Computers- educational friend or foe?

Ah, computers. Where would we be without them? How would we manage in this century, when everyone is assumed (by everyone from the banks to our employers) to have access to the internet, if we didn't have that technology at our fingertips?

Of course children must learn to use computers. They'll be crippled without that skill. Time has marched on, and you'd better keep pace or you'll be left behind.

And yet there's this groundswell of opinion, in the blogosphere and in the scientific community, against technology in the home, against technology in the classroom. What are these people on, you might wonder? Why are they dragging their feet? Technology is now a fact of life, you cry. Get with the program. Our children must be allowed to use computers as much as possible! As much as we do, in fact! Quick, hand them an iPad or an iPhone, or they'll be left behind!

But yet again, it's all about balance, folks. Sorry to repeat myself.

7 ways to recognise a good teacher

Today both Janet Lansbury and Teacher Tom have posted about how not to teach. Well, that's the message I took away from their posts, anyway! Have a look, and see if you agree with me.

Anyway, I thought perhaps I'd take the opposite tack and tell you about some things to look for in a good teacher. You should be able to use these guidelines whether you're looking for a coach or tutor, assessing whether your child needs to move to a different class, or choosing a preschool.

Be warned: at no point will I mention test scores. The reason for this? Test scores don't measure how far a child has come from their personal starting point. A good teacher value-adds to every child's original potential, and that can't be measured in a comparative-result test.

How I wish our governments would use this list, instead of the statistical claptrap they insist on relying on. Teacher Tom will tell you what's wrong with that approach.

So here we go:

1. A good teacher sees the child at once. Look for acknowledgement of and interaction with your child as soon as the teacher meets them for the first time.

This is really important, it's my number 1, because a good teacher always looks on children as worthy of respect and is genuinely interested in meeting your child.

A good teacher introduces him/herself to the child as well as to the parent, and includes the child in any conversation. The age of that child doesn't matter! Even a baby is not an inanimate object, and so a good carer will address the baby, with respect.

2. How does the teacher speak to your child? A good teacher uses adult language when addressing a child, with word choice appropriate to the child's age, and adjusts the level of language appropriately depending on the child's response.

A good teacher never patronises or talks down to a child, and realises quickly if the child's communication skills are not age-typical (in either direction)- then compensates. Your child will understand what a good teacher is saying to them, or if they don't, the teacher will get down on their level and keep trying until they succeed.

3. How does the teacher interact with your child? A good teacher asks open-ended questions, and listens to the responses with an open mind. A good teacher invites the child to initiate conversations with him, and really listens, and responds.

If you read the Janet Lansbury post, you'll see in my comment there that my blood pressure rose considerably when I read about the teacher who told a preschooler that a disc shape was called 'round', not 'circle'. That's dreadful teaching. It's not respectful, and it's not fair. That teacher had made up her mind what the answer was, and she wasn't listening to the children any more.

(That's the sort of teacher who, in high school, marks correct alternative answers wrong in the exam, because it wasn't what she had in her head when she set the question. Maddening. Unfair. Makes the child withdraw and stop trying. And I see red!!)

Teachers like that stifle creativity as well as skewing factual learning. Run a mile from teachers like that, as Janet did.

Speaking of fair,

4. A good teacher is fair.

Remember, my definition of 'fair' isn't 'giving everyone the same thing'. My definition of 'fair' is 'giving everyone what they need'. So if there's a dispute between two children, a good teacher will recognise that both children need her loving intervention, not just the perceived 'victim'. So she won't, for example, vilify anyone in her class. Not even the 'problem' children- or what you might see as the 'problem' children.

Listen to your child's feedback, because unfair behaviour is the first thing they'll complain about; you might need to speak to the teacher about your child's needs, or you might need to explain to your child that other children have different needs which the teacher is trying to meet. (Keep an open mind till you know the facts, and remember that teachers are bound to keep information about other students confidential.)

And by the way, speaking of confidentiality and professionalism- if you complain about another child's behaviour to the teacher and she vilifies that child in any way in response, you can bet your bottom dollar that your own child's private information isn't safe with her.

5. Does your child seem interested, or bored? A good teacher uses the children's interests to motivate them and keeps the learning relevant to the child's world as far as possible.

That means he finds out what the children are interested in, and teaches around that. (Yes, even a maths teacher can do that to some extent- or at the very least explain the relevance of the material.) I'm doing it myself at the moment with a reading student; amazing how much better he performs when I give him reading material he's interested in!

You see, good teachers know their students, and I don't just mean their name. Good teachers are holistic- they see the child as more than just a receptacle for their own certain type of knowledge.

A good teacher sees children as capable; a great teacher will set the bar slightly high, then adjust downwards only if necessary- because that ensures the interest of the children. Doing stuff they can already do over and over is boring. Children are surprising creatures sometimes. We could all learn something about children's capabilities from good teachers, because good teachers will provoke you to say "I never knew he could do that!"

And good teachers love red herrings thrown in by the kids, because it helps them to know their students- and it shows them what the children might be interested in learning about.

Control-freak authoritarians are rarely good teachers.

6. Good teachers set little or no homework.

(waits for the explosion from Tiger Mum Central!!)

Good teachers don't need to set homework, because they made the information stick by teaching it engagingly in the first place. They also don't set homework because they recognise that the children who really don't get it won't be motivated to do it because it'll be all wrong, and the children who already get it and don't need more practice will probably sit down and do the homework when they'd be better off playing outside, and half the homework that's set will be done by the parents anyway.

Then the teacher will have to sit down and mark work that didn't even need to be done by kids who've already mastered the skill, instead of spending that time working out a new and creative way to help those who don't understand.

Good teachers might set the odd assignment to see if a child can utilise their learning in a different context, but a great teacher will give the children lots of time to work on that project at school- because they recognise that free social play and outdoor play are both extremely important to children's development.

(NB: Music and sporting practice are the exceptions here. Something that demands increasing muscle memory and strength does need home practice nearly every day. But please don't let that be to the exclusion of free, social and outdoor play!)

7. For good teachers, teaching is a vocation, not a job- and so good teachers aren't defensive about their practice. Because they're professionals, they'll keep up to date with current thinking because they want to, and they'll be interested in new approaches. They'll welcome your input about your child (as long as you're respectful with their time). They'll sound enthusiastic about teaching when they talk to you. They'll be masters of critical reflection, and they'll listen respectfully if you feel a need to question something or complain.

They may not agree with you. But they'll speak to you respectfully, because they're professionals and they recognise that teaching and parenting have common goals- to help your child to blossom.

Now... how am I going to get this list out there to be used by the government? :D

The importance of time out

Okay, I admit it. That title is a con job. It suggests that I'm a fan of using 'time out' as a disciplinary strategy for children. I'm not- though in the interests of full disclosure I admit I used it myself 25 years or so ago, when it first became popular and I was a stressed-out working mum looking for answers.

'Time out' is what the experts used to tell us to use when kids pushed us past the point of no return, when they didn't respond to discipline, when we'd lost our rag with them, when we wanted to force them to stop and think and cool off. I suspect that those experts were subtly trying to tell us that there was an alternative to spanking.

And truly, time out is better than hitting your child. It's way, way better than losing the plot and shaking a baby. It's a million miles better than escalating physical punishment to the point where a child ends up in hospital. Or dead.

Let's not forget that.

Though perhaps we've been sending the wrong person to time out all these years. We're the adults; we have a hope of sorting out our feelings if we give ourselves a time out. A child who's sent to time out- well, they just don't have the experience yet to do that.

In the punitive days, we maybe called it the Naughty Step or the Naughty Corner; I'm not a big fan of that word 'naughty', either. It's awfully easy to label children's reactions to their inconvenient feelings as naughtiness. (Inconvenient feelings for us, that is. For the children themselves, they're probably inevitable feelings.)

That's really a power play. It's a cheap shot, getting your power kick by controlling a child with labels. If you need to feel powerful over a child, if you can't respect their humanity, you're reading the wrong blog. This blog is about respecting the children in our care.

(No, I'm not saying you have to strike the word 'naughty' from your vocabulary. Just be careful to label the behaviour, not the child, if you must use it.)

Perhaps we tried to sweeten 'time out' by labelling it the Quiet Space, or the Thinking Chair- but whatever we named that 'time out' strategy, we were making a point of letting that child know that right now, we didn't want their company. There was something wrong with them. They were Too Hard.

Time out was, essentially, the barbed wire fence at the edge of our unconditional love. Behave like that, and I put you outside the fence.

It's a bit of a dinosaur now, 'time out'. These days many of us recognise that there's something a little dodgy about isolating a child in a moment of anger (ours or theirs). These days many of us realise that it's more constructive to interact with an out-of-control child and acknowledge their emotions, if we want the solution to be more than a momentary Band-Aid. (You can read about some of my own strategies with out-of-control children here, and here. Or you can just go to my behaviour management page for all the relevant links.)

These days, I'd much rather put myself in 'time out' than a child. It's one thing to put yourself outside the barbed wire fence when your emotions are out of control; that's a considered decision by an adult, and often a wise decision. It's another thing entirely to put a child out in no-man's land with their big emotions, when they don't have the knowledge and experience to analyse what's going on. That teaches children one of two things- to stuff their big emotions away, or to lose trust in unconditional love.

I'll whack a label on my own forehead any day- angry, out of control, unacceptable, inappropriate- and go away till I've calmed down. But what can a child do with a label like that, whacked on their forehead by an adult?

They can accept it, I guess. I'm unacceptable. I'm inconvenient. 

What, you expect them to distinguish between themselves, and the emotion, and the behaviour that came out of the emotion? How are they going to make those sophisticated distinctions out there on the other side of the fence all by themselves? That's what leads to the stuffing-down of feelings. And stuffed-down feelings are either going to explode one day- inconveniently, inappropriately- or they're going to make that child ill.

