The Big Bully. Part 1

It is a big topic.  I intend to write a book about it, but I have to say, as a Father concerned and taking time to be involved with his kids upbringing, I think there is one thing I don't want my children to be.  A Bully.  If my children are being bullied, I am going to go to the proper authorities and make some noise.  If my child is bullying and I find out about it, and she initiated the bullying then there is going to be some serious talking to my child and probably some crying too and guilt on her part.

In fact both have already happened.  My girl was pushed into the boys bathroom and they barred the door on her once, and then she was tripped on the stairs.. and things kept happening.  My wife went to talk about it with the teacher and the teacher agreed there was a problem.  The bully`s parents came in and it appeared the bullier was having trouble at home because of a new baby brother.  She probably didn't think she was getting the love she used to get and was probably angry about it and took it out in part on my daughter who was actually her friend.  They never stopped being friends, but it was touch n go for a while.  We didn't want her to be friends with someone who was pushing her around and hurting her physically sometimes. 

The thing is, it seems, bullying and bullies existing in childhood is endemic,  even across all generations and countries.  Can we divide kids into three groups?  The bullies, the bullied, and the bystanders who usually don't do anything but are usually a friend of bully or bullied.

It makes me wonder, the sociologist that I am, whether there is some inherent purpose for bullying?  It  either plays a role of vying for head of the group or functions as socializing youngsters to act the way of the group.  For example the bullied can often be the weaker "weirdos" who profess an alternative way of thinking or acting than what is normal.  Then you get the bully to put them in their place and make them act "like the rest of us" and doesn't let the person be alternative because that would destroy or weaken the mores, the social fabric, of the group.  

Or else bullys form some pecking order of strength, like in a gang or a circle of people.  The best bullyers will of course be the leaders. The real tough guys.  In the past the biggest bullies in fact might have been rewarded with the best food or the best mating choices.  Maybe they still do.  

Bullying grows out of some social purpose for carrying forward group mores and group socialization.  Or else it establishes the leader and hierarchy of the group.  And humans are a very hierarchical animal.  Here is a good article, strangely from Forbes magazine, which puts the finger on the issue  

That is,  in the old days when it was Us vs Them.  Haven't we evolved to, "Us vs Ourselves"? 

 Haven't we evolved, outgrown this earlier "need" for both the method for achieving a hierarchy (through bullying) and the necessity to spurn those different from us?  In fact  these days, we need differences in communities and groups.  The more diversified a group you grow up in, the stronger the individuals we have for society and for even leading society.  Sadly, the bullying still exists and has not kept up with our evolutionary growth.  Or, just as sadly, bullying still is an effective method for both "putting people in their places" and establishing who carries more weight around in this street, school or community.  

In my next installment I will be remembering a bully from my time and see where he is today.  

Memory Dept 1: A Couple Crude Things I Might Teach My Children

I am not happy about this.   I don't want to be a crude Father and I am not the type of Father to let my children say bad words, use bad sign language (the middle finger), or bathroom humor in general.  My older daughter got a serious yelling at recently when she gave the middle finger to some older kids.  

That said, I have to admit that some crude and rude things will be learned and TAUGHT by myself and I wont be able to help it.  It will be.  After long thinking I have come to the conclusion that the following, when the time comes, will be taught to my kids even against my better judgment not to.

1. Raspberry

This first happened already several years ago.  My first daughter was only three years old and couldn't do much motor wise with her mouth or fingers.  So it was a big thrill to teach her how to blow a raspberry.  At the time vocal sentences had just begun, but she couldn't even say all the letters of the alphabet, like L and forget about saying things like "thing" and th words.  So to teach her a rather crude, but tongue twister was a victory.

It was a Pyrrhic victory as it turned out.  Something I shouldn't have taught her.  It turned against me.

