Texts

The biggest geek is now eight, and we thought it was time that we stop pretending the tablet he's on 99% of the time is a "family tablet" and just buy him his own. (This means I have inherited the family one, which is great, because now I can watch Netflix in bed again. Winning!)

And then we figured that as he is sometimes home alone, it might be useful, in addition to having the option to call us (which only works one way, and is only supposed to be for emergencies or urgent things) if he could text us as well, so I installed Skype on his tablet, and set it up for instant messaging with strict instructions not to add any contacts without asking us first.

Of course, the first day of this was a constant stream of dancing turkey emoticons and apparently they have a thing called Moji which is basically a reaction gif with sound, he also had to show me every single one of those.

But, I used it usefully for the first time today. He wasn't home alone but I was at work late and I was worried that I might forget to order his next week's school lunches by Thursday, so I wrote them all out and sent them to him with instruction to pick and reply while I was at work.

He wrote back this:

Monday  spaghetti Tuesday chicken gnocchi Wednesday beef of course why lentil soup (puke) paprika the other one is also (puke) pancakes pancakes pancakes

[Moji of two minions saying "Yay!"]

(The "(puke)" is a little animated puking emoticon)

OMG. I love it. I just love it. I guess that I didn't think this would be such a big moment for me, but I have wished that I could text him since... probably when he was in the womb. I know it makes me sound like such a stereotype but I think that you get a real sense of someone with this kind of instant, text based communication. And, yeah, his punctuation needs work. But that's another reason this is fun!

Square Pegs in Round Holes

At my son's kindergarten, the children were recently asked to pick between two sports activities: dancing and football. (You can see where this is going, huh?) He doesn't like football, but does like dancing, so he made the logical choice and chose dancing. Everything was fine and he carried on, not minding that he was the only boy in a group of seven girls, until they did the dance "show" and he was asked to come in as a prince because all of the girls were being princesses. Show me any boy (or girl), anywhere, who has ever dreamed of being a prince! Could they not have had a little more imagination and asked them to come in as animals or something? Anyway, luckily we had a suit which he'd worn to a wedding, so we dressed him up (he looked very "Riverdance") and he went along, but it seemed like something changed that day, because a few days later he said "I don't want to do dancing any more. I wish I'd've picked football."

I felt sad for him. Okay, maybe he didn't change what he wanted to do because of peer pressure telling him "This is a girls' thing, and you're not a girl", perhaps he just thought football looked more fun, or he liked it after the world cup, or he just wanted a change. But I couldn't help but thinking that he is a square peg and it's such a shame that he is expected to fit into a round hole, he doesn't understand why (I don't understand why!), but he knows that he should do something different. Then I thought, you know what, my kid isn't the only special and different and awesome kid. They are ALL like this. Every child starts off as a square peg, and every incident like this, every laugh, every word goes to shave a bit off the corners of that peg until they fit into the accepted, normal, comfortable circular hole. And why?! How much do they lose, do we all lose? Circles don't fit together that well anyway. With squares you can stack them all up with no waste. We fit and work better together when we are all individuals. How could we not? The whole world benefits when people are individual and have their own different and new ideas.

That said, I'm not going to push him to stick with dancing. He has to make his own choice about that. But I will continue to reinforce that there is no such thing as "girl activities" and "boy activities".

Heat

I've been struggling with my two year old over the last few days, and I think it's down to the hot weather we've been having. He's been having similar meltdowns to those that he has when he is tired or hungry, although in this case it seems almost impossible to calm him. It's made me think about how we need to remember these things and try to take them into account when dealing with our children. If your child is acting up because their blood sugar is low, that is not their fault (even if they did refuse the lovingly prepared dinner you just made them). So this seems common sense, but I think if they are tired or hungry then it makes less sense to pursue any avenue of punishment (and in fact, it seems they are more likely to kick back and so the situation escalates until the punishment far outweighs any original misbehaviour) - just state the expected behaviour, and move on.

Of course there are times when this approach is inappropriate - if they are being destructive, for example, and this is where the principle of using respectful discipline comes into its own. Calm the situation, remove anything which is becoming a hazard or which is likely to get damaged (usually it is easier to remove the object than the child) if you need to remove the child, a change of scene sometimes helps to calm them down as well. If you do need them to sit and calm down, I would stay with a younger child, and ask an older one if they want you to stay or not. An opportunity to calm down needn't be a punishment - if they need your help in doing so, then your presence will make it all the more effective.