Perhaps it's a reverse psychology thing; should I insist on holding their hands while we're in the house too?
However, I'm an introvert. One of the reasons I blog is because the spoken word isn't something I'm comfortable with. I do enjoy talking with friends and I definitely need a sympathetic ear on a regular basis, but I will eventually find conversation wearing. When I've got something preying on my mind, I usually need to get some time to myself to think about it in peace and quiet. Or I'll need to write about it. In those moments, I hate being disturbed... I'm not good at switching focus.
I've accepted that this is something I have to sacrifice for the sake of having my children, and to an extent, I've learned to take my introspection while cuddling a child or to have my switch off moment while reading aloud. I'm guessing that the transition from my presence being necessary to my presence being unwanted will be shockingly brief, and I want to cherish this stage while I have it.
Yet sometimes I quietly fail at dealing with it. Like the past week, or so when colder weather has brought with it sore throats and congested noses. None of us have really been sick, but my daughter and I have definitely been scratchier than usual, and she's been incredibly clingy. I don't know whether that's due to the change in sleeping arrangements, or because she's feeling lousy, but what I do know is that I've spent a good proportion of my time wandering around in frustration with a toddler glued to my hip and preventing me from doing anything I want to do.
Of course, my son hasn't outgrown the wanting my company stage either, so I'm just as likely to be trailed around by him babbling away as only a three or four year old can. I was always petrified of this verbal diarrhoea stage, but it hasn't been as draining as I expected. Partly because it's worryingly easy for me to zone out when he's talking. My son has a habit of yelling "Speak!" at me, since I ignore him without realising I'm doing it. It's a huge guilt trip.
I should be more capable at this point really. I can do lots of things one-handed, and as a woman, I am supposed to multi-task as a matter of course. Nevertheless this past week I've been tired and inclined to headaches, my mind is taken up with a million and one things to keep track of (Christmas! Birthdays! Flood damage! Survivor!). The weepy toddler is enough to keep me from focusing. The weepy toddler and vociferous child is a devastating combination.
Suffice to say the housework is suffering. It's incredibly demotivating when there's a child wailing into my knees. Either I stop to soothe her, or I keep going and am slow and ineffectual. Then I get stressed, and because I'm stressed, I want a moment to myself. Because I want a moment to myself, my daughter gets insecure and becomes more clingy and I become more stressed and hello, vicious circle!
At the end of the day, it's up to me to break that vicious circle because I'm the grown up (darn it). Besides, one way or another, the house has got to be clean and tidy for my son's birthday party this weekend. So I'm pushing through, and trying to resist the constant temptation to slip away from the children for a moment of peace. Unlike love, it's better never to try for solitude than to find it and lose it again.
Monday, 19 November 2012
Lessons Learned in Balance Biking
Earlier this year, we bought our three year old son a balance bike. That's a pedal-less bike, designed to teach children how to balance. They scoot along on it, coast down hills, practice steering etc. Training wheels or stabilizers as we call them in the UK tend not to work well, since the child gets into the habit of riding slightly tilted so that one wheel is going on the ground. The balance bike teaches balance-skills first, and stamina for pedaling will be learned once the child graduates to a real bike.
Getting Started
I'm not going to spend a lot of time writing about the pros and cons of balance bikes. There's plenty of stuff out there for that. If you're intrigued, the Strider blog invariably has videos and pictures of children using them. We have the Strider brand, but The Parent’s Guide to Balance Bikes, Complete Reviews & Comparisons of 16 Different Brands gives as thorough a discussion of what to look for when purchasing as you'll find anywhere.
What I am going to write about is our experience with my three year old son on his. Obviously, my husband and I never had balance bikes when we were kids. My only experience was seeing one of the children ride one to school, but we loved the concept. Our son loved his tricycle and riding in the chariot (a bicycle trailer). My husband is a cycling enthusiast who likes the sound of our son's name followed by "winner of the Tour de France!"
We bought the bike at the start of summer right before it was blisteringly hot and we only made a couple of half-hearted attempts to go out with it, because I am a wuss when it comes to heat. In September, we tried again. My son took a little while to get the idea of how to sit and scoot along, but he was game to persist with us. It was when Daddy demonstrated on his mountain bike that he really caught the idea.
I took him to the same park with short paved trails that we'd used with his tricycle, but I soon realised that the advantage of the balance bike is that it's lighter and easier for the child to control (he can just plant his feet and hitch it over an obstacle for one thing). So we started doing more ambitious walks with me pushing his sister on one of those long-handled tricycles.
