narrating kayoz

Group behaviour, boys and their cliques in school

Via the Twelfth Down Under Feminist Carnival, I've just been reading Andragy: CyberBullying, Feminism, Mean Girls, Queen Bees and Boys, and from there, the bit of Queen Bees and Wannabes that's online at Amazon.

Andra says of Wiseman's book:

I think that Queen Bees is a fine piece of feminist analysis, with racial and sexual prejudices opened up as well. Wiseman points out that she works equally with boys and girls, and that society's definition of masculinity influences boys away from strength, individuality and towards violence, bullying and groups in the same way that definitions of femininity trap girls.

I'd love to read a similar book about boys (though I note from the TOC of Queen Bees that there is a chapter on boys, and I have requested it from my local library). I do feel that ever since Liam began school the influence towards violence and group behaviour has certainly been growing.

He still does plenty of lovely creative play,* plays with girls as well as boys and so on. And I love his teacher and think she is working really well with them to teach them to be courteous, that making sure everyone gets a go is more important than winning a game etc. But the cliques seem to be forming, the popular children and less popular children are finding their places.

And I am starting to feel that I need more information. Liam is a boy, which I plainly am not. And also, he seems to be quite popular. Which, it might surprise you to know, I already was not by his age. I wasn't the lowest of the low at any time, but I was below the middle, right through until the end of year 10.**

So I'm not entirely sure how to teach him to - well, to be nice. To not fall in with group behaviour which is mean to others. To stick up for children who need support. Andra quotes Wiseman:

Boys and men who speak out against sexism or publicly support girls and women run the risk of being ridiculed by their peers as "fags", "sissies", "pussies" or in some circles "sensitive new age guys".

This is the sort of message I am afraid Liam might be picking up from his friend 'Craig'. That being kind, wearing a beany, playing co-operatively etc might may him some kind of 'sissy' (a word I would hope he's never heard, but I'm probably kidding myself), and that there's something wrong with that.

Any book recommendations for me?
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*Am I showing my biases here?
** Year 11 & 12 is at a different school in Canberra, and quite a different experience - for which I was extremely grateful.

A parenting dilemma: bad influences and all that jazz

I think I must be a real parent now. I am stuck with my first real parenting dilemma.*

Liam has made friends - best buddies type friends - with one of the two kids in his class I would really prefer he wasn't friends with at all. I am going to call this friend Craig. Craig is not a bad kid - it could be a LOT worse. He can even be quite charming, in a ratbag sort of way. But he's quite aggressive, doesn't seem very clear about personal boundaries (by which I mean, has no idea, even for a seven year old), appears to watch a lot of the sort of television I would not let Liam near (though this is self reported so may not be true - but he certainly knows a lot about the shows and movies he talks about), and, did I mention quite aggressive?

I think the main thing that concerns me is that Liam seems to be strongly influenced by this kid. Some minor examples: for a while he didn't want to wear his beany to school, because Craig didn't wear one; he won't have bananas with his lunch any more because Craig doesn't eat them. More major issues is the increase in aggressive behaviour in him this year, and particularly in name calling and yelling. I can't, of course, put that all down to his friendship with Craig. Some of it may be the change in environment from the very protected kinder space to class one, some of it may be age appropriate. And there could be other factors I haven't thought of.

I also think Liam is a bit intimidated by him. One day he told me he didn't want to go to school after he'd been off sick for a couple of days, because Craig would yell at him, when asking him where he'd been. Liam *loves* school so I took that quite seriously. I told Liam we could talk to his teacher about it when we got there, so that's what we did. But, first we had to shake off Craig. He really likes Liam, and grabs him (sometimes metaphorically, sometimes not) as soon as we get there - or more often as soon as he gets there. But even though he likes Liam, he can be quite belittling towards him as well.

On this occasion Craig was there first, so he followed Liam into the classroom, where we went to deposit Liam's lunch and then to find his teacher, Margie. I was able to indicate to her that I would like to talk to her, but without Craig around, so she directed him to take down his chair and put his bag away (outside), while she led me and Liam into the little kitchen that comes off the classroom. Craig more or less ignored her and tried to follow. I was bringing up the rear, so I was the one who had to firmly tell him "No, I need to talk to Margie. Sit in your chair," and basically closed the door in his face.

Before I even told her what we were there for, Margie asked me if I'd had many prior dealings with Craig - she said he needs that sort of firm handling, firm boundaries set, but that some parents are intimidated by him and let him walk all over them. I hadn't had much to do with him, but enough I guess!

I asked a teacher-friend for advice, and she suggested nurturing relationships with other kids in the class who we like - remember, he is going to be in this class for seven years - having playdates with them, and avoiding playdates with Craig. So that's what I'm planning to do, as much as possible.

I guess my dilemma comes from the fact that I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do. I mean, someone has to play with this kid. And if all the parents with - okay, I'm not sure how to say this without it coming across as completely egotistical, but what I'm trying to say is: this boy could end up being a troubled teen. He could. And if all more involved, boundary-providing parents discourage their kids from playing with him, who is he going to end up with?

Look, I have no idea if Liam would be a 'good influence' on him in the long run. But he might be. On the other hand, Craig might be a horrible influence on Liam. Already, I don't like the effects. What would you do? Or what have you done?

_________________
*First one that springs to mind with my virus-befuddled brain, anyway.

Two mums *and* two dads - how cool is that?

This is a random conversation we had in the car on Saturday. Not sure where it came from, as we hadn't been talking about J or his family.

Liam: Does J have two dads?

Me: Yeah he does.

Chris: How lucky is that - two mums and two dads?

Liam: Yeah!

(J lives in California with his Mum, my best friend, and his Mama, my best friend's wife. His bio-Dad is also an important, involved person in his life, and since he is also married (though not legally - they don't live in the right state for that) J has two Dads as well.)

I've blogged about this before, but it bothers me how little real diversity Liam sees in his day to day life, particularly with regard to sexuality and family styles. And what bothers me too is how I have failed to offset the reality of the dominant culture he lives in by providing non-dominant role models in books. Because the fact is, that while we have some books (at least one anyway) with two mums, and others with only one mum or one dad (none with two dads I think), and quite a few with people of colour, and we borrow others from the library from time to time, there are scads and scads and scads of books - both in our house and in the library - with one mum, one dad, three kids, all white.

