10 Ways Monopoly teaches Life Skills

Monopoly

We have always struggled with board games. Little Miss was not a good game player, and melt-downs used to be her go-to reaction when the game did not go in her favour. We understand it better now while she is busy learning life skills.

There are more than enough articles about the the positive impact of board games, and we will definitely incorporate it more in our lives.We've got two Monopoly sets, a Scrabble and a Rummikub at home. We gifted Miss the Rummikub in December, but we've only tried playing it once. Because, melt-downs...

Turns out the meltdowns have an underlying base

Miss with dog

I feel so sad today. We have always struggled with the meltdowns, but we thought it would fizzle out! It's not so bad!


But after one particular blow-up about a muffin one morning, I phoned the school psychologist, and she has been seeing Miss at school.


We had our first feedback last night. She did the Rochard Psychology Test. What is underneath is much worse than we though. Obviously I am not going to share much about the details, as this is not my story.

Parenting is a series of negotiations about clothes

It happens every single day! The negotiations about clothes!

It helps a bit that she wears school clothes, or we would never have been in time during the school week! It is worse over the weekend when she has a whole cupboard full of clothes to choose from, and she only wants to wear her favourites that are in the wash. The best meltdowns have been about clothes and what to wear!

This morning she wanted to go without shoes, although it was raining and cold. She has eczema underneath her toes, and it is never a good idea to go without shoes, as it gets very dry and itchy when she goes barefoot.

But that does not matter! We have to tell her each morning it is a better idea to wear her shoes! And it needs a LOT of convincing.

Then the jacket. She never wants to wear a jacket, UNTIL she is freezing! Usually when we have arrived at our destination... Or in the shops at the frozen section... That's why the parents have to drag a jacket along every single time!  (Now if we can only remember it every single time!)

She has always been very particular about her clothes. I called her a Princessionista at nearly three years of age, and she still has very specific ideas about clothes!


Do you also struggle daily with negotiations about clothes, or are you lucky with kids that wear the jacket and shoes?

Teeth adventures - Number 4

Crisis again! Tooth number four went missing!

These "adventures" with teeth are keeping us busy, it seems!

Little Miss lets them hang and wiggle in her mouth, but won't let us come near them, or try to loosen them up.

Tooth number 4 was still there when Little Miss brushed her teeth on Tuesday night, but she discovered the open space (on top, right hand side) in her mouth while reading a book to her and her friend.

It was a total melt-down situation!
It was traumatic!

Luckily the situation was brought under control by promising to write to the Tooth Mouse, and telling him about the situation. He would definitely find the tooth where it had gone missing!

Big Sister wrote the letter, and it was placed in the slipper.
(Letter to the tooth mouse here: Babysitting two girls)

On Wednesday there was a letter back from the Tooth Mouse with a R10 paper note.
He wrote that he had found it! Jay!

Here comes FIVE with a big tantrum!

Five!

Tomorrow is the big day for Little Missy. It has been a long year of waiting for her, but it has finally arrived!

We did not predict that Five would still come with the tantrums, but yes!
It is worse!

It is not pretty to see a big girl starting to wail and kick and hit and scream.

For the first few minutes of the tantrum it is impossible to get anything through to her.
It is during that stage that I would gladly poke out my own eye to make it stop, but not even that would work!

We have tried it all!

And of course we are always question our own parenting skills, and wondering if the gene pool did not drop too many of those aggressive genes into our Little Missy?

I did a bit of Googling psychology, and saw that it is not that strange for a five-year to still get tantrums. Also that they have had years of practise now in tantrum throwing, and they have become experts in the tantrum field of behaviour!

Tantrums play itself out in different stages, and that it is not worth trying to engage in the first stage. They are unable to do anything while their brains are in overload. It is best to ignore the first stage of screaming, kicking and wailing, and to swoop in when they get to the emotional stage. Mostly it is seen when they drop on the floor, sobbing or crying. Or when they asked to be picked up or hold.

We have been doing it right!

The most important for us is to not loose our cool!
To keep calm at all times! (We have not always got it right!)

That will be our New Year's resolution for this year!
To stay calm in the eye of the storm tantrum!


Happy birthday my girl!

I know for a fact that we will laugh our asses off in the future about your big fat huge tantrums!
(But now it is not that funny at all!)

The phases of a Tantrum - as experienced by a parent

Melt-down about 3 missing chappies

(Which she ate herself)

I have read Melissa's blog post about The F-king fours, and was extremely relieved to know that it is not only us who struggle!

Yesterday morning we had a huge tantrum when she threw herself on the bathroom floor after I had brush her teeth. I did not brush her teeth in "circles", apparently!
Last night coming home she wanted the music turned louder in the car. I could not turn it up because we had a passenger.  She did not stop crying!

