Showing posts with label crying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crying. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

The Santa Chronicles

In 2008, we took Zane to see Santa, stood in line for more than an hour, and...

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In 2009, we took Zane to see Santa, stood in line more than an hour, and...

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Ever the gluttons for punishment, we tried yet again this year, stood in line more than an hour, and...

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I think that we are seeing some progress! At least this time Zane stopped freaking out long enough to tell Santa what he wanted.

*All photographs copyright Noerr Programs, and special thanks to the very calm Santas they provided!

Monday, December 13, 2010

Empathy, Schmempathy

We've been trying to teach Zane about empathy, or at least paying attention to the feelings of others. It's been slow going, to say the least. On the one hand, he seems to understand that when someone is crying you are supposed to help them. For instance, I've seen him approach a peer when they are crying and pat them on the shoulder and tell them, "It's okay." Except for the fact that, occasionally, Zane IS the reason the child might crying in the first place, I think that is pretty good.

But this empathy training doesn't always work out the way we want it to work.

"Zane, I need you to pick up all of your super heroes and put them back in the bucket," I said this afternoon.

"No," was the response.

"Zane, Mama spent all morning cleaning up the house and if you don't pick up your toys I will be very sad," I tell him.

"That's too bad," was the reply. Hmmm. So much for that!

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Bad Habits

My son has picked up a few habits while at the daycare. Some are good. He no longer freaks out when we drop him off--he just goes to where the teacher tells him, looks at me and says "Bye". He talks a LOT about "baby school", at least a lot more than he did before daycare. He also hasn't had any issues with hitting kids in a long time, and when I've been able to watch him secretly he seems to have some kids he has made friends with. He says 'please' and 'thank you' regularly. Those are all great social behaviors that I worried he would not ever acquire, so yay.

Attending daycare, however, my son has acquired some bad habits from his peers. Some are driving me a bit crazy. Before daycare, my son only cried when he was hurt or was in trouble for something. But now, if you tell him 'no', he starts to 'cry'. I mean he goes through the SOUNDS of crying without actually crying. He even puts his fingers in his mouth for extra dramatic effect! And it's the most fake 'cry' I've ever heard, too. My husband still hasn't figured out the difference, but I can tell without even looking at my child that he's faking.

Another thing my son does is respond to everything you ask him with a casual "no". Zane went from never saying the word 'no' to using it all the time. Pretty much every question you ask him is answered "no", no matter what. Right now I have to assume that he does mean 'no', until data convinces me otherwise.

The final behavior my son has been exhibiting since he started daycare is sheer bossiness. He's been ordering everyone in the house around these days, and if we don't do as he says he tells us to "go and sit!" It's cute when he's ordering one of the cats around, but not so much when he's telling me which chair I can sit on. I've been put in Zane's version of 'time out' several days in a row for not complying. We won't talk about Daddy.