Dad gets custody from mum who wouldn't let kids grow up
Thoughts_Arrive
Posts: 15,165
Adelaide 17/11/2009, Melbourne 20/11/2009, Sydney 22/11/2009, Melbourne (Big Day Out Festival) 24/01/2014
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Thoughts_Arrive
Posts: 15,165
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The last thing that child needs if ridicule from kids of his own age. He's already psychologically behind, he needs to catch up before they expose him to that.
kids included
grow the hell up
the mom needs slapped stupid and put in a freak show or something
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
many kindergarten classes in my area will not accept children into class unless they are toilet trained.
My friend's mom ran a day care, and there was one little girl who was 4, when her mom would come to pick her up, she'd run over to her mom, jump in her arms and lift her shirt up to nurse... :?
- Christopher McCandless
shoot stupid parents with stupid ass kids
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
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"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
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I think a parent should be excited about the milestones their children pass, my little one has just started to say her name and stand up and I'm thrilled!!!!
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It is wonderful, isn't it? My 3yr old is now coaching his 1 yr old sister on how to talk. He will go, "Amy, say mama." And Amy will say, "Mama". Then he says, "OK that was good. Now say Dada." And he goes down the line all 15 or so words she can actually say. It is so fun to watch. I think because of him helping she is a little ahead of where he was at that age.
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The children are 4 and 5 years old. It seems the biggest issue here is that the mother isn’t complying with what is considered “normal”. I’ve often wondered who gets to decide what’s normal or not, especially where raising kids are concerned. Every child is different and most parents will somewhat adapt their parenting style to accommodate the differences and personalities of their children. We consider it “normal” for a 5 yr old to be toilet trained. Having “toilet trained” four kids myself, I came to the realisation pretty quickly that there’s no such thing as toilet training. What actually happens is the child develops to a point where they are now able to control their bowel and bladder, and they emotionally/psychologically develop to a point where they WISH to use the toilet. And toilet training is not successful, EVER, until these developmental milestones have been reached. This explains the vast variation in times and ages that kids are out of nappies. Even among my four, I had one who was out of nappies completely, including night nappies, by the age of 18 months, and one who was 5 before he was completely free of both nappies and a dummy. The other two were somewhere in between.
It’s also widely accepted that if you try and toilet train too early, and it IS a frustrating process, that this can have detrimental effects also. If the child isn’t ready, it can set up a negative cycle of failure, because the parent becomes frustrated and exasperated when the kid wet his pants……….. AGAIN…….the kid feels like he failed, there is a whole lotta fanfare when he succeeds, his anxiety increases therefore he continues to fail. You pick up almost any parenting book and there will be a chapter on toilet training. Most will state that you commence toilet training when the child shows signs of readiness, and if it starts becoming a battle, to abandon it for a while and try again in a few weeks/months. How do we know this mother wasn’t doing exactly that? How do we know that toilet training this little one wasn’t something they had been battling with, not succeeding and rather than pressure the little guy into doing something he’s not ready to do, she abandoned the idea until he showed signs of readiness. When you think about bed wetting kids for instance, it’s not uncommon for some kids to still wet the bed at 12 years old, and we don’t crucify the mother because of it. Perhaps this little boy wets his pants more frequently than other 5 year olds, and to save him the embarrassment when he goes out, his mother puts him in a nappy? I don’t know obviously if that’s the case, but it could be.
The refusal of the boy to feed himself is not that uncommon either. We’re all thinking that by 5 a child should be able to do X, Y and Z. What we’re forgetting is that 5 years old is just a baby in the grand scheme of things. When you consider a lifetime lasting 80 odd years, when you consider just how short and fleeting babyhood, toddlerhood and childhood are………. What’s the rush?? Why are we so eager to race them through childhood and pressure them to accomplish, achieve, develop, grow, accumulate and basically become what society expects them to be? One of my nephews is 5 years old, all of his life he has been a painfully slow eater, a frustratingly picky eater…….. often, his mother will chop up his food and feed it to him simply to ensure the kid gets SOMETHING into him. The only difference here is that she is still married to her husband, he lives through that same difficulty with his son’s eating behaviour, and will often be the one spoon feeding his son as well. I personally don’t have any real concerns about my nephew and am confident he will grow up a reasonably well adjusted kid. Not all kids will consume everything in sight at a glance, and often kids who DID eat well as a baby, will cause a lot of worry to their parents as they get older when they stop being these fantastic little hoovers that suck down everything in sight. So, perhaps this boy is a picky eater and the mother sits by him at dinner time, feeding him and trying to encourage him to eat? Again, I don’t know, but it’s possible.