I am regularly writing or trying some new ways of handling The Tantrums, but I do not feel that we have solved it!

How long can it last?

I am now beginning to see a pattern in our handling of the tantrum.
It definitely plays itself out in phases.


Phases parents go through when dealing with a tantrum:

1. Trying to rectify the problem immediately by giving in to the demand. (It usually does not work!)

2. Reasoning with the child. (It does not work!)

3. Picking them up / sitting with them / trying to hold them. (Usually not possibly with a wriggling child)

4. Giving up by walking away or ignoring.

5. Waiting for them to calm down by themselves.


I realise no 4 is not a very good parenting technique, and I am open to more suggestions?

- The video (I hope it opens up) was at our recent camp where her dad bought her 7 chappies. She put it in his pocket after she had eaten three of them. When she wanted it back, she was extremely disgusted about the fact that there was only four left. Dad said he would buy three again, then he tried explaining that she had eaten it, then he let her cry, and then he gave up...

Tantrums at 4 and a half?

Yes, we are still seeing these!

The blown-ups, the blow-downs, the melt-downs, the floor-throwers, ...

THE TRANTRUM!

What are we doing wrong?


Related post:

Reasons why the Preschooler gets upset

A seat booked in a spaceship

We were told last night that she has got her purse with her money, and that they (?) are coming to fetch her. They have a seat arranged for her in the spaceship.
She asked us if we want to come along.
But, apparently, they have no seats for a Karen and a Dries!
Only for a Mieka!
But we can get seats in another spaceship, and we will be able to look at each other...
----
She had a scolding about a terrible melt-down about a jacket yesterday morning, and yesterday afternoon she was afraid her dad would also be cross about the ink marks on her face and hands as well (which he was not!)
(She was busy writing in the car on the way home, and I only noticed the face when we got home.)
So, threatening not to have a place for us in the spaceship, because we should not be scolding her, is her way of dealing with it!
We usually get threatened with not being invited to her pink house!
The pink house in the sky, with the dragons, the smaller sister and the small kitten...

Posted with Blogsy

Wordless Wednesday #175 - The cup of hot chocolate is not big enough

Reasons why the Preschooler gets upset

Little Missy still gets her furious tantrums, and after snort laughing at Reasons my son is crying, I decided to put up our own list.

A work in progress, of course...

Most of the times she gets upset about the most illogical stuff (or so we think), but in Her World it is Big AND Logical!
(Or else, it wouldn't have warrant such an explosion, would it?)

1. Waking up in the afternoons. This can sometimes take more than a hour to calm her down. (See photo above)

2. Pitching up "too early" at Pre-Primary in the afternoons. She still wanted to play!  (When it is the normal four o'clock pick-up time)

3. Not bringing a "surprise" when I go to pick her up.

4. Not turning on the children's programmes on television.

5. Wanting to turn off the children's programmes on television. (After we have said she could only watch for a fixed amount of time!)

6. Not dressed in the "right" clothes for the day!

7. She wants a sweet/ice-cream/lollipop at the shops. Protesting in the car, or in the shops!

8. Her friend hurt her feelings ("my hartjie seergemaak"), but only switching on the waterworks when we arrive at school.

9. Getting upset about a small hot chocolate in the coffee shop. It should have been a big cup like ours!

10. Screaming loudly when you try to distract her. She is not stupid! She knows what you are trying to do!

11. Not being kissed by Mom or Dad just before pulling out of the drive-way!

12. Having to leave too early at the Grandparents.

13. Breakfast in the car should not have been porridge/egg/fruit, but the other thing she had eaten the day before.

14. We are not allowed to sing with her! Period!

15. We are not allowed to interrupt her thought stream when she is talking to us!

16. We are not allowed to talk for too long in the car. She wants her turn as well!


What upsets your toddler or preschooler?

The first feedback in Grade RR

We had our feedback session with the Little Missy's teacher the previous week.
(Before I forget, I am writing down the important points.)

It seems that most of my fears of her being so young are unfounded. Her birthday is in December which makes her a bit younger than most of her classmates. But her teacher believes that it is better to keep them with their age group, and that she does not perceive any problems of our Little Missy not going to Grade R.

Grade R is of course the final goal for Little Missy!
She thinks that she will arrive when she gets to Grade R.

She must be able to do the following: 
(Which apparently is not yet fully mastered)

- She needs to start helping with small tasks.
- She needs to be able to pack her own suitcase.
- She should be able to listen to the teacher.
- She must exercise her cutting skills.
- And: We have a whole list of stuff to exercise at home. (Which was handed out to all the parents)
(Wow! So small, and so many things to do and know already!)

The teacher tells us that she has a bit of a smart mouth on her:
- She retorted when she used a very bad swearword: "It's not me, it is my voice!"
- She was hitting another child, and when reprimanded: "I am not hitting her, I am giving her a hiding!"

