night classes

"'Kate" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 23:10:41 GMT, "Kim" the
following was posted in blue dry erase marker:
HAHAHA try further north... Dang snow... a whooping 7 inches in less than
4
hours!!! took us 2 hours to shovel -- yes shovel out the driveway... I'm
tired LOL the dog watched us like she was the queen of Sheba LOL whatching
he loyal subjects shovel her way out since her little tummy was plowing
through the snow... all she needed was that whip of christines LOL

hook a plow behind that dog!

Poor puppy with the frozen belly.

LOL you aren't the first to say put a plow on her LOL she was so funny! lol

'Kate wrote:
On 11 Dec 2005 13:29:01 -0800, "Bev" the
following was posted in blue dry erase marker:

I haven't been sledding since I was a teen. I thought about that the
other day when I loaded that google earth program. Wow. I could find all
my old haunting grounds. I kept wondering if I would see my mom in the
yard. Weird but nice to visit - like stopping time.

What is google earth program? Youn need to get out sledding more! The
house in Newark where I was born has been removed and there is a
parking lot there now, I can remember the first time I drove down that
street and found this out , I cried. We have those old silent black and
white 8 mm movies that Dad took of us every Easter dressed in our fancy
clthes walking up and down the side walk in the front yard there. LOL!
I hated that Easter hat, looked like a five layer cake on top of my
head !

As long as she stops doing whatever it was that she was doing. If
time-out stops working (and it probably will), consider making some
magnets for the refrigerator that she can earn for good behavior. Ease
her into a reward system.

Oh man, I think it is time to try something new. Just last night I am
sitting in the kitchen w/ our family therapist who is also a behavioral
specialist, we are drinking coffee talking about how great S has been
doing and my grandaughter is sitting there with a coloring book and
crayons I gave her. She has this habit of throwing something if it wont
work for her , so of course the yellow crayon isn't working too well,
so she throws it on the floor.
So E (therapist) says to J please pick that up ..........J covers her
face, I say you need to pick up your crayon or you have to go sit in
time out......well she picks time out of course!
after about 30 seconds she comes and picks up the crayon and hands it
to me. I say thank you and she starts to play with the alphabet magnets
on the fridge. E and I continue our conversation and a few minutes pass
and all of a sudden J comes up to the table and takes the crayon off
the table, places back on the floor where it had been thrown before and
proceed to walk over to time out and sit down looks up at us and
smiles.....


I think I'm going to start a poker chip system and give the kids a poker
chip for especially cooperative or considerate behavior. Then we can
have a poker night and I'll pay out if they manage to win. LOL. As if.

'Kate

I see so your gonna hustle them are ya? Why do I think M is 18 ? and
would you still include him in something like this? Ya know I never
thought to even continue something with S for cooperative and
considerate behavior, but this is one of the problems that do still
continue, she can be so uncooperative and inconsiderate and I do need
to find a way to get a little more of that from her these days. I mean
I did stipulate No job , no H.S diploma /no License or car privleges
and it looks like after almost two months of working and going to
school I may just have to pay up! Which I am about ready myself because
the taxi driver is tired............o.k. yea and she is doing so well
Bev

'Kate wrote:
On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 03:05:30 GMT, "Kim" the


I like torturing the dog by giving him a big ol' wad of peanut butter.

Pets are cool.

I like torturing the cats by putting scotch tape on the bottoms of
thier paws! Hysterical!

yea, pets are cool .......

'Kate wrote:
On 14 Dec 2005 01:59:51 -0800, "Bev" the
following was posted in blue dry erase marker:

On 11 Dec 2005 13:29:01 -0800, "Bev" the
following was posted in blue dry erase marker:



What is google earth program?

It's available through the google.com site:
http://www.google.com/downloads/
click "download now" for "Google Earth Beta"


Thanks I think when I get a spare moment I'll check it out.


Youn need to get out sledding more!

I would but I'd have to build a hill and make my own snow. :-)

LOL! well maybe a winter recess mini vacation to somewhere with snow
will do your heart good!?!?!?!

The
house in Newark where I was born has been removed and there is a
parking lot there now, I can remember the first time I drove down that
street and found this out , I cried.

That's an owie. It's hard enough going back to NYc and not seeing the
inside of the family home the way that I remember. The area's gotten
very trendy and it's much safer than it was in the 70's and 80's when we
had a major drug problem during a time of immigrant movement into the
area. Ya can't integrate a predominantly Irish neighborhood without a
fight or two. The new kids had guns and knives.

