Re: Parenting advice needed

"Dally" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

Walking home today, being nervous about the note from his teacher in his
backpack, my kid was bouncing off the snow banks. He's got a LOT more
energy than is easily constrained in a classroom. I think some of this is
just the hard job of breaking a wild child to the saddle.

If in fact this kid has energy to burn, you need find ways for hm to burn
it.

Healthy ways for him to burn it.

Quoted message said:

Perhaps I can convince the teacher to let me hang a heavy bag in the
classroom and supply it with a set of boxing gloves.

This is an excellent suggestion.

For your house.

For everybody.

The heavy bag is good exercise.

Lee Michaels said:

"Dally" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

Walking home today, being nervous about the note from his teacher in his
backpack, my kid was bouncing off the snow banks. He's got a LOT more
energy than is easily constrained in a classroom. I think some of this is
just the hard job of breaking a wild child to the saddle.

If in fact this kid has energy to burn, you need find ways for hm to burn
it.

Healthy ways for him to burn it.

He run/walks over a mile every day - .6 miles to school, .6 miles home.
He usually races me. He swims twice a week at the Y. He has an
hour-long gymnastics class on Saturdays. He occasionally lifts weights
with me (and occasionally IS my weight.) He romps with his dog in the
yard every afternoon. He has gym or active recess at school every day.

Got suggestions on how to integrate exercise into his life? LOL, the
kid is the biggest jock in the entire town as far as first-graders go.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Perhaps I can convince the teacher to let me hang a heavy bag in the
classroom and supply it with a set of boxing gloves.

This is an excellent suggestion.

For your house.

For everybody.

The heavy bag is good exercise.

Yeah, I know, I bought one for my daughter when she asked me for one.

You've got some good ideas. Redirection of rage, clever outsmarting of
enemies, entrapping bullies, making a fuss to get help... I've got stuff
to work with here.

Dally

"Dally" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

You've got some good ideas. Redirection of rage, clever outsmarting of
enemies, entrapping bullies, making a fuss to get help... I've got stuff
to work with here.

One of the big things I worked with in my self defense classes was the
general sense of helplessness. One of the big things I emphasized was just
staying out of situations where you place yourself at risk.

But many times, it was simply a matter of making it someone else's problem.
And being shy or hoping it goes away doesn't work.

Another way to think of it is as a safe word. The folks who are into
bondage, domination, etc always have a safe word. When things get too
intense, they say a safe word. All activities stop at that point. Many of
them just say, safe word. Everybody knows what that means.

If in fact my kid was getting harrassed at achool, particularly at school, I
would work out some kind of safe (or alert) word or gesture. Something that
the teacher would know is a situation that could get ugly, very quickly, if
she doesn't intervene immediately.

And I would make sure the teacher followed up on it too. The teacher or the
school can not really hold your son responsible for being harrassed in their
classroom.

Dally said:

Jason Earl said:

Dally <[email hidden]> writes:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I told him that he absolutely may not hurt a kid at school.
Everyone needed to be safe at school. No matter how provoked, he
couldn't kick the kid at school.

So he should lure him into the woods and beat him up there.

Quoted message said:

"Butching up" is definitely good, but that doesn't mean that you
teach your boys that ambushing kids outside of school is a good
idea. It is one thing to be prepared to defend yourself in case of
emergency, it is another thing entirely to be prepared to use
violence as a tool. There's a word for a child that is willing to
ambush other children to settle a dispute. The word is "bully."

We were engaging in a bit of fantasy there. Six year olds aren't
known for tramping about alone in woods. Well, MINE does, but the
little porker my kid is tussling with wouldn't be able to walk that
far.

You'd think now that I live in a city that I would start to learn that
most Americans don't just wander around like I did when I was a kid.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Besides, fighting is inherently dangerous, and even the scuffles
that boys get into as youngsters can have tragic consequences. As
your boy gets older any altercations become inherently more
dangerous. In essence your boy should only fight when what he is
fighting for is also worth dying for. Being "grouchy" doesn't
qualify 🙂.