The accusation in this story is that this mother was “mothering” her kids too much. Oh my god, those poor, poor kids! How dare she feel a strong emotional, primal attachment to her still very little children. How dare she have idea’s on parenting that don’t “fit” with what society demands to be normal. She wanted to home school her kids and allow them to become independent, individual and unique people rather than subject them to the institutionalization and indoctrination of mainstream school. I didn’t home school my kids, not because I don’t believe in it, but because I didn’t have the energy or wherewithal to do it….. but after the first couple of years of my two eldest children in mainstream schools, I became greatly disillusioned by it and withdrew them and sent them, and then their two younger siblings to a tiny alternative community school. Those kids now range in age from 23 down to 15 and it was the best thing I could have done for them. They were not shaped by standardized testing and insistence to be just like everyone else. They were encouraged to explore their own strengths and weaknesses, to examine their passions and take the risk of being something a little bit different if that’s what they wanted to be. They can all read and write, they all received the academic education they needed, and they are all bloody amazing people who are not afraid to be who they are. I have raised no accountants or lawyers (not that there’s anything wrong with that if that’s what you love). I’ve raised a gun saleswoman, a musician, a writer and a “ I have no idea what I wanna do yet, but I am loving the process of finding out”. Does that make me a terrible mother? Is it so awful for people to have different ideas and beliefs? Again, I don’t know all the details of this story, but isn’t it possible that this mother only has the best interests of her kids in her heart, and that her beliefs are just a little different to everyone elses?
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
I am not judging her parenting style. I was concerned because it sounded as though she was stating she would harm the children. Something must have happened for her to send a letter like that to their father AND for the courts to intervene.
It's very plausible she could be suffering from undiagnosed PPD, where a very depressed mother can be on two ends of the spectrum of over-compensating or complete detachment from their children. She sounds like the first. I suggested Munchhausen's By Proxy at first, which is a condition that makes a parent (most often the mother) keep a child in a sick state to fulfill the parent's emotional need for attention (i.e. "feel bad for me, my child is always sick".) It's when you put a child into harm's way, parent or not, that something should be done.
I am sorry if it seemed as if I was attacking her.
That part of the story is a bit more concerning than anything else. It would be interesting to know the context of those words in her letter, and what the rest of the letter said. Quite difficult to judge without having access to the rest of it. Another aspect of that story is that the Justice Watts had "ordered" the 5 year old to school, which makes me question his/her judgement in the whole thing as well. Is every single 5 year old in the world ready to start school? The law states that children must be in school by their 6th birthday, so this Judges order is unlawful to begin with. Secondly, homeschooling is a legal option in this country, so again, the order is unlawful.
Also "ordered" was to toilet train the children, this was an order made on both of the parents. I cannot see how this order would be lawful either........ it's kinda like trying to make a court order to dictate when a child should lose his first tooth. I think it really is a fucked up world when the law thinks it can tell us when a child should be toilet trained.
I work with a girl who is almost 8 and she won't tell anyone she needs to go to the toilet... SHe just goes in her pants... I am not expert, but I would suggest she has the brain function of a 4 or 5 year old. SHe knows how to go to the toilet, she just doesn't get the message... it kills me as often if I forget to remind her, well, she stinks... and then other kids ridicule her which is sad...
