ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now

My kids' school was already not very challenging. The distance-learning version of their school was hella basic. I think SFUSD did the same thing where you couldn't get any worse grades than what you had when they started distance-learning. Schools out at this point, and now we are trying to find stuff for them to do all summer.

ours was already complaining about school before quarantine, and it's just really hard to get them to focus on schoolwork when they could be talking to their friends online or playing on the ipad instead. we had set dedicated "academic times" during the weekdays and checked in with them about what they were working on but not actually looking at their work or making sure stuff was getting turned in. which was a mistake.

My (12yo) daughter had good grades going into the last quarter. As and Bs.

Yes, she could have brought some of them up, but... why? Like, none of us could think of a reason. Pretty much every school-age kid in the world has an asterisk placed against this year anyway. And given the inequality concerns (kids without access to tech and internet access, kids in less stable homes, kids with less privilege and less fortunate parents, etc.), we didn't press.

Keeping the connections open, fostering mental health, practicing self-care, doing creative stuff,, maintaining friendships, and the pressing need to focus on social justice instead? Those are all way more important than a bunch of bullshit busywork math worksheets anyway.

Frankly, smoking pot and hanging out with friends is exactly what I would be doing if I were a teenager right now, so I am not really in a position to judge her.

The younger one did take advantage of the fact that she knew I was locked up in a Zoom meeting all afternoon yesterday so that she could spend a couple hours watching Minecraft/Sims/etc Youtubers instead of going back to her school work after lunch. But mostly she's been honest.

The task of parenting full-time, working full-time, running a household, while ALSO being the principal (and the only teacher) of a home school was impossible on its face.

It was and is impossible, and we knew that going in. (For the nerds: Kobayashi Maru.) So everything you are doing, or not doing, is right.

My younger (9yo) child is intellectually disabled. Normally he is in full-time special education. He needs to be walked through each assignment in real time.

Ordinarily he has a 1:1 aide; now it's just us. So we treat school as low-pressure best effort. If he uses scissors correctly once a week we are ecstatic. If he dresses himself 2 out of 7 days we throw a party. This is our life now.

part of the stress was i was mostly focused on getting the kid's grades up to passing level, but my wife was trying to get them to finish every single assignment and get straight a's. we ended up splitting the difference.

Yeah, we're lucky that my wife is an elementary school librarian, so she can ride herd on the boys while I work in the litterbox room.

'Home-schooling' my difficult Y9 boy is so fucking hard. He's so detached and apathetic, and so combative and confrontational with any sort of outside input, that every school-related interaction tends to go only one way. I deal with kids like that in class all the time, but it's contained, I can cajole and have a few sticks to beat them with. Home here, I don't have any of that - beyond 'fine, don't have your X-Box' but that's so old and I feel like a prick doing it over and over again. Plus, he's 14 and I was a useless oaf at 14, so am continually letting myself off, by proxy.

My 11yr old daughter is a breeze in comparison: conscientious to the point of madness.

I'm a teacher and my missus is a nurse. I'm currently teaching pretty much full-time (remotely). Short version: fuck this.

ime y9 boys are the worst, no offence

Our 5 year old is lashing out like crazy. Screaming in our faces when she doesn't get what she wants, saying what she wants over and over and over again. We're starting her in tele-play therapy and we're taking parenting classes online to figure out how to deal with it. We've handled it as well as we could until yesterday when even their mom snapped. It is extremely hard to be measured and cool when someone is angrily screeching as loud as they can a foot from your face. I have taken to wearing earplugs. Yesterday I took video of her meltdown and showed it to her after she cooled down. She hid from herself.

Our ten year old doesn't get enough attention because the younger one needs so much. We've been cooped up together since schools shut down and it feels like our brains are melting. My parents live out in the country and aren't taking the virus very seriously so we've been avoiding them but yesterday was enough. They're going to my parents for a week tomorrow because we can. not. take. it. any. more.

I feel like a big part of it is that the 5 year old hasn't been around other kids in months and she's burnt out on other people being bigger than her, telling her what to do. We wrestled with what to do in July when we have to go back to work. The kids REALLY need to be around other kids but cases in Houston are going up. So we're hiring a nanny. It's starting to feel like child abuse to keep them away from other kids. Knowing that all of this is going to drag on longer because Greg Abbott has no commitment to the public health is beyond frustrating. If schools don't open up in August as planned I don't know what the fuck we're going to do.

I love my kids so much but when my mom takes them away tomorrow I will be overwhelmed with relief.

