Cross Post - a note from 2 years ago

I just now stumbled upon an old blog post from another blog I used to write. I wondered if I should copy and share it here and curiously checked the post date, and found today's date. "It HAS to be!" I thought. So a note from the past, posted 2 years ago (to within 15 minutes) 

Stop Picking on my Baby

"Ewww! You smell gross! Stop doing such yucky, stinky poos!!"

Today I asked someone to stop picking on my child. "How would you feel if you were sneered at and hassled because you had done a poo in your clothes, and you couldn't help it?"

Somewhere along the way people seem to have forgotten that when they are talking to a pre-verbal child, they are talking to a person. My 16-month-old child is not oblivious to derision. He understands when someone wrinkles up their nose in sneers of disgust, and he is powerless to do anything about it. But I'm not.

If there's one thing that has influenced my choice of preferred authors on parenting, it's my preconception that babies are people too. Authors such as Barbara Coloroso, Louise Porter, Alfie Kohn, Thomas Gordon... they are all quick to point out that relationships we form with our children are the real persuasive power that we have in their lives. They want to do as those around them do, and the only way they are going to learn how to treat others is by our example.

I once heard, anecdotally, that Japanese parents treat their baby as though they are a guest. Whether this is true or not is neither here nor there, but I liked the idea. A guest is assumed to be ignorant of local custom, is provided for, and is gently instructed how best to get on with others. They are treated with respect. Somewhere along the way someone forgot to pass this memo on to parents who talk over their children's heads, or say mean things to their little ones assuming that the child doesn't know what it means. Just because your baby can't speak doesn't mean they can't comprehend what you are saying, or what your body language is conveying.

Okay, so nobody is going to say it's bad parenting to pick up a child and say "you smell bad, darling... time for a change"... then again, if they are anti-nappies/diapers they might, but I digress... my point is that some parents and family members are not sharing a joke with their kids, they are making a joke at the child's expense. They seem to have forgotten one of the cardinal rules of play;

"It's not a good game unless everyone is enjoying it."

We teach this to 4-year-olds but somewhere along the way some people fail to engage empathy when dealing with kids. They lie to children to play tricks on them, they mock them in front of others, they laugh at them for not knowing or not being able to do things that they have no experience at. In schools this is called bullying, but it's the normal way to parent in many families.

A boy I once knew, aged about 7, was brought by his father to meet up with some people. They were all going to have PIZZA! He was overjoyed at being invited along to such a special dinner, and with his father's friends too! He walked in the door and was told "Sorry. You have to go home. You are too late. We already had the pizza without you." I remember the look of shock, disappointment, confusion and hurt in a child's face when others said "no no no....". He was feeling completely lost in an adult social situation with grown ups laughing at him ("you should have seen his face!! *haw haw haw*).

I have been criticised for being thin skinned. I don't like to use sarcasm or mean humour because I find it distasteful. I know that some parents jibe their children because they see it as important life learning. They think it is important for children to learn that this sort of thing is inconsequential. Learn to get over yourself. Man up. I'm okay with parents making decisions like this consciously, but in my perfect world, carers for our next generation ought to be reflective and thoughtful about the decisions they make, and too many people bully their kids not because they are making a mindful choice, but because they can, and it makes them feel powerful.

For now, the goal that I have decided on is that I will be truthful with my children. I will be kind and empathic with my children. I will be reliable and I will be fair and I will not beat them down with words. I will not always succeed in this. Everyone gets tired, or angry, or exasperated at times, but our aspirations are what keeps us improving, and in those quiet moments? My children are not "icky"... they just need my care.

Local History

Today we went for a visit to Te Papa Museum. We were going as a Playcentre excursion to hear stories for celebrating Matariki, but once we were done that, we decided to hang around and check out some more things. There are loads of things to do and see. There is even a space where kids can just sit and read books and do puzzles which is a great place for me to sit and feed the baby while the boys keep themselves busy where they won't be tempted to wander off.

Today A. wanted to have a look at the Earthquake House. It was a blast from the past for me, as it was a house that was kitted out with a TV and radio that were the sort of things common in houses when I was growing up. It was a little odd to see something from my childhood in a museum, which are supposed to be places where old things are, right? I suppose it's all relative. The other thing that was a little odd was that I have now been in an earthquake more vigorous than the one simulated in this display, and the earthquakes in my hometown were the reason we moved away from Christchurch.