It was funny when another boy farted and she said 'oh you stink' pointing and laughing at him... I was thinking'Geez thats a bit fuckin rich haha'
but it is truly sad
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but diapers for 5 years? really?
listen, if your kid can tell you he/she needs his/her diaper changed... I think they're old enough to learn how to use the damn toilet. sure, they will have their accidents... only natural. And yes, every kid develops at different stages... but (and call me ignorant) I find it sad a kindergartener would still be in nappies... I'm pretty sure (like the other poster said) most elementary schools don't allow kids in before they are potty trained...
oh and a parent can't really train a kid to lose their tooth, unless you use pliers I guess.
but you can try your best to get them out of diapers - could you imagine if everyone had their kids in diapers til they were 5? that would be like twice as much of that shit in landfills... eek
Without knowing the circumstances around this child wearing nappies on occassion, it's difficult to judge. What is interesting to note is that the father has had custody of the children since february after an interim order placed them with him. The parents are still being ordered to toilet train the kids, which leads one to think that this boy is STILL not trained. Therefore, one of the reasons the father felt the children would be better placed with him, was due to the lack of toilet training, but in six months it appears he has not acheived this either? Perhaps I am reading the article incorrectly, but that it how it seemed to me. Also, the 5 year old still isn't in school, in spite of the Judge ordering this back in February, yet the father has had custody since then and hasn't enrolled him in school? If the kids are so much better off with the father, and the father is so appalled at the way the mother was raising his kids, why is the child still not at school and still not toilet trained?
The fact that the Herald Scum didn't feel it important to print the accusations the mother levelled at the father in this instance, the article itself is extremely one sided. The Judge himself chose to ignore the mothers side of the story, including anything she had to say about the father, because she was an "unreliable witnesss".
You are right, you can try your best to encourage and teach your kids to use the toilet, but until they are ready, it's just not gonna happen. Toileting is a developmental milestone, just as losing teeth and learning to walk is. Kids can be extremely stubborn and strong willed, especially where eating and toileting are concerned, and that battle of wills is often just not worth it. Have a look around any parenting message board, you can bet that a large proportion of the issue parents discuss are toileting and feeding issues, especially with toddlers and young children. At five years old, this kid is barely out of what we define as toddlerhood. The battles faught and negative cycles set up when he was say, 3, often pave the way for the battles faught when he's 5.
Then the father is sad too. Wasn't my point.
I'm sure certain kids will have developmental problems.
My cousin's weren't potty trained until like 3 and a half years old because their parents were lazy (of course this doesn't account for every single parents reason) it wasn't until my nana and mom got fed up with it and started potty training them themselves they actually learned to use a toilet.
Then the father is sad too. Wasn't my point.
I'm sure certain kids will have developmental problems.
My cousin's weren't potty trained until like 3 and a half years old because their parents were lazy (of course this doesn't account for every single parents reason) it wasn't until my nana and mom got fed up with it and started potty training them themselves they actually learned to use a toilet.[/quote]
I get what yer saying, there can be a whole lotta reasons why a kid wouldnt be toilet trained by five, parental laziness being one of em. My other sisters son, who is also five, had issues with toilet training. He turned five in feb and it wasnt until just after this that he started using the toilet for number 2. He had no problem using the toilet to pee, but just flatly refused to use his bowel on the dunny. My sister was far from lazy in this regard, took him to doctors, was seeking advice where ever she could........... he would end up in pain from holding on for sometimes days at a time, and eventually, if my sister was being particularly strong and refusing to put a nappy on him, he'd go in his pants. This was a source of some pretty intense frustration on my sis and bro in law, at times they'd get angry with having to clean that up yet again. They tried all kinds of strategies to encourage him to use the toilet........ star charts, rewards, praise, ignoring it, not making a fuss when he pooped his pants etc....... when asked why he would say his poo was afraid to go into the toilet. Then one day, about four months ago....... blam, he's using the toilet, no longer poops his pants and it is all becoming a distant memory for them. I am just a little cautious about passing judgement on this mother without knowing the full extent of the story
Just as an aside though, it's true that most schools expect kids to be properly toilet trained before they commence....... perhaps this should be a measure of a childs readiness for school, rather than the current minimum age dictating they have to turn at least 5 by the 30th of April.[/quote]
Often made us laugh too, which probably didn't help the situation.