ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

yeah I think you're pretty otm. it's easy to be on the outside and talk about 'dealing with it'

if it isn't clear already from that post, I have a pretty fatalistic attitude about "bullying" in general. My response to various campaigns to "eliminate" bullying is usually an eyeroll. if one of my kids starts getting it I don't know how helpful my experience will be in providing advice because I don't think there are any hard and fast rules. I'm not going to tell my kids not to hit back if they're being hit - sometimes it's smart to, and sometimes it's not, and knowing when is part of the trick. sometimes it's better to run away from a fight you know you can't win (ie it's you vs. a bunch of kids) and sometimes it's better to take your chances in a fight (ie if there's no one else around and it's just the two of you)

and you definitely can't rely on authority figures to provide any kind of help. they will not always be around, and, more importantly, they will not always do the right thing, because they have their own interests that come into play (how much do they care about resolving this headache? whose parents are they going to have to deal with? do they have the time/energy that day to really figure out what's going on? do they have biases/prejudices of their own regarding any of the kids involved?) Bullies act when they know they aren't being watched - then they can either deny it later if they are caught, or otherwise obfuscate the blame. So the bullied kid ends up having to always have a better/more believable story than the bully. and on top of that bullies usually repay being "ratted on" with further bullying. so appealing to teachers/cops/hall monitors whatever is fraught with its own perils. kids tend not to respect another kid that relies on the protection of authority figures, and respect (or lack thereof) is really what bullying is all about.

yeah "telling" was basically the worst, like a betrayal. as if "betrayal" was even an operative term in conjunction with someone who has been fucking with you 24/7. but somehow it was.

i think for my nephew, as far as hitting up my brother to talk to him, my thinking was less of 'how to stop it' and more 'make him feel less isolated' so that he at least knows you can grow up and be ok in spite of it

i once hit a kid in the face at school, during recess. he was a perfectly nice guy, and i liked him. we had a game we were playing, it was basically a "war" with two sides. he was on my side but then he told me he switched. i felt so rejected by him, so disappointed, that i hit him right in the face. he immediately started crying and went to tell on me and i got in big trouble. i still feel terrible about that. what in the world??

that's not really a story about bullying though, i guess

i'd be curious to know what percentage of ilx posters experienced bullying in school

poll it

I would make a distinction between random things like that, fights between friends, etc. and repeated, systematic abuse. Like, there was more than one occasion when I got into fistfights with people I was friends with, over some perceived slight or insult or what have you. But that was different from the guys I only saw in gym that would try to shove me in a locker.

xp

i was never beaten up, but i was stalked by a horrible girl because of a bunch of shit between me and that girls' best friend... horrible girl threatened to punch my face in if she ever saw me in public, to the point where I wouldn't even go to the local swimming pool in summer. one day mum found out and dragged me to the pool so that I wouldn't be such a coward, worst day of my life, I just sat on the edge of the pool not making eye contact with anyone. and then when I left, the girl was there, standing in the parking lot with her friends laughing at me as I walked behind my mum.

so much easier when parents don't get involved imo

i'd be curious to know what percentage of ilx posters experienced bullying in school

― Mordy , Thursday, May 23, 2013 4:46 PM (7 minutes ago)

poll it

― Spottie_Ottie_Dope, Thursday, May 23, 2013 4:47 PM (6 minutes ago)

must have "as the bully," "as the target" and "as both at various times" breakdowns.

no one's going to admit to being a bully

that's like asking racists to self-identify

ok i did it

Who Bullied You?

I bullied one kid to deflect bullying off of me, sometimes. I have since apologized to the guy. One of my main bullies has apologized to me, but I'm not sure that he ever realized how much it damaged me. xp

i was a bully to a kid in 5th grade and the victim of bullying in middle school/a little in high school. nothing violent, but in 6th grade, an 8th grader would sit next to me and follow me home on the bus and pester me. i p much ran home those days.

the kid i was a bully to it was more mean girl type of stuff? i made fun of him for his jeans, for the food his mom would pack him, for bragging about his german heritage. i feel terrible about it to this day. he would lash out at me, made fun of me for being fat or not having cable. because of my popularity in class i was the aggressor in this scenario, though. we were mean to each other, but i definitely was trying to assert my alphaness and did.

whoops messed that sentence up, shd be: an 8th grader would sit next to me on the bus and follow me home

ive seen his name floating around the internet in various forums, but ive been too ashamed to reach out and apologize to him. i should, though.

