The September 25 chat will be on the idea that if a parent "lets" a child do something, it's all that he will ever do. http://sandradodd.com/
AlexPolikowsky3: Dang, I just saw Sandra's chocolate cake picture in her Facebook! Made me want chocolate cake and I don't even care for it that much!
Sandra Dodd: I'm late because I was editing this, to share: http://sandradodd.com/
Sandra Dodd: I haven't looked at every one of them, but some phrases are straight up cut and paste. Some are rephrased a little.
Heather Booth: Only eat bugs?
Sandra Dodd: Keith finished the cake off last night.
Sandra Dodd: Marty was here yesterday for lunch, and had a piece. So the cake is no more. (SMILE)
AlexPolikowsky3: Yes Marta! Good for Keith! Brian would have liked that cake too.
Sandra Dodd: Plagiarized from my own page (which has been around since at least 2006) http://sandradodd.com/
Sandra Dodd: Next time I visit you, Alex, I could make Brian a cake.
AlexPolikowsky3: If I let them they will eat all the cake! (SMILE)
Virginia Warren: "If I let..." is a favorite of mine.
Laura Z: They always say the highest form of praise is being copied - you must be at the top right about now!
AlexPolikowsky3: He would like that. I think you need to come two weeks prior to the ALL MN Symposium because I have places to take you and a cake to bake!
Virginia Warren: An idea from there and also http://sandradodd.com/phrases "Phrases to hear and avoid..." that has been a very useful tool, is to notice when you're using someone else's words.
Heather Booth: Some of the things on that page are ridiculous and some of them are really mean.
Sandra Dodd: She did a HUGE lift of stuff from http://sandradodd.com/
Laura Z: Sandra how are you finding all the lifting? Are you using a plagiarism checker?
Sandra Dodd: Laura, Schuyler found some she recognized. When I went to look, I recognized LOTS more.
Sandra Dodd: There were three BOOKS, everyone with things cut and pasted from my site. But it seems none of the books are available right now, but two (maybe) electronically. I'm still poking around collecting links.
AlexPolikowsky3: Who is that person Sandra?
Sandra Dodd: Her name is there, Alex. I don't want to go so much into that.
Sandra Dodd: She claims to have "coined the term progressive parenting." She did not.
AlexPolikowsky3: OH I see it!
Sandra Dodd: She plagiarized my words and the words of many othe people from my site. Joyce Fetteroll, Pamela Corkey, Katherine Innes and others.
Laura Z: It's getting to the point where people feel it's okay to copy other people's words and then make money from them under the guise of calling it something new.
Sandra Dodd: The page on which today's chat is based was plagiarized.
Sandra Dodd: Heather wrote "Some of the things on that page are ridiculous and some of them are really mean."
Laura Z: I've been looking forward to today's chat. Sorry it's yet another page of your material that has been taken Sandra.
Virginia Warren: Plagiarism seems to be a particularly schooly vice.
Sandra Dodd: And every single one of them (on my page, every one) was cut and pasted from something a parent actually thought AND wrote down AND posted in public about her own child.
Sandra Dodd: They're all evidence of a kind of attitude that is often "supported" by other parents.
Sandra Dodd: The idea that the only thing preventing wild chaos and disaster is the rules and controls a parent puts on a child.
Sandra Dodd: Partly because of the realities of human nature (which Pam Sorooshian wrote about from an economics standpoint at http://sandradodd.com/t/
Heather Booth: There was a quote on the "If I let them" page, can't find it now, but it was something like, "If I let him, he would ask me questions all day." That's really mean. Some days Austin DOES ask me lots and lots of questions and we'll talk a lot. But it's not because I let him, it's because he wants to talk to me and I want to talk to him.
Sandra Dodd: "[I]f I answered every question my kids asked, my son would ask questions all day. "
Jill Parmer: I'm guessing lots of parents repeat without thinking all those "if I let..."s. It's been so refreshing to look closely at that kind of thing and change it. And now years later to read those, I agree with Heather, some are downright mean.
Sandra Dodd: How lucky, for an unschooler, if a child asks lots of questions!
Heather Booth: I don't know if I ever thought, "If I let him he'd talk to me all day." I did think, "If I let him he'd do nothing but play video games all day."
Jill Parmer: I did spend lots of days when Addi was a baby holding her A LOT. Pictures of Steve and I eating dinner one handed. It wasn't forever.
Sandra Dodd: My kids went to sleep every night without a set bedtime. They came home without a curfew. They ate "real food" without being forced or rewarded with sweets. But many parents think those things only happen because a parent "makes" the child sleep, eat, come home.
Marta Pires: Forever? It seemed like a minute now.
Marta Pires: I held Constança a lot too. I'm glad I did.
Laura Z: It's amazing how many of the ifilet thinking is centered around TV or video games.
Sandra Dodd: A couple of weeks ago Holly was very sad and I said when she was younger I would have held her and rocked her, and I was willing to try. She jumped up and wrapped her legs around me and put her face on my shoulder and I wagged back and forth for a while.
Jill Parmer: Centered around the Fear-of-the-Day? Wasn't it books and comic books at one time?
Laura Z: I was told that ifilet Caitlyn continue nursing until she was finished that she would never stop. And what I hear now is that ifilet her continue to cosleep with us she'll never start sleeping on her own.
Heather Booth: Also, original sin. We're all born bad and have to be molded into good people.
Virginia Warren: It seems related to the idea of original sin, or the dismal view of human nature. That people are vicious unless/until virtue is forced upon them.
Virginia Warren: Jinx!
Sandra Dodd: She's 21 and weighs 120 lbs.
Heather Booth: Ha!
Marta Pires: Sweet, Sandra.
Shallay: Viriginia - and that by controlling them we can change them.
Marta Pires: Same here, Laura!
Virginia Warren: It's an explanation of "virtue" or pro-social behavior that explains it away.
Virginia Warren: It makes more sense to assume that people are good and want to do well. Because they almost always do.
Sandra Dodd: The problem with that, Virginia, is that it is humanism.
Sandra Dodd: And humanism, for most Christians, is heresy.
Virginia Warren: Bummer.
Robin B.: Laura, that was said to me, as well (about the nursing and the co-sleeping). I have wondered where those "warnings" came from and they seem all based on fear, to me. All kinds of fear.
Sandra Dodd: So for a parent to explain to her own parents and grandparents that she assumes that her child will do the right thing is (to many grandparents) sinful thinking, and dangerous thinking.
Robin B.: Fear of dependence is a huge thing when you're expected to raise independent children. Ones who will happily leave you to head off to school, in part.
Virginia Warren: Assuming people want to do well is not the same as assuming people always do the right thing.
Marta Pires: Yes, Robin. And I think it's worse when children are on the introverted side...
Robin B.: Yup. "You're making them shy."
Sandra Dodd: Anyone interested in reading some arguments against unschooling based on the idea that it's humanism, I saved a long discussion from 2007 and thereabout here: http://sandradodd.com/
Sandra Dodd: It's not much use to most people except a curiosity. But for unschoolers with very Christian families, it might help with understanding what they're worried about.
Robin B.: My daughter is 18, weaned and sleeping in her own bed! Weaned well past what is often thought of as "the right time" and sleeping in her own bed well past "the right time."
Sandra Dodd: Robin, if you let her, she will sleep in that bed for the rest of her life and never move away.
Marta Pires: (SMILE)
Jill Parmer: So, in challenging people saying "ifilet", it's really challenging peoples ingrained beliefs and a culture's belief. Dang.
Sandra Dodd: We didn't throw Kirby and Marty out, but they're gone.
Robin B.: And that would be fine, if she wanted to stay. But she won't, I don't imagine. She'll probably stay longer than "the right time" though!
Sandra Dodd: Holly left at 17, but came back. She asked this summer if she can keep living with us in this house. Yeah, we said, if we stay in this house.
Sandra Dodd: But I don't think she will stay "forever."
Heather Booth: Austin told me yesterday that he'll start sleeping in his own bed when he's 13. So, he has a plan. He asked me the other day if he ever had to move out. I told him he didn't, but that I would guess at some point he might want to. But that there wasn't any hurry
Sandra Dodd: We have friends and acquaintances who put their kids out at 18 so they wouldn't be there forever. A couple of them are back. I don't say so.... they know.
AlexPolikowsky3: There is also the thought that a child doing something different is the gateway to something criminal or worse. If a child wants to die their hair a different color parents think they will group up and be those crazy people or I do not know what. I have seen it. It makes no sense. They do not even know what they are afraid off. IF they see TV it is the gateway to mant bad behaviours or following mindlessly what others.
Sandra Dodd: Some of those quotes aren't mean, just odd. Like the one about apples.
Virginia Warren: My kids talk about living together when they grow up, and me being welcome to live with them.
Sandra Dodd: "He would eat 6+ apples a day if let to his own devices. (The mother had stopped him, because he had cavities.) "
Robin B.: It seems like mindless fear, Alex.
Virginia Warren: My dentist told me apples clean the teeth.
Sandra Dodd: Six apples aren't likely to hurt anyone. They're more likely to clean teeth than to leave sugar on them, too.
Virginia Warren: I've been letting go of a lot of unhelpful ideas about food over the last year.
Celeste: The way I hear the "If I let them..." comments is more like "If I let them do what they want, they won't do what I want"
AlexPolikowsky3: apples are good for teeth that is so silly! Fear for nothing. SHe could have researched!
