Am I raising a wimp?

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Anna
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

Post by Anna »

I am looking at my starting point and I can see that I am often anoyed by his behaviour. I also developed the belief that nothing is easy with him, that he will find a way to make it difficult for me, like he would do that on purpose. and this happens often, I have a picture in my head how it should be or how I would like it to be and in the end it's difficult, cause something upset him and he escalates and screams etc. A better way would be to accept something might upset him and prepare myself and everything to make the situation easier for both of us. f.e. we started to train him being without a buggy when he was 1,5 years old. since he was 2 we didn't need the buggy anymore, he got used to walk eerywhere with us and if he was tired we would carry him for a few minutes and he would walk again afterwards. now that I am pregnant and not able to carry him I started to take the buggy again and he seems to be happy about it. so, we had to give up our picture of an independent, walking child. maybe we have to high expectations, that is also possible, but he is out first child and we are learning by trying and doing.
I am not applying strict parenting rules, and I think that was not good for noa. maybe he does need more strict rules, cause I was rather flexible till now and I would give in if I had the feeling he wanted something badly. I also did that from the starting point 'I want him to be happy and stop whining'. This might sound like he got everything he wanted, but that is not the case, there are some rules he has to follow here, and others that are flexible.
The language thing differes from child to child. First Noa was raised trilingual, then Paris gave up the greek and we stayed with two languages. I think even if we would have spoken only one language he would have been a late talker. he got his first tooth when he was 13 months old and he couldn't chew well untill then. he is eating a whole apple since he is 2,5 years old, means very late. the other boys at day care (same age) are also not talkative, but since he is having other childrens company his language skills are much better, he is now learning every day new vocabulary and actually starting to comunicate with us in whole sentences, mostly in german. he is obsessed with colors, numbers and shapes a.t.m. he is also able to read some numbers. he also likes nameing animals.
In 5 or 6 weeks I will be for sure at the hospital for 5 days to give birth, that will be the first time we will be separated and we will see how he'll cope. sure, he will come to visit us, but I want be home and it will be a completely new expereience for him.
Hi Lana.

Very cool self-insights here.

I definitely suggest walking a self-forgiveness process of releasing all the reactions/beliefs/expectations/ideas that you're mentioning here in relation to your son as the very first step in terms of changing the situation, also especially within context to there now coming a new child into the picture which will obviously bring more dimensions to the situation that you will be required to direct. So it is a cool opportunity now that you're pregnant again and these points has opened up through this post to walk through this point so that you can stabilize yourself in your relationship to your son and the baby that is on the way - so that you will effectively be able to direct the point of now having two children. This will also be of immense support for others who are facing the same/similar situations.
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Rebecca Dalmas
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

Post by Rebecca Dalmas »

I don't have much help here with the household and my child I tend to be very tired and exhausted. It's nice to have family or a comunity that is able to help sometimes, but we are alone, no grandparents or aunts around us. my husband is working and studying in the evening - means I didn't have any kind of vaccation since our son was born.
Reminds me of my years when my children were babies, they were 22 months apart. My husband worked during the day, and even had army duty where he was gone for two weeks. I never had a vacation during this time either. I did not have relatives around to help, I just accepted it, even when I was tired. And I managed to pick up my violin enough to keep some of my muscular strength.
I would plan my day, create activities and then go with them. The kitchen after making oatmeal cookies was always a mess, but instead of worrying about mishaps, I allowed them with some measure of direction. This organization helped me deal with being alone and not having help.
I also went and worked at a MutterZentrum which was cool because I practiced the language and met women from all walks of life. I think I went there one day a week for lunch, which gave me a pause from cooking and a chance to talk with other women.
Perhaps define " wimp" and see what relationships come up within yourself and what would be a practical solution as what a wimp is not?
I remember saying to myself at times " Stop being a wimp, get your coat on, go to the park like you organized and enjoy the world!"
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viktor
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

Post by viktor »

Cool perspectives everyone,

From listening to the parenting series that are offered on Eqafe I have come to understand that the primary point that will determine your relationship with your child is the relationship with yourself – if you are stable, consistent and directive this will reflect in the relationship with your child. Thus having a child is really a great gift because you will be able to face and transcend many of your mind patterns through observing what your child is reflecting back to you and then taking what you see into a process of self-correction through utilizing writing and self-forgiveness.

