Tag Archives: kids

On giving a dog a bad name

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So I found one of the kids in tears yesterday. When I asked them what was wrong, they said it was because they hadn’t been invited to someone’s party. Now I tend to be quite unsympathetic on this sort of thing with my kids – they can’t expect to be invited to them all, just as they can’t invite everybody in the class to theirs – and I was reminding said child of this when they came out with something that stopped me in my tracks.

‘They wanted to invite me, (sob, sob) but their Mummy said they couldn’t, because she said I stole something from her Mummy’s bag once when I was in reception, (sob, sob) and I don’t steal things and (wailing now) I don’t remember stealing anything and I don’t want to be in trouble’.

UUUUh. Right. Once we’d calmed things down, I did some more digging, thinking that there must be a bigger back story to it all, but that’s still the sum total of the information I have about this. That, and the fact that I have a devastated child on my hands. Not because of the party –  that seems to be neither here nor there –  but devastated because they think they are in trouble, though they can’t remember doing whatever it is they are in trouble for.

Ok. Because I have nothing else to go on, lets start from the premise that my child did take something from someone’s mother’s bag, at some point during their reception year. I’m not really clear how this might have taken place, since the child in question doesn’t spend any time with this adult, but I suppose it could have happened on the yard, or in the park, or at a party.

Reception year would put the age of this child at between only just four, and only just five. Clearly children should not take things from people’s bags, but stealing? Really? A four year old doesn’t STEAL. A four year old might well think ‘I see that, I want it, I will have it’, but I don’t think at that age that stealing is really a concept they have, do they? Of course, a four year old should certainly be aware that they can’t just take stuff they want without asking. But knowing the correct behaviour, and then acting on it at all times, is something that comes with age, and with adult guidance. And if I had known about this incident, I would have dealt with it at the time and used the opportunity to reinforce the fact that you can’t just take stuff, and I would also have insisted that the child apologise to the adult in question. BUT I WASN’T GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY.

So given the fact that this incident wasn’t seen as serious enough to mention to me at the time, and that it happened aeons ago, and that we are talking about four year olds, I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that my child is being told by a classmate that their Mummy doesn’t want them coming to their party, because they ‘stole’ something. If this parent doesn’t want our kids to socialise together, for whatever reason, that is totally and utterly up to her and she has every right to make that call. I just feel that the way it has been done is unkind and thoughtless and unnecessary.

I don’t know whether to tackle this with the parent in question, or whether it will just make things worse. What would you do?

On trying not to multitask

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I have been making a conscious effort to be more ‘present’ with the kids recently, and to multitask a little less.

It bothers me that I have become really good at carrying on a conversation about the school day, at the same time as sending an email, checking the work twitter account, deleting spam from the shop facebook page, juggling money between accounts to avoid overdraft and checking what the weather will be like tomorrow. Admittedly all these things need to be done at some point, but probably not right now. My problem is that I’m very much a right now sort of person, and I do genuinely find it really difficult not to do something if I know it needs to be done. And smartphones – brilliant as they are – only make this tendency worse in me. So I’ve changed a few things – I’ve put my email on fetch rather than push; I’ve turned off @notifications beeps for the twitter accounts I am responsible for; I’ve taught the husband twitter too so he can deal with the shop account; but most of all I have tried to change this mental inability to switch off from work/shop life when I am at home.

Tonight, for instance. Tonight I was going to bang out a couple of emails while the youngest was watching the Night Garden, but I decided – no, I was going to leave the emails and watch it with him. So I put my phone to one side, out of temptation’s reach, and cuddled up with him on the sofa. Then suddenly up he jumps and runs to the other side of the room to bring me my phone.

‘No sweetheart, I don’t need my phone right now, I’m having some special time watching the Night Garden with you’.

I watch his little face, waiting for the beam of happiness that would surely come from having my undivided attention.

And I am indeed rewarded with a beam, a massive grin from ear to ear. A lovely warm feeling washes over me. Yes, I should definitely do this more often. Look how happy he is, just from having even a small amount of one to one Mummy time.

‘Really?’ he says, ‘Don’t you want to do Mummy’s work on Mummy’s phone?’

‘No, Mummy doesn’t need her phone now – Mummy can do her work later’.

An even bigger grin. Oh, how I am mentally polishing my mothering halo. And then, slowly, reality dawns as his grin gets bigger again…

‘Oh, good. That means I can play Angry Birds!’

angry-birds

On hitting back

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For no particular reason, yesterday was a crap day. Whiny tired kids, whiny tired me, the husband at work all weekend – you know the kind of thing. So pretty much as soon as I could decently put them to bed, I did, and then followed them with a beer and the laptop for a cheering-up dose of Outnumbered, the BBC comedy about a 2-parent, 3-kid family, which never fails to make me feel a bit better about life.

Here’s a clip from the episode I watched last night…

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It’s not one of the funniest bits by any means, but I wanted to share it because it reminds me of one of the ongoing dilemmas we face as parents – what do you tell your children about hitting other kids? It used to be really clear in my mind –  DON’T. And while they are small, that’s fairly easy to maintain. Don’t push other kids around, and if someone does it to you, don’t hit back, just tell a grownup.

It’s not so clear cut for me now. I’m still parroting the ‘don’t hit anyone, ever’, line but particularly with the eldest, should I be encouraging him to stand up for himself more? He’s nearly eight and though I don’t want him to be aggressive to other kids, I do want him to be able to look after himself – and of course as they get older, grassing people up becomes less a route to solving a problem and more to becoming seen as a weakling. It’s not a problem at school, thankfully – where there have been issues between some of the boys the staff seem to be very good at nipping them in the bud. But holiday playscheme is another matter – he is often picked on by one of the older boys there, and there has also been some shoving around. The staff are pretty good but it is never going to be the same controlled environment that it is in school.

Summer holidays are nearly 3 months away but he’s getting anxious about 4 weeks at playscheme already, and I’m getting anxious for him, and about what I should be telling him to do if the picking on gets more physical? He knows not to hit first, but should I be relaxing the line about not hitting back? And what if he does, and it escalates and someone gets really hurt? What are the rest of you telling your kids? I would love to hear about it!