Dealing with Tantrums: Toddler and Pre-school

Over the past six weeks or so, I've been trying to curtail my activities in the online world, because it's a timesink and I get far too worked up about it--someone is wrong on the internet syndrome.  And since real life got pretty busy, it seemed like a good time for a break.  It's been very refreshing, but I must apologise to everybody whose blogs I read but did not comment on during this period.  I am reading... just needed to lurk for a bit.  I'm probably going to be commenting more going forward, now that life has calmed down.

Besides, while life is calmer, all the usual stresses remain and today was absolutely rubbish for a few reasons, but one of them was my four year old son having a meltdown.  I've said before on this blog that I felt I'd been very sheltered from public tantrums, because he was always very good about them as a toddler.  Between him and my daughter, I can say that this is no longer the case.

Exhibit A: The Toddler Tantrum

A few weeks back, my daughter's consistent crankiness drove me to take her to the doctor for the third time in six weeks.  It turned out that she had a double ear infection and bronchitis, so that explained a lot, including her behaviour on the way to the paediatrician.

I had to wake her up from her nap for starters, and though this normally isn't a big deal, she didn't cope well that day.  She did the boneless wailing thing, so I wrestled her into her car-seat (which caused further wailing--she hates her car-seat at the moment, and many adjustments to the straps have made no difference).  I assumed that after a few minutes in the car, she would calm down.  She didn't.

My husband had taken our son out to his gym lesson, so it was just the two of us for this.  For a variety of reasons, I hadn't been sleeping well, so I was pretty emotional as well.  We had agreed that I would take her, because she gets more comfort out of me, but in retrospect, I wonder if she would have behaved better for her father, just because she's less emotional with him.

At any rate, she screamed and writhed in her seat for the entire twenty minute drive, while I fought back tears and felt certain that I was about to get a diagnosis of special needs, because surely no normal child would behave like this.  (I'm somewhat embarrassed about that thought, but that's the kind of state I was in; full respect to all the mothers of actual special needs children, especially those who have to deal with this sort of behaviour on a regular basis).

Once we were parked, I was desperate to get her out of her seat and cuddle her and calm her down.  Getting her out of her seat happened; cuddling her was not really feasible owing to the kicking and screaming; calming her down was a lost cause.  I could barely carry her, but she certainly wasn't able to walk and with no time to wait it out in the car park, I clamped my arms around my struggling child and somehow got her up three storeys to the waiting room.

I put her down on the floor, signed us in, still fighting back my own tears, and then I focused very hard on getting off my coat and composing myself while my daughter had hysterics on the floor.  There were a few other children near us, and I had to pull her closer to me so that in her flailing she wouldn't kick them.

Once I was settled, I thought my trump card would be the iPad, which she doesn't get to play very often, as I prefer to keep it for waiting rooms and restaurants (before the food is served).  She considers it a much desired treat, but on that day she refused even that, which brought me close to utter despair.

And then, thank god, she spotted the fish on the reception desk.  She stopped crying and pointed. I lifted her up to look at them and everything was calm once more, though we were both still tearful.  Never underestimate the power of fish (though I would never risk getting an aquarium at home for this very reason--I don't need the children building up an immunity!)



Exhibit B: The Four Year Old Tantrum

Back to my son, the once placid toddler who was generally well-behaved in public.  And who still is generally well-behaved but who has been showing an increased tendency to melt down over things not going his way.   He does plenty of general sulkiness and moaning as well, but every now and then, he'll lose complete control.

Today, the trigger was at the supermarket when we went to pay.  He wanted us to go through the self-checkout, but last time we did that, I had a terrible time keeping control of my daughter (they were both using those mini shopping carts, which I love, but lack the option to dump my daughter in the seat so she can't get into mischief.

So I insisted we were going through the normal checkout where I had somebody to scan and bag the food for me.  He did not take that well.  I tried to get him to stand against the wall and wait for us to finish paying, but he wouldn't stay there.  Instead, he fought me over every item that I was trying to place on the conveyor belt--I must add that after a bad morning at school, I was severely lacking in patience and made the situation worse by telling him that he was not allowed to unload his shopping trolley, which led to me fighting him over the food as well.

The staff were very pleasant about it; I was mortified; my daughter was so distracted by what was going on that she behaved perfectly.  While the food was being bagged, I got down on my son's level and talked to him about why he could not behave that way and the effect of his actions on everybody else.  20/20 hindsight: I should have done that before proceeding to the checkout.

He was upset when the bagged groceries were put in his sister's trolley and I asked him to leave his inside the store, but he reacted within appropriate levels of grumpiness.  He walked through the car park, holding onto the trolley that his sister was pushing (I was on the other side making sure she did not plough us all into a car) and behaving perfectly.  I, on the other hand, fought against my temper and the urge to snipe at him until we were all safely back in the car.