Or they can reject the label. You don't understand. You don't care how I feel. Instead of calming down, that child will be angrier, sadder, more frustrated. You'll see that a lot in older children, when you punish them and put them outside the barbed wire. That child will hesitate to share feelings next time. That child withdraws, ceases to trust, self-medicates.

No, I'm not a fan of time out, unless it's the adult taking the break. When we start talking about adults and time out, it does become important.

It's easy for me sitting here blogging, with my own child all grown up now and the children in my care handed back at the end of the day. It's easy for me to get a perspective on things- parenting, teaching, caregiving- to weigh and balance approaches, to analyse what might work best in a situation.

It's NOT easy for you.

You're in a whirlwind out there. You've got a million things competing for your attention, a million stresses on your shoulders. Maybe you're bearing the feelings and problems of a whole household as well as your own, and trying to keep your career or job flourishing as well. There's that mortgage hanging over your head, or the rent... How on earth do you do it? How do you stay rational?

You can't, unless you're giving yourself time out.

Yes, time out for the adults is terribly important when you lose your temper, but that's the Band-Aid solution. That's not the 'time out' I mean.

Real solutions come from calm reflection. Real solutions come from considering your problems without a two-year-old tugging your skirt and a 14-year-old walking out the door with her breasts hanging out of her halter top and a partner loading you with their work concerns while you're trying to cook dinner and then the twins start screaming over who gets first go on the PlayStation and when on earth are you going to finish that presentation for work?

Real solutions come from planned time out for adults.

Prioritise it.

And then use it wisely. Sibling rivalry will not be solved by a fourth glass of wine, or a weekend away where you don't give the kids a second thought because this is your time.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have your own down time- not at all!- but the 'time out' I'm talking about is perspective time. Time where you think about the way you can manage problems with your children, without any other pressure.

That sort of time out is important. How can you manage your priorities, so that you get some time out for reflection?

A letter to my teenage self- and a challenge

There's a challenge going on in my town to write the things you wish you'd known when you were a teenager on a postcard. The postcards will go on display for young people to read. 

But garrulous Aunt Annie couldn't imagine fitting all that sensitive information onto a postcard! So here's my letter-sized 'postcard' to the teenage Annie. It feels like a bit of reparenting, actually; it feels like forgiving myself for what I didn't know back then. 

Why not try it yourself? The more we resolve our own issues, the more resourceful and resilient we become for our children. And who knows- when your children hit those teenage years, your letter to yourself might be a great way to bring up some tricky issues.

Note that this is a letter to myself! This isn't the way I'd talk to a teenager who wasn't me- not at all. I can be much more blunt to myself. :)

Dear Annie,

There are some things I want you to know, because I love you. I'm really sorry I wasn't around when you were growing up. Maybe one day time travel will make that possible, but for now I'll just have to give you this loving advice with the benefit of hindsight.

First of all, it's about this dieting thing. Annie, my dearest, diets don't work; diets make you crazy. Look at you. Every minute of the day, you're either thinking about what you're going to eat next or what you can't have. You need to just stop it, because you're not going to get thinner by starving yourself. It's not sustainable. Food- cooking it, making up recipes, serving it to others as well as enjoying it yourself- is going to become one of your greatest pleasures, when you get over this diet thing and just learn to make what you want and stop eating when you've had enough. But the more you diet, the harder it's going to be to find your natural body signals again.

You take after your Polynesian great-grandmother; you're curvy. You simply are never going to be that size 8 clotheshorse shape- or rather, the only way you'll acquire that shape is when you're unable to eat at all. Your hair will start to fall out. Your arms will look like skeleton arms. Sure, you'll fit into a bikini for once, but bald skeletons don't look good in bikinis. You'll be embarrassed when you see the photos.

And do you know what? Lots of men actually like curvy girls. Girl-shaped girls. You are girl-shaped. You will not cut the poor chaps in half with your hip bones when you make love. This is a good thing. Part of your style will be not looking the same as other people; you'll learn to dress to suit yourself. Start now.

And another thing- do you remember how much time you used to spend outside? Somehow you've got to find your love of the great outdoors again, because all this sitting around moping about your body size is robbing you of your energy and one of your greatest pleasures. Crazy, isn't it? The dieting steals the energy you need to be active, yet what you need to feel happy about your shape is the energy to move around and enjoy what your body can do.

And hey, don't wait till your late twenties to join that tap dancing class. You're going to love it. You're going to be good at it. You don't really hate exercise- you hate being told to exercise, and you hate competitive sport because you don't actually think beating people is fun. But that's okay. Dancing is exercise, and you love dancing.

But enough about your body. Bodies aren't nearly as important as you think they are, though health is. What about your mind and your heart?

I can see now that you've always let your heart rule your head. It would be better if you didn't have to hear that from your solicitor, after someone who said they loved you stole a lot of money from you and aged you five years in six months with mischievous legal action. Don't confuse passion with love. Hormones have a lot to answer for. Trust your instincts, and if your instincts say run for your life, don't worry about how it looks to other people. It's your life. It's not a dress rehearsal. Be brave.

I mean, you're your own worst enemy. I've got to say, Annie, I really love the way you give your loving support to others. You're a really generous person. But honey, there comes a point where you're letting people walk all over you, and then you disappear. It's like you fold yourself up and squeeze into a little box so you won't upset anyone. And then, where did you go? You can't even see yourself any more. A little self-preservation, Annie!

If someone really loves you, they won't ask you to squeeze into a box and disappear. They'll love you for who you are and they'll want you to shine out like the sun, not disappear into their shadow. I promise you you'll find someone who loves you like that, but you'll save yourself a lot of trouble if you can draw some lines in the sand. The sky won't fall if you insist on some room for your own personality and your own needs.

Oh, and one more thing about that- don't think you can change people. You can only change yourself. You always will have choices in your relationships, but those choices never include fixing people or changing people. If you want people to love you as you are, then you need to love them as they are too- and if you can't, make the choice to walk away.

You'll know when it's Mr Right. He'll see who you are and let you go on being who you are. He won't try to compete with you. He'll be too busy being himself and doing his own thing, and you'll love that. You won't recognise how wonderful it is to be with someone who does their own thing till you've spent some time on your own. Don't be scared of being alone. Being alone is wonderful. Being alone will give you some of the best times of your life. You don't have to have a partner hanging off your arm like a handbag to have a full life.

It's the same with your career; you let other people influence you too much. You already know what you love to do. You love music, but you love to write even more. Yet you're going to just drop the writing after school, because someone told you an arts degree wouldn't help you make money. That's a stupid reason to drop something you love so much. Stand up for yourself, Annie! Stop trying to please everyone else but yourself! Open the doors to doing what you love best.

I'm proud of you, Annie. You're not a drinker, you don't do drugs, you don't smoke. You're very strong and responsible. You deal with your problems by talking about them, or by reflecting on them. I want to warn you that some people hide their problems behind substance abuse. I want you to know that if someone says or does something awful to you while they're under the influence of alcohol, that is probably what they really think; that is probably what they're really like. Alcohol is a disinhibitor. Don't just forgive them for those things and make the excuse that they didn't know what they were saying. Take them as warnings, and act on them.

You're a good person, Annie. Take good care of yourself. Make sure you don't have so many people leaning on you that you become crushed yourself. Nurture your relationships with your girlfriends. There will be times when you need their support. Don't think you always have to be the strong one. Don't hesitate to get professional help when you're overwhelmed. It will be the best choice you ever make and it will teach you so much about yourself. Asking for help doesn't mean you're weak; it means you're human.

And the last thing I want to say to you is, don't be scared of aging. Wisdom does actually make up for starting to lose your looks. It's a wonderful feeling to have so much of your sh*t together after all this time on earth.

The frustrating part is not being able to share it with you when you need it.

Your ever loving
Annie

Sometimes I despair: changing people's minds about child care

Caring for children is such an emotive subject. Every day as I read others' blog posts and websites and news articles- and yes, I do a LOT of reading every day- I see parents and educators struggling as they try to be rational and honest about a subject which is so loaded with feelings that the slightest slip of vocabulary or expression can send people into a complete flip.

There's an old wisdom that states that if you want social mayhem, just bring up sex, religion or politics. I'd like to add 'child rearing' to that. People feel so passionate about the way they've chosen to care for their children. It's almost become a sort of religion, with people from different philosophies desperately trying to convert others to their point of view. Sometimes a discussion thread turns into the verbal equivalent of a holy war. People get hurt. People get angry. Ego overpowers good sense. The 'holiness' of parenthood turns to 'holier than thou', and what started as a desire to enable valuable change gets compromised by people being downright nasty to each other.

So today I feel inspired to look at the mistakes we make when we're trying to change people's minds.

Obedience does not equal respect

There's been a lot of talk about obedience lately, hasn't there?

At one end of the spectrum, we have the ratbag fringe advocating whipping your baby with whipper-snipper cord to teach him to obey you- excuse me while I throw up, and then cry bitter tears for that sad and deluded segment of the human race. (I'm betting that all the people reading this think that's totally appalling, so I won't go on and on about it, because it makes us all sick to the stomach.)

At the other end- well, I guess you could say there's me. I actually worry when children are too obedient, and I worry even more when adults expect and want children to be unquestioningly obedient.

I think a lot of people confuse 'obedience' with 'respect'. When their children don't do as they're told, the parent or carer feels hurt, insulted or not respected. And of course, there are times when we need our children to obey us immediately- when there's serious imminent danger, you need the power of "STOP"- but let's not confuse that with a child who doesn't pick up their toys, or won't practise the piano or do their homework, or still hasn't taken the garbage out, or breaks curfew. (To give "STOP" power, you need a respectful relationship with your child and you need not to overuse that word.)

So first, let's explore the difference between obedience and respect, shall we?

The importance of water play: get that cotton wool wet!!!

It's absolutely bucketing down here.  Sorry about the blurry picture- that's water on the lens. And that bit that looks like a river leading to the dam- um, that's actually the lawn. It's coming down faster than it can flow away, and has been for three days now.