That's a good point.

Quoted message said:

Diplomacy is the key word. If this kid really is a bully there are
plenty of ways of dealing with him intelligently.

I don't know if the kid qualifies as a bully yet. All six year olds
are a bit inclined to try to get their own way without regard to
what others need. Empathy isn't a first-grade strong suit.

Exactly. I am sure that your boy isn't a bully. In fact, I would bet
that he has probably already learned his lesson. Fighting in school
is more trouble than it is worth. Until this particular incident he
probably didn't realize that. A certain amount of rough horseplay is
inevitable. I originally thought that this was a little different
because you mentioned kicking a kid in the face. I imagined some sort
of out of control flying kick. That's not what happened at all. What
happened is that your kid learned that rough horseplay is not
acceptable at school.

That's a valuable lesson, but unless he does it again I wouldn't start
worrying about how well socialized the kid is.

Quoted message said:

Walking home today, being nervous about the note from his teacher in
his backpack, my kid was bouncing off the snow banks. He's got a
LOT more energy than is easily constrained in a classroom. I think
some of this is just the hard job of breaking a wild child to the
saddle.

I learned to sit still in class by having my parents talk to my
teacher on a weekly basis (daily for a bit). If I got a bad report I
was punished.

Quoted message said:

Perhaps I can convince the teacher to let me hang a heavy bag in the
classroom and supply it with a set of boxing gloves.

The last thing that you want is for your child to be labeled as the
kid with "too much energy." Next thing you know he'll end up in the
class of children with "special needs." Make him learn that sometimes
it is in his best interest to sit still.

Jason

Lee Michaels said:

"Dally" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

You've got some good ideas. Redirection of rage, clever outsmarting of
enemies, entrapping bullies, making a fuss to get help... I've got stuff
to work with here.

One of the big things I worked with in my self defense classes was the
general sense of helplessness. One of the big things I emphasized was just
staying out of situations where you place yourself at risk.

But many times, it was simply a matter of making it someone else's problem.
And being shy or hoping it goes away doesn't work.

Another way to think of it is as a safe word. The folks who are into
bondage, domination, etc always have a safe word. When things get too
intense, they say a safe word. All activities stop at that point. Many of
them just say, safe word. Everybody knows what that means.

If in fact my kid was getting harrassed at achool, particularly at school, I
would work out some kind of safe (or alert) word or gesture. Something that
the teacher would know is a situation that could get ugly, very quickly, if
she doesn't intervene immediately.

And I would make sure the teacher followed up on it too. The teacher or the
school can not really hold your son responsible for being harrassed in their
classroom.

I agree, for two reasons. One, verbal bullying can be as emotionally
damaging as physical bullying (obviously, context and extent will vary
between cases). Two, get the other kids actions on record. If things get
worse, it's not a case of you saying 'well this kid was harassing my kid
for x number of months' and there's no record of it to back you up. Make
sure it's on record, and do this in a letter to the teacher, that way
they can't pull a 'I don't recall that phone conversation' business. I
would have been kicked out of school in a similar situation if I hadn't
taken it upon myself to get the [censored]'s prior harassment/bullying on
record.

Ari

--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

spodosaurus spodosaurus@_yahoo_.com said:

Lee Michaels said:

Another way to think of it is as a safe word. The folks who are
into bondage, domination, etc always have a safe word. When things
get too intense, they say a safe word. All activities stop at that
point. Many of them just say, safe word. Everybody knows what that
means. If in fact my kid was getting harrassed at achool,
particularly at school, I would work out some kind of safe (or
alert) word or gesture. Something that the teacher would know is a
situation that could get ugly, very quickly, if she doesn't
intervene immediately. And I would make sure the teacher followed
up on it too. The teacher or the school can not really hold your
son responsible for being harrassed in their classroom.