Lessons Learned

Recently, a parent at school asked if I had any advice for dealing with tantrums.  I may have laughed hollowly in reply.  Since I never can think of what to say when asked like that, I told her that I just deal with it on an individual basis, and that my primary focus is on calming them down. 

• This is perhaps the only thing I've really learned about tantrums: the issue is that the child has lost control of their emotions which is traumatic in and of itself (for them, not just you).  In my opinion, the key thing is to give them the ability to compose themselves, which is obviously easier said than done.  Focus on soothing--placation is OK within reason (avoid caving!) and distraction is effective in the young, though as they get older, techniques for them to calm themselves is important.  I remember once observing another classroom assistant counting a little girl through breathing, "one, two, three," to good effect.
• The big Don't for me is to dwell on whatever triggered the tantrum.  I.e. if they're throwing a fit because they've been denied a cookie, explaining why they can't have a cookie will only remind them why they're upset.  On the flipside, validating their feelings--"You want a cookie, I know you want a cookie!"--can be helpful, particularly as they get older, but if that has no effect, don't bring the cookie up.  Similarly, if they're crying because you have punished them for some misbehaviour, don't keep explaining why you punished them or going back to what they did wrong.  Talk about it after the tantrum, when they're calm.
• Avoiding triggers altogether is even better, of course.  Or, if you see it coming as I did with my son's meltdown today, try and forestall it by crouching down to the child's level, looking them in the eye and explaining that things are not going to go their way, why they aren't and sympathising with them over it.
• There are some instances when you can't deal with the tantrum, e.g. when you're driving.  If that means you have to ignore the child and soothe them later, then that's what you have to do.  It's tough not to be distracted by a screaming child when you're driving, but your focus has to be on the road in that scenario--your only other option is to pull off.  Please never unbuckle your child's seatbelt/harness as a soothing measure unless you have parked the car.
• For older children, Sense of Wonder has a wonderful post on What to do With a Melt Down featuring a script for you to follow.  I have this printed off with the intent on using it on my son, but I always forget about it in the heat of the moment.  The one time I remembered, it was reasonably effective.  I wish I could be consistent with it.

Of course, it's easy to type all that out.  Would that I actually remember my hard-learned wisdom when I'm under the stress of the screaming child!

One thing I did with my son today was to tell him that he was going to have to tell Daddy about it when he got home.  That's one of our little habits: I know I'm going to talk to my husband about it anyway, so it feels fairer to let my son tell him himself. 

For the first time, my son refused to do it out of embarrassment.  Everybody had calmed down by then, so my husband and I both encouraged him to talk about it.  We explained that he had already been told off, so Daddy wouldn't tell him off again.  I also explained that as Daddy and I both take care of him, it's important that we both know what makes him lose control of his temper. 

He still resisted, and eventually, I said that I would tell Daddy.  I did and my son listened and stared at the floor.  I felt this ended up being a useful way of revisiting the situation now that my son was calm and explaining what was wrong with his behaviour.  While I don't really like the idea of shaming him, I am heartened by the fact that he was ashamed, and I do want him to see and acknowledge the negative side of himself sometimes.  It can't all be positive reinforcement.


Oh, and the final tip for dealing with tantrums?  You have to stay calm.  Good luck with that.

Working and Mothering

So, a couple of weeks into the job, I should probably talk about how it's going.


Back to Teaching

I have resumed my old class from before my son was born, teaching two year olds at a Montessori school.  I'm basically acting as a supply teacher, covering until the end of February, something I offered to do because I had the experience and knew the materials / routine.  After February, it seems fairly unlikely that I will be working before September, although I have learned not to make assumptions!

It has been absolutely wonderful to be back in the classroom.  A little chaotic as I re-adjust, especially since I was accustomed to co-teaching that class, and now it's just me mostly (there's another teacher two days a week).  But the adjustment has gone pretty quickly... the only thing I'm really out of practice on seems to be potty-training, or at least remembering to send the potty-trainees to the potty on a regular basis!

Still, I've been figuring out where the classroom control was breaking down, adjusting the situation accordingly (e.g. introducing more calm-down areas, such as a play-doh table that faces a wall, getting one child to 'read' to the others while I'm doing the diapers in the bathroom), and of course, familiarising the children with me and just how far I can be pushed!  I noticed the first moment of classroom harmony (as opposed to me managing crises!) after a week, and this is now happening regularly.  So are the crises, of course--they're toddlers, after all!  But I'm at the point now where I can start assessing the children more individually and presenting new work to them.

It's all tremendously stimulating and reminds me how much I thrive in a prepared environment for these short bursts of time, as opposed to when I'm doing the child-care in my own home 24/7.


