OT A favor

AMEN!

A good second is to let your kids see you acknowledge them and see you being kind to yourself when your buttons gets pushed, and let your kids witness you facing your stuff and working through it.

But not deny them. My mom is in her 70's, and we were both raised in the South, so she comes from a time and a place that tells her that to acknowledge a problem is to create one, but to deny a problem to keep it from fully existing. That, my friends, is utter bullshit. I've seen it wreck havoc in her life and I've seen it wreck havoc in my own. No way I want to pass that on to any children I know.

jewitch

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from Jewitch :

]raised in ]the South, so she comes from a time and a place that tells her that to ]acknowledge a problem is to create one, but to deny a problem to keep ]it from fully existing.

you've met DAVID!

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

's not what you take, when you leave this world behind you;it's what you leave behind you when you go. -- Randy Travis

We're very much on the same page with this.

Deirdre

On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 22:26:30 -0400, angela wrote (in message ):

There are a few issues that I have never mentioned to DD, and don't intend it. One uncle of mine felt me up when I was about twelve, and tried to beat the crap out of me when I defended myself. (One's leg muscles are very strong, and putting your heel through an attacker's instep is a good way to get time to escape) DD hasn't met "Uncle B.," and as far as I'm concerned, she never will.

I never told her any of the details, and didn't mention him at all when she was small, but now that she's a teen and aware he exists, I just say, "You don't want anything to do with him, he's a bad person."

DD knows that she means the world to me, and trusts me at that. If she ever asks more, I'd tell her. A few years ago, I probably would have said that it was too much for her to deal with, and to trust me to handle it for now.

I think that "family secrets" as a whole can be incredibly damaging. But I also believe that there are things that are age appropriate and keeping disturbing information from young children is a good thing. Assuming of course, that other steps have been taken to ensure the child's safety.

Kathy N-V

IMO, if we are actually working on our issues', not denying them, we are in fact not passing on the responsibility, but taking it ourselves. And we are modeling for kids what adults who really -are- adults *do* when they have difficult things to face.

Deirdre

I am really glad you ended your story this way. Ignorance to 'spare a child, but -without- that vigilant protection can be a devastating combination.

Deirdre

On Thu, 4 Sep 2003 13:43:19 -0400, Deirdre S. wrote (in message ):

But would have thought any different of me? I am the original Barracuda Mom. :-)

Kathy N-V

Never of -you in particular-.

Just wanted to add my two cents about 'sparing' children by not communicating with them about potential dangers within their familiar environment. Kind of "If I don't look and don't talk about it, it won't happen". I understand the impulse, and there is a kind of conventional wisdom that what someone doesn't know about, can't hurt them. But that leaves children with nothing to guide their developing judgement about potentially untrustworthy people.

Many adults who clam up about the kind of thing that 'we just don't talk about' aren't really sparing the children at all -- they are sidestepping the hard task of explaining some of the perils and ambiguities of the real world, in which some of our relations are nasty pieces of work, and authority figures abuse their power with kids who have nowhere else to go, and don't even have words to describe what has befallen them. Nor do they always know who to approach for help, or even that they are -entitled- to help.

Deirdre