This is, of course, the key. Practice as much as possible. But there are a few things to bear in mind:
The Skate Park
After the experience of a crash, I wanted to find somewhere suitable for him to practice on the bike, learn how to moderate his speed and deal with inclines at his own pace. It never occurred to me to try the local skate park until I saw an online video of a family doing just that with their two year old. I realised that that would be a great place. The only problem was that I was even more unfamiliar with skate parks than with balance bikes (they didn't have those in our day either), and the concept of letting my barely-out-of-toddlerhood son loose in one was terrifying.
So we attempted to go at a quiet time of day, but there were still up to a dozen people on bikes, skateboards and scooters whizzing around. My son and I (and twenty-one month old daughter) stopped at the entrance, hugely intimidated. He declared he didn't want to go in, and rode up and down the entrance ramp a few times instead. I privately agreed with him, but I was determined not to back down.
So I talked him through the gate and we self-consciously tried to find an out of the way corner in which to practice on a couple of small ramps. There really aren't any out of the way corners in our skate park. Not being a connoisseur, I have no idea how it compares to others, but I thought it was a fantastic piece of stunt architecture--and felt ever more out of place as I held my squirming daughter and encouraged my small son on his tiny bike.
Eventually, we did find a good spot where I could sit on a bench and my son could practice on one ramp over and over. There was another one behind it, for a sequential effect, and after a few minutes, he tried going up to the top of that one. Once at the top he shook his head and pushed his bike back down, but a few minutes later he was back to the top, and this time he rode down. After ten minutes, he was pushing off from the top ramp, coasting down the second and holding his balance to go up the ramp opposite. He was ecstatic.
The other great thing was that the other adults and children using the skate park (who were five to twenty years older than my son) were thoroughly considerate of us and if anything seemed tickled to see my son having a go at it. My son, fortunately, was also pretty good about watching out for other users, though I prompted him to wait or stop on occasion.
Despite my fears, having other skaters around was helpful. Seeing how other people used the various ramps, whatever they were riding, was a good example for him. And there were enough stunts going on for my daughter to sit quietly in sheer fascination.
We went back again today. It was colder and quieter, and my son took off all over it, scooting around to try different coasting routes and shrieking an incongruous "Whee!" as he shot down the ramps. The plan is to become hardcore skate park visitors, sticking it out through the winter while it's quieter and my son has the added padding of warm clothing. He took a couple of falls today and was absolutely fine.
Come next spring, he might well be able to hold his own alongside the skater boys, but we expect to be buying him a proper bike and hitting the trails. We will of course be handing the balance bike over to our daughter, who will be two by then. God only knows, she's already itching to have a go!
Getting Started
I'm not going to spend a lot of time writing about the pros and cons of balance bikes. There's plenty of stuff out there for that. If you're intrigued, the Strider blog invariably has videos and pictures of children using them. We have the Strider brand, but The Parent’s Guide to Balance Bikes, Complete Reviews & Comparisons of 16 Different Brands gives as thorough a discussion of what to look for when purchasing as you'll find anywhere.
What I am going to write about is our experience with my three year old son on his. Obviously, my husband and I never had balance bikes when we were kids. My only experience was seeing one of the children ride one to school, but we loved the concept. Our son loved his tricycle and riding in the chariot (a bicycle trailer). My husband is a cycling enthusiast who likes the sound of our son's name followed by "winner of the Tour de France!"
We bought the bike at the start of summer right before it was blisteringly hot and we only made a couple of half-hearted attempts to go out with it, because I am a wuss when it comes to heat. In September, we tried again. My son took a little while to get the idea of how to sit and scoot along, but he was game to persist with us. It was when Daddy demonstrated on his mountain bike that he really caught the idea.
I took him to the same park with short paved trails that we'd used with his tricycle, but I soon realised that the advantage of the balance bike is that it's lighter and easier for the child to control (he can just plant his feet and hitch it over an obstacle for one thing). So we started doing more ambitious walks with me pushing his sister on one of those long-handled tricycles.
This is, of course, the key. Practice as much as possible. But there are a few things to bear in mind:
- Your child will go faster than you, particularly if you're pushing another child. He's never going to get up to full cycling speed, but two months on, my husband has to run to keep up with him.
- Your child can balance for longer than you think... especially when motivated. An early shock for me was when he attempted a long incline. I was sure he'd fall over before he reached the bottom, but instead he kept going--and accelerating.
- For your child, the most logical way of stopping is to crash into something. That hill from point 2? He was terrified by his own speed, so he steered straight into a massive stone block. And so I got my first (and preferably only) sight of my son flying over his handlebars.
