How to use Halloween to your advantage... the Elete Parent

Here is a little tip for all of the rookies out there... mind you if you are one of those parents that freaks out and is always trying to control everything THIS WILL NOT WORK FOR YOU.  I'm sorry you have already lost command and showed too many weaknesses for this exercise.

Basically:

When the kids do the "don't eat my Halloween candy" bit,  tell them to go upstairs or to another room.  Now call them back in. At this time pull out some high end chocolate (that you have ready of course), and give them a taste.  Tell them "Kids this is My private candy stash"... "now, why would I eat your crappy plastic wrapped garbage when i can stay with my own far superior private stash?".  Now as they freeze in wonderment staring at you start counting steamboats and see if you can make it past 14,  the legendary record.

The idea that you have a private stash of high end candy just bends their minds, and when they ask where it is make sure to tell them it is well hidden and they will never find it... cause they just don't have what it takes...  And then go out and garden for a while... obviously make sure there is no Candy in the house, because they will find it tearing the place apart on the heels of this new insane fact.  But they find nothing... and in the end, although it may be a tad bit hostile, they have an admiration for you.  In their heads they are saying "this guy has an awesome perfectly hidden stash of ace candy... that's like my dream... i need to be like him... i will befriend him... see what makes this guy tick... he will show me the way even if he tries not to as i become a fluid cog in the machine".

It's great, they become so obsessed with finding your imaginary stash, you are free to raid theirs... which of course you have to do as a matter of principle after being directly told not to do so.  These are necessary dues for kids to pay, and pay hard... every couple of weeks afterward cruise through their personal space munching on a nice piece of chocolate. It will remind them of what is not there... which in a psychological way is the distilled key humanity illusion problem we have going on right now... the lessons are endless.

It started out that the idea is to take the scam to them... think hockey and the idea of a good defense as being a strong offense.  Your defense is good when you are playing at the other end of the rink... use the full sheet.. don't sit in the net and get shelled.  But really like in Hockey once you start doing one thing right it opens a bunch of opportunities for more growth.

So that is your tip for the day. Use it or lose it.

Today's parents... the most dangerous child.

You could basically walk into any group and say "some of these parents just drive me bananas" and everybody would agree with you...  even the ones that are the problem would be in total agreement with what they think you are saying.

Driving and parenting...  people don't like to admit they are a bad at either of these things... people will gladly declare that they are horrible at math or terrible at cooking or useless at art... the list goes on.    Parents loves their children, so to be less than great in raising them can be perceived as a swipe at the idea that maybe they don't love them. 

The key thing is raising children... that means nurturing good habits and helping to foster competent and reasonable humans that can grow independent and can be a positive member of society.   Of course raising children is a lot more than that, but i think it suits a decent key summary that opposes what you see sometimes which is constantly deciding and doing everything for the child, being there to mediate every interaction and constantly showering approval on every minor thing the kid does. 

What is happening here? My best guess might be that the parent sees the child isolating him or herself due to their immature behaviors and the parent's heart starts to break for this child they they love so much... they can't help themselves so they set out to right this wrong so the child feels LOVE because that's what everybody needs right?  How could you be so callous to say to the love of your life "Yep, when you act like an idiot, you will find people will treat you like an idiot, now if you change your ways you will find people will change their perception of you" and leave it at that.  Now if your kid is being mean you do need to step up and shut that down once and for all... don't try and pretend that it is all of the children's fault's and drag all of the kids and the parents into an explaining and apologizing session... that's even more enraging because you are giving the mean kid that started this some form of positive re-enforcement where the mean behavior ends with a group hug.  You ever hear "There is no way MY child is going to have to do that!"... Notice how  "MY" comes before "child" in the sentence?  It looks that way because it is that way.    Now i understand wanting to protect your children, but to interfere with every minor conflict your child has in life, robs that child of the teaching moments that the interaction has for them. 

It's kind of like the sleeping dilemma... it's about patterns.  You can get up all through the night to soothe and comfort crying toddlers, and that is what becomes normal or you can teach your children that at night you go to sleep and sort your ass out and I'll see you in the morning.  One of those methods has the whole family up all night sleep deprived dealing with a hectic life, and the other one has a well rested family ready to take on the day. Obviously there are rough patches but the child that cries longer earlier and is left to learn cries a lot less over the cumulative course of time.  I have heard staunch arguments against this theory by people who have had all kinds of ideas that aren't really working out because of some "uncontrollable factor".  True,  nothing is 100% and some people are born with sleeping disorders but I'm sure the biggest sleeping disorder is a co-dependent bond with a loving parent.

