Tag: parent

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Honesty 

Always the best policy. 

I picked the cubs up after to work today. The order was reversed as I was in the north of the county so daughter was first, followed by son. 

I walked into after-school club and she was sitting alone on a sofa. This is quite unusual for her as she is normal a social being and would normally be in the midst of her friends. 

She turned and saw me; and immediately I could tell, all was not right. She moved to the middle of the seat, hugged me and burst into tears. 

Through the sobs

Her school has a reward system called ‘Golden Time’, which is awarded to children for good behaviour. They collect tokens throughout the day which gives them time back to do something they like. If they’re well behaved throughout the whole term, they get a certificate. Since starting school 3 years ago, she’s never missed one. She parades them like a badge of honour. 

Today, she had lost her entitlement to Golden Time. 

A minor idescretion had led to it; she was inconsolable. 

Rebuilding 

We hugged; a lot. Then we talked.  

We discussed mistakes and how important it is to make them. We then talked about the importance of learning from them so that we could avoid them in the future. 

I also told her that I make mistakes quite often. That seemed to do the trick. 

The assistants at the club were concerned that something had happened whilst she was under their care as she had been ok up until the moment I arrived. 

She’d been holding on to these feelings for most of the day before they finally exploded into full blown tears.

 

Thinking

I was reassured that despite all the inner turmoil she’d put herself through before I arrived, she’d confided in me completely as soon as she saw me. 

This level of trust is critical; I need her to come to me regardless. Communication and compassion above all else. 

BSD 

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This is playing on my mind…

TV is full of it; timelines are full of it; my mind is full

I think I’ve been naive, and maybe I still am.

I’m talking about male predation and sexual assault/inappropriateness/harassment.

Just grab ’em by the *****

You get the picture.

It scares me and angers me all at once that men in a position of power (real or perceived) think that they can act however they want or take whatever they want; to feel that entitled and beyond reproach that they try to impose their will on others, by force if necessary.

  • It scares me as a father of a young girl;
  • It scares me as a father of a young boy;
  • It angers me as a man and a human being.

Understanding

The psychologist in me seeks to understand the behaviour of individuals in all cases but I will admit to a fog of anger descending when I hear such stories.

A close friend of mine told me one such story recently. She conveyed it in a jovial, almost dismissive way, stating that if she didn’t laugh, she would cry. After a couple of full paragraphs from her my only response was ‘Jesus…’

She relayed a little more and my response was the same; ‘Jesus’

Sensing my shock, she then gave me another couple of examples of men taking advantage and this time, she ended the story with

ask any woman you know..

I didn’t need to.

I had heard stories historically but somehow I’d managed to box them off as individual incidents in my mind.

Now I was joining the dots and I could feel anger rising inside me.

Not just high profile

I’ll be honest; I don’t know what to write next.

I want to talk about self-defence. I’m a martial artist and for a long time, I’ve been an advocate of everyone learning to defend themselves, especially women. But then I ask myself

‘Why should you have to?’

I’ve deleted more than I’ve written (mostly expletives) so I’ll go here. I can’t fix the world but I want to prepare my cubs for it whilst protecting their innocence.

For my son

How to be a man; a real man. That means being a humanitarian,  a communicator and showing respect whilst ensuring you get respected. Hearing no and understanding that and not overstepping the line in the first place. To take responsibility. Not to stand by.

For my daughter

Having the strength to say no and the courage to act* under the circumstances. To recognise what is appropriate and what is not. To be a humanitarian but to not feel responsible for the poor behaviour of others.

I don’t blog well when I’m angry.

Placeholder Image

BSD

*this isn’t meant as criticism or victim blaming. I’m just angry.

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Halloween is here…

This morning’s drive in;

‘Dad; my friend and I found a dead butterfly in the playground yesterday’

Did you? What type was it?

‘I don’t know, but we took a wing each and threw the body into the hedge…’

Lord help me. 

BSD

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We will get to the truth…

So what was your favourite part of the school day?

‘After school club’

Ok (trying to get to a favourite subject) What about during the day? What was your favourite part of the day?