The Skate Park
After the experience of a crash, I wanted to find somewhere suitable for him to practice on the bike, learn how to moderate his speed and deal with inclines at his own pace. It never occurred to me to try the local skate park until I saw an online video of a family doing just that with their two year old. I realised that that would be a great place. The only problem was that I was even more unfamiliar with skate parks than with balance bikes (they didn't have those in our day either), and the concept of letting my barely-out-of-toddlerhood son loose in one was terrifying.
So we attempted to go at a quiet time of day, but there were still up to a dozen people on bikes, skateboards and scooters whizzing around. My son and I (and twenty-one month old daughter) stopped at the entrance, hugely intimidated. He declared he didn't want to go in, and rode up and down the entrance ramp a few times instead. I privately agreed with him, but I was determined not to back down.
So I talked him through the gate and we self-consciously tried to find an out of the way corner in which to practice on a couple of small ramps. There really aren't any out of the way corners in our skate park. Not being a connoisseur, I have no idea how it compares to others, but I thought it was a fantastic piece of stunt architecture--and felt ever more out of place as I held my squirming daughter and encouraged my small son on his tiny bike.
Eventually, we did find a good spot where I could sit on a bench and my son could practice on one ramp over and over. There was another one behind it, for a sequential effect, and after a few minutes, he tried going up to the top of that one. Once at the top he shook his head and pushed his bike back down, but a few minutes later he was back to the top, and this time he rode down. After ten minutes, he was pushing off from the top ramp, coasting down the second and holding his balance to go up the ramp opposite. He was ecstatic.
The other great thing was that the other adults and children using the skate park (who were five to twenty years older than my son) were thoroughly considerate of us and if anything seemed tickled to see my son having a go at it. My son, fortunately, was also pretty good about watching out for other users, though I prompted him to wait or stop on occasion.
Despite my fears, having other skaters around was helpful. Seeing how other people used the various ramps, whatever they were riding, was a good example for him. And there were enough stunts going on for my daughter to sit quietly in sheer fascination.
We went back again today. It was colder and quieter, and my son took off all over it, scooting around to try different coasting routes and shrieking an incongruous "Whee!" as he shot down the ramps. The plan is to become hardcore skate park visitors, sticking it out through the winter while it's quieter and my son has the added padding of warm clothing. He took a couple of falls today and was absolutely fine.
Come next spring, he might well be able to hold his own alongside the skater boys, but we expect to be buying him a proper bike and hitting the trails. We will of course be handing the balance bike over to our daughter, who will be two by then. God only knows, she's already itching to have a go!
Wednesday, 14 November 2012
Room Sharing
While my parents were here, we moved my son into my daughter's room and turned his room into a guest room for the fortnight. We'd done something similar at the start of the summer, and though juggling the children's sleeping schedules had been a bit awkward, it had worked well enough.
This time, it worked splendidly. He's almost four, she's twenty-one months and our timing seemed to be perfect. The big difference between now and then was that they now go to sleep and wake up at the same time (or at least for all practical purposes). Not only was it no problem at all to coordinate sleeping arrangements, but it actually worked to our advantage. If they woke early, they just started playing with each other until the traffic-light alarm clock turned green.
Beyond that, they seemed to be getting on better with each other and playing together more, while our son had completely stopped his whining over night and finding excuses to come out of his room. It was clear they enjoyed having each other's company at night time.
It had never really occurred to me to give them a shared bedroom. We were able to give them a room each, and I assumed that was the more desirable scenario. But it only took a week of them sharing before my husband and I started discussing making it permanent.
While my parents were here, we'd simply moved my son onto the twin bed in my daughter's room. She was sleeping on the crib mattress on the floor next to it (explanation of that posted here)--she'd not yet been motivated to sleep in the bed. However, her bedroom was considerably smaller than her brothers, so we decided to turn his room into a shared room once my parents were gone. And then I put it off for a week, just because it was going to be such a big job.
But today I went ahead and did it... it took the better part of the day and I might not have finished in time, if my neighbour hadn't had the children over with her son for the end of the afternoon. One of the big motivators is that my daughter's just getting over a cold and she's waking up early at the moment with coughing. I expect the transition will also trigger some early wake-ups, so I'd rather do it while she's waking early anyway.
For the same reason, I've moved her into a twin bed. I've put the crib mattress on the floor between the two beds, but her glow-worm and pillow are on the bed and that's where she had her nap today (which was fine after one false start). She's got a wall on one side, and the mattress on the other, so I'm not concerned about her rolling out of bed. Mostly, I'm glad she's underneath a proper duvet now. I had a fleece blanket over her on the floor mattress, but she always rolled out of it and it wasn't really thick enough for winter anyway. Hopefully she'll stay warm this way!