S. took great delight in pressing the buttons that play recordings of children describing native birds. He liked some of them so much that he would listen to them over and over again, especially the ones with children laughing.

After we had explored Te Papa a bit the boys told me they didn't want to go home. I asked them where they wanted to go and, because we had nobody to visit, I decided to take them to see the Massey Memorial. We took a scenic drive around the Wellington harbour and a short bush walk up to the memorial. On our walk we saw some signs and discussed poisoning possums and rats, and how to keep ourselves safe from poisons. We also saw some poisonous fungi. The boys loved running around the giant marble edifice. They asked me to help them climb up on things, something I wouldn't normally help with. I generally don't help my boys climb up things because I want them to be certain that they are judging the risk of being up that high, and so that they know if they can climb up by themselves it's not impossible to climb down. This keeps them from climbing in places that they are too little to handle... but in this case it meant that S. couldn't see the fantastic view of the harbour, so I set aside my rule of thumb.

I explained to A. how I used to visit this place to play games with some of my friends. I don't know if he realised that I was an adult when I used to do this, but he was interested to hear all the same. I said we played a game where this was a huge castle and the walkway was a long corridor, and on the walls hung beautiful tapestries and hanging on the marble pillars were the great banners of the noble houses... and the ceiling was at some times a huge painting and other times was a mass of brilliant glowing stars... "you were pretending?" he asked, and I told him, yes.

We went for a bush walk further up the hill and it took quite some convincing to get S. to turn back rather than going through the gate that had an expansive warning about how this land was for Ministry of Defense persons only and if we were caught we could be locked up and searched. A. found a different path and S. was very enthused to be able to climb up and down the hills, looking at the sea and the plants. He has been very interested in cute little things lately, and today (after stuffing my bag pocket full of little rocks), he took a few minutes to investigate bright yellow broom flowers (which he called buttercups). He wanted to walk right to the end of the track but his older brother was keen to get home for lunch so we compromised and S. got to sit for a few minutes in the shade of a mahoe tree, before we turned back for home. A. is getting quite good at spotting tui in the trees.

Something that I have been thinking a lot on since I was reminded of it in a book the other night, is preserving passion in our kids. I am a pretty passionate person and I can easily squash my children's explorations by just taking too much interest myself. There is modelling fascination and methods for working with things, and then there's being more interested in it than they are, to the point where they give up and leave you to it. The way I see it, kids never get to feel like they are discovering the secrets of the universe if every time they share their discoveries with you, you say "oooh! yep that's right... and not just that... but this, this and this!!!!". They never get to feel like the expert, if there is someone with more experience ready to take that title from them. Now I have to walk the narrow path of being interested, but not stepping ahead - taking their hands, but letting them be the guide. Now all I have to do is give them these experiences and find out what makes their heads turn.

Onion Experiments

Today A. was watching me cut onion for dinner, and we were discussing the colours of onion. He said that the onion I was cutting was not "red onion" but "green onion". I said that most people call this type "brown onion" because the skins are brown. He asked if there were any "black onions". I said if onions were black it was probably because of mould and you shouldn't eat them. Then I shared some information with him; that although the skins were brown, some people get yellow colours out of them.

Left: cold water - clear / Right : boiling water - yellow

"Can we do that!?" he asked. I said yes but I wasn't sure whether it would work better with hot water or cold water, so we decided to find out. We got two identical glasses and two piles of onion skin as similar sized as possible, and filled the glasses at the same time, to approximately the same height. I explained that this was to make sure that the only difference between the two glasses was how hot the water was. I tried to explain to him why it was that you want to make each cup as close to the same as possible, but I doubt that the theory went in the first time. This is the sort of thing he is likely to learn over many different experiments and probably only when doing them for himself, rather than having me help him with the steps.

Something else that I noticed is that he described the experiment really well. He wanted to make a video clip of it, so we did that. He even used "left" and "right" accurately. He noticed that if you get something wrong while filming, or someone yells in the middle of it, or something unplanned happens, you have to go back for another "take". Making videos can be a time consuming process! A. took a couple of photos of the last step of the experiment where we added a couple of face-cloths to the glasses to see if they would take the colour of the water. He separated them and took a picture of the glasses sitting apart.