She did the raspberry so much and to everyone, but when she did it to Grandma, "No I don't want that Grandma, pftthh" (or however you spell the sound of a raspberry)  I had to yell at her hard and tell her she DOES NOT give Grandma the raspberry, not to mention people in the stores or walking down the street in the town.  Well.... I had to teach her.  But I think she has forgotten it by now and I wont teach it again.


2. Arm Fart.
These are really for boys and I actually learned how to arm fart from my older brother who was much older and thus a seasoned veteran, a professional, at arm farts.

Boys love farts.  Well, lets face it, all little kids love farts.  It is a source of joy for all toddlers and young kids (kids is defined loosely here, say age 5 to 15, or 65).  Girls at some point become too polite to fart, maybe when they go off to college or start dating older boys.  Women do not know what a fart is and will send you to the doghouse if you suggest that you heard them fart. Its not possible.  But boys love a fart, kind of the way drunken teenagers love to burp on the street that stops traffic several blocks away.  Or a two am burp on a deserted street which shuts up all the barking dogs not to mention stops all the church clocks from chiming. 

The arm fart is so satisfying because you can sit there like a chicken without its head, running all over the place with your hand under your arm flapping your arm and producing joyful squeaks till the cows come home.  Seriously, once you start doing it, it is hard to stop.  My brother the professional would fart out whole nursery rhymes which I remember 40 years (and counting) later.

Though I haven't yet, I am sure the day is coming soon that i will teach my girls how to arm fart.  The youngest one couldn't get it yet, so she would probably cry if I tried to teach them today.  But one day soon.  Rome wasn't built in a day you know.  But I am actually still in debate in my head whether I should teach my polite girls the awful crudeness of arm farting.

3. Exploding small milk cartons.
(Wait a sec.  I am not referring to the really dumb prank which was big a couple years ago of smashing pretending to fall in a supermarket while carrying gallon jugs of milk and the jugs smash and milk goes all over.  I am totally against that, and those were incredibly stupid. )

I have to admit that the memory of exploding milk cartons (after the milk was all drunk, we couldnt waste the milk) in lunch time is one of my fondest memories of grade school.   I don't know if they still sell the small milk cartons in school these days.  I think they wised up and give the milk out in a glass.

We had those little half pint/ 100 ml  ptl milk cartons which when empty and smashed upon with your shoe had the capacity to sound like a hand grenade went off.  I remember the two lunch ladies gave you hell if they caught you.  Sometimes they even sent you to the principals office and a serious penalty was waiting for you.  For that reason you had to wait till both lunch monitor ladies were way over on the other side of the room with their backs turned on you or that you were behind a pillar when you did it.  Timing was of the essence.  You had to sit down quickly and kick the carton away and get your best poker face on before either of them turned in your direction.  Difficult when your ears were ringing from the explosion.   Ah but such good memories I have of personally exploding milk cartons not once, but several times in one rather mischievous year.

I really want to teach my girls how to explode a milk carton, no doubt about it, rude and crude or not.  It is a must.  That I have already decided.  I only wonder if they still make the cartons.  I haven't seen too many around these years.  I think the national union of lunch monitors petitioned against them and they have been fazed out.  Pity if so.

On the other hand, these days it could be dangerous as people might think it was a bomb going off and maybe there would be a school lock down, the police called, fire engines, basic turmoil, turbulence, cacophony and chaos.  I am not too sure I want to be called down to the head of the police and made to pay some huge fine for the national guard being called out.  I better think this one through with precision and risk vs reward.

My how times have changed.



 

I Neanderthal pt 2: The ego in Men

I will continue from part 1, the story I started.  Here is the link to part 1

I got on the street car a couple weeks ago with my youngest daughter.  I was taking her to her doctor for a control review after she had been home for over a week with the disease which every little pre schooler was getting at the time.  She had gotten on the tram on her own two legs, but all the same I was quite surprised when some youngster, a teenager in fact, got out of the seat he was sitting in and offered me and my daughter the seat.   There were no other seats available.  It was the proper thing to do, but 1)  I am an able father with a toddler who stands, not a baby, I would think people would say "they can stand I want to sit."  2) He was a frigging teenager.  Teenagers don't offer their seats to anyone.  Well, it made me quite happy and proud in fact to be offered a seat.  Boy did I feel proud.

