[Nicole]

Wow, how dare anyone be different? (Note sarcasm font)

How on earth are the children going to learn compassion and understanding if that is how the parents behave?

‘Whatever’? Are these mothers 16 year old school girls?

I am so sorry, unfortunately it does happen. We have a family locally that does short term fostering and some of these children are very damaged. Sensory or Spectrum issues would be minor to these poor little ones.

The children often seem to be targeted by parents.

I personally think it is good for our very lucky privileged children to learn compassion and patience in coping with the often troubling behaviour of these children.

I am sorry you were treated that way, you apologised for a minor incident, you can do no more.

As for Granny taking her? Granny Day Care runs rife in out town. I wish my mother and MIL were young enough to help.

Big hugs to you Jenny.

[Robin]

Hi Jenny, I will rant on your behave. Hugs to you.

[Tamara]

Jenny I want to rant right along with you. It is so very frustrating to see this happen in front of children and toward children. I get it! I have it everyday we go to school! It’s tough! Hugs to you for hanging in there.

[with love Heidi]

it’s so hard with the “invisible” disabilities, I love the description of them as invisible 🙂 , because the kids looks perfectly normal and in some areas can appear very advanced so many people presume they are in all areas! I work in a school as a teachers aid predominantly with kids on the spectrum who are mainly Aspergers. What I do a lot of is translating between them and the world! And even when you know the kids well it’s very often difficult to work out what caused the meltdown, I’m very impressed that you are able to clearly articulate the probable cause of the meltdown thereby if someone was interested in being considerate they would have information to work with.

Well done to your girl with her perseverance in working with the OT and other specialists, and especially in doing very well in a communal dance class with so many stimuli! I am very impressed with her control and ability to follow verbal instructions if you have only had one meltdown! Espically in a class of 3 year old’s who don’t often have much self control with regards to poking or ideas of personal boundaries.

It’s lovely that Grandma takes her to dance 🙂 I suspect the parent in question may have her own hangups about how she parents or may be jealous not only of your daughters success but of your obviously functional relationship with you mother/mother in law!

And on a final note, well done for walking away when you had exhausted your ability to be positive and conciliatory. This is what we want the kids to do so we need to show them how. Very well done!

[mcholley1]

ALL children have public meltdowns, say things that adults wouldn’t, and don’t yet know how to internalize their bad days.

Our oldest happens to have an extremely high IQ. That sounds like a good thing and, hopefully, will be one day. For now, though, we all struggle with the intensity and asynchronous development that has come with it. She’s much better now at almost 7 years old, but as a 3 and 4 year old…very public and very loud meltdowns over something usually very minor were the norm. I have a whole collection of stories of ugly looks, interactions, and worst of all people offering their parenting advice when they knew nothing of the situation.

Hang in there! Some people just can’t see past the tiny bubble they live in. I feel for you. Be sure you don’t lose too much sleep over inconsiderate people.

[Tamara]

Mcholley I am so glad you said ALL children. I need to write that one a big sheet of poster paper and plaster it to my child when he goes to school (no not really) in the hopes the message will sink in. ALL children have days where they don’t focus well on their work also – yet it seems that it only ever gets talked about if it is MY child!

Children look to their parents first when learning these values we want to see so much of. Unfortunately the role is taken over by teachers when they reach full time school and then in some cases the poor kids have no chance then!

My littlest nephew has sensory issues also – they are “reorganising his diet” as they term it.

I am so glad you shared with us that piece of personal information Heidi. Some aids are wonderful and I suspect you are one of them.

[Mama_Knowles]

Jenny, I totally know where you are coming from. Our oldest, Jacob, has Autism. I think you did the best thing, I would have done the same myself. At Jacob’s old school the kids grew up with him and were very considerate of how he is. They really watched out for him just as I would or his teacher. At our new school the kids have been very cruel though, it makes it so much harder for him to fit now. I think that makes all the difference if they are excepted for who they are. Hugs to you!

[cybele727]

Thank you for all your kindness and support. I know that each of only does the best we can. Next year she goes into universal pre K, but a special class for kids with disabilities. Ironically, she was enrolled there as a regular ed kid, (but they are integrating all her therapy) because she hasn’t been diagnosed with a cognitive or developmental disability. We don’t have a formal spectrum diagnosis yet, because she’s only 4.5 and the gap in socialization and behaviors isn’t big enough to be definitive. Plus, the school doesn’t yet know about her Pica, or handwashing issues. We will get her dx’d eventually.

But even so, invisible is invisible. Compassion is so much “easier” with a hearing aid or wheel chair. (I am not saying anyone is lucky to have something over something else.)

i love that my mother is able to help for so many reason, but chiefly because my children will have a wonderfully close relationship with their grandmother. My grands helped out my parents and I loved the closeness, memories, and time.

