One of the great things about being an Au Pair is that it really
teaches you how you want to raise your own kids. That being said. One of
the hardest things about being an Au Pair is that it teaches you all
the ways you will never treat/behave with your kids and then forces you
to act in that personally envisioned irrational way for several months.
I
believe in raising kids as the tiny adults they are. Yes, they haven't
seen as much as you have, and they often can't express how they feel or
what they think. But if you've ever had a simply spoken yet utterly
profound conversation with a kid, you realize how fresh a prospective
they bring to everything and how they are really just very small adults
trying to grow up in our crazy world. I prefer to respect this potential
in kids by treating them as adults in everything we do. And a big part
of that is not allowing them to be babied by me or the media. What does
that mean? I HATE CHILDREN'S MUSIC. With a passion. I HATE it. I listen
to "regular" music with kids exclusively--as long as it's clean I can't
see any reason children shouldn't hear it. We are listening to Mozart
per-natal after all. I also hate children's television and books that
don't have something else going for them. Dr. Seuss rules, so does Toy Story (movies not any other form of that franchise), and C.S. Lewis, Rowling, the Ant and Bee
books, Raul Dahl. There are so many great forms of children's
literature, for every age that keeps things simple without dumbing
anything down or addressing children as if they are incompetent. I
tolerate things like The Barrenstein Bears, Cars, and Curious George. But if a piece of media isn't going to respect my kids, why should I respect it.
I
think as a result of these strong opinions I have a tendency to push
parents' boundaries regarding the maturity of their children. I want to
read the first two Harry Potter books with kids starting at 6. I'll read The Magician's Nephew, the (more) complex Dr. Seuss stories and Shel Silverstein by 3.
And I'll watch real actor television, and quality productions with kids
at ages their parents deem inappropriate. Like today and watching Doctor Who with my 3.5 and 6 year olds. The first few minutes it was a mistake. The computer was open, DW was up ("The Lodger" a funny and monster-free episode) and Jay wanted to just see a few minutes. When we finished the second half of the episode, all three of us together now,
they were very excited. I thought that would be it for the day. But
they asked for another episode as a reward for cleaning up the
(incredibly messy) living room and I caved because it's Doctor Who and these kids want to watch Rory the Racing Car more than Duck Tales
(side note: what's up with that?). I spent several minutes searching
for another good episode, and finally settled on "The Eleventh Hour"
because it has few monster sightings and lots of physical comedy--after
starting and they got scared of the giant eye that is the warden I
turned it off, and quickly realized that we should have watched
"Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" instead. The boys both still liked it, and
would have continued to watch it with me, stop and go to explain who the
aliens are, that not everything that looks like a monster is a monster,
and that in the end the good guys always win. But Tina took Jay away
at the moment we saw our first alien (big mistake to not let something
scary resolve itself in my opinion) and Lee and I stopped soon after,
when he had laughed and we had clearly moved past the fear he was having
with any aliens.
I know that a lot of parents would disagree with me about watching something as mature as Doctor Who with young kids. Yes it's scary sometimes--there are even episodes I won't watch alone ("Hide" had me wishing it was an alien repeatedly). So don't watch every episode. As with all media, know what you're putting into your kid before you let them experience it. Yes the plot lines are extremely complex. But when is a challenging word puzzle something bad? If it's keeping your kids from enjoying it, then stop. But if they still enjoy it and neither of you understand, laugh about how it's impossible to understand. I wouldn't trade those childhood experiences of feeling respected and appreciated by my whole family for anything. Almost all of them happened because someone handed me a book, or rented a movie with me, or let me listen to music with social messages when I was just on the verge of being "old enough" to understand. This media challenged me, and made me think critically. Even when it was my first PG13 movie (Men in Black), which you wouldn't consider very advanced; at 7 years old it forced me to understand vulgarity (in both action and language) as a negative trait, and to enjoy temporary suspended disbelief in the face of nightmare-quality plot lines.
I have a feeling I have a talking to
coming tonight. Through which, as an Au Pair I'll have to keep my cool
and simply apologize. But my kids (those in the future that I will have or adopt) will watch Doctor Who, read interesting books,
listen to real music and the radio, and grow up much faster for it. For
now I just have to suck it up and raise someone else's kids the way
they want them to be raised. It's more exhausting to do it their way
than it is just to be high-energy with the kids all the time.
