Motherhood Reflections Archives - Page 2 of 5

Taking Time to Play- The Educator’s Spin On It

November 6, 2012 By Deirdre

We are excited for the opportunity to share our Time to Play with you as a guest post on JDaniel4’s Mom. We both share a love of books and how to incorporate them into our children’s lives through play.

Balancing life with a 2, 6 and 19 year old can take to prethinking to make sure everyone has their playful moments with Mom. Since we share share a weekly ideas of after school activities on The Educators’ Spin On In It. I want to share with you how important it is to take the opportunity for some afternoon play with your child after school. Luckily my two year old has been napping as we come home from school so, we get a chance to have some one on one time together and then the girls love playing once homework is done. Children don’t get anytime at school to just be kids and playtime is such an important role in childhood.

The Educator’s Spin on It

Now here’s comes the fun! Did you see JDaniel4’s recent Own Post? We loved it especially since it’s Owl Week at The Educators’ Spin On It! I’m excited to share with you our playful afternoon moment we had! We’ve been spending more time walking home from school together. We’ve even made some fun discoveries of plant life and animal life! We brought home tons of leaves from our walk one day and decided we were going to do something with them together. We sat and looked at the leave together and sorted the leaves. Something I’ve observed about my daughter is that she likes to categorize things during playtime. Even as a toddler she would find pairs of things and line them up. It doesn’t surprise me now that she’s in love with math. I’m so glad that I’ve observed that about her play over the years.

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While playing with the leaves she had a moment where we remembered a special book,Look What I Did with a Leaf! by Morteza E. Sohi that creates pictures from Leaves.

Look What I Did with a Leaf! (Naturecraft)

She ran inside to grab the book and then she came up with the idea of creating an owl from the recycled cereal box. So we gathered all our supplies and got to work. She glued on the feathers, beak, nose and wings. Once the owl was dry it was showtime!

At the very end of the day she used the owls she made to put on an Owl Puppet show to practice her lines for the Owl Play that we were practicing for. Sorry I was part of the show so now pictures from this part but it was such fun to talk in character with her and just see into her imagination. Plus what a fun way to play with words to get ready for her performance!

I was so proud of my little owl! We hope you’ll stop by for more Owl Inspired Fun at The Educators’ Spin On It!

Kim is the co-author of The Educators’ Spin On It. As an early childhood teacher and a mom of three, she’s learned many tips and tricks of parenting and teaching along the way in the past 20 years. She shares her “Educator’s Spin” on parenting issues and how make learning playful and playtime meaningful. You can also find The Educators’ Spin On It on Facebookand Pinterest.

Carving Pumpkins From the Pumpkin’s Point of View

November 1, 2012 By Deirdre

My life started in patch just as it did for many of my pumpkin relatives. I heard the farmer and his farm hands talk one day about how one day many of us would be taken to large brightly lit stores where people would look us displayed on shelves and decide if we were right for them. When the right person came along, we would be taken to their homes for a time of carving pumpkins.

I waited and grew and waited and grew. Finally one day I was harvested from the patch and placed into a really large cardboard box. Many of my relatives were placed in the same box. Once the box was filled to the brim, we could feel ourselves being lifted by a machine someone outside the box called a forklift. The forklift carried us over to what another person outside the box called a truck.

I think they were lots of boxes of us on the truck. I could hear the almost silent cries of pumpkins on the bottom of the boxes. They were feeling the heavy weight of the pumpkins that were in the middle and top sections of the box.

I was blessed to be near the top of my box. I couldn’t tell where we were going as we traveled, but I knew we would eventually end up in a store glowing with light.

Finally my box was taken off the truck and moved into a store. Aldi is what I heard the people in the store call the place. Apparently Aldi isn’t a place with shelves for foods to be displayed, because I remained in the box as did everyone else I had traveled with in the box. Not a single pumpkin was removed from the box for awhile.

After a couple of hours, pumpkins started to be lifted out of the box. I could look up and see the bright lights I had heard about back on the farm.

