Stress.
I normally deal with it well.
Parenting.
I normally deal pretty well with this too.
But today, my nerves were tested.
Smallsteps doesn't stress me out and we are lucky because she is an awesome kid. I can't take that much credit for it, but in our family, I am the bad cop. However, I am not only the bad cop, and I think that Smallsteps and I have a pretty good relationship, with lots of games between the two of us, but more importantly, hugs and kisses.
She is easy to parent.
However, today I took her and her friend into the city to play in a kids park and then for a snack at a café, and there was stress involved. The kid is a good kid and I have known her since she was three, but let's just say there are different parenting styles between our families. She is a bit more wild, a bit more adventurous in some way, but also not very aware of her surroundings. She is not quite eight, so that is not unusual, but when she is under my care, she is my responsibility. And when there are cars and roadworks, pedestrian crossings and those fucking electric scooters zipping about, while she was wandering all over the place - I had to be much more vigilant.
The real problem was though, that I couldn't talk to her to explain anything, as she only speaks Finnish and has zero experience understanding the bad Finnish I can use to communicate with adults. Finns are pretty weird in this regard, that unless someone gets the word forms correct, or the pronunciation very close, they will understand nothing at all. Only the ones who have a lot of experience speaking with foreigners are capable of the blur interpretation required to understand.
Kids don't understand much at all.
While Smallsteps can translate easily, she of course didn't want to translate parental instructions to her friend, and rightly so. This meant I had them holding hands when we walked anywhere outside the park, which had limited success, as while Smallsteps could control herself, the other one was far more catlike in her behavior.
She didn't care.
It was a fun day though for them, as they don't get to spend too much time together normally, since after daycare, they went to different schools. Yet, even though it has been two years since they split up, they still consider each other their best friends. And, I approve, because as hard as it might be to wrangle them in the city, this little girl is good for Smallsteps, encouraging her to be braver, try some new things, and have faith in herself. It was great watching them play in the park together, as Smallsteps was more outgoing, flowing more, thinking less.
She is like me and thinking too much, becomes overthinking.
I am exaggerating the stress involved of course, but it is quite challenging being responsible for someone else's child, especially when they have a different style and culture at home in the way they are expected to behave. While I am not going to impose my parenting style on other's children, I will still keep my own in their presence. It would be a lot easier and far more fun for all involved if I spoke Finnish.
But I am not smart enough for that.
Luckily, Smallsteps' friends will learn English in the next few years anyway.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Meanwhile one of the homeschool communities we were in previously was made with the general expectation/acceptance that everyone would tell off/help with everyone else's kids when we were in the group XD
it did help that we all did have mostly the same baseline behavioural expectations even if a lot of the parenting styles were very different
Yay for a nice day out :D
Did it ever cause any problems?
I could never be a teacher these days - I would smack a child in the first day.
LoL! XD
It probably did cause some friction but the group kind of filtered itself around that (the people coming in wanted that and the people going out either didn't or had schedule or other clashes). There weren't any massive blowouts at the actual group (as with everything there was some politics but it usually happened out of group).
That can be a tough situation, but I'm glad smallsteps had a lot of fun! My two boys are generally pretty easygoing when we're outside. We recently watched a good friend's child who had no fear of running into the road, and it definitely gave me a bit of anxiety.
She is the sweetest little kid though and my two boys dote on her constantly.
It is hard to look after other people's kids, especially these days. There is a wide variation in parenting, and everyone expects to have their style catered for. I am just happy if no one gets run over.
Oh wow that's gotta be rough! I can't even imagine. It's always been hard to try and correct our friends kids.
It is strange to do, because I don't even know where to start in Finnish. It will always sound bad.
I'm sure!
Making friends at Smallsteps's age is very important, and if they are from different cultures, so much the better. It is easy for children to establish honest relationships, compared to adults who are always judging everything in our environment.
My son Matthew relates well with children, whether they are from the French or English communities, indifferently. When he travelled to Venezuela with me in 2022, he was embarrassed at first, but within a couple of hours he had settled in.
The culture difference isn't a language culture difference - it is a parenting culture difference. It is good to have a wide range of peers at any age though and it is something that I have always maintained throughout my life.
My buddy's neighbors daughter (with me) and my buddy's daughter played together regularly. They're grown now. Still friends, by the way. Anyhoo, one day the neighbor daughter broke her arm. To this day my buddy warns everyone of kids' friends, "worst feeling in the world is giving back a broken kid.'
Can confirm. I don't know if it's better or worse when you're a coach ^_^;
Good thing they bounce!
Did you see that clip of the coach leaning on the gymnast's leg to stretch it and the bone broke?
shudders.
I did not O_O
I miss a lot because I don't watch or pay attention to much of anything
Though I'm now vaguely curious about how they were leaning on it, I was under the impression that there are rather specific ways to overstretch the people who need overstretching. I vaguely remember my boss saying how there was some kid they used to have to take into another room because the overstretching techniques they used on that one looked really brutal and concerned a lot of onlookers XD
Even if the child deserved it?
I try not to even borrow tools from people, just in case.
That is interesting. That would be very stressful for me if I can't effectively communicate to a kid I have to take care of. I wonder if you've tried google translate to get your message across. You can check with you daughter first if the translation is correct, but this way she doesn't have to be the one to tell her friend.
When there is time, I can bumble through a basic conversation with her, but when we are trying to cross busy roads - I don't have the time to form the sentences properly, so it sounds like I am mean :D
You should be grateful for the child you have. There are so many kids out there who are very difficult to parent but Smallsteps is different and that’s because of the way you have trained her
Kudos to you!
Trained her pretty well - but how long will she follow the commands for?
The good thing is that Smallsteps was able to have fun
Also, she will be able to keep long distance friends. Two years isn’t enough for them to forget each other😁😁
Hopefully they will be friends for ages.
Children are very mischievous and love entertainment. They are very difficult to handle
I could not believe the beauty of this photo, its colors and contrasts between them.
Very nice post, @tarazkp