My suggested Doctor Who episodes to watch with kids (5+):
"The End of the World"
"Boom Town"
"The Idiot's Lantern"
"Love and Monsters"
"The Next Doctor"
"Partners in Crime"
"The Lodger"
"Closing Time"
"The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe"
"Dinosaurs on a Spaceship"
"The Power of Three"
Showing posts with label kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kids. Show all posts
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
My Aggressive Three Year Old
This week has thoroughly beaten me. And I mean that literally. I have a scratch down my cheek and bite marks on my arm and a bruise on my hip that makes it hurt to walk and bike. I am exhausted and to be honest I'm a little scared of a very little man. Jay is 3 years old, and Jay is extremely aggressive towards me.
There are always going to be problems with kids. I don't think I've ever had a perfect day as a baby sitter, camp staffer or now as an Au Pair. But generally these issues have been limited to excessive crying or moping, and the occasional defiant behavior such as going out of my sight after being asked to stay close. Often these behaviors are just part of kids processing their emotions or their own exhaustion. And in those cases it is easy (though not always intuitive) to remove yourself, let every one cool off and then talk about the issues calmly and constructively, looking for solutions which you and the kid can both handle. They also are normally only a once or twice a day thing, even with a group of children. And never have they been systemic.
I've dealt with the normal amount of these issues with Jay (3) and Lee (6) while I've been here this first month. I draw the line for normal behavior when Jay calls me a "shitty Ellen," (it's Germany they use that word a lot, it's not good, but it's not as bad as it would be in English). But in addition I've also been dealing with consistent violent behavior in both of them. Like any parent (or Au Pair) I've been making excuses for the behavior to myself and others, but with a lot of pushing and support from my parents I'm addressing the issue not only with the children individually but also with the parents.
As a perfectionist and I think as any kind of child-care provider, it's difficult to admit that you are struggling to do your work. Parents also tend to have blinders on with their kids, they prefer to overlook the issues their kids are carrying around with them or any problem behaviors they are exhibiting. These blinders make a difficult conversation even more of a struggle as parents refuse to recognize that a behavior their child is exhibiting is not appropriate or normal, and even worse when the children are not behaving that way towards them or in front of them. I had a lot of fear going into this conversation that I would be getting an earful of "just do this" and "I always do that and it works fine". I had had a lot of issues up to this point of not been able to have either parent hear what I'm saying and understanding that I'm doing what they do, it's not working, I need to take additional steps. So this time I came in prepared with suggestions for how I will be addressing the aggressive and painful behavior from both boys, but particularly Jay.
My hope was that this conversation would be short. That the behavior is similar to a problem a teacher may have had or even an old baby sitter. What ended up happening was a very productive and yet frustrating and stressful conversation that lasted over 2 hours and bore few helpful suggestions. Obviously something is wrong. I was very happy that Tina and Mike were both so supportive of me, and made it clear that they don't see me as the problem in this situation. For the first time they really heard what I was trying to say, and after repeating what I had been doing and which situations were of real concern for me (not the physicality that happens when a joke goes too far or as a result of usual 3 year old behavior, but that which is vicious and meant to hurt me as an over reaction to a small or non-existent trigger). Unfortunately the only next steps we could agree on were changes to my everyday behavior (a lot of which were directed at some personal habits that are very embedded in my personality--i.e. my thinking face is too stern so try not to be deep in thought in front of the kids, or I leave and enter the room silently through out the day but they want me to narrate these actions more for the boys) and are addressing the symptoms of the tantrums not the cause of them.
I hope that these small changes to daily behavior can alleviate some of the pressures that are triggering Jay to act out so violently towards me, but I don't think they are really solving the issue--as yet unknown.
The most difficult part of this conversation with Tina and Mike was the footnote. If things don't change, if I can't care for the kids without putting myself in harms way, then we need to rethink my position in the family. It's a simple truth that not all people are a match. Some personalities just clash and there's nothing to be done about it. If that's the base issue causing this aggression then the solution is to remove myself from the equation.
I'm not ecstatic to be here. But I don't want to go home either. Starting over with a new family or finding a different job would be exhausting after starting to settle in here. But at the end of the day part of this job and part of being a parent is putting the kids first.