‘Lunch’

Gives up. 

Also on the way home

Boris Johnson on the radio from the Conservative conference; 

“COME ON PEOPLE! ITS TIME TO BE BOLD!”

‘BOLD!? But Dad; I like my frizzy hair!’

BSD

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More serious questions 

This morning’s drive in turned plenty deep plenty quickly.

“Dad; would a hurricane blow the hair off someone with Cancer?”

Whoa

After skillfully not crashing; I ponder a suitable response. I’d have preferred a ‘Where do babies come from’ as I have a script for that one but this was left field.

‘Those two things are quite unrelated darling; how did you put them together?’

Silence..

“Well; I’d noticed that when people get Cancer they lose their hair. I suspect that Cancer makes it loose so if you’re in a hurricane, those strong winds will only make matters worse.”

I can see her logic and decide to tackle the big one first.

‘Ok; it’s not the Cancer that causes sufferers to lose their hair, its the treatment. It can be quite aggressive’

Having lost my mother to the big C, I know enough about the topic to feed her facts. Preempting her next enquiry, I continue.

‘Cancer happens in the body at a cellular, microscopic, level. Every part of us is made up of cells. Technically we are constantly regenerating ourselves but slightly older than the version before..”With Cancer, somehow the message to create a new cell gets messed up and misunderstood, so the new cell isn’t quite as it should be. If there are enough of these not-so-right cells, they can attack the good cells. That can be really bad’

She looks creeped out.

‘It’s a gradual process; we call it mutating‘

Less creeped and now showing the look of ‘I’m gonna tell folk this in the playground’.

“So is a cell small? what’s the smallest living thing?”

Now I’m wading out into deep waters…

‘I think it’s a single celled, protozoa but I’m not sure; I’ll check this evening’

It’s been a while since Biology class.

“I think it’s a woodlouse”

The hurricane went unmentioned.

collapse

BSD

 

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On the drive in..

“Dad? What makes us different from animals?”

Not your everyday question, but the kind of thing I expect from my daughter on the drive in to school.

Well, it tends to be our ability to express a range of emotions such as compassion grief love et cetera. That and the fact that we can display intelligence. 

“Not like Donald Trump then?”

One high-five later, daddy 🙂

BSD

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My boy

Doesn’t get as much airtime on here so here are some things that made me chuckle.

Friday evening after the nursery pick-up and school run I made a detour on the way home to pick up some supplies for the weekend. Walking two cubs around the supermarket always provides me with more material than I can ever remember but this one pipped the lot.

As I walked past a display of multi-packed crisps, a tiny voice behind me asked ‘Daddy; this please?’

I turned just in time to see my 3 year old pulling enthusiastically on one of the bottom packets. In engineering, I believe that it would be called the ‘keystone’ packet.

He let out a melancholic ‘Oh no!‘ before disappearing beneath a landslide of 20 multi-packs.

A quick rescue operation later he was fine.

Big Sis had her first sleepover yesterday

I thought that he’d be a bit more troubled without her but the drop off went well, as did bath and bedtime.

He hadn’t had an afternoon nap so he more or less went straight off after brief story and discussion about Peppa and George. Luckily daddy is an expert.

The next morning, I explained that after breakfast, we’d go and collect her from her friends.

Everything was going smoothly; dressed, teeth brushed, shoes and coat on and strapped into his car seat all in perfect time. He even had his current favourite thing, his Triceratops.

I jogged around to the driver’s side and jumped in, congratulating myself on parent skills only to be slapped back to reality by searing, acute pain.

Unbeknown to me, his favourite toy had been thrown onto my seat with crackerjack timing.

Whilst my life flashed before my eyes, a question ran through my head; how had a [tiny] knife man gotten into my car and assaulted me??

A quick inspection of the wound site revealed the offending object.

He was chuckling behind me; I was wondering why they felt the need to make toys out of kryptonite and agony.

thistops

I’m just glad I’ve had children already.

BSD

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Stress? What stress?

This morning’s school run was a test of patience. 

As seems to be the norm on Britain’s roads, you can’t drive more than a mile without hitting roadworks. 