Where I live, this isn't unusual- I live in a wetland area, and we get flooded in at least once a year. To survive in a place like this, you really need to understand water and have respect for its power, or you'll find yourself doing stupid and dangerous things like swimming in floodwater, or driving through floodwater, or underestimating the power of a current.

There's a bridge near my house where a young man drowned some years ago, because he had no respect for the power of water. His car was washed off the bridge during a flood because he didn't understand that the water didn't care that he wanted to get where he was going, and it would always win a directional battle against a car. That car just bobbed up like a toy boat, and over the rail it went.

I didn't think twice about that aspect of things when I moved here, because I was brought up with a healthy respect for the power of water from early childhood. I know quite a lot about water, really, and it all stems from the way I was allowed to play with it when I was a child. I love water- but I also fear it, in a very rational way.

And as I stood in the bucketing rain today with a shovel, clearing channels so the water could run away instead of being trapped where it'll kill the grass my animals need to survive, I thought about how some children won't be allowed to play with water because of parental fear, or because of lack of opportunity in an increasingly over-regulated environment. And I thought, that's worse than sad; that's actually dangerous.

A jug of wine and thou, in the wilderness of parenting

I have to tell you a story which has absolutely nothing to do with childcare. Please, bear with me. I will wind it around to childcare eventually. (You know I always do, in the end.)

When I first came to this neighbourhood (alone) I knew NOBODY. I was invited to a few people's houses, was offered a glass of wine the moment I stepped through the door, and then looked at as though I was an alien life form with green fangs dripping slime when I politely declined.

Now, I must point out that when I was a young married woman I used to drink wine-  quite a lot of wine, actually- but when I got pregnant, my body suddenly decided that wine and I were mortal enemies; if I drank a single half-glass of any white and most red wines, I would immediately discover that I'd been stabbed in the back with a red-hot poker, and would retire to the smallest room in the house to writhe in agony for half an hour or so.

It's an unpleasant sensation. I try to avoid it.

Fallback position for the hostess was always to offer me a beer, but I just don't like the taste. And out here, that's usually the end of the drinks menu. It got a bit embarrassing after a while.

Well, I got through those first few visits drinking water and making an early exit. Obviously I wasn't quite fitting in, and my inability to share a glass of wine with the women was part of the problem; they probably assumed I was a prig, or judging them for their Bacchanalian enjoyment. But I hadn't had it really brought home to me how vital alcohol can be as a form of female 'social currency' until I revisited one of the houses where I'd been looked on as somewhat difficult for refusing a wine, despite my explanation.

Rather than put the hostess back into Awkward City by refusing a drink altogether, this time I'd brought my own premix G and T (yes, that's right folks, I'm a spirits lady these days and I do enjoy a drink), and I waved it at her gaily as I arrived. She immediately looked relieved.

"Oh, you drink spirits! Thank goodness!" she bubbled. "If you didn't drink, I couldn't see how we could be friends."

I suppose I should give her points for honesty, though her reaction effectively put a line through her number in my little black book. I've experienced lesser degrees of that reaction so many times, due to my wine intolerance, that it's made me think pretty deeply about the role of drinking in our culture- particularly in Australia. It seems that many people are completely nonplussed by someone who doesn't trade in the accepted social currency of alcohol, to the point where non-drinkers make them deeply uncomfortable. We don't give our society's drinking norms a second thought, really, until someone bucks the system or falls off the edge.

So how does that aspect of our culture fit in with parenting? (There, you knew I'd get to it.)

In the interests of full disclosure, and in case you think I'm about to launch into a guilt-trip alcophobic diatribe (yes I made that word up), I'm writing this with a neat bourbon in my hand. It's generous, but it's the first and last of the night.

In the interests of full disclosure, I spent 17 years of my life co-parenting with a drunk, and I really, really regret that. I wish I could find a way to use that for good.

In the interests of full disclosure, I'm currently writing a book which deals in part with the destruction that parental alcohol abuse wreaked on the childhood of one of my dearest friends.

Do you parents out there dare come on a trip with me through the stages of drinking, from relaxation to degradation?

When your daughter thinks she's fat

I'm guessing a lot of you have read this post, which has been circulating on facebook: 

http://www.rachelsimmons.com/2012/01/mom-im-fat-one-mothers-inspired-response-to-her-7-year-old/ 

I read it too, and I've been mulling over the issue of little girls thinking they're 'fat' (!) ever since. That mum ended up dancing proudly naked in front of the mirror with her daughter (and good on her!!). But maybe that's not what's going to help everyone. (Personally, I'm just not the dancing-naked type.)

So what else can we do when our daughter gets attacked by the fat police before she's even in her teens? What do we do when a little girl in our care declares sadly "I'm fat!"?

Aunt Annie has joined the Twitterati...

Oh my goodness... My dear friend Jane (the one who designed that gorgeous new header for the blog) has dragged me kicking and screaming into the 21st century and I am now on Twitter.

Look for Aunt Annie @auntanniescc to follow me....

...and please be kind while I make lots of Twitty mistakes! :D

Oh, and I've got to give Jane a plug too. She has an absolutely beautiful web page at http://janefroshstylist.wordpress.com/ 
and I am still wondering how she does all this with three little kids running around! Maybe I'd better find out her secrets and share them here.

Ah well, off to try to work out how to Tweet now. See you there?

Caught in a clash of parenting philosophies? 3 steps to sanity

A query by one of Janet Lansbury's readers caught my eye this morning. I quote:

'Genevieve asks: "When we are around others I find it hard to stand by and watch as well meaning and loving family members and friends treat her in a way that goes against my parenting philosophy. I am not sure how to manage these interactions or if I should I interfere at all?" '


This is such a common problem, whether it's the in-laws giving your child lollies, an acquaintance treating your child without respect or a carer 'saving' your child when you want her to discover the world and explore risk her own way. The answer's not an easy one (and certainly not one I could contain within a Facebook comment!).


Without knowing the age of the child or the type of clash of philosophies in this case, it's hard to give targeted advice, so I'll just try to provide some general hints.

1. Don't sweat the small stuff. If your child or baby is in genuine physical or emotional danger, then of course you must intervene even if it costs you a relationship- but I don't need to tell you that, because if your child REALLY is in danger you WILL act- you won't need to ask for advice. It's the grey areas that are difficult. Make sure that you're not blowing an incident up out of proportion.

Your child's teeth won't be ruined for life if Aunty Mary gives her one sugary lollipop. Try to let isolated incidents flow over you; if necessary and if your child is old enough, talk about the incident with your child later (and clean her teeth). Make 'I' statements to your child to ensure she knows how you feel about it and WHY. (And listen to her response!)

2. Don't act in the heat of the moment. If you have a repeat offender, to the point where you feel you have to say something, you don't have to say something right now while you're upset. Take a deep breath, because 'changed behaviour' and 'direct personal attacks' don't belong in the same sentence.

Write down what you want to say. Then rewrite it till it's polite. Make sure you're making 'I' statements, not 'you' statements. Try to understand and acknowledge the other person's point of view- yes, they probably mean well. 'I can see that when you give Mitzi a lollipop it's a gesture of love, and you want to make her happy.' Explain your concern. 'But I worry that sucking on sugar for hours will damage her teeth.' Make a polite request for the POSITIVE behaviour you want to see- eg 'I would really love it if you could offer Mitzi beautiful fruit instead, such as strawberries which she loves.' And close with more appreciation of the motives- 'Thank you for wanting to show your love to my daughter; I really appreciate the intent behind your gifts.'

When you've got your statement into a form where the other person is likely to hear it, instead of closing down because their good motives have been misunderstood and their behaviour criticised, that's the time to decide whether to send them the note or try to say it to their face.

You have every right to do exactly this within a childcare setting, if you see a behaviour that doesn't fit with your philosophy for your child. The response, once you're out of sight, will depend on how diplomatic you've been and how well you've explained yourself.  Once you kill the goodwill, you have ZERO chance of changing people's behaviour. Treat difficult relatives and friends with exactly the same diplomacy and respect!

3. Remember that children are resilient. In the big wide world that they must join some day on their own terms, they will see that different people treat them differently. Life is not consistent. All people are not the same, but we still have to deal with them. They will like the way some people treat them, and dislike the way others treat them, but the fact remains that this is something they'll have to learn to cope with.


Children whose parents break up, for example, often discover that there's a different set of rules at dad's place and mum's place. This can be the source of much grief for a parent who's spent a lot of time and thought deciding on his or her philosophy, only to see it undermined on a weekly basis. 


BUT you need to understand the extent of your personal power in this. The most important thing is that YOU are consistent. You can't control other people, but you can control the way you respond to your child when they try to apply other people's rules to your own home context. If you consistently point out to a child that this is the way things happen in your house and that is the way things happen at (say) grandma's house, you're teaching them an important life lesson. Children are capable of learning and adapting to this quite early on.

Talk to your child about inconsistencies in people's way of talking to them, or what other people allow and disallow. Tell them about your and your partner's own childhoods- how people talked to you, what your parents and other people let you do or forbade. Show them that the world is full of variety. Reassure them that you truly believe that the way you're bringing them up is the best for them, but tell them that other people may see things differently; there are lots of different ways to bring up children. Ask them about their friends, what they're allowed or not allowed to do. Open discussion is the best way to help children deal with the complexities of human behaviour.


Make your own position clear. I found this statement very useful while bringing up my son in a split relationship: 

"I'm your mother, and it's my job to make sure you grow up knowing how to be happy. Doing (....) probably won't make you happy when you grow up, because (...). That's why I don't want you to do that."


Dealing with clashes of philosophy can be really exhausting. Keep it in proportion, stay authentic with your child and stay respectful towards those with different views and you have a good chance of retaining both your sanity and your parenting integrity.

5 ways to keep dads engaged in parenting

There's this crazy belief still doing the rounds that women can 'have it all'- the family, the job, the fabulous social life whilst still doing Nigella Lawson impressions every night in the kitchen- and this is the key to happiness.