And at school almost all Liam's friends have a mum and a dad, living together. A few (and no doubt this will increase with time) live with their Mum and see Dad on weekends. Most of them are white, though not all. Most of the Dads work full-time. Many of the Mum's work part-time, while many are SAHMs. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with stay-at-home mum's - or dads - Chris and I would both like to be them! It's just that I want Liam to see that there are options. That there is not one right way to be or to live.

Anyway, this is a bit of a rave with little focus, but I'm on my lunch break at work blogging a day late (in Australia, but it's still the 1st in much of the world) for Blogging for LGBT Families Day 2009. And this is where the that conversation with Liam took me. Any recommendations for books with different family structures, particularly books with two mums or two dads where that's not seen as a big deal - just a general background feature of life - much appreciated. Anything from picture books for Mikaela, who is nearly three, to chapter books to read to Liam, who is seven.

How wonderful and awful and awe-full it is to be a parent

This is a wonderful article from Kate Cole-Adams that I have found slightly late via The Rachel Papers:
My precious burden | theage.com.au.

I understood at last that I would never be free from this immense, uncompromising love; that my chest had been cracked open down the breastbone, as if with a cleaver; and that from now on my heart would be naked; that every pain my child felt would be amplified in me; and, worse, that I, in the selfish, thoughtless act of creating him, was complicit in this pain, from which neither of us would ever be free.
...
We took comfort from the notion of the good-enough mother, whose job it is to meet some but not all of her child's needs, thereby encouraging her offspring, through strategic neglect, to become resourceful and self-confident. But we were only partly convinced. And I was not sure that my morning rants qualified as strategic.

TV free month is almost over (and why I am not writing anyway)

We've just about finished a month with no TV (officially it ends at midnight on Sunday), and I have to admit, in some ways it was pretty much a failed experiment.

Some of the things I thought/hoped would happen were:

1. We'd see an improvement in kid behaviour - this was probably the biggest leap, but I really hoped it might work. On the other hand, in terms of it's experimental value we didn't really do it at the right time, since it coincided with school going back and Liam starting class one, which I think has been fairly exhausting for him, despite how much he likes it.
2. I would write more - if not 'real' writing, then at least surely in the blog.
3. We would have more s-x.
4. We would go to bed earlier.
5. The kids would get out of the habit of asking for TV all the time (a very bad habit that developed during the holidays for a number of reasons)
6. I would get out of the habit of using the TV to give me a rest (from parenting) too often.

I think number five was the only one that really worked. The kids definitely did get out of the habit, and Liam in particularly was hardly bothered by it at all -then again, he is used to the no TV on school days rule, since we implemented it at the end of 2007, with his approval. So again, as an experiment the timing was bad.

On the other hand we didn't really do it for it's experimental value, so much as to achieve numbers four and five, because we'd been doing those things way too much in the holidays. And we did achieve those, but there were still lots of times when I desperately wanted to put it on just to give me a break, so I think I will still need to work at being strict with myself after this weekend.

The other way in which the timing sucked was in that I have started working on a new project at work, moreorless on top of my normal work. So although I only work two and half days a week (for money anyway!), on my two full days I've been doing ten or eleven hours and more each day. And the funny part about that is I really haven't been doing that much extra on the new project, but my normal work has happily eaten into the extra time.

I don't really mind the extra work. If I did I wouldn't be doing it. But I can see that I am going to have to be a bit careful about it. For one thing I think Chris and the kids are getting sick of me missing dinner and bedtime. Also, uni starts back this coming week.

For another thing, I have done (virtually) no writing all month.

And for another, I am tired.

Of course, that could be because I've been awake since four o'clock this morning. Thanks kids

The divided heart

(I wrote this offline, earlier in the week)

Reading Rachel Power's book, The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood, I am overwhelmed by the resonances it continually strikes. It's not surprising, perhaps, that such a book should resonate for me. This blog, largely, is about art – writing – and motherhood (or at least it's about the children). But it seems that each page I read there is another quote I want to record, and share, and comment on. I have half written a dozen essays in my head in the past half hour. So many things I've been thinking, or not quite thinking but feeling, are being articulated in this book.

I often feel incredibly lucky: as a writer-mother I have it easy compared to many, if not most. I have a supportive partner who actively encouraged me to start the masters in writing, knowing that writing was really what I wanted more than anything else to be concentrating my energies on. My professional energies that is, because of course parenting requires and equal – if not greater – toll.

Right now I am sitting in a cafe, writing, on a Monday night. My children think I'm at pilates, which is where I usually go on Monday nights as soon as Chris arrives home. But my pilates instructor is away this month, so I am going to this cafe instead, to carve a little time to write, or read, or plot, or research markets. Yesterday morning I spent time writing while Chris took the children swimming, which is a recently resumed habit, since the pool they go to finally reopened just before Christmas, after six months of renovations.

Nonetheless, I struggle with the same guilt that seems common to so many writer-mothers. Somewhere recently I read a comment from a writer-mother about the problem of treating art as a privilege, not an obligation*. I know there are those who feel torn between their salaried jobs and their children. I honestly don't have that issue, perhaps because I know my kids are with their father when I'm at work, or because I only work 20 hours a week, or because I think the benefits to all of us of Chris and I sharing the domestic role as well as the paid-worker role far out way any disadvantages.**

But I do find it hard to treat my writing as an obligation, and I find it hard to expect my partner to do so also. It doesn't pay (usually) and while I hope that it will, it's never likely to replace my public service salary. And now that I am actually enjoying my paid work so much it makes writing seem even more like a luxury that I indulge in at the expense of my family. I long to have my Sundays back – Sundays in my study, that is, like I had before I went back to work, while I was working on my Masters Project. Time to write and think and read as I felt I needed to.

Power writes of "the burden of the artistic imperative, of that constant desire to record everything almost before it's happened" (p . 16).*** Oh yes, I thought. She also writes about sometimes longing to be free of it. "For the first time in my life, I envied the women without strong ambitions outside of the home. Art was like a monkey on my back and I resented it's skittish hold on me, the way it caused me to strain away from my babies, to live a split life. I was burdened by the knowledge of what it would cost my family (financially, but more so emotionally) for me to keep writing – just as I became aware of how much it was cost me not to." (p. 17) Yes yes yes!