Sounds familiar Newark had its riots when I was younger , I was about 9
and can still remember the fear we had in our own home , Dad going to
work with a gun , He was a fireman! The shotgun he left at the front
door for my mother to protect us, We moved not long after that.

We have those old silent black and
white 8 mm movies that Dad took of us every Easter dressed in our fancy
clthes walking up and down the side walk in the front yard there. LOL!
I hated that Easter hat, looked like a five layer cake on top of my
head !

Gotta have the easter parade video.. it's a family classic.

LOL! but the hat was absolutely atrocious!


So E (therapist) says to J please pick that up ..........J covers her
face, I say you need to pick up your crayon or you have to go sit in
time out......well she picks time out of course!
after about 30 seconds she comes and picks up the crayon and hands it
to me. I say thank you and she starts to play with the alphabet magnets
on the fridge. E and I continue our conversation and a few minutes pass
and all of a sudden J comes up to the table and takes the crayon off
the table, places back on the floor where it had been thrown before and
proceed to walk over to time out and sit down looks up at us and
smiles.....

LOL! Oh write that down and keep it in her baby book! I would love her
spirit. However, she's definitely using the time out as permission to do
what she wants instead of to stop behavior... so yeah, it ain't workin'.
To her credit, she manipulated the system at a very young age. I'd
probably be tempted to have her tested for giftedness at the local
school district to get her into early ed. classes.

She is very much developing ahead of her age. Very smart , very
manipulative, and we do need to get her into something to give her a
focus for it. After the holidays I think I will discuss this with her
mother and she can discuss it with her father and see what happens.

I use to have a "dinner out with mom - your choice of restaurants". At
times I've done "mom will clean your room" as a reward and "mom will do
your chores for a week." I will miss the creativity of everyday
parenting when they are all grown and gone.


To be honest with you I am thinking you will be filling in that
creative parenting with some creative counsiling in your new job!

Ah, well..you're handling a difficult situation that will sometimes defy
common sense.


It sounds like she is. Most kids run into problems when they're teens.
It's harder and harder to find ways to motivate them. And we expect
trouble. Too many psychological studies on teens and behavioral problems
that have really only been meant for the 10% with serious issues. And
parents have read the stupid "tough love" studies that make them think
that if they'd only been firm, they wouldn't have problems. HA.

I don't believe that it is bad parenting that is at the root of how
some kids turn out. I know there are people that want you to believe
that but I have seen enough, have gone through enough and know enough
that sometimes no matter how supportive you are , how attentive you try
be, how involved you are, there are other reasons a child has problems.
I know as a parent I myself have made mistakes, I'm not perfect, who
can be? I still see in my now 18 year old social and emotional
problems, but we continue to work on them. Rather than 99.9 percent of
the time having problems , we are at a say 70-30 with the problems
being the lower percentage. I see progress and I commend her , She is
on no medication for two months now and her doc says as long as she is
progressing that is a good thing. I myself just feel numb, what a ride
this is!
Bev

'Kate

'Kate wrote:
On 15 Dec 2005 04:22:52 -0800, "Bev" the
following was posted in blue dry erase marker:

Youn need to get out sledding more!

I would but I'd have to build a hill and make my own snow. :-)

LOL! well maybe a winter recess mini vacation to somewhere with snow
will do your heart good!?!?!?!

I thought about it but we have a wedding to plan and help pay for in
September. My oldest is tying the knot. :-) Boy do I feel old... but I
think he's a great guy who fits very nicely into our wacky family.

Oh Wow! How exciting for you all....lets see if I'm 44 you must
be......ewwww old! :-) J/K !


To be honest with you I am thinking you will be filling in that
creative parenting with some creative counsiling in your new job!

I dunno... we're so limited and some of my ideas are off the wall. I'm
concerned about participating here in the way that I do. The field
hasn't quite caught up to how to handle online activities. My position
is that I'm not acting as anything other than a peer single parent and
I'm obviously not asking for or accepting anything in return other than
support of a similar nature. However, once I'm licensed, different rules
apply to *everything* that I do because it will reflect on my license
and could possibly take business away from someone else with a
license... so I may not be able to be as useful.

I absolutely understand what you are saying...just to make it clear I
was meaning that after the kiddos are growd up, you will hopefully not
feel the empty nest so much cause you will be working in the
trenches....grin

Ah, well..you're handling a difficult situation that will sometimes defy
common sense.


