Post-call #5
Apr. 9th, 2004 09:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojSotired.
Picked up Chris fairly early, brought him home, major fight about 20 minutes after he came home, worked it out, he went to sleep and I took the kids to my mom's, had lunch, back home, Justin's nap and Daniel's playtime, talked to Daniel about friends, played Imaginext with him, finished a short story, woke up Chris and Justin, chatted a bit and refereed the boys, made dinner, ate, put all the boys down and posted story. Phew.
I'm really glad we're more able to work through fights these days. It seems like stuff gets at least semi-resolved. Massive therapy and counseling counts for something, I guess. Now if we could get to the worked-out stage and bypass the fighting stage, that would be really great. Not likely to happen during heavy call time.
I really really have to get Daniel out to spend time with other kids, away from our neighbourhood. The kids on our block are completely incapable of playing pretend - or anything else, really, other than violent video games. Occasionally during the summer they play organized sports, which Daniel doesn't like, or Yu-Gi-Oh, but otherwise they almost exclusively watch TV and play video games. It's depressing.
One thing that's really neat about Daniel is his ability to accept the concept of delayed gratification. Our conversation started with him almost in tears because none of his 'friends' like him very much - they hardly ever come to our house, he always goes to theirs, and they show him in a million ways that they don't think much of him. Apparently the kids in school like him just fine, but our neighbourhood kids don't.
Anyway, so we talked about his friends, and why they don't like him, and why he doesn't always like them ("they're all about video games!" he says). At one point I said, "You know, I wish there were kids in this neighbourhood that you could play with. I'm sorry you don't have that. But in a way... I'm kind of glad you're not with them that much. Because kids who play too many video games end up not doing so great at school later on." And I explained a little bit about studies that have shown some correlation between hours spent playing and ADHD, and childhood obesity, blah blah. "So... I know it's hard for you now, but when you grow up you'll probably be smarter, and healthier, and happier than you would be if you played video games all day."
I didn't think this would make much of an impact, since Daniel is 7 so really, the future past next week is kind of hard for him to visualize... but as per usual, he surprised me. He nodded thoughtfully, and made a couple of comments about that, and a few minutes later said, very cheerfully, "I know! I'm going to go play with my Imaginext set." And off he went, tears forgotten. And played happily on his own for about twenty minutes before coming to get me to ask if I wanted to play too.
I did. He's a neat kid :)
Picked up Chris fairly early, brought him home, major fight about 20 minutes after he came home, worked it out, he went to sleep and I took the kids to my mom's, had lunch, back home, Justin's nap and Daniel's playtime, talked to Daniel about friends, played Imaginext with him, finished a short story, woke up Chris and Justin, chatted a bit and refereed the boys, made dinner, ate, put all the boys down and posted story. Phew.
I'm really glad we're more able to work through fights these days. It seems like stuff gets at least semi-resolved. Massive therapy and counseling counts for something, I guess. Now if we could get to the worked-out stage and bypass the fighting stage, that would be really great. Not likely to happen during heavy call time.
I really really have to get Daniel out to spend time with other kids, away from our neighbourhood. The kids on our block are completely incapable of playing pretend - or anything else, really, other than violent video games. Occasionally during the summer they play organized sports, which Daniel doesn't like, or Yu-Gi-Oh, but otherwise they almost exclusively watch TV and play video games. It's depressing.
One thing that's really neat about Daniel is his ability to accept the concept of delayed gratification. Our conversation started with him almost in tears because none of his 'friends' like him very much - they hardly ever come to our house, he always goes to theirs, and they show him in a million ways that they don't think much of him. Apparently the kids in school like him just fine, but our neighbourhood kids don't.
Anyway, so we talked about his friends, and why they don't like him, and why he doesn't always like them ("they're all about video games!" he says). At one point I said, "You know, I wish there were kids in this neighbourhood that you could play with. I'm sorry you don't have that. But in a way... I'm kind of glad you're not with them that much. Because kids who play too many video games end up not doing so great at school later on." And I explained a little bit about studies that have shown some correlation between hours spent playing and ADHD, and childhood obesity, blah blah. "So... I know it's hard for you now, but when you grow up you'll probably be smarter, and healthier, and happier than you would be if you played video games all day."
I didn't think this would make much of an impact, since Daniel is 7 so really, the future past next week is kind of hard for him to visualize... but as per usual, he surprised me. He nodded thoughtfully, and made a couple of comments about that, and a few minutes later said, very cheerfully, "I know! I'm going to go play with my Imaginext set." And off he went, tears forgotten. And played happily on his own for about twenty minutes before coming to get me to ask if I wanted to play too.
I did. He's a neat kid :)