I think I've written here before about the sense I have sometimes of how much easier life could be if I could just give up writing. The time I – we, as a family – would suddenly have. The freedom I would have from this constant desire to record, to interpret, to imagine. But I don't know how to be free of that desire. I've had it as long as I can remember, or at least ever since I read Our snowman has olive eyes when I was about eight, which ends with the protagonist deciding to write about her grandmother – sort of an eight-year-old's memoir (from memory, which could be wrong). And although I often think it would make life easier, I don't really want to be rid of the monkey either. I don't know who I would be without it.

This past six months, since I finished my master's project and started back at work, I have written little. I have spent weekends with my family, planted and expanded our vegie garden, planned fruit trees, half covered our pergola (our house faces west, so this is not before time), and of course gotten back into the swing of paid work, complete with occasional overtime. But I have been hankering after my writing time, trying to figure out how to fit it in.

The truth is that I am lazy by nature. I like to sit and read and chat with my husband, and yes sometimes watch television (I gave Chris the last season of Alias for Christmas and we've already watched 5 episodes). Also, since I had children I always seem to be tired. I don't like to do housework – and unfortunately neither does he, so our house is a constant mess, I don't like to get up early, I don't like to stay up late.

Also I do like to spend that precious hour or two after the kids are in bed with my husband. Usually a good bit of that is still spent in domestic labour, be it cleaning the kitchen (Chris usually does that), hanging out washing, watering the vegies or walking the dog. Then, if we're lucky, there's enough time left to watch an episode of Alias (or West Wing – we're on the second season) before I need to collapse into bed. Otherwise we usually retire to the living room for a cuppa and a chat. Sometimes I retire instead to the study to write a blog post or read my email or google something or other, but mostly I reserve that little bit of time to be alone with my partner. And I do that both because I want to and because I feel I should; that it's important for both of us separately and more to the point for both of us together.

Part of our commitment when we married was to nurture our relationship – to recognise that it would not always thrive without some effort on our part, and to put that effort in. Having brought children into the mix that becomes even more important, while ironically also becoming harder to manage. I am lucky to be able to say that our relationship is – I think – as solid today as it ever was. Nonetheless I feel to neglect it is both foolish and unfair.

Or is this simply all justification for my inability to prioritise writing?

I do feel incredibly lucky, as I began by saying, in my choice of life partner, in my well paid part-time work, in my wonderful children. But I still feel guilt when I take 'time out' to write. Especially when I use the time to write something like this, or to read, or to – well, do anything that is not either required for my masters (and I do have one subject to go, which will begin in March), or specifically aimed at getting published. If I'm writing an article or preparing a story for submission, that's not too bad. But if I use the time for writing like this, or what I think of as feeding my writing-self, by reading something like Power's book, I feel like I am somehow being deceitful, like my partner has given me this time (as Power says, time alone is never free, once you have children – it has to be "bought, borrowed or stolen" (p. 14)) and I am wasting it.

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*Maybe at Literary Mama, maybe one of the revolving writer-quotes on Dawn's blog, maybe somewhere else (somewhere offline even!).

** That's not to say I don't feel frustrated by never having enough time either at work or home - I just don't feel guilty about it.

***page numbers refer to the paperback edition (amazon refers to a hardback?), published by Red Dog, Fitzroy, 2008. Rachel Power is an Australian, by the way, who also just happens to be a good friend of a good friend of mine, and who also had her first child within a week (or was it a day?) of mine, but who I've never met.

On mother-writing, mothering and/while writing, and writing as a mother.

If the woman artist has been trained to believe that the activities of motherhood are trivial, tangential to main issues of life, irrelevant to the great themes of literature, she should untrain herself.  Alice Ostriker

This is the epigraph to the introduction to The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood, by Rachel Power. I blogged about this book before when I heard Power interviewed on the radio, and now I own it, thanks to my lovely husband who bought it for me for Christmas.

Of course, being a mother of children on school holidays, I've barely read any of it yet. But so far I think my favourite two quotes from the introduction (yes, I haven't even made it past the seven page introduction) are:

"Beyond giving birth, however, the stuff of mother's lives becomes worse than taboo - it becomes merely mundane. Mothering is such a prosaic term in our culture that it functions as a disguise for the true intensity of the experience, blocking any insight into the way this singular knowledge could be translated into good art."

You'd think we'd be over this by now, but we so are not! Just this morning I was discussing with one of my mother friends the sense one gets when talking to one's still single (or at least childless) friends - of being old and married with children and living in the suburbs (oh the horror!)*. I think being a mother is a bit like living in the suburbs. Actually, it can be very rewarding and intensely stimulating, but it still has such a dud reputation.  (Okay, I'm going a bit far as far as the suburbs go, but you get my point.)

"Every woman featured in this book defies the myth of the artist as tortured, self-obsessed genius with no option but to damage those who love them. Each is at a different stage along the path of reconciling the demands of domesticity with her desires as an artist...
"All the myths about art, as well as motherhood, are dismantled and reinvented by the voices collected here."

Soon, soon I will get to read more and I will enjoy those dismantlings and reinventions, I'm sure of it.

_____

*I hasten to add this is not a sense necessarily projected by the childless friends, just a message we have internalised from the broader culture.

The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood

I've just been listening to a radio interview with Rachel Power, author of The Divided Heart, along with two of her interviewees, and just listening to them talk inspired me to get back to writing something - even blogging.

I have written virtually nothing since I started work two months ago. A few blog posts, a few more half blog posts*, nothing else.

I blame it partly on settling into my new routine that includes three days a week in the paid workforce,** partly on a sort of post-intensive study/writing lull, and partly on the fact that I've been sick four (4!) times since I began work. That's roughly every two weeks. Currently I m just getting my voice back after two days without it, but to compensate one of my ears is completely blocked (and weeping!) and every sounds reverberates inside there, mixing in with the constant ringing. And that's not even to mention the sore throat, headache, wet cough etc. And this began two Sundays ago.

Of course another factor is Spring - I always have a hard time settling down to writing in the Spring, when what I really want to do is get out into the garden. Today it is a beautiful, sunny, 16 degree day, and what I really long to be doing is getting out into the vegie garden which has a lot of preparation needed before the Spring planting begins,*** but I know that what i should really be doing is resting, and even standing here at the bench typing on my laptop (which is the only way Kaely will let me get any writing done) is more restful than digging paths and lugging manure and mulch and sawdust. So when my brain is still available at night I've been re-reading books on permaculture and vegetables and herbs, and drawing out plans, trying to figure out how to make the best of my south-west facing block.