Virginia Warren: I think some parents wish to restrict stuff like sweets, TV, games, so they can be used as currency, to gain leverage over the child.
Shallay: lol - so true
Laurie:
Makana (8) and Li (12) both made cakes yesterday. One vanilla, one chocolate. Kanoa (4) ate bits of a piece this morning. Just a few minutes ago, he asked for a plate of shredded cheese. He does love sweeties (like many people), but also likes other things and will ask according to what he feels like or needs.
Shallay: without a reward what will motivate them???
Virginia Warren: I knew some women locally who were very against TV and games.
Robin B.: Good point, Celeste. And to continue that thought, "...because what I want is good for them and what they want is bad for them."
Virginia Warren: But it was surprising what they would use these supposedly "harmful" things to "buy" from their children.
Virginia Warren: One anti-TV mom came to a birthday party, her daughter's hair done up in beautiful french braids.
Virginia Warren: Another mom asked "How did you do it." She rolled her eyes and said "TV."
Jill Parmer: <<<Celeste: The way I hear the "If I let them..." comments is more like "If I let them do what they want, they won't do what I want" >>> Or they won't do what the common norm is today, and dammit they are making me work, and now I have to think and can't just coast.
Sandra Dodd: So they're changing their minds Virginia? Is it because of knowing you, maybe, in part?
Laura Z: Robin the fear has to be a big part of it. If I let him watch tv all day - fear of becoming a "couch potato" or "a good for nothing lazy person". If I let him eat chocolate cake all day - well the cake would be gone and maybe there's nothing left for them? Or maybe pieces of our parents concerns about not having enough food so you have to dole it out?
AlexPolikowsky3: SHe learned something from TV?? The horrors!
Virginia Warren: No, she was saying that she let her kid watch TV so that she could braid her hair.
Virginia Warren: She "paid" her kid in TV (which she claimed she felt was harmful) for her to allow the mom to do an elaborate, time consuming hairdo.
Robin B.: Oh my.
AlexPolikowsky3: Wow
Virginia Warren: The only reason TV could buy that compliance, was because it was restricted.
Sandra Dodd: OH! I thought it was that she learned to do it on TV.
AlexPolikowsky3: I did too Sandra.
Marta Pires: We baked a chocolate cake on Sunday and we still have some. We all like it around here.
Sandra Dodd: Laura, I wonder if some parents even think it through that carefully.
Virginia Warren: That's because you see everything in the best light.
Jill Parmer: It seems all these fears are maybe what the parents might do if they were let. But I would guess all of them came from school and controlled or neglected environments. ?
Laurie: What kind of message does that give when a person allows their child to do things (that the child probably knows the mom thinks is harmful or not good) so that the mother can get something done more easily or more conveniently?
Shallay: i like that - paid like things are withheld only so it can be currency
Sandra Dodd: They don't see to go on to the next step of "And? And then what?"
AlexPolikowsky3: But I have seen parents that limit TV use it to keep kids on one stop so they can do stuff. Kids will glue to the TV because that is the only chance they get
Virginia Warren: That, too. The economics of restriction.
Sandra Dodd: There have been parents, and columnists, and comedians, and a friend of mine, say the only reason to get a phone for a child is so it can be taken away if they don't do what the parent says.
Sandra Dodd: That's awful.
Virginia Warren: People will flat out call you a "piece of s**t" for giving a kid a phone.
Serah: My sister really restricts tv even though her kids love it. What can be done to help the parent see differently?
Celeste: Robin, I left that part out because its not always about good and bad. For instance, I think to myself, "If I let him.. he will breastfeed non-stop." I don't think breastfeeding is bad, its very good. But I'd like to do other things like take a shower It can be about what the parent thinks is good or the right, but it can also just be about wanting different things.
Sandra Dodd: We went a long time without phones. Kirby had a friend who got one for Kirby because he wanted to be able to call him. Kirby's lack of phone was too inconvenient for his gaming buddies.
Laura Z: I wonder if those people withold sex or loving attention or nice dinners or help around the house from their spouses as well.
Sandra Dodd: But when we did finally get them for Marty and Holly, they were like safety nets, and I would never have wanted to take them away. That's how we knew they could get help easily if they needed it.
Jill Parmer: Live your life Serah, and don't try to change your sister's. Change might come for her around t.v. , but until then it might only irritate you.
Sandra Dodd: Virginia, do you think people criticize another parent about getting a phone because they themselves don't want to get their kids phones?
Virginia Warren: They want to not do it, and feel good about not doing it
Virginia Warren: I think.
Serah: thanks, Jill. I'm doing that.
Sandra Dodd: I agree with Jill, Serah. Pray for your sister, maybe. Let her kids watch TV at your house. Look the other way and don't worry about it.
AlexPolikowsky3: Celeste what if he breastfeeds all the time
Virginia Warren: The arguments are really superficial.
Virginia Warren: I think affluent parents really struggle with giving some times.
AlexPolikowsky3: I know a mom that won't let her husband get cable because she thinks it will keep him from being with her and will harm their couple time. Yes, she told me that. SO he CANNOT have cable or satellite.
Sandra Dodd: Alex, that sounds like a recipe for divorce.
Sandra Dodd: Their "couple time" is already compromised by one part of the couple thinking she's the mom.
AlexPolikowsky3: Sandra, she thinks she will avoid divorce.
Sandra Dodd: Right. If she was willing to let him watch all the TV he wants, she could make 50 or 60 years of marriage! But she thinks he's a child, and she's selfish.
Laura Z: Yes Sandra! My niece, who is usually pretty open minded in her thinking, posted a meme the other day - "All you damn kids are spoiled thinking you should have iPhones. When I was your age my whole family shared one phone, and it was attached to the kitchen wall by a cord." I responded how grateful I was that there would be ways for my daughter to communicate with me and others.
Virginia Warren: I think when the parents have a lot of money, and are stingy with the kids, it hurts a lot.
Heather Booth: I don't know. I used to be really restrictive and at night before I went to bed, I rarely felt good about making Austin unhappy. I struggled a lot with anxiety and depression back then. I wonder if they do want to give their kids phones, but fear gets in the way. SO they put up a front of being a hard ass for the sake of their kids protection from whatever they are afraid of.
Serah: Sadly, because she knows they watch tv at my house, they are limited from visiting here too ;-(
Shallay: Serah - I think it depends on your relationship with your sister, if she wants to talk with you about it do, if its a hot button issue don't push that button.
Sandra Dodd: And neither of those is good for a marriage.
AlexPolikowsky3: Laura, my kids all have Iphones?
Virginia Warren: My kids have android phones.
Sandra Dodd: Heather, you might be right. Some parents do want "all the other parents" to be restrictive too, so the parents can say "all the other parents do that, too"
Sandra Dodd: And I'm pretty sure they would shame their kids or tease them if the kids said "all the other kids have phones."
Serah: thx Shallay
Sandra Dodd: In the UK kids have had mobile phones for a long, long time.
Sandra Dodd: American kids, not so long. Still, many don't.
Virginia Warren: It's too easy for my husband and I to imagine how much we would have loved a smartphone when we were kids.
Virginia Warren: We felt mean having them and not giving them to the kids.
AlexPolikowsky3: Their Iphones are being used as IPods because I paid ONE cent for them each! I think a kids having a smart phone is great for safety!
Laura Z: I agree Alex!
Shallay: my kids have better technology than i do, cause I don't use it like they do
Sandra Dodd: But in 2005 american friends of ours living near London got their daughter into a fancy girls' school people had to test in to. At the first parents' night, the mom said to one of the teachers that her daughter (who's Holly's age) said (I wish I could imitated it, but it was a kind of sing-songey, eye-rolling imitation of her daughter, and I've known them both for a long time).... "She says she's the *only girl at her school* who doesn't have a mobile phone."
Sandra Dodd: And Helene, the friend expected the teacher to laugh and shake her head and say that was silly.
Sandra Dodd: But she said "She is. All the other girls have phones."
Virginia Warren: My kids are already excited about google glass.
Shallay: my fav is audio books, and a broken smart phone can do that fine (SMILE)
Robin B.: Celeste, when you say that you hear it as "If I let them do what they want, they won't do what I want" that it would be okay to see it that way? I'm a bit confused.
Shallay: that google glass thing is exciting
Sandra Dodd: ...have phones was the quote, sorry, not "a phone")
AlexPolikowsky3: It is all about control and fear. If I let him he will eat what i think is unhealthy, do what I think is harmful and not do what I think is right !
Shallay: exactly - do what I think
Shallay: control
AlexPolikowsky3: and do people really think that: "If I let him he will only eat candy"" Really? No one can only eat candy!
Sandra Dodd: But Alex, someone can dream of candy, and think of candy, and wish for candy, because it's limited.
Shallay: you know they don't trust themselves either - they also think, "i would only eat candy"
Virginia Warren: I became extremely fixated on sweets as a child. They were strictly limited, and demonized.
Jill Parmer: <<< I think to myself, "If I let him.. he will breastfeed non-stop." I don't think breastfeeding is bad, its very good. But I'd like to do other things like take a shower [wink] It can be about what the parent thinks is good or the right, but it can also just be about wanting different things. >>> But a parent can delay their needs longer than kids and they can come up with solutions that babies can't. And it still does not help to think or say, "ifilet.."