Not every pumpkin stayed out of the box. Some were lifted up and placed back in the box. Some were shifted so other pumpkins beneath them could be selected.It seemed to take a couple of days for my people to come into the store and select me. Thankfully they selected my cousin too. We both ended up in this metal box with bars and wheels that carried us around the store. Soon there were other foods in boxes, bags, and cartons that surrounded us. I didn’t recognize any of them but I bet they were happy to be going home too.After waiting in line behind other foods in their moving metal boxes, I was placed on a black moving strip with the other food in the cart. It was a short trip down the black metal stip and then I was back to the moving metal box. There must have been a reason for the moving trip, but I didn’t really understand why I had gone on it.The moving metal box was then wheeled outside. It was great to see the sun again. My glimpse of the sun was a brief one. I was then picked up and placed in dark place at the back of my people’s car. It was a little scary there. I prayed that I would be back in the sun soon.My prayer was answered a lot sooner that I thought it would be. The lid above my head was opened and I was carried to the front to the front of my people’s house and placed on a step. The small person in my people’s family complained that I should go in the house and not put on a step, but the big person said it wasn’t time for carving pumpkins yet.I sat on the step soaking in the sun for many days. Other pumpkins on the street had been transformed into jack o’ lanterns, but I remained as I had always been. I started to wonder if I would be changed. Maybe the big person and convinced the little person I need to stay the way I had been born. I hope that won’t happen. I longed to have decorations carved into me and display a bright light from inside my shell.The little person and his friend the little person from the house next store talked of Halloween often as they rode back and forth on the sidewalk just below my step. They seemed to be counting the days until its arrival just as I was.Finally the big person came and carried me in the house. Whew! I was relieved. The little person looked relieved too. He said something about there only be one day left until Halloween and that he really wanted to see what I would look like carved.I was taken to a place they called the kitchen and placed on a table. Beside me knives, carving tools, and spoons were all lined up. A sheet of newspaper was placed beneath me to cover the table.Before the pumpkin carving could be done, I had to have a lid placed in the top of me and my gooey insides had to be scraped out. My seeds were removed from the goo and placed in a bowl beside me. The orange goo was placed on the newspaper not to far from me.As I sat there being cleaned out, I tried to guess what I would be transformed into. Would I have design like R2-D2 placed into my thick orange skin? Would I have moon or stars on my belly? There seemed to be a lot discussion going on between the big person and small person. The little person had big plans for me and the big person was trying to get them to compromise. The big person wanted a simpler plan . After much discussion, they can up a design the big person was able to do.Finally knife was picked up and the big person started in on the plans that had been decided on. I waited patiently as they carved to triangles for my eyes. Soon I had a toothy smile too. The little person commented that I looked great, but five teeth would have been better than four. The big person said they had tried to do five, but one tooth had broken when the pushed my mouth out of my skin. I was thrilled with how I looked. I was happy to be a jack o’ lantern and my happy face would share that with everyone that would walk by me once I was back outside.
There was a long time between leaving the field and becoming a jack o’ lantern, but the wait had been worth it.

Here are some more pumpkin carving posts:

