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Parenting Megathread

All I can say with the fussy eating is "textures" are as important as "flavors"...sometimes. Best of luck on that. My daughter eats too much mac and cheese and grilled cheeses... in a house where her parents can cook well. She likes mangoes, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and canned fruit too. Hates tomato sauce. OI! Drives me up the wall. "Can we go out to eat?" 'You are just going to have mac and cheese, we do that at home.' "GRUMP!"
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
All I can say with the fussy eating is "textures" are as important as "flavors"...sometimes. Best of luck on that. My daughter eats too much mac and cheese and grilled cheeses... in a house where her parents can cook well. She likes mangoes, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and canned fruit too. Hates tomato sauce. OI! Drives me up the wall. "Can we go out to eat?" 'You are just going to have mac and cheese, we do that at home.' "GRUMP!"
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There was a time when the only things my youngest would eat were strawberries, cottage cheese and chicken nuggets.
 
When I was a kid, it was normal for certain kitchen staples to be missing. My siblings and I would get creative with whatever was on hand, like making mayonnaise and jelly sandwiches or using hot water and coffee creamer for cereal. We made do with what we had.
 
Gospel said:
When I was a kid, it was normal for certain kitchen staples to be missing. My siblings and I would get creative with whatever was on hand, like making mayonnaise and jelly sandwiches or using hot water and coffee creamer for cereal. We made do with what we had.
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Did you ever make hot water soup?

 
I definitely relied very heavily on pasta when feeding my kids. For one thing, they’d all eat it. For another, it was no big deal to leave off the sauce when one or another would declare they hated it.

I used to also heavily rely on the frozen vegetable medley—even if the kid had sworn off of peas or carrots or whatever, there was always something else in the mix that they’d eat. And we always had carrots and celery and apples and oranges. And some kind of cheese. Did not always have meat—in fact we were vegetarian for a good long while. Still do a lot of meatless meals.
 
thebeave said:
Gospel said:
When I was a kid, it was normal for certain kitchen staples to be missing. My siblings and I would get creative with whatever was on hand, like making mayonnaise and jelly sandwiches or using hot water and coffee creamer for cereal. We made do with what we had.
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Did you ever make hot water soup?

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images
 
thebeave said:
Gospel said:
When I was a kid, it was normal for certain kitchen staples to be missing. My siblings and I would get creative with whatever was on hand, like making mayonnaise and jelly sandwiches or using hot water and coffee creamer for cereal. We made do with what we had.
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Did you ever make hot water soup?

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lol No, but we did resort to things like eating newspaper with pictures of food on it because we couldn’t wait until our mother’s next paycheck. Our neighbors, while kind, were just as badly off as we were, so there wasn’t much we could ask of them. I’ll tell you what, though, the school was a lifesaver. Not only did they provide free breakfast and lunch, but they also let us take home food that other students didn’t want from their packed lunches. At first, the school treated it like a theft issue, but when they realized the students were willingly giving us their servings, they backed off. They still grumbled about it, but in the end, they chose to just look the other way. The issue started when a student brought their own lunch but still collected their free school meal and gave it to me. Eventually, my bookbag gave me away, the smell of pancake syrup filled the classroom, and the jig was up. :ROFLMAO:

Edit:: To clarify the newspaper thing, we didn’t actually go through with eating it. We put it in our mouths but quickly spat it out, then pointed fingers and laughed at each other for how ridiculous we were being. Everyone making fun of the other one for being an idiot. that sibling stuff.
 
With three kids I've found the hardest part has been maintaining my own health.

The actual parenting stuff isn't difficult with young children, but it is relentless. For one thing, I rarely get a good night's sleep, and once I get woken up (like tonight), it's difficult to get back to sleep after battling with a child who is tired and cranky but somehow wide awake. Looking after babies is also a full body workout, and I've been accumulating injuries to the parts of my body that are getting worked harder than they did before parenthood. So far I have a bad wrist and elbow (on opposing arms, so both arms hurt), and two bad knees (so getting up off the floor hurts, as does getting out of a chair while holding a baby).

My mental health has also been rubbish. Between chores, hands-on parenting time and work, I haven't been doing a great job of self-care. I don't have much time or motivation for exercise. Whenever I get a break I just want to flop down on a chair. I've also struggled to adjust my hobbies to the new routine chaos, so instead I've fallen back into just filling my rest time with passive entertainment, which feels OK in the moment but doesn't do much for my mental state when I have to get back to parenting/chores/work/sleep.

