May 20, 2006

Much of life has passed since I have last written. No quarrels, thankfully. Oh, except with Trevelyn.
go back and forth with him.
I want to let him have his freedom, but then he eats a dozen popsicles in a day, and I worry that he is not regulating, paying attention to his body. Maybe I should spell it out for him - "You can have a popsicle whenever you want, I will not take them away from you. But please pay attention to the other things your body needs, protein, vegetables, fruit, and calcium." Every thing I read on RU says that after they see that you really are NOT going to take it away from them, or tell them how much they can have, the novelty really does wear off, as it isn't a matter of hurrying and eating as much as they can while you are outside mowing the grass. I did decide to make sugar-free popsicles at home, instead of buying $4 boxes of them. I'll make some real ones with juice (or buy them) but I also bought koolaid to make them, and am making those with stevia, a natural herbal sweetner. I also bought 4 more popsicle makers today, they make 4 at a time. Those cost very little to make, 25 cents for two dozen?, so it won't put me in the poor house, or make me irritated that he is eating them up all in one day.
sigh.
I guess that is what I should do, sit him down and talk with him about appropriate foods, what foods are good for what part of the body. A video and a couple of great library books. He would go for that, I think.
It's not as if he is going to fall over and die, I think most teenagers (and some of our adult friends) live on fastfood hamburgers and french fries. People can live a long time on that sort of stuff. I just need to let him know about how and why to keep his body healthy and strong.
He is a reasonable, intelligent boy, so I think he would listen.

We got a Leap dvd from the store the other day, and since then he has been going around the house singing "the 'a' says aaa, the 'b' says b" and so forth. He was singing in the bathtub a few days ago, and I took a couple of letters in there, an 'i' and 'f', and he managed to put them togetherto read "if". I, of course, was thrilled. Been asking him on and off a bit since then, but I don't want to take the pleasure out of it for him, and don't want to stress him, or make him think he can't learn it all on his own. He should be very proud of himself, he is teaching himself how to read. I am releived, thrilled, and very pleased. I don't want to forcefully teach him, and therefore am thankful he is learning on his own.

Parenting is a brutal business. Do you know it? God. You want to get it right, indeed - perfect, and it's a very tough game.I am currently reading Alfie Kohn's book "Unconditoinal Parenting", which talks about the trouble with rewards and punishments, and how devistating they can be to a child's confidence, learning, and destructive to who they are. It's a most valuable read, right now.
I am still in the part about "don't do this because this may happen", so I am eagerly making my way through to the "do" section.I am hoping for a paradigm shift, as I believe the theory to be true.
More on this later, I really have to get for now.
Stephanie