theinfamousj

No, we don't put barrel connectors into our mouths, especially not if they are electrified.

I felt the exact same way. Looking at my first child gave me hope for the future in a way I hadn't, before. We're going to be okay.

I finally perfected my cloth diaper poop dunk-n-swish technique to un-brown diapers while out on the go, so as not to have to spray so much in the evening when we get home. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to be effective at removing the brown solids from a cloth diaper with a dunk-n-swish.

He has figured out that not just dogs can crawl through the dog door, so can he.

Not one a child threw recently, but still by far my most favorite tantrum came when I was chatting with a young boy who I cared for about the very large salad bowl he had found in the kitchen and was playing with.

"It salad bowl," he proudly said, and then as he attempted to fit inside of it he declared, "I salad."

His older brother then came up and said, "You are not lettuce."

The younger boy absolutely completely and totally lost it and melted all the way down, repeating the phrase, "Yes, lettuce. Am a lettuce."

Of course we all ought to know that nothing about this meltdown was specifically due to the fact that the boy was not in fact a green leafy plant. It was due to the fact that he'd had it up to here with his brother trashing on his play and needed to release some of that irk.

How I handled it: I held space for his big feelings. I let him cry and fuss and kick and yell. So long as he wasn't hurting himself or others, he needed to process the injustice done to him by his brother and he needed to feel the feelings caused by it. I made sure he was in a safe place and let him become a little adorable ball of emotions and waited for that change in cry, you know the one, where the anger changes to sadness. When we got there, I came over and gave voice to his feelings ("You felt undermined and invalidated. Your brother wasn't invited into your play but he interrupted in order to destroy it, anyway. That made you mad.") He came in for a hug, feeling seen and understood. I offered that I could help him come up with some ways to approach his brother about the situation if he wanted. He didn't want. And so that was that. Within 5 minutes of the start of sad-cry, he was off on another game, this one trying (and failing) to levitate his hotwheels cars.

If you ignore that the intended audience of the book is a parent of an ADHD child, "Why Will No One Play With Me" (book) is a fabulous step-by-step primer that covers all the social and emotional skills one needs to succeed in the world as well as talks the reader (parent) through how to impart those lessons to a child who is good at analytical thinking. I wish there were a book written more broadly that is this good at preparing parents with more than just platitudes and broad goals.

There is something to be said about a small and consistent set of equally intelligent classmates from which to form bonds. I certainly did. It makes one not the weirdo because everyone there is HAG. Then, when out in gen pop and someone treats a HAG kid as The Weirdo, the response isn't to internalize it with a, "Yeah, I'm the weirdo. No one ever wants to play with me," but instead with a, "What's his problem?!" So that's actually good.

I was thinking more on the emotional side. Learning how to handle big feelings and small feelings. HAG kids tend to - and here I'm speaking from my former high school teacher career which I've long ago left - intellectualize the especially small feelings into nonexistence. It requires explicit instruction to just be taught how to feel. Not as an action item. Just as an experience.

I gave away my entire freezer stash to a new mom whose milk was medically delayed. End of an era. The Chestburster is still nursing, but old enough now that solids and water can hold him should we be apart for any length of time.

(I take him to work with me, so I'm basically around him 24/7 in the normal course of our life.)

Oh yeah, lessons. Um ... It is developmentally normal at around 10 months for a nursing kiddo, especially one who is used to straw cups (which they should be, for oralmotor development), to go a bit chompy chompy on the nipple. Especially the left nipple. This constitutes an income stream for IBCLCs. Just have them latch by dragging the nipple down from the kid's nose to their mouth. This forces them to stick out their tongue to cover the bottom teeth and the top teeth will be at an angle which makes nipple damage challenging - not impossible, but challenging. The problem is "nipple confusion" of a sort. Their world schema only has "I get liquid out of this thing" and they've learned straw technique and are applying it to nipple. Within a week or two of forcing a correct latch on them, their world schema changes to "this is a nipple and that is a straw". And now you don't have to pay for an IBCLC visit!

When I was a teacher, I had a student make some outlandish and utterly preposterous statement about a gun. He was doing it for the attention as it appears this kid is, as well. I had to report it despite knowing there was nothing to it. The kid got connected with the help he needed for what he was dealing with.

Did you hear these directly or from your daughter? It doesn't really matter. Either way, go to the school guidance department instead of the teacher. He's probably dealing with some heavy adjustments from wherever he immigrated from and they ought to be equipped to connect him with a therapist who can help him process those feelings in a more prosocial manner.

Hi from North Carolina. I was a gifted program kid (now and adult) in this glorious state and have had plenty of encounters with children since who are in the program. I even went to the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. Go for it with the more rigorous academics BUT the thing you'll need to enrich in the home environment is those social and emotional lessons. They are getting deprioritized in favor of academics and in order to succeed in the world, the ability to people is actually more valuable than the ability to scholar. But if she isn't challenged in the classroom, instead of learning how to people, she'll learn how to be in trouble due to very appropriately suppressing her frustration and boredom as much as her age can possibly do ... which isn't enough.

Also, if she's any kind of mentally healthy, don't send her to NCSSM, no matter how much she begs. That's where people go to have massive mental health issues. The only people who did better at that school, and I am one of them, were people whose home lives were so challenging and unstable that the school was actually an upgrade. Any alumnus - except the ones specifically chosen by the recruiting office, of course - will tell you the same.

Number Blocks is phenomenal. Glad to see it getting representation.

Banned:

• Caillou -- whiny child and permissive parents; teaches nothing

• Peppa Pig -- same

Approved:

• Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood -- I have yet to meet a show that covers social and emotional topics for toddlers better than the Mr. Roger's franchise and this is its latest iteration. There's a Daniel Tiger for every situation and one can learn to be a better parent simply by watching how Daddy Tiger or Mommy Tiger respond to situations. The songs still carry important emotional regulation messages that adults can use.