Parenting Megathread

[crazyfingers]

My daughter didn't stop wearing diapers to bed until she was around 14 years old. He liked peeing her pants and only stopped when she learned that summer camp required no diapers to bed. She was pooping her diapers though 6th grade just to piss us off. We refused to clean her by 1st grade. It was all Reactive Attachment Disorder stuff.

Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) forms in the first 3.5 years of life due to neglect and inconsistent care and changing caregivers. When we got our daughter she was 3.5 years old and had been removed from her bio-parents for abuse and neglect and then bounced around the foster care system. At the time very few therapists knew about RAD and no school physiologist understood it and certainly teachers hadn't a clue. Schools refuse to cooperate with parents and the therapists who actually knew about the condition which sets up a disaster.

What Is Reactive Attachment Disorder?

What is Reactive Attachment Disorder

www.everystarisdifferent.com

 

[rousseau]

My daughter didn't stop wearing diapers to bed until she was around 14 years old. He liked peeing her pants and only stopped when she learned that summer camp required no diapers to bed. She was pooping her diapers though 6th grade just to piss us off. We refused to clean her by 1st grade. It was all Reactive Attachment Disorder stuff.

Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) forms in the first 3.5 years of life due to neglect and inconsistent care and changing caregivers. When we got our daughter she was 3.5 years old and had been removed from her bio-parents for abuse and neglect and then bounced around the foster care system. At the time very few therapists knew about RAD and no school physiologist understood it and certainly teachers hadn't a clue. Schools refuse to cooperate with parents and the therapists who actually knew about the condition which sets up a disaster.

What Is Reactive Attachment Disorder?

What is Reactive Attachment Disorder

www.everystarisdifferent.com

I have to feel for your daughter, I can't imagine what it must have been like going through that.

I'd read some time ago that that having at least one strong emotional bond with a parent reaps huge rewards for a child. So I've always made sure the message of love was coming through loud and clear for both of my boys. This has been effective and they both have loads of confidence now.

It's hard to learn / experiment / grow etc if you're stressed out about your parents, and particularly in the first few years which are critical to development.

 

[Toni]

It’s hard to overstate the mostly invisible stress of becoming no the mother of two very young children, especially if your work puts you in the company of young children.

I don’t recall the age of your youngest ( apologies) but I’d assume your wife’s body isn’t completely back to ‘normal’ particularly if she breast fed. I cannot overstate this enough: Some days being the mother of young children feels very much as though not only does your body not belong to you or your time or your life, but there is something wrong with you for….wanting to use the toilet with the door closed, take a long relaxing bath when you want, without anyone at the door, and simply choosing your own wake/sleep, eating, resting/ reading, socializing, thinking your own damn thoughts for more than 30 seconds uninterrupted. No matter how much you adore your children and your husband and your life, it is hard to not recognize that on some level you are merely a vessel for children and once they exit your body, a caretaker of every single one of their needs.

You go to work and are around adults who see you as an adult, not a caretaker.

Your wife goes to work where her job is being a caretaker.

You know that you sometimes feel frustrated and stressed. Now amplify that by some orders of magnitude.

That’s close to what your wife likely feels all the time.

I 100% get your need to vent here—truly I do. But sometimes you seem critical of your wife and dismissive of her as well. Of course: you are human! And stressed and overwhelmed at least sometimes.

But society doesn’t allow mothers of young children to be mere humans.

This was NOT written to make you feel bad or to not be supportive of your feelings and impressions and needs—those are all valid!!

It was written to try to give you a tiny glimpse inside what it is for many/most mothers of young children.

You get to take off the Daddy hat. Your wife really cannot take off the mommy hat, and only in part because she specifically works with small children,

So when your wife is losing patience, she needs a break and some understanding. Zero judgement.

Of course you both do!

But you are the one writing so I’m telling you that your spouse needs a break.

 

[rousseau]

It’s hard to overstate the mostly invisible stress of becoming no the mother of two very young children, especially if your work puts you in the company of young children.

