Independence Day!

So today is day 3 of back to school and Madison actually did not bitch about going to school last night or this morning! yippee!!!! Nor did she nag about going to grandma and grandpa's house after school! Holy cow!!! I'm thinking I can not talk about this outloud and jinx myself so I will have to just write about it here. Perhaps my daughter has been possessed by a non nagging child? do those even exist? I think my Madison is growing up finally! I KNOW Tyler is! He's going to kindergarten on his own now, doesn't need me to walk him to class, he goes on his own, gets himself undressed and stuff in his locker and his bum into the classroom.

It's funny how I realize that kids all have their own little quirks and we as parents do just need accept which quirks are personality differences and which quirks can be and SHOULD be altered and/or corrected. Like this morning for example, I was standing back waiting for Madison to get her self "undressed", meaning coat in her locker, hats and gloves and scarf in her locker, lunchbox away and got her folder and water bottle out to bring in with her. I dont help her so that she has that independence part at least. But then I notice that another little girl who goes into school on her own at the locker next to Madison was standing there talking to Madison was scratching her little bum...but she was wearing a little skirt and pantyhose and she was scratching her bum with her pantyhose almost pulled down...well pulled down enough so that her bum was exposed! In the hallway! So these may be behaviors that should be addressed. i'm huge on manners. These behaviors need to be addressed. I know as my kids were growing and had the speech delays I used to force them to say Hi and address ppl they knew and their teachers would ask me not to force them...I disagreed.

I think it's important for us as parents to help our kids to grow up and be a part of society and help improve society. We should not be enabling them to drag society down. We should not be allowing them to be spoiled. Yes we should give them opportunities we were not given, but that should help them to better themselves to the opposite. I see kids who can not at the age of 4 feed themselves because their parents or nannies do it for them! why? kids who can not dress themselves. Then we have the older breastfeeders. We laugh when we see them. Are we really breastfeeding them for their health? Maybe...but what about their mental health? I just watched "Grown Ups" and one of the kids was like 5 and still breastfeeding which brought back a memory I had of a kid who did that right in front of me on a commuter train! This was BC times for me (Before Children). Was the mother being selfish? Does she really need to feel like she was so needed that she was going to make her grown child continue to breastfeed instead of helping him/her to be on their own? I mean for real!

Parents work a lot, and with that comes a lot of guilt. I feel it. To compensate we want to give our kids everything but we have to remember what that is doing to our children. I'm guilty of this. I have taken my kids on a couple of vacations, but nothing crazy...and yes they have a vast selection of video games. However they do still remember who is in charge. They knew how to act in a restaurant or not to act. Kids will be kids and they need to be kids, but there needs to be boundaries set and I think parents forget that sometimes. We can't be their friends, we are their parents.

Kids are so smart at such a young age, they know which buttons to push and if you let them do something once oh boy they will expect it time and time again. Example: my brother had let my kids change the dvd on the dvd player once at his house. From that day on they would go and push the buttons on the dvd player, he says no they still did it, because he let them do it before, and so he went through the pangs of having to say no everytime they went over there. At home they know that they are not to touch the tv OR the dvd player and we never had that problem. We never had to get tv button guards for our tv or any of that.

Help your kids grow up independent!