I also remember that Bernard have mentioned that children are copies of their parents and thus having a child implies a great opportunity for the parent to face themselves – because in applying self-honesty and the mirror principle – a lot of mind baggage can be revealed and released. Thus when you are walking through a difficult and emotional period, this understanding can be utilized in order to your experience of the entire event – and instead of going into self-victimization in relation to all the emotions coming up – realizing that it is a gift and that with effective application of the Desteni tools – the experience can be changed and you can come out stronger from it all – and at the same time develop a really cool and effective relationship with the new being coming into your world in the shape and form of a child.

This is also often the realization that parents tend to miss and if you look at "nanny TV-series" – the point that is used to direct the child is mostly punishments and rewards, which is actually a hidden form of spite and blame – because this particular way of dealing with the situation implies that the children is causing its own behavior and is doing it unto the parent – instead of realizing that the child is like a sponge designed to absorb information and will effectively reflect the particular design of the parent. Thus, just as with partner relationships and agreements – what will determine the outflow of the relationship is YOU – that is the insight and understanding parents should align themselves – remove the blame and focus on the self-agreement.
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Antoaneta
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

Post by Antoaneta »

At Ingrid,
I like your potty train approach- I shall try it when it starts warming up. As of the moment- Victor is aware when he is poppy. He tells me most of the time and sometimes he hides it until I smell it (those times he is usually playing or he is experiencing a dipper rash and it hurts when he gets wiped). He is using disposable dippers so I have heard that it is hard for them to know they have peed because they cannot feel the wetness.
My mom has told me that she would leave me on the potty for about 20 minutes and then put me in underwear so I would wet myself and did not enjoy the feeling.
When Victor was about 1 year I tried placing him on the potty- but he did not like it so I stopped- he would cry and feel uncomfortable sitting in it. But now that he is practically 2 and is able to tell me I will try it again- and as summer approaches the naked butt def :). I also take him in the bathroom when I have to go and show him when I flush where the poop and pee goes. He tells it bye bye..lol

At Lana,
Victor is also trilingual- but from my side I prompt him to speak in Bulgarian and English. My husband speaks to him in English (by his choice)- he could speak to him Russian but since him and I speak English to each other I guess it is easier for him to talk English to Victor. My mother in law speaks Russian to Victor. I am determined to expose him to Bulgarian- thus I use it all the time (and my mom speaks Bulgarian to him as well) and also English-so he responds in either language at the moment but is not willing to talk- I have to prompt him to say the phrases. He was referred to speech therapy but I am still exploring the option of him beginning to talk. My mom told me my bother and me were late talkers and so was my dad. So I am watching him closely in that matter and if I get any concerns I will have him evaluated for speech. I don't give him what he wants until he uses his words to ask- sometimes he gets upset but I keep prompting the talk until he repeats after me. I also talk to him describing and naming different things- he repeats after me. I noticed he was behind on language development when at 15 months he was not repeating the sounds and/or simple words, and that is important language development skill that opens up to starting to use the words he keeps repeating. He began doing that at 18-19 months. And when I worked at the day care with toddlers they were all repeating many words or naming words in the pictures by 19 months.

At Hilda,
Yes I don't give in to the crying either- If I have said NO about something then it is a NO and I offer something alternative and redirection and explanation to why I said NO (even though he does not understand the explanation yet).
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Anna
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

Post by Anna »

I don't give him what he wants until he uses his words to ask- sometimes he gets upset but I keep prompting the talk until he repeats after me.
From my perspective, this might not be the best way to go about it, because it can cause the child to feel pressured and create a negative association with feeling forced to speak, rather than it being something that develops naturally. As far as I am aware, speech therapists generally don't see it as a problem until the child is over 3 years old and then they slowly begin assisting the child to start speaking. From what I've seen, some children simply are 'late bloomers' and some even don't speak at all until they're satisfied that they can pronounce the words. So I would look at this point in terms of your starting-point within wanting him to speak where there may be reactions like fear directing you to want him to speak and so try and force him where it may have the effect that he goes into resistance. Obviously there's no rules about this that are set in stone - so it's something one can only asses for oneself in self-honesty.
Lana
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

Post by Lana »