I don’t recall the age of your youngest ( apologies) but I’d assume your wife’s body isn’t completely back to ‘normal’ particularly if she breast fed. I cannot overstate this enough: Some days being the mother of young children feels very much as though not only does your body not belong to you or your time or your life, but there is something wrong with you for….wanting to use the toilet with the door closed, take a long relaxing bath when you want, without anyone at the door, and simply choosing your own wake/sleep, eating, resting/ reading, socializing, thinking your own damn thoughts for more than 30 seconds uninterrupted. No matter how much you adore your children and your husband and your life, it is hard to not recognize that on some level you are merely a vessel for children and once they exit your body, a caretaker of every single one of their needs.

You go to work and are around adults who see you as an adult, not a caretaker.

Your wife goes to work where her job is being a caretaker.

You know that you sometimes feel frustrated and stressed. Now amplify that by some orders of magnitude.

That’s close to what your wife likely feels all the time.

I 100% get your need to vent here—truly I do. But sometimes you seem critical of your wife and dismissive of her as well. Of course: you are human! And stressed and overwhelmed at least sometimes.

But society doesn’t allow mothers of young children to be mere humans.

This was NOT written to make you feel bad or to not be supportive of your feelings and impressions and needs—those are all valid!!

It was written to try to give you a tiny glimpse inside what it is for many/most mothers of young children.

You get to take off the Daddy hat. Your wife really cannot take off the mommy hat, and only in part because she specifically works with small children,

So when your wife is losing patience, she needs a break and some understanding. Zero judgement.

Of course you both do!

But you are the one writing so I’m telling you that your spouse needs a break.

Yea, I really do get it.

In our case there's the maternal fatigue aspect, but then there's also the spectrum aspect. That's really what I'm adjusting to. Am I worried about my kids? Not really. But my own mental health has been a little more troubling.

I could go into detail, I won't here but believe me, it's not just normal parenting stress that's happening. We'll be fine, things are improving, but I lost a very important social outlet when my job went remote.

 

[Rhea]

In my latest amusing anecdote, I pulled out one of my college textbooks a few days ago and forgot to put it away. The next morning our 3.5 year old sat down on our couch and flipped through it for about 15 minutes. I'm not sure if I should be excited or concerned for his future.

More seriously, lately I'm remembering that I was given a gifted label as a kid, and I'm starting to see this in his future. To those who haven't been there this sounds like a good thing, but in many ways it's not. It can be very isolating and confusing. I'm coming up on 40 and just coming to grips with it these days.

But what I did get for twenty years was every adult telling me how smart I was rather than helping me grow into a better version of my myself. It turned into a complex.

Our eldest looks like he's about as sharp as I was but we don't use the word 'smart' around him. Hard work, kindness, gentleness are generally what we encourage.

On being “gifted”…

My experience is that it is important to try to really observe what areas the kid is ahead-and-seeking-stimulation and where they are not. I’m not a fan of the phrase “gifted” because it is usally taken as a blanket judgment of whole person when it is more appropriately applied per-skill.

So my son, for example came to me after kindergarten one day, wondering why Susie (her name actually was Susie) couldn’t read. We had already been on the path of not wanting him to think he was “smart” or smarter than his classmates, but this gave us a good way to frame that. My reply,

”Well honey, everyone in school is there learning whatever parts they need. It’s not always the same parts. But Susie knows how to raise her hand to indicate that she wants a turn to speak, and she knows how to stop her activitiy to get to the bathroom in time. Those are things you are working very hard on. To her they seem effortlessly easy. But to you, they are something you have to work hard to do. And so while reading is effortlessly easy for you, that’s the part she spends her day working on. And that’s what we love about your school, that they know how to see what each of you needs to work on, and they realize you are not all the same people as each other.”


