~Pre-School/School-Aged Check-In~

MoreThanSparrows08 · March 2014

Welcome to the PAL Pre-School and School-Aged Check-in!
Milestones:
Challenges:
Funny/cute stories:
QOTW: What was your favorite cartoon growing up? Does your LO(s) have a favorite? How does it differ from yours?

MoreThanSparrows08 · March 2014

Milestones: Micah is in 2nd grade, but reading at a 4th grade level. He does what's called AR reading - where he reads a book, then takes a test on it for points. The more difficult the read/comprehend, the more points the book is worth. He picked up a book in the library last week worth 9 points!! It's a fairly thick chapter book, but he's super excited about finishing it! I'm so proud of him!

Elijah is in PK4 (although he's already 5 because of where his birthday falls), and I'm constantly amazed at how much he's growing into a little person. He is pretty shy, but since he started this program, he's learned so much, he talks and tells stories like never before, and it's just incredible to watch.

Challenges: Micah has always struggled with his behavior at school - he's very impulsive and has a hard time controlling the urge to do what he wants when he wants. He also gets frustrated easily. We've had a hard time getting him to understand that it's OK to be frustrated, but it's not ok to yell/throw a fit.

Funny/cute stories: Elijah has always had issues with his bladder - he was on medication for about a year to aid in the control of it being overactive. He hasn't been on the meds for about a year now, but he still wears a diaper to bed because he sleeps so hard that he doesn't wake when he has to go pee. It's been suggested to us that we wake him right before DH and I go to bed and have him go pee. So I did this last night. He shuffled into the bathroom half asleep and stood there to go pee in the dark (he said the lights were too bright, so I turned them off). When he was done, he had a hard time pulling up his diaper/pants and I had to help him.
QOTW: What was your favorite cartoon growing up? Does your LO(s) have a favorite? How does it differ from yours? I think my favorite cartoon was Tom and Jerry. My boys LOVE Tom & Jerry! We've found a few DVD's with the old cartoons on them, and a few with newer ones. The main difference in the newer ones is the cartoon violence - not much more bopping on the head and big tall knots forming immediately, no dropping rocks on each other, etc.

srcr2011 · March 2014

Good morning! I am so glad I can participate more on this check-in this week!

Milestones: Caleb took a shower

He has only ever taken baths and he loves them. The other night, I needed to shower, but he needed a bath sooo bad, and DH was not home to help (FIL is in the hospital) and it was already late. I got Caleb in the shower with me and I thought for sure we was going to freak out, but he loved it and now asks for showers. He is only 3, so he will still be taking baths and on occasion (when we are in a hurry, put in in the shower with one of us since he looooves it)

Challenges: Discipline! My son tests us to the limit. We do a lot of timeouts and on occasion he will get spanked. We don't do it hard, but it really hurts his feelings. We try no to do it with our hand either. We will get a belt. The minute he sees the belt, he changes and behaves. We also try not to spank in front people. Not to avoid a "mommy war" but I dont want to embarrass him or make a big deal of it. I want to get the point across what he did was wrong.

Funny/cute stories: I have a few. The other day he was pulling Jasper's tail and the poor dog was crying. I told him to "let it go", and he starts singing "Let it go". I tried so hard not to laugh, but it was funny.

He calls me "princess" all the time. "Mommy is a princess". Well, when he is upset with me or when I discipline him, he tells me "You're not a princess, mommy, you are a BOY!"

I don't know if you remember "Bon Qui Qui" from MAD TV, but I was joking with DH and told him "I will cut you!" and Caleb overhead...he kept saying "I will cut you" to DH...he was not amused with his son's threats...

QOTW: What was your favorite cartoon growing up? Does your LO(s) have a favorite? How does it differ from yours?
I was such a girlie-girl. I loved My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite, Care Bears...but I also loved Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes.
Caleb loves Bubble Guppies, Dora, Diego, LOOOVES Paw Patrol, but he does have our cynical sense of humor and loves to watch the Tom & Jerry "fight". He laughs sooo hard when Tom gets hurts.

stefuge · March 2014

Hi ladies - hope everyone is having a good week!

Milestones: The main one I can think of is his independence. He has been going to pre-school since August, and is getting more and more independent because of that. Today we went to the park after school, and where as a few months ago, he would have wanted me to play with him, and stay by him, today he just took off as soon as we got there and was totally in his own little world.

Challenges: Eating dinner! He is such a slow eater, and we have gotten in the habit of feeding him just to get through dinner faster, and it has to stop. DH had to work late last night, so it was just Landon and I for dinner, and it was so frustrating getting him to take even a bite! DH and I talked about it last night and realized we need to work with him on this more.

