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Joined: Mar 2009
Posts: 95
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Joined: Mar 2009
Posts: 95 |
<what do you think would have happened if you hadn't threatened and forced your son to put his face in the pool that day.> Sorry for quoting myself, but this is the answer in a nutshell -- IMO the turnaround that I describe below would not have happened for years, and his fears would have interfered in a profound way with both his happiness and his developing ability to use his potential (to crib two important child-raising goals from another poster): Re 'mechanism for the leap':
Judging by my son's reaction to success, and the fact that he's now great at challenging himself (except at the piano!), I'd say the 'mechanism' comes from his having realized two things:
1) 'Hey, once I get past the initial paralyzing fear, I can actually do x!'
(I think that's where the intense joy comes from, the beaming smile he gets on his face when he realizes he's mastered something he thought was impossible.)
and
2) 'I don't need anybody else to make me make that leap -- I can do it myself!'
It took a while, but he does seem to have realized a few years ago that he had it in him to push himself -- he didn't need Mom to do it anymore. The lingering doubts at the piano (*much* more mildly expressed than his old fears) are all that remains. And about the issue of parental power: ds, whom I quote with his permission, had a great reaction when I mentioned it while telling him about this thread -- 'That's why parents raise children, and not the other way around!' Simplistic, I grant you, but funny, too.
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Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 1,777
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Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 1,777 |
So wren, that's back to Raddy's quiestion several months ago about telling the kid's there's value in taking loans for a secondary education. For what? Like literrally, what jobs will be available when the dust settles. I've seen bloggers saying we have the technology to be even more automated right now but we're not socially and economically ready for 10 hour work weeks.
Research ability is always a good skill in any environment. That's just good study skills. Socializing is a good habit. How else can we prepare kid's for success when the future's still up in the air?
Put on our compassion hats because it's going to get dark before the dawn? Right now we could use observant historians. What kind of living is that? That ain't going to pay the bills to raise my grandkids. (grandkids. lol. One of my kid's is 3 years, the other is 3 months.). So if the jobs don't come back I'm a little worried about crime, a little worried that we might stricter laws, is there really a lot of changes right now, or is it that I'm just now as a mother becoming interested in the news. Has the world always been this chaotic?
Youth lives by personality, age lives by calculation. -- Aristotle on a calendar
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Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 1,777
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Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 1,777 |
Lol, it should be the other way around. Send the kid's to work now while they have too much energy and send the parents to sit still all day in school all day after they've settled down.
Youth lives by personality, age lives by calculation. -- Aristotle on a calendar
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Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 687
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Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 687 |
Sorry for quoting myself, but this is the answer in a nutshell -- IMO the turnaround that I describe below would not have happened for years, and his fears would have interfered in a profound way with both his happiness and his developing ability to use his potential (to crib two important child-raising goals from another poster): How do you explain how so many perfectionist children make progress when they aren't pushed, forced and threatened? I've heard so many versions of that pool story where it was resolved without threats and force. The kid who watched every day of the summer and swam all the way across the pool the first time, the kid who would have nothing to do with it at give but was eager to be on the swim team at six, etc. No pushing, threats or cajoling here AND also no need to stand over a 11 year old and have a scene about music practice. And, no need to cajole or push through any other sort of new experience because the child would never think it was the parents' job to do so. Any explanation for how that could happen if this force and pushing is required?
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Joined: Mar 2009
Posts: 95
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Joined: Mar 2009
Posts: 95 |
Again, sorry to quote, but maybe you didn't see it the first time.
<I assumed that on these forums the qualifying statement 'your mileage may vary' was understood, and that I didn't have to stipulate that what worked well for our child might not work for others.>
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Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 286
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Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 286 |
Way back when, my oldest was a bed-wetter, we kept extra clean sheets and towels in her room and she learned to get up and handle it when it occurred, then wash the sheets the next day. . It was a million years ago here, but someone suggested to me that we put on the bed sheet, rubber mat, sheet. So, if the child had an accident he could remove the sheet and mat, change pants and go back to bed. It also helps some kids to get a late night wake up - 11 pm - walk to the bathroom and back to bed. Yes, we used the rubber mat with the soft cotton on both sides, we had 2 of them so the mattress never got ruined in the event of 2 accidents in one night. We also tried the midnight wake up and trip to the potty which worked sort of but she was such a heavy sleeper she was just going along with it in a sleepwalking state so it never became a habit as we had hoped. Ultimately the issue went away when the muscles developed enough to keep her through the night.
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Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 1,457
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My son's perfectionism used to stand in the way of both; it no longer does. It doesn't sound like that's accurate to me. Your son's perfectionism, and your parenting style, seem to have resulted in a situation where your son feels the need to be pushed by you. (I'm struggling to eschew references to possible culture, use of idioms, etc. here to keep us sufficiently on the same wavelength to communicate in English. How'd I do?)
Striving to increase my rate of flow, and fight forum gloopiness. 
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Joined: Mar 2009
Posts: 95
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It doesn't sound like that's accurate to me. Your son's perfectionism, and your parenting style, seem to have resulted in a situation where your son feels the need to be pushed by you.
(I'm struggling to eschew references to possible culture, use of idioms, etc. here to keep us sufficiently on the same wavelength to communicate in English. How'd I do?) I'm getting a little tired of quoting earlier posts, so I'll try, one more time, to say what seems to keep getting ignored: According to all the adults who know him well, ds (or 'OVC', as he referred to himself after hearing about this thread yesterday: 'oppressed victim child') has way fewer much less intense episodes of panic at the thought of failure than he used to years ago. According to 'OVC' himself and those same adults, he needs much less pushing, from me or anybody else, than he used to years ago. You did fine, but 'possible culture'? Again, way too worldly for me, I guess!
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