Parenting Megathread

[rousseau]

Trying not to, although the annoyance has likely come through a couple times. Lately I'm trying to adjust the language I use surrounding it to be more positive / encouraging, and that seems to caused some change. If the past is any indication he's going to mature a bit and eventually just start doing it.

When there is peer pressure he never has an accident. So it might just come down to the switch flipping from 'don't care' to 'care'. If he doesn't have it by JK then I think he's going to pick it up fast at that time.

Yes, peer pressure was a big factor for my oldest who is extremely social and who liked to play with the ‘big kids’ who were a really nice collection of kids from about 4-8 years old. It was also an impediment in the sense that he was often very ‘busy’ and did not want to stop ( in time) to use the toilet. But he did learn as dud his siblings. Two of the kids were extremely quick to make the switch. Two were …slower because they simply were too busy playing to want to bother with the bathroom.

On the bright side, the small one is already doing both on the potty at 26 months because he has to keep up with big bro. Fierce, male rivalry is good for something, I guess.

 

[gmbteach]

Trying not to, although the annoyance has likely come through a couple times. Lately I'm trying to adjust the language I use surrounding it to be more positive / encouraging, and that seems to caused some change. If the past is any indication he's going to mature a bit and eventually just start doing it.

When there is peer pressure he never has an accident. So it might just come down to the switch flipping from 'don't care' to 'care'. If he doesn't have it by JK then I think he's going to pick it up fast at that time.

JK?

In Canada the first two levels of elementary school are JK and SK, junior kindergarten and senior kindergarten. He'll be entering JK.

I thought it might be that, but didn’t want to assume.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

End of Year update

My daughter continues to have little ability of seeing things outside her perspective, but she did something yesterday that indicated improvement, so that was something. She still has no friends and had an unfortunate breakup with the one she thought she had.

The medication change mid-year sustained her school performance overall, as did the school adapting her transitions. She made the President's list, which we were really happy with, didn't even know it was a thing! It isn't super particular, but you need to be up top to get it. She finished this year a lot better than last year!

I started the connections to Middle School and will be more proactive on them with her management. This time around, proactive, instead of letting things slide due to her being smart and popular with adults, cracking through the obstinance she can have at times. She is set to see an occupational therapist outside of school, starting in October. Yeah... October. Probably could have used it a couple years ago, but some of this stuff is emerging, and I'm ignorant of a lot of it. Hoping by High School, she is better footed for managing peer relations. School is going to get harder to, so hopefully the smart kids start clumping together as well, quirks and all.

 

[rousseau]

We finished up with public, early intervention speech therapy, and have been attending private speech therapy for the past three weeks. The only thing left is the S sound, but eldest is now in a 'super confident, do whatever he wants, and lie through his teeth' phase. So some progress has been made but the new therapist is considering putting a pause on it for a few months until he matures and is more receptive to therapy. It turns out that they're actually more receptive when they're younger because the therapy feels like a game. Luckily we had him in at that time and achieved about 10 new sounds, so his speech is far clearer. We're ahead of the curve for Cleft but it's still jarring. And we're waiting with baited breath to see if any further surgery will be needed.

On the bright side I know how to apply speech therapy myself now, and even if we put a pause on private I can still teach him. I attended every session with the last therapist, and spent a few days researching her approach so I'm reasonably sure I can teach him the S sound myself. I just need him to be receptive.

And the small one just keeps chugging along. The terrible twos are slowly but surely creeping in. I had a good laugh last week when he was doing something ridiculous and my wife rolled her eyes at him. It was like watching her roll her eyes at herself.

The change in interplay between the two has been interesting recently. Eldest is taking on more of a parental, less babyish role, toward younger bro. Not as rough, more nurturing. Younger one is becoming rougher.