I was an ass hole kid from time to time... i took some beats (from other kids) and was shunned for blocks of time,  I had to figure out how to get along with people.  When the Principal phoned my Mom and told her he wanted to give me the strap, she said "Do It! Hopefully it will straighten him out!".  See how far we have come? Now i don't think we should be beating kids, that's bad because a physically stronger person should never be able to settle something by using their obvious advantage... that teaches a bad lesson.  I would never hit a kid, i do however call them out on their shitty behavior and don't give them an inch on that line. As a former destructive and buggering child I know a lot of the tricks and I know them well.  The trick is to see bad behavior in children like data in a scientific trial, don't be emotionally attached with regard to what is really happening.  Observe children like you might watch a flock of birds feeding at the bird feeder... you could say "Hey that Jay just booted the sparrow's ass out of the prime feeding area with a vicious beak to the back of the neck."  And the analogy (drum roll).... "I think something happened earlier in the day... Bobby must have done something to Billy... i guess they had a disagreement and Billy might have eaten some of Bobby's lunch but i think he thought it was his cause i told him i was going to give him a peanut butter sandwich... I'll phone Bobby's parents and we will talk this out"

Boundaries are walls that are built brick by brick.

To give allowance or not

One of my daughters was over at a friends house a while ago and said she had to help a child do a chore so she could get what i thought was a large sum of money... she didn't get the money but her friend did.  I was reminded that other kids get money to do things around the house, it's called an allowance and apparently to get the allowance certain criteria must be met.

Now there are many ways to parent, and all of them have their pros and cons, and i believe the best way is the way in which all active parents agree upon and remain unified while executing.  That said we don't give allowance... we are not allowance giving parents, and i have heard the arguements in favor, and while that may work for some, for us we believe otherwise... but then our system is based on our system, and so for our system to work we need to stay true to it.

I value the lesson of being happy without the interferance of money over the lesson of learning to manage money at this stage of life. Clearly learning to manage money is a skill one has to have to survive in life, and i believe we are working on that.  I actually fear that giving an allowance fosters consumer urges at a time when the child perhaps doesn't need to develop these tendencies.  It's neat that one can save up and buy things, and in a way that is a good lesson, but it can also go wrong.

In the worst case scenario the only reason a kid is helping out around the house is to get money so that they can go buy some stuff that i may not want them to have in the first place. As we say in hockey... there is no "I" in team.  If i need to pay my team members to contribute and pull their weight then there is something wrong with my team... in my mind.  It is also true that my kids don't really need anything... if they really want something and it is reasonable (our reasonable and not the average consumer's reasonable) then we will get it for them.  They have sports, we swim a lot and play outside all of the time, we do a lot of activities... they do alright.  There is no carrot dangled in front of them to motivate them do do things that i feel a member of a family should do.  From time to time i notice that there is joy in a job well done.

I never got an allowance when i was a kid, and i was expected to help out around the house.  That's how i was raised, and I'm not sure i know too many people who get as much out of a dollar as i have in life.  Of course i had a paper route... i had a job as a kid, and i don't think the job "paper route" exists anymore... it's  kind of advantage "me".  True i always had money... I had to get up at 5:00am on sunday morning to deliver the Toronto Sun before hockey practice, and i have always loathed getting up in the morning but i did it cause i wanted the money... of course i just saved most of it, perhaps because candy was so cheap back then... another disadvantage to the youth today.  I also collected bottles as a young kid to keep me fluid... so in fact one could argue that my lack of allowance perhaps motivated me to step into the "working world" and see what it was all about.

My eldest daughter is soon to be of babysitting age, which will be a good test for her... she has all of the attributes of an ace babysitter and we will find out if she wants to work.  Everybody wants a good reliable babysitter... if you are willing to make yourself available to keep your clients happy then you will learn a fine lesson in economics. 

Perhaps there are advantages to giving an allowance, and most do it i think and that's all good for them, and perhaps there are advantages that we are not gaining.  Parenting is a weird trip... in the end you have to do what you think is best for the kid, and given we all operate in different ways the answer surly varies.

My wife and i do not own cell phones, nor do we have ipads or "screen time" or a TV for that matter, sure the kids get on the computer and find you tube videos (gymnastic routines or cartoons) and i can deal with that.  For the most part around the house they climb trees, read books, draw pictures and make up games... i figure the longer i can keep them away from staring at screens and wanting to buy things the better for them.  You only have one childhood, why put a goalpost on immagination.

Bedtime

In a perfect world bedtime would mean lie down and go to sleep but in our house somehow it became party hour.  Basically try to do enough stomping and hollering as possible until a parent goes bananas.  Now the 9 year old is happy to sit in her bathroom and read all night... she goes into the bathroom to read because my wife took her light away because she was reading until 1AM in the morning.

Don't get me wrong, i love the fact that my kid is a reader, perhaps she can learn English properly and not suffer the curse of her old man.  It's just that i feel it a good idea for a kid to get enough sleep on a school night, so sometimes i have to take the book away.

Now tonight my wife is in San Fransisco for some business and all 3 kids are rioting away as per usual and then i hear this music... what the hell?  Sounds like a xylophone... so i go up in kind of disbelief.  I have always been one to try to encourage my children that if they are going to do something that they shouldn't then don't get caught.  Like if you ate some chocolate don't come up to me with it all over your face and try to deny it.  It is a simple lesson in evidence... when you are caught red handed it may be the fact that you were dumb enough to not cover your tracks that annoys me more than the lie in the first place.  Hey we live in a dishonest world, good liars rise to the top.  Obviously the lesson is be good, but sometimes things happen, be aware of them and your place within them and act accordingly.

