Dealing with the loss of friends because they moved

My neighbor moved and with her my children’s best friends. It was a difficult situation. My children are a bit too young to fully understand the consequences. We watched my neighbor’s children for three days as they prepared for the move and actually moved. My kids loved spending so much time with their best friends. They cried when their best friends drove away for the last time.
My four year old daughter has been asking to visit her best friend, a month after the move. She keeps going to the door and saying, oh they are not home. When will they come home? It would be easier if our neighbor followed through with her promises to both sets of kids. She told them that she would bring her kids to visit. She did not. She sent her boyfriend to pick up their mail from us instead of bringing her kids over to play with mine.

It would also be easier if they could call each other or even do video IM with each other. My neighbor is not interested in letting her kids do that. So suddenly the children my kids have been playing with for half their lives are gone. Now as a parent I have to find some way to teach them how to deal with this loss.

And it is a loss to them. It is not like they can get into a car and visit their friends. They cannot call them or visit them. They are just gone. We have talked about it. My oldest seems to be doing ok. I know he misses his best friend but we are hoping he will make new friends when he goes to grade one. My daughter keeps expecting her best friend to come home and play with her. I am hoping that going into JK will give her the opportunity to make new friends and move on. Only time and new friends is going to make this any easier on my children. Oh, and lots of hugs from Mommy.

Risks when labeling children, do they become the label or do we treat them as such?

There are several risks when you label children. One is that they identify themselves with the label and then feel that they have no options but to be that label. That is how everyone sees them or that is the behavior expect of them so that must be who they are.

We all label our kids without thinking about it and may be trapping them in a mode of behavior without realizing it. This is so and so, she is really cute or smart, this is so and so he is a great dancer, this is so and so and he is the difficult one, the one with problems, anti social, etc.

The other problem is that people start treating the children based on their label. The cute one gets away with things, the bad one get in trouble all the time because everyone knows he is the bad apple. Or have higher expectations for the smart one, put more demands on that child then others. Or shy one is seen as being anti social, not shy and never gets past it and becomes anti social as a result. Once a child has been labeled it is almost impossible to remove the label. Once a child has been labeled difficult or slow or a problem that is how people see them even when it is not the case.
My 5 year old has been labeled as being difficult, a problem at school and has been removed from the school around 8 times and suspended 6 times. The problem I am having is that he has finally been identified as special needs and we are waiting for him to be tested to identify his needs, but the school has already put the labels difficult and bad on him and treat him as such, not as a child with special needs. We know that they are not working with him, when he gets upset they just remove him from the room and have us pick him up, often making the problem worse.
He is usually trying to tell people something and gets upset because people are not paying attention or listening to him. Removing him from the situation does not teach him how to act in that situation so he ends up repeating the same “errors”, nor does it give him a different set of behaviors that is seen as acceptable. How do they expect him to learn how to behave when all they do is yank him out and remove him? What lesson is learned? That when I scream and kick out I get to go home and don’t have to go to school the next day ether.

He keeps missing out on school activities and he is not learning the academics he needs to be in grade 1. He is losing out because it is easier for the school to remove him then it is to work with him. There is a 6 month or longer wait on the testing that will identify what his special needs are, so we know he is special needs but not exactly what the needs are so it is not on his school file. Once it has been identified and put on his file it is going to be at least 2 years before he will have an EA (an individual to help him though the school day) if he even gets one, and there is a 18 to 24 month wait on getting a speech therapist through the school system. This means that he will live with the label of being difficult until at least grade 3. That’s a long time, and I am sure he will have learned that is how they see him no matter what he does and will take on that label as his own by then.

I have seen this happen to other children, where they are labeled by one teacher and then treated by other teachers a certain way because what their file said about them. I know of one Mother who actually removed her son from school, sent him to his Grandmothers to go to school in her area. His file that said he was inattentive, lazy, below average with anger issues did not follow him. All the reports from the second school said he was above average, worked well with others and strived to learn and there never any mention of anger issues.

So the next year she brought him back, put him into the same school system he had been in before, and what did his old teacher do, made a point of letting the new teacher know what a problem he was. So again he was labeled as “bad” without doing a thing, and a year of positive feedback was disregarded on one teacher's say so. So even though the label was proven wrong it was how he was treated. So think before you label a child or believe a label someone has given a child. Just because someone says it is so does not make it so, that is just their opinion.

Toilet paper rolls, egg cartons, plastic bags and other valuable resources

Over the last few years we have all started to reduce, reuse and recycle. It is a part of our lives now. However one of the items most people don’t think to recycle is a toilet paper roll. They always seem to end up in the garbage. Who thinks to put them aside and then put into the recycle bin?

I have kept toilet paper rolls out of the garbage for years now. I use them in my papier-mâché art. I recycle newspapers, junk mail and toilet paper rolls into art and some crafts with the kids. It became such a habit to save the toilet paper rolls that even when I stopped working on my papier-mâché I was still saving them. I had this huge bag that I was not using and had no idea what to do with it. Then one day my son came home from preschool with TP binoculars he had made. Well suddenly my excess TP rolls had a home. I found myself taking bags of TP rolls to the school along with egg cartons, plastic bags, cereal boxes and other odds and ends to the preschool.

Now I have teachers stopping me and asking if I can bring in more TP rolls, egg cartons and cereal boxes for crafts and plastic bags to put kids clothing in when they have an accident. I never knew there was such a demand. I actually have to remember which class or teacher got the last bag of TP rolls. A bag will be used up in a day in one class room, so to be fair I try to rotate who gets the TP rolls each time.

