Bona Dea mentioned this and the thread closed about the status of the dispute with my daughter over The Nudity and her parenting philosophy.

I forgot to tell you how that car incident turned out. For those who don't remember the original post, I was babysitting the 2 and 4 year old at the park. The four year old doesn't mind because his mother doesn't feel he should ever hear the word "no." She believes he should be asked if he would consider alternate behavior and then be allowed to choose. Soooo, the park has a little fenced area and I'm keeping both these rascals in. The little one is chasing down babies and biting them. The older one is throwing sand. My daughter takes him out and sits him down by a bench and tells him to stay there. Then she walks away.

I call after her "Shouldn't he come in here with me?" She answers, "No, I told him to stay here." I shake my head and turn my attention back to the two year old.

When it's time to leave, he is nowhere to be found. We look for him, go out to the street and there he is. He has opened the brand new Chrysler mini-van and is playing on the sidewalk. As we approach, he looks directly at my daughter, picks up a rock and makes a vertical gouge on the pristine gray paint, about 10" long.

I freeze. She screams his name, then says, "Did you think that was chalk? That's it, wasn't it, you thought it was chalk." She was shaking and I asked her if she wanted me to stay or go (I had my own car) and she said, "Just go. I'm just shaking because I don't know how I'm going to explain this to my husband. He will be livid, because it was on purpose."

The next day when I called her she was very relieved. She had hit a pole backing up to leave the park and broken a light fixture on the same side. Her husband took it right over to the body shop, assumed the scratch was part of the accident, so she never had to tell him. She was jubilant.

Anagrammy

Did the child do it on purpose or was it an accident? From the original post, I thought he did do it on purpose.At any rate, the idea that he thought it was chalk is silly.Suggesting alternative behavior has its place, but there are certain things that you just don't do and telling a child so is the way to go.I just reread it. I guess it was deliberate. Wow.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2011 12:03AM by bona dea.

That is terrible. Anyway, what I wanted to comment on was the zombie two year old. The child truly went around trying to bite other kids? Wowzers.

dthenonreligious Wrote:
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> That is terrible. Anyway, what I wanted to comment
> on was the zombie two year old. The child truly
> went around trying to bite other kids? Wowzers.
Two year olds do tend to bite, but telling them 'no' and putting them in time out is not going to damage their little psyches nearly as much as allowing them to get away with this behavior..

poor parenting from the sounds of it.

I had the two year old under control shortly with three "No's" to using the big kids' slide and two one minute time outs for biting babies. She was fine after and pointed to the tiny slide and said "My slide."

The four year old absolutely did the rock scratch on purpose. God knows why. My daughter is in denial and went immediately into finding an excuse. I did the same thing when my children were little. I couldn't believe they could be evil because I saw the wonderful innocence in those newborn eyes, that window to heaven. And hadn't I given them love and all my time?

Truth is it's a roll of the dice genetically and you get what you get. You do the best you can.

Anagrammy

anagrammy Wrote:
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> The four year old absolutely did the rock scratch on purpose. God knows why.

My take is that he wants limits imposed. All kids do, even if they protest otherwise. It makes them feel secure. Your grandson will do what he needs to do to get those limits imposed. It didn't work this time, so your daughter can expect increasingly outrageous behavior.

It would be hard to stand by as the grandmother and watch all this unfold. I feel for you.

A four year old acts out of impulse, particularly if he is angry and has no real idea of the cost of repairing a car. I don't think that is indication of major problems unless he does such things all the time, but it is worrisome that his mother let him get away with it. How is he ever going to learn was is acceptable and what isn't? You have my sympathy.Your daughter is going to have real problems down the road. I have a relative wiith a similar parenting style. When the kids reached their teens, she had some real problems with them.

That 4-year old is bishop material! And the zombie 2-year old is definitely GA material.

1) It is OK to inflict pain on other living creatures
2) Their actions, no matter what they do, are consequence free
3) It is perfectly acceptable to lie (by omission or commission) in order to get your own way

How does she think criminals are made?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2011 01:18AM by matt.

1) It is OK to inflict pain on other living creatures
2) Their actions, no matter what they do, are consequence free
3) It is perfectly acceptable to lie (by omission or commission) in order to get your own way


... Like I said, perfect General Authority material. lol

hit a post, what a coincidence. Poor car.

Heresy Wrote:
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> hit a post, what a coincidence. Poor car.

So honest and god-fearing to lie and cover up the real reason for the damage so the insurance company will pay.

"Mormons are just the NICEST people."

You mean she is lying so the insurance company will repair the scratch? Or are you assuming they lied to the insurance company about something?

Rebeckah Wrote:
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> You mean she is lying so the insurance company
> will repair the scratch? Or are you assuming they
> lied to the insurance company about something?

Draw your own conclusion. From the original post, "The next day when I called her she was very relieved. She had hit a pole backing up to leave the park and broken a light fixture on the same side. Her husband took it right over to the body shop, assumed the scratch was part of the accident, so she never had to tell him. She was jubilant."

Hubby assumed it was part of the accident...very likely an insurance claim was filed. She was jubilant and didn't tell him him the truth.

If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck.....

(1) Teach the little sociopath to be ("S2B") that the S2B's focus should never be on empathy (i.e. the consequences that the S2B's actions have for others and why boundaries have to be enforced to prevent causing harm to others), but rather the focus should always be on how the the S2B personally feels about the S2B's actions. Is the S2B comfortable with his/her own actions? Does the S2B want to consider alternatives that the S2B would like more?