But it made me think that some tipping point has taken place, at least in my city.  It made me think that there are so many Fathers at all times of the day being "Dad" taking their kids, toddlers, babies here and there in strollers, or in those strap on baby carrying pouches.  It is so commonplace, that people give up their seats to normally strong males who are with kids, just like they would give up their seats to a Mother with a baby, toddler or kid.  What is the difference between a Mother or Father travelling with their toddler who needs a seat to sit in?  In fact no difference.  At least that is my line of thinking.

This wasn't always true. Or perhaps, maybe I didn't always feel this way.

We used to live on a quiet street with no trees.   Quiet street does not always mean "nice" and or "quaint".  It can mean desolate with loads of isolation.  That is how I felt about that street.  Still do.

As I stated and left a photo in my last post linked above, I had to go under a viaduct with all the cars and trucks and buses streaming through.  I didn't like it.  I felt everyone was looking at me.  There was nothing I could do about it.  I had to take my daughter through there on the way to the park around 10 am  just when all self respecting "gainfully employed" fathers should be in work at their desk, not even on break.  If I went later, it would be after 12 noon and my daughter would fall asleep in her stroller coming back which meant I would have to put her to bed without lunch or wake her up for lunch and she would have trouble going back to sleep for her nap.

The problem was that I had a terrible inferiority complex and a big ego at the same time which made me too conscious of being the "stay at home father" taking care of his daughter while his wife was working.  When you are the only one WALKING under that viaduct with a little girl either in a stroller or on a little red motorcycle the perceived stares and thoughts of all the vehicle drivers passing you by can wreck total damage on your psyche.   Either it was the part of town, or the year, but there weren't that many Fathers passing my way with kids.   Also at 10.30 am, it was only Mothers or the local kindergarten kids with their teachers in the park. 

The street I walked down (pic courtesy Google maps)

Three years later with a new daughter and a new living location I would take my second daughter to a park just 7 minutes walk down the street.  I would walk along one street which had other people sauntering on it. True, it was mostly Mothers at that time, or males with some delivery errand.  I tried to go around 11 am so it would look like I was home for early lunch taking my daughter out.  She took her nap later, so I could go later.

It was a bigger park.  At that time and park there were usually two or three Dads there with their kids, even at 11am.  I think one Dad there really was home on his lunch break.  I talked with another.  He was a University teacher and didn't have classes every day, so he was home with his boy some days and took him to this park.   We talked a bit, didn't become friends, but it was a day in the park with a monkey who was similar to myself.   That was important.  In fact that was the point I think.  To have the support of the same species and sex type so you see that other people are just like you and in the same boat as you are.  There are some strong Dads out there who don't care what others think or do, sometimes I tell myself that I am one of the strong willed ones, but... who am I kidding?

These days another three years on, as I said at the beginning, at least in my district, in my part of the city, I see Fathers walking down the street with strollers at 9am.  I see Dads holding the hands of their two year olds maybe doing the grocery shopping or going to the park.  I wish I could tell them I am not staring at them because I think they are losers being "stay at home dads", but I would like to give them a thumbs up and say, "Hey, you are doing a wonderful job, keep it up.  Its great and important work."  When school lets out for the day and I bring my daughter (s) to the same park at 4pm,  the split is pretty often 50/50 Dads to Moms.

My how times have changed.   Maybe my ego and complex have changed too?  Mm, probably not.

Tram Tips

 Young and old, are very well versed in tram etiquette. It is courteous (and let’s just say expected) to offer up your seat to elderly people, pregnant women and children. Also, it’s looked on favorably to use your “inside voices” on the tram. 

Taste buds from Toddler to Teen Ager. Tastes Change.

Last post, I wrote about finding the "real" vegetables because I think that vegetables have the best of what we need for growing and healthy living, especially for kids.  I was looking for five vegetables for my kids to eat that they like.