But back to the point of this post, which was writing and motherhood and Rachel's book. Rachel Power, I realised half way through the interview, is a very good friend of a friend of mine. A few years back when Liam was a baby, and her first child was a baby, and I was in Melbourne for a month while Chris completed his Rolfing triaining, our mutual friend was trying to get us together, and I remember she told me that Rachel was writing (or perhaps just thinking about at that stage) this book. We both had babies and lived on opposite sides of Melbourne and had transport issues, so we never did manage to connect. But it was partly talking to that same friend, a year or so later, that inspired me to start the Masters degree. I suppose I felt that studying and working part-time would simply not be possible at the same time as being the mother I wanted to be for my son.

Of course me studying did impact Liam. And (equally of course) that is one of the refrains of the book - the balancing act between doing the work you want/need to do and being the mother you want/your children need you to be. One of the women interviewed said that of course her children were impacted, but that for her it was about finding the compromise she could live with. Of course, that's something I suppose all working mothers (and to some extent fathers) live with, but there's a definitely difference between working for a certain pay check and working for a *maybe* pay check, somewhere in the future. For me, I suppose that I could make a living writing if I really really worked at it, but it would be a lot more work for a lot less money. So my writing becomes something that I fit into my 'spare' time, and hope to get bits of peices of published here and there.

Another difference between the at work mother and the artist mother is that the latter, whether she's paid or not, is very often a work-at-home mother, so her work is constantly interrupted and fit in around. Rachel Power spoke about the self-discipline required - that now she has finished The Divided Heart, it's so much easier to make the beds than to sit down and start a new project. Especially, I add, when you know that you will be interrupted over and over again. So far in the time I've been writing this post I have also

• changed a stinky nappy
• set Mikaela up with the trainset
• set Mikaela up with the barn and animals
• set Mikaela up with a pencil case and paper (and moved myself from the kitche bench to the dining room table so as to keep an eye on her and make sure she neither sucks any of Liam's textas (markers) dry, nor draws on my pile of gardening books also sitting on the dining room table)
• put on a load of washing (nappies)
• helped Mikaela with numerous pen lids, and rescued the same from her mouth.

One of the mothers on the radio mentioned the guilt over knowing that your children want to be with you, and yet you are argonising over the exactly word or phrase you need while they watch a video. Mikaela's not yet of an age or temperament where I can count on the tele to keep her occupied for more than about five minutes (although sometimes it will), but I have certainly experienced that guilt with Liam. For me though, when I was studying on a Sunday, it was more the sense that I was depriving not only the kids, but the whole family of 'family time' (since Chris was also working on Saturdays). So now that I am not studying, and Chris is not working on Saturdays for a while, I am relishing our long, two day weekends, but also half wishing I could justify shutting myself away in my study again. I said I was write in the evenings, but so far I haven't done it. Some women get up at the crack of dawn to write or paint or whatever before their kids are up, but my kids are up at about 6am lately, and I frankly am not going to get up significantly earlier than that - I don't get enough sleep as it is.

I am still planning to make the evenings thing work for me, but for the moment I really just need to try to get my health under control, and try to write a little more during the day I think, the washing be damned.

On the up side, I was interested to hear my experience reflected (and I gather this was also a common theme), in that having children actually makes the art easier, the work more efficient in some ways. There's something about knowing you only have ten minutes, or two hours or whatever that can focus the mind, reduce the procrastination, and enhance one's ability to make fast judgements. One of the women also commented that having children makes your emotional nerve endings that much more sensitive, which can actually be quite useful to an artist.

But now I have literally used up all my time for writing this morning. Kaely is moving towards melt down and needs to be fed and put to bed in time to get her up again to go pick Liam up for school. It's possible her nap will give me more time, but just as likely that she'll spend half of it in my arms and then wake up twenty minutes after I put her down. I don't mind too much - I love having her sleep in my arms, and it gives me an enforced rest too, which I could use. Then again I could also use the time to hang out those nappies before while the sun is still high in the sky, or to think about dinner, or perhaps I could plant some of those tomato seeds that arrived in the mail the other day, so they'll be ready to plant out in the garden by the beginning of November... right now though I'd better go organise lunch.

________________

*Because most of the time when I start writing Kaely interrupts after about two paragraphs if I'm lucky, and then again another para on, and so on until I completely lose the thread and the interest. Which is why the posts I do write are so jumpy from one thought to another - no time to stop and think or save a thought till later or re-structure afterwards, if i do that, it never gets posted at all.

**Which i am still quite enjoying by the way, and at least there I am getting to do a teeny bit of writing - currently I'm working on a story on WWII shipwrecks in Australian waters, as random as that sounds - though mostly I'm doing more mundane work of updating websites with other people's content.

***Our vegie garden has lain fallow since we moved the chooks back into their run a couple of months back, but we are about to get serious about it again - and see how that goes with Lochie and what we might have to do. In the meantime, on the weekend we finally got a couple more Silkies (another white and a blue) to be friends for Fluffy, which was very exciting and is another reason to be spending time outside.

Managing the toddler's 'negative' behaviour

I've been re-reading bits of You are your child's first teacher, by Rahima Baldwin Dancy. I have to return it to the library today, but I'll be getting it back because it's full of good reminders and information. It's written by a Steiner teacher, but what I like about it is that it doesn't just rely on Steiner's ideas, it backs them up (and occasionally updates them altogether) with more contemporary research.

This is the sort of book you can just dive into anywhere and find something good. I opened it first (randomly) at a section called 'Dealing with Negative Behaviour' in the chapter on 'Helping Your Toddler's Development'. It starts out "One of the challenges of living with the child from eighteen to thirty-six months is dealing with the 'negativisim' that he manifests. If you can recongnize your child's emerging sense of self and power as something positive, you won't fall into the trap of thinking that you have done something wrong..." (or, I would add, that the child is somehow 'wrong').

She talks about the importance of being loving but firm, providing limits and corrections in calmness (not anger) but with 'absolute certainty' that there is no other choice. She goes on to suggest that you

...set up your house so that the child has the maximum freedom and requires the minimum of no's, and then you are firm about what is not allowed. It is wonderful for your child to be curious, but he doesn't have to play with your makeup, which can be met with a stern no, removing the child from the scene, and then putting the makeup in a less accessible place. There is no need to punish the child, because a toddler is unable to understand what he has done or to remember the next time.

