Nov 29 2012
By Carla Naumburg at 9:56 am
My big girl just turned 4 years old, and she got several games for her birthday. I’m psyched. I love games. I spent my childhood playing Parcheesi with my father, Boggle with my mother, and cards with my grandmother and cousins. I spent a summer slamming Dominos on a small wooden table in the countryside of the Dominican Republic, and I’m still trying to beat my father at gin.
Armed with these happy memories, I gladly sat down on our living room floor to play Chutes and Ladders with my daughters. Twenty minutes and many, many chutes later, we weren’t much closer to anyone winning, and I was ready to poke my eyes out. Read the rest of this entry →
Dec 27 2011
By Matthue Roth at 12:52 pm
Now that my kids go to an actual school, I feel a whole family-pack of mixed feelings, starting and ending with the simple fact that I’m no longer the one who’s in control of the flow of most of the information in their heads. Like, there are 13 other kids that my daughter talks to more often than she talks to me. (Except for the kid who doesn’t talk to anyone and pisses in his pants every day… but even he’s around her more often than I am, so no dice.)
I really never thought this would happen. I had a vision that I was going to be able to raise my kids differently than anyone ever had, that they’d grow up free of racial prejudice and television and only wearing pink and all the other bad stuff that’s wandered into the head of any other kid, ever.
Sadly, that is not always the situation. Case study #1: Language.
In college I read Inga Muscio‘s amazing book Cunt: A Declaration of Independence. (I was a feminist! I was the only guy in Womyn’s Issues Now! I could do anything!) Essentially, the point of that book was that the word “cunt” used to be an honorific term for the female ruler of a country, whereas the word “vagina” is an Old English Latin word meaning “sheath for a sword.” And, in the earliest days of changing nappies and learning how female people wipe, I was quick to teach my gurgling baby proto-feminist girl to say “cunt!” instead of “vagina” — or instead of whatever other term you’d use. Read the rest of this entry →
Aug 1 2011
By Batya Sherizen at 11:20 am
Israeli sleep coach, Batya Sherizen is taking questions from Kveller readers. Send your problems to info@kveller.com.
Dear Batya,
My 5-year-old slept pretty well as a baby but around the time he turned 3 1/2 he started coming into my bed in the middle of the night. It started occasionally, sometimes preceded by a night terror. It has since become a nightly event. We have tried making him a bed on the floor next to mine but he needs to feel a body next to him. Sometimes he says it is because he is scared of an intruder, but not always. His doctors have told me both to try the walk back method (Supernanny) or that he needs to be in my bed and I should just let him. I am not sure which way to go. As a baby, I let him cry it out since I believed that he needed to learn to self-soothe. I have done that with each of my kids with good results. I just wonder if at this age it is a different story. I need my sleep but don’t want him to suffer. Any advice?
-Aliza
Hi Aliza,
A 5-year-old coming out of his bed is definitely something that needs to be addressed (especially since you are not enjoying these midnight cuddle sessions!) Assuming that he is not truly frightened at night, I would do things on an incentive basis in attempts to change his habits. Buy him a very special treat, toy or something that you know he’d love. Show it to him before bed and tell him that if he doesn’t come out of his bed the whole night then you will give it to him in the morning. Be sure to clearly define the rules though: if he has to go to the bathroom he can come out, or if he has a scary dream he can come out and you’ll calm him and put him back in his bed, etc. For a week or even two I would offer him this special incentive every night before bedtime to help encourage him to want to stay in his own bed. After that point, you can gradually phase it out or move to a weekly prize instead of a daily one. Read the rest of this entry →