Well the truth is a bit more complicated.  Of course.  Because some kids are really picky eaters and some aren't.  But the thing is that many of them will grow into being a picky eater  and then grow out of being a picky eater.   Here is the story.

I did some more reading on the subject of tastes between kids and adults,  because I think adults can "stand" more tastes where as kids can not.  Ever try giving a pepper mint or even just some mint to a toddler?  ouch.  Why do we have to buy two types of toothpaste, one for us grown ups and one for the kids?  Because the kids really cant stand the grown up tooth paste.  It burns them.  My 4 year old can barely take the taste of her kids tooth paste.

Well naturally because of the taste buds.  Kids have as many as 30 000 taste buds on their tongues.  Adults more like 10 000 (other numbers quoted have been 10 000 taste buds in children and 5000 in adults).  In fact super taster adults have more taste buds left on their tongue and they can detect minute changes in ingredients and can not "take" hyped up food.  They prefer played down, milder tastes, just like kids, because they have more taste buds.  People and kids who have more taste buds have more of an intense reaction to all foods.  Ever taste breast milk?  It is rather boring and even watery or ... but to a new born it is enough.  For them it even has the taste of vanilla.   

  Many articles mention that kids and toddlers are "sensitive" or just don't like bitter tastes.    "Bitter" is an acquired taste which usually doesn't come until the twenties.  Bitter can be akin to the taste of poison to kids.  This makes it difficult to feed the veggies because most veggies aren't high on the sugar tasting content, and often bitter.  My littlest girl wont eat a carrot.  Spinach, forget it for all of them.  Sweet taste doesn't overwhelm their taste buds and is also associated with good memories.

Babies will eat a lot more things, mostly mashed up, but they become more limited after about 18 months (I am trying to find the source for this comment, I did read it).  Then they may turn into the picky eaters which will drive you crazy for the next.... um... about ten years.

But hold on, and keep the faith because many of the writings say that when the kids start to become teenagers, they lose their taste for the ultra sweet stuff of youth and start to venture out even to the bitter edge of the galaxy, though maybe not so willingly.  This is when your kids will turn back to vegetables and give them another try.  I remember how my sister when she became a teenager she got so turned on to carrots that in fact she started turning orange in her hands and extremes.  Seriously.

The problem is that we also associate taste and good taste with good memories.  So, if you were nagging your kids for ten years to eat their veggies, by the time they actually WANT to eat their veggies they will have only bad memories of vegetables and still wont want to eat them, even if now they might have developed a taste for them.

This is like an epiphany for me.  I have to lay off the nagging and make sure I don't give a negative memory association with vegetables.  This puts things in a different light.  I may even stop urging them to eat vegetables altogether and let them eat what they want... Maybe.  At any rate, this is a game changer for me and I still have to mull it over in my head about how to tackle this in light of my new information.  My daughter who is very sensitive and doesn't like carrots might even be a super taster and we don't know it.

The best advice I read was, even if your kids don't like many of the things, or healthy eating now, just keep trying with them.  And keep setting a good example.  If they see you eating a salad every day, it may take a while, but maybe by the time they are a teenager they might start eating a salad every day too.  You cant tell now when they are 4 or 7, you might get really frustrated and depressed trying to get them to eat "good food", but it may pay off, uh, later.  You just have to eat what you know is good and healthy and they (hopefully) will come around to your line of thinking too.  In other words, STAY PATIENT.  It will work out.  Probably. 

source links for information on kids and taste buds.
http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/menus/kids-taste-buds.htm

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/jan/29/changing-tastes-food-and-aging

http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/difference-between-taste-buds-adults-kids-27362.html

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050211084620.htm

Was listening to Death and Vanilla while writing this:
https://www.facebook.com/Death-And-Vanilla-114660564210/

Check them out.  Sort of psychedelic retro chill out.  Reissues coming out in May.  Vinyl will be available at http://www.maximum.cz/

