Man, are we complicated creatures.
So all those times I said that the self-esteem kids were wronged by having their self-esteem artificially inflated, I might have been right. http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
And now, I've got to think about how I talk to Nate. We do tend to keep encouraging him to try things that he thinks he can't do yet, and praise him specifically when he does an individual thing well or for the first time.
I just finished reading The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, which talked a lot about how our brains work, especially during our formative years. This is a fascinating subject to me, and has been for years. Shortly after Nate was born, I read Women's Moods, which discussed brain health and how to care for and nurture your brain. I tend to internalize the things that I learn from these books, and I spend a lot of time going "Hey, I knew that!" and "I've been doing that all along," and "Maybe I should try..." weeks, or even years, after reading the book.
Walking the dog is an especially terrific time to think, especially when it is too cold to sing. I also do a lot of thinking while knitting or sewing, or even while piping, if I'm playing a lot of tunes I know really well. The activity in question turns in to a sort of an active meditation. I've tried taking up meditation for years now, and I think that I'm about ready to give up the legs-folded-ommmmm type of meditation and stick with the things I've been doing subconsciously all this time, thinking while doing. I tend to get in to 'the zone' while working on a repetitive task, and hours fly by without me really being aware of them. I've lost a lot of that spare time since Nate has come along, mostly due to time constraints, but riding the bus every day 20+ minutes each way has done a whole lot to bring it back (best reason to ride the bus, IMHO).
Here's something to think about - when you have a puppy who is scare of, say, thunderstorms, when she whimpers you tell her "No," in your sharpest intonation. The idea is that if you say "aww, poor puppy, it's ok, the bad storm won't hurt you," you're telling the pup that yes, there is something to be afraid of, and you're telling her that it's OK to be afraid. I have from time to time taken this approach with Nate when he shows irrational fear of a situation that won't actually hurt him, and it has worked pretty well. (Note, I'm NOT saying that I train my kid like I do my dog, but there are some VERY useful parallels.) We were talking with a family friend (who is 91), and she was saying that she's never had a dog who wasn't afraid of thunder. She mentioned that she is also afraid of thunder, and everyone at the table said "Ohhh," and discussed whether the dogs had all picked up from her that thunder was something that you should be afraid of.
I had another thought - I wonder if parents who are overly-vigilant about the whole 'don't put stuff in your mouth' thing emphasize or exascerbate a child's tendencies toward pickiness in foods. Adam and I are both extraordinarily picky in our food tastes, although in recent years I've worked hard to overcome that in both of us. Nate, on the other hand, is the anti-picky child, and will eat just about anything once, and usually twice, with the exception of bell peppers (which are NOT food...). When he was just starting to explore the world, I did let him put non-food items in his mouth under close supervision - gum-tree gumballs (those round spiky things usually found in parks), sand, sticks, plants that I knew weren't poisonous, etc. He spit them out almost universally, but I let him, to an extent, decide what was bad and what was good.
Enough of this, it's my birthday, so it's time to go to bed so I can have a good day tomorrow!
And now, I've got to think about how I talk to Nate. We do tend to keep encouraging him to try things that he thinks he can't do yet, and praise him specifically when he does an individual thing well or for the first time.
I just finished reading The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, which talked a lot about how our brains work, especially during our formative years. This is a fascinating subject to me, and has been for years. Shortly after Nate was born, I read Women's Moods, which discussed brain health and how to care for and nurture your brain. I tend to internalize the things that I learn from these books, and I spend a lot of time going "Hey, I knew that!" and "I've been doing that all along," and "Maybe I should try..." weeks, or even years, after reading the book.
Walking the dog is an especially terrific time to think, especially when it is too cold to sing. I also do a lot of thinking while knitting or sewing, or even while piping, if I'm playing a lot of tunes I know really well. The activity in question turns in to a sort of an active meditation. I've tried taking up meditation for years now, and I think that I'm about ready to give up the legs-folded-ommmmm type of meditation and stick with the things I've been doing subconsciously all this time, thinking while doing. I tend to get in to 'the zone' while working on a repetitive task, and hours fly by without me really being aware of them. I've lost a lot of that spare time since Nate has come along, mostly due to time constraints, but riding the bus every day 20+ minutes each way has done a whole lot to bring it back (best reason to ride the bus, IMHO).
Here's something to think about - when you have a puppy who is scare of, say, thunderstorms, when she whimpers you tell her "No," in your sharpest intonation. The idea is that if you say "aww, poor puppy, it's ok, the bad storm won't hurt you," you're telling the pup that yes, there is something to be afraid of, and you're telling her that it's OK to be afraid. I have from time to time taken this approach with Nate when he shows irrational fear of a situation that won't actually hurt him, and it has worked pretty well. (Note, I'm NOT saying that I train my kid like I do my dog, but there are some VERY useful parallels.) We were talking with a family friend (who is 91), and she was saying that she's never had a dog who wasn't afraid of thunder. She mentioned that she is also afraid of thunder, and everyone at the table said "Ohhh," and discussed whether the dogs had all picked up from her that thunder was something that you should be afraid of.
I had another thought - I wonder if parents who are overly-vigilant about the whole 'don't put stuff in your mouth' thing emphasize or exascerbate a child's tendencies toward pickiness in foods. Adam and I are both extraordinarily picky in our food tastes, although in recent years I've worked hard to overcome that in both of us. Nate, on the other hand, is the anti-picky child, and will eat just about anything once, and usually twice, with the exception of bell peppers (which are NOT food...). When he was just starting to explore the world, I did let him put non-food items in his mouth under close supervision - gum-tree gumballs (those round spiky things usually found in parks), sand, sticks, plants that I knew weren't poisonous, etc. He spit them out almost universally, but I let him, to an extent, decide what was bad and what was good.
Enough of this, it's my birthday, so it's time to go to bed so I can have a good day tomorrow!