Sandra Dodd: That's true. That DOES happen. People have said "I can't have cookies in the house because I will eat them all," when we recommend that they should have so much that the children can eat until they've had enough.
Robin B.: Jill! That's what I was trying to write.
Sandra Dodd: My favorite story along those lines is Adam Daniel and the sugar cubes. His mom asked Schuyler Waynforth in person once what about sugar.
Virginia Warren: People say things like "...you would only eat candy." or whatever to the kid, and then they repeat it.
Sandra Dodd: Adam would eat sugar from packets in restaurants.
Robin B.: So a child should suffer for the parent's inability to get over it.
AlexPolikowsky3: Yes living in candy land and making the value of candy so high you would do anything for it. Even if it was not safe or made you feel sick'
Virginia Warren: That sugar story helped me a lot.
Sandra Dodd: Schuyler recommended a box of sugar cubes. They lived in England, and Julie was visiting Schuyler. So she bought a box of sugar cubes and gave them to Adam, who ate some, and then less, and then stopped.
Shallay: robin - if I can't overcome it how could you? thinking
Laura Z: I still have tendency to want to hide my "stash". My mom had her bag of candy w weren't supposed to raid, but I would sneak the bottom layer of my dad's chocolates and think o one would notice. I am also the one in the house with very little self control around food.
Robin B.: Yes, something like that Shallay.
AlexPolikowsky3: Sandra they do not see as a choice to eat the cookies! It is more powerful than they are.
Robin B.: But also controlling another person's choices because *they* didn't have a choice.
Sandra Dodd: The story is there: http://sandradodd.com/
Virginia Warren: I have been working hard on food issues for a year. It's better than I hoped.
Shallay: ahh yes, there we have it too
Virginia Warren: I keep finding new issues under the one I was working on.
Robin B.: And don't feel that they can make choices, even now.
Sandra Dodd: I ate half that chocolate cake, but over a few days.
Sandra Dodd: I got tired of it.
Shallay: that they don't trust their choices
Sandra Dodd: Keith ate one piece each night, with ice cream.
Sandra Dodd: I think Holly just had one piece. Marty came and helped it go.
Jill Parmer: When Luke was little , maybe 5 or so, he wanted a bowl of sugar. I have cute little condiment bowls, so I put sugar and a spoon in one. He ate maybe a teaspoon.
Heather Booth: I have a story about "I can't have cookies in the house because I will eat them all," I said something like that on list. It was about Oreos. Someone suggested that I get five packs of Oreos and keep them in the house. If I run out to go get more and that once there was abundance of Oreos in the house I would stop treating them like a scarcity and gorge on them. It totally worked. I bought a bunch and ate a bunch. After a while I forgot we had all these cookies in the house. One day Monty said, "I like that we have all these snacks in the house now." I asked him which ones. He said, "All the cookies and stuff." I chuckled because I had totally forgot about all the cookies.
Jill Parmer: I remember eating sugar as a kid, and it wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be.
AlexPolikowsky3: Celeste what if he wants to breastfeed all day? Use a sling and feed him on the go! If he is older and mobile I doubt he would unless he is sick!
Sandra Dodd: Food was horribly limited when I was a kid. When I was old enough to get out of the house, I spent my allowance on food if there wasn't a new Beatle's album out.
Sandra Dodd: My mom was spending grocery money on beer, in secret, and food wasn't being brought in.
Celeste: Oh, no it doesn't. I agree. Rephrasing it clarifies it for me. I don't like "all" or "never" statements because at some point those become untrue. But thinking about the ifilet statements in terms of I want something and they want something else, then I can see where that ifilet is coming from.
Virginia Warren: Sandra, me too. I spent all my allowance (and money I stole from my parents) on candy, soda, cookies, snack cakes.
Sandra Dodd: And THAT wasn't healthy.
Sandra Dodd: Celeste, that can only make sense in an adversarial relationship.
Heather Booth: My mom was scared I would get fat. Her weight is something she constantly struggles with. I guess she thought that by telling me I'd get fat if I ate all those cookies she was protecting me from going through the same struggle she does. But all it did was make me feel like a shitty person whenever I ate cookies. Like I was bad for doing it.
Robin B.: It's still control. "I want them to want something else than they want, because I want this other thing."
Sandra Dodd: One of the tenets of attachment parenting is that the more closeness a child has, the more easily he will be able to be separate, knowing he can have his mom if he needs to.
AlexPolikowsky3: My upbringing with food would have been perfect if it was not the "Be careful that will make you fat" or things like that. We were never limited or force. But early on the idea that girls needed to diet their whole lives to keep the perfect Girl from Ipanema body]
Robin B.: Yes, Heather.
Sandra Dodd: Same with nursing. If he knows he can have as much as he wants, the desperation dissolves.
AlexPolikowsky3: Cow having baby right now! got to go!
Sandra Dodd: Kids who are afraid it will be taken away will latch on and stay past when they might actually want to, out of fear.
Shallay: enjoy alex
Sandra Dodd: At Alex's house, calves slide out of cows every day or two.
Marta Pires: (SMILE)
Celeste: Yes, it is control. And I'm not saying I support those statements at all. I think about it that way to surface the desire to control in myself.
Robin B.: My mum had what she thought were good intentions (I didn't get that message so much as my sister did). All three of us think we should weigh lots less than we do, but we also forget that part of it is genetic. My dad's family are *big* people.
Robin B.: Three of us = kids
Sandra Dodd: In aikido-like fashion, sometimes if someone has come and said "If I let him, he would....." one of us (Kelly Lovejoy first in line, sometimes) would say "Show us."
Sandra Dodd: Instead of "Oh, I don't think so...." it was "Prove it."
Laura Z: I like that..."prove it"
Sandra Dodd: If I don't make him go to bed he'll stay up for the rest of his life would have been the easiest, but nobody ever claimed that one.
Robin B.: (SMILE)
Robin B.: It's really interesting what people will say without thinking.
Sandra Dodd: So Kelly's usual example was a big bowl of M&M's. She said people should have a big bowl of M&Ms and they would probably only need to refill it once.
Jill Parmer: About baby or anyone's desperation. It seems there is a sense, I don't know the word, about if you're trying to get a baby/kid away from you the more they want to cling, and when a mom surrenders(?) to the needs and what her job is, things calm down and kids feel that sense, and more contentedness.
Robin B.: Or believe.
Sandra Dodd: We have a little glass jar. My family will take three or four months to empty it.
Celeste: I tried that once. Chase didn't want to go to sleep ever. So we stayed up all night a couple nights. Went to sleep when the sun came up. And figured out it wasn't sustainable for us. So we had to try something else.
Sandra Dodd: But if we have company, sometimes it goes in one day, or if there's a group of kids/teens over who aren't used to candy being out.
Sandra Dodd: Celeste, if you hadn't had a bedtime before, there would've been no reason to stay up until daylight. That was a created situation, not a natural one.
Shallay: We have a gallon jar of candy (i have two when with extended guests)
Robin B.: What did you try Celeste?
Sandra Dodd: It wasn't sustainable; you're right.
Sandra Dodd: If you had let it go, it would have been self-correcting.
Sandra Dodd: -=- So we had to try something else.-=-
Sandra Dodd: http://sandradodd.com/
Celeste: Yup, I chose to try something else.
Sandra Dodd: When you say "that," what do you mean? "I tried that once. Chase didn't want to go to sleep ever."
Celeste: I tried letting Chase determine when he went to sleep.
Sandra Dodd: This? "Sandra Dodd: If I don't make him go to bed he'll stay up for the rest of his life would have been the easiest, but nobody ever claimed that one."
Celeste: yeah
Sandra Dodd: But he didn't stay up two days straight. He want to sleep when he was tired, right?
Sandra Dodd: But stayed up as late as he could.... why?
Sandra Dodd: Why do you think he stayed up so late?
AlexPolikowsky3: Back! We have tons of candy and chocolate because my husband and kids like it. More than half does not get eaten
Robin B.: Do you have a new calf, Alex?
Robin B.: You could celebrate with tons of candy and chocolate!
Celeste: I wish I knew why he stayed up so late.
AlexPolikowsky3: She was across the road. Head out and calf looking around . We moved her to the pasture and she went up the hill to have her calf in a nice area!
AlexPolikowsky3: Moved her with the calf's head sticking out
Laura Z: Pretty. Amazing what they can do!
AlexPolikowsky3: I did not take! We were chasing her from one pasture to the other!
Robin B.: Celeste, did you have bedtimes before that "experiment"?
Sandra Dodd: I think he stayed up late because you made it valuable by forbidding it.
Sandra Dodd: And he stayed up as late as possible because he didn't trust that you meant it longterm.
Sandra Dodd: And he was right.
Celeste: Not hard core ones. It was more fluid. It was based on when we felt he was tired which was when he was moody and started getting physical
Sandra Dodd: But instead of any sudden changes, it's better to say "Okay, half an hour more is fine.
AlexPolikowsky3: Even just the pressure sometimes will make a child react." or "It's okay if you watch another video." Something calm and not shockingly different.
Sandra Dodd: http://sandradodd.com/
AlexPolikowsky3: How old is he Celeste?
Sandra Dodd: So bed sounds like a punishment, if it comes when you consider him to be "moody" and starting to get physical.