What rubbish. Admit it, go on! We are NOT Wonderwoman! Parenting is a full-time job. A full-time job is also a full-time job. Housekeeping is a full-time job. Somewhere in there we have to sleep and have some recreation and exercise. We'd all be just fine if there were 72 hours in a day.


We need help to stay resilient for our children, we need support systems, and we probably hope or even expect that our first lifeline will come from our children's dad. But you know, we can be our own worst enemies when it comes to accepting support from our partner.

The suitcase is too heavy: parenting your own inner child

Recently I wrote a post about misplacing the 'I' in parenting. As I continue to think a little more about the difficulties of calibrating how best to put our self into our child's world- contributing, supporting and intervening only in the best possible way for our own particular child- I realise that many of us are struggling to define normality, so that we have a stable position from which to work. We struggle to even see our own frame of reference clearly, and how it compares with average (let alone 'best') practice.

This struggle to feel that what we're doing is 'okay' according to some obscure definition of 'normality' seems to be the source of much sadness and conflict in the world of parenting. I believe that this is because many of us have had really problematic issues placed into our 'normality' frame, through our own experience of being parented. This is something we do need to deal with before we can be our best self for our own children, by giving our own inner child better care than we've received to date.

And I also believe that all of us, even those who've had wonderful parenting ourselves, will benefit as parents from taking better care of our own inner child.

The posts I most want you to read

Well, here we are at the end of 2011 and I see that the blogosphere is alive with lists of my favourite bloggers' 'most popular posts of the year'.

You'll find my most popular posts in the sidebar of my blog, so I'm not going to point you to them again. I think I'd rather point you to the ones that I feel matter the most. Sometimes I write a post that I feel is really important, that I wish to the heavens everyone would read, and it sinks without trace. Other times, of course, it gets picked up and shared and that's great- I think sometimes it's just a matter of timing and luck. Anyway, here are some of the posts that I wish you'd read if you missed them first time round.

The first one is my opening statement in this blog- my childcare philosophy.  It's really important to know what someone's underlying philosophy is before you start taking their advice!

Next up is my post on talking to babies. How I wish young mothers and fathers would read this one! It's the beginning of treating your child with respect.

Another that I wish you'd read is how to say no respectfully to your child. There's an art to it, you know, and it can help you to sidestep the confrontational battle of wills that leads to adolescent dramas.

This next one actually is amongst my most popular posts, but it's important enough to be worth another outing. If every parent in the world started to defuse eating issues with their children, I swear this world would be a healthier, happier place with less obesity and fewer eating disorders.

Are you thinking of enrolling your child in some out-of-school activities? Have your children have turned you into a cab driver because they're doing so much? PLEASE read this . You don't have to be a slave, and it's not good for your children anyway.

One of the great things about writing a blog is that I can make my past mistakes work for the future good of others. So many of us have to go through the pain and drama of a family break-up; here are some posts that might help you not to make the same mistakes as me, so your children are less traumatised by a relationship bust-up:

Fighting with your ex

Modelling happiness in an unhappy relationship


How not to be a wicked stepmother

And finally, here are some posts to help keep you feeling strong.

Coping with criticism

Staying resilient as a parent

Happy New Year to you all!

Useless words to strike from your vocabulary

Teacher Tom has written a great post today about a 'magic word' he's found to use with children. It made me start thinking about the other side of the coin- the words that cause nothing but trouble, the words that I'd love to strike out of every parent and carer's vocabulary.

There are certain words that promote guilt and blame without giving any positive momentum at all. These are the words that aren't helpful to anyone. If you use them yourself, you're either being mean or judgmental to someone else (consciously or subconsciously), or you're beating yourself up, or you're setting yourself up for failure. If someone else uses them at you- and I do mean AT you, because they can be like a weapon- they're not going to stir you into action, they're just going to make you feel crushed or worthless.

Where does the 'I' go in 'parenting'? -Thoughts on 'To Train Up a Child' and other misplaced methods

The more I write about young children and how best to care for them, the more I realise that the crux of the matter is not the way you deal with your child, but the way you deal with yourself. It's the 'I' in parenting that is the source of the most trouble; the way that you place yourself into your child's world is crucial to the way they will develop.

Why do children lie?

A few weeks ago when I was coming up to my 100th post, I asked some of my friends if there was anything in particular they'd like me to blog about to mark the occasion. In the end, of course, I blogged about something completely different, but one young mum's suggestion stuck with me. She wanted to know why her 5-year-old son had made up a story of one of her relatives physically abusing him, and presented it to her ex-partner as gospel truth.

Now, I have to say at the start that my friend KNEW this was a lie (because her child hadn't had any contact with that relative within the time frame suggested, and had had no unaccompanied contact with him at all).  Let me affirm that children's accusations of abuse should be assumed to be true until proved otherwise, because children rarely lie about those things.

So- in a case like this one, where you're sure your child is lying, why does it happen?

Standardised tests are dodgy

There's a link to this article about the idiocy of standardised testing flying around Facebook at present.  And yes, I agree: standardised tests are a form of idiocy.  I never met a standardised test yet that gave accurate assessments of ALL children's relative ability- yet governments want to judge both students and teachers by them, in order to make major, game-altering decisions to education? Give me a break. 

I have a few little anecdotes to share on this subject... you may find them enlightening too.

Excursions in Early Childhood: a reality check

A few months ago, I was asked for my views on excursions in Early Childhood Education, as Rattler Magazine was preparing an article and wanted some input from practitioners about excursions and the Early Years Learning Framework (that's our new national curriculum, for my overseas readers).  Here's my response.

'Engaging with the wider community' v 'what actually happens in childcare'

I think it's important that both the people who created the new curriculum (and so understand their intent intimately) and the people who write about it, but who are not daily practitioners, understand the huge gulf that exists between aspiration and reality.

At this stage, what I see is not practitioners being pushed to rethink their practice on engaging with the larger community- I don't think it even occurs to them that they should. Practitioners are mostly struggling with what the EYLF means in terms of what they need to do that's different from before, and what will affect their accreditation if they don't do it. It's very basic. It's 'how do I record something flexible? Will I fail if I do this the way I've always done it?'

The aspirational intent has not reached ground zero, except in terms of more play-based learning and fewer designed and highly structured activities, and the aspirational challenge is more about some practitioners throwing out intentional teaching and calling a lack of structure 'play-based learning'- and some refusing to change at all or keeping their heads in the sand- so there's a bit of a tug-of-war going on. That's not statistically based, but just what I see in some of the centres I visit.

Perhaps in the long term, when we are more comfortable with what the EYLF means in terms of our documentation, daily practice and pedagogy, we might come around to seeing a need for change in the negative attitude to excursions and interaction with the community, but I doubt that this will happen for the sake of fulfilling an imposed outcome. If you took an Early Childhood practitioner off the street and asked how the children should engage in civic living while in childcare, she'd probably look at you as though you had dual craniums- because in the whole scheme of daily survival, that's the least of our concerns. Many practitioners would question whether that's actually what the outcome means. It's just so far from our day-to-day world to consider the role of very young children in the wider community.

Anyway, my view is that until the issues I mention in the following writings are addressed, excursions will continue to be avoided by most centres.

'Tis the season to be... a little more thoughtful about Christmas

Last month my blog feed was full of posts about Thanksgiving, which is one American festival I wholeheartedly applaud (and wish we had here in Australia).  We spend far too little time being grateful for what we have in our highly privileged countries, and far too much time whinging about what else we wish we had. The World Vision ad telling about a small girl who has to walk alone for 8 hours a day to get water for her family, each time risking death at the hands of wild animals and rape at the hands of unscrupulous passers-by, says everything we need to know. (Yes, World Vision put in a water supply for her community, but that's just one community of many.)

This week, of course, my feed is flooded with posts about Christmas, and I feel like hiding under a rock.

Ah, Christmas. It starts out purporting to be a season of fun, generosity and celebration, and so often ends up as a nightmare of alcohol-fuelled family feuding over lunch, while tearful, overstimulated kids beg for just one more present or whine about what they didn't get.

This is followed by mind-numbing parental panic when the credit card bill arrives.

'Tis the season of greed and excess.  'Tis the season to join the red and green dots the same way we've always done it, and then repent at leisure- the way we always do it.

Is Christmas good for our kids? Have you ever asked yourself that? Is how YOU do Christmas good for your kids? 

Only children rock, part 2: bringing up baby (singular)

Alright then- you've decided, or nature has decided for you, that this baby is IT.  You'd like a manual for the singleton model, please!

I'm assuming you've already read the previous post, where I reassured you that you are NOT the Wicked Witch of the West for having just one child, and that your child is not doomed to be a bratty, insular, self-centred, dependent lap-dog. Yes? Good. Now let's talk about some sensible, reflective parenting of the only child.

The first thing we have to knock on the head is that only children are somehow different to bring up from other children.  They're not.  Children are children, and most have similar needs.  At the same time, every child is unique- the 'only' one you have of that particular model.  Good parenting is a matter of knowing your child and getting the balance right, no matter how many children you have.

But you may have to do a little tweaking from time to time, in the absence of siblings.  Siblings can certainly provide a bit of a reality check for each other, as the screams and wails issuing from the parent-of-two's playroom will attest.  Let's look at some specific aspects of 'only child' parenting balance.


My baby, my life!- the dangers of overindulgence

If you're silly enough to treat any child as though he's the centre of the universe and make your entire life revolve around him, instead of gradually helping him (and allowing him) to become independent, you're cruisin' for a bruisin'.

People will tell you that this only happens to only children, because they don't have any competition. Rubbish. It happens to a LOT of eldest children, and then there's hell to pay when Number 2 comes along. (See 'sibling rivalry'.) It can also happen to 'favourite' children or precociously talented children. Be very, very afraid. This is not the way to create a happy human being.