Instead of getting my act together, I've been medicating with snacks. I've gained a lot of weight since becoming a parent, and it just makes me feel uncomfortable (plus It probably led to my most recent knee injury). Between fitness and sleep, I feel like I've aged twenty years.

It's gotten bad enough that I can't continue with things the way they are. I've redoubled my efforts to get in more exercise and stay off the chocolates, to try and fix things internally. Externally, I've resolved that it's time to reign in the chaos. I feel off balance when the household doesn't follow stable routines and the house doesn't look (remotely) clean and tidy.

As a bit of a life hack, I've figured out how to use chores as a kind of meditative break. I put on my headphones and smash out some work while listening to something interesting like a podcast. It's not quite as good as doing my hobbies, but it's better than nothing.
 
bigfield said:
With three kids I've found the hardest part has been maintaining my own health.

The actual parenting stuff isn't difficult with young children, but it is relentless. For one thing, I rarely get a good night's sleep, and once I get woken up (like tonight), it's difficult to get back to sleep after battling with a child who is tired and cranky but somehow wide awake. Looking after babies is also a full body workout, and I've been accumulating injuries to the parts of my body that are getting worked harder than they did before parenthood. So far I have a bad wrist and elbow (on opposing arms, so both arms hurt), and two bad knees (so getting up off the floor hurts, as does getting out of a chair while holding a baby).

My mental health has also been rubbish. Between chores, hands-on parenting time and work, I haven't been doing a great job of self-care. I don't have much time or motivation for exercise. Whenever I get a break I just want to flop down on a chair. I've also struggled to adjust my hobbies to the new routine chaos, so instead I've fallen back into just filling my rest time with passive entertainment, which feels OK in the moment but doesn't do much for my mental state when I have to get back to parenting/chores/work/sleep.

Instead of getting my act together, I've been medicating with snacks. I've gained a lot of weight since becoming a parent, and it just makes me feel uncomfortable (plus It probably led to my most recent knee injury). Between fitness and sleep, I feel like I've aged twenty years.

It's gotten bad enough that I can't continue with things the way they are. I've redoubled my efforts to get in more exercise and stay off the chocolates, to try and fix things internally. Externally, I've resolved that it's time to reign in the chaos. I feel off balance when the household doesn't follow stable routines and the house doesn't look (remotely) clean and tidy.

As a bit of a life hack, I've figured out how to use chores as a kind of meditative break. I put on my headphones and smash out some work while listening to something interesting like a podcast. It's not quite as good as doing my hobbies, but it's better than nothing.
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Any change in life is disruptive until you find your new routine and balance. There will come a time, not long from now, where you can include your kids in self care. Take them outside while you read a book. Put them in a stroller and go for a walk…all sorts of things, if possible, include them in your hobbies.
 
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I wish it was easier to manage my daughter's peculiarities. The spontaneous questions she won't answer, her ridiculous impulses, her sometimes being half the age maturity wise, and continued obliviousness to other people's thoughts and understanding where they are coming from.

It should be easy to be thankful she isn't endangering herself via these impulses, but so far, it is hard to see improvements at time. And yes, I don't need to worry about boys. She is close to fully functional. But then *insert you did what?! Why?! I thought we were passed that.*

School this year seems to be doing well with communication with us. She gets a very wide swath of territory. Her big issue right now is she hates to write... a lot! So she becomes stubborn. Hard enough with her issues, don't need the additional obstinence. I've been warning her for a couple years she needed to at least accept writing assignmenta as writing is going to be a theme in the near future.

She is watching NFL games and live cams for NASCAR races. Not all the way through... and not with me, but she absolutely loves it when things start in a schedule. She'll hang in there with the racing and games for a bit. And she'll update me on scores of which I remind her not to blurt the Patriots game. Only reads comic strip books, but has read all of Bloom County. I don't know if she read all of Opus and Outland.
 
I don’t remember (sorry) but has your daughter been evaluated for autism?
Some of the things you describe fit. But having read the list of characteristics, I’d personally be surprised if every single person I’ve ever met in my entire life did not fit into the spectrum—

And it doesn’t matter much anyway. What matters is developing strategies and helping her to develope strategies for coping when things do not work the way she/ the world needs.