Robin B.: So moodiness and physicality were the indicators of sleepiness?
Virginia Warren: My kids have a friend who goes to a high-pressure private school and does a lot of scheduled activities.
Sandra Dodd: Did it involve lying down with him, or rocking him to sleep? Or putting him in a bed by himself?
Celeste: we cosleep
Celeste: bbiab, gotta help a kiddo
Virginia Warren: every time she comes for a sleepover at our house, she stays up all night
AlexPolikowsky3: I grew up without bed times and I can still go on doing things, reading, watching a movie until very late at night! I like being up at night and only put down my book when it is falling off my hand!
Sandra Dodd: Marty had a friend who wanted to stay up all night when he spent the night, just because he had never been able to. Marty didn't see the appeal.
Shallay: (in ref to being grumpy) "its just me mom" he felt his feelings were his and that did not mean his behavior was due to anything else
Virginia Warren: I like being up at night. I line staying up all night sometimes also
Sandra Dodd: Marty had never stayed up all night either, but not because he couldn't—he just went to sleep when he was tired.
Laura Z: I'm heading out, Caitlyn recently discovered digimon and wants to eBay shop .
Sandra Dodd: Good luck, Laura!
Virginia Warren: same with our friend who stays up
Virginia Warren: I think it is the only time she gets a choice about her sleep
Sandra Dodd: So sometimes maybe parents feel they need to control something because their friends and relatives and other-parent friends want the whole gang of parents to be controlling.
Sandra Dodd: Peer pressure.
AlexPolikowsky3: Yeah Gigi had a friend that came to sleep over and wanted to stay up until 2 AM because she has a bed time of 730PM even in the Summer !
Virginia Warren: it's the reality of a tightly scheduled life
Sandra Dodd: But sometimes they think, seriously, that their rule is what's maintaining health and happiness at their house.
Sandra Dodd: They're taking too much credit.
Sandra Dodd: And doing too much work.
Sandra Dodd: And doing damage to the relationship
Sandra Dodd: when their dire predictions weren't valid.
Robin B.: Sandra, is there a page on dire predictions at your site?
Sandra Dodd: http://sandradodd.com/
Robin B.: Oh, same one.
Sandra Dodd: FULL of dire predictions!
Jill Parmer: About the kid that got moody and physical before night time. I've seen parents write that sometimes their kids get this surge of energy before sleep, and I wonder if a kid who is not allowed to get that out, sleeps worse, or not as restful?
Shallay: they have different sensory needs
Robin B.: Senna gets a surge of talkativeness, usually. Some of the best conversations happen then. Or the best information.
Robin B.: It was never good to shut that down with an "off to bed."
Shallay: i used to "pack" my son before sleep, without it he would roll and roll
Sandra Dodd: What do you mean by "Pack"? Tuck him in?
Shallay: "pack" push on him firmly, rub him
Shallay: with pressure
Sandra Dodd: Ah. Like massage?
Shallay: something about the pressure did it for him
Virginia Warren: My younger daughter has a pattern of an intense burst of energy, followed by a snack, closely followed by going to sleep hard.
Celeste: Chase was about 2 at the time. He got physical by hitting and throwing things at us. It wasn't a happy lets go run around the house kind of physical (which we do now). And going to sleep was me and daddy climbing into bed and reading books with a book light. Sometimes it was turning the lights down and playing with blocks. Other times it was singing songs or playing with flashlights. It was never him alone in a room.
Sandra Dodd: I think rocking chairs are forgotten technology and that babies are really, truly, supposed to be carried to sleep or rocked to sleep.
Sandra Dodd: We did a lot of carrying, either me or Keith. Kirby liked car rides. Marty liked a hiking backpack for babies that we had.
Shallay: my son actually told me to buy a rocking chair
Shallay: "it will help me feel better"
Sandra Dodd: Maybe when they "get physical" they're instinctively wanting that natural part of primate bedtime.
Sandra Dodd: Even standing in one place and wagging back and forth while talking or humming or singing can be comforting, and rush sleep along.
Sandra Dodd: Did you get one, Shallay?
Marta Pires: I was so pressured to put Constança down, it was amazing! (SMILE) I didn't, though. She really wanted to be carried. I'm glad she let us know that. But people would say "you shouldn't carry her all the time or else..." but then they wouldn't even finish the phrase.
Sandra Dodd: I had a bentwood rocker but it wasn't soft. When Marty was little I got a used upholstered rocker and that was better.
Shallay: the best one ever as far as shape, small with no arms so anyone can fit - already broke it and repaired it 2x
Virginia Warren: Slings for the win!
Sandra Dodd: Got messy and got it reupholstered for baby #3.
Sandra Dodd: Slings are good.
Sandra Dodd: Marta, that's funny. Or else... uh.... just don't.
Sandra Dodd: Because.
Sandra Dodd: Something bad.
Sandra Dodd: For real.
Sandra Dodd: We hear.
Sandra Dodd: So many vague negative messages are repeated without thinking.
Marta Pires: Yes!
AlexPolikowsky3: Or else you will never be able to do anything! Even when they are 18!
Sandra Dodd: From that page: "She isn't interested in learning about anything and would watch movies over and over again if I let her."
Shallay: celeste - so what do you think his physical hitting and throwing was about then, now that you know him more?
Sandra Dodd: People listen to music over and over again. People read books over and over again. People who are athletes play the same game, or run the same track, or ride the same route on a bike over and over again.
AlexPolikowsky3: My mother in law used to tell me I needed to let Daniel sleep in his crib in his room because I would never get any sleep! Are you kidding. All I needed to do was turn and put the boob in his face and he went back to sleep! no gettin up and feeding and coming back to bed!
Celeste: I was amazed at the bad "advice" I got from the pediatrician. She told me that if I let Chase sleep with us that he will never leave the bed. Ha, if I let him...
Sandra Dodd: "If I were to allow it all they would do is play video games, watch cartoons, and play." And they would learn, and be happy. And if the mom would watch them and play with them, she would learn too.
Celeste: She would lecture me every visit, so I started lying about things I knew were not the convention.
Sandra Dodd: Weird advice, Celeste. Odd prediction.
AlexPolikowsky3: Celeste I did not lie. My pediatrician said the same thing. She asked me every visit. "How is he sleeping?" ME: "great"
Marta Pires: I'm listening to Prince singing "A Case of You" for the 15th time today.
AlexPolikowsky3: "If I were to allow it all they would do is play video games, watch cartoons, and play." And they would learn, and be happy. And if the mom would watch them and play with them, she would learn too."
Shallay: I didn't even take my kid into the dr until he was 2 just to avoid all the 'conversations' he was small
Sandra Dodd: Learning that it's the kind of song you can listen to 100 times and still be.... moved.
Shallay: cause we repeat things that mean something to us
Sandra Dodd: I've played rummy LOTS, and with the same people sometimes. I've played Five Crowns hundreds of times, and it's not that I'm learning new ways, but it's comforting and interesting.
Sandra Dodd: Because they're paper cards, even grandmothers would smile and say "nice." But if it were a video game, some of those same people would turn harsh about it.
Sandra Dodd: Prejudice against games.
Celeste: Shallay, I think he was having issues sleeping at night. Pain from something that we didn't realize at the time. His hitting was frustration that the message wasn't getting through to us. But he had no way to tell us.
Jill Parmer: I think a parent could learn a lot about a kid who watches a movie over and over. I always found it fascinating to see what a kid was thinking about.
Virginia Warren: How do you move forward when a parent is harshly judging a child for liking the same things that the parent likes? Like a parent who likes to be at home and play video games?
Sandra Dodd: Few people complain about paper (cards, puzzles, reading) but here's one, kind of. "If my boys were allowed to self-direct, they'd spend all day reading Hardy Boy books, blowing up the house with science experiments, and not much else."
Sandra Dodd: It's called "projection," Virginia.
Sandra Dodd: Not sure I would point that out, though.
Sandra Dodd: Don't think of it as "move forward," though.
Robin B.: Bye all. Out for a calming drive with my 18 year old.
Sandra Dodd: Drive her to sleep
andra Dodd: Have you already sent links to TED talks on gaming, or to things here? http://sandradodd.com/
AlexPolikowsky3: Was he ever criticized for gaming? Told it was a waste of time or something?
Virginia Warren: Oh yes, very much. When he was a child, he once rode his bike and spent his own money to buy a game for his computer, and his parents forced him to return it.
Jill Parmer: I think you need to be sweeter to him about his gaming.
Jill Parmer: And sweeter to him in general.
AlexPolikowsky3: Maybe he needs to heal from that. Yes to what Jill said!!!!!
. . . .
Sandra Dodd: Something might help here, Virginia: http://sandradodd.
Sandra Dodd: To get out of the chat suavely, type a slash and then bye, on a line without anything else. /bye but on a line by itself
The September 25 chat will be on the idea that if a parent "lets" a child do something, it's all that he will ever do. http://sandradodd.com/
In The Big Book of Unschooling, it's pages 236-241.
Notices of chat topics are mailed each week, and you can subscribe here: http://chatnotes-
AlexPolikowsky3: Dang, I just saw Sandra's chocolate cake picture in her Facebook! Made me want chocolate cake and I don't even care for it that much!
Sandra Dodd: I'm late because I was editing this, to share: http://sandradodd.com/
Sandra Dodd: It was not about "progressive parenting." It was all about unschooling, and she did NOT have their permission to share those comments. They were comments I saved over the years.
