OT Fathers with cranky kids

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Christina Peterson" :

]So two women stopped him, and instead of trying to help they refused ]to believe he was her father and called the cops (at which point they left). ]The cops took her from him , but not took her away, and when he showed his ]ID said it didn't prove she was his, etc.

boy, is THAT a catch-22!

if she HADN'T been his . . . and because she WAS his! or if she was his, and he was a "non-custodial parent".

yikes! i can see that one from a LOT of different perspectives. but i can feel for your son. that must have been really frustrating and scary!

let's hope your granddaughter didn't enjoy it and want to repeat it!

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

(Jewelry) newest creations: ----------- The measure of the menace of a man is not what hardware he carries, but what ideas he believes.-- Jeff Jordan

About a month ago, Jon went to Target with Avner to pick up a few things (and give me a much-needed break). Jon's in line at the pharmacy along with a woman and her baby, around the same age as Avner. The baby was cranky and fussy. Avner got cranky and fussy. Jon picked him up and starting distracting him with various silly faces and games and such while they waited. Boychick perked right up and was back to his usual happy self. The woman continued to get irritated with her child, until the child was screaming/crying and miserable. The woman started yelling at her baby to shut up. Jon was appalled, he said he took Avner off to another department until the woman was gone. :-(

Arrgh! Stuff like that makes me wonder WHY some people breed in the first place. :(

KarenK

Roger had contrasted his experience with taking Victoria to the clinic and having a retired teacher recognize exactly what was affecting Victoria's behaviour and being helpful in a very simple way.

I feel sorry for Avner faced with the other child and sorrier for the mother, but by far I feel sorriest for the poor confused and frightened other baby.

Tina

She *yelled* at a baby to shut up? Oh, THAT'S going to work. Clearly. Also, slapping it will make it stop crying, works all the time. Ugh.

-Kalera

Barbara Forbes-Ly> About a month ago, Jon went to Target with Avner to pick up a few things

You know it's quite possible she didn't have the skills to know what to do in this situation. I find it appalling that child care/child rearing is NOT a subject required in high schools for both sexes. I'm not talking about classes that tell you how to or what to instill in children as their life's moral basis, but just simple stuff like what to do when such-and-such happens. We expect a fully formed parenting instinct to suddenly pop up in people at the same time their babies pop out - and that's especially true of females. The time to learn about parenting is long before you ever consider having a child. Just MNSHO, YMMV!

Mj

Which is why I spent so much time reading childcare/baby/parenting books beforehand! :-D

On Fri, 27 Feb 2004 15:48:31 -0500, Barbara Forbes-Lyons wrote (in message ):

Me, too. I had never held a baby before I had one. Really. I took babycare classes at our HMO, and read everything in sight.

However, the most helpful thing for me was to think of things from DD's point of view. When she was tiny, I used to think how much it would stink to be a baby - to have all these needs to be met, and only one real way to communicate.

If we went someplace and DD started flipping out, I'd try to think of what might be bothering her. I could usually figure it out, and it was almost always something I could have and should have predicted. (Taking child to grocery store instead of letting her nap, for example) Then I'd take action to make things better - if I couldn't leave the grocery store, I could at least cuddle her, put her against my shoulder to rest, and murmur comforting noises.

I found that even something as simple as telling her that I understood she was upset and that I'd make it better as soon as I could helped a lot. She was supposed to be too young to know the words, so maybe my tone helped, and I'm quite sure that she understood the feelings that were being expressed. It was a lot more productive than getting angry so we'd both be upset, at any rate.

Kathy N-V

I doubt that anyone could help a mother deal with a teething baby and the return of periods at the same time...

I now know why my patients(sp) has been a little shorter than normal, why my nose has been stuffy for no apparent reason, and why I feel like cr*p ATM. As near as I can estimate, it's been 18 months.....

Another part of education that has no business in the classroom. Except...............

Actually, it would be reasonable to make it part of a required civics class. "The basic unit of society is the family" and all that.

You're quite right. After all knowing how to treat babies, animals and adults, and sex, are all needed to "build good citizens", "prepare children for adulthood", etc. And all these things interrelate. It's not stuff that's only useful to people who will raise children.

Tina

Tina

Some high schools are actually doing this now, actually... only time will tell whether it helps. A lot of parenting is simply learned from our parents, and most of the rest comes from our peers, and from self-education (if we are so inclined).

-Kalera

Mj wrote:

Gawd, yeah, that's a killer! It's times like these that I really wish we still lived among our exended families, so young mothers could pass off their babies to more experienced mothers and go have a hot bath.

-Kalera

mel> I doubt that anyone could help a mother deal with a teething baby and the

I was lucky. I was living with my parents when I had my kids. I think they thought I wasn't smart enough to take care of them until they were over 6 months old. LOL

You are right. It was much easier having someone to help me 24/7