This idea of then making it inaccessible is the key. Why set yourself up for conflict? She goes on (a bit later)

Many two-year-olds hate change and fall apart during transitions between activities. Everything has to be a certain way or pandemonium breaks loose. This doesn't mean you need to give in each time or put up with whiny behaviour, but understanding this aged child's attachment to order can help you avoid problems.

Of course, knowing something is age appropriate and acting that way are two different things. I find it a whole lot easier to accept Kaely's two-year-old age appropriate tantrums than Liam's six-year-old ones - even though I know in my head that his behaviour is just as understandable as hers. Head knowledge doesn't stop me feeling cross about it. But - and this, I think, is the important part of Dancy's comments - knowing what's normal can help you avoid problems, for instance by putting the makeup out of reach, or in the case of transitions by creating set routines and rituals that the children know and even enjoy. She gives an example of a bedtime routine:

One mother I know lights a candle while she sings a song, and then lets the child blow out the match, which is an exciting incentive to get the child to go into the bedroom. Then they go into the bathroom to put on pajamas and brush teeth. The mother has turned off the bedroom light, so when they return, they have to tip toe and be very quiet as they enter the softly lighted room and lie down together for songs and playing the children's harp.

Of course, sometimes it's not that easy:

...sometimes your child will just be negative, and she may astonish you with the force of her refusal...

One of the most effective ways of handling negative behaviour is removing the child from the area of activity. With a young child, this requires going with her and staying with her until she is ready to return. For example, fussiness and throwing food at dinner can be quickly handled by taking her down the hall, telling her what when she is a happy clown the two of you can go back, and then standing there like a stone until she comes around. It usually takes about one to three minutes, because it's very boring being out of the action with a deadpan mother or father who won't interact with your until you're ready to do what is expected.

I'm not sure how I feel about the 'happy clown' idea - do I want to teach my kid that 'happy' is the only acceptable emotion? But the idea that you removed the toddler from the situation, stay with her, and remain impassive - that all makes sense to me. There's no point in getting upset or angry. She's only two after all - but there is a point to firmly enforcing acceptable limits. She needs them enforced in order to learn them.

Oh dear, I'm going to have to take this book back to the library now, and I had so many other bits bookmarked.

Meditations for kids

Following a post from Trish a while ago at Imperfect Parent, I borrowed a book from the library called Meditations for Kids, by Kids. It's not the book Trish was talking about (which was The Wishing Star: Meditations for Children) - they didn't have that one in the library. But I liked the idea of reading a meditation with Liam each night before he went to sleep, so I thought I'd try the one they did have.

It's been a good experience. We've been right through the book once, and are half way through again. Sometimes Chris reads him a meditation after Liam and I have finished our 'book & chat' time and I have gone off to nurse Kaely and put her to bed in our room. Or sometimes if Liam is still awake when I've got Kaely down, I read him one then.

Each of the meditations is written by one of four kids in a family. The youngest was, I think, four at the time of writing (he's only got one or two in there) and the oldest was about ten (she has a lot). They all have the same basic structure - you go into your peaceful garden, hang your worries on the worry tree, take a few deep breaths, let go etc. - and they tend to have lots of comments about being safe and loved.   In the middle of that, some are rather quirky. But all are engaging, as far as Liam is concerned. One includes a dolphin ride into the quiet depths of the water. Another involves Pixies. Many involve friendly talking animals.

At first Liam said he wasn't going to 'do' the meditation, he just wanted to listen. Now he tends to close his eyes as he listens and take the deep breaths when instructed, but he still often bounces up at the end to ask for another one. Recently when he did that I told him the idea was to stay relaxed afterwards and let himself drift off to sleep. I don't know if he took that to heart, because I haven't read him one since then, but last night after our goodnight kiss and cuddle he said "I think I could just lie here and drift off to sleep now," so maybe he did take it in. Either way, I think we'll keep up the habit of bedtime meditations. It's a soothing way to end the day (and lets face it, the pre-bedtime part of the end of the day is usually anything by soothing), and I like the idea of Liam gradually developing the skills of mediation, or at least of relaxation.  It's something we could all do with more of.

Night weaning progress

Well, we started night weaning Mikaela on Saturday night, that is, two night ago. So far it's going well. Last night I *think* she woke up once before Chris came to bed (but after I was in bed), and then she didn't wake up again until 5:10am. That's not particularly unusual, she has phases where she'll do that for a few days or a week, and then she'll go back to waking at twelve or one or two or three or some combination there of. And 5. And it sounds good (sleeping from 12-5am being the very definition of sleeping through the night, oddly enough), but actually it's a bit annoying, since usually I am then up with her until six, when she may go back to sleep, but I know the alarm will be waking me up in perhaps half an hour. So basically, when she wakes up at five, my night usually ends at five.

Not so last night. Night weaning means that when she wakes up, Chris gets up to her. That's only temporary, once we've got it into a routine we'll take turns. Probably have three nights on (with both kids), three nights off and then alternate Saturday nights, or something like that. But back to the point, last night she didn't wake up until 5:10, when Chris went down to her. But was he up with her for the better part of an hour (or more)? No, he had her back down within ten minutes. And then she slept until 6:45. So like I said, so far it's going pretty well.

I forgot to prepare her the way I did with Liam (I'm sure I've talked about that here, but can't find the post to link to). I think I mentioned it, almost in passing, on Friday night when we were having our last nurse before bed. Then all day Saturday I meant to remind her with each feed, but all day I forgot. So I told her before bed on Saturday night. I said that we wouldn't be having mummy-milk in the night any more after bedtime. If she woke up in the night she could go back to sleep by herself (I always tell her that!), or Daddy would come down and rock her to sleep. And in the morning, at breakfast time, we would have mummy-milk again.

She woke up twice on Saturday night, once quite early, when Chris would usually be the one to go to her anyway, but she cried each time. Chris was able to settle her though, and in the morning she slept in till almost 7:30, which was lovely.

Then on Sunday I reminded her a few times during the day, while she was nursing. And Sunday night I reminded her again, and finished by saying "And if you wake up in the night, who will rock you back to sleep?" "Daddy!" she replied, quite happily. Tonight we went through the same routine. So hopefully, tonight will be as easy as last night. And after a couple more days of this, I will try going down and soothing her to back to sleep, without breastfeeding, and we'll see how that goes.

Right now though, I am going to bed.