Pumpkin Counting Book

35 Pumpkin Activities and CraftsPumpkin Faces Created and Carved

Two Trips to the Emergency Room

October 25, 2012 By Deirdre

I have had to make trips to emergency rooms around Halloween. Last year JDaniel fell and hit his head on the edge of coffee table at a friend’s house. I didn’t write about it here it was too fresh at the time and I didn’t feel right about sharing how my son had a Frankenstein scar. There was a part of me that wondered if I could do anything to have prevented it. I did share in on Mom of a Monster and Twins a few weeks after the event.. It some how felt better to share it there.In the initial moments and the hours that followed I felt so out of control. The friend had a neighbor that rushed us to the emergency room. Thankfully she was a nurse and wasn’t as freaked out about the gash just above JDaniel’s eye that seemed so deep that it looked like it stopped just above his brain.All I could do was hold him and tell him that I loved him while others took care of them.Why am I mentioning it now when I have just said I didn’t share it on my blog before? Last week I found myself in the emergency room again. This time is due to my mom calling to say she was having chest pains. JDaniel and I picked her up at her house and took her to the closest outpatient center and they sent us to the hospital.I have been worried all month that JDaniel was going to end up in the emergency room again. I don’t know why. I don’t tend to be worried about history repeating itself. Usually I just lift concerns in prayer and I am able to trust that God will take care of them. Yet I couldn’t shake this. Maybe it is due to the fact that I have worried I could have prevented the spill he took last year. I couldn’t have but, as many moms do I have thought of a zillions ways I could have if I had known it was going to happen.I haven’t been letting JDaniel out of my sight this month. When he plays in the yard with the little boys next door, I move a chair around so I can sit and see him at all times.When my mom called and said she didn’t want to go to the emergency room, but the nurse in her retirement community said she should we jumped in the car. Part of me thought it wasn’t serious just the tight chest due to an allergy or anxiousness (She has been worried about a few things lately.), but another part of me knew we had to take this seriously. On our way to pick her up JDaniel asked if she was going to die. His GranDan died of heart failure two years ago. I reassured him that everything was going to be okay. Just as I had the year before when he lay in my arms on the way to the hospital. I had to believe it would be okay.My mom was standing outside upbeat and chipper when we got to her house. I sighed a deep sigh of relief. She walked right over to the car and hopped in. Her breath was slightly labored, but seemed okay. Okay enough to tell me I wasn’t taking the route she would to the outpatient center. Okay enough to ask Jdaniel if he was relieved to not have to go to swimming lesson. Okay enough to tell me all about her day.No sooner did we get there then we were off again heading to the hospital. The outpatient center felt he heartbeat was elevated and they couldn’t do the test needed to see what was causing the problem. We tried to keep the conversation light and chatting, but I was back to worrying. I was worried I had downplayed something serious and now it was serious. She was ushered in immediately to the emergency room area and JDaniel and I sat watching cartoons. He was thrilled to be at the emergency room with a vending machine snack and cable television.It took awhile to find out anything. My husband came to get JDaniel and I waited with my mom for news. When we finally got to see the doctor, he calmly told her that she needed to go home and get good night’s rest. Thankfully her heart rate had slowed down and there was nothing to worry about.I am still keeping a close eye on JDaniel, but I am not so worried. about he or my mom. We have survived two emergency room trips and things have turned out well . I have already started praying that I won’t be worried about next year.

A Very Long Search for a Pumpkin in a Pumpkin Patch

October 17, 2012 By Deirdre

After the children in JDaniel’s preschool class had the parts of a pumpkin and the rules for holding a pumpkin explained to them, the headed into the pumpkin patch to choose a pumpkin to take home.

The lady giving us the farm tour said to search for just the right pumpkin for you. When you found it, you were to stand by it with your hand up and someone would come across the pumpkin patch and cut it off the vine for you.

Searching the Pumpkin Patch

Some of the children barely made it into the field when they found the pumpkin they wanted. The lady came over and snipped the vine and they hustled out of the field to wait for the others to pick theirs.If they had known how long that wait would be, they might have might have stayed in the field a little longer. The early pumpkin pickers ended up having to wait quite awhile for the others to find theirs. Soon few more children found their pumpkins and some kept looking and looking. Just an average pumpkin wasn’t going go home with them.

More and more of the class picked their pumpkins, raised their hand, had their pumpkin’s stem cut, and headed out of the field. Still there was one little boy who had to keep looking.

Despite my questioning whether it was possible to have passed the ideal pumpkin, he keep looking and looking.

“Are you looking for a small pumpkin or a large one?” I asked. He simply shrugged his shoulders and kept looking.

There was so much thought going into a decision that seemed to take others no time to make. He wanted it to be just right. I started to wonder if he would ever find one. We had driven ourselves to the farm. We could stay just a little bit longer than the class if we needed to.Finally after everyone in his class had found their pumpkin his hand shot into the air. The guide quickly came over to cut the stem of this much searched for pumpkin. JDaniel was thrilled with it. Finding just what he had wanted to really made his day.

What did the perfect pumpkin look like? It is orange with green spots on it. It is on the large size of small pumpkins and it is really heavy. It was too heavy for a now tired from searching little boy to carry any further than the hay wagon we had to taken to the field on.

Just as it is with other things we search for life. Finding just the right thing can take awhile. When you find it, it can make your whole day!This post is part of a blogging link up called Outside Play: Pumpkins and Leaves. If you have a post on this theme I would love for you to link it up below.This link up is being co-hosted by Enchanted Homeschooling Mom, One Stop Mom Talk, Home Learning Journey, Train Up a Child, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, The Usual Mayhem, Here Come the Girls.

Spending Time at the Beach

September 26, 2012 By Deirdre

Last week we headed to my family’s favorite place to vacation in Myrtle Beach. My guys love the Dune Village Resort. It is right on the beach and has two indoor water park areas. JDaniel started counting down to the day we would leave for the beach a week earlier. Every morning started with a call down the stairs asking if it was time to pack his suitcase and go.