Marta Pires: That cake was gorgeous, Alex! (SMILE)
Sandra Dodd: I haven't looked at every one of them, but some phrases are straight up cut and paste. Some are rephrased a little.
Heather Booth: Only eat bugs?
Sandra Dodd: Keith finished the cake off last night.
Sandra Dodd: Marty was here yesterday for lunch, and had a piece. So the cake is no more. (SMILE)
AlexPolikowsky3: Yes Marta! Good for Keith! Brian would have liked that cake too.
Sandra Dodd: Plagiarized from my own page (which has been around since at least 2006) http://sandradodd.com/
Sandra Dodd: Next time I visit you, Alex, I could make Brian a cake.
AlexPolikowsky3: If I let them they will eat all the cake! (SMILE)
Virginia Warren: "If I let..." is a favorite of mine.
Laura Z: They always say the highest form of praise is being copied - you must be at the top right about now!
AlexPolikowsky3: He would like that. I think you need to come two weeks prior to the ALL MN Symposium because I have places to take you and a cake to bake!
Virginia Warren: An idea from there and also http://sandradodd.com/phrases "Phrases to hear and avoid..." that has been a very useful tool, is to notice when you're using someone else's words.
Heather Booth: Some of the things on that page are ridiculous and some of them are really mean.
Sandra Dodd: She did a HUGE lift of stuff from http://sandradodd.com/
Sandra Dodd: She did delete some things, but there is plagiarism of me and others from my site out on several webpages. It's a big pain. I had hoped she would track them down and ask for them to be removed. Now I'll need to do it myself.
Laura Z: Sandra how are you finding all the lifting? Are you using a plagiarism checker?
Sandra Dodd: Laura, Schuyler found some she recognized. When I went to look, I recognized LOTS more.
Sandra Dodd: There were three BOOKS, everyone with things cut and pasted from my site. But it seems none of the books are available right now, but two (maybe) electronically. I'm still poking around collecting links.
AlexPolikowsky3: Who is that person Sandra?
Sandra Dodd: Her name is there, Alex. I don't want to go so much into that.
Sandra Dodd: She claims to have "coined the term progressive parenting." She did not.
AlexPolikowsky3: OH I see it!
Sandra Dodd: She plagiarized my words and the words of many othe people from my site. Joyce Fetteroll, Pamela Corkey, Katherine Innes and others.
Laura Z: It's getting to the point where people feel it's okay to copy other people's words and then make money from them under the guise of calling it something new.
Sandra Dodd: The page on which today's chat is based was plagiarized.
Sandra Dodd: Heather wrote "Some of the things on that page are ridiculous and some of them are really mean."
Laura Z: I've been looking forward to today's chat. Sorry it's yet another page of your material that has been taken Sandra.
Virginia Warren: Plagiarism seems to be a particularly schooly vice.
Sandra Dodd: And every single one of them (on my page, every one) was cut and pasted from something a parent actually thought AND wrote down AND posted in public about her own child.
Sandra Dodd: They're all evidence of a kind of attitude that is often "supported" by other parents.
Sandra Dodd: The idea that the only thing preventing wild chaos and disaster is the rules and controls a parent puts on a child.
Sandra Dodd: Partly because of the realities of human nature (which Pam Sorooshian wrote about from an economics standpoint at http://sandradodd.com/t/
Sandra Dodd: kids will NOT eat everything, or never stop playing a game, or whatever all the dire "all" and "never" comments were.
Sandra Dodd: It's wonderful, though, when parents can relax and see choices in action in a calm but rich environment and see that their fears were unfounded.
Heather Booth: There was a quote on the "If I let them" page, can't find it now, but it was something like, "If I let him, he would ask me questions all day." That's really mean. Some days Austin DOES ask me lots and lots of questions and we'll talk a lot. But it's not because I let him, it's because he wants to talk to me and I want to talk to him.
Sandra Dodd: "[I]f I answered every question my kids asked, my son would ask questions all day. "
Jill Parmer: I'm guessing lots of parents repeat without thinking all those "if I let..."s. It's been so refreshing to look closely at that kind of thing and change it. And now years later to read those, I agree with Heather, some are downright mean.
Sandra Dodd: How lucky, for an unschooler, if a child asks lots of questions!
Heather Booth: I don't know if I ever thought, "If I let him he'd talk to me all day." I did think, "If I let him he'd do nothing but play video games all day."
Jill Parmer: I did spend lots of days when Addi was a baby holding her A LOT. Pictures of Steve and I eating dinner one handed. It wasn't forever.
Sandra Dodd: My kids went to sleep every night without a set bedtime. They came home without a curfew. They ate "real food" without being forced or rewarded with sweets. But many parents think those things only happen because a parent "makes" the child sleep, eat, come home.
Marta Pires: Forever? It seemed like a minute now.
Marta Pires: I held Constança a lot too. I'm glad I did.
Laura Z: It's amazing how many of the ifilet thinking is centered around TV or video games.
Sandra Dodd: A couple of weeks ago Holly was very sad and I said when she was younger I would have held her and rocked her, and I was willing to try. She jumped up and wrapped her legs around me and put her face on my shoulder and I wagged back and forth for a while.
Jill Parmer: Centered around the Fear-of-the-Day? Wasn't it books and comic books at one time?
Laura Z: I was told that ifilet Caitlyn continue nursing until she was finished that she would never stop. And what I hear now is that ifilet her continue to cosleep with us she'll never start sleeping on her own.
Heather Booth: Also, original sin. We're all born bad and have to be molded into good people.
Virginia Warren: It seems related to the idea of original sin, or the dismal view of human nature. That people are vicious unless/until virtue is forced upon them.
Virginia Warren: Jinx!
Sandra Dodd: She's 21 and weighs 120 lbs.
Heather Booth: Ha!
Marta Pires: Sweet, Sandra.
Shallay: Viriginia - and that by controlling them we can change them.
Marta Pires: Same here, Laura!
Virginia Warren: It's an explanation of "virtue" or pro-social behavior that explains it away.
Virginia Warren: It makes more sense to assume that people are good and want to do well. Because they almost always do.
Sandra Dodd: The problem with that, Virginia, is that it is humanism.
Sandra Dodd: And humanism, for most Christians, is heresy.
Virginia Warren: Bummer.
Robin B.: Laura, that was said to me, as well (about the nursing and the co-sleeping). I have wondered where those "warnings" came from and they seem all based on fear, to me. All kinds of fear.
Sandra Dodd: So for a parent to explain to her own parents and grandparents that she assumes that her child will do the right thing is (to many grandparents) sinful thinking, and dangerous thinking.
Robin B.: Fear of dependence is a huge thing when you're expected to raise independent children. Ones who will happily leave you to head off to school, in part.
Virginia Warren: Assuming people want to do well is not the same as assuming people always do the right thing.
Marta Pires: Yes, Robin. And I think it's worse when children are on the introverted side...
Robin B.: Yup. "You're making them shy."
Sandra Dodd: Anyone interested in reading some arguments against unschooling based on the idea that it's humanism, I saved a long discussion from 2007 and thereabout here: http://sandradodd.com/
Sandra Dodd: It's not much use to most people except a curiosity. But for unschoolers with very Christian families, it might help with understanding what they're worried about.
Robin B.: My daughter is 18, weaned and sleeping in her own bed! Weaned well past what is often thought of as "the right time" and sleeping in her own bed well past "the right time."
Sandra Dodd: Robin, if you let her, she will sleep in that bed for the rest of her life and never move away.
Marta Pires: (SMILE)
Jill Parmer: So, in challenging people saying "ifilet", it's really challenging peoples ingrained beliefs and a culture's belief. Dang.
Sandra Dodd: We didn't throw Kirby and Marty out, but they're gone.
Robin B.: And that would be fine, if she wanted to stay. But she won't, I don't imagine. She'll probably stay longer than "the right time" though!
Sandra Dodd: Holly left at 17, but came back. She asked this summer if she can keep living with us in this house. Yeah, we said, if we stay in this house.
Sandra Dodd: But I don't think she will stay "forever."
Heather Booth: Austin told me yesterday that he'll start sleeping in his own bed when he's 13. So, he has a plan. He asked me the other day if he ever had to move out. I told him he didn't, but that I would guess at some point he might want to. But that there wasn't any hurry
Sandra Dodd: We have friends and acquaintances who put their kids out at 18 so they wouldn't be there forever. A couple of them are back. I don't say so.... they know.
AlexPolikowsky3: There is also the thought that a child doing something different is the gateway to something criminal or worse. If a child wants to die their hair a different color parents think they will group up and be those crazy people or I do not know what. I have seen it. It makes no sense. They do not even know what they are afraid off. IF they see TV it is the gateway to mant bad behaviours or following mindlessly what others.
Sandra Dodd: Some of those quotes aren't mean, just odd. Like the one about apples.
Virginia Warren: My kids talk about living together when they grow up, and me being welcome to live with them.
Sandra Dodd: "He would eat 6+ apples a day if let to his own devices. (The mother had stopped him, because he had cavities.) "
Robin B.: It seems like mindless fear, Alex.
Virginia Warren: My dentist told me apples clean the teeth.
Sandra Dodd: Six apples aren't likely to hurt anyone. They're more likely to clean teeth than to leave sugar on them, too.