@ HIlda

I didn't pick up my son every time he would cry and he was an easy to handle and satisfied child untill one day (he was 16 months) we woke up to have a totally different child that would cry for every wrong move I would make, and I mean this literally, if I moved into a direction he didn't like he would start screaming. back then I tried to calm him but he would not respond, the only thing I could do was to wait for him to cry it out and calm by himself. he would escalate for me going to the toilet or a few days ago it was the fact I took the butter out of the fridge. he wants to do everything by himself, he want's to make a sandwich, but he is to small and it doesn't work. on the other hand he also doesn't accept help. he wants to to the laundry, and again he is to small to get it done properly. he wants to put the plates into the machine and start it, again the same story. for 6 months he wasn't able to feed himself with a spoon, cause he insisted to hold the spoon like a grown up, not with the fist like a child would do it (this started also with 16 months). so when he got the spoon to his mouth he would turn it upside down and the food would fall on the floor or table and would not end up in his mouth, cause his motorics simply wasn't good enough for the spoon holding style. I showed him more then 100 times how to hold it to be able to feed himself, the result was a crying attack and throwing the food around, cause he was so angry. yes, I took away the food and no he didn'T learn that he will stay hungry. in the end, you can not starve your child for weeks. so he ate bread, with his hands. after more than 6 months he started to accept the fact he should hold the spoon like a kid. shortly after that he was able to hold it like the grown ups and feed himself. he also holds the pens like we would do when he is 'drawing' since he was not even 2 years old. I gave up showing him things, I only do it if he asks me for help now.
Now just imagine having such a child and the screaming goes on for more than a year. the reason he is in day care since he is 2,5 (I'm not working) is cause I was almost going insane. I needed the help and I also thought it would be good for him to have other childrens company, since he is a quite smart child.
many things have changed now that he is starting to speak and express himself and what intensified is the whining, but we are working on that.
I don't know what it means to return the emotion back to/at a child?

@ Viktor

I do understand what you mean and I also think that you can grow with your child, it's a good oportunity to look at self and learn, that's for sure, but I can tell you it's not that easy. even if you stand stable it can be very hard, cause what you are facing is the pure uncontrolled EGO. toddlers are egomaniacs and they have no controll over feelings or emotions and first of all have to learn to understand themselves and what they really want.
the nanny series here is not working with punishment and reward. it always turns out the problem is with the parents and the nanny clearly adresses this. she is showing the whole family a way to make it better. they film the family and show it to the parents who are mostly very ashamed of the own behaviour. but those families are really having no planed days, no rituals/routine etc, not taking care of the children...

@ Antoaneta

I tried the potty training since noa was 1,5 years old. even in the summertime he refused the potty and rather peed himself or he just pood on the floor, cause he is pooing in a squatting position. I tried it since then every once in a while with the result that he would pee and poo as soon as he had his pants on and hold it while on the potty. he doesn't care. so one day I made the decision to pee in the potty and show him how to do it. now he is at least peeing into it if I tell him to do it. sometimes he also refuses it tellin me he wants a diaper. I think he will get it when his language and understanding of language is developed enough. I still have the feeling he doesn't understand what we are telling him.
I used the same technique with noa you did with victor, but with the result he would withdraw himself and no talk at all, even started to ignore me if I would talk to him. noa is more like the child anna describes. the more I tried to get him to repeat after me, the less he would do it, so I gave it up and now he is repeating without me having to tell him to repeat ( both languages). the teachers at day care told me that not all children are the same and some start the talking late but then develop very fast.

goodness, I'm typing this 4 hours or more. noa came home and complained about headache. now he seems to be better and I can submit what I wrote...
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sylvia
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

Post by sylvia »

Really cool support here guys!

It's quite a while back when I had toddlers, though I do remember how I always feared when pregnant with the oldest that she would turn out to be a crybaby. I had read about stories where babies would cry the entire day and night. So when she was born there was hardly any crying, till the moment she was 2,5 years old and we moved to a new home and her baby brother was born. We had new neighbors next to us and they had kids that were already older, but always crying to get what they wanted and I saw my daughter copying that behavior. So I blamed the neighbors for me now having a crybaby, totally ignoring the fact that my child had gone through quite some changes. Throughout time I became quite reactive to this crying behavior, which obviously didn't solve anything. My daughter was an easy cryer up until her early teenage years. So the point here is that certain events in a toddlers life can be of more impact than we realize in that moment as parents.

My son started to become more difficult when he was almost 2 years old when he had to come along with me when we had to bring his sister to school. Especially when he was enjoying himself at home while playing. I had to go through physical struggles to get him onto the bike seat and was mostly already stressed out before arriving in time at school to collect my daughter. At a certain point I decided to leave him at home, since the school was nearby, and I could see his point of wanting to play and not being disturbed 4 times a day to bring and collect his sister. So the first time I left him alone at home, I made sure there was nothing out in the open to cause problems. I gave him a tape roll since he loved those and when I came back he had entirely taped my furniture and was even surprised I was already home or maybe he hadn't missed me at all. Since then I let him sleep or play when I went to school for my daughter and he was a child that could be trusted, he was calm and didn't get himself into trouble. The point here is to get out of our comfort zone as a parent and try new things within common sense.