You may well fall madly in love with your new baby, but that's not an excuse to indulge yourself in indulging her, to the detriment of both the baby and your own life. It's not an excuse for you to live your life through your child.  Remind yourself he's not a possession.  Remind yourself she's a small person who needs to live an independent life one day.

Remind yourself that your job is not to play with, entertain, buy stuff for and wait upon this child 24 hours a day, because that's how people breed children who can't entertain themselves, have a dysfunctional sense of entitlement and think that 'mum' is a synonym for 'servant'.  In my very first post of this blog I talked about parenting as a process of letting go.  You'd better believe it.

Your job is not just to love and care for him, but to build realistic expectations. One day your baby will be a teenager.  Will you still be giving him everything he wants and jumping to attention every time he squeaks? Will you still prioritise her above everything that matters in your own life? (If you do, I promise she'll hate you for it.) When were you thinking of starting the transition to reality?

Obviously, you attend lovingly and patiently to all your tiny baby's genuine needs and give lots of cuddles and honest, kind communication. The trick is to gradually let her take the wheel as she gets older and take back the important parts of your own life, so that when it's time for your baby to leave home we have a tableau of happy adults excited about the future- not a terrified, unprepared, 25-year-old child and a pair of weeping, empty-nester parents. If you're having trouble getting the balance right when your baby is young- and yes, you DO need to think about this when your baby is quite young- Janet Lansbury's site is a mine of kind, non-judgmental information.

My one and only- the pitfalls of overprotection

Fear of abduction, death or injury must not be allowed to cripple your one-and-only's emotional growth.  If you went through hell to get that only child, or if you're a particularly fearful person, you might need to do a bit of emotional work on yourself before you can let your child take the minor, healthy risks they need for normal development. Do it. Hot-housing your child is bad for them, and for you.  That child needs to get out into the world and learn to cope without you.

Finding the line between acceptable and unacceptable risk can be hard for parents who only have one child and are terrified of losing him.  But if you protect any child from the realities of other people's quirks, differences and unpleasant behaviour- if you don't let her learn how to cope with other members of the human race, warts and all, from an early age- she's in for an unpleasant shock when she eventually has to assimilate without mum or dad at her side.

Children with siblings have to learn to deal with other kids at home every day (and their parents have to learn when to to butt out and let them sort it).  Children without siblings might need you to create opportunities for them to learn this, if your lifestyle doesn't lend itself naturally to this sort of interaction.

There's a good chance that an only child will end up preferring the company of adults, because that's what he's used to.  Once that's set in stone, it can become difficult for some children to integrate with peers once school starts (and it may be twice as hard if they're gifted as well; I refer you to the cautionary tale of 'only child, gifted child' Gavin, which you'll find towards the end of my post about gifted children.)  I wasn't an only child, but my brother was significantly older than me, and I still remember how awful it felt to be tossed into a sea of other children when I was used to adult company, civil behaviour and peace and quiet.

Want to avoid this for your child? Then that means- shock, horror- that you need to expose this delicate, precious little orchid flower of yours to Other People's Children sooner rather than later.

That might mean playgroup and daycare.  It might mean playing with their cousins and going to little athletics.  It could mean early music classes and plenty of time at the playground (without you being a helicopter parent). The idea is to let your child work out how to deal with other people from outside their family, and they can't do that if you're constantly hovering and 'saving them'.

The interactions don't have to be with children of exactly the same age.  Be guided by your own child's personality- as with every other aspect of parenting, you are the authority on your child and you are the best one to judge exactly what social activities will work for your child.  In my son's case, it often meant coming with me to choir rehearsals after school and interacting with a group of 15- to 18-year-old girls (who were not backward in coming forward when he did something outrageous).  Like Gavin, he was a gifted child and preferred the company of older people. I found that play dates with his peers were pretty useless, as he'd either be totally bored by their conversation or run rings around them instead of learning to co-operate and negotiate. (Or both.  Oh, the joys of parenting the gifted child... sigh.)

To this day he thanks me for exposing him to so many girls so young.  He swears it gave him an unfair advantage in the dating stakes later on.

NB: Note that working with choirs was a very important part of my life, and there was no way I was giving that up- my preschooler son just had to learn to fit in, and he did so with alacrity.  Let that be a lesson to you! Spend some time maintaining your own interests!  Maybe you too can work out a way to combine resuming your life interests with allowing your child to socialise.  Both are terribly important if you want to end up with that tableau of happy adults at parting time.

You're special- hello, so is everyone else

If you fail to nurture respect for other people's point of view in your child, then yes, you'll bring up a self-centred prat.  (Some parents manage to bring up whole families of self-centred prats, so don't you dare think that only children own the copyright on that one.)

And so, in the absence of siblings who will soon teach a child that everyone has a unique perspective (and last one with hands washed gets last pick of the cupcakes), you may have to make more of an effort to treat your only child in a slightly more pragmatic way and let him learn about reality. It's not called the human 'race' for nothing.

It's pretty natural to try to boost your child's ego and make her feel special, but you can't be hokey about it. (Kids pick 'hokey' very young.) You have to try to be realistic about where your child stands in relation to the world. By all means show interest in what he does, but don't give fake or excessive praise (this is a child, not a performing seal) and don't pretend he's infallible or The Best (what is that, anyway? The Best like Picasso, or The Best like Renoir?), even if he's precociously talented at something.

Try to be calm, try to be authentic, and be careful what you label as 'cute' or 'awesome'.  (Let me rephrase that: be careful with labels, full stop.) If you over-react to every little thing your child achieves, you're hard-wiring your child's brain to believe that the aim of life is to please YOU.  It's not. The first aim of life is to explore our own abilities and find and use our unique gifts, not to join the circus as a baby monkey and do handstands night after night till we die so people will throw peanuts.

Yes, you can be positive and interested without declaring that everything your baby produces is WONDERFUL.  (Even she knows that not everything she produces is wonderful- most of the time she's far more interested in the process of doing something than in the product that you hang on your fridge, anyway.) And you can, and must, create an atmosphere where he realises that there are other people in the world, and things are not always going to go his way, and that's not the end of the world.

So, for example, it's important that you don't spare your child the disappointment of losing when you play games. Again, you have to find a balance between the 'killer' parent, who plays to win regardless of the company, and the 'pushover' parent who constantly loses on purpose.

I remember learning how to play the card game "500" by having my father play my hand with me, until I had a decent grasp of the strategies.  That was brilliant.  I got the sense of being part of a team, I tasted a fair share of winning and losing- and then when I went solo, when I did win I knew I'd deserved it.  That's what we're aiming for here- a realistic balance.

You know, I've hardly said a thing here that only relates to the only child. I'll say it again: every child is unique, but most of them have similar basic needs.  Having one child means we might occasionally have to consider stepping in and replacing what siblings might contribute, but having more than one child means we have to consider dealing with a host of other difficult issues, like 'where did I put my life?' and 'how can I explain to Johnny that it's not okay to flush his sister's iPod down the toilet?'

For some of us, an only child is a choice; for others, it's imposed upon us against our will.  But honestly, it doesn't have to be an issue. If you have a pennyworth of common sense and enough interest in good parenting to keep you reading and learning about children, you and your singleton will be absolutely fine- and if anyone tells you otherwise, send them to me!!

Only children rock, part 1: the myths

Being the parent of an only child can be fraught with awkward, spiky social situations. Believe me, I know- my son is an only child.  I sometimes find it hard to believe that having just one child can cause so much judgment and controversy.

The parenting forums always have at least one thread, or sometimes a whole group of threads, devoted to the only child.  Do you have an only child by choice or circumstance? Are you an only child yourself? Did you wish for a sibling? Are you happy? Would you choose to have an only child yourself? What are the disadvantages? What are the advantages? What do you do when someone asks you when you're having another child?

And yes, there are plenty of people ready to jump down your throat if you've decided to have just one child.  Really, it mystifies me why other parents are so quick to attack the parent/s of the singleton- but I've seen it many times over.  My theory is that these people are so desperate for affirmation of their own choices that they strike out at anyone who chooses differently. (Read, insecure.) 

Certain myths are thrown at us with monotonous regularity.  She'll be spoilt.  He'll be lonely.  She'll never learn to share.  He'll miss out on having  an extended family group when he grows up. She'll have to take sole responsibility for caring for her parents in their old age.  He'll be too dependent on and attached to mum.  Believe me, I've heard them all, and for each myth there's a balancing one which suggests that all these problems are magically solved by having another baby.

Reality check: a baby doesn't solve any problem, ever, for anyone, regardless of where that baby comes in the sibling line-up. Having a baby is a gamble. You have no idea who you're going to get, how he or she will fit in with the family you've already got, and what challenges beyond the average that particular baby will bring.

Don't believe me?  Read this. Amy was desperate for a child when she and her husband adopted Kylie.

So while I delight in babies and love looking after them, just as Amy delights in and adores Kylie despite her challenges, in reality I think that any baby is far more likely to cause a problem than to solve one.  A second child is not a magic wand warding off the evils of selfishness, isolation and dependence; reflective, well-informed parenting practice is the way to achieve that. And I believe that NO child should be conceived JUST to avoid having an only child, or to fit in with society's knee-jerk expectations; every child's conception should be planned and considered equally carefully.  (Don't even start me on parents who have baby after baby of the same sex because they're 'trying for' the opposite sex. Poor children.)

If you read my post about the myth of the happy family, you'll understand that I take off the rose-tinted glasses when I view the relationships within a family unit.  Just because two babies are born to the same parents, there's no guarantee they'll love or even like one another. They don't necessarily even share a majority of genetic material- it's the luck of the draw- so to assume that siblings will automatically develop a close bond just because they're siblings is optimistic at best, and plain old self-delusion at worst.

There's considerably more likelihood that a first child will feel usurped and threatened by later children, especially if he or she has previously experienced an over-attentive parenting style or if the subsequent babies are challenging and need a lot of attention.  The term 'sibling rivalry' doesn't need to be explained to anyone, does it? It's common.

