Why Parents Drink

[polly_mer]

Can your kid get involved with some of the virtual day camps for smalls?

Those should still have similar employment expectations of getting paperwork completed and submitted in a timely manner and showing up prepared to the daily activities.

It may not be all that comforting, but I know many people who have it work out enough that they just go through life a day late and a dollar short.  It's been almost 30 years since we met in college for many of those folks and most of them didn't graduate.  I have been given a hard time for most of those thirty years for continuing my education and moving for jobs that use my education when we could have just stayed put and gotten a series of kinda crappy jobs that are good enough to get by for now and no big loss if one gets fired for underperformance.

At more than one point, my husband asked why we were moving all over when we could have just stayed put and been lower-middle-class surrounded by our college friends in a slowly-dying-but-probably-not-going-to-be-dead-in-the-next-20-years town.  Now that the bottom has dropped out of the economy and we're in a position that we're probably fine, even if lockdown lasts for six months, Mr. Mer has come around to the idea that "it'll work out" for just day-to-day living isn't a great long-term plan, even if it has been working for some of our friends well into middle age.

[spork]

My kid

[. . .]

Probably not what you want to hear, but all the folks with personalities like this whom I knew in college were in ROTC and went into the military. They needed someone else to direct their lives for them.

[wellfleet]

I like the virtual camp staff idea.

Hegemony, if he's already been thinking about being an au pair, would he be interested in/willing to take that job for a somewhat more local family, as a live-in? I'll bet that increasing numbers of professional parents, working from home and anxious about both home schooling & maintaining their own productivity, will be more open to that than before, if they have space (and who's having guests right now?). He'd live away, keeping you safe, but still be able to stay on your insurance, visit online, etc., but navigate life away from home.

Your kid and mine would be great friends, although wellkid has mostly figured out the turning-stuff-in bit, at least a lot of the time, and he's thinking about becoming a high school teacher. He's supposed to be doing a staff apprentice program at his summer camp this year, but I'm just waiting for that to be cancelled, too.

[polly_mer]

Anyone started the PTO/PTA at the school?

Our public school system has officially split into the 'real' schools (officially all online for an indefinite future, but hybrid when the first set of conditions are met and then fully in-person when the second set of conditions are met) and the k-8 all-online school, which is brand-spanking new as of today.

The new online school has no PTO/PTA.  However, I am on the list for the 'real' middle school PTO because all that information was acquired in February for planning purposes.  Nothing was done to address splitting students or otherwise dealing with the bazillion changes to the automated systems (e.g., Blocky is enrolled for zero classes per last night's middle school email, but he owes fees and picked up his Chromebook and textbooks from the physical middle school).

Thus, the discussion at tonight's 'real' middle school PTO was what happens for those of us with students in the online school because the middle school classes are being taught by employees of the 'real' middle school and the students are being supported by mostly the 'real' middle school staff.

The middle school principal was sure the online school is a permanent fixture, not just a stop-gap for this year.  While it's likely we can just support the middle school people this year, now the bigger discussion has been how to set up for success in the long term.

[MarathonRunner]

This is why the disadvantage of being a first-generation college student can't be overstated. I am a first-generation academic, and STILL feel this lack in my life. (By the way, I'm making sure my kids have the above advantages as well).

100% this. First gen for every aspect of higher education. I was behind from the start because my mom didn't even finish high school and my dad only had a high school education. My parents still don't understand what bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees entail, despite my attempts to explain.

I'm in the same boat and Polly's post made my head spin, but it's clear the other families in our school district are operating on those terms. They're just totally unfamiliar to me.

[Volhiker78]

My apologies if this has been discussed previously or in another thread but does anyone have any experience trying to mediate between a teenager and an athletic coach?

My 13 year old daughter has become more and more upset with her volleyball coach - she feels that she is being targeted for criticism and that the criticism is vague and not specific,  e.g.  'your not hustling,  you are out of position'.   When she asks where she should be,  she says the coach only says,  "you're a libero,  you know where you should be."   My daughter loves her teammates and enjoys volleyball.  But,  she is considering quitting because she says she is scared of the coach. 

My wife and I have requested a meeting with the coach.  I am guessing that such a meeting would be similar to a parent teacher meeting when there is an issue between the student and teacher.  But if anyone has insights into athletic coaches in such situations,  I'd be interested.  Her coach is an older woman (60's?) and this is a club team.   My daughter is a good player but not a star - she is the starter on the club team.  My daughter can come across as aloof - she is not a natural cheerleader nor is she the all out hustler on the team.  She is understandably anxious about our upcoming meeting with the coach.  Any advice appreciated. 

[mamselle]

Any possibility that your daughter has any spatial recognition issues?

I had a dance student once who did fine if I showed her a picture of the stage space and her trajectories on it, but couldn't follow either verbal cues, or the usual demonstration/run-through one uses to mark out a dance path.

It might be worthwhile to ask her how her position's location is supposed to look on paper, and the spaces into which she is or is not supposed to move.

She might think she's helping "cover" a ball that is just out of range of a neighboring teammate, but in fact is leaving her own space open to attack by someone who sees her tendency to wander and aims their shots for her "spot" as a good thing for them (the courts used to be sort-of subdivided, when I was subbing for the gym classes a few years ago, anyway. Simple strategies meant three-up, three-back, but there were other rotations possible, like moving into the center or going back deep if a server were known to put the ball just ahead of the line...)