Funny/cute stories: The other day, we were watching The Little Mermaid (my favorite, he was humoring me!) and he was very curious about why the mermaid had sea shells on. When I explained they were part of her bathing suit, he looked over at me and asked if I had my sea shells on under my shirt.

QOTW: What was your favorite cartoon growing up? Does your LO(s) have a favorite? How does it differ from yours? The Little Mermaid was always my favorite, along with most Disney movies. We watch a lot of Disney and Pixar movies in our house - he doesn't watch many cartoon tv shows. He is a huge Cars fan!

mara005 · March 2014

Milestones: DS is spending his first full day at school tomorrow. He has a couple days to make up, so they said he could do them as full days. He will be there from 9:15 to 3. What am I going to do all day? I can already tell I will miss him like crazy!
Challenges: DH has been gone this week and DS's frustrations and temper have been bad.
Funny/cute stories: While it kills me to watch, DS has been playing with babies/toddlers and it's so cute.
QOTW: What was your favorite cartoon growing up? Does your LO(s) have a favorite? How does it differ from yours? Because I had a sister who was 5 years older than me, I didn't get to watch many cartoons. But I do remember watching Doug and Recess. DS is all about Paw Patrol, La La Loopsy, Doc McStuffin and pretty much anything else I will let him watch. He unfortunately loves TV like me.

skategirl128 · March 2014

Milestones: Nik had his first mini performance on stage with his acting class. He is such a ham!

Challenges: since he is so ahead at school he is bored and thus causing trouble at school by talking with the kids at his table etc. I'm meeting with his teacher tomorrow to see if we can come up with a good plan to channel his efforts positively

Funny/cute stories: he is constantly amazing me with what he says! His speech was such a struggle until recently so now that he can be understood he says some funny things!

QOTW: What was your favorite cartoon growing up? Does your LO(s) have a favorite? How does it differ from yours?
His favorite is teenage mutant ninja turtles along with sponge bob. My favorite was Care Bears.

kj808 · March 2014

Milestones: DD is reading sight words! She goes to a tutor since she's not in a real preschool and her tutor has her starting to sound out letters and learning some sight words from a book. So far she can read 'funny', 'oh', 'Jane', 'baby', 'and', 'look', 'see', 'spot', 'come'. She's also learning how to say colors in Hawaiian. It's so fun watching her get so excited about learning new things.

DS is getting better and better at piano. He loves practicing but needs to work on his shyness of playing in front of non-family members.

Challenges: talking back with DS, listening with DD - really nothing new. Also working on DS's baseball skills now that baseball season has started up again. He seems to be struggling with the same things he struggled with last season. I can tell he's getting discouraged since he doesn't seem to be on track with his team mates.

Funny/cute stories: A couple nights ago DS slept over at his grandparents' house and DD didn't realize it until she woke up the next morning and DS wasn't home. She was so sad that he wasn't there and she kept asking where he was. These two can get on each other's nerves but at the end of the day they love each other so much and really miss each other when one is not around. It's so heartwarming to see.

QOTW: What was your favorite cartoon growing up? Probably a toss up between Rainbow Brite and Jem. I also liked boyish cartoons too though like Transformers and He-Man

Does your LO(s) have a favorite? They both like Curious George and Animaniacs! How does it differ from yours? Animaniacs was one of my favorites too when I was growing up so it's fun to watch it together.

a&aw12707 · March 2014

Milestones: DD went on her first school field trip yesterday, she was so excited! She's also kicking major tail on her reading!

Challenges: Chores! Getting her to do them is like pulling teeth!

Funny/cute stories: DD got to hold DS for the first time this week. (She had a cough when he came home that was more than likely allergies, but the NICU staff had us paranoid about RSV!) The amazement in her eyes was awesome!

QOTW: What was your favorite cartoon growing up? Does your LO(s) have a favorite? How does it differ from yours? I loved Baby Looney Toons and Tom and Jerry. DD is really into the Disney Jr shows.

ETA: I wish I'd remember that formatting from an iPad is a royal pain!

Adam2010 · March 2014

Milestones: DS1 has been potty trained since he was 2 1/2, however, we were still doing pull-ups at night just as a back up. He has not had an accident in at least 6 months so we are taking away the pull ups and just doing underwear! DS1 was on the fence about it saying he wants us to buy more but mostly bc I think he sees DS#2 wearing them.