I agree, for two reasons. One, verbal bullying can be as emotionally
damaging as physical bullying (obviously, context and extent will vary
between cases). Two, get the other kids actions on record. If things get
worse, it's not a case of you saying 'well this kid was harassing my kid
for x number of months' and there's no record of it to back you up. Make
sure it's on record, and do this in a letter to the teacher, that way
they can't pull a 'I don't recall that phone conversation' business. I
would have been kicked out of school in a similar situation if I hadn't
taken it upon myself to get the [censored]'s prior harassment/bullying on
record.

In a Soviet school I went to, to complain to a teacher or any other
official would had been like snitching on cellmates in prison. It
would be perceived as something inexcusable and most certainly make
any boy's life miserable. I don't know how prevalent such attitude is
among boys in the US schools. When I went to take entrance exams to a
university I was totally unprepared to see that guys in the dorm don't
fight with each other all the time. I was placed in the room with a
couple of 3rd year geophysics students who immediately treated me as
their equal. That surely surprised me, and then some girls knocked on
the door in the evening to talk about this and that, and I thought
"wow, that's the place I want to attend - need to pass those exams".

DZ said:

In a Soviet school I went to, to complain to a teacher or any other
official would had been like snitching on cellmates in prison. It
would be perceived as something inexcusable and most certainly make
any boy's life miserable. I don't know how prevalent such attitude is
among boys in the US schools. When I went to take entrance exams to a
university I was totally unprepared to see that guys in the dorm don't
fight with each other all the time.

Well, I was brought up with the mantra that we had to keep up with the
Soviet Union. I guess it's finally come full circle in that my little
boy could hold his own in a Soviet classroom (provided he remains well
shod.)

Dally

DZ said:

spodosaurus spodosaurus@_yahoo_.com said:

Lee Michaels said:

Another way to think of it is as a safe word. The folks who are
into bondage, domination, etc always have a safe word. When things
get too intense, they say a safe word. All activities stop at that
point. Many of them just say, safe word. Everybody knows what that
means. If in fact my kid was getting harrassed at achool,
particularly at school, I would work out some kind of safe (or
alert) word or gesture. Something that the teacher would know is a
situation that could get ugly, very quickly, if she doesn't
intervene immediately. And I would make sure the teacher followed
up on it too. The teacher or the school can not really hold your
son responsible for being harrassed in their classroom.

I agree, for two reasons. One, verbal bullying can be as emotionally
damaging as physical bullying (obviously, context and extent will vary
between cases). Two, get the other kids actions on record. If things get
worse, it's not a case of you saying 'well this kid was harassing my kid
for x number of months' and there's no record of it to back you up. Make
sure it's on record, and do this in a letter to the teacher, that way
they can't pull a 'I don't recall that phone conversation' business. I
would have been kicked out of school in a similar situation if I hadn't
taken it upon myself to get the [censored]'s prior harassment/bullying on
record.

In a Soviet school I went to, to complain to a teacher or any other
official would had been like snitching on cellmates in prison. It
would be perceived as something inexcusable and most certainly make
any boy's life miserable.

A different circumstance I think. One, it'll be Dally contacting the
teacher/administration, not her son. Two, we're talking about first
graders, not high schoolers. That said, even for high school students if
you know your kid is being harassed to the point where they might lose
it a little and belt the harasser, better to have the harassment on
record to avoid expulsion and/or lawsuits. not that it's iron clad
protection, but a little can go a long way.

Quoted message said:

I don't know how prevalent such attitude is
among boys in the US schools. When I went to take entrance exams to a
university I was totally unprepared to see that guys in the dorm don't
fight with each other all the time. I was placed in the room with a
couple of 3rd year geophysics students who immediately treated me as
their equal. That surely surprised me, and then some girls knocked on
the door in the evening to talk about this and that, and I thought
"wow, that's the place I want to attend - need to pass those exams".