Just Be Glad You're Not Me Today

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New Research: Is Yelling at Kids Worse than Hitting?

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"Mommy, It's Not Fair!!" Is it Bad Behavior or Just Human Nature?

This morning I almost lost my cool in a very bad way.  See this toy?  Munchkin Girl has played with this approximately once in four years.  I really should have gotten rid of it by now, but I keep thinking they might get some educational value from it so I can't bring myself to pitch it.



But I didn't.  Why?  Because I had an earth-shattering realization a few days ago.  Earlier in the week, I came across a study from the journal Current Biology, which found that even toddlers are susceptible to peer pressure.  When I saw this report, my first reaction was, "DUH."

At first I thought it was absurd that they were even reporting this.  Anyone with kids knows that if one toddler climbs on top of the toy car, they are all going to want to do it and will soon be yelling, MY TURN!!!! in a high-pitched squeal.

Then it came to me.  This is just human nature.  Even adults do this.  How many times have we complained that someone got a raise and we didn't and it's just not fair because we work harder?  I remember thinking it wasn't fair that my friends kept having babies who slept all night while mine were up every hour wanting to eat. I never thought in a million years that I would want a Coach bag.  Franky, I usually don't even like the designs all that much.  Yet, I found myself wanting one a few years ago when I saw all my friends with them because the truth is, it is human nature to want what your friends have and do what your friends are doing.  That's why brand names are so popular. I've even heard adult women lamenting that their Grandma or whoever didn't spend enough on wedding gifts compared to how much she spent on a different Grandchild and it wasn't fair.

The difference is, adults have grown to recognize this behavior and hopefully curb the desire to stomp our feet and scream and demand the purple Coach bag that our friend just got.  Frankly, this might be the entire reason that kids go through the "Terrible Twos".  They are smart enough to realize they want something, but haven't learned yet to control the behavior.  Even Munchkin Girl is three and a half, and it's clear how far she's come since she was two.



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Fake Injury??

I was the queen of faking injuries when I was growing up.  Maybe it was the attention, maybe it was that I didn't enjoy running.  I'm not really sure why I did it, but I've always felt sorry for my kids because I was certain that I'd be able to tell a fake injury from a real one so I felt confident they wouldn't stand a chance.

Now I'm not so sure.  Munchkin Girl ran around and yelled like a banshee last night during Trick or Treating.  She had an absolute ball and didn't say a word about having a hurt foot. 


See?  She's the one in the Tinkerbell costume.  She ran around and kept up with the bigs kids like a champ until almost 8:00.  However, this morning she woke up and immediately said her foot hurt.  I didn't think much about it, but then every time she tried to walk at all she would drop to the ground and cry.  She claimed she wanted to go to school, so I don't think she was just trying to get out of going anywhere. 

I didn't know what to think.  Her foot didn't look swollen or red.  She begged me to send her to school but would the teachers be mad if she limped around all day?  I finally though to ask her how she hurt her foot.  She replied. 
"I think a car ran over it."

"Oh really?" I said.  "Little Buddy ran over your foot with his toy car?"

"No," she said.  "I think you ran over it in your car."

Perfect!  Now she's going to school and she's going to tell her teachers that her Mommy ran over her foot with her car.  I don't know whether she's faking or not, but I am 100% certain that I did NOT run over her foot at any time.  It makes it a little harder to tell whether they're faking or not when you're certain they're a bit of a fibber to begin with. 

Quit ganging up on my kid!!

Tonight I had to watch my three year old get thrown to the ground by an older neighborhood girl.  She did hit the girl first, but my poor little daughter looked so confused and hurt when she got up off the ground, that it really made me wonder what kind of conflict is good for kids and teaches them a lesson and what kind of conflict is damaging to self-esteem.  

She does LOVE playing with the neighborhood kids but it worries me a little because she's only three, one neighbor girl is four, and the other is six and there are a bunch of boys so things get pretty rough out there, both physicall and emotionally. 

Today was a perfect example.  She was thrilled when everyone was outside and she hurried out there to play.  Everything was rainblows and sunshine for about 15 minutes when suddenly the two older girls decided they didn't want Munchking Girl with them anymore.  I saw them whispering and they ran away together.  Munchkin Girl looked confused, then took off after them.  In order to get their attention, she started hitting them and running away, kind of like she was trying to play tag.  Unfortuantely, this really irritated them.  She walked up to one of the girls and hit her playfully and this girl seriously threw her to the ground.  She put both legs and arms and all her strength into it.  It literally looked like a football tackle.  Of course the girl's parents weren't out there, so I tried to intervene but she just sassed me and told me that Munchkin Girl deserved it for hitting her. 

I asked my daughter later why she was hitting the girls.  She said, "I was trying to be funny, Mom."
Yes, she needs to learn not to hit others, but will this sort of thing affect her self-esteem in the long run?  People Magazine ran a story this month about a seventeen year old boy named Michael Ford-Berry who committed suicide because another teen was making fun of him for being a virgin.  This boy was targeted and felt so humiliated that he eventually took his own life. 
Luckily I'm far from the teen years, but I started thinking about what I can do to make sure that she doesn't let this neighborhood conflict affect her.  The good news is that A new study was released in Translational Pyschiatry that shows research that positive parenting can truly affect children in the long run, as much as genes can.  There is a gene that affects some children called the 5-HTTLPR and it leaves kids more susceptible to feeling depressed and anxious.  This study looks at these children and whether positive parenting can help with these negative feelings.  The study says:

"Parenting is one well-studied factor affecting youths’ level of positive affect. Children and adolescents who experience warm, sensitive, supportive and positive parenting have been shown to exhibit higher levels of positive affect, demonstrate better social-emotional functioning and are at a reduced risk for the development of psychopathology."

We all learn lessons in life every day.  On this day, Munchkin Girl got sick of all the drama and wandered off in search of the boys.  Smart girl. 

I learned that even though I can't control the neighborhood kids, I can control my own behavior and I can try to provide a positive, healthy envirnoment for my daughter and hopefully she'll grow up confident and able to defend herself emotionally against anything that comes her way. 

Note:  I did publish a version of this story first at Quit Ganging Up on My Kid on Technorati.