From Hi-5 to Finn Brothers - which would you prefer?

One of the great things about having a six-year-old child, as opposed to a four-year-old, is the music.

When Mikaela was born Liam was right in the middle of an obsession with a single Hi-5 CD, which lasted several months. We heard that album over and over and over again. So did my mum and step-dad. Poor Mikaela, it was her main introduction to the world of music!

But later that year, he has developed a taste for adult music.

In quick succession, Liam decided he liked Indigo Girls, Crowded House, Victoria Stanborough, Tori Amos and others. His latest craze is with the Finn Brothers (Neil & Tim Finn).

There is a down side to this, which is that we are 'forced' to listen to the same albums and some times the same songs, over and over, before he gets sidetracked by something else and moves on. For instance, he's been in love with one of the Finn Brothers' albums now for several weeks, and so while I occasionally manage to get something else into the car CD player, that one CD has been in their on repeat for most of that time. And it's only a relatively recent preference for Liam. Even one's favourite music can eventually get worn out under those circumstances, but on the other hand - it's still better than listening to Hi-5!

Kinder chat - creative discipline

On Monday night Chris and I went to a 'kinder chat' at Liam's school, given by a kindergarten teacher, Riita, who was one of the founders of the school and has been teaching kindy there for twenty-five years.

There wasn't anything especially new, but there were a few good reminders for me. Some of them were around basic stuff like needing to have good routines, a beautiful/not chaotic environment (we fall down on that one), good food, proper amounts of sleep and so on. Others were perhaps slightly less obvious:

• This is the age of imitation. Therefore how I want Liam (and Mikaela) to be, is how I have to be. That includes how I want them to talk, how I want them to deal with anger and frustration, and whether I want them to yell (at me, at each other).
  
  • Riita said at school they talk about inside and outside voices, and when the kids yell in the classroom they say to them "That's your outside voice Johnny, it's time for your inside voice now." I've done that with Liam, but somehow I don't think we (he or I) have ever made the connection which Riita made, which is to me also having an inside voice. So I told Liam on Tuesday that I am going to try to keep to my inside voice in the house too. We'll see how I go!
• She talked about concentrating on the positive behaviours and accomplishments. As an example she said at school the children pour their own water from the jug. The only time a teacher will help is if the jug is so full it's too heavy for a child. And when they first do this, they tend to over fill and spill. Then they learn to go and get a cloth and wipe up the water. Next time they pour the water, they will often pour too little, and need more. So when the jug comes back around again the teacher will say "A half a cup is a good amount." And then, when the time comes that the child can pour half a cup successfully, they will say "Look, Johnny can pour a half a cup of water now." (Or something, I don't remember exactly, maybe she says it directly to the child, rather than in the third person.) But they don't ever comment on the times when the child pours too much or too little.
  
  • I know this is really pretty obvious stuff, but I am belabouring it a little because I realised that I am forgetting to do it. And I also notice that once I am a little cranky or impatient, if, for instance, it has taken me 20 minutes of nagging to get Liam to clean his teeth after dinner, then I am even less patient with what are merely a child's normal accidents, like squeezing out too much toothpaste from the new tube, or accidentally wiping it on a towel. Or even things that aren't accidents, like walking around the house with the toothbrush in mouth instead of standing at the sink, as per our rule. It's not an accident, but it's only a minor infringement. Yet I can become quite, quite cross about it, mostly because I am already cross from the twenty minutes of nagging. Anyway...

• Creative discipline. Riita talked also about when a child is having a tantrum (this is a kinder aged child - around 4-6 - not a one-year-old, for instance, though no doubt this approach could be modified), and how you can distract them. She suggested: You might cup your hands together around something special - maybe a gold ring, or even your watch - and you look into a small opening in your hands to see what is there. You might put your hands up to your ear and pretend your special gold ring is talking to you "Oh," you say to your ring, "I can have three wishes?" By this time the child just has to come and look to see what is inside your hands, and you might engage them in the conversation too. "well," you tell your ring, "I wish that we might go to the playground later today," or "I wish that we might go to Grandpa's house this weekend," or whatever. But mind, you then have to follow through on the wish, so that it is "true" and not just a trick.

Basically it gave us a few new ideas, but mostly some good reminders about our own modeling of the behaviour and values we would like to see in our children, and about using distraction rather than chastisement, and acknowledgement of good behaviour and successes rather than failures, as ways of discipline.

Now if only I can get better at putting it all into practice!

To night wean, or not?

I've been thinking about night weaning Mikaela for - oh, a few months now I suppose. I decide to definitely do it this weekend and then she gets sick/I get sick/we forget, or something. And we don't do it. And the thing is, I am conflicted about it, and yet I so long to do it as well.

We night weaned Liam at eighteen months. At that point he was still waking every hour or two to nurse, but he had stopped going back to sleep afterwards. It felt like an open and shut case. Also, it was very easy. I told him we were going to do it. On the 'last day' I reminded him each time we nursed, and again with the last feed before bed (which we did in the living room, as was our habit - Chris then taking him to bed and lying with him till he fell asleep).  Then the night in question Chris slept in the bedroom (our bedroom) with him, and I slept in the study. The first and maybe second time he woke up he cried for me, and Chris took him into the ensuite to distract him (he loved looking at all the stuff on the window sill in there). After that he was fine, and it really only took that one night, though I spent another four blissful nights sleeping in the study. The only times we went back to night nursing was when he had a vomitting bug, and it wasn't ever hard to reinstate the rule afterwards.

I think I first started considering night weaning with Mikaela at about the same age, and for the same reason - she didn't seem to be going back to sleep easily any more with the nursing. But with one thing and another it didn't happen then, and then things improved. But they have unimproved again several times in between. She's now twenty-three months old (moreorless - I've lost track of what date it is). Part of the issue is, I don't think it will be as easy with Mikaela as it was with Liam. For one thing she sleeps in a cot, so no-one can lie down with her. We have a rocking chair in her (our) room, which is where I nurse her, and where Chris rocks her. But when she wakes after midnight (and she almost always does, at least once) she tends to chuck a wobbly if Chris shows up instead of me. And by that I mean she gets totally hysterical. Ditto if I show up but refuse to nurse - as I have done on occasion when she has chewed me raw or just worn me down with too many wakings, though admittedly I haven't tried that in a while.

There are two good reasons for doing it though. No three.