I’d managed to hustle the cubs into the car in reasonable time and with limited fuss, but we were now confronted with the familiar sight of brake lights. 


I watched my chronological advantage slip away and my ire rise. Not good. 

I took a short cut; brake lights. 

We eventually crawled forwards and I cordially let folk in sideroads out, in order to move everyone along nicely. 

We started to move faster, through a nearby village on the school route. We passed a less than well hedgehog in the road. 

“Dad; is that hedgehog ok?”

Now do I try to protect my daughter from the reality of life and death of fauna on British roads? Yeah of course. 

I think it was ok darling; just moving very slowly…

She didn’t buy it. 

“I think it was dead. There were bits of it scattered everywhere!”

Ok…

“It’s feet were quite wide apart and it’s hands were further up the road…”

Ok but…maybe….well….

“And it’s intestines look like they’d come out of its backside…

Wow. You saw all that at 30 mph??

“I don’t think it’s going anywhere now dad…”

And she collapses in fits of laughter. 

Daddy needs therapy. 

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Blueprint for a grand day out.

We’re halfway through the summer break..

and I’m intent on making great memories for the cubs. As a boy, one of my favourite pastimes was fishing. I kept it up into adulthood even though I rarely make time for it nowadays.

I love the peace and tranquility beside a river or lake; being near water seems to wash my troubles away. I want to share that feeling and memories with them, so for my daughter’s birthday I bought her a junior fishing kit. She was ecstatic.

Balance

I had noticed her watching fishing programs beforehand, and it seemed to fit in with her desire to be outdoors. I leant her a couple of my fishing books, so she could learn a few techniques and some of the different types of fish. The questions weren’t far behind.

‘How do you catch them? how do they stay on the line? do you eat them? does it hurt them?’

I watched her face go through several emotions as I answered her, then she thought about it for a bit.

OK

fish-aquarium-school-of-fish-under-water-159496

Rite of passage

There was no way on the Lord’s sweet earth that I was going to teach her to fish and keep a safe eye on the youngest cub on the waterfront so mum came along too. We made a picnic for good measure and off we trotted.

I explained to her that when daddy goes fishing, set up can take hours. ‘First you have to find a likely spot, then you have to….‘ I turned around and she had wandered off. The youngest had found a feather from a Buzzard and this was much more interesting.

I managed to get her back and we set up. She only got pricked by a hook once and was a little reluctant to bait up but she got on with it.

I taught her how to cast…

The bait sailed into the water and the bodycount stayed at 0. Success.

How long before I get a fish?

‘Well that’s the art my dear! you have to be…’

Her float dipped under the water.

sea-water-ocean-dark.jpg

Unfortunately our adventure was a short one. This was only a taster session to whet her appetite and it had done just that.

‘My fish was bigger than yours dad!’

It wasn’t.

BSD

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Short ones..

A collection of times my cubs have made me laugh

#You babe; draw back your bow, you babe; draw back your bow!

‘Actually darling, it’s “Cupid”.

‘That doesn’t make any sense…’

‘Yeah. I prefer your version’

#You babe….

Cub 1 to cub 2; ‘Tickle Punch!’

Cub 2, punches her squarely in the face.

‘DADDY!!’

Play with the bull; get the horns. Both of you; naughty step.

‘Darling; start to take your hair down so we can wash and plait it’

‘Ok dad. Have a look; do you think I’ve still got it in my hair?’

‘Got what?’

‘DO YOU THINK I’VE STILL GOT IT IN MY HAIR!?’

‘Darling, if someone doesn’t understand what you’re saying, rather than shouting you should find a different way to say the same thing’

Silence

‘DO-YOU-THINK-I’VE-STILL-GOT-IT-IN-MY-HAIR!!!’

‘Did you understand what I just said to you? that was just slow shouting..’

‘I miss mummy. I think she understands English better than you.’

‘Naughty step’ (not really, but I thought it)

‘Daddy?’

‘Yes?’

‘You say “Christ” a lot’

‘Just asking for help darling’

‘Maybe you should try the Police; at least we know their number’

Christ

BSD