Tuesday Topics - Making Your Child Participate.

The only group things I've been in charge of are church activities so bear with me if you're a heathen not the church type. For this topic I can really only talk about my experience as a Sunday School teacher and a Vacation Bible School games leader.

I know that there was a child in my Sunday School class that didn't like me. I know because I overheard the child tell the parent this. I hold nothing against this child or the parent. I still love them both! Very much! However, this child hasn't been back to my class since then. That's OK, obviously that's not the type of thing we take attendance for or anything so there's absolutely no harm in this child not going.

When three weeks had gone by and the child hadn't been back I realized that maybe the parent didn't make her because the child didn't like me. To each their own. I'm not judging at all but it made me start thinking about if I'd let Gibbie stop doing something just because she didn't like one person.

For VBS I know of one child who apparently got in trouble on Monday and that was the last I saw of him. He wasn't in trouble with me but I did hear a volunteer saying he was acting up during snacks.

There are going to be a lot of people in her life that she's not going to like. I know this for a fact because there are a lot of people in my life I don't particularly care to be around. Don't worry, you're not one of them. So should I make Gibbie continue to do something regardless of how she feels about one person?

So then I started thinking about another thing I see a lot of. Parents forcing their child to do some kind of group activity that the child isn't interested in OR parents forcing their child to do EVERY group activity under the sun. The Hubs and I always said that as long as Gibbie did something extracurricular we'd be happy. For an example, we'll try dance and if after a while she decides she hates it then we'll move on to soccer. If she hates soccer then we'll try cheer (gulp). If she doesn't like cheer (yay) then we'll move on to an instrument. And on and on until she either finds something she likes or we force her to start the cycle over. Of course I'd never let her quit mid-season or mid-whatever it is. If she makes a year long commitment then she's stuck for the year.

As always I posed this question to my Facebook friends as well as my Tumblr followers and again got some wonderful answers. Just about ever comment I got was in agreement with me. I had one friend say that they would want it to be something their child could carry with them. She explained, "Making kids do tap dance or something always seemed silly to me because it's not an investment in a lifelong skill." She also mention asking someone once how long it took this person to like playing piano. It took him six years to love it! That's six years of wanting to quit and probably complaining to his parents every time he had to practice. Now, he loves it, and he's phenomenal.

Another friend who is a sports editor says it's obvious when a kid is only there because their parents want them to be and when a kid actually enjoys what he/she is doing.

If it was your child what would you do? I really want to know. I'm not one to judge parenting decisions (I was a formula feeder who after 15 months let my child cry it out and don't force her to eat veggies) so let it all out!

Here are some links to check out on the subject:

Why We Shouldn't Force Our Kids Into Sports

Extracurricular activities: Should kids be forced into them?

Negative Effects of Parents That Push Their Children Into Playing Sports

Letting Kids Quit Extracurricular Activities

Before you go, here's a picture to lighten the mood:

Gibbie the Fly Hunter

Thankful Thursday

Every week I try to list a few things I'm thankful for. It really helps me realize what is important and what I need to stop worrying about.

*The ability to volunteer at my church. I love the fact that being a stay at home mom has allowed me to spend time with my church. I love the community, I love the people I've met, I love the kids! Last week's Vacation Bible School was so much fun and now I'm about to gear up for a new MOPS year! I'm also a Sunday school teacher and love having my daughter in my class.

*My daughter's ability to enjoy having her nails painted and still say she's a pirate right afterwards. I have never been really girly and sometimes I get surprised by how girly Gibbie is. She loves nail polish, dresses, princess stuff, "cooking" in her play kitchen, and lip gloss (or lip lip as she calls it). On the other hand all of her friends are boys, she loves playing with cars, her favorite color is blue, and she's very loud and rough houses quite a bit. She still hates getting her hands dirty though. She freaked out at the beach last year when the wet sand stuck to her and when we tried do finger paint I thought she was going to have an anxiety attack.

*Whiskey. Though I'm starting to think I need to take a break I am really enjoying whiskey lately. I go through alcohol phases. I've done beer and wine and vodka. Right now it's whiskey. It goes great with lemonade and diet soda. I do not like it straight. Once when we were still dating The Hubs was making himself a whiskey and Sprite and getting me a glass of water. Only he put the whiskey in the wrong glass. Grossest water ever. I still tease him about the whiskey water and it's been almost eight years. Let's face it, I'm potty training a two year old so I need something to get me through it!

*Writing. I've been happier since I started this blog up less than a week ago. It's my therapy. It's my escape. It's my way of just letting go and having a moment to myself. I love sharing, I love knowing someone is reading my stuff, I love reading blogs so it made sense for me to start writing again. I get so incredibly giddy when someone comments on my blog. I used to write short stories too but I just lost interest in some point and stopped. I hope to eventually get back into that again too.

What are you thankful for today?

Tuesday Topics - Labeling Your Child

All last week I was in charge of games for our church's Vacation Bible School. It was so much fun! We played a human ring toss game, a game in which the kids had to hold hands in a circle and pass a hula hoop all away around, and a lot of tug of war! Plus, because it was so hot out and games were outside all the kids got a popsicle and water after each game! Most of the kids were thrilled about being there but there were a handful who just weren't having it.

I helped with the decorations as well as the games and general brainstorming with our church's secretary (who I love so much) so I overheard a lot of plans and "issues" being discussed about it. I wasn't eavesdropping! These conversations took place in the same room I was working. I knew for sure that we were to have one autistic child from one of these conversations and I was prepared for him. However, there ended up being three or four and their parents never said a thing about it.