He was so excited when I finally set out his suitcase and he could throw in his bathing suit and sun shirt. As you can tell from the picture above, we packed a few more things including his bug repellent hat. We didn’t have water shoes for JDaniel so, we picked some up at the store at the beach.

Our first day of the beach was sunny and warm. We had to apply sunblock multiple times on Monday. All that was on the agenda was collecting shells, digging in the sand and playing in the water. We spent most of the day on the beach. Lunch in our room was really our only foray into the hotel. I really don’t like sand in our food.

The water was placid and warm. It really was a perfect day.

After a perfect day, we had a not so great day. We knew storms were coming, but had no idea that the lifeguard would post signs for no swimming and that we would get to see palmetto trees sway wildly in the wind.

JDaniel wanted to see what it was like on the beach after breakfast. He literally had to hold the hood of his windbreaker on to keep it in place.

Tuesday turned out to be a great day to be in the water park area and to visit the aquarium. The morning was spent in the waterpark area until thunder and a loud crack sent all the parents scrambling for their children and the exit into the hotel. The sides of the water park area are open to the elements and the crack we heard was really loud.

The aquarium was fully enclosed and rain free. We wove around each of the exhibit areas a few times to fully talk in all that was there. JDaniel loved watching the sharks swim over our heads as we walked through a tunnel that was part of an exhibit.

The rest of the time at the beach was wonderful. The temperature was a little cooler, but the water stayed warm enough to play in and the waves returned to being much smaller than we had seen on Tuesday.

We started Tuesday morning with a long walk on the beach. My guys started out walking together ( I was walking behind to take pictures), but after a short time JDaniel walked ahead and seemed to being having a wonderful time. I am not sure if he was singing to himself and moving his arms to the music or what. I love that I could capture the dramatic nature of whatever it was that had him so animated.

Following the storm we expected to find lots of shells on the beach. What we did find were mostly shell fragments. I am so glad we were able to collect some beautiful whole shells on Monday.

JDaniel really doesn’t care if a shell is whole or not. He really loves the different colors and textures they have. He would run ahead and shout, “This is a glorious one!” When I raced to see what it looked like it would be a few ridges of a broken orange shell with rough edges.

I commented to my husband that it is so great that JDaniel can find beauty in small imperfect and broken treasures. As adults we tend to look for the beautiful whole shell that has made it through the rough ways to call beautiful. JDaniel changed the way we looked at and for shells for the rest of the walk.

Other than looking for shells, Wednesday was a time to get as sandy as possible. Yes, when you are four that can be one of your goals for the day.

After getting rid of all the sand and putting on a sand free suit, we worked on our big project for the beach. We built our very own tide pool. I will share with you on Friday the steps we took to build one.It was great fun to all work together to dig and dig and dig.

We came home on the next day and so we didn’t have a full day at the beach Thursday. In fact JDaniel didn’t even want to go onto the beach. We did want to play miniature golf at a tiny course behind the hotel and play hide and seek.

What a joy it was to getaway from our everyday life and just be together as a family! JDaniel is already asking to count down the days until we go back next year.

This post is linked to Alphabe Thursday.

Back to School Traditions- His Return to School

August 29, 2012 By Deirdre

This year he was a little nervous about going in and he asked if he could wait until next time to go all the way in. He just couldn’t help it walking away from me though. His new classroom is decorated in a puppy dog theme and he just had to head in and look them all over again.

Back to School Traditions- His Return to School

We went to the Back to School Open House and met his wonderful teachers last Friday. They are going to keep him hopping. Both are no nonsense very loving ladies who are super organized. They even gave us homework to do over the weekend. I had paperwork to fill out on his interests and fears. JDaniel had to decorate a poster board dog with his favorite things. JDaniel is one of three Daniel’s in his class. In school he is known as Daniel so, he has been a little worried that he won’t know which Daniel the teachers are talking too. When we came home from the open house, I had a special lunch for him featuring his preschool’s mascot. He announced that it was very cute, but that it shouldn’t have prunes on it. “Prunes don’t do good things to me,” he said. He is very happy about being in school so he can see new friend and make new ones. We had trouble keeping up with some of his old friends over the summer. Everyone’s summer was filled with trip, camps, and swimming lessons.