He likes being able to record what we have done in the day to show his Dad. I guess I should point out to him that he can always show his family and friends all over the world if we put his findings on the internet. He's probably a long way from knowing what a scientific control is, but if we keep doing experiments together, and I keep explaining the steps as we go, he will probably take it onboard eventually, but in his own good time.... and what a good time he is having!

Repaintable Rocks

 I have recently really embraced the mess that is painting. It was always something that I flinched at, but has become a lot more manageable now that I plan for the mess rather than trying to avoid it. Today we had a lovely sunny morning with practically no wind, so I cracked out the old "painting" shirts, threw down my long since defunct queen sized sheet that passes as a fantastic drop-cloth, and let the kids go mad with paint. It does help that the paint is water based, and washes off - in fact, that's part of the plan.

A couple of months ago the kids helped me paint a large rock with pink, all-weather, multi-finish house paint. The result? A rock that is always painted... even when the rain washes off the most recent decorations. S. was fascinated when he painted on our large pink rock with water based paint, and found that all the paint had come off in the rain overnight, prompting him to redecorate it all over again. To follow up on the theme of rocks that stay decorated, that can be used as great garden decorations, I recently took the children to the paint shop in Johnsonville to buy some test-pots in red and black so that I could paint a ladybird on a rock. We decided to take it for a test-drive today.

Egg cartons make great palettes. You can put a pile of paint into the different cups, and they can either be mixed together in the cups, or you can use the lid as a mixing tray. Today we had division of responsibility because all A. really wanted to do was mix colours, so his little brother did the actual painting, and he just made the colours look cool. Division of tasks is the best way I have found yet, to make sure there isn't competition over resources. When they are working side-by-side and on those few times where they can agree to who is doing what, it makes for only a few little conflicts, rather than the zillionth iteration of World War 3. My five-year-old is finally beginning to get sophisticated enough in his persuasion of his little brother that he doesn't create more conflicts than he solves.

A: "Mummy, look - purple and seafoam green!"

I've found the key to embracing painting for little kids is to focus on the process rather than the product. Whenever I unpack that thought I am taken back to the day I was naming and dating paintings at Playcentre and I asked S. what one of his pictures was. "It a painting!" he explained. Of course, Silly Mummy. "What is in it?" After assessing which painting it was, he explained "I mix with white!" This leaves me with the impression that small children aren't trying to represent things. They haven't assumed that a painting is "supposed to be" anything. That's a cultural assumption that they haven't been bogged down by yet. Freed from that presumption, they are open to playing with tools, texture, methods of getting colour or shade on things, mixing different media, asking questions, doing things impulsively and seeing what happens... "what happens if I use the back of the brush?" or even less sophisticated, "I'll push this.. ooOooh!".

"I'm a hand-print!"

My eldest boy is particularly risk-averse so it was great to see him actually experimenting with mixing colours today. He seems to like predicting what the colours will turn out like before he combines them but doesn't like to share his predictions in case he is wrong. He gets very invested in the outcome and if anyone gets in the way of his product he gets very upset. Thankfully he was over today's activity before his brother decided to combine all the colours and paint his hands so that he could make handprints all over the back step. Again I am thankful for the paints being water based because he decided to decorate the house too. A. asked if we could paint the house some time, and I said no, because it's not our house. Maybe when we get our own place he can paint his own room... or at least chose the colours. The temptation to paint blackboarding on the walls is pretty strong.

Smiley face and manawa (heart) by Mummy.

If I want a project to look awesome, I make it my own project so I won't feel let down if the kids "ruin" it. That's why I painted the ladybird by myself. I find that life becomes a whole lot more sane if I find a half a second for myself in amongst all the time I spend on my kids. Thankfully I'm the sort of person who delights in little things I can call my own. Today was Mothers' Day - a day that is supposedly a special day for me. Realistically, it's another Hallmark Holiday designed to throw a cloud of warm fuzzy feelings on the "Buy Things Machine" so we don't notice the guilt and coercion of consumer industry. Thankfully, all it was to me today, was breakfast in bed, courtesy of a husband who loves me, some warm snuggly hugs with my kids, and a chance to spend time at home with my family, doing what we do. Happy Mothers' Day!

