Things that make you know you're doing something right.
 

On Monday we took our kids to a theme park called 'Dreamworld' with some family that was visiting from out of town. Dreamworld also happens to be the home of the tv reality show 'Big Brother' here in Australia and so when you go to Dreamworld, you can go for a tour through the Big Brother house.

So it was almost the end of the day and Dazza pipes up and says, "I want to go have a look at the BB house". (He happens to be a fan of the show unfortunately and I can't understand how someone of his intellect can be, but he is). Anyway, it's a pretty long walk down there, and I definitely didn't feel like it and no one else wanted to go either. I was just starting to say I didn't feel like the walk when my son Aden asked to talk to me in private. He said to me, "Mum, I think you should go with Dazza if he wants you to. After all, he's been lining up for us all day and this is the one thing he's asked to do"

Of course Aden was right, and I was going to go if I had to anyway, but it was very touching to know that my son could put himself in someone else's shoes that way. It's not the first time, but I just thought a thread for people to brag about their kids nice stuff might be cool.

So what have your kids said or done lately that makes you feel proud?

I was working on a painting today. My son walked by and said "It looks really awesome, Mom."

Not a big deal. Just something that made my day.

No kids so no input.
Just to say you & Case are very much doing it right, they are a credit to you.

Not that I would have doubted it.

I would think that one of the best compliments you could get, as a parent, is someone saying "now that's a nice kid!"

I'm guessing Ali and Case hear that from time to time. :)

my kid knocks people down and breaks other kids' noses. :right: probably not what you had in mind.;)

I think knowing when that sort of thing is appropriate puts LL in the category of "things that tell you you're doing something right." That story about LL standing up to the bully should be in this thread.

I do get compliments like that fairly often. I usually follow it up with something like, "Thanks for that. We're very proud of him, but like all other kids, he does have his moments." Which is usually followed up by knowing smiles from all parents within earshot.

And it's true. I could just as easily start a thread titled something like, "How you know your child really is the Devil's Spawn"

"Wow, what a right hook on that kid! He's dynamite."

Feel better, not every dad can raise a vigilante with a soft spot for special ed kids.:blush:

Full disclosure

I don't have kids, but, for the brief time he was in my life, Gustav the stick bug sure made me proud.

:lol:

HLJ, what happened to Gustav? :(

sshhhh, it's 9/11, you insensitive bitch

oh crap.

I'm so sorry HLJ. I'm building a memorial.

Gustav spread his wings and since he doesn't have any wings he plummeted.

Well darn that's good. Puts my memorial to shame. HLJ, I know this stickbug looks nothing like Gustav...eyes are the wrong color, lips are all wrong...but it's all I could find.

Wow! I don't know what to say. Gustav would be so happy.

Let me see if he's still on the porch where I left him.

Whut? That f*ckers not dead yet?

nom nom nom stickbug soup

We use to get that all the time, which I usually followed with, "Yea but you don't have to live with them." They always seemed to act better when away than when at home. I guess that is normal.

I FEEL HAPPY! I THINK I'LL GO FOR A WALK...

Quit it foot3...that's twice today I've almost spit coffee all over my keyboard, 'cause of you and your tomfoolery!

Back to the subject...thanks Ali for starting this, now I have a thread to post about my latest grin. :D

I was driving my 12 year old daughter home from a birthday party tonight. She told me this - the quote isn't exact, but close as I can remember:

"y'know what, mom? I'm happy. I'm really happy with my life. There isn't anything I need, no clothes, no toys, I have so much I don't even want anything else. I feel sorry for all those kids that aren't happy without Abercrombie and fancy cell phones, because they're not really happy. I feel good inside, I'm healthy, I'm pretty, I'm smart, I have lots of friends and I never have a bad day. All I really care about doing right now is sleeping, eating, doing cheer and getting good grades. And making other people happy, too. I think I'll give some of my stuff away to kids who need it."

Yeah, I know your first reaction would be to say...um...what is this REALLY about? But I heard her say something similar a few days ago, about being happy with her life, and I think she really means it.

Pretty spectacular for a 12 year old girl, I think. :D

I hope it lasts!

I also wish my son would catch on.

Two more of your keyboards and we'll be even.

Count your blessings, Juniper. My 12 year old daughter mixes days like that with door-slamming, eye rolling days, but thankfully more good than bad.(Except for the fact that she is ashamed of her 2 yr old, hand me down cell phone, her first real brush with gadget envy :rolleyes:)

Oh, she does that too. I've noticed fewer of those days lately, though. I'm trying to keep track of the calendar. :)

I know you don't need parenting advice, but just be sure to treat each day's mood as it comes. I went through the usual teen extreme highs and lows and Mum used each mood to beat me about the head with. So that when I thought the world was a wonderful place and said so she'd say, "This won't last, you'll be moaning again soon, stop being so over-dramatic" etc. And when it was a grey day in my head and the world was unbearably cruel she would say with grimly satisfied sarcasm, "Oh I thought everything was perfect, I thought you were soooooo happy, not hearing that today are we?"