I am really excited for him. He has been so excited about learning sight words this summer and starting to write. Jdaniel is going to really bloom this year in school. I can just feel his learning roots growing.While I am excited about the time he is going to be at school learning, playing and making new friends, I wasn’t ready to send to school for five days. Many of his friends from last year are in five day class. JDaniel will just be going for three. I am so glad my husband and both agreed this was best for all of us.I so love being with him and know I will be enjoying this final year with him. It has felt like we have flown through this chapter of our lives together. The Being Home chapter has only a few more pages left in it. Those pages will be truly cherished and some may be tear stained.Next year he will go to school for five days and hopefully I will be teaching school five days. I will be using some of the time he is school this year to update my resume and take some teaching courses.His teachers asked what I am hoping for this year. Well, here is my answer. I am looking into this new school year with great expectations of his learning new things, growing new friendships, and making memories to carry with him.More Back to School Tradition Posts:Back to School Traditions Link Up

Back to School Traditions Link Up 2013

Help! This Duck Has Low Self Esteem!

July 11, 2012 By Deirdre

JDaniel doesn’t have trouble with low self-esteem at this point in life. He is confident about what he knows, how he looks, and who he is. I am working hard to help him have a good and positive self esteem. His self image shouldn’t be filled with arrogance or cockiness but I would like for him to like who he is.

We try to control what he sees and reads. I strongly believe that children can take in ideas from everything they are exposed to and those ideas can lead them to fears, misbelieves and confusing concepts. (JDaniel is only four. I know I won’t be able to always do this.)

Guess what I ended up exposing him to? A horrible cartoon with a terrible message. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until it was too late to stop it. I guess I could have stopped it and maybe should have stopped it, but I let him watch it and talked to him about it as he did.

Here is what happened:

JDaniel and I were at my mom’s house last Friday afternoon. My mom has her TV. on a lot and it was on when we were there. JDaniel noticed the TV wasn’t turned to a kid’s network and he asked her to change the station.

She changed it to a cartoon network and we proceeded to watch a Tom and Jerry cartoon called Downhearted Duckling. Jdaniel has watched Tom and Jerry cartoon with my husband and it hasn’t ever been a problem so, I said it would be alright.

Downhearted Duckling is about a duckling that reads the story the Ugly Duckling and decides he is too ugly to live. He tells Jerry that he is too ugly to live and he won’t believe him. Jerry tries to clean him up and dress him up. He still thinks he is ugly and wants to die.

The duckling then spends the rest of the show trying to be Tom the Cat to eat him. Tom doesn’t know the duckling has a problem and just wants to eat lunch.

At the end of the show a girl duck walks by the duckling who is now wearing a bag on his head. He sees her and tries to run away. She stops him and tells him that he is cute after the bag is removed.

I am glad the duckling finally sees that he isn’t ugly. I am glad he decides to live. I am so upset that a cartoon exists and is being shown at a time when children might be watching it. Some of those children maybe watching it on their own without some sitting beside them telling them the message is wrong.

I know there are children that feel ugly or unlovable. I think that they would totally take what this duckling was saying and his feelings to heart. Maybe they won’t, but I really hate to think that they would.

Beyond this terrible cartoon (This is my opinion of it.) there are so many messages being sent to our children young and old about how to look and what is handsome or pretty.

The duckling did what lots of kids do. He didn’t wait to see how things would turn out. He took the message that fit how he was feeling about himself and he ran with it.

If he had read the story to the end, he would have seen that the ugly duckling had a tough time, but he grew up to be swan.

Whether children grow up to be beautiful on the outside like a swan or beautiful on the inside or both, I want them all to grow up knowing they are each gifted, special , and unique.

I want them to understand that it is totally impossible to be someone else. They can emulate other people and work on areas they would like to improve, but each of them is wonderfully made.

How do I know that I read it is a trust worthy book that shares the truth?

This truth is I want my son to cling to:

“..I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made: your works are wonderful…” (Psalm 139:14)

The duckling in the cartoon needs to learn that or he will be back to thinking badly about himself if the girl duckling ever ends their relationship.

My son needs to know that who he is wonderful and special. He may not always here that from the world, but I am working on helping to bury that truth in his heart. I think the duck could have used that too. He had such trouble with his low self esteem.

Disclaimer: I purposely didn’t link to the cartoon I mentioned in this post. If you want to view it, you can find it on Youtube.com. I was afraid to have this post lead traffic to something I don’t want to see have a rise in views.

This post is linked to Pour Your Heart Out and Alpabe Thursday.