It sounds like she is. Most kids run into problems when they're teens.
It's harder and harder to find ways to motivate them. And we expect
trouble. Too many psychological studies on teens and behavioral problems
that have really only been meant for the 10% with serious issues. And
parents have read the stupid "tough love" studies that make them think
that if they'd only been firm, they wouldn't have problems. HA.

I don't believe that it is bad parenting that is at the root of how
some kids turn out. I know there are people that want you to believe
that but I have seen enough, have gone through enough and know enough
that sometimes no matter how supportive you are , how attentive you try
be, how involved you are, there are other reasons a child has problems.

Nature/nurture... and we're not the only influence on the kids. There's
a community that influences them... peers, extended family, the media,
and schools included. How we're treated makes a difference in how we
think about ourselves and our expectations for ourselves... our goals.

I know as a parent I myself have made mistakes, I'm not perfect, who
can be?

No one can be a whole kids' environmental influence. But environment can
mediate problems that a child has by nature. And repeated or continuous
harmful situations like trauma can create a chemical imbalance in an
otherwise healthy child.


I still see in my now 18 year old social and emotional
problems, but we continue to work on them. Rather than 99.9 percent of
the time having problems , we are at a say 70-30 with the problems
being the lower percentage. I see progress and I commend her , She is
on no medication for two months now and her doc says as long as she is
progressing that is a good thing. I myself just feel numb, what a ride
this is!

It is... because things happen that make absolutely no sense at all. I
don't know why you're having to handle all of this. I know that you work
hard to make things better and it must feel like you're sometimes
slamming into a brick wall. I've been there, done that. I know that it
had an effect on me and how I operate in the world and I have to work
hard at not letting the past influence my present and it's hard to stop
the pattern of behavior and thoughts that affect everyday life. I think
I've got it... and then something happens that reveals another layer. I
still sometimes have to stop and think about what really happened and
whether or not my reactions were appropriate. I have to learn to "start"
quicker, I think.

Anyway...

Things are better... good. :-)

Well........ yea better, but that shoe just may be getting ready to
drop.....got a call from one of her teachers today, he is concerned at
how sad and self loathing she is. Now I know she does talk crap about
herself, when she does it around me I refresh her memory on all the
wonderful things she has been doing lately, and she stops with the pity
party, it is like this, she says she is ugly...then I find over 100
pictures of herself she has taken with my digital camera and she posts
many pics of herself in her "myspace" someone that does not like thier
appearance does not do this. How do I treat these behaviors when I feel
it is attention seeking and how the heck do I figure out why she does
this behavior for attention when she is already the main recipient in
this household that is being paid attention to? Especially now that her
daughter is here a lot less now. She is so stuck on wanting her
daughters father to take her back that when a decent guy comes along
she only gets so close and scares em away. She wont accept that her
daughters father moved on and has had a girlfriend for just about a
year now. The judge ordered the two of them to get co-parenting
counsiling, they are past the 30 days they had to get thier first appt.
they dont talk , she says his girlfriend told him he can't talk to her
! LOL! what is this ......I guess thier daughter will teach them how,
she is already telling on them ! Well I let enough off the top now I
can get back to the cleaning ,re-aranging and holiday
decorating........... its getting close now , and we are having a
Birthday party on Sunday for the little one, she is not here with us on
her big day :-( Bev
'Kate

"Bev" wrote in message
oups.com...

'Kate wrote:
On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 03:05:30 GMT, "Kim" the


I like torturing the dog by giving him a big ol' wad of peanut butter.

Pets are cool.

I like torturing the cats by putting scotch tape on the bottoms of
thier paws! Hysterical!

yea, pets are cool .......

LMAO I can't wait to try that with the kids... I'm even going to videotape
it.

Christine

CME wrote:
"Bev" wrote in message
oups.com...

'Kate wrote:
On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 03:05:30 GMT, "Kim" the


I like torturing the dog by giving him a big ol' wad of peanut butter.

Pets are cool.

I like torturing the cats by putting scotch tape on the bottoms of
thier paws! Hysterical!

yea, pets are cool .......

LMAO I can't wait to try that with the kids... I'm even going to videotape
it.

Christine

Christine,

LOL! It was my daughter and her friends when they were about 14 yrs.
old that showed me the scotch tape kitty thing, I laughed so much ,
'Kate's vision is right on, and if you have a spunky Cat , a Kangaroo
comes to mind. The boys will love it. I'm not sure what the animal
activists would have to say though looking around Don't see any ,
grin "here kitty kitty".......... It doesn't hurt tham at all!
Bev