My 5-year-old is the easier one, but he's a social person and two months away from his peers hasn't been great for him either. We actually sent him back to school this week, and while I generally think of him as the better behaved kid, the house feels a lot calmer and easier to deal with without him here, and he's loving being at school too. I mean, I also hope he doesn't bring back the coronavirus.

she's burnt out on other people being bigger than her, telling her what to do.

I very much agree about them needing peer time. The main problem with my boy is that he doesn't want face-to-face peer time. He suffers from (as yet undiagnosed) anxiety, which is currently manifesting as extreme OCD and germophobia, so is extremely reluctant to leave the house. He's had counselling in the past but covid has sent his OCD stratospheric so christ knows what we'll do to help him readjust. His current routine is to battle with us for a few hours about homework and then play his Xbox with his mates. If I close my eyes and put my fingers in my ears I occasionally convince myself he'll be OK.

And aye, kinder, objectively Y9 boys *are* the worst.

We took a calculated risk in allowing our son to go to his regular babysitter two days a week. We agonized a lot about it but it has been a lifesaver, allowing us to get some work done and just frickin get a break from his demands.

He's always better behaved for other people than for us. There's a joke about how dogs have owners; cats have staff. It does seem like to my son, a babysitter is an authority figure. Mama and Dada are staff.

(mis-post deleted)

chinaski, sorry that was meant to imply that they get better when they're no longer yr9 boys!

That's what I took it to mean, kinder - here's hoping! I see (well, saw) upwards of 80 Y9s every week and have a range of archetypes. My boy seems to be a new archetype; may indeed be a new species, as yet undiscovered by science.

I'm suspicious of the way educationalists use neuroscience in a hand-wavy way, but I'd love to get a look inside an adolescent's brain, just to see what the actual fuck is going on. I bet it's like the Somme in there.

We have let our teen go out to see his friends since the beginning of this. He has one group that he was hanging out with, and they spent a couple months building bike jumps in one guy's backyard. It was not ideal, but I've known from having to ground him a few times recently that keeping him in the house really effects his mental health. And I know from arguments in years previous about wearing bike helmets and wearing shorts in 30 degree weather that he's way too stubborn for me when rationality doesn't prevail.

We've kept the daughter with us and tried to give her as much space as she needs. She has used this space to obsessively watch video game youtubers. We'll take her out on walks to her favorite places around the neighborhood and stuff. Last week she got to see two of her friends and it was a great little test run. One family only let us hang for a brief 15-minute outdoor visit. The other one we spent an hour or two at one of our local beaches.

There's an Australian play called "year 9 are animals" which we studied when I was in high school :) Its true!

I'm so happy. We bought my teenager a drumset last night. Used, off of one of his friend's parents. Some cheap no-name brand that doesn't even exist anymore, as far as I can tell. But he's in there practicing and trying to figure things out now. I had really been worried about how he's been spending his free time, because other than building bmx jumps in the woods, his hobbies have sort of consisted of smoking pot, CS:GO, watching Netflix, and being at anyone else's house other than ours. He played violin for a couple years in elementary school and I showed him how to play Smoke on the Water or something once on guitar, but that didn't really stick. I love the sound of kids making music.

That is awesome!
My 5-year-old has been having piano lessons with my mom (a piano teacher) a couple of days a week for the past few months and he’s reading music now! So he’s officially learned to read music before he’s learned to read words ha! I’m fine with that.

I think my kid took the piss out of me for the first time today. She’s ten months. She snatched the book I normally read to her out of my hands, opened it out, and started “reading” to me in a mock-pompous voice.

get used to it!

...boomer

My 11yr old (going on 25yr old) tagged me in her Instagram story today as the 'most boring person in her life'.

I mean, she's probably right but OUCH.

hahaha lmao

haha

I’m down to only two teenagers today, like, forever. It’s weird.

Two days into the new term and I’m trying to get anti-climb paint out of a school sweatshirt fml.

“It kind of happened magically” at playtime, according to F. His new teacher was veeeeerrrrrry apologetic.

Recommending things to your kid: classic or impossible?

My older kid, I rarely had any influence over. His mom had more luck than I did. I've had mild success with introducing my fourth-grader to things. She went on a big Homestar Runner kick last year and earlier this summer we enjoyed Avatar: The Last Airbender together when it came to Netflix. These days, her tastes run almost entirely toward Minecraft and Five Nights at Freddy's youtubers.

I can't get her to read a book with me anymore. And I respect that she wants to choose things for herself. She's been big on Warrior cats books and reads them and enthusiastically discusses them with me about them when she's done. But anything that I loved as a child and I try to introduce to her - C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, etc. - I get shut down with a firm "no", which I honor and respect but... Anyone know any tricks, or do I just respect that Warrior cats are the new classics and give the fuck up?