Pause Life for a Moment-Mama Mash

May 22, 2012 By Deirdre

I am excited about having Mama Mash sharing here today. Her honest writing style and gift of weaving words lead me back to her blog over and over again. After reading her post below, I know you will too. Please stop by after reading her post and take in more of her words.

Thanks, JDaniel4’s Mom for having me. I never pass a silicon muffin tin at Bed Bath & Beyond without thinking of you. Ever.

I’m always thinking months in advance. I have no idea why I do this, because life has taught me over and over again that my plans do not matter. Someone else is flying this plane, and He’s got a much better view of the future than I do.

This spring I was determined to find a teaching job for next year. Not just any job though, I wanted my job back. The job I left in Texas, at the school I attended as a child. The job where all my friends still worked. The job that was the last one I held that made me happy.

It was all set. There was a math opening and the principal would even interview me via Skype since I was so far away. I began decorating my classroom in my head. I started panicking about childcare, schedules, the possibility of living apart from my husband for awhile.

Everything else in my life faded to a dull roar, a blur in the background. All I could think about was getting out of this city, getting away from bad memories, getting home to my family and friends.

And then I woke up one morning and opened an email that changed it all. As I read the words, “filled in-district,” I could hear brakes screaming in my head as all my plans ground to a halt.

Oh, how I moped. I was the mopiest mope you ever saw. And in the midst of my moping marathon, as I sat on the couch in the same yoga pants and t-shirt I’d worn the day before, my son climbed up in my lap with his nursery rhyme book.

“Read,” he demanded. So read we did, about the weasel that goes pop and the Sprats with their different dietary needs and that guy who is freaking out because he can’t find the Muffin Man.

Then we had cookies and lemonade and we sat on the porch and watched cars drive by, identifying them by their color and getting way too excited when a motorcycle would roar past.

I realized that the more I tried to make things happen, the more I had missed out on what was really happening.

I’m blessed to get to be a stay-at-home mom, especially in this economy. I’m lucky to live in a city that offers so much for its residents to enjoy – one of the biggest reasons we had for moving here in the first place.

And even though I no longer have family in this area, I’ve been blessed over and over again with beautiful friendships, both online and in real life here in Kansas City.

Today I turn 33. I’m not where I thought I’d be, but thanks to one small, sticky-fingered blonde boy, I know how wonderful it is to be where I am.

We Get It: Self Centered Children

May 15, 2012 By Deirdre

I am very excited about being a part of the We Get It series on Golden Gleam. Moms are sharing a variety of difficult childhood behaviors that they are struggling with in their homes. My topic in the series is self-centered children.

Before you read my post below know that JDaniel was probably born with some of the traits I talk about below and some he has probably learned from my husband and me. Yes, I too struggle with being self-centered and self-focused

It is so hard to not get what you want when you want it. I think everyone would love it if things just magically went our way, but they don’t always.

Children learn very early on to be self-centered. When they are babies they cry out for food, diaper changes, snuggles, and help. The people in their lives run to meet the need that they have cried out for, and the little one feels peace. This is the way it was at our house. I would add a little something about how it is suggested by current experts that babies are met their needs right away if that’s something you believe too.

As children grow older, their demands don’t need to be answered as quickly. Mom and dad tell them, “Wait or Not, right now.” This can be infuriating to a child that perceives their want or need as a priority. Yet as children age they need to learn to be less self-focused and learn to focus on others and how they interact with others. This doesn’t mean that they always put others first and themselves second or third, but that they think of others and how they talk, play, and live with them.

Tantrums and trouble with behavior can ensue when children don‘t feel that their needs are being met as they feel they should be. Parents are really only given two ways to respond to their children’s self-centered demands. They can give in to the demand and gain momentary peace or they can help guide their children away from being self-focused.

My son is an only child. Much of our time at home is focused on doing things together, but there are times when I tell him that he will have to wait for something or that it isn’t the right time for candy or he adds an option C to the two choices I have given him isn’t going to work.

Early on his toddler years, he started balling up his fists and stomping one of his feet to let me know that he felt strongly about his demand. As he grew older, he started sharing his demands loudly and throwing tantrums.

I have to admit there were times I decided it wasn’t worth the battle, and I gave in. Those times were such mistakes. I set bad precedents, and he learned that arguing with me could loosen my resolve, and he could try to get away with listening to my directions.