Virginia Warren: I've been letting go of a lot of unhelpful ideas about food over the last year.
Celeste: The way I hear the "If I let them..." comments is more like "If I let them do what they want, they won't do what I want"
AlexPolikowsky3: apples are good for teeth that is so silly! Fear for nothing. SHe could have researched!
Virginia Warren: I think some parents wish to restrict stuff like sweets, TV, games, so they can be used as currency, to gain leverage over the child.
Shallay: lol - so true
Laurie:
Makana (8) and Li (12) both made cakes yesterday. One vanilla, one chocolate. Kanoa (4) ate bits of a piece this morning. Just a few minutes ago, he asked for a plate of shredded cheese. He does love sweeties (like many people), but also likes other things and will ask according to what he feels like or needs.
Shallay: without a reward what will motivate them???
Virginia Warren: I knew some women locally who were very against TV and games.
Robin B.: Good point, Celeste. And to continue that thought, "...because what I want is good for them and what they want is bad for them."
Virginia Warren: But it was surprising what they would use these supposedly "harmful" things to "buy" from their children.
Virginia Warren: One anti-TV mom came to a birthday party, her daughter's hair done up in beautiful french braids.
Virginia Warren: Another mom asked "How did you do it." She rolled her eyes and said "TV."
Jill Parmer: <<<Celeste: The way I hear the "If I let them..." comments is more like "If I let them do what they want, they won't do what I want" >>> Or they won't do what the common norm is today, and dammit they are making me work, and now I have to think and can't just coast.
Sandra Dodd: So they're changing their minds Virginia? Is it because of knowing you, maybe, in part?
Laura Z: Robin the fear has to be a big part of it. If I let him watch tv all day - fear of becoming a "couch potato" or "a good for nothing lazy person". If I let him eat chocolate cake all day - well the cake would be gone and maybe there's nothing left for them? Or maybe pieces of our parents concerns about not having enough food so you have to dole it out?
AlexPolikowsky3: SHe learned something from TV?? The horrors!
Virginia Warren: No, she was saying that she let her kid watch TV so that she could braid her hair.
Virginia Warren: She "paid" her kid in TV (which she claimed she felt was harmful) for her to allow the mom to do an elaborate, time consuming hairdo.
Robin B.: Oh my.
AlexPolikowsky3: Wow
Virginia Warren: The only reason TV could buy that compliance, was because it was restricted.
Sandra Dodd: OH! I thought it was that she learned to do it on TV.
AlexPolikowsky3: I did too Sandra.
Marta Pires: We baked a chocolate cake on Sunday and we still have some. We all like it around here.
Sandra Dodd: Laura, I wonder if some parents even think it through that carefully.
Virginia Warren: That's because you see everything in the best light.
Jill Parmer: It seems all these fears are maybe what the parents might do if they were let. But I would guess all of them came from school and controlled or neglected environments. ?
Laurie: What kind of message does that give when a person allows their child to do things (that the child probably knows the mom thinks is harmful or not good) so that the mother can get something done more easily or more conveniently?
Shallay: i like that - paid like things are withheld only so it can be currency
Sandra Dodd: They don't see to go on to the next step of "And? And then what?"
AlexPolikowsky3: But I have seen parents that limit TV use it to keep kids on one stop so they can do stuff. Kids will glue to the TV because that is the only chance they get
Virginia Warren: That, too. The economics of restriction.
Sandra Dodd: There have been parents, and columnists, and comedians, and a friend of mine, say the only reason to get a phone for a child is so it can be taken away if they don't do what the parent says.
Sandra Dodd: That's awful.
Virginia Warren: People will flat out call you a "piece of s**t" for giving a kid a phone.
Serah: My sister really restricts tv even though her kids love it. What can be done to help the parent see differently?
Celeste: Robin, I left that part out because its not always about good and bad. For instance, I think to myself, "If I let him.. he will breastfeed non-stop." I don't think breastfeeding is bad, its very good. But I'd like to do other things like take a shower It can be about what the parent thinks is good or the right, but it can also just be about wanting different things.
Sandra Dodd: We went a long time without phones. Kirby had a friend who got one for Kirby because he wanted to be able to call him. Kirby's lack of phone was too inconvenient for his gaming buddies.
Laura Z: I wonder if those people withold sex or loving attention or nice dinners or help around the house from their spouses as well.
Sandra Dodd: But when we did finally get them for Marty and Holly, they were like safety nets, and I would never have wanted to take them away. That's how we knew they could get help easily if they needed it.
Jill Parmer: Live your life Serah, and don't try to change your sister's. Change might come for her around t.v. , but until then it might only irritate you.
Sandra Dodd: Virginia, do you think people criticize another parent about getting a phone because they themselves don't want to get their kids phones?
Virginia Warren: They want to not do it, and feel good about not doing it
Virginia Warren: I think.
Serah: thanks, Jill. I'm doing that.
Sandra Dodd: I agree with Jill, Serah. Pray for your sister, maybe. Let her kids watch TV at your house. Look the other way and don't worry about it.
AlexPolikowsky3: Celeste what if he breastfeeds all the time
Virginia Warren: The arguments are really superficial.
Virginia Warren: I think affluent parents really struggle with giving some times.
AlexPolikowsky3: I know a mom that won't let her husband get cable because she thinks it will keep him from being with her and will harm their couple time. Yes, she told me that. SO he CANNOT have cable or satellite.
Sandra Dodd: Alex, that sounds like a recipe for divorce.
Sandra Dodd: Their "couple time" is already compromised by one part of the couple thinking she's the mom.
AlexPolikowsky3: Sandra, she thinks she will avoid divorce.
Sandra Dodd: Right. If she was willing to let him watch all the TV he wants, she could make 50 or 60 years of marriage! But she thinks he's a child, and she's selfish.
Laura Z: Yes Sandra! My niece, who is usually pretty open minded in her thinking, posted a meme the other day - "All you damn kids are spoiled thinking you should have iPhones. When I was your age my whole family shared one phone, and it was attached to the kitchen wall by a cord." I responded how grateful I was that there would be ways for my daughter to communicate with me and others.
Virginia Warren: I think when the parents have a lot of money, and are stingy with the kids, it hurts a lot.
Heather Booth: I don't know. I used to be really restrictive and at night before I went to bed, I rarely felt good about making Austin unhappy. I struggled a lot with anxiety and depression back then. I wonder if they do want to give their kids phones, but fear gets in the way. SO they put up a front of being a hard ass for the sake of their kids protection from whatever they are afraid of.
Serah: Sadly, because she knows they watch tv at my house, they are limited from visiting here too ;-(
Shallay: Serah - I think it depends on your relationship with your sister, if she wants to talk with you about it do, if its a hot button issue don't push that button.
Sandra Dodd: And neither of those is good for a marriage.
AlexPolikowsky3: Laura, my kids all have Iphones?
Virginia Warren: My kids have android phones.
Sandra Dodd: Heather, you might be right. Some parents do want "all the other parents" to be restrictive too, so the parents can say "all the other parents do that, too"
Sandra Dodd: And I'm pretty sure they would shame their kids or tease them if the kids said "all the other kids have phones."
Serah: thx Shallay
Sandra Dodd: In the UK kids have had mobile phones for a long, long time.
Sandra Dodd: American kids, not so long. Still, many don't.
Virginia Warren: It's too easy for my husband and I to imagine how much we would have loved a smartphone when we were kids.
Virginia Warren: We felt mean having them and not giving them to the kids.
AlexPolikowsky3: Their Iphones are being used as IPods because I paid ONE cent for them each! I think a kids having a smart phone is great for safety!
Laura Z: I agree Alex!
Shallay: my kids have better technology than i do, cause I don't use it like they do
Sandra Dodd: But in 2005 american friends of ours living near London got their daughter into a fancy girls' school people had to test in to. At the first parents' night, the mom said to one of the teachers that her daughter (who's Holly's age) said (I wish I could imitated it, but it was a kind of sing-songey, eye-rolling imitation of her daughter, and I've known them both for a long time).... "She says she's the *only girl at her school* who doesn't have a mobile phone."
Sandra Dodd: And Helene, the friend expected the teacher to laugh and shake her head and say that was silly.
Sandra Dodd: But she said "She is. All the other girls have phones."
Virginia Warren: My kids are already excited about google glass.
Shallay: my fav is audio books, and a broken smart phone can do that fine (SMILE)
Robin B.: Celeste, when you say that you hear it as "If I let them do what they want, they won't do what I want" that it would be okay to see it that way? I'm a bit confused.
Shallay: that google glass thing is exciting
Sandra Dodd: ...have phones was the quote, sorry, not "a phone")
AlexPolikowsky3: It is all about control and fear. If I let him he will eat what i think is unhealthy, do what I think is harmful and not do what I think is right !
Shallay: exactly - do what I think
Shallay: control
AlexPolikowsky3: and do people really think that: "If I let him he will only eat candy"" Really? No one can only eat candy!
Sandra Dodd: But Alex, someone can dream of candy, and think of candy, and wish for candy, because it's limited.
Shallay: you know they don't trust themselves either - they also think, "i would only eat candy"
Virginia Warren: I became extremely fixated on sweets as a child. They were strictly limited, and demonized.