1. Often it seems as though the nursing is keeping her from re-settling properly.
2. I suspect that like Liam, she might start sleeping through the night more often if there wasn't the promise of mummy-milk in the middle of the night.
3. I would like to be able to just snuggle with her like Chris does.
4. I would like Chris to be able to take responsibility for her for whole nights (or series' of nights) (though admittedly she may still resist that even without the nursing), especially if I am going to be trying to get pregnant again in the not-to-distant future.
5. I forget what five was.
6. She was up from 2:30 to 5:30 last night, and again at 5:45
7. (Okay six is not really relevant, as I don't think it was a nursing issue - it;s just to show that I do have more good reasons but I am too sleep deprived to remember what they are. Which is also the reason I have given up on trying to re-write my essay half an hour before my work time is up.)

So, more than three then. Actually I think only 1. (one) above was one of the three I had in mind when I started writing that list, but as I said, my brain is mush.

So what are the reasons against?

1. I think it will be really hard.
2. I think she may cry a lot and indeed get quite hysterical
3. I think it will be really hard.

I think there are some other reasons, but again, I cite my mushed brain.
I may come back to this if I can, but now I have to go pick up Liam from school.

Sleep deprivation. Will it never end?

Trying to remember the effect of exhaustion on children's behaviour

Liam's in the middle of a big weekend.

Yesterday after school (which finishes at 12:30 on Fridays in the kindergarten) we had his friend R over until his Dad could come get him after work, which ended up being about 6:00. Then we up and decided to go out to dinner,  despite still being on a spending freeze, despite Liam being of course quite exhausted. I don't think Kaely's ever been out to dinner before, that's how often we do this (Liam might have been out two or three times in his life before). But she'd had a long nap - normally I wake her by 3pm to ensure an orderly bedtime, but with R here all afternoon I decided to cut myself some slack and she ended up sleeping until 4:15! - so she was fine.

Then today we had another friend, S, in the afternoon. When her mum came to get her (shortly after five) she and Liam were just about to start colouring in*, so her mum dashed off to the shops and they ended up not going till I guess fairly close to six too. We also had visits with my mum and from Chris's dad today, so it's been a social sort of day.

And finally tomorrow - forecast to be the coldest day of the season so far, truly wintry - they have the autumn picnic on at Liam's school, which is the big family event of the season. I'm not going, because it's my writing day and I only have three weekends left before it's all due in (gotta try doing a substantial re-write of the essay tomorrow). I was feeling quite sad about missing it, but now I've seen the forecast, I'm feeling sort of lucky. Chris and the kids will still go though. And I imagine they'll have lots of fun.

But, even this morning Liam was already showing signs of being tired, after his big day yesterday. By this evening he was getting quite annoying (though he was fine up until the moment S left), and I really had to try to remember that he's overtired. By tomorrow night I hate to think what he'll be like. And unfortunately he has swimming after school Monday. After this sort of weekend I would probably keep him home from that, but it's the last class of the term, and he doesn't go back until Spring as the centre is closing down for the winter to do some work. I'm almost wondering if I should keep him home from school Monday instead. I guess I'll play it by ear, but either way I must remember: Liam is tired, and tired children find it hard to behave 'well'. Must remember!

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*Before this, in the three or so hours S had been here, they had built a boat (a box with a small broom for a mast), played with cars, done chalk drawing outside on the driveway in the freezing cold (but under cover from the on-again off-again light rain), rolled wool into small balls suitable for making gods-eyes, started making gods-eyes, and very briefly played with lego. S had also had fun playing outside with Mikaela, and told me several times she wished Kaely was her little sister.

Free play builds intellect

After school yesterday we had a play date with one of Liam's best friends, B, who doesn't go to 'our' school, but goes to one nearby, and two other mutual friends (twins) who used to go to B's school but now goes to Liam's.

The kindergarten playgrounds are enclosed, but the class one & two playground is out in the open, so we sometimes go down there after school finishes for a play, and that's what we did.

The boys (and one girl, B's four-year-old sister) played really well together, for over two hours. By the time we finally dragged them away it was getting dark and I had to call Chris to warn him that he'd be home before us, and could he please get something out of the freezer for dinner.

They played with sticks and logs and rocks and dirk (mud, really) building a 'dam' below a pond that the class-two children had built during the day. They filled it with bore water from a tap, using a big saucepan they found in the sandpit. It did leak a bit, but overall I have to say they did an amazing job, working together with virtually no supervision (their mum's being busy talking and supervising the toddlers), and no noticeable conflict.

One of the things their mum's were talking about was the importance of free play. B's mum, S, (one of my S friends) was telling us some recent research she'd heard about, that found that at this age free play is the most important factor in developing intellect.  And as we watched them 'working' none of us found that at all surprising. S's kids don't go to the Steiner school (though she's torn about it), but since free play is what they are doing a good 80% of the time in the Steiner kindy, the other two of us were able to feel quite smug.

Turning a corner (Liam at six)

The other week (month) I was saying to my Dad that the toddler age is so much fun because they are developing and changing so quickly, but it's not too hard yet to figure out what to do (not like with a five year old, let alone - oh the horror - a teenager).

But you know what? Watching a five/six year old develop is really fun too.

Liam seemed to take a big leap in his social development in the first term after school went back this year. At almost exactly five & and half we started having trouble knowing what to do with him - he started throwing tantrums, which he'd never done before, and just generally being difficult. Then I read that that's pretty normal at five and a half (the 'new tantrum age') and OMG it gets worse at six.

But when Liam was almost six things started looking up, and they are still good two months on. Not that everything is peachy all the time, of course not, but it seems to me that he has come through to a new place. He is one of the 'big kids' now at school (they have two years in together for kindy, instead of having four/five-year-old preschool and five/six-year-old kindergarten separately), and he seems to be taking to the role with surprising - well, it's a weird thing to say about a six year old, but - maturity. He's starting to get into being 'good', for perhaps the first time in his life. And boy it's nice to see.

For instance, last year after school he and two of his (older) friends would put their backpacks on their front and 'boom' into each other. Their teacher (J) repeatedly told them to keep their backpacks on the back, but it had no noticeable effect. Then one day last term I got to school and Liam and two (new) kids were doing this. I said - quite mildly - "What does J say about having your backpack on your back?" Liam immediately took his off and put it on his back, and told the other kids to do the same.  This is not the same child who finished up his first year of kindy in December, it's just not.