This woman is plainly ignorant, and frankly this interaction hurt me more than my daughter, which I am FINE with. One day, it won’t be the case though. But enough of me…

Who’s getting their sew-jo on? How many weeks are we all at? Who’s bought some great fabric?

[meleliza]

Could they also be jealous that you have a grandmother around to help? I know I often am. It’s awfully hard to raise kids with no family nearby.

But changing the subject to something light – my dad just arrived with a carload of junk my mother keeps sending me. They moved to the south when I was in college and because it was a corporate move with movers, the movers just packed up everything and I never knew where any of it went. There are still boxes in their house no one has opened in 20 years. Anyway, there’s one box of my high school sewing patterns! Ha! Hilarious! I’ve actually been poking through her closets for years trying to locate these and I thought they got thrown away eons ago. As I go through, I remember exactly which ones I made and when. Black dresses we made together for all my concerts, a navy skirt for my first office job when I was 16, a huge, many tiered peasant style skirt that ate yards of fabric, a one piece palazzo style pants/dress thing that I had made in a tiny cotton floral, even a silly silly hat. There’s even one of the junior prom dress I convinced my mom to sew for me out of *hot* pink satin and a swatch of it in the envelope! So very funny.This would be about 1993. It’s all seriously hilarious.

[cybele727]

Oh how we evolve with our style!

The dance recital went well. She walked off the stage glowing. Every little girl did. I can only hope they always feel that cherished, and special, and beautiful and proud, and strong!

Funny story? In the dressing room, the grabby girl my daughter offended grabbed another little girl, who was wiggling away and said, “Stop touching… you touch too much. LET. GO!” I guess mine is just too honest.

Before the recital, my son’s teacher said she picked him to give him her flowers at the end of the show. I didn’t know how big a deal this was. I found out at the end of the show.

Then when the show was over and it was flower time, they called up the flower children and said that these children were chosen by their teacher to give them flowers because they exhibit the best character for a dancer, positive attitude, a heart full of dance, and kindness to others. They said it was important to them to recognize children who exhibited these character traits.

I was so proud and weeping of course. While he isn’t perfect (no one is), he has such a big open loving heart.

[Sarvi]

Oh man — totally going to ditto Nicole here. “Whatever?” That would’ve made my blood boil. To be honest, I’m not sure there was even any need for you to apologize. Your daughter wasn’t name-calling or imputing evil intent, just stating the facts as she experienced them.

[Nicole]

I love old patterns, such a time line in fashion and the fabric swatches, I do that!!!!

I hope my girls look back and have a giggle.

Jenny, my heart gave a little skip for you.

Sarvi, that really bugged me. Then again, I am pretty mean and make The Twins clean the cat tray if they say ‘like’ more then twice in a sentence 😉

Every third word…. ‘I was ‘like’ don’t do that. She was all ‘like’ I can if I want too.’ (mother bangs head against the wall)

Hugo (my eldest boy 16) is off on a 3 day walking tour through the Flinders Ranges. He had to pack and prep everything himself. His pack weighed 23 kg (50lb) but that is a third of his body weight, what he was supposed to carry.

He confessed that he had the trangia (cooking stove) and rope belonging to the only girl in the group to give her a hand.

I will miss him so much.

[Lightning McStitch]

My 5 year old son gave me a dismissive “whatever” once. I gave him a bit of a lecture on how rude it is as well as pointing out that it doesn’t really make sense.

Always the questioner, he wanted to know what “whatever” meant and when you did say it. I gave a few examples.

Half an hour later the kids are loaded into the cargobike and we’re zooming along to the fruit and veg market and I hear this little voice say:

“Mummy, whatever do you mean by going so fast!”

[cybele727]

“whatever do you mean…” LOVE it! Oh Hugo, good young man!

[Tamara]

Well I’m not very good in this arena because I say “whatever” all the time! To adults who frustrate and annoy the heck out of me (like school people). And I make a rod for my own back by saying it in front of the kids and in return I have the eldest saying it to me! This is where I draw the line and continue on the justifying the adult actions routine! It confuses everyone but she now knows it is not to be said to adults.

We used to be told off for impersonating “Kylie Mole” and the other one – the little girl character (she was a popular character in an 80’s/ 90’s sitcom called the Comedy company). I don’t think it was rude, we were exploring our boundaries and impersonating what was popular. Sometimes kids don’t realise what they say is rude but the. Rudeness changes with the generations – we were made to wash our mouths out with soap and water if we so much as whispered the word “bloody”. And if you put that word in a different context (like Lightning’s son did with the word “whatever”, it isn’t considered swearing! Try and tell that to our parents though.

It is nice to broaden kids’ language and comprehension skills isn’t it?