In hindsight I know she was mostly trying to even me out with a little bit of irritation thrown in the mix. But at the time it really hurt me and we weren't close until I moved out. Even now I know I still hold something of myself back from her, because I'm still scared of her rejection.

Just saying.

And Binky & Juniper I'm glad your daughters appreciates what they have. Juniper - follow up on her giving stuff away. Hell, make it a family clear-out. I'm a big believer in charity giving, donating and volunteering and it warms my heart when kids show an interest in it too.

Good point. Usually the closest I get to doing that is to say, "I'm glad you feel that way, let's hope it lasts."

Junie, you reminded me of this: I saw the cutest thing on Funniest Home Videos once. A mom had made a playhouse for her little girl for a Christmas present. She videotaped the big unveiling, it was really neat, with a bunk up top and everything. The little girl was crying from happiness and asked if she could sleep in there that night (must have been a warm clime.) Mom said "but tomorrow is Christmas, Santa is coming." The little girl cried "I don't want Santa to come, this is all I'll ever want."

Brought tears to my eyes!

Yesterday I got my son Mav a new bike. He was very excited about it and grateful and all the rest, and we were talking about what he's going to do with it as you do. After a while he went quiet and was looking quite thoughtful then he said, "I'll have to get as much riding in over the christmas holidays as I can because when the baby comes next year I wont have as much time to play because I'll be helping you Mum."

The tooth fairy visited our house for the first time last night. We put her tooth in an envelope addressed to "The Tooth Fairy" then under her pillow. This morning, while I was in the shower, my daughter came barreling in so excited to show me her $5 bill. A few moments later she came back in and said "Hey mom, tonight can we put a note in the envelope telling the tooth fairy I really appreciated the money?" It was really nice to hear her say that on her own.

P.S. What do you DO with your kids old teeth? I hid it in the back of my jewelry box for now. . .I need to find the hair I saved from her first haircut, and I suppose I'll put it with that.

I've got each kid's teeth stashed in film canisters, in my dresser drawer. Easy to tell which kid's is which, because my son's got two that were pulled out by the roots. :p

They're old enough now to know better...so they've seen their "collections."

I don't have kids, but if I did I'd have their teeth on a chain that I would wear around my neck.

$5 a tooth? Sheesh, inflation.

Yeah, inflation. Or spoiled kids, take your pick ;)

(Around our house, the going rate is $1.)

In any case, I've decided Minifob's getting a discounted rate for the chipped teeth.

I think we gave a dollar coin for the first tooth and a quarter for each subsequent one.

I hope I'm right because my son is about to start losing them and you know he knows what my daughter got.

We have the meanest tooth fairy round here -she just leaves a quarter. but she polishes it up so it gleams, even when she's visiting us at zippyt's house (although she got lost on that one and was a tad late... :o

By all means keep your kids' teeth.

You'll be able to use them later for magic spells and stuff, when they run away from home and you need to use clairvoyance to find them, and mind-control spells to draw them back.

But make sure you explain to the kids that the money is only for teeth that fall out naturally. Every now and then there is a story in the media about some young kid who figures that at $5 per tooth, he's got a new skateboard right there in his mouth, and all he needs is twenty minutes alone with some pliers...

...but it's double for dentist extractions (as long as they're not due to decay)

and nothing for adult teeth.

by the time they've worked out that losing teeth is a viable financial opportunity, they should be losing most of their milk teeth anyway

Yeah, you'd think so, and I'd have thought the pain would stop them, but I have seen a TV interview with a boy who had pulled out all four top incisors.

Our kids got $1 for front teeth and now they're getting $2 for molars and other teeth we consider to be particularly large...like eye teeth.

my kids won't pull them out. even when they're hanging by a thread. especially Thor, who swallowed his first one thi summer, and nearly his second too. Hebe has a molar being pushed out by the new one -it's attached at one side only and she will not pull the damn thing out. I'm sure it's a decay hazard -they're stacked up in her gob. still, she's off to the ortho in a couple of weeks, I'll have him persuade her to yank it out if it's still there.

I had to make a rule that if the tooth "falls out" after bedtime, then the tooth fairy doesn't come till the next night. Prior to that my daughter would stay up all damn night working them out. She pulled out her front tooth and I swear it wasn't even loose.... no sign of the adult tooth for like 6 months... she's nuts....

Ours are pretty resigned to the tooth fairy being a slacker. I reckon that's a sign we're doing the right thing -real world preparation :lol:

I suppose being an only child, it's likely we do $poil her just a tad. :o However, she was explained that the first tooth is special and *we* only got quarters or the occasional dollar for ours, so that's what she should expect for the rest of them.

When I was going through her backpack last night, sure enough, there was a big note that said "Dear Tooth Fairy Thank You". She said her teacher helped her write it. We put it under her pillow last night, and she got her reply this morning.

LR - it's not the actual amount that counts, it's how much they value it. And your daughter obviously really appreciated it. Good work I say.

Beautifully stated, SG.

Just fielded a call from SonofV.

He was calling from the library, across town over by the mall. He called to inform me that the anime club meeting was not until next month. Oh well.