And because it's common, most of us have some experience of the strains felt between siblings.  I'm fortunate to get along perfectly well with my brother- but I spent part of my life in a relationship with a middle child, who had teamed up with the first child to bully their younger sister mercilessly in childhood and was still laughing about it years later. I didn't find it funny, and it didn't reassure me about the value of having siblings at all.

Nor did I find my relationship with a highly competitive eldest child amusing or reassuring, given that he regularly started roaring rows with his younger brothers over family lunches.  Give me my current peaceful relationship with an only child any day; he seems to have a lot more respect for other human beings' feelings.

Yet despite us knowing, really, that a larger family doesn't guarantee a happy family, our culture seems to demand that we aspire to at least two children.  If we decline, we are regarded with a certain suspicion and questioned relentlessly.  And so I present my evidence for the defence.

I am glad these days that I had an only child.  And honestly, he hasn't turned out too bad (she said with a proud grin, trying not to brag).

Was he spoilt? Possibly, at first, but that was hard to avoid given that he was the first grandchild on both sides of the family (and I knew a lot less about sensible parenting than I know now).  When my financial circumstances changed and I had to start saying no, he got unspoilt very quickly.

Was he lonely? Never- in fact he developed a wonderful ability to entertain himself, as well as attracting a wide circle of friends when he finally found some like-minded peers; he's now a leader within his chosen social/recreational activity.  (Did he ever complain of being bored? Of course. Doesn't every child?)

Did he learn to share?  He's generous to a fault, and has been since childhood.

Did he miss out on the extended family?  No, he has great relationships with his cousins and makes far more effort to stay in touch with the extended family than I do! 

Will he be burdened by caring for me in my decrepit old age? Absolutely not- I would never blight his life against his will.  I'll take my chances in a nursing home if I have to.  (How dare people do that to their children?!  It must always be a choice, not a demand.)

Is he too dependent on me?  Roars of laughter at that one.  He's incredibly independent.  I have absolutely no illusions that I have undue influence on his choices!

So no, I don't see that my academically high-flying, socially fluid, free-thinking, generous, self-sufficient child suffered by being a singleton- not at all.  To this day he says he liked being an only child.

More telling than his words, I think, is that he's chosen to marry another only child. Within his wife's character he finds a complementary independence and resourcefulness.

Only children rock.  Don't let anyone tell you any different.

Read Part 2 here!

Sexualising our children isn't funny

Recently on Facebook, someone from the US posted an outraged reaction to a children's clothing store that was selling g-strings and crotchless undies in children's sizes.  Today in Australia, we have K Mart pulling a range of children's undies with sexualised messages ("Call me!"  "I love rich boys!") off their shelves, after similar outrage from responsible parents.

WHAT are people THINKING when they design and make this garbage and then try to sell it to children?

The US incident was rationalised (if, indeed, you CAN rationalise something that tacky and poorly judged) as an attempt by pedophiles to infiltrate the children's clothing market- something of an extreme view without evidence.  I thought that was drawing a little bit of a long bow.

I think it's bigger, more worrying and less overtly criminal than that.  I think that this is a creeping malaise that's got under our radar, through

(1) our failure to deal with our own personal insecurity, and

(2) our acceptance of other people's 'expert' bad decisions about what's appropriate for children.

Let me explain that.

'Happy Families' is a card game

We have been brainwashed.

Did it start with TV shows like The Brady Bunch?  Or did that sort of show just perpetuate the myth that families are, naturally, a haven of universal and reciprocal affection?

Maybe there really are families that work like that somewhere on this earth, where Mum and Dad are founts of love and tolerance and understanding, where all the children adore and support each other, where every problem is eased along by mutual concern for others' happiness within the home circle. 

I'm scratching my head to think if I know any REAL families like that- but no, I don't.  And so my logical brain says, if that type of family is the norm, and if I've worked with families all my life, then why am I struggling to remember an example?

No, folks, I don't believe in that particular fairy tale. Last time I looked, The Brady Bunch was fiction (and a noxiously cloying variety thereof) and Happy Families was a card game (one that often led to massive rows around the family table about whether Johnny had lied about the presence or absence in his hand of Master Pinch the Pickpocket's Progeny... or something like that).

Please let me know if everyone in your family loves each other unconditionally and has no skeletonic resentment whatsoever hiding in the cupboard under the stairs.  Put your hand on your heart and tell me that Christmas will be a wonderful reunion, without a single squabble or insensitive behaviour.  I will need at least 500 families like that to give me even a 50-50 'perfect to imperfect' ratio. 

Yes, I can think of families who constantly work at their relationships and appear to do a damn good job of ironing out tensions, but there's always a flaw compared to the 'perfection' template.  There's an anorexic, or a dominating personality, or an unwanted pregnancy, or a child not achieving to potential, or a drunk, or a wife who's actually in love with someone else, or two members who can't bear to be in the same room, or a neurotic... go on, analyse some families you know.

Start with your own family and move on to your best friend's, because I can think of several families who appear to their mere acquaintances to be living the dream- but who are, underneath the patina of respectability, living the nightmare (at worst), or the undesirable compromise (at best).

So if the Perfect Happy Family is not the norm but the noteworthy exception, why are so many people- particularly women- beating themselves up over failed attempts to make their own family conform to a template that is essentially a fantasy?

I started musing about this question after I read a question on The Twin Coach's site from a slightly flummoxed mother, who was asking for advice on how to get her daughter to give her younger siblings some signs of familial affection such as the loving goodnight kiss.  Miss 5, far from conforming to the 'perfect family' template, was grouchily refusing to do any such thing, and mum was starting to worry that the little siblings might feel unloved.

Poor mum.  Children are so bad at conforming to our pre-ordained images of family.  They will insist on surprising us with behaviours we never imagined would come from the fruit of our loins, and on having their own strong and contrary feelings about things. 

We bore them, yes, we brought them into this world, but we don't own them- and we don't own or control their feelings, either.  They belong, from the start, to themselves. And we have to learn to live with that, and do our bit to negotiate peace when the different selves in our family declare war on each other in action or word.

That bewildered mum's question took me right back to when an 11-year-old boy I know, who I'll call 'Jamie', was presented with a little stepbrother by his dad and dad's new wife- let's call her 'Ruby'.  Poor Ruby had that fantasy template firmly embedded in her heart.  I won't say 'in her mind', because she was a very smart lady- a VERY smart lady- who would have been able to see her folly if it had ever occurred to her to analyse her expectations using the scientific method she learned at university.

That's the problem with being brainwashed. It doesn't occur to you to apply logic and contrary evidence. The Happy Family has been presented to us as our cultural norm, and if our family doesn't conform, then that makes US a failure.

Poppycock it does.

But back to Ruby and Jamie.  Ruby had her heart set on a Brady dynamic, while Jamie- who, as an adored only child for 11 years, probably had certain expectations of remaining so- was beset by a severe bout of rebellious rage. Nobody had asked HIM if he wanted a sibling. If they had, he would have said NO. He didn't even LIKE little kids, let alone LOVE this 24/7 package of screaming, pooping, demanding, incomprehensible, attention-seeking NUISANCE.

Simply speaking, he refused to play ball- or perhaps I should say 'cards'. It might have been a game of Happy Families until the new baby turned up, but he was damned if he was going to pretend to be happy now. And no, he would NOT kiss that baby goodnight, or smile for family photos with it.

At this point, Ruby made a fatal error- one which I would plead with that other mum not to make.  She pushed the point. She ordered Jamie to be nice. She tried to insist that Jamie show affection to the baby and conform to the Happy Family Paradigm.

Somewhere deep down, she must have seen Jamie's failure to love the baby on command as a personal affront to her values; when Jamie continued to refuse to play her game, she effectively declared war.  Jamie's failure to love the baby was presented as his failing of personality and upbringing. Blame was attributed freely. Punishments were meted out.

At no stage was Jamie given the space or approval to feel what he was, without doubt, feeling very strongly indeed.  Jamie wasn't acting out towards the baby.  He wasn't hitting it, or hurting it; he was just refusing to pretend he liked it. His whole world had shifted on its axis, and instead of being helped to find a comfortable place in that world by his adult guide, he was judged and condemned.

The result was inevitable; Jamie dug his heels in too, the whole situation escalated to the point where the parents were having constant arguments about it, and the marriage disintegrated.

Scorecard: Jamie, 10; single ex-stepmum (by now with two young children), minus 100.

What should Ruby have done?

The first thing she needed to do was to let go of her childhood dream of the perfect family, because it's a myth. She needed to play the hand she was dealt, not the hand she wished she had, and recognise that she and Jamie had a different set of emotions around that baby.  She needed to stop pretending that having a new baby was a positive experience for everyone in her family. What we want so desperately for ourselves may have a very different impact on those around us, as every career woman knows.

The second thing she needed to do was to let Jamie be himself, because none of us is very good at being someone we're not- and children are no exception.  Jamie needed to feel safe to express what he was really feeling about that baby- his fears, his resentment, his discomfort with the changes in his life, his anger that nobody had thought to prepare him for the possibility of a sibling before it was a fait accompli- and his hurt that, now that the baby was here, nobody considered his feelings to be valid or important.

Perhaps Jamie even needed to be praised for NOT acting out directly at the baby.  Some children who are racked by the emotions of sibling rivalry do actually hurt their brother or sister. Jamie had restrained himself admirably, given that his feelings were so strong. Eleven years is a long time to be the star of the show, and there are plenty of stars who've behaved worse than Jamie when an up-and-coming actor stole their limelight.

With the retrospectoscope- a powerful and (for the holder) totally useless instrument- it's also easy to see that perhaps it would have been wise to give Jamie a little less of the limelight in the first place. If we totally indulge our first child and spend every waking minute at his side, spend every cent in our purse giving him everything he wants and let him dominate our life decisions, we're setting ourselves up for a fall.