I do understand not wanting to label your child with a disability to a certain extent. I do not understand not letting someone know that your child is autistic so we can better prepare ourselves to help your child cope during the week. For the sake of reference I'll call this kid Greg. When Greg showed up on the second day of VBS he didn't have any desire to play the game we were playing. I would never force someone to play if they didn't want to so I told Greg he was welcome to hang out in the shade and I'd give him a popsicle with the other kids when the game was over. I turned around to give instructions to the other 15 or so kids and when I turn back around Greg was gone! I look around and he's slowly walking towards the parking lot looking into the sky and mumbling something in an unidentifiable language. I ran over and tried to get Greg back under the shade and away from the street and I had to push him along because he wasn't moving. Later that morning Greg just walked away from the snack area on his own. I found him in the craft area and again had to push him back to his group.

After putting away all of the toys and such for games I was taking a break from the hot sun in the refrigerated air conditioning of the church office. The secretary was on the phone and what I heard went something like this:
"Well he doesn't seem to want to interact with anyone and he's getting a little angry when we try to interact with him. We were just wondering if there is anything we should know to help us make him happy or help him interact. Oh. OK. So he is autistic. OK, I will have one of our volunteers who is about to graduate with a degree in early childhood education watch after him."

Why wasn't this information given at the time of registration? We were fully prepared for a wide variety of special needs but we need to know which children have them and what the needs are.

I posted this to my Facebook and Tumblr to see if anyone disagreed with me:
"Question for anyone willing to provide an opinion: Do you think it is ultimately harmful or helpful to a child when his/her parent refuses to label him/her with a disability to avoid special treatment or negative connotation. For example, if the parent doesn't let caregivers/teachers/anyone watching their child know that he/she is autistic."

So far only two people disagree. One said that her ex never got special treatment for his heart condition and that made him a better person. I can see that but I think I'd still like to know if the child I'm watching has a heart condition just in case something happened. The best response I've gotten really tied into that. A friend of mine on Facebook said, "... if the kid is severe enough to be diagnosed, then teachers/caregivers need to know in the event of an emergency, or any other situation that could arise. They will need to know if the kid does need special treatment."

A teacher I've known most of my life says that not passing on the information to teachers can be the parent's way of testing the system. The parent, being in denial about the diagnosis, won't bother letting anyone know to see if the teachers notice something wrong with their child and bring it up to the parent.

On the opposite opinion is a distant cousin of mine. She has a 30 year old son who has been given the diagnosis of "profoundly mentally impaired." She feels that her son was able to receive a lot of assistance that was needed that he never would have gotten without that label but at the same time it does give a negative connotation. She even said that as she commented on my post he was watching videos online with us own laptop by himself. Obviously he isn't too profoundly mentally impaired if he is able to do that on his own. He can not feed himself, walk, or talk but he communicates through a touch talker and sign language.

What do you think? Do you think that parents should let teachers/caregivers/etc know about special needs including autism? Do you think the parents should let the child with autism know?


Also, here's some links I found interesting while writing this:

Should I Tell My Child They Are On the Spectrum?
Don't Let a Label Define Your Autistic Child
Autism Speaks
Truth in Labeling

Finally, just to lighten the mood a bit, here's a photo of Gibbie with Duke the horse and me with Duke the horse from Vacation Bible School:

Happy Tuesday!

Weekend Review

Restful and relaxing and just what we needed. After volunteering with our church's Vacation Bible School all last week I was exhausted. Gibbie wasn't old enough to actually be a part of it but we had an amazing volunteer watching after her and one other little one while mama worked the games.

Friday night we had the VBS Family Night at church. Gibbie had memorized all of the dance moves so she went up with all of the other kids to dance.

She loved every second of it. We did too. After dancing we had ice cream.

Saturday we rested as much as possible. We were having an adjuster come out to check out the leaks from the past two or three storms so we had to clean a bit. After cleaning we did very little. We watched some tv, took a nap, then accidentally put fake money in a bunny bank and had fun dumping it out and putting all of the real money back in. 

The Hubs went to a gathering of men at a friend's house. We graciously stayed home and had some girly girl fun. 

Please focus in the little piggies painted purple and not the stains on my carpet.

She insisted on us matching.

We watched Tangled and stayed up about an hour later than usual. Fun all around.

Sunday after church we took a mini day trip to Old Mesilla. My favorite New Mexican restaurant, La Posta de Mesilla, is there and they have a lot of cute shops.

Gibbie likes the restaurant's milk cups:

My husband does not like that they don't have a place to hang his hat:

 Before we got to go to any of the cute shops (Gibbie loves the little local bookshop so much because the owner's dogs wander around) it started to rain pretty hard. Gibs and I ducked into the coffee shop while The Hubs went to grab the truck and pick us up. He's totally our night in shining pick up truck (anyone know what movie that's from?).

After the mini storm the hour long trip home was amazingly beautiful:

 It's hard to believe I live in the desert when I see this picture.

All was well until getting out of the truck at home when Gibbie was bitten by an ant. The bite swelled up and we were afraid she might be allergic so we slipped her a tiny bit of Children's Benadryl. She then insisted on watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I can only imagine the crazy allergy medicine induced trip she had while watching that movie. Children's Benadryl always makes her a bit loopy before making her tired. I'm not going to lie, it's hilarious, but I promise we only use it when absolutely necessary.

After Gibbie's bedtime The Hubs and I cuddled on our separate couches to watch The Breakfast Club while doing laundry and getting sleepy. I hope you all had a great weekend as well!