The older kid thread

[Wisconsin Beth]

Ok, I'm starting this thread and we'll see how it goes. ;D

My DD is 4.5 and started PreK in Sept. She's complaining about one girl being "mean" I thought I had a couple of years before the mean girls thing started up!

[Deleted]

I think DD was the mean girl in 1st grade last year!

She kept talking about a girl in class and then I found a "plan" she had made up with some other kids. It was a drawing of their classroom and it showed the girl crying while they hid out in the bathroom with something of hers.

I told her that she doesn't have to like everyone in her class but she WILL NOT be mean to ANYONE! I also told her that if I hear that she was being mean to the girl or if I find out she made any other kind of "plans" that it would be her, me, her teacher and the principal in his office.

She stopped and as fate would have it, they ended up being assigned as "reading buddies" for the 2nd half of the year. They are not BFF's but they did end up being friends with each other by the end of the school year.

Hopefully, the teacher or the other kid's Mom will nip it in the bud. I, too, also thought I wouldn't have to worry about "mean girls" until at least middle school. *sigh*...

[thyme4change]

Preschool is an "older kid"?

[Wisconsin Beth]

Nov 20, 2012 8:56:28 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Preschool is an "older kid"?

at Thyme.

Well, it seems odd to be discussing my kid's problem with a mean girl on the baby thread.

[Deleted]

They're the tweens of the Fisher Price set!

[Sam_2.0]

Nov 20, 2012 8:58:37 GMT -5 @beerwench said:

They're the tweens of the Fisher Price set!

Hahahaha, love this, Beer.

[Pants]

Babies rule, older kids drool!

[Deleted]

Just you wait until your baby turns into the mean kid!

[thyme4change]

LOL - Sorry to derail the thread. Here is what I know - kids are mean to each other. Sometimes they are just figuring out how to deal with people. Sometimes they don't really know they are being mean. Sometimes they are trying to exert a little power to see if they can win. Sometimes they are blowing off steam from something else that is going on (trouble at home?) Sometimes they are mimicking the behavior of their older brothers, their bitter mother, or whomever. But, kids are mean. People are mean - hopefully we get a little more sly about it as we grow up.

So, you have to just talk to your kid about it. Make sure it doesn't get abusive. Tell your daughter that her job is to rally around the people that the "mean girl" is being mean to, and later they will rally around her. And, basically just listen to her. You are setting up a great relationship to be there for her. But, there isn't much you can do to help her, and this is a great time to learn the lifeskills to deal with a-holes. Because, I'm 4.5 decades, and they are still here - all around me.

[taz157]

Nov 20, 2012 11:20:07 GMT -5 Pants said:

Babies rule, older kids drool!

[Wisconsin Beth]

You didn't derail the thread Thyme. It's a kid thread. They're kinda like EE threads or Doxie threads. They wander all over the place and before you know it, you're back where you started. ;D

Yeah, I want to email the teacher and find out what's up. Apparently the "mean" girl was squabbling with another girl on the playground before school. "Mean" girl ended up with the whatever and tried to tuck it into DD's backpack. My MIL saw it (it was her morning for drop off) and intervened. And DD was apparently fine with sitting next to the mean girl a couple of days later. So I don't want to blow it out of proportion if it's a dead and gone episode either.

[telephus44]

Karma to Beth for starting this thread.

So, I made Owen a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast, one for lunch, and one for dinner last Thursday.

[thyme4change]

And DD was apparently fine with sitting next to the mean girl a couple of days later. So I don't want to blow it out of proportion if it's a dead and gone episode either.

It sounds like it is done - I would let it go. You aren't looking for single events, you are looking for patterns. That 4 year old kid had a bad day with a lapse of judgement. I'm guessing her classmates and a teacher called her out on it. She might never try something like that again. It is when you hear the same name over and over that you know you have a trouble maker and you want to make sure your child is making good decisions in regards to being with that kid.

[Wisconsin Beth]

And what I keep getting is "X is mean" with no real explanation. I don't know if Keira doesn't have the vocabulary to express it or if she's just assigned X to the role of Mean and isn't thinking beyond that. Kids aren't supposed to be this confusing!

[thyme4change]

Ask her to say exactly what she did to be mean. Does she say mean things? Does she take stuff? Does she hit or bite? If you keep drawing it out, she will be forced to think about her accusation. It is likely that the other girl was mean once a month ago, and now your daughter has labeled her. It is best to help her rethink her position. It will be a skill that will serve her well her entire life.

[Wisconsin Beth]

I'll try that, next time it comes up. Thanks Thyme.

[Deleted]

I always ask the kids about school when they get home. DD used to say things like "Angela picks her nose" to which I would counter "YOU pick your nose!". Hopefully my pointing out their similarities (and their same grossness ) helped her see that they were more alike than not.

