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sachmo71 · 10-11-2005, 10:31 PM

Have to get me some of this.

I have two wonderful children. My daughter is 3, named Sydney.
My son, 2, is Max.

There are a multiple issues right now that we are dealing with.
Max is being potty trained. I guess I never thought about the challenges of potty training a boy, but I never thought about the stand up factor. So my wife read up on it, and the key seems to be putting him on the toilet backwards, so he is facing the potty like he will be when he's standing up, but had most of the bowl to aim for. We aren't using training potty's, because it worked better for my daughter on a normal toilet and so we'll see how it goes with my son. Also, he is in speech therapy because he was a little delayed, and he is talking up a storm. It's a wonderful feeling when the kids start putting words together and you can actually get some feedback from them. My favorite words are "football", "hockey man", and "boo" (his bear)

Sydney is a handful, and then some. We started both of our kids out at a home daycare, with an older lady who would watch them all day. It was relaxed, and there was no real learning activities...she was more of a babysitter, but she was within our budget and she loved the kids. At about 2, she started biting. Not much, but it happened one day. One of my friends decided to take his daughter there, because we recommended her and the price was right. For the five days his daughter was there, Sydney bit her every day. It was horrible!
So we would try to tell her not to do it anymore, but what can you say to a two year old when you aren't "on the scene"?
Anyway, so we took her to a day school, and things started out fine. She was learning at a very rapid pace, and everyone seemed happy. Then, she started biting kids. Every day it seemed, she would bite someone. We talked to the headmaster, who is also a psychologist. He gave us some tips, and never overtly blaming us, but the gist of his advice was that the child will do what the parents let them do. In our minds, we were BAD PARENTS.
So we tried his advice, and I have to admit, things got a little better, but I think we lost focus. Finally, she bit a kid so bad that their parents delivered an ultimatum...it was Sydney gone or her kid gone. So Sydney was out.

Thankfully, he kept working with us, in the hopes of her getting back in. We tried everything that he said to do. Walks when she lost her temper. The 5 rules. EVERYTHING. Finally, he let her back in. And it worked out well...for a while.

She started biting again, and not listening to the teachers. Every day we would get a report on what she was doing wrong, etc. Neither my wife nor I wanted to show our faces in the place. The guy must have thought we were the worst parents in the world, perhaps only a bit less than we did. Failures. Losers. My mindset at the time was that my wife and I together were possibly causing more damage to our kids than we would apart. I was actually comtemplting a seperation to see if that will help. Desperate, eh?

Finally, they told us she had to leave for good. Talk about a kick in the jumblies. She had lots of friends at that school, but it was just too much for them to handle. We didn't know what to do. So we scrambled to find her a new place, which we did after a couple of days. We also started seeing a family councelor to help us, as we were obviously in dire need.

The counceling has helped tremendously. The doctor first tried to get everyone to calm down a bit, and that helped settle Sydney down. He told us that she seemed overstimulated, so much so that he was afraid she was borderline autistic. His main focus was alone time with one or the other of us, less stimulation (which meant removing many of the gobs of toys from the playroom), and lots and lots of praise.
It's been wonderful. We still have our moments, and she will always be a high strung kid, mostly because he says she has above average intelligence and gets frusterated with her own limitations. But it's been almost two weeks at school with hardly a peep from her, and when she does misbehave, she is quick to apologize, and best of all...NO BITING.
The thing that surprised me was how often he stops to tell my wife and I what a good job we are doing, which we really needed. He's not afraid to tell us where we are lacking, but he says that most parents he deals with are resistant to his advice, and usually the behavioral problems are caused by some sort of family dysfunction. It was really good to hear that we weren't horrible parents. It's been a rough couple of years with all of that blame heaped on top of us.

So things are definately looking up for us.

As an aside, is anyone else starting to worry about this damn bird flu? I try and try to resist the media monkey fest, but when I start hearing "casualty projections" and "6 months before a cure", I start to sweat a little.