Does she dislike the actual physical aspects of writing? Pen/pencil and paper? Keyboards? Would switching whichever she uses help? Does she like to draw? Does she like word play? Rhymes, puns?

My understanding is that more and more kids are leaning hard into graphic novels.

A couple of suggestions: Calvin and Hobbes. Poetry. Seeing if she will engage in pen/paper games such as tic tac toe or hangman. Leaving her notes that ask her to respond in some at such as yes/no, in the beginning and going on from there. Word games in general.

Or if she says something that you notice as being particularly funny or wise or interesting, etc, saying you’d like to write that down so you can remember it.

Or starting a story ( orally at first if needed) and she must pick up the thread: what happens next?

If you haven’t heard of these before, may I suggest Junior Great Books? It’s a series of books of short stories that are very well written and lend themselves to open ended questions that build on interpretation of events and what might come next. Lots of Why’s? I used to volunteer in the program with my kids’ elementary school. An example that I remember is reading Jack and The Bean Stalk. One of the questions at the end of the story is: Why does Jack go back up the stalk the third time?
Lends itself to discussion and multiple answers that can be written in a sentence or two. https://www.greatbooks.org/k-5-materials/

I’d recommend Shel Silverstein but I absolutely hate and detest The Giving Tree.
 
Toni said:
I don’t remember (sorry) but has your daughter been evaluated for autism?
Some of the things you describe fit. But having read the list of characteristics, I’d personally be surprised if every single person I’ve ever met in my entire life did not fit into the spectrum—

And it doesn’t matter much anyway. What matters is developing strategies and helping her to develope strategies for coping when things do not work the way she/ the world needs.

Does she dislike the actual physical aspects of writing? Pen/pencil and paper? Keyboards? Would switching whichever she uses help? Does she like to draw? Does she like word play? Rhymes, puns?

My understanding is that more and more kids are leaning hard into graphic novels.

A couple of suggestions: Calvin and Hobbes. Poetry. Seeing if she will engage in pen/paper games such as tic tac toe or hangman. Leaving her notes that ask her to respond in some at such as yes/no, in the beginning and going on from there. Word games in general.

Or if she says something that you notice as being particularly funny or wise or interesting, etc, saying you’d like to write that down so you can remember it.

Or starting a story ( orally at first if needed) and she must pick up the thread: what happens next?

If you haven’t heard of these before, may I suggest Junior Great Books? It’s a series of books of short stories that are very well written and lend themselves to open ended questions that build on interpretation of events and what might come next. Lots of Why’s? I used to volunteer in the program with my kids’ elementary school. An example that I remember is reading Jack and The Bean Stalk. One of the questions at the end of the story is: Why does Jack go back up the stalk the third time?
Lends itself to discussion and multiple answers that can be written in a sentence or two. https://www.greatbooks.org/k-5-materials/

I’d recommend Shel Silverstein but I absolutely hate and detest The Giving Tree.
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I have a few ASD kids in my class who also hate writing. One absolutely loves tracing and copying, but detests coming up with new content. From my experience, kids are daunted by blankness in front of them. Yet, it’s interesting what can come out orally.

We have just finished an English unit on Persuasives. They had to write a persuasive on why my school should or shouldn’t get a pool. These are the results: All of them could give me a reason. And most could phrase their response orally, so passed. I have 4 exceptions. The only thing they didn’t do was provide their persuasive as opinion/reason/explanation/opinion (we call this the OREO structure). However, despite them not writing stuff down they got a D and not an E, simply because it was an oral presentation. Another student, P, got his first C ever because he could say his speak in the OREO structure and because he didn’t need to write it (I scribed for him) he passed.

One other thing we do for our reluctant writers is speech to text apps and devices and that may work for your daughter JimmyHiggins, as if she can see her words on paper, it might help.
 
Toni said:
I don’t remember (sorry) but has your daughter been evaluated for autism?
Some of the things you describe fit. But having read the list of characteristics, I’d personally be surprised if every single person I’ve ever met in my entire life did not fit into the spectrum—
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Screened by the school, wasn't on it. She has overlap on some of the behaviors though.
Toni said:
And it doesn’t matter much anyway. What matters is developing strategies and helping her to develope strategies for coping when things do not work the way she/ the world needs.