Anyway, both children were pretty excited when getting into bed tonight, and they've got up several times while I was writing this post (I only had to get up twice, at least!). But--touch wood!--it's all gone quiet now. I'm expecting to have to go up at least once overnight to put my daughter back in bed after she falls out.
It'll take me another few days to get all the furniture, toys, clothes, etc arranged. But then we can convert our daughter's room into a full-time guest room / gaming room. We're hitting the point where it's difficult for us to watch our shows or (in my husband's case) play video games that aren't appropriate to have on in front of the children--or that we just want to watch without being hassled by them. Having a second television will be nice, and I don't really want one in our bedroom, so this is the perfect solution for me.
Meanwhile, a few more rough nights are ahead, which is not something I'm looking forward to. But I'm loving how excited the children are to sleep together and this is one of those parenting things where it just feels so obviously right that I'm excited too. Here's hoping it doesn't all feel wrong again in two months' time!
This time, it worked splendidly. He's almost four, she's twenty-one months and our timing seemed to be perfect. The big difference between now and then was that they now go to sleep and wake up at the same time (or at least for all practical purposes). Not only was it no problem at all to coordinate sleeping arrangements, but it actually worked to our advantage. If they woke early, they just started playing with each other until the traffic-light alarm clock turned green.
Beyond that, they seemed to be getting on better with each other and playing together more, while our son had completely stopped his whining over night and finding excuses to come out of his room. It was clear they enjoyed having each other's company at night time.
It had never really occurred to me to give them a shared bedroom. We were able to give them a room each, and I assumed that was the more desirable scenario. But it only took a week of them sharing before my husband and I started discussing making it permanent.
While my parents were here, we'd simply moved my son onto the twin bed in my daughter's room. She was sleeping on the crib mattress on the floor next to it (explanation of that posted here)--she'd not yet been motivated to sleep in the bed. However, her bedroom was considerably smaller than her brothers, so we decided to turn his room into a shared room once my parents were gone. And then I put it off for a week, just because it was going to be such a big job.
But today I went ahead and did it... it took the better part of the day and I might not have finished in time, if my neighbour hadn't had the children over with her son for the end of the afternoon. One of the big motivators is that my daughter's just getting over a cold and she's waking up early at the moment with coughing. I expect the transition will also trigger some early wake-ups, so I'd rather do it while she's waking early anyway.
For the same reason, I've moved her into a twin bed. I've put the crib mattress on the floor between the two beds, but her glow-worm and pillow are on the bed and that's where she had her nap today (which was fine after one false start). She's got a wall on one side, and the mattress on the other, so I'm not concerned about her rolling out of bed. Mostly, I'm glad she's underneath a proper duvet now. I had a fleece blanket over her on the floor mattress, but she always rolled out of it and it wasn't really thick enough for winter anyway. Hopefully she'll stay warm this way!
Anyway, both children were pretty excited when getting into bed tonight, and they've got up several times while I was writing this post (I only had to get up twice, at least!). But--touch wood!--it's all gone quiet now. I'm expecting to have to go up at least once overnight to put my daughter back in bed after she falls out.
It'll take me another few days to get all the furniture, toys, clothes, etc arranged. But then we can convert our daughter's room into a full-time guest room / gaming room. We're hitting the point where it's difficult for us to watch our shows or (in my husband's case) play video games that aren't appropriate to have on in front of the children--or that we just want to watch without being hassled by them. Having a second television will be nice, and I don't really want one in our bedroom, so this is the perfect solution for me.
Meanwhile, a few more rough nights are ahead, which is not something I'm looking forward to. But I'm loving how excited the children are to sleep together and this is one of those parenting things where it just feels so obviously right that I'm excited too. Here's hoping it doesn't all feel wrong again in two months' time!
Monday, 29 October 2012
Roominate
Between Hurricane Sandy, my parents' visit and my writing commitments else-site, I've not got time for decent writing here. Still, I'd like to plug this:
Roominate: the wired building toy for girls
This is a new toy, and I am dying for it to be a success. I've grumbled about gender bias in toys before, and though I wish this wasn't marketed exclusively to girls, it side-steps most of my issues. It's too old for my daughter (and my son), but this is the kind of thing I'd love for her to be playing with when she's older.
So I'm spreading the word, hoping that Roominate flourishes and also hoping that other toy manufacturers take notice!
Roominate: the wired building toy for girls
This is a new toy, and I am dying for it to be a success. I've grumbled about gender bias in toys before, and though I wish this wasn't marketed exclusively to girls, it side-steps most of my issues. It's too old for my daughter (and my son), but this is the kind of thing I'd love for her to be playing with when she's older.
So I'm spreading the word, hoping that Roominate flourishes and also hoping that other toy manufacturers take notice!