At the same time, we did have to work VERY HARD to make sure he was stimulated to keep him from getting disruptive. We did a lot of “after-schooling” (our version of home schooling) to teach him extensions of his lessons. Things he could pull out in class when he was done with his school work to keep him in the “learning/exploring attitude” that the kids were supposed to be in, but which he completed so fast that he was left disruptively available. We’d give him latin word roots to circle and copy after he did his spelling lesson, for example. And taught him to ask the teacher if he could color, because he didn’t know how to ask to do that.

One of the drawbacks of the teachers thinking a child is “gifted” or “smart” is that they think they are therefore gifted in everything. So they are surprised and even insulted when the “smart” kid wets his pants or interrupts or disrupts. Our son was typical, I think, in being suited for 6th grade for one thing and kindergarten for another. Our kindergarten teachers questioned if he was ready emotiuonally for first grade, but when I asked if he should repeat kindergarten they shouted “No!” (Literally, simultaneously).

So he’s not “smart” in the sense of way ahead of everyone in everything, and he should not think he is. He has so much to learn in areas that don’t have “tests”.

So, an actual question. Is our eldest kid just going to figure out potty training eventually? Will some point come when it just clicks, and he starts doing it?

We've made progress a number of times where he starts going by himself, but then he regresses and stops doing it. My wife doesn't seem to be able to keep the volume down consistently, which I don't think is helping, but it's hard to tell if it's that, or if he's just not mature enough yet.

I'm starting to lean toward the maturity aspect, he's smart enough, and physically capable enough, but at some point he'll need to just figure it out / make the decision himself.

My son was 4-5yo when he finally got up to speed on the potty. He just did. Not. Care. It was far less important than finishing play or a book. The progression and regression is very normal as the brain develops, especially at the current stage. One thing that helped me have more patience was reminding myself how much he didn’t know. About life. He can’t tie a shoe, but we expect body function knowledge? He can’t be trusted to know if a cup is too hot to drink, but we expect him to self-diagnose what his bladder is telling him? For years it never mattered, and now all of a sudden I’m supposed ot udnerstand those cues? So I tried to remember that, and Understand what HE was feeling, and help him work with that.

One thing that helped with our oldest, who had no problem at all running around with wet pants, was to buy him superhero underwear. He did not want to get Spiderman or Superman wet. Also he grew up some and there were social consequences. He really wanted to be a big kid. For him, the biggest issue is that he really hated stopping whatever play he was engaging in to take time to go to the bathroom. He was so engaged in his play, whatever play that was, that he ignored his body's signals that he needed to go.

Thanks. I do wonder if some of the regression has been a reaction to baby brother. There was a period a few months ago where the jealousy actually seemed to intensify, rather than subside, and he'd commonly act like a baby, want to be swaddled etc.

Now he's starting to refer to being a 'big boy' more and more, but I can see how it's a confusing time at that age. He's just spent his whole life being pampered and attended to, then suddenly the reactions he's getting aren't always pleasant, while it's mostly positive for baby bro.

In addition to baby brother, the child’s brain goes through several reorganizations. Using involving “pruning and reorganization.” During this time (once in the womb, once around 3yo, once as adolescent, once as a teen) the brain does a reorganization. It actually disassembles some neurons and uses the materials to build new ones. In other words, it is not laziness, they are ACTUALLY DUMBER than they were yesterday. The brain will rebuild, with new pathways needed at this new stage of maturity. But during that time, they need our patience. They have no idea what’s going wrong or why you are chastising them for something they don’t remember at all. That neuron that they used yesterday is gone today. It’ll come back. But needs to be taught again.

 

[rousseau]

One of the drawbacks of the teachers thinking a child is “gifted” or “smart” is that they think they are therefore gifted in everything. So they are surprised and even insulted when the “smart” kid wets his pants or interrupts or disrupts. Our son was typical, I think, in being suited for 6th grade for one thing and kindergarten for another. Our kindergarten teachers questioned if he was ready emotionally for first grade, but when I asked if he should repeat kindergarten they shouted “No!” (Literally, simultaneously).