Music:
"Home" by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
"A Home" by the Dixie Chicks
There are always going to be problems with kids. I don't think I've ever had a perfect day as a baby sitter, camp staffer or now as an Au Pair. But generally these issues have been limited to excessive crying or moping, and the occasional defiant behavior such as going out of my sight after being asked to stay close. Often these behaviors are just part of kids processing their emotions or their own exhaustion. And in those cases it is easy (though not always intuitive) to remove yourself, let every one cool off and then talk about the issues calmly and constructively, looking for solutions which you and the kid can both handle. They also are normally only a once or twice a day thing, even with a group of children. And never have they been systemic.
I've dealt with the normal amount of these issues with Jay (3) and Lee (6) while I've been here this first month. I draw the line for normal behavior when Jay calls me a "shitty Ellen," (it's Germany they use that word a lot, it's not good, but it's not as bad as it would be in English). But in addition I've also been dealing with consistent violent behavior in both of them. Like any parent (or Au Pair) I've been making excuses for the behavior to myself and others, but with a lot of pushing and support from my parents I'm addressing the issue not only with the children individually but also with the parents.
As a perfectionist and I think as any kind of child-care provider, it's difficult to admit that you are struggling to do your work. Parents also tend to have blinders on with their kids, they prefer to overlook the issues their kids are carrying around with them or any problem behaviors they are exhibiting. These blinders make a difficult conversation even more of a struggle as parents refuse to recognize that a behavior their child is exhibiting is not appropriate or normal, and even worse when the children are not behaving that way towards them or in front of them. I had a lot of fear going into this conversation that I would be getting an earful of "just do this" and "I always do that and it works fine". I had had a lot of issues up to this point of not been able to have either parent hear what I'm saying and understanding that I'm doing what they do, it's not working, I need to take additional steps. So this time I came in prepared with suggestions for how I will be addressing the aggressive and painful behavior from both boys, but particularly Jay.
My hope was that this conversation would be short. That the behavior is similar to a problem a teacher may have had or even an old baby sitter. What ended up happening was a very productive and yet frustrating and stressful conversation that lasted over 2 hours and bore few helpful suggestions. Obviously something is wrong. I was very happy that Tina and Mike were both so supportive of me, and made it clear that they don't see me as the problem in this situation. For the first time they really heard what I was trying to say, and after repeating what I had been doing and which situations were of real concern for me (not the physicality that happens when a joke goes too far or as a result of usual 3 year old behavior, but that which is vicious and meant to hurt me as an over reaction to a small or non-existent trigger). Unfortunately the only next steps we could agree on were changes to my everyday behavior (a lot of which were directed at some personal habits that are very embedded in my personality--i.e. my thinking face is too stern so try not to be deep in thought in front of the kids, or I leave and enter the room silently through out the day but they want me to narrate these actions more for the boys) and are addressing the symptoms of the tantrums not the cause of them.
I hope that these small changes to daily behavior can alleviate some of the pressures that are triggering Jay to act out so violently towards me, but I don't think they are really solving the issue--as yet unknown.
The most difficult part of this conversation with Tina and Mike was the footnote. If things don't change, if I can't care for the kids without putting myself in harms way, then we need to rethink my position in the family. It's a simple truth that not all people are a match. Some personalities just clash and there's nothing to be done about it. If that's the base issue causing this aggression then the solution is to remove myself from the equation.
I'm not ecstatic to be here. But I don't want to go home either. Starting over with a new family or finding a different job would be exhausting after starting to settle in here. But at the end of the day part of this job and part of being a parent is putting the kids first.
Music:
"Home" by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
"A Home" by the Dixie Chicks
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
The Technology Problem
I've been here 16 days, which makes this the first day of my third week of work, and already I can see the issue that will create a gap between me and my host "mom": television. I love that my family doesn't watch a lot of tv. I had too much of it as a kid, adolescent and college student. You don't need tv every day. Especially when you're a kid and it's summer. But sometimes your kids slept 7 hours (as opposed to their regular 10.5) last night and then went to school and then played for several hours in the hot sun and now they are exhausted and need to wind down. When you have trained your children that this is when they can watch tv, and then leave them with me, they may end up watching tv in these moment like you trained them to do.