(2) Teach the little S2B that the first response to being caught in an act that cause harm to others is to look for excuses. "Uh...I could've sworn this was chalk. Somebody stuck a rock in my hand and told me it was chalk."

(3) Teach the little S2B that it's the responsibility of other people to clean up their messes, cover up and make up excuses for them.

Sad to say, but it looks like the daughter needs to seriously rethink her approach to parenting. She doesn't need to get angry with the kids, but she should at least think about using every opportunity to teach them valuable lessons. It could be more about parental laziness than any real philosophy of parenting that she has. It takes more time and effort in the short term to highlight and correct bad behavior than it does to make excuses and cover things up. Fortunately, the kids are still young, so no permanent damage has likely been done...yet. ;o)

Chalk doesn't belong on the car.

There are 4 of us kids in my family and in 31 years of kids being in the house, not ONCE was a wall drawn on or furniture purposely defaced. My mom was vigilant, wanted to keep a nice home and cared how we were raised. I would have never thought once of doing what this kid did.

That kid is gonna be a problem.

anagrammy, your daughter really needs to understand that she needs to come up with an alternative method to her childrearing choice. I mean, if she was shaking because she was so upset about telling her husband about the scratch, she already knows what she is doing at the present is not working.

She needs to consider:
1. When the children get to school age: is she going to homeschool? Because no school will use her methods nor will they tolerate her children's behavior.

2. What will she do if her children physically harm another child or an animal? Not only would the police get involved, but so would Child Protective Services (CPS). And if CPS does not like what they see, she will be ordered to take parenting classes and will be monitored by CPS to make sure she follows through.

3. When those kids get bigger than she, what is she going to do when they get mad? Run and hide?

4. What about drugs and alcohol--will she feel the same way about the word 'no' when the children discover them?

I could go on, but I'm sure you've thought of these things. Maybe a neutral third party could sit down and really talk to her?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2011 09:41AM by nwmcare.

this is the old game of hide the damage under something else!
Sounds like it's OK to be devious, and lie.

Reminds me of the time my oldest (now 29, then 4) took a spray can of gold paint and decided his mother needed 14 pairs of gold shoes. LOLOLOLOLOL

He spray painted all 14 pairs. We lived in that house for three more years and you could see the silhouettes of where the shoes had been on the carpet in the closet.

Just sayin'...

Ron

Used to drive regularly past a Fed Prison when one of my kids was young.

Rob: "Daddy, what is a prison?"

I explained it.

Rob: :Oh, time out for big people."

Me: "Yes."

Rob: "Well,if you don't take someone elses stuff, and you don't bite anyone, and you tell the truth you don't have to go in time out."

...but I think bright red bottoms are what those two little urchins need to set them straight. And maybe their mother, too, for letting them get that way!

I am curious about the condition of their home. If the children are allowed to wander about naked, do they also defecate and pee wherever they want? Are there food remnants all over? If the home is not a healthy environment emotionally (and IMO it is not) is it also unhealthy physically? If it is, and if these children wander outside naked, chances of a neighbor or someone calls child protective services is pretty high. I just have to wonder if she realizes that she is putting her family in danger of being torn apart because she refuses to impose any boundaries.

They go naked in the backyard and in the house, not in front. In public, they are dressed but may be barefoot even in winter.

The home is well kept, yes, they do eat all over but the dog keeps that pretty well cleaned up. My daughter has house cleaners come once a week. She is not a slob and adds little loving touches to her home all the time. Her hippie disregard for the norms of society are , imho, a kind of backlash from how she was raised. I have begged her NOT to use her children to recover from her childhood and offered to babysit any time she wants to get therapy.

I get the feeling she has chosen isolation over therapy. It's easier and more peaceful. She plans to move into the hills and teach home school.

Both the kids are potty trained now, but squatting outside while naked to urinate is something she allows regularly at home and thinks it's funny in public. I think this is low class and used to have my little girls sit on my arm to pee sheltered by a partially open car door.

Urinating in the bushes at the park just is uncivilized and inconsiderate. So the problem is, the little boy says, "Mommy says it's ok to pee in the bushes." And I say, "Grandma always takes children to the bathroom. Grownups are all different, aren't they?"

I'm doing my best but it is so hard for me to see this form of child raising that a reduced level of contact is probably better for me. One at a time at my place or the parents somewhere else if it's at their place. This seems to be working out. Now if only I can control my facial expressions....

Anagrammy

PS. I have to throw in this one anomalous thing. When this same daughter got married, she thanked me privately for teaching her and her sisters good manners. She said she was never embarrassed to introduce our family members to her husbands family even though we were poor, because we all use good English and have good manners.

I'm happy to hear that at least they don't live in a pig sty also. If she doesn't move away from neighbors and they see her children naked in the back yard, especially in winter, she may still get the unexpected visit from DCFS. If her children are observed peeing in the bushes in a public place, she could also face some unexpected backlash. I am sorry you have to deal with this, it is so hard to see it happening.

One of the best things my tbm mother told me when I was pregnant with my first child was the fact that I had a responsibility to teach my children acceptable social behavior. She brought it home by asking me if I knew any obnoxious kids, ya know, the ones that bite other kids, hit, kick the dog, and are just out of control??? The saddest part about it is that everyone hates the child, and it is totally the parents fault.

She is NOT doing her children any favors with her lack of parenting. Perhaps an anonymous call to dcfs would wake her up.

anagrammy, I think you are a saint. That said, I still think a third party to explain reality is in line. And I think your daughter knows it.