In elementary school I bullied a kid who had once been my friend. He left school for a couple of years because his parents moved abroad and when he came back I bullied him. It was probably part resentment of him for leaving and part "here's someone who is nerdier and weirder than me." I also bullied the hell out of a kid at a summer program when I was a teenager -- very much a case of suddenly finding myself higher in the food chain and taking advantage of it. My friends and I were so mean to him that he went home before the program was over. Felt really guilty about it, but I guess there was a lesson in it for me - "victim" is not some kind of special status that makes you exempt from moral considerations or incapable of doing wrong.

So K's diaper leaked pee twice on the return flight (including once onto my own clothing), poop once, and she barely slept, and screamed persistently for the last 20 minutes of the flight. Then when we got to the airport our stroller was broken, forcing us to carry her, the carseat and all the bags through customs. I was also sick during all of this, and felt even worse because the plane's air-conditioning was on full blast right in my face for twelve hours (no individual controls on this kind of plane). I genuinely feel like this was a "character building" experience.

Happier thoughts: K did a one-by-one hug reunion with each of her stuffed animals when she returned home.

awww! im impressed by your attitude. I believe after my trip to australia and back with 2 year old Beatrice I was using the term 'Soul destroying' a whole lot more than 'Character building'

we are 30 weeks in O_O

xp tell me your war story! Anyway, she did well most of the trip. Except going to the emergency room with a 103 fever and then having diarrhea for the next three days, and refusing to eat any of the diarrhea foods or drink electrolyte solution.

you know what we found stops kids from pooping at all? Pediasure. its like baby super immodium.

30 weeks!! excitement! names?

i think i relayed at least some of our travel woes, including me making a total ass of myself, upthread.

the only excuses i can allow myself are that i was wrangling a two year old plus luggage alone, pp needed to stay home, and i was preggers too.

from upthread:

I took Beatrice to Australia - a total of 24 hours travel time each way - when she had just turned two. It was a freaking nightmare. Carrying all of our luggage and attempting to keep hold of her while running to gates/getting through customs/security was no easy task. Oh and FYI, people in airports are total dicks. They were literally pushing past us. Both Beeps and I were getting body slammed from all directions. And., of course, the whole time she was being a normal 2 year old. She wanted to run around, she wanted me to carry her everywhere, she wanted everything she saw in the gift shop windows, she was crying, she was screaming, she was laying on the floor refusing to get up etc etc Then on each plane she was hysterical while taking off and then bored and tantrumy until we landed. Trying to get a toddler to happily sit in a seat for 15 hours is completely impossible, obviously.

I had three of my worst parenting moments during that trip. At one point while carry all the bags and holding Beatle's hand, I was trying to make sure she got on the moving walkway safely when one of our bags slipped off my shoulder and crashed to the floor taking a bunch other stuff with it. Already on edge from the relentless body slamming I said way too loudly to the bag 'You motherfucker!!!!' Everyone around me slowed right down and gave me the filthiest looks. I guess they either thought I was talking to Beatrice or just horrified that I was using that language in front of my child. Super embarrassing.
After two harrowing flights we finally landed in San Francisco. We had some time to kill before getting on the flight to Sydney. I had brought a couple of those single dose Benadryl packets with me in case of emergency. After the last two flights, 15 hours on a plane seemed like a code red emergency to me so 15 minutes before we were due to board I took Beeps into a handicapped stall in the bathroom and said ‘Beatle, Mommy is going to give you some medicine, okay?’ Well that was not okay at all with her and we ended up wrestling in the stall, ending up on the filthy airport bathroom floor. At that point I realized what a freaking maniac I was being, ditched the Benadryl, grabbed Bee in a hug and apologized profusely.
On the flight home, when we got to San Francisco, we had to collect our bags to go through customs. We went to baggage claim and waited and waited and waited until there were no more bags on the carousel. I guess I'd reached my anxiety limit by that point. I picked up Beeps, took her with me to a corner of the room, sat down on the floor and just cried for about 10 minutes. When I got my shit together we found our bags sitting on the floor a ways away from the carousel.