Wednesday, 17 October 2012
Rules of the Table
A few months back, my son suddenly discovered a liking for hot dogs, and I was overjoyed. Then I recalled that hot dogs were junk food and I felt guilty... but still disproportionately pleased.
It isn't that I'm a big fan of hot dogs, but all summer it seemed like the only safe lunch (and sometimes dinner) was a peanut butter sandwich. The possibility of having something new and different was like a gift from the heavens. Not to mention it involved meat (technically). Perhaps this would be a gateway food. So yes, we have had hot dogs and rolls in the house ever since, though I don't make them more than once a week if I can help it.
The Ideal and the Reality
Of course, I should not cater to my children's limited palates and only feed them things that I think they'll eat. I should make things that I like, because it broadens their palate to something compatible with our family. And also because I can guarantee my own satisfaction, whereas I'm eternally gambling on the children's. This is something I absolutely believe in, with one qualification--I should make sure that they get meals they do like with reasonable frequency so that mealtime doesn't become a thrice daily ordeal for them.
Yet this theory is not easy in practice. Every time I serve up something the children don't like, I have to deal with it. The whining, the refusal to eat, the tantrums when they are not permitted a treat or a snack afterwards.... Most of the time, I don't feel prepared to deal with that. And most of the time, I try to be good and deal with it anyway, but there will always be a couple of days a week where I take the easy option of the peanut butter sandwich.
Or at least, that was the easy option, until my daughter decided she didn't like them. Praise be the lowly hot dog!
So my new project in my ongoing self-improvement quest is our eating habits. And it starts with the actual process of eating rather than what we eat. After all, for the past three years, figuring out how to calmly navigate the treacherous politics of mealtimes has taken all my attention.
The Fussy Eater
The children and I eat all our meals together. Daddy joins us for dinner (and sometimes breakfast). The children were both brought up on the baby-led weaning method which purports to create less fussy children (among other benefits). I was skeptical about that and it certainly didn't work out for me, but I was still very satisfied with the "learning to chew before learning to swallow" approach and would recommend it to anybody. But that would be another post altogether.
My twenty month old daughter has just transitioned from the baby who loves food and will eat anything to the picky toddler who has been known to take one look at her plate and burst into tears. My son, who will be four in two months, has only recently emerged from a two year stint of being utterly fickle with his food, his tastes changing from one season to the next with almost every meal being an exercise in negotiation.
At least we have had two years of experience to settle into a consistent standard--or so you'd think. Our paediatrician always tells me: "Don't make a battle out of eating, because you will lose." We still have varying success here, since it is so very difficult not to start down the road of: "Just eat this bit." Or "This is chicken, and you like chicken." However, we do have our consequence set, even if I'm still trying not to lose my temper/patience with the child should they choose consequence over eating.
My mantra is "Every time you waste food, somebody goes hungry," accompanied by the tacit consequence "and it's going to be you." I won't go down the route of serving up the same meal over and over until it's eaten, but after discussions with friends, I am quite confident in letting the children know what an empty tummy feels like. If you do not eat everything you are given, (and I err on the side of small portions), you will get nothing else until the next meal.
This can have drawbacks, such as when my daughter won't eat more than a bite or two of her evening meal. She goes to bed on an empty tummy and of course wakens up to an hour early (though thankfully, never yet in the middle of the night). Usually, we'll have some success in getting her back down for half an hour, but I always have to get up early on those days.
That's also the one instance where I don't make her wait until the next meal. I don't want to throw out the morning routine by doing breakfast early, but I won't leave her ravenous when breakfast is ninety minutes away. So she gets a banana as a snack. That's the only exception I will make to the rule though. There have been times when a refused lunch led to six hours of an empty tummy and cranky child.
What makes it harder with her than with my son is that her brother now finishes his meals regularly and is allowed to eat between them. I confess that we do reward empty plates with a treat, and while my son understood the distinction when his sister was allowed one and he wasn't, vice versa has been much harder. Thankfully, she now does understand the condition, and although I don't want to deliberately tease her, I don't want to hide this direct consequence of her actions either. She usually watches tearfully while her brother chooses his treat, and then I ask him to go to another part of the house to eat it.
What we've come across with my daughter that I don't recall being such a huge problem with my son is her habit of crying at the sight of her food if it's something she doesn't want to eat. Ignoring her tears at a family meal does not work out, so my standard solution is to give her a choice between sitting quietly and trying her meal or going straight to bed (she has a nap after lunch and bedtime after dinner anyway).
Invariably, if I put her to bed, she'll be wailing "Mama," after five minutes. I ask her if she is ready to eat her meal, she nods and we go back down. After this, she usually sits quietly enough in her chair and tries a few bites, but we do not have eating by any stretch of the imagination. However, as long as she tries it and stops crying, she will be permitted to get down with the rest of us and play before bedtime.