So before you toss that TP roll in the garbage think about recycling it. I am sure that other preschools, daycares and some schools would love to get them for crafts. Same with egg cartons, cereal boxes, paper towel rolls, wrapping paper rolls, and plastic bags. Find out if there is a local school, daycare or preschool that will take them off your hands. You may be surprised to find out how valuable toilet paper rolls, egg cartons, plastic bags, and wrapping paper rolls are.

What makes a good parent?

I am always hearing about good parent vs. bad parent but what does that actually mean. Does that mean you are a good or bad person? I think that people who are not so good can still be good parents and good people can also be bad parents. It all comes down to parenting skills and if they care about their kids or not. There are horrible people out there who are great parents, their children love them and feel safe, but I would never want to work with them or for them. There are other people who seem to be great in public but years latter we find out that these upstanding members of society were torturing their children. I think that most people try to do the best they can for their children. I struggle everyday to overcome my childhood, and learn better parenting then what I was shown as a child.

I have learned that to be a good parent you:

1) Have to care about yourself and your children. If you don’t care about yourself or your children it is very difficult to be a good parent with positive influences.

2) Listen to your children, hear what they want and need not what you think they should have. Your children are individuals and should be treated as such, not an extension of yourself.

3) Play with your children so that you have some positive experiences with your children to build on. This gives you time to enjoy your children, not being a parent, boss or supervisor but a play partner. Have fun with your kids well you can, they grow up quick.

4) Keep your temper no matter what, even if it means you have to take a time out or leave the room. Giving your child a time out is a way to let yourself cool down. Let someone else deal with an issue if possible when it becomes too much. This is a lot easer to say then do. Kids tend to not listen, jump, run and break things all the time. Also they are trying to become independent people who can think and do things for themselves, even when you are helping them they still want to do it their own way. Big rule here, no hitting.

5) Take care of the basic necessities like clothing, food, shelter, love first and if possible give the extras after everything else is taken care of. Showing that you love your child by spending money on something they want is great, but not if you don’t have enough money for food because you spent it on a treat. Not giving a child what they want does not mean you don’t love them or are not a good parent.

6) Follow through. If you tell your children you are going to do something or give them something then you need to follow through other wise your word means nothing. This is for both positive and negative. If you say you are going to take away their TV for a week then you need to do that. Same as if you tell them they can help with dinner, or pick dinner then you need to do that as well, even if you have had a busy day.

7) Show your children that you love them. Telling them “I love you” does not mean much if your actions show otherwise. Give them hugs, put their artwork on the wall or fridge, tell them how great they are, and spend time with them. Let them know you like being with them and having them as your children. Actions speak louder then words every time.

8) Remember that you chouse to be with your kids, not that you have to spend time with them. It is a difference of perception, if you chouse to do something you are more likely to enjoy doing it then if you think you have to do something.

9) You don’t always have to like your kids, just love them even when you are not happy with them.

10) If you do something wrong admit it, say sorry and work on not doing it again.

I am sure my list will grow as I grow as a parent. The problem I have is remembering this stuff as my kids run around the house screaming, fighting and not listening. It is a hard stressful job being a parent. If it was not my own kids you could not pay enough to do this job. Most of us would not pass the requirements if you had to pass a parenting test before we became parents, but somehow we do get through it and so do our kids.

School safety, who can pick up your child?

Who can pick up your child from school? Do you know what the pick up procedure is at your school? How well are those policies followed? I was watching a Dr. Phil episode about children being picked up or kidnapped from their school. In both cases the policies that are in place to protect the kids were not followed. As a parent I need to know what the procedures are and how well are they followed. How do you test your school?

What can we do to keep our kids safe? One thing to do is let our kids know what to do if someone tries to pick them up from school. One solution is to tell the child to refuse to go unless the person knows your safe word. A word only you and your child know. Your child should also know that just because a teacher says this person is here to pick you up does not mean it is ok to go. They can say NO to the teacher and not go with that person until the person gives them the word or they have talked with you over the phone.

It is funny but both kids had been told by their parents not to go with strangers, but they went anyway because the teacher told them that this man was here to pick them up. At no point was the identity of the man taking the child established. This was a definite breach of policy. So you can have the best policies in place but they are only as good as the person enforcing them.

It is not good enough to have great policies you have to enforce them as well. There are real consequences here. If someone is kidnapping a child from school chances are they don't have the best interest of the child in mind. As a parent we need to make sure the policies are being enforced, even if it is inconvenient for parents and the teachers. It is a lot more inconvenient to have to search for your child then it is to show some id when picking them up.

At our kids pre-school no one is aloud to pick up our kids unless they are on the list of people we have authorized to pick them up. On top of that they have to have verbal confirmation from us prior to pick up, otherwise the person cannot take them from the school. So we have to pre-arrange for anyone other then us to pick up our kids. Then the person has to show id proving that they are the person that they claim to be. There is only one door that people are aloud to go in or out and it is manned at all times. You have to be buzzed in. They have a great system, one of the better ones in our area. However, this fall our son is going to real school and we have to establish the schools pick up policies. I expect that they are not as secure as the preschool. Now we have to teach our son what to do if someone other then us tries to take him from school. I hope he does a lot better then the two kids that were taken from school by strangers.