The tantrums are also used very selectively, and also more than we expected.
(*sigh* We know! We still see it at home, but thought that it was more under wraps at school!)

She also has a best best friend, and even in the first week the teacher told me that they were very close. The friend calls the shots, and Little Missy follows.
Jade knows best! She knows everything!
The teacher has them seated at different tables, and she has a rule that they can't help or stand next to each other when they get an assignment.
The teacher overheard her once when she was waiting for Jade, and Jade kept on doing her own thing: "Jade I love you so much! Please come!"

Little Missy says that Jade just wants to play with her and no one else, but we see Jade playing with many other friends.

Always tough on the little ones when they focus on someone and don't see the other friends waiting on the side! (I see other friends hanging around when I go to fetch her in the afternoons...)
I will keep on telling her that it is good to have more than one friend!

I don't think boys have so many issues with friends?

Letter to my little girl

My dear little big girl,

I haven't done the 46 months post, and it is probably not necessary any more...
45 months was just yester-day!
When asked how old you are, we already say you are nearly four. You have been four all year in your class with the rest of the four-year old's.

You are a daily source of cute sayings and fantasy stories and keeping us on our toes!

You are also surprising us with the intensity of your outrage when things do not go your way.
(I think we can still can it tantrums?)

Outrage about us not looking to the back of the car when we are driving when you want to show us something; outrage about not getting to eat the whole packet of biscuits before dinner; outrage about the wrong choice of shoes by Mom; the list goes on...

On Tuesday morning you were just not impressed to be awake. As we are also not jump-up-and-go-morning-people, I gave you a lot of sympathy.
Apparently your hands were not washed correctly when I tried to help you, and your shoes were wrong for the day!
I left you on the stairs for a few minutes while you were whimpering: "Sussie!" (Sister!)
We could exchange the shoes, and had to wash the hands again.
You were off with a whine about not wanting the eat the chocolate oats. You wanted the normal "mince" porridge, as you like to call it! (It takes too long, and we have to be off before traffic gets bad!)
So you had Dad's toast and egg (which you never want to eat) for breakfast in the car!

You make our lives very interesting!

We went to a craft market this week, and you had so much fun looking at everything. Dad wanted you to be more quite, because everything came with a load exclamation! "Mom/Dad, look here!"
(I had to remind Dad that you just wanted to share your excitement, and that it is okay if you are a little bit loud!)

When you find something that really agrees with you, you tell us: "Ek LOVE roomys!" ("I love ice-cream" - The English mixed with the Afrikaans!)

You have also learned quite a lot about swearwords (we blame the school, of course!), and we are having a number of conversations about what is the allowed or not, and why not!
You even had a conversation with Dad about the use of middle fingers and other fingers...
You know where to use it, but I like the fact that we can discuss it with you and it seems that you take our words to heart!

You love your sister, and miss her during the time she is not at home. We have to answer your questions the whole week about her being at university!

You are still very much a little girl who wants to wear dresses the whole time. You do not like your hair being in hair bands, and you like your toes and nails being painted.
You spent many times doing Mom's hair.

You love singing to us, and usually it is in Miekanese. Words in languages and melodies that are all your own! (I will put it up in a post on Monday - Movie Clip Monday #28).
It's fantastic! I love that about you!

I hope you never lose this creativity, and that we would be able to channel it in the right direction.

Thanks for being in our lives, and giving us so much love!
We feel blessed every day by the wonderful being of you!

You make me happy!

LOVE!!

Your Mom!

45 Months

WHAT??

We are just trying to keep up with her!

Not everything she does is our parenting at fault. "Girls playing with girls" is her perception of life at the moment, and we can only help her to to see that not everything is as "pink" and "blue" as she believes it is!

She is becoming her own person more and more.

Humour helps us to negotiate the toddler tantrums. It really works!

Talking and reasoning is becoming much easier, and we haven't seen another Mommy taxi-meltdown after we said enough is enough!

At this very moment I am sitting and drinking an extra coffee before I go to pick her up from after-care. I asked her if she wants to be fetched early, or if she wants to play with her friends.

Guess what? She wants to play with her friends!

And that is all good!

That is how it is supposed to be!

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Humour saves us from a full-blown toddler tantrum

Toddlers and tantrums are synonymous! (Heck, yes!)

And by now we have seen all the types and forms and manifestations of the worst of the worst of tantrums!

It is not a pleasant sight!
It does not help the harmonious atmosphere in any home!
And it is extremely embarrassing when out of the family home!

I don't know of how many times I have put on my straight face walking with a screaming toddler when it doesn't help to talk to her or try to calm her down. She gets even more upset! It only helps to pick her up and walk out of a situation at that point in time!