So, I have told everybody to be quiet and go to sleep many times tonight, and then i hear the damn xylophone.  So i burst into the room and say "are you kidding me"... my point was how the hell do you think I'm not going to hear that?  But then there was the xylophone... "where did you get that" i asked... "oh from my school"... next thing you know i am sucked into a jam.  It's a bit of a weakness for sure and then i looked up and she was smiling and literally tinting her fingers together.  So i gave her a bit of a technique lesson and gave her the book back and went downstairs for a little peace an quiet.

Curious George

We read a lot of kids books around here and the other night we hit the first Curious George book written in 1941.

It is very strange... It starts out with this monkey (Curious George) all happy living in the wild in Africa and then along comes "The Man with the Yellow Hat" packing a gun, a camera and some binoculars who lures George into a trap with his hat. Then they take George back to the ship to be taken back to America to spend the rest of his life in his wonderful new home... a ZOO!

Of course Curious George gets into trouble on the way... He goes overboard trying to fly like a seagull... And as he is pulled from the water he appears to vomit seawater with fish. My kids thought that was funny... Fish in the vomit water... Ha Ha! Children really notice everything in the fine details. One of the sailors pulling him out of the water was smoking a pipe much like The Man with the Yellow Hat was two pages before... And then, low and behold, 2 pages after that Curious George is at The Man with the Yellow Hat's house and he eats a good meal and smokes a good pipe (he is in a chair smoking a pipe) and then feels tired... Nothing out of the ordinary there, it was a good pipe.

The next day he ends up in jail for a false fire alarm, but he breaks out of jail with time to steal some balloons which take him for a high ride, but everything is OK as he lands safely and the man with the yellow hat pays for the balloons (we don't want to set a bad example for the kids now do we).

And then Curious George ends up in the ZOO looking happy as a pig in shit because of course that is a GREAT place for a monkey to live.

My daughters questioned if a ZOO is that great for a wild animal to live and look forward to being old enough to smoke their first pipe.

lice

It happens and then you have to sit everybody down shampoo their head and go through it with a fine special medal comb to remove the adults and the nits. And then of course you have to do it again (and again) in case an egg hatches and starts again the cycle of life. Did i mention the aggressive laundry cycle at 200 degrees Celsius... you have to love modern technology.

It's a pain in the ass but it's not that bad, i think parents tend to complain too much about things... look at as a chance to spend some time with your kid as you comb through their hair rather than them watching TV and you pecking away like a fool on the computer thinking you are doing something.... i find lolly pops work well. "Hey you want to suck this lolly pop... well then sit in this tub while old daddy doo does a little shampooing and combing" i say. I have also found that if you show a 3 year old a louse that you pulled out of their hair they will want to be lice free and agree to sit and suck a lolly pop while you do the business.

Unfortunately one of the twins took a shit in the bathtub as i was looking for the comb that was on the table but somehow ended up wrapped in a blanket, stuffed in a purse and placed under the lazy boy chair, lucky for me i am hip to that jive.

It is amazing that the man who was dry heaving cleaning out a litter box years ago was there picking a fresh log out of the tub in one hand and de-licing a head with the other... that is parenthood in a nutshell... when everything is falling down you just become strong and deal with it... slowly but surly.

The weird thing about the whole ordeal is how lackadaisical some people are towards the issue. Fact: we found adult lice and larvae in the hair of our family members which means we have had it for a while... eggs have been laid and hatched, so of course as a noble member of the community you need to put the word out... we have 2 kids in a daycare and one kid in a school and the kids were in camp not too long ago. Where did it come from? Could be many options and possible multiple exposures. i pointed it out to many parents that have shared head space with my kids, and most were happy to have that declared, others rather disturbingly, feel they have no fear because they haven't got a note form the school or daycare alerting them to the issue. I have a problem with that level of truculence in this fight... we need to get it out of the loop. I realize there is a stigma about having lice, and in that way it could be hard to admit, but things like this thrive on the negligent eye.

Family man with band

So we had a band rehearsal in the "family room" the other night. My wife was bathing the twins and young Kaiya was downstairs listening to the music. She was having fun bouncing away on an exercise ball and enjoying things. We were in the middle of discussing an arrangement for a particular song when all of the sudden there was a big smash and the rabbit ears came down, the exercise ball came down and a hand drum teetered on a shelf and then came crashing down. There was a pause and i said "Kaiya, where did you get this destructive streak?". I then gave her the drum and went back to the band... who were enjoying the irony of me, who has spent a life smashing things, questioning my prodigy taking up the habit.

Kaiya left after that... I didn't really notice as we were kind of working, and it was her bedtime, but the next night over dinner I told the story to my wife at the table in front of the family. CT asked Kaiya if she liked the music and she said she did but she didn't like when i said that to her. I apologized, and tried to explain why it was in fact a funny joke, but i guess the lesson is to remember to explain jokes like that at the time... or to not rehearse around kids.

When i was a kid there was always so much worry that i would destroy things. In a weird way we are trying to move towards fewer possessions so if something gets destroyed it could actually be a blessing. As long as you don't destroy your relationships with a combination of paranoia and ill communication everything should be alright.