10-11-2005, 10:31 PM	#10
sachmo71 The boy who cried Trout Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: TX	Have to get me some of this. I have two wonderful children. My daughter is 3, named Sydney. My son, 2, is Max. There are a multiple issues right now that we are dealing with. Max is being potty trained. I guess I never thought about the challenges of potty training a boy, but I never thought about the stand up factor. So my wife read up on it, and the key seems to be putting him on the toilet backwards, so he is facing the potty like he will be when he's standing up, but had most of the bowl to aim for. We aren't using training potty's, because it worked better for my daughter on a normal toilet and so we'll see how it goes with my son. Also, he is in speech therapy because he was a little delayed, and he is talking up a storm. It's a wonderful feeling when the kids start putting words together and you can actually get some feedback from them. My favorite words are "football", "hockey man", and "boo" (his bear) Sydney is a handful, and then some. We started both of our kids out at a home daycare, with an older lady who would watch them all day. It was relaxed, and there was no real learning activities...she was more of a babysitter, but she was within our budget and she loved the kids. At about 2, she started biting. Not much, but it happened one day. One of my friends decided to take his daughter there, because we recommended her and the price was right. For the five days his daughter was there, Sydney bit her every day. It was horrible! So we would try to tell her not to do it anymore, but what can you say to a two year old when you aren't "on the scene"? Anyway, so we took her to a day school, and things started out fine. She was learning at a very rapid pace, and everyone seemed happy. Then, she started biting kids. Every day it seemed, she would bite someone. We talked to the headmaster, who is also a psychologist. He gave us some tips, and never overtly blaming us, but the gist of his advice was that the child will do what the parents let them do. In our minds, we were BAD PARENTS. So we tried his advice, and I have to admit, things got a little better, but I think we lost focus. Finally, she bit a kid so bad that their parents delivered an ultimatum...it was Sydney gone or her kid gone. So Sydney was out. Thankfully, he kept working with us, in the hopes of her getting back in. We tried everything that he said to do. Walks when she lost her temper. The 5 rules. EVERYTHING. Finally, he let her back in. And it worked out well...for a while. She started biting again, and not listening to the teachers. Every day we would get a report on what she was doing wrong, etc. Neither my wife nor I wanted to show our faces in the place. The guy must have thought we were the worst parents in the world, perhaps only a bit less than we did. Failures. Losers. My mindset at the time was that my wife and I together were possibly causing more damage to our kids than we would apart. I was actually comtemplting a seperation to see if that will help. Desperate, eh? Finally, they told us she had to leave for good. Talk about a kick in the jumblies. She had lots of friends at that school, but it was just too much for them to handle. We didn't know what to do. So we scrambled to find her a new place, which we did after a couple of days. We also started seeing a family councelor to help us, as we were obviously in dire need. The counceling has helped tremendously. The doctor first tried to get everyone to calm down a bit, and that helped settle Sydney down. He told us that she seemed overstimulated, so much so that he was afraid she was borderline autistic. His main focus was alone time with one or the other of us, less stimulation (which meant removing many of the gobs of toys from the playroom), and lots and lots of praise. It's been wonderful. We still have our moments, and she will always be a high strung kid, mostly because he says she has above average intelligence and gets frusterated with her own limitations. But it's been almost two weeks at school with hardly a peep from her, and when she does misbehave, she is quick to apologize, and best of all...NO BITING. The thing that surprised me was how often he stops to tell my wife and I what a good job we are doing, which we really needed. He's not afraid to tell us where we are lacking, but he says that most parents he deals with are resistant to his advice, and usually the behavioral problems are caused by some sort of family dysfunction. It was really good to hear that we weren't horrible parents. It's been a rough couple of years with all of that blame heaped on top of us. So things are definately looking up for us. As an aside, is anyone else starting to worry about this damn bird flu? I try and try to resist the media monkey fest, but when I start hearing "casualty projections" and "6 months before a cure", I start to sweat a little.