He can now write and spell his first name too.
Challenges: Temper tantrums! DS#1 is so independent and has such an opinion and a mind of his own that he wants to do what he wants when he wants. This results in the biggest tantrums- screaming, kicking, running away (it is exhausting but getting better depending on the day).
Funny/cute stories: DS#2 was in the swing and DS#1 came up to him saying "Hi bugaboo (that is what he calls him-SO sweet), Hi there!" So DS#2 smiled at him and DS#1 looked at me and said, "He really does love me!" with the biggest smile. It was one of the sweetest moments yet with my two boys

So precious!
QOTW: What was your favorite cartoon growing up? Does your LO(s) have a favorite? How does it differ from yours? DS#1 loves Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Sofia the First, Doc McStuffins, and Octonauts. I used to watch a bunch...I can only think of a couple of names- Sesame Street (DS#1 is not really interested) and Rugrats (not on anymore)

lauralew · March 2014

srcr2011 said:

Challenges: Discipline! My son tests us to the limit. We do a lot of timeouts and on occasion he will get spanked. We don't do it hard, but it really hurts his feelings. We try no to do it with our hand either. We will get a belt. The minute he sees the belt, he changes and behaves. We also try not to spank in front people. Not to avoid a "mommy war" but I dont want to embarrass him or make a big deal of it. I want to get the point across what he did was wrong.

First, let me preface this with a few things. I know I am basically a complete stranger/lurker, so my opinion may not be appreciated. I want you to know I'm coming from a place of complete understanding of feeling like you've hit your wall. I have, probably just about every day of being a mom to toddlers, considered spanking. I've also had moments of being too rough with my children in hopes of getting my point across.

However, one of the reasons why I haven't spanked and why I try to be really cognizant of how rough I am, is because I know spanking/physical punishment has little to no affect on lasting behavioral change. Multiple peer reviewed studies have proven this. There are also studies that prove a correlation between spanking and poor mental health. Actually, a bumpie friend is an author for some of these studies. This is not common knowledge, but my professional and educational back ground (Masters Level Social Worker) allow me to have this understanding.

What has been proven to be the most effective way to change behavior is to give tons of positive praise/attention towards wanted behavior and NO attention to unwanted behavior. Wanted behavior would be things like using good manners, sitting still, playing nicely with others, leaving plates/forks/cups on the table. Unwanted behavior would be calling names, whining, throwing things. You shouldn't ignore (and probably wouldn't) unwanted behavior like running into the street, hitting/kicking others, sticking a fork into a light socket.

I have tried to let this go for three days, but it keeps bugging me. Not because I want start a debate. But because I know how awful it feels to feel completely defeated by a small child...and like there are no options. And I wanted you to know you're not alone in feeling that way, but there are ways that will give you better results. And you deserve to feel confident as a mom. I have tons of resources for these things and would love to share them with you. I still have rough days, but some of the skills I've learned from parenting classes and other resources has helped tremendously.

srcr2011 · March 2014

@lauralew Thank you for the advice. I am glad we are able to disagree without fighting/drama on the board. I am glad that your means of discipline work great for your children.

I have noticed (and have done this since the beginning) that giving positive attention to my son when he does good works great. He love that attention too. He gets a huge smile on his face and will continue to do "good". That praise is what go him potty trained 100% (day and night potty trained) in 3 days. I would never and could not imagine giving him negative attention or feedback, timeouts or spankings for mistakes (potty training or in anything else).

One example is this...My son was playing with my older nephew and accidentally scratched his face pretty bad. My nephew cried, but I saw it and it was a complete accident. Did I spank or punish him? No, I told him to play carefully because he hurt his cousin. He kissed and apologized to his cousin all on his own but I did not punish or give him negative attention because it was a mistake. Had he ran up to my nephew and scratched him out of the blue on purpose, it would be a different story. He has done that before as well. He went up to my nephew, lifted his shirt and bit his stomach. He left a huge red mark and bruise. He did get spanked for that. I also use distraction often. If he is acting up or throwing a tantrum I know yelling and ignoring him will make him scream more. I kneel down, look at him in the face and talk to him. Telling him it is not ok to act that way. If it doesn't help, then he gets timeouts/ spanking. It hurts me when I have to spank him. I don't enjoy it. And when I spank, it's not beating him or spanking for mistakes (I think thats when you get poor mental health). I believe there is a right way and wrong way and a right time and wrong time to spank.

I have read the studies that claim spanking is not good for children. I have heard the claims that it leave them with poor mental health. I have also seen with my own eyes children that are crazy and flat out naughty, disobedient and self entitled. My husband and I haven't even invited friends over because of their child. The child does not know what "NO" means.To me this is, unacceptable. I want my son to grow up respecting others, and knowing right from wrong and the consequences. If a child is disobedient without consequences at the age of 3, I can't imagine what a child will be like at the age of 15 or 16. I doubt the cops/school will ignore "negative" behavior. They won't spank them, but I guarantee consequences will arise.