That's pretty much what happened to Jamie- the only child, the only grandchild on both sides, the apple of everyone's eye.  A little restraint might have given Jamie a more realistic view of the world. If you give a child everything and then have another baby, it doesn't take a degree in maths for that child to work out that half is less than one. Half the time, half the attention, half the disposable income, and that's if the parents are falling over themselves to be equitable (which new babies rarely allow).

You reap what you sow. Sow a little time for your second child when you have the first.

And so to that mother whose daughter won't kiss the babies goodnight, I'd say don't push it.  Let your daughter have her feelings, because her feelings are real.  Find a way to let her express those feelings- make it safe for her to speak about how she feels, or act out how she feels using dolls or teddies or puppets. 

Accept her reluctance to pretend; your daughter is being emotionally honest. Isn't that what you want her to be? Of course you do! You just don't want her to feel like that.

But that is out of your control.  She is herself. She has her own feelings. All you can do is to try to be aware, and not increase her feelings of resentment towards her siblings. She's not beating them up; good on her for that.  So chill.  Spend time with her, do the special things you used to do with her before the other babies arrived, make sure she feels your love.

When she grows up, you won't want her to feel she has to kiss people she doesn't want to kiss.  Nor will you want your younger children to accept forced kisses.  Start now. Give a consistent message.  This isn't a tableau for the camera- this is real life, and fake kisses are worthless to all parties.

Will stepping back work?  I think so.  It will give this little girl space to work through those feelings, instead of acting them out or suppressing them. That can only be good.  It will make her feel that mum now sees her as she really is, and accepts her, bad feelings and all.

I feel a great compassion for that little girl, struggling with those big feelings.  To that mum, I say that I wouldn't be worried about whether the younger siblings are feeling loved- I would be worried about whether the 5-year-old is feeling loved. This is what needs to change, not the tableau at bedtime.

There's a happy ending to Jamie's story, which might help and reassure that little girl's mum.

Once Jamie had the space to be himself, with his own real feelings, he stopped digging the hole of resentment deeper. As his little brother started to grow up and smile and say real words and show Jamie that he thought he was awesome, as only little brothers can, Jamie decided that he loved him after all.  They have a great relationship these days, full of genuine affection.

Accepting your children's feelings about their siblings is the first step in changing their rivalry.  Until you accept where they're at, you're the enemy in this highly emotive war. 

Step over the battle line.  Look at your family from your child's perspective.  What do you see?

Channeling my inner toddler: the concept of 'play as work'

It's really, REALLY hot in summer where I live. Fortunately I have a magnificent dam, complete with wharf, specifically for swimming- much less work than a swimming pool! The only drawback is that the edges can be a bit muddy, and sometimes when I climb out I end up looking like I'm wearing Ugh boots made out of mud.

So the other day I grabbed a long rope from my partner's old sailing kit, tied it to a tree on one side, swam across with it and tied it to the other side, so I'd have something stable to use to haul myself out without sinking. My beloved didn't even ask me what I was doing; it's taken him a while, but he's now worked out that when I get That Look in my eye, I'm channeling my inner toddler and it's NOT a good idea to interrupt or offer to help. I Can Do It. Don't Bother Me. (Sound familiar, toddler parents?)

When I finished, I not only had a great way of getting out of the water without the mudpack pedicure- I also had a new toy. I had an underwater tightrope.

And so since then, I've been playing with my new toy. First I used it as a lane marker so I could swim laps, but that was a bit boring. So next I decided to use it to develop my arm strength, by seeing how fast I could pull myself across the dam using only my arms.  That was kind of cool.

But once I started to see it as an underwater tightrope, things got REALLY interesting. The rope sags in the middle, you see, what with the weight of the rope and the weight of the water it sucks up. That's science. (I only really noticed that because I was in Toddler Mode. You should try it sometime; you see the world differently, with lots of interesting details you'd otherwise overlook, when you have a Personal Project based on an Interest.)

So I thought I'd try walking the tightrope across to the other side of the dam. 

Now, THAT was FUN. But it was also amazingly enlightening.

I couldn't actually see the rope, because the dam is a typical, Aussie, murky mud-brown dam.  I had to guess where the rope was, and feel with my feet, and simultaneously keep my balance with my arms. And the rope moves; it's quite bouncy, so you can't go at it too fast. I fell off quite a few times, despite my best arm-flailing efforts.

And suddenly I found myself thinking, this is what it was like learning to walk.

It really helped me with the concept of 'play as work'.  To anyone on the edges, it looked like I was just horsing around on a hot day, but I'd actually got a bee in my bonnet about getting to the other end without falling and I was teaching myself the 'rules' of staying on that rope, involving posture, balance, control, foot position and speed.

We adults don't play enough, you know. We don't set ourselves enough recreational challenges, just to see if we CAN. If we played more, and mucked around at the edges of our ability more, we wouldn't have so much trouble understanding that children's play is their form of work, and that we shouldn't interfere when they're apparently 'just playing'- but in fact, busy working something out. And we shouldn't rescue them when they're taking a risk by learning a new physical skill.

I Can Do It. Don't Bother Me.

Are you a golfer, maybe? Trying to improve your swing? Think of that feeling. Don't Bother Me. I'm Working. That's what your child is feeling when they play, and you may not understand exactly what they're teaching themselves- but believe me, they WILL be teaching themselves something.  Think before you interrupt. Let them finish what they're doing. Think of the feeling when your phone rings mid-swing. DON'T BOTHER ME! I'M PLAYING!!

All the time I was in the dam, my dog was trying to interrupt me.  He was channeling his inner toddler, too. (I've decided that, for him, the age after toddlerhood will be senility- but I digress.) When he realised I was not going to find a stick for him and throw it in the dam for him to fetch, because I Was Busy, he decided to get one for himself. (Toddlers do that.)

I could hardly blame him for coming back with a stick the size of the Sydney Harbour Bridge; it was  a branch, actually.  Now, there was another example of 'play as work'.  I watched him wrestle that 'stick' from the fence near the bush, all the way around the dam till he got it to the end of the rope, where he knew I'd get out. He spiked himself on it a few times along the way, yelping loudly enough to make my partner come and ask what was wrong.

But he's a dog, not a child; nobody interrupted his game. When he finally got that branch where he wanted it, the look of achievement on his face gave me the giggles, even though I just about broke an ankle trying to get around the damn thing when I pulled myself out of the dam.

And the realisation that it'd taken him exactly two swims to figure out exactly where I'd set foot on land reminded me that toddler he may be, but stupid he ain't.

And that, my friends, is also a lesson for all of us.

A gift for you, the readers

When I started this blog nearly a year ago, I was being pursued by the Black Dog of depression. It's been snapping at my heels for most of my adult life. For many intensely creative or talented people, chronic mental or emotional vulnerability is trotting faithfully along behind its master, Brilliance, and the leash is both invisible and indestructible.

So many of my artistic heroes were victims. Brett Whiteley's paintings are unique and heart-stoppingly beautiful, but he saw the world through a veil of heroin that eventually entangled and engulfed him. Van Gogh, another unique voice, amputated his own ear in a moment of psychological agony. Tchaikowsky, a seemingly endless fount of glorious melodies, drank water that he knew to be contaminated with cholera just to break the cycle of despair. Schumann, a virtuoso pianist as well as a composer, became so fixated on perfecting his piano-playing technique that he invented a machine to strengthen the fourth fingers of each hand; the use of this contraption crippled him so that he could no longer play at all, and he ended up in an asylum for the insane.

I'm sure you too can think of endless famous creative or talented souls who have lurched into substance abuse or extremist behaviour in an attempt to escape the demons in their heads. Amy Winehouse. Elvis. Kurt Cobain. Go on, add your own.

I may not be anything approaching that famous, nor do I have dangerous addictions or obsessions; but if I eschew false modesty, it should come as little surprise to those who know me well that Aunt Annie the storyteller, poet, musician, composer, blogger, dramatist, puppeteer, wisecracker, teacher extraordinaire and effortless entertainer of little children has a shadow following her. I might not be in Tchaikowsky's stratosphere, but I can sure understand why he quaffed that glass, as can anyone who's ridden the roller coaster from 'creative euphoria' to 'severe depressive episode'.

If you want a gut level understanding of clinical depression, I recommend this cartoon by the amazingly talented blogger Allie, of Hyperbole and a Half, who has spent the best part of the last year crippled by this illness despite the appearance of 'having it all'- a genuine talent for witty, hilarious writing, a zillion blog followers, a great boyfriend, a pending book deal. She's captured the symptoms perfectly. This unutterable blackness... from someone who can have us rolling around the floor laughing with posts like this one? No, I'm not surprised really. I know. One day some brilliant medical scientist will discover a physical relationship between talent and depression. There has to be one.

But anyway, I won't be drinking from Tchaikowsky's poisoned chalice just yet, because you- yes, you, out there reading this- you have saved me from myself. And so in this, my 100^th post, I want to thank you for being there and for the way you receive my work. For reading, for coming back to read more, for sharing my words with others, for daring to be frank without being cruel in your comments.

Writing a blog has been, for me, a magical way to break the relationship between the glass of intoxicating joy and the chaser of despair. When I write this blog, I still get the joy of creation every time; each post is written and rewritten as carefully as any poem, each draft tweaked and polished until I think it's ready to meet the world.  Then when I read it and finally feel that explosive, tingling burst of brilliant firework joy that most women associate only with bearing a real life human child, I read it over one more time- yes, I admit I indulge myself, because it's so good to feel that creative blast that I want to feel it again- and come back down to earth while I'm still feeling good about what I've written. I re-engage with reality. I send it out with a click of a button to the wide blue yonder- to YOU.

And instead of the long, heartbreaking wait of trying to get my writing to the readers who might need it or appreciate it- month after month of waiting for the invariably negative response from a publisher, whose first priority is whether my writing will make the company money, whether the work of my heart and soul is worth taking a financial risk on- instead of that grinding road to hopelessness, within hours I have a genuine indication of whether my writing was really any good. Whether it made a difference. Whether, today, I have been the change I wanted to see in the world.