"So, I'd like to hang out at Zumiez, ok?"

"I'd prefer if you hung out at the library, maybe check out a new book and we'll come pick you up after work."

"Ok."

Awesome!

First of all, he gets it. Plans changed, and he called to keep us informed. BIG, big points for that. I understand the plan we agreed to when we parted company this morning might not survive intact until we meet again tonight. So instead of just going on his merry way, without communicating to us, he called. Perfect. He knew the changes, not me. And he knew enough to call and let us know.

Frankly, we'll be going to Zumiez after work (what a coincidence!).

With this kind of thinking about the bigger picture, and his responsibilities, and his actual acting on that knowledge, I can see our trust in him was not misplaced.

I'm very very proud of him.

Good job SonofV :thumb:

Sharp lad... how old is he?

Yup, well brought up lad, well done.

when i bashed out the fronts of these two teeth that're still leaving a gaping hole in my lovely lovely smile
after we found the pieces of them
i informed my mother

these are going under my pillow tonight.

...she was not amused.
or inclined to give me any cash, for that matter...

Thank you all, but hold on, there's more.

He called a couple more times, impatiently waiting for us as we made our way through the regular commuting traffic. We finally picked him up at the library, and he hopped in the car. As we circled the parking lot, lining up to drive to the mall, across the street, I launched into basically the same speech in the post above, what a good kid, thanks, glad you get it, I want to reward you for doing the right thing, etc, etc. That took us across the street into the parking lot. We were discussing was it going to be Zumiez (skateboarder shop) or Game Stop (video game shop).

As I continued to talk and drive toward the entrance closest to Game Stop, he said "I don't think I deserve to go."

"Oh really? Why?"

"Because I already went to the mall."

"Even though we talked about staying at the library?"

"Yeah."

"Ok." as we drove past the mall entrance.

That night we told him we were disappointed that he didn't keep his word, that we want to trust him, but he has to earn that trust. We also praised him for telling the truth, when he could have remained quiet, despite the fact that we could never have known.

He wasn't able to resist the temptation to cruise the mall. That's regrettable, but understandable. He disobeyed, in a small but explicit way. This is an area that he (we) need to work on. That didn't come out right. This is an example of the stage of his development and maturity. It's normal. This is him growing.

And taken as a whole, initiating the communication, cooperating with us, failing to hold up his part of the cooperation, telling us the uncomfortable truth about the situation, and doing so with plain talk is still very encouraging. I'm still as proud of him as ever, but I have made a small recalibration of my understanding of him and how I parent him. It's one of many I've made and one of many to come.

This is one of the difficult parts of being a parent. You can't reward them, because they've misbehaved. But on the other hand you have to be really proud because he told the truth.

You're exactly right, dar, on all counts. And we told him just that. I don't know of any other way to communicate these two important facts, especially since my response to each one is sharply different.

You misbehaved, so no reward.

You told the truth, so no trouble.

It was a wash in terms of reward/punishment, but it was win/win/win in terms of communication. I think of it as a sort of dress rehearsal for some other independent activity where the stakes are higher. Just as this is the real big deal for which he "rehearsed" back in elementary school, for example, when he asked if he could go to the playground on his own.

u r funny...

But I am ready to have that conversation too. That is, I'm ready to have the conversation with ZenGum about a hypothetical conversation with our son about "...especially pimps...". Hehehe... good one.

A couple things first. Being a husband and father is the most important work I have in my life. I take that work very seriously. It is work, but it's work I love, and I'm happy to talk about (most of) it.

I've talked about this before. As a parent, my core responsibility to my child is to raise him to be a competent adult (there's a ton packed into that little phrase--granted). The basic method is to help him learn about the world. Those lessons change as he grows. And the way the lessons are learned changes too.

I *know* you're making with the funny here, and you have considerable talent in that regard, but someday I might be faced with a challenge to my parenting skills of such enormity. I'm not saying I'm ready today for such a challenge, but I'm planting seeds every day so that I don't have to face that one, or that he knows how to avoid that one.

For sure, whatever path he takes, *some* circumstance at any given time will be the most critical, and it might be pretty hairy indeed. When that happens, I hope little successes (and the memories of the failures and lessons learned from them) like this will carry the day. Ultimately, it will be his life, successes and failures alike. Who knows, maybe next time he'll remember my words of warning before he breaks out the crack pipe. One can only hope.

I'm always impressed when parents deal with their children in a calm manner, and yet still show them that their choice was wrong/ dangerous/ hurtful.

I grew up too scared to tell my Mum many things because of her immediate angry reaction. It meant I became a model citizen (give or take some recreational drugs) but only through fear, at least until I became socially aware as an adult.

Allowing your child to tell you the truth without condoning their actions has to be a very positive way to bolster their confidence.

I still say your boy is being brought up very well, with perhaps a slightly different emphasis. He's a boy and they all have the devil in them :) It's how you deal with it that's important.

Thank you Sundae Girl. We're doing our best, but thankfully we have a lot to work with.
Keeping that channel open requires continual dredging.