Tag Archives: Child

Puberty: Review

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GuideWell, The Boy and I just read through The Boys’ Guide to Growing Up by Terri Couwenhoven and I think it was a success.  I didn’t prep him too much, just told him I had a book I wanted to read with him.  We sat down on the couch and I showed him the cover, and we started reading.  At first, he was a little uncomfortable (what 11 year old boy wouldn’t be, reading about puberty with his mom?), especially at the illustrations, but as we kept going, he seemed to absorb the information, and be more comfortable talking about it with me.

It was a lot of information all at once (it took us about 20 minutes), and I know we will have to review a few times, but we did hammer home the difference between public and private, as well as who are the people in his life who are OK to answer questions about this type of thing.  These two things are the most important of all, I think, and this book does an excellent job explaining, as well as creating opening for discussion in both of these areas.

In my last post about this book, I mentioned that it doesn’t talk about sexuality, and it doesn’t.  However it does talk about having a crush, or sexual feelings toward another person, and what signals that person may give if they do not feel the same way.  It also talks about ways to manage these feelings, which I think is appropriate to add in a book like this.  I prefaced this subject with The Boy as being further down the road, in high school, maybe.

I felt like we had a successful conversation about the changes he is or is about to go through, and I feel like both of us are more prepared, which is about all I can ask from any book of this type.  I highly recommend this book as a way to start the conversation.

The Best Advice

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My grandma used to say, “Do your best and that’s all you can do.”  It’s kind of a funny saying, but I repeat it to myself often, in particular because of the last part.  Anyone who loves me and knows me, knows that I am my very own worst critic, and that I’m often hypersensitive to criticism only because whatever you were going to say to me, I’ve already berated myself about inside my head about 57 times.  Sometimes I need to cut myself a break.

There’s a great book called the Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey (I actually read the also great book, The Inner Game of Music by Barry Green and Timothy Gallwey, based on the same ideas), and one of the founding principles is that in order to perform well, you need to find a way to shush those inner “you-can’t-do-it” voices, the “judges”, as he calls them.  You have to find a way to take away their power to suck the very lifeblood out of you, because they will if given the chance.

I’m not a perfectionist, but I do have high expectations for myself, and the things I need to do, because often I am the only one to do them.  If I can’t, it won’t get done, which can lead to more problems.  But Grandma was exactly correct – if I’ve done my best (which is almost always the case) that’s all I can do!

After a full school day, starting at 7:30pm, getting out of my last school meeting at 5:00pm, talking to The Man on the brief ride home, having an hour to sit (whew!) and then heading out for another meeting that lasted a solid two hours, talking to The Man again on the brief ride home, and finally able to take my heels off at 9:30pm (after talking to Fantastic Babysitter, settling The Boy, and realizing I hadn’t eaten dinner), I realize I have done the best I can do today, and that’s all I can do.  Working out will have to wait until tomorrow.

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Humiliating Your Child Is Not Parenting

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Did you see the Facebook post of the parent who took a picture of her son with his Playstation and a Captain America figure, and the sign he held up that said something like, “I had to return the Playstation I was going to get for Christmas because I didn’t show enough gratitude for the Captain America figure I got.”

Really?  This is what you came up with to teach your son about gratitude?  Using social media as a weapon, a source of humiliation and embarrassment?

I think there’s a growing trend of extremism in all aspects of society, and I think parenting has not escaped this trend.  Listen, I am not a pushover teacher.  I have many students who are not used to hearing the word, “no”, but I will say it as many times as it takes to be understood.  But in teaching and parenting, one must realize that we are dealing with children, who by very definition are still learning how to be human beings, which means they will make mistakes.  And when they make those mistakes, humiliating them in front of millions of people (or even your closest 200 friends) might not be the best approach, nor will it be very effective in teaching the lesson you would like them to learn.  The “lesson” or consequence should be immediate, should fit the action or behavior, and should directly relate to what you’d like them to learn.

If my son didn’t show the appropriate amount of gratitude, I would first ask myself, “Did I explain to him what my expectations were about showing gratitude when receiving a gift?”  If I didn’t, then we go back and review those – you can’t blame a kid who doesn’t know the parameters.  If I did make my expectations clear, I would remind him of my expectations, ask him to think about the amount of gratitude he showed when receiving the gift, and then ask him what he thinks we should do to fix the situation.  We might verbally apologize, send a hand-written thank-you note to the gift-giver, or even plan a volunteer experience with people who are less fortunate so we might learn a little bit about giving and receiving, wanting and needing, and all of the emotions involved (and how they are communicated).

You don’t get respect unless you give it.  Our children, who are still learning, and who will make mistakes, deserve our respect, not our ridicule.

disrespect

Hey Autism Community: Enough Already!

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I am always saddened by the divisive nature of the autism community.  It seems that we parents need to pick sides on plenty of issues, or be ridiculed, or even better “educated” by those who hold differing viewpoints.   For or against vaccines?    Autism Speaks?  Medication?  Jenny McCarthy?  Chelation?  We are even supposed to pick sides on whether the “Trip to Holland” allegory is touching or insulting.

Autism Awareness

Autism Awareness (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When The Boy was first diagnosed (at age 5), I was handed a brochure, and told to contact the Autism Society of America.  And that was it.  I obviously needed more support than that, and looked to the Internet to join a group in which I could participate to the extent that I wanted to on any given day.  I joined a yahoo group of autism parents, and thought, “This will surely help.”  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  I was confused by all of the differing opinions on things I had never even heard about, and saw actual arguments unfold, in this group of adults whose supposed sole reason for existing was support.  I did not remain a member long.

I think we do our children a great disservice by not recognizing that just like autism is a spectrum disorder, the treatments, causes, documentation, and people attempting to assist us are all a part of a larger spectrum, as well.  There is no one treatment, no one cause, and no one group that can satisfy all of our needs.  If you think that, you are shutting the door to so many other possibilities for your child.

We must trust ourselves to do what is right by our children, as no one knows them as well as we do.  But we must not abuse each other in the process, as no one knows what we go through each day better than another parent of a child with autism.  We must agree to disagree so that we can move forward, creating better treatments, finding causes, and building better organizations for our community.  The divisive nature we have shown thus far is quite possibly holding our cause back, and it will continue to do so, unless we make a change now in how we treat each other.