The other thing I do believe in is meeting her halfway. As said before, I try not to give her huge portions (she has no qualms about asking for more if she does get something she likes, though she's supposed to clear her plate first before getting second helpings of chicken or what have you). Her biggest issue seems to be with carbs... She's not a big fan of bread, rice or potatoes--pasta and noodles are just fine though. So I'm trying to do a couple of extra meals a week with pasta instead of rice (we usually have rice twice a week anyway), and generally make the carb portion of her meals smaller--which is probably an example we should all follow.
The Slow Eater
As I said, my son has recently become much better about trying things and has decided he likes quite a lot of food. He will even eat things he doesn't like without too much persuasion. Our new issue with him became slow eating. He would sit at the table and poke at his food or chatter away and be silly, anything but actually eat. A lot of it is trying to get us to feed him; as soon as we're finished, he'll declare that he needs a hand. How I wish I'd listened to the baby-led weaning rule about never feeding him myself! Of course, I fell into the same trap with my daughter so I am doubtless doomed to repeat this scenario.
Basically, long after the rest of us were done eating, my son would still have 3/4 of his plate left. Leaving him to it induced a meltdown, thanks to the clinginess I've referred to in my recent posts; even feeding him was a painful procedure as he started fidgeting and playing around, although it was certainly quicker than sitting and waiting for him.
This situation has improved, but unfortunately not by any solution we've implemented. There are a few things he'll always eat quickly, and in all meals, he likes to say he's racing us and is winning. I'm not a big fan of making meals a race, but I have not been discouraging him in the least. Basically, he seems to have motivated himself to improve, so we got lucky.
Even so, he's often the last to finish by a wide margin. We're still feeding him as a solution, but neither of us want to be doing that for years to come, so we are using his fourth birthday as a cut-off point. Once he is four, (less than two months now!) he will have to feed himself. Googling slow eating, incidentally, is pretty depressing. There's a lot of stories about how nothing helps. So I think there's going to be a certain amount of us all accepting this--Mum and Dad accepting that he just isn't eating quickly tonight, and my son accepting that we can't sit around the dinner table for an hour keeping him company.
I had one previous experience with slow eating in my teaching days, when I was sitting with a class of older children. One child always took dramatically longer than everybody else to eat--too long for the time allotted for lunch. The tip from an experienced teacher was for me to read aloud a couple of chapters of Mr Popper's Penguins after lunch, and those children who had finished (and cleaned up, etc) could come and listen to the story. It wasn't a magic wand solution, but it was an inducement for everybody to eat promptly, and it meant that the children who had finished were peacefully occupied without disrupting or being disrupted by the children still eating.
There are a few logistical issues with me doing this here, namely that my son starts melting down if he's missing out on something other people are doing. Still, I am trying to take the tack that it's his own time he's wasting. We usually watch half an hour of television after dinner, but I have started insisting that he finish his dinner at least half an hour before his official bedtime, or it will be too late to watch anything. As is often the case, I am not confident that this consequence has produced results, but I am satisfied that there is a consequence.
Table Manners
I admit it. We're not huge on table manners in our house. It is only recently that I've felt ready to tackle "Please keep your mouth closed when you chew!" with my son. Cutlery is used as the child desires: my son uses a fork but usually not his knife; my daughter will poke her food with a fork a bit and then use her fingers. I suppose if my son regresses to fingers in the future, we'll have to make an issue of this, but letting them train themselves has worked so far. And the children are allowed to get down more or less when they want--I am tired of trying to eat my food while a child is wriggling and crying less than a foot away.
A few months back, I did start stamping down on "I don't like it," since my son had a terrible habit of coming into the kitchen while I was cooking and telling me that. These days, nobody is allowed in my kitchen if they say nasty things about the food. Previously, my reply was always "You don't have to like it, but you do have to eat it." That still gets trotted out sometimes, but we are also making it clear that "I don't like it," is rude.
My anonymous hero here is a woman whose forum post I read years ago on some message board or other. Apparently, at the first whine about the food, the offending child was sent packing from the table with no second chances or alternative eating options. I haven't quite had the nerve to do that, but I sometimes wish I did.
So mealtime for us is very much a pick your battle scenario, and most of the work that needs doing I will continue to procrastinate on. But it is past time for me to firm up the why we eat when and what we eat into a ruleset for nutrition that will be logical for the children--or at least for my questioning son who is very much at the age of trying to understand the universe. It won't hurt my daughter either.