Something had to be done to help him learn to focus on others and not just himself. His self-centered comments and episodes were going to make him difficult to be around and keep him from making and keeping friends. Who wants to be around a child that could explode at any moment?

JDaniel hasn’t reached the point of friends not wanting to play with him and, thankfully, tantrums are not every day or every week. He was and is still having trouble with sharing toys and a few other things.

There are times that he is loud and unruly in public, and we have to leave the store or park, because of bad reactions to his demands. I try refocusing him on something else and trying to help him find something else to do. Sometimes nothing seems to work. When those times come up, we leave our grocery cart at the front of the store and head home or pack up our park things and leave. I believe that allowing JDaniel to continue to interfere with other people’s outings isn’t fair to them and I am left feeling foolish repeatedly trying to refocus him or settle him down. Yes, it means I may have to go back to the store later or we don’t get a long time at the park, but the consequences of not leaving are just not worth it.

So what are we doing about it?

One of the keys to becoming less self-centered is to learn to focus on others.

Talk about how to share with friends prior to attending a get-together or having them in your home.

Put away toys that could cause conflicts until friends leave.

Practice ways to communicate frustration without screaming with puppets or stuffed animals. Role-playing is a great way for children to work through choices without seeing themselves as the ones working on the issue.

You can read books with characters that struggle with being self-centered like the troll in the Three Billy Goats Gruff and talk about the right way to ask for things or handle challenging situations.

You can give your child responsibilities like chores or say the dinnertime prayer. This will give them an opportunity to shine and have the focus on them.

Another key is working on self-centered behaviors is to be consistent as a parent.

Your “yes” responses need to be “yes” with a time qualifier, if necessary. I might say that we can do something in a few minutes because dinner is on the stove, and if I don’t stir, it will burn. There are times when you agree with your child and find “yes” is the right answer. It might be because it is not a battle you choose to fight or it is an issue you don’t feel like starting a battle about at that moment. In my family, the tone and volume of the request delivered can greatly impact my willingness to say “yes”.Your “no” responses need to be “no” responses consistently. When I break with a precedent, JDaniel actually calls me on it. He points out that that is just not the way things have been done, and we talk about why I am making the change. When he is in a tantrum, I really try to be consistent.
We have been reading Love and Logic at our house. It strongly recommends not joining verbal battles. Instead, it advocates letting children know that they are being heard by repeating their requests.

JDaniel is not enjoying the lessons I am learning from Love and Logic. He doesn’t seem like being removed from situations in which he is making bad choices. He really doesn’t like my not engaging in a verbal battle that he is probably sure he can win. JDaniel sure doesn’t like the fact that things are not turning out as he had planned.

What I like is that he is having to think about the ramifications of his choices on himself and others. Helping him logically become less self-centered is working on not only the heart of his self-centeredness but his self-centered heart. While JDaniel doesn’t like Love and Logic, he is learning from it.

This is a wonderful series. Please take a moment to visit the Golden Gleam and learn more about the topics in the series. Next week’s topic is perfectionism.

Happy Mother’s Day: JDaniel’s Flowers and Quote

May 13, 2012 By Deirdre

JDaniel and his dad bought me the lovely flowers in the glass and vase. They arranged them together on Saturday morning. I love that they worked on the arrangement together.

Later on Saturday afternoon I ran to answer the doorbell and found the sweetest little boy standing on the front porch holding a dandelion to add to his arrangement in the drinking glass.

The flower pot displayed was created by JDaniel’s preschool teachers and was sitting at my place at the Mother’s Day brunch. I love it! It has a picture of him from the beginning of the year and the end of the year along with a message from JDaniel. I can’t believe how much he has grown up this year.

As I was working on this post-JDaniel walked through the dining room where we house our computer and declared, “I know I am important to you.” He spoke the truth. He is important to me and I am so glad that he knows that he is. It is because of him that Mother’s Day has a special place in my heart.

For years I celebrated my mom and her importance. She 100% deserved to be remembered and still does. We took her flowers on Saturday night and had dinner with her. While she loves having JDaniel III and me over for lunch, she really loves having JDaniel IV the best. He is the only grandchild that lives here in town.

Today I am counting myself blessed that JDaniel. He truly is a blessing from God! Being his mom is very important to me. As I said I am so glad he knows it. It is such a gift to know that my son is confident about himself. I must be doing something right as his mom!