― (from a bottle you dicks) (sunny successor), Thursday, May 2, 2013 11:01 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ah yes, sounds familiar. Although in my case I was more embarrassed by the way H and I started loudly bickering at the baggage carousel, but it was one of those purely out of exhaustion, forgotten later things. I also got really nasty with people who tried to cut the customs line and thought I was going to come to blows with one.

The good news is that United is very good about replacing broken strollers without giving you a hard time.

I would definitely NOT do this again for any reason other than family, that's for sure. I have a co-worker who has taken his 2 yr old to Ecuador and to the Balkans (staying in a different place each night for twelve days) and I just don't get why that's fun.

we have a name but i am holding back on publicly announcing it out of some sort of superstitious weirdness. its not bizarro fyi.

yeah don't tell ANYONE the name. someone will have a problem with it and pollute it for you.

uh oh, let the cat out of the bag, sorry Bizarro Superman Justen, best of luck to you

I forget if I mentioned this upthread, but we came close to choosing a name that would have made her initials ASS

My mother ditched a first name for my sister because the initials would have been HAG.

hee hee

so excited for the pending arrival of Bizarro Superman

Biz for short

sup soupy

Biz Soupie

hee hee

Man, so we are looking at apartments right now, and honestly a thing I find really hard about parenting is how many new considerations come into play besides what you would otherwise want for yourself. And it's hard to know where to draw the line, like, do you live in the cooler neighborhood with the ok school or the boring neighborhood with the best school. And do you prioritize the things that make your life more enjoyable in the old way or do you prioritize the conveniences that make your parenting life easier, e.g. parking, a dishwasher, more space, parks nearby, etc.

You were living without a dishwasher?

Anyone else disagree with their spouse on howoften to correct your child? Apparently I come off as too strict. My 9-year-old is in a bit of a phase where if he's not doing something dangerous, he's doing something annoying, and if he's not being annoying, he's being counterproductive. I guess I'm all too eager to tell him when his existence is bleeding over too much into mine or others. On three other hand, my wife will snap at him for stuff that I consider top be no big deal. Really wouldc likev to find a way to keep him under control without stifling him.

I think that is one of those unanswerables

I live with 2 kids and no dishwasher fwiw

Yeah, you're probably right about the unanswerable nature of that. It's just that I don't criticize him for the purpose of making him feel bad. I just want him to behave in a way that is beneficial to himself amd others. I've been pretty free-form with my parenting. This is once of those times when I wish I'd read some kind if book (and that my wife had read it too and that we agreed on its content).

do not get the "cooler" vs. "boring" neighborhood but would get "fun" vs. "boring" but imo "cool" is not necessarily fun

my pref is usually "make things better for me so that I will have the enthusiasm to help my kids have a good life" obv here I am supposing a privileged life already. bad schools do not make things better for me though

I don't know whether this should be in the "darndest things" thread, but is is related to discipline and how much is too much and why the hell don't they ever listen to me...

I was giving the girls a bath on Saturday morning. They were pretty out of control with the arguing and splashing and shrieking ("you deliberately put that flannel in my face", "get your foot out of my back", etc) - all the usual stuff that makes me think it's finally time to separate their bath-times. I was ineffectually snapping at them to cut it out but Pam wasn't having it and laid down the law. After she left and I'd got Lulu out, dry and dressed, I reinforced Pam's message of "bad behaviour = lost privileges" to Ava. Ava just stopped me dead - "this is NOT your conversation to have, Daddy."

In other words, I'm the goofy one who they jump all over, and Pam is the one who makes the rules.