Another example.  One morning we got to school and Liam's friend R called him over to help them 'make poison for B'. B is a child Liam has mentioned a number of times as mucking up, being 'naughty', etc. In fact he bit Liam one day a few weeks before this incident (Liam was trying to take something from him at the time). But when I got there in the afternoon Liam ran over to me saying "Mummy, I have some really good news!" He was so excited to tell me that he is now "helping B be good." He's being friends with him, and showing him how to look for bugs. What more could a friend want?

The problem of unrealistic expectations

Sometimes lately I seem to be yelling at Liam all day. Not screaming, angry yelling, but definite voice raising and frustration. And the subtext, I think, is often "Don't be so stupid!" Not that I would ever say that to him: I wouldn't. But that's part of what I'm feeling I suppose. Quite aside from the fact that I don't think yelling is a great parenting tool, the fact that this is happening a lot leads me to think - either he is stupid (and he's not) or I must be expecting too much.

I know that in fact I do expect too much, I've been catching myself at it ever since he learned to talk in reasonably coherent sentences. His language skills trick me into thinking he's rational, even though I have read over and over that rationality, logical thinking, and understanding of consequences, is all very slow to develop, and really only just beginning at the age he is now - six. So why do I have so much trouble converting this intellectual knowledge into practical parenting?

An aside about blogging every day: one of the effects of this is nothing-posts like yesterday's, but a good effect is posts like this one. I was just thinking about this while I prepared dinner (while the kids are in the bath), and normally I'd think - 'I should blog about that' - but never do it. Because I'm trying to post everyday, this time I decided to take the couple of minutes I have before the kids emerge to post something. Not a long, thought-out analysis maybe, but at least the kernel of thought, and the record of a parenting challenge.

The longevity of labels

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about her experience of being given a label as a young child, and how she wants to avoid that with her children. I'm not talking the extreme sense of labeling with diagnoses, but in the more general sense - he's such a bossy boots, she's just like her aunt.

My friend had had this label applied to her at a young age (just like your aunt*), meaning she was the selfish, self centred one in the family. She carried that label through into adulthood (as had her aunt), and anything she did that supported it was remembered, anything she did that negated it was ignored. Which of course is the normal way we humans approach life generally. We notice and value evidence which supports our beliefs and disregard that which doesn't. She told me that after several years in a caring role (living with an elderly parent), she finally shed some of the stigma of the label, yet it still comes up from time to time. It clearly was a big deal for her earlier in life, and still affects her now.

This made me think about the labels Liam is given. I have always tried to avoid them, but the older and frankly more challenging he gets (while remaining a lovely child really), the more I find myself thinking them, at the very least ('little brat' comes to mind, though I've never actually said it!). And people certainly do use them to his face - bossy, is the one I am particularly thinking of, though no doubt there are (and will be) others.

I guess it's inevitable, to some extent, that accumulate labels as you age. Extrovert, introvert, confident, shy, funny, serious, active, musical, whatever. Of course it's the negative ones that I particularly want to avoid. But others can also be molding and limiting: shy, serious, even funny. Even labeling a child as confident could limit their ability to show their vulnerabilities and ask for help when they need it. I don't know how to completely avoid those labels - even for myself - but I guess it helps just to be aware of their power.

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*Co-incidentally one of my sisters-in-law had the exact same label given to her, and was even named after this aunt, and still, as a women in her fifties, suffers the stigma of that label within her family.

The natural approach to change

Sometimes when I can see a change coming up in one of the kids' routines, I wonder: will it just happen naturally if we leave it long enough, or do we need to be more proactive, in order to head off a resistance to change that can come with a long held habit?

For instance, at some point in the next few months (I think) we will be wanting to move Mikaela into a bed, from the cot. This never happened with Liam, since he slept with us. We moved him to a mattress next to our bed when he was about 13 months old, after going on a trip for my cousin's wedding and having that system work well in the motel. Then he moved to his own room by his request at a bit past two. So if we leave Kaely in the cot for a while longer, will she be asking to move to her own bed in another few months?* We already talk to her about how one day she will sleep in Liam's room - it will be her room too.

So maybe that's what will happen, maybe she'll decide she wants to move in with Liam. But I think she probably needs to move to her own bed - and get used to going to sleep on her own instead of being nursed or rocked to sleep, which is what happens now - before she can share a room with her brother. But maybe that will happen naturally once she has the motivation of wanting to move in with Liam. It's not something I want to rush, because I know once we stop spending that extra nurturing time with her in the evening, we'll never go back.

Our bedtime routine has already begun to change though. Only a couple of months back, when we first got Lochie, we thought giving him at least a short daily walk would be no trouble, because Chris and Mikaela went for a walk after dinner every night while I read to Liam. This was a lovely quiet time for me and Liam to read stories, or sometimes I would tell him a 'made up story', and have a little chat about our respective days. And it was a nice time for Chris and Mikaela too, and later for Lochie. But, I started to feel a little bad that Kaely didn't have any regular book time in her day. Back when Liam was her age we usually looked at books before naps and before bed, but Kaely had never been very interested in books until recently, so we hadn't incorporated them into her routine.

I needn't have worried. Not long after Lochie arrived - maybe a month - Kaely started to refuse the walk routine. First it seemed to be because she was tired, after a long day and a short nap, or a late night the night before. So my reading with Liam would be curtailed and I'd take her to bed early. But recently she's made it clear that she doesn't want to walk, whether she's tired or not. Because she doesn't want to miss out on book time. Liam gets his book and climbs into bed to await my attention, and Kaely runs off to the living room to choose a book (or two or three) off her shelf, and then brings them down, climbs onto Liam's bed, and demands book time of her own. Or, I take her into her room (our room, supposedly), but she insists on looking at a book together in the rocking chair, before she begins to nurse.

Mostly, this seems to be how change works with the kids. I might worry at it in my mind for a few weeks or months, but eventually change just happens. I haven't learned to count on it yet, I guess I am too much of a planner. But I am getting there. And as far as the move to different beds and bedrooms goes, I won't stop thinking about it, but for the moment I won't do anything either. I'll just wait and see what happens naturally.

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*This is assuming it's safe to leave her in there for that long - already she can only be in the cot unsupervised if she is snug in her sleeping bag, otherwise she attempts to climb out. And once the weather warms up again, later in the year, she won't welcome a sleeping bag for nap times.