Over heads

Yesterday A. woke me up and while I was still in bed gathering my thoughts, he brought me a book to read him. It was all about Isaac Newton, and we read about one of the most basic precepts of physics, the First Law of Motion. Then for dessert we went on to the hypothesis of Copernicus about the Earth orbiting the Sun, and had a discussion about parallax.

That evening my boys were going through a book on ocean creatures and my 3-year-old pointed out a puffer fish to his Dad, and spider crabs. This morning my older boy wanted to know more about a picture, in the same book, that he saw of an oil-rig. The caption was all about the Piper Alpha disaster of 1988. My son wanted to know if there were any survivors, so we went and checked online and found that there had been 167 deaths, and 61 people had survived. We discussed whether or not this was a lot, and counted with our fingers, and imagined how many people would fit in the room that we were in.

S. is a bibliophile: our lounge often has puddles of library books

One of the main precepts of my educating style (pedagogy) is that I don't want to protect my children from the world, but rather introduce them to the world in a way that they can comprehend. Knowing your children is really important when you hope to be their guide in learning. I know that my oldest son, at the age of five, considers death a fascinating thing. He fights his anxieties about it by thinking about it and using his rational judgements on matters of mortality. When he was three, he was the boy who insisted on watching when I killed the roosters for dinner. Because I know this, I am a little less worried when he wants to know about oil-rig fires. I don't have a large group of children to worry about so I am free to discuss explosions and rescue attempts without fear of upsetting other children and giving them nightmares. While I'm not about to let my son watch zombie movies, I can afford to share different things with him than he would have access to in a school setting.

Yesterday morning, before swimming lessons, I was asked to read a picture book called Mario's Angels about the Italian fresco painter Giotto (di Bondone). Today we looked online at pictures of his frescoes at Scrovegni Chapel - pictures of people and angels and things. If I had been the one picking their "curriculum" I would never have picked this book, partly because I am an agnostic, and partly because I am not familiar with the subject material (which is a shameful reason for someone who considers themselves a life-learner).

None of these things is really the sort of study that would be "suggested learning" for 3- to 6-year-olds. Some people would ask me "Isn't this all a bit beyond them?", but my answer is that it doesn't matter that they learn it all now. I am happy for them to encounter life as it comes. Library books offer amazing opportunities to discuss things that wouldn't otherwise come up in conversation, especially when my younger son will get out any book at the library with a colourful cover.

When we are little everything is new and alien. Humans are fantastically good at adapting to whatever world is around us, which is how human babies learn to live wherever we are, be it frozen wastes, arid deserts, tropical islands, temperate forests, dense jungles, or high-rise apartment blocks. We learn what we do. We learn what we hear. We learn what others around us do. In our family, we find things out, and we look things up.

If there is one thing that being a parent has reinforced to me, it is the gradual pace of learning. Being exposed to something once is not the same as learning it. Just because a baby has taken its first step, does not mean it can walk now. Any teacher will tell you that the secret to understanding something is using it, and "repetition, repetition, repetition". We incorporate new understandings and habits by building on our breadth of experience. We either slot new information into our previously existing ideas easily, or we have to unlearn something we weren't getting quite right to make sense of something new (assimilation and accommodation). Our earliest experiences are our fundamental understandings to which everything else joins up. They are our core; the trunk of our tree of knowledge.

Children look at their experiences through their own unique lenses. The things they learn are based on their personal experiences. They may have heard something countless times and it will only stick when they have a need for the information, or it's used in a way that reminds them of something they have direct experience of. My children have not learned that Giotto was alive in 1266, and that he was contracted to paint chapels, but they may feel like the word "fresco" might have something to do with painting next time they hear it mentioned, if they ever hear it again... and if they never hear it again, they will lose that information. The human brain is great like that. Perhaps a concept as simple as "if it's not moving, it's not going to move until something pushes or pulls it" is so self evident that it's not worth holding onto too, but there is a lot more to learn from reading books. Part of what is learned is how  it is learned, so by looking for information in books or the internet, my children are at least learning the places that you can find things out, that you need to know.