We as parents know when it is starting to build up to one:
- It starts with a whine...
- It starts with a "NO!"
- It starts with a mouth hanging upside down on the ground...
- It starts with a heap of toddler on the floor...
- It starts with a toddler, and no reason whatsoever (or one that we can fathom!)

We know all the signs of a threatening tantrum!

I have found one thing that works almost all of the times!
Making a toddler joke!

For example: When the Toddler is in the car and we are driving and she starts asking for something:
"I want a sweet from the shop!"
"Yes, we will buy a sweet the next time we are at the shops!"
"I want a sweet... (Repeat 50 times with increase in volume and whine!)
"Yes, we will buy next time!" (Repeat 50 times!)
When the pitch starts to change to tantrum mode, I usually ask her if I must stop on the pavement and get a sweet from the pavement / or from the man walking / or from the trees / or from the sky...
She answers with a laugh: "No, it is not there! We must get it in the shops!"
The joke averts the imminent tantrum, and she starts to focus on something else!
(Repeat)

It has helped me to not become too serious, and it also lightens the mood!

Now I only have to come up with funny creative retorts!
Any ideas?

44 months

Three years and eight months.

She is a bundle of
- songs - the whole day long! Usually in her own language as well! She makes up her own tunes and words.
- cuddles - any time unexpected! We are not always as lucky when we ask for a kiss or cuddle, although we want to kiss her all the time!
- melt-downs and rejections! 
- activities - always on her scooter or small tricycle, or painting, or reading, or dancing...
- always willing to help - with preparation of food, or watering the plants, or cutting a picture.
- "I want to do it myself!" - One of her most favourite expressions!
- "I want it!" - Another favourite expression (The "please" and "thank-you" are not that forthcoming yet... A work in progress!)
- She asks daily when we are going to climb the mountain, or going to the Drakensberg. (We will have to plan accordingly. Hint-hint!)

Cute is still the best description for her!

(Photo by her Dad this morning)

Mommy taxi melt-downs

Last week was the final straw in my daily rejection episodes with the Toddler...

She had a total fit again when I went to pick her up, screaming angrily at me, and even hitting me.
I tried (again) to reason with her, and finally just let her vent!
She said stuff like I have a "black heart" and that she is not my child any more!

All this time with a colleague as well in the car, feeling very ashamed of letting things get out of control!

But that was the final straw!

When I got home I told her dad that that was the last time she had done this!

We told her that she cannot continue doing this. If she does it once more, she will be returned to the after-care, and we will only go to fetch her just before they close. Her dad focused on more on how she hurts me with her behaviour, and it seems that it made an impact. We also told her that it is not possible for her dad to go and fetch her most of the afternoons.
Which we have told her many times...

It seems that the reason for her behaviour is that her special friend Jade at school has a dad who comes to pick her up...

So far it seems that our talk has worked, and I will carry out my threat to leave her there!

How would you handle it?

She's leaving us!

There were some angry words spoken!
She said she's leaving us!
She got on her scooter and drove away!
Right round the dining room table...

We had used a hair elastic from the Toddler to put in the dog's hair. I asked for permission two days back, and it was fine then. Today she wanted it back, and got real angry with us for not allowing her to take it out again...

First threat from our fickle Toddler! Never a dull moment!

Three steps to handle those meltdowns - "She is not being difficult!"

Crying, tantrums, melt-downs...

That's what Toddlerville looks like now!

It gets very difficult for us to handle it!
We get the feeling that she is just being naughty difficult!

The immediate gut-reaction from our side is to label it (as being difficult!), to threaten her with some sort of punishment or to ignore...

The more I read about it, and the more I try to understand the outbursts, the more I know that she is  not being difficult!

- She wants to express something to us that she is not yet fully able to understand herself!

- The only way to express her feelings is through crying, tantrums and melt-downs!

- She wants us to understand what she is trying to express! She is having very strong feelings about it!


I heard a very sane way of handling it (on Groeipyne, on RSG, an Afrikaans radio station), and it can be done in 3 steps.

3  Steps to approach a meltdown (tantrum/crying):

1. Try to understand what the child is trying to say?

2. Reflect her emotions (that is lying underneath the behaviour) back to her!
"I can hear you are angry/upset/frustrated because you ...."

3. Allow her to have the emotions and scoop her up in your arms or stay very close. Be accepting of her feelings and emotions!
It does not mean you have to give in to all her demands.
She should be allowed to have those feelings and outbursts!

Our job is to learn them how to handle these outbursts and emotions.


Or else we will still have a door-slamming, swearing, raging individual when she grows up... (those Adult tantrums!)



Related posts: (I see I have quite a few ;-) I am still learning...)

How to survive the terrible tantrum

The t-dance: the toddler and tantrums

Symptoms of toddlerhood: the whistle and not sleeping

The evening WHINE