That sounds similar to my experience. I was strong in Math and English, and usually most academic things that I took part in. But this came at the expense of paying attention to the social aspect of my life, and when I hit my twenties I could likely be called a little emotionally immature.

But then, a lot of men are at that age, so maybe not entirely unusual. But generally the adults in my life always assumed I didn't need any help, so I rarely got any for the deficits I actually had. My parents didn't have to worry about my grades, so they basically just did nothing.

My son was 4-5yo when he finally got up to speed on the potty. He just did. Not. Care. It was far less important than finishing play or a book. The progression and regression is very normal as the brain develops, especially at the current stage. One thing that helped me have more patience was reminding myself how much he didn’t know. About life. He can’t tie a shoe, but we expect body function knowledge? He can’t be trusted to know if a cup is too hot to drink, but we expect him to self-diagnose what his bladder is telling him? For years it never mattered, and now all of a sudden I’m supposed ot udnerstand those cues? So I tried to remember that, and Understand what HE was feeling, and help him work with that.

That's good advice. I'm generally pretty patient / understanding. What threw me at the beginning of potty training is what an actual reasonable expectation was. There is so much information about it online, but a lot of it seems to be aimed at trying to sell you something, and it rarely gives you a realistic explanation of how it actually works from start to finish.

And maybe it sounds like I'm being hard on my wife. Not my intent at all, but at times her communication skills / approach hasn't helped. In my life I'm so used to just going online, reading a book, or otherwise, and just executing what it tells me to do 95 - 100% of the time. With my wife, she has a hard time communicating with him consistently in a productive way. So while I'm used to being able to control everything about my life, this is one aspect I just haven't been able to. So it's taken some adjustment, just chilling out, and letting it happen.

 

[Rhea]

Consider talking to your wife (gently of course, I know you know ythis, but saying it explicitly for the larger audience) about her much greater emotional maturity than yours, or his. If she is neurotypical, she may “get” things instantly that you, or he (or I) find absolutely mystifying. It’s HARD to understand subtle cues. It’s really really HARD for some of us.

If it’s easy for her, and if she constantly sees his success in certain milestones or academic/learning pursuits, she may transfer that expectation of easy success onto things that she also sees as easy that he does not.


So much of parenting behavior for me revolved around
1. Remembering how little he knows
2. Assuming that he is trying to please me all the time, and when he doesn’t it’s because he doesn’t understand, not because he is being defiant.
3. Remembering that even if he is reading Carl Sagan at 6yo, he simultaneously does not understand the speed of his body or the passage of time at ALL. He’s not a genius in everything; indeed, he’s behind the curve in some things. I need to let him be himself, not an ideal.
4. Remembering that his brain is busy learning 1000x more per day than mine is, and if he forgets something important, it’s my job to repeat it, not his job to feel like shit for forgetting.


And again, for tone & attitude, this is not telling me (or you or your wife) that we are bad parents. It’s the laughing humility of reminding ourselves that we “missed a spot” and we are just as imperfect as our darling boy. ANd he loves us anyway. And this is a good opportunity to model being sorry, changing your mind and correcting your path. Watch me do it, kid, then you will learn it’s a good thing to be skilled at.


For me it was almost always about fixing my approach, not his performance. Because he’s just a little kid who is so unfinished that he accidentally bit his own arm when he sneezed. And if he can be a victim of that, he needs me to help him in a lot of things that I might be assuming he knows already.

 

[rousseau]

Consider talking to your wife (gently of course, I know you know ythis, but saying it explicitly for the larger audience) about her much greater emotional maturity than yours, or his. If she is neurotypical, she may “get” things instantly that you, or he (or I) find absolutely mystifying. It’s HARD to understand subtle cues. It’s really really HARD for some of us.

If it’s easy for her, and if she constantly sees his success in certain milestones or academic/learning pursuits, she may transfer that expectation of easy success onto things that she also sees as easy that he does not.