Cornstarch

Summer 2012 at our old place.

A. was wanting something to do that he hadn't done before, and I figured that a year ago is long ago enough for any play like that to be "new". I got out some cornstarch and water and I added turmeric to make yellow. He said he also wanted pink (and I'm happy to use up our food colouring on stuff that my kids aren't going to ingest!!) so I made up a bowl of that too.

While all this was going on S. was happy to just sit and build huge constructions with Duplo. He has frequently done this for about a year and, copying his brother, this has mostly been called building "towers" and "guns". Recently however he has been making me monsters, and race-tracks, and other things, which is a sign that he is starting to create for himself, rather than copying an existing form. He is probably ready to get into Lego now that he has better fine motor control and is beginning to get the strategy of overlapping bricks to make the structure more stable.

A. spent quite some time mixing his cornstarch. He puddled and stirred and slapped at it, noticing how the paste went runny when allowed to flow and firm if you ever tapped or hit it. He frustrated himself several times over by digging in it and having it crack and flick out of the bowl and onto the ground. Thankfully, he mostly did this on the bench and on the ground outside which meant that the mess was contained. He decided it was important to mix the two colours together and I discussed with him first, what colour he thought this might make if he mixed the pink and the yellow. This is a basic scientific experiment so it helps to have an idea or guess as your "hypothesis" that you are testing. Armed with a hypothesis of "it might turn an orangey colour" A. went off to test his idea by combining the two containers of gunk.

He didn't trust his own ability to mix the two colours together without making "a huge mess", so after attempting to spoon the stuff from one bowl to another he gave up and came and got me from where I had been building with his brother, to tip one bowl of mixture into the other one. I had a go at spooning mixture first, as we found that we could make swirly patterns in the liquid because it doesn't combine straight away like dye in water would. I wrote a letter in the bowl. "AHAH! What's that?!" I asked. "It's an A.!" he told me. We mixed the whole lot together and lo, we got the orangey colour that we had been guessing about. Sometimes it's nice to be right, and the only reason that he had the information to make a correct guess was lots of experience with mixing coloured paints.

I don't like to focus a lot of energy on being right, with my kids, but it's such a hard-wired thing in me that I have to work hard to be aware of it. Getting things perfect is something that it's so easy to want for, but it's not a healthy thing, because it cultivates a risk averse nature. People who want everything to be perfect all the time are less likely to take on new things, because if they aren't familiar with it, they are less likely to get it right. I want my kids to feel that they can succeed, while not having the insecurity that would hold them back from trying new things. Getting things wrong now and then is cool because you can learn something new. I try to model this every time I make mistakes myself... but it's hard to stay on top of things when you are stressed by your mistakes.

It can be a really good reframe to look at mistakes from the point of view that you are showing children that when you mess up, the worst that can happen is that you have to deal with the consequences, and the best is that something unpredictable and wonderful happens. A broken jar can be an opportunity to use the vacuum cleaner, and a chance to look at the layers inside the ceramics. A wrong turn when meeting with friends can be a chance to learn how to use a map, or it could teach you the whereabouts of a park or a previously unknown shortcut. There is a book by Carol Dweck called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, which talks about this in more detail.

I like to focus on how "where we are at is just one step in the journey" and "the only time you really fail is when you are giving up".

Muffins!

Today I asked the kids what they wanted to do. My eldest son can not cope with self regulating his computer time.. in fact it stops all his self regulation at all and he becomes a lethargic, emotionally volatile, incontinent mess. So, after having ruled out playing on the computer, A. decided he wanted to bake some muffins.

I love baking with my kids because it's such a rich experience. Not only does it make them aware of how their food is made and where it comes from, but there are a pile of skills, from measuring and estimating, right through to the theory of how foods work together. Today we had a couple of challenges; cooking food the whole family can eat means making wheat-free / dairy-free / egg-free, and the regular recipe we use contained bananas, which we didn't have.