Teaching My Own Children

The crossover between home and school is my daughter, who's joined the class--fortunately, she's the only new pupil this term.  I wasn't sure how this would work out; back when my son joined the class, I was volunteering as classroom assistant for a short period, because there was an influx of new children who needed more attention than one person could give.  He found it very difficult to accept that although I was there, I had to help the other children.  In that situation, the classroom teacher tried to attend to him as much as possible, to give him the idea of another caregiver, but for the few weeks I volunteered, he was very clingy with me in the classroom.

In my daughter's case, she hasn't been particularly jealous of the other children, nor has she needed to assert herself as entitled to any special treatment.  However, it's very much been a case of: "You're my mother. I know I can push you further than that!"  If, as this morning, she's slept badly and is crabby, she'll point blank refuse to put her work away, or her jacket on (thanks, sensory issues!) and will start throwing a tantrum over it, just as she would at home.

That's terribly difficult for me, because what works on the other children won't work on her.  I always describe the difference between parental authority and other authority in these terms: the child knows their Mum won't kill them; they can't be so sure about their teacher.  Fortunately, her lack of discipline is not infecting the other children, but I fret that it's setting a bad precedent for her... that this is how she can (indeed, will!) behave in school, and that she'll continue in this vein even once I'm no longer her teacher.

On the other hand, she's so young (technically too young for this class still), and I know full well that she's always been headstrong.  Chances are, she'd have been disobedient anyway, and I've seen plenty of similar children pass through the toddler class who develop beautifully--they might always test the boundaries of authority, but they learn self-control and become better at picking their battles, and it rarely hurts their social standing or academic interest.

I'm not going to turn around and pretend her behaviour is a positive--it might be indicative of leadership abilities and thinking outside the box or whatever, but it's still a problem if I'm spending half the morning on getting her to put her work away.  Nobody's getting the benefit out of the class that they should be in that scenario.  However, I do need to learn not to get so twitchy just because it's my daughter.  In retrospect, I wish she'd started the class under a different teacher, but this is not a sentence of doom on all her schooldays.

My son, incidentally, has loved having me at school.  I don't have much to do with his classroom, but I act as playground monitor at the start and end of the morning.  The toddlers obviously require a shorter work cycle, so they get more playtime, but the Children's House (3-6 year olds) can come out and play more or less at individual whim while the toddlers are having their playtime.  Because I'm a big believer in getting children outside as much as possible, even on rainy days, I cram everybody onto the covered porch and do warm-up exercises and stand-up action songs for as long as I can hold their interest.

Anyway, my son likes the outdoor play in the morning, and he gets a big kick out of the fact that I'm his Mum.  We did have one incident in the first week where he tried to use this to go to the front of the line, but otherwise, he's not expected any special attention.  He's just excited that I'm there.

It's going to be very interesting to see how both children deal with me stopping work in March.


Work and Housework

The juggling of work and home has not really gone well.  I had settled into a good groove by the end of 2012, in terms of keeping the house going, parenting and keeping some me-time, but as I said in my previous post, I'm a morning person.  That's my productive time, and I used to do a lot of the housework in the mornings.  Now I'm at school in the morning, which is great, because my productivity goes into my job, but by the afternoon I'm wiped.

The problem is because I know this isn't permanent, and I can go right back into my old routine come March, I'm not motivated to figure out a new routine.  Instead, I've remembered the lesson of my children's newborn days and gone into survival mode.  For the next six weeks, the things that have to be done will get done, but most other things will not be done as often as they should be, and as much as possible will be put off altogether.

What I'm saying is that I work only twenty hours a week, and I still can't do the housework on top of that.  Do not come looking to me for advice on how to do it all, and I am thoroughly humbled by those of you who manage even my standards in a full-time job.

Parenting, on the other hand, is going well.  I always tried to keep the afternoons for activities with the children.  Now, I have to do a bit more worrying about housework and we have errands to run, but we're still getting out to a playground or the zoo or the botanical gardens a couple of times a week.

The only thing that's really been lost is one on one time with my daughter.  My son gets individual attention during her nap, but it's unusual to have just my daughter and myself working or playing together.  Right now, I don't think it's a problem, especially since she's getting so much new stimulation at school, but I will probably start making the effort to get some alone-time with her after I've finished working.


So there we go.  That's how things stand for now.  Come March, it'll be a very different experience again, as I try the role of Stay at Home Mum with both kids at school in the morning (there's no point in pulling my daughter out of the class at that stage).  I freely admit, I'm looking forward to having so much time to myself, and at least we're fortunate enough that this won't be a financial burden.  Still, I'm hoping that this will be as short-lived a phase as my current position.  I'd like to have a much clearer idea of where I am heading in the long term.

Ready for 2013

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.

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:

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

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.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

So, and I cannot stress this enough, buy a helmet to go with the bike.  My son was completely unhurt by the crash I mentioned above, but I had been so close to not bothering with the helmet that day.  We've been religious about it ever since.  Also, getting them straight back on the bike is good for both of you.

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!

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!