[sbcalimom]

Beth: DD1 is 3.5 and we get a ton of reports from her in school that so and so hit her or so and so is mean. According to her, someone hits her every single day which I found a tad suspect since her teacher is really on the ball about rough housing. Turns out, she says the same thing to her teacher when someone doesn't share with her. She doesn't know how to express that she's upset that they won't share or play with her so she says they hit her since she does know how to say that. Once both her teacher and I realized that's what was going on, we were able to help her express what she really meant. Her teacher was very happy that I asked about it since she obviously doesn't want me thinking DD1 is being abused at school every day . Plus, we can both be on the same page with how we address it. I'd say if Keira keeps bringing it up, I'd ask the teacher if she's noticed anything.

[telephus44]

Today Owen wet the bed for the first time in 5 days. Does anyone have any ideas on bed-wetting? When he toilet trained he went 12 months without a single wet bed, then started again. It's been a year now. He's gone from 2 or 3 nights a week to 3 or 4 times a month, which is progress. I think he makes it most of the way through the night and it happens right before he wakes up. Right now we're trying "if you have a dry bed, you can use your iPad today." We do have him use the toilet right before bed.

[Deleted]

DH and I disagree with how to deal with DS's bedwetting (he turned 6 in September). He will offer rewards for a dry bed, but as someone who wet the bed as a child I know that I didn't do it on purpose.

Actually, what "cured" me was at about age 7 or so I realized that I was having dreams about going to the bathroom so I "taught" myself to wake up if I had the bathroom dream.

I tell DS how I stopped myself and for now we have him sleep in pull-ups and wait for him to grow out of it.

[Wisconsin Beth]

Keira sometimes wets the bed. She's always VERY upset when she does. We limit the amount of liquids we give the kids the closer we get to bedtime. So they get a 1/2 glass of water at bedtime and are told this is all they get until morning. Cabe, at 3, will often wet though his diapers/pullups and I'm having problems finding boy pullups for nighttime in his size (4T-5T) and the limiting liquids helps him some too. At least I'm not changing his sheets daily anymore.

[Deleted]

on limiting liquids and going to the bathroom right before bed. My uncle was a bedwetter as well so maybe it runs in the family?

[thyme4change]

He will offer rewards for a dry bed, but as someone who wet the bed as a child I know that I didn't do it on purpose.

Actually, what "cured" me was at about age 7 or so I realized that I was having dreams about going to the bathroom so I "taught" myself to wake up if I had the bathroom dream.

I've heard a lot of parenting theory that children can control it, they just don't think they can. My sister (I can't believe I'm going to tell you all this) actually spanked her daughter for wetting the bed, and it never happened again. Several incidences, escalating consequences, one spanking - situation over. I never got to that point. I let my daughter wear pull-ups until she wanted to stop, and my son never wanted to wear pull-ups and he only wet the bed two or three times, but basically went from diapers to totally potty trained in a few months.

[Deleted]

My daughter was wetting her bed and everytime she did she would we would leave her bed until the morning, meaning she would crawl into bed with us. One night before bed she said, "if I pee in my bed tonight I get to come in bed with you , right?". That turned on my lightbulb to realize that she might be wetting the bed because she liked being able to come in bed with us. So from then on we said, if you wet your bed we will change the sheets that night and you can sleep in your own bed.

She has wet the bed since, but not like it was where she was doing it almost every night. I think she did have some control over it.

[swamp]

DD is 5 and still wears pullups to bed
We've started putting underwear under the pullups to see if that wakes her up when she starts to wet the bed.

[thyme4change]

Just don't do what my friend did (man, she is crazy) - her son wet the bed every night when he was 6. She didn't make him wear pull-ups, because she didn't want to rattle his self-confidence. She also didn't talk to him about it, because she didn't want him to be embarrassed. She just got up every morning, and washed his sheets and his jammies.

Way to deal with a problem head on. Boo!

[Sam_2.0]

Beth - they make the Gerber training pants that are plastic on the outside. Could you get those for Caleb at night and just wash as needed? That way you don't have to keep buying pullups.

My BIL had a problem with wetting the bed until he was about 12. Two of his kids have as well. BIL and DS finally went to the pedi and they suggested some kind of medicine and a pad that lays in the bed and wakes the kid up if they start to pee. The medicine is all my niece needed, but the pad really helped my nephew.

ETA - found something on Amazon: www.amazon.com/Girl-Training-Pants-Waterproof-Pounds/dp/B000T9CM62/ref=sr_1_13?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1353518352&sr=1-13&keywords=waterproof+training+pants+for+girls

[swamp]

we have a discussion about whether or not it was a dry night every morning. 5 dry nights in a row, and she gets a new rapunzel doll.

she tries to tell us that she had a dry night, but she really didn't. she's trying.

[thyme4change]

I also heard eliminating dairy (milk in particular) from the child's diet helps with bed wetting. I thought it was strange - why milk and not all liquids - but she got the advice from her pediatrician, and she had 6 kids - 2 of them had bed wetting issues that both resolved when she cut dairy. I kind of believed everything she said about raising kids - given that she did it 6 times, and everyone else I know did it once or twice.

[swamp]

If I remove cheese from her diet, she'd probably cut me, lol.

I'll see what i can do.