A. demonstrates the viscosity of gelled chia.
"It was really jelly-like, and it was fun!"

One of the ingredients that works well for us (for gluten-free, egg-free baking,) as a solidifying agent, that helps keep the muffin mixture moist, while at the same time helping it bind together, is chia seeds. The cool thing about chia seeds is that they are "mucilaginous".. or gooey when they get wet. We did an experiment today where we put some chia seeds in some water and it only takes a minute or two for them to turn into a jelly that is so gooey that you can hold the container upside down. A. Thought this was hilarious, and let's face it, chia is pretty cool.

We had to figure out what to replace banana with and A. decided it had to be something wet, squishy and sweet so he picked kiwifruit. I knew that this is a lot more acidic than banana so I added a pinch of baking soda to the mixture to cut the acidity a bit. He cut them in half and I peeled them and we popped them all in the blender with some freshly ground chia. We wanted oats, but we needed them to be moist so we soaked them. A:"this smells just like porridge."

I told him the measurements for the dry ingredients which he measured in and mixed to get out all the lumps. He preheated the oven to 180°C before combining the wet and dry ingredients and spooning them out into muffin trays.  He decided we should add chocolate chips and had to taste test a few just in case ("chef's privilege!"). He decided it would be a good idea to save at least one for Daddy when they were cooked because Daddy was at work. After we had made them Daddy called from work and asked if he could have 3 so we put them aside so that they wouldn't be devoured by ravenous children (and Mummy).

These sorts of opportunities are fantastic for my eldest, when we can get one-on-one time. This can be problematic because I have two other children also in my care. Luckily, one is very young and so she sleeps a lot, and the other is very good at entertaining himself, but today I learned the hard way that giving the more self sufficient child his turn on the computer while we bake is not the best strategy for keeping the older one interested in the activity. If there is a computer on in the house he NEEDS to be involved, which doesn't encourage him to enjoy what he's doing, but rather to frame an otherwise fun activity (that he requested!) as a distraction from the flashy lights in the other room. Not something I hope to repeat.

I wish I could have a muffin now... but they're all gone.

Plaster and Paint

My children are super lucky that we have friends and family who buy them things that we, as parents, might flinch from. For example, consider the logistical nightmare of organising painting for two boys on a rainy day... but it's well worth the effort. A. got a craft set for his birthday from his Grandma S. - to make a plaster car and paint it. I am super lucky that I have an involved husband who likes spending time with his boys. The first day involved making the plaster and there was enough left in the pack to make another car, but no other mold, so I had a hunt in the cupboards for some sort of kitchen mold and found silicone gingerman baking molds, so we used the leftover plaster to make S. a gingerbread man to decorate.

A day later the plaster was ready to paint. After  cleaning off the kitchen table and covering it in cardboard and newsprint, setting up a drop-cloth on the dining room floor, and dressing the children in "painting shirts" (some of my old clothes) they were ready to go. This all just shows how far my children have come. Now he is 5, A. is finally at the stage where he can sometimes defer gratification. He is focused on the product of his work and wants grand results. I was very worried that he was going to get upset if his car didn't turn out like the picture on the box so I was careful to try and help him frame his results so that he wouldn't feel let down. "The picture on the box is just one suggestion... you can do it however you want, really funny, or really cool, or even something like Vanellope's kart in Wreck-It Ralph! What matters is that it's all yours and you can do it how you want."

The boys had a great time under their father's close supervision, which was quite necessary as S. needs to be reminded to clean his brushes between colours to avoid huge blow ups when sharing paints with his brother. A., however was keen to let his paints dry between coats so that the colours would not all mix together. S. liked to mix the colours and started with black and added green and red and purple. It took two sessions on different days to finish the looks and only a little bit of help from Mum and Dad. The boys were very keen to make their projects look special so they insisted on adding glitter!

Projects like this are great for A. because they get him using his fine motor skills. He loves to decorate and customise but likes to have a clear idea of what he is creating, so it's a great way to get him used to making mistakes and not worrying about things being just-so. If he has unrealistic expectations he can be a perfectionist and can be so daunted by things that he doesn't try. Having Dad home to interact with is always a plus too. This month Dad is on late shifts so he often doesn't get home until the boys are ready for bed, so they have been having a hard time coming to grips with not having him home much of the time.

Having positive experiences like this let both the boys and me know that painting is not so difficult and it is rewarding for all of us.