So much of parenting behavior for me revolved around
1. Remembering how little he knows
2. Assuming that he is trying to please me all the time, and when he doesn’t it’s because he doesn’t understand, not because he is being defiant.
3. Remembering that even if he is reading Carl Sagan at 6yo, he simultaneously does not understand the speed of his body or the passage of time at ALL. He’s not a genius in everything; indeed, he’s behind the curve in some things. I need to let him be himself, not an ideal.
4. Remembering that his brain is busy learning 1000x more per day than mine is, and if he forgets something important, it’s my job to repeat it, not his job to feel like shit for forgetting.


And again, for tone & attitude, this is not telling me (or you or your wife) that we are bad parents. It’s the laughing humility of reminding ourselves that we “missed a spot” and we are just as imperfect as our darling boy. ANd he loves us anyway. And this is a good opportunity to model being sorry, changing your mind and correcting your path. Watch me do it, kid, then you will learn it’s a good thing to be skilled at.


For me it was almost always about fixing my approach, not his performance. Because he’s just a little kid who is so unfinished that he accidentally bit his own arm when he sneezed. And if he can be a victim of that, he needs me to help him in a lot of things that I might be assuming he knows already.

In our case it's the other way around. Aspergers runs in her family - her mom, and two of her siblings are on the spectrum. I kind of knew before we had kids, but after we had them I really started to notice. Communication, cues, and a number of other things are a challenge for her. The core issue is that she's undiagnosed and has no idea that any of this is a thing. We've both acknowledged that her mother is on the spectrum, but she hasn't said it out loud about herself. I don't want to either as it's a major shift in self-concept.

For the most part this hasn't been an issue, but the communication skill aspect has caused some issues with potty training. I've had to research potty training, compile info, and relay it to her, and sometimes it still doesn't feel like she really understands it. So it's been an interesting year, but in the end I've learned that the only person I can really control is myself, so that's what I'm doing.

 

[bigfield]

My parenting goals have shifted towards "just survive". We now have a toddler and baby twins, and parenting is mostly a matter of staying on top of all the jobs that need to be done. Some jobs, like potty training, are in the "too hard" basket right now.

Communication skills are a high priority for me at the moment. Toddler problems are so much easier to resolve when the child can tell me what he wants, or what's wrong. Especially now when I don't have as much time or patience for long-running tantrums.

Once I go back to work we will be forced into a strict daily timetable, and this may actually be very good for the toddler. He is the epitome of the person who will take a mile if you give them an inch.

 

[Toni]

My parenting goals have shifted towards "just survive". We now have a toddler and baby twins, and parenting is mostly a matter of staying on top of all the jobs that need to be done. Some jobs, like potty training, are in the "too hard" basket right now.

Communication skills are a high priority for me at the moment. Toddler problems are so much easier to resolve when the child can tell me what he wants, or what's wrong. Especially now when I don't have as much time or patience for long-running tantrums.

Once I go back to work we will be forced into a strict daily timetable, and this may actually be very good for the toddler. He is the epitome of the person who will take a mile if you give them an inch.

My best friend's daughter had twins when their firstborn was almost 2. I drove down a few times to help my friend do baby duty when the babies parents were otherwise engaged. YIKES it's a lot.

I commend you for not making potty training a thing right now. I only had singletons and I'd wait until things settled down a bit after the new baby arrived before broaching the subject with the toddler who was getting to that age. Just did not even consider mentioning it, much less dealing with the need to instantly help the child to the bathroom while in the middle of feeding, diapering, soothing a baby. Plus: A lot of kids regress with a new baby in the house, as well, so you are saving yourself that headache.

Congratulations on the safe arrival of the dynamic duo! And congratulations to your first born for becoming a big sibling!

 

[rousseau]

My parenting goals have shifted towards "just survive". We now have a toddler and baby twins, and parenting is mostly a matter of staying on top of all the jobs that need to be done. Some jobs, like potty training, are in the "too hard" basket right now.