I was spanked as a child (so was MH), I learned real quick not to cheat, steal, fight, hit my sister, etc. I grew up respecting others, loving others, I knew right from wrong, I knew not to disobey my parents, I knew the consequences of my actions (good and bad). I can honestly say, the belt and I were pretty good friends when I was young. I have no hate for my parents and love them dearly and thank them for raising me the way they did. I am also a perfectly functioning adult with great mental health. I have never suffered PTSD, depression or anxiety. I am able to have great relationships with my friends and family and co-workers.

I can read all the books, articles and studies on spanking until I turn blue in the face. What it comes down to is this...which I base all my beliefs on (not just parenting), the Bible.

Proverbs 22:6Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 13:24 He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly.

Proverbs 15: 32 Those who disregard discipline despise themselves, but the one who heeds correction gains understanding.

Proverbs 1:8-9 My son, hear the instruction of your father, And do not forsake the law of your mother;For they will be a graceful ornament on your head, And chains about your neck.

Ephesians 6:4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

Proverbs 22:15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of discipline will drive it far away.

Proverbs 23:13-14 Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish them with the rod, they will not die.Punish them with the rod and save them from death.

Exodus 20:12 Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

I know you may think I am crazy, but that's ok, I still want to be friends

lauralew · March 2014

@srcr2011 I'm happy to hear you use a lot of positive interaction and praise to encourage wanted behavior with your son. It sounds like you've seen how well that works. So I guess I'm confused then how discipline is a challenge and why spanking is even necessary in your parenting tool kit.

While it sounds like how you utilize spanking is at the low-risk end of the spectrum of violence against children, it is still just that...violence. I will never understand or believe the thought that using violence can teach children to not use violence.

Also, I think using the Bible to justify violence, whether as a form of discipline or a reason to discriminate, is the antithesis of Jesus' teachings. I will admit I'm probably extremely unfamiliar with the Bible compared to you, but I remember Jesus advocating for peace and love. Using a belt or object to strike a child is not peace or love.

To me we know better now. There was a time women smoked and drank heavily during pregnancy. The majority of those children turned out fine. However, medical experts have determined the risks outweigh any benefit. Lead paint was once considered a very effective way to paint homes. We now know it is incredibly detrimental when young children are exposed to lead paint. I imagine there were many children who had no significant side effects of lead paint, but once again, the risks outweighed the benefits. I do not begrudge adults of my parents' generation and older for using physical discipline. I do have extreme difficulty understanding why educated parents, such as yourself, can utilize it. Finally, just because you've never experienced the negative side effects of spanking doesn't mean your son won't. Not every person processes life events the same way.

I understand I am not going to change your mind. But I am just completely confused as to why you need to even spank at all. It sounds like other methods are incredibly effective with him.

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~Pre-School/School-Aged Check-In~

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Funny/cute stories: The other day, we were watching The Little Mermaid (my favorite, he was humoring me!) and he was very curious about why the mermaid had sea shells on. When I explained they were part of her bathing suit, he looked over at me and asked if I had my sea shells on under my shirt.

Proverbs 22:6Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 13:24 He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly.

Proverbs 1:8-9 My son, hear the instruction of your father, And do not forsake the law of your mother;For they will be a graceful ornament on your head, And chains about your neck.

Ephesians 6:4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

Proverbs 22:15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of discipline will drive it far away.

Proverbs 23:13-14 Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish them with the rod, they will not die.Punish them with the rod and save them from death.

Exodus 20:12 Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

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Want a personalized experience?

~~~Pre-School/School-Aged Check-In~~~

Re: ~~~Pre-School/School-Aged Check-In~~~

Funny/cute stories: The other day, we were watching The Little Mermaid (my favorite, he was humoring me!) and he was very curious about why the mermaid had sea shells on. When I explained they were part of her bathing suit, he looked over at me and asked if I had my sea shells on under my shirt.

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 13:24 He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly.

Proverbs 1:8-9 My son, hear the instruction of your father, And do not forsake the law of your mother;For they will be a graceful ornament on your head, And chains about your neck.

Ephesians 6:4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

Proverbs 22:15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of discipline will drive it far away.

Proverbs 23:13-14 Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish them with the rod, they will not die.Punish them with the rod and save them from death.

Exodus 20:12 Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

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~Pre-School/School-Aged Check-In~

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Proverbs 22:6Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.