I've been with the boys 9 days, doing at least part of those days on my own, alone with them. Twice I have allowed them to watch tv. Once the kid I had with me was sick, and once today, it was to be a break after eating lunch before we went to pick his brother up from school. 2/9 for a new person in the household is not so bad in my opinion. Especially when you consider that their mom has set them in front of the tv three additional times when I had nothing to do with it. I'm not relying on tv, I'm using it at the right time as a tool. She said no tv on school days, I denied them tv 3 days in a row because it was a school day. She said no tv right before bed, I denied them tv twice because it was already 6:30 and they needed to be in bed by 7:30. I am not relying on tv. But Tina seems to think that I am.
And that's the issue right. You ask me what we did today:
7:10 - Breakfast
7:30 - Papa leaves for work
7:45 - Get dressed, prep things for the day
8:00 - Read a book aloud while the boys play legos and cars
8:30 - Grab stuff and leave for Kindergarten
9:10 - Get back from Kindergarten drop and have a 2.5 hour play date (playing with cars, scooters and sand box) with the neighbors (now 3 kids under 4) which I supervised alone
11:40 - Start making lunch while the kido does a dinosaur art project
12:05 - Eat lunch
12:25 - Choose a movie* and start watching while I clean the kitchen and the rest of the house
12:50 - I sit down and start watching the movie with him
12:45 - Oma calls and says she wants to take both boys to the See for swimming
1:35 - Movie is over and Oma arrives to pick up the boys
(count it-the movie lasted for 1 hour and 10 minutes of the 7 hours we were together and the 12 hours I was supposed to have them today)
Ask the kids what we did today: we watched a movie with Dinosaurs.
I had a great day with the boys today. They were happy, a little tired after lunch but they don't nap, and very pleasant and well behaved. So yes, I'm sorry, we watched a movie. It's the same length as the two tv shows Tina suggests are better for them to watch. I'm not encouraging tv, or using it as a crutch or anything. I'm stimulating their imaginations and playing with them and not just sitting them in front of the tv. I hope she'll learn to see this in the next month or so. It seems right now like she's expressing her own discomfort at how much tv they normally watch by criticizing me for letting them watch tv at the same or lesser frequency. But that is the burden of the first Au Pair I suppose. To wait out the onset of aware and intentional parenting.
*By the way the movie we watched was Ice Age 3 and we watched it in English and he was laughing at verbal jokes, so... feeling okay about that choice.
I've been with the boys 9 days, doing at least part of those days on my own, alone with them. Twice I have allowed them to watch tv. Once the kid I had with me was sick, and once today, it was to be a break after eating lunch before we went to pick his brother up from school. 2/9 for a new person in the household is not so bad in my opinion. Especially when you consider that their mom has set them in front of the tv three additional times when I had nothing to do with it. I'm not relying on tv, I'm using it at the right time as a tool. She said no tv on school days, I denied them tv 3 days in a row because it was a school day. She said no tv right before bed, I denied them tv twice because it was already 6:30 and they needed to be in bed by 7:30. I am not relying on tv. But Tina seems to think that I am.
And that's the issue right. You ask me what we did today:
7:10 - Breakfast
7:30 - Papa leaves for work
7:45 - Get dressed, prep things for the day
8:00 - Read a book aloud while the boys play legos and cars
8:30 - Grab stuff and leave for Kindergarten
9:10 - Get back from Kindergarten drop and have a 2.5 hour play date (playing with cars, scooters and sand box) with the neighbors (now 3 kids under 4) which I supervised alone
11:40 - Start making lunch while the kido does a dinosaur art project
12:05 - Eat lunch
12:25 - Choose a movie* and start watching while I clean the kitchen and the rest of the house
12:50 - I sit down and start watching the movie with him
12:45 - Oma calls and says she wants to take both boys to the See for swimming
1:35 - Movie is over and Oma arrives to pick up the boys
(count it-the movie lasted for 1 hour and 10 minutes of the 7 hours we were together and the 12 hours I was supposed to have them today)
Ask the kids what we did today: we watched a movie with Dinosaurs.
I had a great day with the boys today. They were happy, a little tired after lunch but they don't nap, and very pleasant and well behaved. So yes, I'm sorry, we watched a movie. It's the same length as the two tv shows Tina suggests are better for them to watch. I'm not encouraging tv, or using it as a crutch or anything. I'm stimulating their imaginations and playing with them and not just sitting them in front of the tv. I hope she'll learn to see this in the next month or so. It seems right now like she's expressing her own discomfort at how much tv they normally watch by criticizing me for letting them watch tv at the same or lesser frequency. But that is the burden of the first Au Pair I suppose. To wait out the onset of aware and intentional parenting.