Communication skills are a high priority for me at the moment. Toddler problems are so much easier to resolve when the child can tell me what he wants, or what's wrong. Especially now when I don't have as much time or patience for long-running tantrums.

Once I go back to work we will be forced into a strict daily timetable, and this may actually be very good for the toddler. He is the epitome of the person who will take a mile if you give them an inch.

If it's any consolation at least it's not four. A friend of mine had two, and the third pregnancy was twins, I don't think he's having a good time.

Your strategy sounds like a good one, the eldest will likely be resistant to training anyway with so much going on in the house. Don't rush it, our experience with our eldest is that he was actually ready to start seriously training after age three. But it's likely not a bad idea to at least get your kid familiar with the potty sometime after he's showing the classic signs of readiness.

 

[Rhea]

If it helps, and if it works with two babies, one thing we did that turned out extremely successful was - whenever I nursed the baby, I would also hold a book and read out loud. My toddler (2.5yo) ADORED his baby sister, because she guaranteed that he got read to 4-5 times a day. He LOVED her for this. I would call out that the baby was hungry, and he would run and get a book, grab my boppy pillow, bring me a glass of water, curl up next to us and thank his baby sister for being hungry. It headed off so many jealousy issues because he saw her as the cause of him getting MORE attention.

Just a thing that worked for us.

 

[bigfield]

If it helps, and if it works with two babies, one thing we did that turned out extremely successful was - whenever I nursed the baby, I would also hold a book and read out loud. My toddler (2.5yo) ADORED his baby sister, because she guaranteed that he got read to 4-5 times a day. He LOVED her for this. I would call out that the baby was hungry, and he would run and get a book, grab my boppy pillow, bring me a glass of water, curl up next to us and thank his baby sister for being hungry. It headed off so many jealousy issues because he saw her as the cause of him getting MORE attention.

Just a thing that worked for us.

I might need an extra pair of hands, but worth a try.

 

[Toni]

If it helps, and if it works with two babies, one thing we did that turned out extremely successful was - whenever I nursed the baby, I would also hold a book and read out loud. My toddler (2.5yo) ADORED his baby sister, because she guaranteed that he got read to 4-5 times a day. He LOVED her for this. I would call out that the baby was hungry, and he would run and get a book, grab my boppy pillow, bring me a glass of water, curl up next to us and thank his baby sister for being hungry. It headed off so many jealousy issues because he saw her as the cause of him getting MORE attention.

Just a thing that worked for us.

Heh, my second born leaned over and pushed his big sibling in the face because he thought his brother was horning in on his special time.

Remarkably there was very little sibling rivalry. The only significant rivalry was between the two youngest who are about 2 years apart. They were either the best of friends or the worst of enemies, sometimes just moments apart. I’m really proud of my kids for being good friends as adults.

 

[rousseau]

In our latest eldest is doing really well with speech therapy. He's starting to act up in sessions, but still making consistent progress, and is almost caught up to age level. His speech is far clearer lately. We're in the public system right now with a discharge at the end of April, at that time we find out if he needs private therapy (which isn't cheap) so keeping our fingers crossed. We can handle it, but it's a lot.

And the small one caught up to the age big bro was when he was born, so we're experiencing this age range (22 months) for the first time without a chaotic household. He's also gaining ground size and strength wise, so eldest isn't as quick to push him around anymore.

Overall things are a lot calmer, nights are better. Now we just need to get the small one through his twos / threenager phase and we should be good to go. I keep hearing that it'll get harder when they're teens, but I cannot and will not believe it (covers ears).

 

[Playball40]

My parenting goals have shifted towards "just survive". We now have a toddler and baby twins, and parenting is mostly a matter of staying on top of all the jobs that need to be done. Some jobs, like potty training, are in the "too hard" basket right now.

Communication skills are a high priority for me at the moment. Toddler problems are so much easier to resolve when the child can tell me what he wants, or what's wrong. Especially now when I don't have as much time or patience for long-running tantrums.