I'm currently mulling that over and also striving towards healthier eating habits for all of us. The plan is to post up the results of my cogitation when they've reached coherent form, but that might take awhile....
It isn't that I'm a big fan of hot dogs, but all summer it seemed like the only safe lunch (and sometimes dinner) was a peanut butter sandwich. The possibility of having something new and different was like a gift from the heavens. Not to mention it involved meat (technically). Perhaps this would be a gateway food. So yes, we have had hot dogs and rolls in the house ever since, though I don't make them more than once a week if I can help it.
The Ideal and the Reality
Of course, I should not cater to my children's limited palates and only feed them things that I think they'll eat. I should make things that I like, because it broadens their palate to something compatible with our family. And also because I can guarantee my own satisfaction, whereas I'm eternally gambling on the children's. This is something I absolutely believe in, with one qualification--I should make sure that they get meals they do like with reasonable frequency so that mealtime doesn't become a thrice daily ordeal for them.
Yet this theory is not easy in practice. Every time I serve up something the children don't like, I have to deal with it. The whining, the refusal to eat, the tantrums when they are not permitted a treat or a snack afterwards.... Most of the time, I don't feel prepared to deal with that. And most of the time, I try to be good and deal with it anyway, but there will always be a couple of days a week where I take the easy option of the peanut butter sandwich.
Or at least, that was the easy option, until my daughter decided she didn't like them. Praise be the lowly hot dog!
So my new project in my ongoing self-improvement quest is our eating habits. And it starts with the actual process of eating rather than what we eat. After all, for the past three years, figuring out how to calmly navigate the treacherous politics of mealtimes has taken all my attention.
The Fussy Eater
The children and I eat all our meals together. Daddy joins us for dinner (and sometimes breakfast). The children were both brought up on the baby-led weaning method which purports to create less fussy children (among other benefits). I was skeptical about that and it certainly didn't work out for me, but I was still very satisfied with the "learning to chew before learning to swallow" approach and would recommend it to anybody. But that would be another post altogether.
My twenty month old daughter has just transitioned from the baby who loves food and will eat anything to the picky toddler who has been known to take one look at her plate and burst into tears. My son, who will be four in two months, has only recently emerged from a two year stint of being utterly fickle with his food, his tastes changing from one season to the next with almost every meal being an exercise in negotiation.
At least we have had two years of experience to settle into a consistent standard--or so you'd think. Our paediatrician always tells me: "Don't make a battle out of eating, because you will lose." We still have varying success here, since it is so very difficult not to start down the road of: "Just eat this bit." Or "This is chicken, and you like chicken." However, we do have our consequence set, even if I'm still trying not to lose my temper/patience with the child should they choose consequence over eating.
My mantra is "Every time you waste food, somebody goes hungry," accompanied by the tacit consequence "and it's going to be you." I won't go down the route of serving up the same meal over and over until it's eaten, but after discussions with friends, I am quite confident in letting the children know what an empty tummy feels like. If you do not eat everything you are given, (and I err on the side of small portions), you will get nothing else until the next meal.
This can have drawbacks, such as when my daughter won't eat more than a bite or two of her evening meal. She goes to bed on an empty tummy and of course wakens up to an hour early (though thankfully, never yet in the middle of the night). Usually, we'll have some success in getting her back down for half an hour, but I always have to get up early on those days.
That's also the one instance where I don't make her wait until the next meal. I don't want to throw out the morning routine by doing breakfast early, but I won't leave her ravenous when breakfast is ninety minutes away. So she gets a banana as a snack. That's the only exception I will make to the rule though. There have been times when a refused lunch led to six hours of an empty tummy and cranky child.
What makes it harder with her than with my son is that her brother now finishes his meals regularly and is allowed to eat between them. I confess that we do reward empty plates with a treat, and while my son understood the distinction when his sister was allowed one and he wasn't, vice versa has been much harder. Thankfully, she now does understand the condition, and although I don't want to deliberately tease her, I don't want to hide this direct consequence of her actions either. She usually watches tearfully while her brother chooses his treat, and then I ask him to go to another part of the house to eat it.
What we've come across with my daughter that I don't recall being such a huge problem with my son is her habit of crying at the sight of her food if it's something she doesn't want to eat. Ignoring her tears at a family meal does not work out, so my standard solution is to give her a choice between sitting quietly and trying her meal or going straight to bed (she has a nap after lunch and bedtime after dinner anyway).
Invariably, if I put her to bed, she'll be wailing "Mama," after five minutes. I ask her if she is ready to eat her meal, she nods and we go back down. After this, she usually sits quietly enough in her chair and tries a few bites, but we do not have eating by any stretch of the imagination. However, as long as she tries it and stops crying, she will be permitted to get down with the rest of us and play before bedtime.