Warrior Cats are a phase that will pass. Generally think people should come to classics because they want to, not as an "eat your vegetables" thing that parents do. You've done your job by letting the kid know about them.

School may require some specific reading, and sometimes hearing it from a different authority works better.

Fair enough. To be clear though from my perspective , I'm not approaching/proposing these things from "eat your veg" as much as "I want to enjoy this thing with you".

I've found it very hit & miss - some stick others get dismissed after one or two episodes/chapters.

Sometimes it also seems to be about catching them at the right time - first time I tried Avatar with my son he wasn't really interested but then gave it another go a couple of months later and he was hooked.

"I want to enjoy this thing with you".

Oh yeah, I totally get that! My wife and I were thrilled when our daughter put down the Warriors for a bit and picked up Wrinkle in Time. We tried not to show it too much, though. Our acting like eager puppies over her enjoyment of something we can share can have a backlash effect in tweens (just as much as teens).

I should add that she got into L'Engle not because we'd lobbied for her to do so (see above) but to be in a school play.

This is complicated for me because my family of origin definitely had canonical movies and books and musicals that we felt obligated to like Or Else. It was only as an adult that I realized what a dud that can be, how limiting and prescriptive. I spent a lot of time feeling that my taste should align with my parents' taste in order to think of myself as cultured, when sometimes I probably would have been better off finding out what *I* liked on my own.

Also I'm sure there were people in my family that kinda resented how much of our interaction was based around certain references and in-jokes and quotes from "Auntie Mame" or whatever. Stepsiblings and new spouses and such who either felt left out, or who felt they needed to wlbe given a read/watch list before they could participate.

The ritual of "you haven't seen Princess Bride (or whatever)?!?! We need to rectify this immediately!" can be well-intentioned and feel like generosity and a desire for shared enjoyment. But it can also feel stifling, and I've deliberately kept that to a minimum with my kids.

That said, they live in a house with thousands of books and people eager to talk passionately about each one. If they become interested in something great under their own steam mand following their own curiosity, the joy is more real.

otm.

I don't think any Onion article has haunted me as much as this one.

https://www.theonion.com/cool-dad-raising-daughter-on-media-that-will-put-her-en-1819572981

Nevertheless daughter number one has started telling me that none of her friends ever get the movie or music references she drops (tho the last one was to School of Rock for pity's sake).

my kids currently only listen to minecraft parody songs, not sure if this is a disaster or not

Yes, we are firmly in Minecraft parody territory. I'm fine with that and watching some youtubers like Preston or Slogoman or LaurenZSide. She's been down a rabbithole watching Gacha Life vids recently though, and I haven't said it aloud to her, but they are the absolutely dregs.

my kids watch Mr Beast and he’s the fucking worst

I have had more than enough of hearing about "Preson Styles Merch" and have banned him, BeckBroJack too.

Aw, I mean, these guys are annoying don't get me wrong, but when I was my daughter's age I was either watching genuine neon-orange effluvia on Nickelodeon or sneaking over to MTV in hopes of catching the Britney Fox 'Girlschool' video. But yes, I have purchased Preston Stylez merch in the past two months.

Lol @ Piedie Gimbel

Has anyone else had experience with their kid, particularly a young kid (kindergartner in my case) being mean to other kids? We have had the experience multiple times when we will set up a playdate and E will decide in advance she doesn't like the kid, refusing to share anything, refuses to show her room to the kid, refuses to play, says rude things on purpose, etc. We try to model being good hosts and being friendly, we try gently reminding her how to be nice, and we have tried sterner approaches too, but none work because she has clearly set her mind against the playdate and on not being nice. In fact, sometimes the more we encourage her to be nice, the worse she gets. We did move recently so it may partly be a control thing, but it happened before we moved too. I'm not sure what to do and it makes me afraid to set up playdates with other kids - today she made a girl we invited cry.

No real advice, but I've noticed that with playdates, the kid whose house (and toys) it is, generally ends up being difficult. the same kids are fine going to the other's place. leaving can be fraught too even if they're having a good time. is kindergarten age 4/5?

ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now

Over the past few months, my 16-year-old has just stopped wearing shirts around the house. Just now I was about to exhort him to "put a goddamn shirt on before he opens the refrigerator" but I'm just gonna give up and let him do whatever the hell he wants because these times are hard enough on everyone.

oh i have to bribe my two boys to put on anything more than underwear.

Mine think shorts are year-round apparel