*By the way the movie we watched was Ice Age 3 and we watched it in English and he was laughing at verbal jokes, so... feeling okay about that choice.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
A Start At Au Pairing
My life has quickly become hectic, very strange, and all in German. It's a miraculous thing, how stepping off a plane in a country where you have some basic grasp of the local language means that you converse in that language all of the time. But that's not the point of this post.
I've worked at day camps, school/over-night camps, baby sitting, and have you heard about my clan of 78 family members? But nothing so far in my life has quite been like this. As the youngest child I never had any full time "younger siblings" (with one exception). But in the last 10 days I have had to adjust quite suddenly to living with a 3.5 and a 6 year old. Not to mention living in a new city, country, house, room, culture and language. I thought I had prepared for this with my previous experience with kids. I was kidding myself.
Being an Au Pair is like being some strange combination baby sitter, big sister, parent. So far I've done everything from cause trouble at the dinner table to put a kid in a very harsh time out for repeatedly saying Scheisse. From the moment I stepped off of that plane the expectations were entirely different from any job I've had before. These people feed me, talk to me about their days, watch the evening news and crappy movies with me. But I'm also "on duty" 30 hours a week, alternating between discipline and entertainment with their kids, calling their kids Schatzy. It's all been very crazy.
And for a moment there (daily) I got really really homesick, and was on the verge of tears walking home from the morning Kindergarten drop. And then one week in, Sunday barbeque happened. And the crazy family, the grandma and grandpa who never sit down to eat just keep pushing food on you, the sarcastic exchanges that I was able to understand, and the table of people all trying to get someone's attention, it all made me feel so at home. I think they thought I had cracked when I started laughing. But I was just happy. It all felt... right.
Music:
Legally Blonde the musical, the entire soundtrack. Just, omigod you guys.
I've worked at day camps, school/over-night camps, baby sitting, and have you heard about my clan of 78 family members? But nothing so far in my life has quite been like this. As the youngest child I never had any full time "younger siblings" (with one exception). But in the last 10 days I have had to adjust quite suddenly to living with a 3.5 and a 6 year old. Not to mention living in a new city, country, house, room, culture and language. I thought I had prepared for this with my previous experience with kids. I was kidding myself.
Being an Au Pair is like being some strange combination baby sitter, big sister, parent. So far I've done everything from cause trouble at the dinner table to put a kid in a very harsh time out for repeatedly saying Scheisse. From the moment I stepped off of that plane the expectations were entirely different from any job I've had before. These people feed me, talk to me about their days, watch the evening news and crappy movies with me. But I'm also "on duty" 30 hours a week, alternating between discipline and entertainment with their kids, calling their kids Schatzy. It's all been very crazy.
And for a moment there (daily) I got really really homesick, and was on the verge of tears walking home from the morning Kindergarten drop. And then one week in, Sunday barbeque happened. And the crazy family, the grandma and grandpa who never sit down to eat just keep pushing food on you, the sarcastic exchanges that I was able to understand, and the table of people all trying to get someone's attention, it all made me feel so at home. I think they thought I had cracked when I started laughing. But I was just happy. It all felt... right.
 |
| Kidos picking berries and playing in the backyard |
Music:
Legally Blonde the musical, the entire soundtrack. Just, omigod you guys.
Friday, June 14, 2013
One Week Baby!
I skyped with my family this morning. The whole family. Mom, dad, 5 year old, 3.5 year old. And let me tell you, there is nothing like a 5 year old doing a happy dance at the mere idea that you will arrive in 15 days (Canada comes first) to get you excited about a trip. I feel like part of this family already and I've never met them in person or hugged them or shared a story with them. But they are my new family!
I'm still stressed, and busy (anyone want to take care of my cat for a year?), and terrified of leaving. But the prospect of arriving now is so much sweeter. I'm going to live in Germany. With my family. For a year.
Boom-pow-surprise.
I'm still stressed, and busy (anyone want to take care of my cat for a year?), and terrified of leaving. But the prospect of arriving now is so much sweeter. I'm going to live in Germany. With my family. For a year.
Boom-pow-surprise.
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