Jill Parmer: <<< I think to myself, "If I let him.. he will breastfeed non-stop." I don't think breastfeeding is bad, its very good. But I'd like to do other things like take a shower [wink] It can be about what the parent thinks is good or the right, but it can also just be about wanting different things. >>> But a parent can delay their needs longer than kids and they can come up with solutions that babies can't. And it still does not help to think or say, "ifilet.."
Sandra Dodd: That's true. That DOES happen. People have said "I can't have cookies in the house because I will eat them all," when we recommend that they should have so much that the children can eat until they've had enough.
Robin B.: Jill! That's what I was trying to write.
Sandra Dodd: My favorite story along those lines is Adam Daniel and the sugar cubes. His mom asked Schuyler Waynforth in person once what about sugar.
Virginia Warren: People say things like "...you would only eat candy." or whatever to the kid, and then they repeat it.
Sandra Dodd: Adam would eat sugar from packets in restaurants.
Robin B.: So a child should suffer for the parent's inability to get over it.
AlexPolikowsky3: Yes living in candy land and making the value of candy so high you would do anything for it. Even if it was not safe or made you feel sick'
Virginia Warren: That sugar story helped me a lot.
Sandra Dodd: Schuyler recommended a box of sugar cubes. They lived in England, and Julie was visiting Schuyler. So she bought a box of sugar cubes and gave them to Adam, who ate some, and then less, and then stopped.
Shallay: robin - if I can't overcome it how could you? thinking
Laura Z: I still have tendency to want to hide my "stash". My mom had her bag of candy w weren't supposed to raid, but I would sneak the bottom layer of my dad's chocolates and think o one would notice. I am also the one in the house with very little self control around food.
Robin B.: Yes, something like that Shallay.
AlexPolikowsky3: Sandra they do not see as a choice to eat the cookies! It is more powerful than they are.
Robin B.: But also controlling another person's choices because *they* didn't have a choice.
Sandra Dodd: The story is there: http://sandradodd.com/
Virginia Warren: I have been working hard on food issues for a year. It's better than I hoped.
Shallay: ahh yes, there we have it too
Virginia Warren: I keep finding new issues under the one I was working on.
Robin B.: And don't feel that they can make choices, even now.
Sandra Dodd: I ate half that chocolate cake, but over a few days.
Sandra Dodd: I got tired of it.
Shallay: that they don't trust their choices
Sandra Dodd: Keith ate one piece each night, with ice cream.
Sandra Dodd: I think Holly just had one piece. Marty came and helped it go.
Jill Parmer: When Luke was little , maybe 5 or so, he wanted a bowl of sugar. I have cute little condiment bowls, so I put sugar and a spoon in one. He ate maybe a teaspoon.
Heather Booth: I have a story about "I can't have cookies in the house because I will eat them all," I said something like that on list. It was about Oreos. Someone suggested that I get five packs of Oreos and keep them in the house. If I run out to go get more and that once there was abundance of Oreos in the house I would stop treating them like a scarcity and gorge on them. It totally worked. I bought a bunch and ate a bunch. After a while I forgot we had all these cookies in the house. One day Monty said, "I like that we have all these snacks in the house now." I asked him which ones. He said, "All the cookies and stuff." I chuckled because I had totally forgot about all the cookies.
Jill Parmer: I remember eating sugar as a kid, and it wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be.
AlexPolikowsky3: Celeste what if he wants to breastfeed all day? Use a sling and feed him on the go! If he is older and mobile I doubt he would unless he is sick!
Sandra Dodd: Food was horribly limited when I was a kid. When I was old enough to get out of the house, I spent my allowance on food if there wasn't a new Beatle's album out.
Sandra Dodd: My mom was spending grocery money on beer, in secret, and food wasn't being brought in.
Celeste: Oh, no it doesn't. I agree. Rephrasing it clarifies it for me. I don't like "all" or "never" statements because at some point those become untrue. But thinking about the ifilet statements in terms of I want something and they want something else, then I can see where that ifilet is coming from.
Virginia Warren: Sandra, me too. I spent all my allowance (and money I stole from my parents) on candy, soda, cookies, snack cakes.
Sandra Dodd: And THAT wasn't healthy.
Sandra Dodd: Celeste, that can only make sense in an adversarial relationship.
Heather Booth: My mom was scared I would get fat. Her weight is something she constantly struggles with. I guess she thought that by telling me I'd get fat if I ate all those cookies she was protecting me from going through the same struggle she does. But all it did was make me feel like a shitty person whenever I ate cookies. Like I was bad for doing it.
Robin B.: It's still control. "I want them to want something else than they want, because I want this other thing."
Sandra Dodd: One of the tenets of attachment parenting is that the more closeness a child has, the more easily he will be able to be separate, knowing he can have his mom if he needs to.
AlexPolikowsky3: My upbringing with food would have been perfect if it was not the "Be careful that will make you fat" or things like that. We were never limited or force. But early on the idea that girls needed to diet their whole lives to keep the perfect Girl from Ipanema body]
Robin B.: Yes, Heather.
Sandra Dodd: Same with nursing. If he knows he can have as much as he wants, the desperation dissolves.
AlexPolikowsky3: Cow having baby right now! got to go!
Sandra Dodd: Kids who are afraid it will be taken away will latch on and stay past when they might actually want to, out of fear.
Shallay: enjoy alex
Sandra Dodd: At Alex's house, calves slide out of cows every day or two.
Marta Pires: (SMILE)
Celeste: Yes, it is control. And I'm not saying I support those statements at all. I think about it that way to surface the desire to control in myself.
Robin B.: My mum had what she thought were good intentions (I didn't get that message so much as my sister did). All three of us think we should weigh lots less than we do, but we also forget that part of it is genetic. My dad's family are *big* people.
Robin B.: Three of us = kids
Sandra Dodd: In aikido-like fashion, sometimes if someone has come and said "If I let him, he would....." one of us (Kelly Lovejoy first in line, sometimes) would say "Show us."
Sandra Dodd: Instead of "Oh, I don't think so...." it was "Prove it."
Laura Z: I like that..."prove it"
Sandra Dodd: If I don't make him go to bed he'll stay up for the rest of his life would have been the easiest, but nobody ever claimed that one.
Robin B.: (SMILE)
Robin B.: It's really interesting what people will say without thinking.
Sandra Dodd: So Kelly's usual example was a big bowl of M&M's. She said people should have a big bowl of M&Ms and they would probably only need to refill it once.
Jill Parmer: About baby or anyone's desperation. It seems there is a sense, I don't know the word, about if you're trying to get a baby/kid away from you the more they want to cling, and when a mom surrenders(?) to the needs and what her job is, things calm down and kids feel that sense, and more contentedness.
Robin B.: Or believe.
Sandra Dodd: We have a little glass jar. My family will take three or four months to empty it.
Celeste: I tried that once. Chase didn't want to go to sleep ever. So we stayed up all night a couple nights. Went to sleep when the sun came up. And figured out it wasn't sustainable for us. So we had to try something else.
Sandra Dodd: But if we have company, sometimes it goes in one day, or if there's a group of kids/teens over who aren't used to candy being out.
Sandra Dodd: Celeste, if you hadn't had a bedtime before, there would've been no reason to stay up until daylight. That was a created situation, not a natural one.
Shallay: We have a gallon jar of candy (i have two when with extended guests)
Robin B.: What did you try Celeste?
Sandra Dodd: It wasn't sustainable; you're right.
Sandra Dodd: If you had let it go, it would have been self-correcting.
Sandra Dodd: -=- So we had to try something else.-=-
Sandra Dodd: http://sandradodd.com/
Sandra Dodd: "Had to" makes you powerless.
Sandra Dodd: You chose, right?
Celeste: Yup, I chose to try something else.
Sandra Dodd: When you say "that," what do you mean? "I tried that once. Chase didn't want to go to sleep ever."
Celeste: I tried letting Chase determine when he went to sleep.
Sandra Dodd: This? "Sandra Dodd: If I don't make him go to bed he'll stay up for the rest of his life would have been the easiest, but nobody ever claimed that one."
Celeste: yeah
Sandra Dodd: But he didn't stay up two days straight. He want to sleep when he was tired, right?
Sandra Dodd: But stayed up as late as he could.... why?
Sandra Dodd: Why do you think he stayed up so late?
AlexPolikowsky3: Back! We have tons of candy and chocolate because my husband and kids like it. More than half does not get eaten
Robin B.: Do you have a new calf, Alex?
Robin B.: You could celebrate with tons of candy and chocolate!
Celeste: I wish I knew why he stayed up so late.
AlexPolikowsky3: She was across the road. Head out and calf looking around . We moved her to the pasture and she went up the hill to have her calf in a nice area!
AlexPolikowsky3: Moved her with the calf's head sticking out
Laura Z: Pretty. Amazing what they can do!
AlexPolikowsky3: I did not take! We were chasing her from one pasture to the other!
Robin B.: Celeste, did you have bedtimes before that "experiment"?
Sandra Dodd: I think he stayed up late because you made it valuable by forbidding it.
Sandra Dodd: And he stayed up as late as possible because he didn't trust that you meant it longterm.
Sandra Dodd: And he was right.
Celeste: Not hard core ones. It was more fluid. It was based on when we felt he was tired which was when he was moody and started getting physical
Sandra Dodd: But instead of any sudden changes, it's better to say "Okay, half an hour more is fine.