It's you who makes the difference. You tell me, honestly, about my life's work by coming back again and reading- or not. By commenting- or not. By reposting- or not. By doing these things, you tell me whether my writing is a contribution to a better world, or just a case of Narcissus looking into the pond in a flurry of self-delusion.

And that matters to me. It matters enough to make the difference between despair that needs medication, and sadness that I can control by looking into the mirror and saying 'This too will pass'.

Any writer can sit at home reading his own work, telling himself how wonderful it is and cursing the world and the publishers for not seeing its value, blaming the few who've read it for having no taste and reminding himself how many times Harry Potter was rejected. Put it out on a blog instead, and there's no deluding yourself. The general public, YOU, will soon give Narcissus a measure of his true beauty. And in my case, the result has been so positive; so many of you have come back, over and over again. I have evidence that I must be doing something worthwhile, after all.

And you've been honest in your reflection- more so than the pond was to Narcissus. I thank you for that, because kind words of criticism can be as nourishing as praise. I've learned so much from what you've said to me. For example, there's Lisa, who gently explained that I'd misunderstood the distinction between sexuality and gender identity in my post about prejudice, and had used an insensitively placed pronoun in my story. It opened my eyes to another layer I wasn't aware of, in the shady world of discrimination. Thank you. Please keep telling me the truth.

Another reader urged me to read more about recent research before recommending controlled crying across the board- I learned from that, too, and edited the post on children's sleep. What a wonderful thing the internet is, where we can correct our mistakes instead of having them seared on our foreheads in perpetuity because the book has already left the printer.

Those are but two examples of many. Thank you for being my kindly teachers as well as my students. That's what the best relationships are like, you know- we can learn from each other, and I want so much for you to believe that you have something to contribute. Pedestals are for statues.

And you've been encouraging. It's hard to find the words to express my gratitude to those like Janet Lansbury, Scott from Brick by Brick and Teacher Tom, just to mention a few. These people haven't just made encouraging comments to me- they've also shared my posts on their far more established sites, so that I've reached whole worlds of new readers across the globe. They've made a difference to the life of someone they've never met by being bothered. It's easy to read someone else's writing, think it's good, and keep it to yourself. Putting up links to others' words from your own territory takes not only time and effort, but also a lack of ego.

This encouragement does more good than just nourishing my self-esteem. Seeing these fine people taking the time and making the effort, devoid of the ego which might stop other bloggers from sending readers away from their own sites, gives me faith in the depths of my frequent darknesses that there are decent people out there in the world still, no matter how badly the politicians and bankers and media magnates and industry tycoons and warlords might be behaving on my television every night.

That matters to me, too. It puts the one percent back in proportion, even on days when I feel like I've fallen victim to the one percent's proteges in my professional or personal life.

And so this, my 100^th post, is dedicated to you, the invisible but essential partners in the blogger-reader relationship. Thank you for what you've done for me this year.

I can't finish without giving you a thank-you gift. It's something I made at home...

...I've been sitting on a story I wrote that's important to me, hoping that someone would publish it in the Real World. I haven't heard a word from any Real Publisher, even though I believe that this story could be a breakthrough tool for those of us who are struggling with some aspects of the inclusion of children with ASD in mainstream classrooms.

Well, I'm over struggling. You deserve to have this story, because you've been here for me and you've been kind and patient. Maybe you need this story.

I hope you enjoy it. Copy it and read it to the kids if you think it will help. It needs pictures, of course; I'm not a good enough artist to do those. Maybe you can take pictures of the children in your class, and use those.

So here's "Being Friends with Bodie Finch". It's dedicated to Kalob and Ella, a pair of 5-year-olds- one with ASD, one neurotypical- who taught me a lot of what I know about inclusion.

BEING FRIENDS WITH BODIE FINCH

There's a new boy in our class. His name is Bodie Finch. I don't like him.

When I make a tower out of blocks, Bodie Finch knocks it down.

When I play in home corner, Bodie Finch snatches my baby and runs away.

When I make a cubby house, Bodie Finch gets in it.

Mummy said “Zara, ignore Bodie Finch and walk away.” But when I walk away from him, Bodie Finch runs after me. Bodie Finch can run very fast. I hide behind the teacher and she tells him to STOP.

Mrs Baker is a nice teacher. I love her lots.

Bodie Finch doesn't talk properly. He says “AR” a lot, and “WISH”, and “NO”. He says “AR” the most of all. Most of the time I don't know what he means.

Mrs Baker doesn't know either. Sometimes she does a big sigh and says “Bodie Finch, I wish I knew what you wanted.” She looks at Bodie when he kicks our blocks and snatches our toys and chases us till we cry, and her face is all sad and twisty, like she's going to cry too.

When Bodie Finch gets cross, he throws things. I get scared. One day he threw a chair at me. Mrs Baker made him go home. I didn't want to come to school the next day. Mummy rang up Mrs Baker and she promised to fix it.

After that Miss Tinker came in our room when Bodie was there. Miss Tinker is Bodie Finch's special helper. Mrs Baker doesn't look so sad now Miss Tinker has come.

Miss Tinker made us stand on the mat really close together. We were so close we were all squeezed up and touching each other. I was next to my friend Lilly, but I was next to Eric too. I don't like Eric. He says mean things.

Some people thought it was funny, but I thought it was horrible. Miss Tinker said “How do you feel? Are you too close?” and I said, “It's yucky! I want to get out!”

Miss Tinker said that's what it's like for Bodie Finch all the time. People are too close and he doesn't like it. That's why Bodie likes hiding in cubbies.

Miss Tinker helped us learn some of Bodie's words. She said “AR” means he's sad and he wants to go home in the car. Bodie Finch can't say car. It comes out as “AR”.

Lots of things make Bodie Finch sad. It makes him sad when we get too busy playing inside. It makes him sad when too many people are talking and laughing and running and painting and building at once.

That's when he says “AR”. Miss Tinker takes him outside by himself now when he says that. Bodie doesn't throw chairs any more.

I like Miss Tinker. Bodie Finch is nicer since Miss Tinker came. I think she's magic, like Tinkerbell.

I didn't know Bodie Finch was sad.

Miss Tinker says that when Bodie Finch snatches our toys and runs after us he's trying to play with us. Bodie is still learning how to play nicely.

I didn't know Bodie Finch wanted to play. I thought he was just mean, like Eric.

Miss Tinker says that Bodie is very clever, even though he can't talk properly. She showed us. She gave Bodie Zac's toy car that was broken and Bodie fixed it, just like that. Zac was so scared Bodie Finch would throw his car and break it even more, but Miss Tinker said “It's okay, Zac. Bodie isn't sad now.”

Bodie Finch can fix anything.

Mrs Baker got the big blocks out for Bodie so he could build his own stuff instead of knocking ours down. Bodie Finch is very strong. He can pick up the big blocks easily. This is what he built.

I said, “What is it, Bodie Finch?”

Bodie smiled at me. He sat on the front of his thing and pretended to throw something. Then he started winding and winding with one hand. Bodie Finch said “WISH!”

I couldn't believe it. I yelled out, “Mrs Baker! Look, Bodie made a boat! He's fishing! When he says wish, he means fish!”

We were being so dumb. I mean, Bodie only says WISH when we have lunch and he's throwing his food on the floor.

Now the cook gives him fish fingers for lunch most days.

When it gets busy inside I make Bodie Finch a cubby. Mrs Baker helps me. We hang a sheet over the table and I say “Bodie, cubby. Come.” I make a roof shape over my head and I point to the cubby and hold out my hand, and he comes with me.

Miss Tinker told us to just use a few words when we talk to Bodie, and use our hands to talk too. It's kind of fun talking with our hands. Sometimes at rest time I talk to Bodie with my hands when we're meant to be sleeping. Mrs Baker tells us to stop, but she always says it with a happy face.

The first time I made Bodie a cubby I was so excited I grabbed his hand, and he pulled it away and yelled like it hurt. Miss Tinker says it's hard for Bodie Finch when people touch him. She said it's like he hasn't got any skin.

I thought about the time I took all the skin off my knee. It hurt when I touched it. Then it grew a scab and didn't hurt as much. Miss Tinker says Bodie will get better too if we're kind. She told me to say Bodie's name first, and then hold out my hand so he can touch me if he wants to.

Inside the cubby we play with the dolls and cars till it's quiet outside. I sit at one side and Bodie sits at the other. We don't talk. Miss Tinker says there's too much noise in Bodie's head already. She said that the inside of Bodie's head gets like a crazy circus, with lights flashing too brightly, and rides whirling too fast, and people yelling and music playing too loudly, and bangs and crashes and animals growling and balloons popping all the time.

It's not fun when you're not really at the circus, and you can't make all the crazy stuff stop and be still and quiet. I think I'd say “AR” too. Except I can say “car,” and people would know I wanted to go home.

It must be horrible when you can't say what you mean.

Bodie Finch is really good at playing chasings. I say “Bodie, chase me!” and start running, and he takes off like a rocket. Then everyone else wants to play too. Bodie can catch everyone except me. I'm a really fast runner too.

Today Mrs Baker was doing letters with us at mat time. She made an E for Eric, and a W for Willow, and an L for Lilly with the long blocks.

Bodie was in his cubby. He doesn't like mat time, but he sits in his cubby and listens. All of a sudden he climbed out of the cubby and grabbed the blocks from Mrs Baker, and made a shape with them.

It was a Z.

“That's my letter,” said Zac. He was really surprised.

Bodie shook his head. “NO. AR.”

“Car starts with C, not Z,” said Eric. He had that mean look on his face again, like he knew he was so much smarter than Bodie.

Bodie banged his hand on the floor hard. He frowned. He pointed his finger at me, without looking. Bodie never looks at anyone, not even Miss Tinker.

Then he pointed at the Z. “ARA”, said Bodie Finch.

Z is for Zara.

Bodie Finch said my name.