Once I go back to work we will be forced into a strict daily timetable, and this may actually be very good for the toddler. He is the epitome of the person who will take a mile if you give them an inch.

I really do feel for you. My daughter and twins were just 15 months apart.

 

[Playball40]

I started 3rd grade in a whole new town, and I was very shy and quiet initially. But I was a pretty smart kid (always near top of the class). Back then (1969) we used this reading system called SRA, which is still in use, it appears. Basically, the teacher decides which reading level you should start in, and you read the material from that level. The levels are denoted by colors, and you can advance to the next higher level/color when you finish the assignments (and tests?). All I remember is the lowest level was "aqua". I spent some time there breezing through the reading assignments, but was too shy to tell the teacher that it was very boring and easy for me. She finally got a hint I might be in the wrong category and asked me to read out loud the material in "aqua". Then, she had me read from the next level, then the one after that, etc. At each level, she was getting more and more angry. Finally, I was at the top level reading easily and she left me there and proceeded to berate me for being miscategorized for so long and not speaking up. I remember thinking, "Lady, you were the one who put me here, assuming I was dumb because I was a nervous, new kid and didn't talk much! Its your fault for misjudging me from the get-go". She actually turned out to be one of my favorite elementary school teachers, but we did have a bad start.

I remember SRA. Ugh!

 

[gmbteach]

My parenting goals have shifted towards "just survive". We now have a toddler and baby twins, and parenting is mostly a matter of staying on top of all the jobs that need to be done. Some jobs, like potty training, are in the "too hard" basket right now.

Communication skills are a high priority for me at the moment. Toddler problems are so much easier to resolve when the child can tell me what he wants, or what's wrong. Especially now when I don't have as much time or patience for long-running tantrums.

Once I go back to work we will be forced into a strict daily timetable, and this may actually be very good for the toddler. He is the epitome of the person who will take a mile if you give them an inch.

I really do feel for you. My daughter and twins were just 15 months apart.

My brother was due on my first birthday and was born 3 weeks early. He is ‘the same age’ as me for 21 days every year.

 

[gmbteach]

I started 3rd grade in a whole new town, and I was very shy and quiet initially. But I was a pretty smart kid (always near top of the class). Back then (1969) we used this reading system called SRA, which is still in use, it appears. Basically, the teacher decides which reading level you should start in, and you read the material from that level. The levels are denoted by colors, and you can advance to the next higher level/color when you finish the assignments (and tests?). All I remember is the lowest level was "aqua". I spent some time there breezing through the reading assignments, but was too shy to tell the teacher that it was very boring and easy for me. She finally got a hint I might be in the wrong category and asked me to read out loud the material in "aqua". Then, she had me read from the next level, then the one after that, etc. At each level, she was getting more and more angry. Finally, I was at the top level reading easily and she left me there and proceeded to berate me for being miscategorized for so long and not speaking up. I remember thinking, "Lady, you were the one who put me here, assuming I was dumb because I was a nervous, new kid and didn't talk much! Its your fault for misjudging me from the get-go". She actually turned out to be one of my favorite elementary school teachers, but we did have a bad start.

I remember SRA. Ugh!

We still use it as an independent reading activity.

 

[rousseau]

My parenting goals have shifted towards "just survive". We now have a toddler and baby twins, and parenting is mostly a matter of staying on top of all the jobs that need to be done. Some jobs, like potty training, are in the "too hard" basket right now.

Communication skills are a high priority for me at the moment. Toddler problems are so much easier to resolve when the child can tell me what he wants, or what's wrong. Especially now when I don't have as much time or patience for long-running tantrums.

Once I go back to work we will be forced into a strict daily timetable, and this may actually be very good for the toddler. He is the epitome of the person who will take a mile if you give them an inch.

I really do feel for you. My daughter and twins were just 15 months apart.

Our two are 22 months apart. The first year was bad enough with only that, but it's paying dividends now as they're best friends.