The other thing I do believe in is meeting her halfway. As said before, I try not to give her huge portions (she has no qualms about asking for more if she does get something she likes, though she's supposed to clear her plate first before getting second helpings of chicken or what have you). Her biggest issue seems to be with carbs... She's not a big fan of bread, rice or potatoes--pasta and noodles are just fine though. So I'm trying to do a couple of extra meals a week with pasta instead of rice (we usually have rice twice a week anyway), and generally make the carb portion of her meals smaller--which is probably an example we should all follow.
The Slow Eater
As I said, my son has recently become much better about trying things and has decided he likes quite a lot of food. He will even eat things he doesn't like without too much persuasion. Our new issue with him became slow eating. He would sit at the table and poke at his food or chatter away and be silly, anything but actually eat. A lot of it is trying to get us to feed him; as soon as we're finished, he'll declare that he needs a hand. How I wish I'd listened to the baby-led weaning rule about never feeding him myself! Of course, I fell into the same trap with my daughter so I am doubtless doomed to repeat this scenario.
Basically, long after the rest of us were done eating, my son would still have 3/4 of his plate left. Leaving him to it induced a meltdown, thanks to the clinginess I've referred to in my recent posts; even feeding him was a painful procedure as he started fidgeting and playing around, although it was certainly quicker than sitting and waiting for him.
This situation has improved, but unfortunately not by any solution we've implemented. There are a few things he'll always eat quickly, and in all meals, he likes to say he's racing us and is winning. I'm not a big fan of making meals a race, but I have not been discouraging him in the least. Basically, he seems to have motivated himself to improve, so we got lucky.
Even so, he's often the last to finish by a wide margin. We're still feeding him as a solution, but neither of us want to be doing that for years to come, so we are using his fourth birthday as a cut-off point. Once he is four, (less than two months now!) he will have to feed himself. Googling slow eating, incidentally, is pretty depressing. There's a lot of stories about how nothing helps. So I think there's going to be a certain amount of us all accepting this--Mum and Dad accepting that he just isn't eating quickly tonight, and my son accepting that we can't sit around the dinner table for an hour keeping him company.
I had one previous experience with slow eating in my teaching days, when I was sitting with a class of older children. One child always took dramatically longer than everybody else to eat--too long for the time allotted for lunch. The tip from an experienced teacher was for me to read aloud a couple of chapters of Mr Popper's Penguins after lunch, and those children who had finished (and cleaned up, etc) could come and listen to the story. It wasn't a magic wand solution, but it was an inducement for everybody to eat promptly, and it meant that the children who had finished were peacefully occupied without disrupting or being disrupted by the children still eating.
There are a few logistical issues with me doing this here, namely that my son starts melting down if he's missing out on something other people are doing. Still, I am trying to take the tack that it's his own time he's wasting. We usually watch half an hour of television after dinner, but I have started insisting that he finish his dinner at least half an hour before his official bedtime, or it will be too late to watch anything. As is often the case, I am not confident that this consequence has produced results, but I am satisfied that there is a consequence.
Table Manners
I admit it. We're not huge on table manners in our house. It is only recently that I've felt ready to tackle "Please keep your mouth closed when you chew!" with my son. Cutlery is used as the child desires: my son uses a fork but usually not his knife; my daughter will poke her food with a fork a bit and then use her fingers. I suppose if my son regresses to fingers in the future, we'll have to make an issue of this, but letting them train themselves has worked so far. And the children are allowed to get down more or less when they want--I am tired of trying to eat my food while a child is wriggling and crying less than a foot away.
A few months back, I did start stamping down on "I don't like it," since my son had a terrible habit of coming into the kitchen while I was cooking and telling me that. These days, nobody is allowed in my kitchen if they say nasty things about the food. Previously, my reply was always "You don't have to like it, but you do have to eat it." That still gets trotted out sometimes, but we are also making it clear that "I don't like it," is rude.
My anonymous hero here is a woman whose forum post I read years ago on some message board or other. Apparently, at the first whine about the food, the offending child was sent packing from the table with no second chances or alternative eating options. I haven't quite had the nerve to do that, but I sometimes wish I did.
So mealtime for us is very much a pick your battle scenario, and most of the work that needs doing I will continue to procrastinate on. But it is past time for me to firm up the why we eat when and what we eat into a ruleset for nutrition that will be logical for the children--or at least for my questioning son who is very much at the age of trying to understand the universe. It won't hurt my daughter either.
I'm currently mulling that over and also striving towards healthier eating habits for all of us. The plan is to post up the results of my cogitation when they've reached coherent form, but that might take awhile....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)