Also my son was constantly clinging onto me asking me for kisses. This started when he became 1 and I stopped breast feeding him. He could even grab my face and kiss me. First I thought it was cute, but when he started doing this every other minute, I couldn't stand the word kiss anymore. He did it at home and outside the home and what I considered as cute at first now turned into being annoyed with him. Later in life I could see how he was trying to get me back into my physical reality, since I was a lot up there in my mind. So the point here is that children as said before are reflecting or emphasizing your behavior.

Cool Lana that you are experimenting with the point of standing as what you want to bring across. Do bear in mind that the vocabulary of a 3 year old isn't at our level yet, so repeating the same thing over and over again in what we consider child language, may not be understood over and over again, which doesn't mean the child is disobeying the parent. When a child's world becomes overwhelmed it's their understanding of their world that is chaotic and still ineffective. That understanding comes from understanding the words we speak to the child and thus the words he learns and that can only be accomplished by a lot of practice. Reading to the child from an early age on, will develop it's understanding of words and will give him the tools to learn how to express himself and learn what his effect is on his world when acting appropriate to the rules that you have in the home.

Exploring the word wimp would also be a cool thing to do.
Lana
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

Post by Lana »

thanky sylvia for sharing your experience.

I also ask myself if this whining is connected to the fact I am pregnant and there will soon be a little brother for noa. he can see how my body changed and I am not physically able to pick him um, since I have pain in my back and belly. We have a ritual in the evening before he goes to sleep to hold him tight for a minute or two in our arms, after that he falls into his bed and sleeps. I am not able to do it exactly the way he would like but I am trying somehow. He has to stand on the wooden side of his bed now and I hugg him, but I can't hold him. he was a screamy child before, but now he is very sensitive and emotional. the crying in the day care also started since I was pregnant, before he didn'T do that. before he used to scream without tears, now it's different, there are big tears rolling down his face. this is why I comfort him. he is talking every day about the baby and my belly and to the belly too :D . I don't think he is aware what is going to happen, what that means, but he always surprised me with strength and stability in situations I thought he might not cope well with.
the last few days have been quite good, no big screaming and little of moaning ans whining. my husband and I both try to tell him firmly there is no reason to moan and cry and we don't support his behaviour. yesterday morning he came to my bed to cuddle a bit before leaving in morning, and the whining started the moment he saw me. I told him to stop it (no reason to do it) and if he can't stop to rather go into his room and play for a while or to spend the time with papa. I stayed with what I said and since he seemd to have no controll over the whining he got up and went into the kitchen to my husband. then he could stop it. the behaviour or the emotional overwhelming (don'T know how to call it) is related to me. this morning he was complaining cause he was simply tired, it started with waking him up. so there are different triggers to this whiny behaviour, but the result is he always wants mama.

reading to a child would have been great and something I have tried, but he didn't like it at all. I couldn't hold a book next to him. I don't know how it is like to sit down and read to a child, we are starting now, slowly. before he would grab the book, scream or just leave cause it wasn't appealing for him. movement was everything for him this first 3 years, now he is also interested in books. what he likes is to watch animations, that is the only way to make him sit down for a while. he also learns his vocabulary often from micky and pals. since I also learned to speak that way I let him watch, not the whole day, sometimes not at all, but it seems to be helpful. we don't have tv and he is watching it on youtube, he actually refuses to watch anything else but a few animation series appropriate for his age and a few music videos. I check those and I often watch with him together. he is excellent on the computer, a digital native, he will probably surpass my skills in a few years...
now that we will have a second child I will try the reading again, maybe this one will like it.
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sylvia
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

Post by sylvia »

Cool Lana, walking back the timelines and see where things changed with Noa, it gives you more clarity to what might have happened with your child in a certain situation and prevent those things from happening again.

What I suggest in relation to reading books with Noa, you might try books with him about big bellies and having a new baby brother or sister, if that's what he likes to talk about. Always stay close to where the child's interest is and when they like the reading you can expand. When he does like to be with you in the morning when you're still in bed you could try a little story though, instead of giving him the chance to start wining, in other words redirecting his behavior. Kids are excellent with patterns, so before you know it a pattern is established. And of course you do get a second reading chance with the new born as well ;) .
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Anna
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Re: Am I raising a wimp?

Post by Anna »

Awesome support here Sylvia and cool insights Lana.
he always surprised me with strength and stability in situations I thought he might not cope well with.
Very cool.

Thanks everyone for participating in this thread and thanks Lana for opening up this point for all of us.
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