Does she dislike the actual physical aspects of writing? Pen/pencil and paper? Keyboards? Would switching whichever she uses help? Does she like to draw? Does she like word play? Rhymes, puns?
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OMFG! Had a long night last week, but finally seemed to make some progress. Pulling information out of her can be so arduous. She doesn't like writing. I think the problem is, theory, she has problems absorbing the information and then crafting responses. She is really bright, but appears very premature when it comes to developing her own solutions to problems (that are not math) or expressions.
Toni said:
My understanding is that more and more kids are leaning hard into graphic novels.

A couple of suggestions: Calvin and Hobbes.
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She has read all of Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, also has read a lot of Baby Blues (of which doesn't get so much for obvious reasons), Pearls before Swine, and Get Fuzzy. Also a huge fan of Garfield.
Toni said:
Poetry. Seeing if she will engage in pen/paper games such as tic tac toe or hangman. Leaving her notes that ask her to respond in some at such as yes/no, in the beginning and going on from there. Word games in general.
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We do Boggle with her grandmother. She struggles for her age at the game. I played that a lot with her grandmother when I was a kid. She is improving though. I was trying to get her onto Upwords, but that seemed a struggle. She loves video games, not as much board games. She is good at building, but not at growing. She'd rather tear stuff apart upon completion than make something she made part of something bigger.
Toni said:
If you haven’t heard of these before, may I suggest Junior Great Books? It’s a series of books of short stories that are very well written and lend themselves to open ended questions that build on interpretation of events and what might come next. Lots of Why’s? I used to volunteer in the program with my kids’ elementary school. An example that I remember is reading Jack and The Bean Stalk. One of the questions at the end of the story is: Why does Jack go back up the stalk the third time?
Lends itself to discussion and multiple answers that can be written in a sentence or two. https://www.greatbooks.org/k-5-materials/

I’d recommend Shel Silverstein but I absolutely hate and detest The Giving Tree.
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I'll give that a look. Thanks.
 
Toni said:
I don’t remember (sorry) but has your daughter been evaluated for autism?
Some of the things you describe fit. But having read the list of characteristics, I’d personally be surprised if every single person I’ve ever met in my entire life did not fit into the spectrum—

And it doesn’t matter much anyway. What matters is developing strategies and helping her to develope strategies for coping when things do not work the way she/ the world needs.

Does she dislike the actual physical aspects of writing? Pen/pencil and paper? Keyboards? Would switching whichever she uses help? Does she like to draw? Does she like word play? Rhymes, puns?

My understanding is that more and more kids are leaning hard into graphic novels.

A couple of suggestions: Calvin and Hobbes. Poetry. Seeing if she will engage in pen/paper games such as tic tac toe or hangman. Leaving her notes that ask her to respond in some at such as yes/no, in the beginning and going on from there. Word games in general.

Or if she says something that you notice as being particularly funny or wise or interesting, etc, saying you’d like to write that down so you can remember it.

Or starting a story ( orally at first if needed) and she must pick up the thread: what happens next?

If you haven’t heard of these before, may I suggest Junior Great Books? It’s a series of books of short stories that are very well written and lend themselves to open ended questions that build on interpretation of events and what might come next. Lots of Why’s? I used to volunteer in the program with my kids’ elementary school. An example that I remember is reading Jack and The Bean Stalk. One of the questions at the end of the story is: Why does Jack go back up the stalk the third time?
Lends itself to discussion and multiple answers that can be written in a sentence or two. https://www.greatbooks.org/k-5-materials/

I’d recommend Shel Silverstein but I absolutely hate and detest The Giving Tree.
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I was going to ask the exact same thing.
 
My AuADHD son also dislikes writing and has always 'written' his letters using an upside down stroke. Not easy to explain but his pencil goes in the opposite direction of the way most people write. An "I" would be bottom to top, not top to bottom. He also has/had difficulty with spacing. But he is wicked smart. He also has issues with food textures (as do I), but is not diagnosed ARFID (whereas I am).
 
Playball40 said:
My AuADHD son also dislikes writing and has always 'written' his letters using an upside down stroke. Not easy to explain but his pencil goes in the opposite direction of the way most people write. An "I" would be bottom to top, not top to bottom. He also has/had difficulty with spacing. But he is wicked smart. He also has issues with food textures (as do I), but is not diagnosed ARFID (whereas I am).
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He ‘draws’ his letters rather than write them. I have a couple of kids doing the exact same thing.
 
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