AlexPolikowsky3: Even just the pressure sometimes will make a child react." or "It's okay if you watch another video." Something calm and not shockingly different.
Sandra Dodd: http://sandradodd.com/
AlexPolikowsky3: How old is he Celeste?
Sandra Dodd: So bed sounds like a punishment, if it comes when you consider him to be "moody" and starting to get physical.
Robin B.: So moodiness and physicality were the indicators of sleepiness?
Virginia Warren: My kids have a friend who goes to a high-pressure private school and does a lot of scheduled activities.
Sandra Dodd: Did it involve lying down with him, or rocking him to sleep? Or putting him in a bed by himself?
Celeste: we cosleep
Celeste: bbiab, gotta help a kiddo
Virginia Warren: every time she comes for a sleepover at our house, she stays up all night
AlexPolikowsky3: I grew up without bed times and I can still go on doing things, reading, watching a movie until very late at night! I like being up at night and only put down my book when it is falling off my hand!
Sandra Dodd: Marty had a friend who wanted to stay up all night when he spent the night, just because he had never been able to. Marty didn't see the appeal.
Shallay: (in ref to being grumpy) "its just me mom" he felt his feelings were his and that did not mean his behavior was due to anything else
Virginia Warren: I like being up at night. I line staying up all night sometimes also
Sandra Dodd: Marty had never stayed up all night either, but not because he couldn't—he just went to sleep when he was tired.
Laura Z: I'm heading out, Caitlyn recently discovered digimon and wants to eBay shop .
Sandra Dodd: Good luck, Laura!
Virginia Warren: same with our friend who stays up
Virginia Warren: I think it is the only time she gets a choice about her sleep
Sandra Dodd: So sometimes maybe parents feel they need to control something because their friends and relatives and other-parent friends want the whole gang of parents to be controlling.
Sandra Dodd: Peer pressure.
AlexPolikowsky3: Yeah Gigi had a friend that came to sleep over and wanted to stay up until 2 AM because she has a bed time of 730PM even in the Summer !
Virginia Warren: it's the reality of a tightly scheduled life
Sandra Dodd: But sometimes they think, seriously, that their rule is what's maintaining health and happiness at their house.
Sandra Dodd: They're taking too much credit.
Sandra Dodd: And doing too much work.
Sandra Dodd: And doing damage to the relationship
Sandra Dodd: when their dire predictions weren't valid.
Robin B.: Sandra, is there a page on dire predictions at your site?
Sandra Dodd: http://sandradodd.com/
Sandra Dodd: That one.
Robin B.: Oh, same one.
Sandra Dodd: FULL of dire predictions!
Jill Parmer: About the kid that got moody and physical before night time. I've seen parents write that sometimes their kids get this surge of energy before sleep, and I wonder if a kid who is not allowed to get that out, sleeps worse, or not as restful?
Shallay: they have different sensory needs
Robin B.: Senna gets a surge of talkativeness, usually. Some of the best conversations happen then. Or the best information.
Robin B.: It was never good to shut that down with an "off to bed."
Shallay: i used to "pack" my son before sleep, without it he would roll and roll
Sandra Dodd: What do you mean by "Pack"? Tuck him in?
Shallay: "pack" push on him firmly, rub him
Shallay: with pressure
Sandra Dodd: Ah. Like massage?
Shallay: something about the pressure did it for him
Virginia Warren: My younger daughter has a pattern of an intense burst of energy, followed by a snack, closely followed by going to sleep hard.
Celeste: Chase was about 2 at the time. He got physical by hitting and throwing things at us. It wasn't a happy lets go run around the house kind of physical (which we do now). And going to sleep was me and daddy climbing into bed and reading books with a book light. Sometimes it was turning the lights down and playing with blocks. Other times it was singing songs or playing with flashlights. It was never him alone in a room.
Sandra Dodd: I think rocking chairs are forgotten technology and that babies are really, truly, supposed to be carried to sleep or rocked to sleep.
Sandra Dodd: We did a lot of carrying, either me or Keith. Kirby liked car rides. Marty liked a hiking backpack for babies that we had.
Shallay: my son actually told me to buy a rocking chair
Shallay: "it will help me feel better"
Sandra Dodd: Maybe when they "get physical" they're instinctively wanting that natural part of primate bedtime.
Sandra Dodd: Even standing in one place and wagging back and forth while talking or humming or singing can be comforting, and rush sleep along.
Sandra Dodd: Did you get one, Shallay?
Marta Pires: I was so pressured to put Constança down, it was amazing! (SMILE) I didn't, though. She really wanted to be carried. I'm glad she let us know that. But people would say "you shouldn't carry her all the time or else..." but then they wouldn't even finish the phrase.
Sandra Dodd: I had a bentwood rocker but it wasn't soft. When Marty was little I got a used upholstered rocker and that was better.
Shallay: the best one ever as far as shape, small with no arms so anyone can fit - already broke it and repaired it 2x
Virginia Warren: Slings for the win!
Sandra Dodd: Got messy and got it reupholstered for baby #3.
Sandra Dodd: Slings are good.
Sandra Dodd: Marta, that's funny. Or else... uh.... just don't.
Sandra Dodd: Because.
Sandra Dodd: Something bad.
Sandra Dodd: For real.
Sandra Dodd: We hear.
Sandra Dodd: So many vague negative messages are repeated without thinking.
Marta Pires: Yes!
AlexPolikowsky3: Or else you will never be able to do anything! Even when they are 18!
Sandra Dodd: From that page: "She isn't interested in learning about anything and would watch movies over and over again if I let her."
Shallay: celeste - so what do you think his physical hitting and throwing was about then, now that you know him more?
Sandra Dodd: People listen to music over and over again. People read books over and over again. People who are athletes play the same game, or run the same track, or ride the same route on a bike over and over again.
AlexPolikowsky3: My mother in law used to tell me I needed to let Daniel sleep in his crib in his room because I would never get any sleep! Are you kidding. All I needed to do was turn and put the boob in his face and he went back to sleep! no gettin up and feeding and coming back to bed!
Celeste: I was amazed at the bad "advice" I got from the pediatrician. She told me that if I let Chase sleep with us that he will never leave the bed. Ha, if I let him...
Sandra Dodd: "If I were to allow it all they would do is play video games, watch cartoons, and play." And they would learn, and be happy. And if the mom would watch them and play with them, she would learn too.
Celeste: She would lecture me every visit, so I started lying about things I knew were not the convention.
Sandra Dodd: Weird advice, Celeste. Odd prediction.
AlexPolikowsky3: Celeste I did not lie. My pediatrician said the same thing. She asked me every visit. "How is he sleeping?" ME: "great"
Marta Pires: I'm listening to Prince singing "A Case of You" for the 15th time today.
AlexPolikowsky3: "If I were to allow it all they would do is play video games, watch cartoons, and play." And they would learn, and be happy. And if the mom would watch them and play with them, she would learn too."
Shallay: I didn't even take my kid into the dr until he was 2 just to avoid all the 'conversations' he was small
Sandra Dodd: Learning that it's the kind of song you can listen to 100 times and still be.... moved.
Shallay: cause we repeat things that mean something to us
Sandra Dodd: I've played rummy LOTS, and with the same people sometimes. I've played Five Crowns hundreds of times, and it's not that I'm learning new ways, but it's comforting and interesting.
Sandra Dodd: Because they're paper cards, even grandmothers would smile and say "nice." But if it were a video game, some of those same people would turn harsh about it.
Sandra Dodd: Prejudice against games.
Celeste: Shallay, I think he was having issues sleeping at night. Pain from something that we didn't realize at the time. His hitting was frustration that the message wasn't getting through to us. But he had no way to tell us.
Jill Parmer: I think a parent could learn a lot about a kid who watches a movie over and over. I always found it fascinating to see what a kid was thinking about.
Virginia Warren: How do you move forward when a parent is harshly judging a child for liking the same things that the parent likes? Like a parent who likes to be at home and play video games?
Sandra Dodd: Few people complain about paper (cards, puzzles, reading) but here's one, kind of. "If my boys were allowed to self-direct, they'd spend all day reading Hardy Boy books, blowing up the house with science experiments, and not much else."
Sandra Dodd: It's called "projection," Virginia.
Sandra Dodd: Not sure I would point that out, though.
Sandra Dodd: Don't think of it as "move forward," though.
Robin B.: Bye all. Out for a calming drive with my 18 year old.
Sandra Dodd: Drive her to sleep
andra Dodd: Have you already sent links to TED talks on gaming, or to things here? http://sandradodd.com/
AlexPolikowsky3: Was he ever criticized for gaming? Told it was a waste of time or something?
Virginia Warren: Oh yes, very much. When he was a child, he once rode his bike and spent his own money to buy a game for his computer, and his parents forced him to return it.
Jill Parmer: I think you need to be sweeter to him about his gaming.
Jill Parmer: And sweeter to him in general.
AlexPolikowsky3: Maybe he needs to heal from that. Yes to what Jill said!!!!!
. . . .
Sandra Dodd: Something might help here, Virginia: http://sandradodd.
. . . .
Sandra Dodd: http://sandradodd.com/
Sandra Dodd: If you will be nicer to him, he will be nicer to others.
Sandra Dodd: The advice above is golden.
Sandra Dodd: To get out of the chat suavely, type a slash and then bye, on a line without anything else. /bye but on a line by itself