Maybe start first with the term "libero" (I've never heard it before, but I only taught elementary kids when I did this) and find out what your daughter thinks it means, and what she thinks she's supposed to do if that's her designation, and then in the meeting confirm that with the coach?

Or maybe look it up, perhaps a site on volleyball could elucidate the issue?

It can be a bit maddening if a player keeps wandering into another player's zone...but there must be some way to arrive at reasonable communication about it.

M.

[Volhiker78]

Thanks Mamselle. We had a 20 minute Zoom meeting with coach, daughter and parents.  I would have preferred face to face but scheduling didn't allow it.  It was helpful for everyone to talk. The coach agreed she loses her cool more often with our daughter than she would like.  Part of it is that our daughter hasn't played the position until this Jan.

You may be interested to know that libero is a volleyball position.  If you watch volleyball, it's the
person wearing a different color top. I think it came from France meaning 'free player?'  The libero is purely a defensive player responsible for digs.  It is pretty specialized and the coach acknowledged she forgets that our daughter is new to the position.

Anyway, good for everyone to talk about frustrations and brainstorm on how player/coach interactions can be improved. 

[mamselle]

Oh, thanks for the definition.

I used to love to do digs. Never heard it called that, but we were pretty lo-tech!

Glad it looks as if it might be working out.

M.

[Stockmann]

I'm feeling beyond exhausted, mentally, and I think my wife feels the same. Our toddler was potentially exposed to covid at school (his teacher and a classmate tested positive), so we're all staying home. Thankfully we all appear to be healthy and I tested negative on an antigen test today. But of course it's still stressful, not least because my wife isn't boosted (booster not available to her in this shitty location). Plus, we're both sleep-deprived because our toddler doesn't sleep through the night, regularly waking us up multiple times a night - so we've been sleep deprived basically for over two years now. Against this background of stress, our toddler's behavior today was beyond awful. Everything from testing boundaries on things like not being allowed to play with the stove and not being allowed to bang on glass and basically every safety rule imaginable to throwing tantrums over anything and everything. I looked after him while my wife went to take a pcr test and it was a non-stop tantrum while she was gone. All this while I've been trying to get some work done.

So I'm stressed out, exhausted and kind of feeling like a failure as a parent. I love him to pieces, but I feel at the end of my rope. His behavior is far worse when it's just us (and worst of all when it's just one of us) than when there's anyone else around or than when he's in school, so on top of everything else we don't feel believed by anyone else except maybe his pediatrician, because school, grandparents, etc experience a much better behaved child.

[mamselle]

Sounds like family counseling might help.

It's possible you're miscuing or hyper-cuing each other--i.e. the toddler interprets things one way and goes off on them, while you're (both, as parents, or even individually) sending signals you think are clear, but are ambiguous to your child--who, if still not completely verbal--can't check out the misunderstanding, and so becomes more confused and frustrated as well.

It's also possible there's some degree of hearing loss, or delayed hearing, or hearing range limitation that's adding to the static between the three of you, Process management issues could also add to that type of confusion.

I teach or have taught students with some of these issues; one in particular also has some brain chemistry imbalances that, once diagnosed and correctly prescribed for, became more manageable and revealed a really bright kid who'd been terrified of all sorts of things because they didn't make sense to him, and was acting out of those (completely ungrounded, but very real to him) fears.

In all cases, there might be parenting adjustments to be made, but if this has been continuing for awhile, and you've tried various approaches, it may be useful to get some support, both for the family unit (is this the only child?) and individually.

If you've been caught in this maelstrom, it's not likely to be all your own doing, and individual counseling might also be helpful, at least to support you while you're trying to figure out what, if any, background or foreground changes might help you each towards better accommodating each others' needs and finding love, and not just frustration, in your close relationships.

No-one is born knowing how best to parent; I've often thought the New Zealand plan of parenting centers that help.people figure it out with support from the outset make good sense.

All good thoughts, and hopes that you find a path towards peace.

M.

[onthefringe]

I'm going to push back a little and remind everyone that it's part of a toddler's job to test boundaries. And they are most likely to test boundaries with the people they know and trust (which one kind of hopes are their parents). It's incredibly common for kids that age to be much better behaved at school, with grandparents etc than they are in private at home, because they don't know what might happen if they test boundaries with non-parents.

To me, Stockmann's experience sounds like a stressed and unhappy toddler (cooped up in the house, covid keeps throwing rocks at stable schedules and expectations, not sleeping because they are about to make some developmental breakthrough) acting out their frustrations in the only way available to them: testing boundaries and melting down around the people they trust most. The kid is two or three, right? I think many of the things mamselle brings up would affect behavior everywhere, not just at home.

You can try to make some adjustments to your parenting or routine (one thing that might help is getting the kid to run around outside more if you're not somewhere that's currently having a blizzard) but at this age many issues go away because the kid grew out of it, not because you changed anything. Set boundaries and keep them (kids find that comforting because it provides structure to their world even when they test those boundaries), and obviously chat with your pediatrician about any concerns you have. But if it helps at all, everything you describe sounds well within the limits of normal given the challenges of parenting a toddler during these times. You always love them, but sometimes they aren't particularly likeable!

[AmLitHist]

Stockmann, is the little one cutting teeth (or getting ready to have a new one start coming in)? Is a growth spurt due?  Either/both of those things could unleash pure hell's fire at our house when our girls were in their 2's and 3's.

And yes, being hell on wheels at home and little angels everywhere else is pretty common.

Sending hugs and (remembered) commiserations to Mom and Dad!