Will the real vegetables please stand up and be eaten

Fully realizing that fruits and vegetables are perhaps the most important things to eat every day and especially for kids, I started to wage a battle several weeks ago to get more fruits and vegetables in my kids diets and tummies.  Now, you may say, "well no sheet Sherlock, why so late?"  And in fact I do plead a bit guilty and have to say that I was put off and found it hopeless for about a year trying to get my kids eating in this direction.  My older girl used to eat things as squash and zucchini and everything, but seemed to change when she saw her younger sister wasn't eating any of those things.  And her younger sister was adamant about not eating any of those "veggies".  Being the dictator she is, I have to say, we kind of gave in to her and didn't push her.

Until this year when her older sister started learning about the food groups in school and thank goodness the teacher was pushing vegetables and fruits on them.  My daughter came home one day from school and said "Daddy we should be eating FIVE servings of fruits and vegetables every day!  I want to do that."  OK, I said.  Well, which fruits and vegetables do you like to eat?  Lets name five in each group at least and I will make sure you have those vegetables and fruits to eat as many days as possible.

Finding enough fruits she liked was easy.  Sort of.  She loves grapefruits and she will eat apples, so it is no problem most days to at least have apples at home.  And I try to keep grapefruits on stock for their extended growing season.  They do have a long season and they come in in the winter when most other things are out.

But the real problem was naming enough vegetables.
"OK, so name five vegetables you like and will eat,"  I said.
"Um... carrots,  corn.... um.... peas...."
"You really like peas?  Are you sure?  I don't know if you like them so much?"
"I do I do," she, said.  "Its my sister who wont eat peas, but maybe wait and see if we have enough others to put them in, maybe I don't have to eat them.   Lets see what else?"

  A minute or two pause at this point.    "Um.... carrots, peas, corn.  Um  olives, I like olives, green olives.  And also beans, but only those red beans, I think.  And pickles too.  How many is that? carrots one, peas two, corn three, beans four, olives five.  Five and then also pickles.  That is a lot already.  More than five,"  she said satisfied.

My wife came into the room and had heard and said, "corn isn't a vegetable.  Its a cereal." Oh.  Both my daughter`s and my jaw dropped a little in sadness.

"Oh and I really like corn too.  Cant it be a vegetable?  Maybe in the summertime anyway?  I eat it everyday in the summer," my daughter asked.  But no,  the powers that be already designated corn as a cereal.  harumph.

"And olives are not a vegetable.  They grow on trees," my wife continued.
"Well, then they are a fruit," I said.
"Nope, not either.  They are ... like an oil.  Beans are a legume.  Not a vegetable either.  And actually peas are either legumes or fruits, but more likely legumes.  Legumes are not so good because your body has trouble digesting the whole thing.  Like the skin of corn,  you cant digest it, break it down.  So it just goes through you.  Peas too.  There is some controversy now whether legumes are good or bad.  But mostly it seems like some book sellers say they are bad in order to sell you their book and or diet.  Though Legumes DO have an upside and downside. " (Here is a fair article on the subject)


"Um....  What about the green ness of peas.  It must be worth something.?"
"They just aren`t vegetables.  But...They are very good.  Look at this."

So what was left on our list?
"Oh, pickles are a fruit too.   But they are sterilized, so even though they are still good, they aren't as good as say cucumbers, but which are still..... fruits.  But they aren't bad. You shouldn't bug out on pickled foods (though sometimes Daddy does in fact do just this with his pickles and pickled beets)"

"Fruits?"

"Yes, fruits.  Seeds inside, make them a fruit.  Same as tomatoes, eggplant and avocados."

This was getting very difficult.  This left us with...... carrots.  One vegetable my daughter liked.  But actually there is controversy whether olive is a fruit or that oil thinger,  but it is not a vegetable, but maybe we could count it as a fruit anyway.

"Don't you like any other VEGETABLES?", I asked my daughter. "Cauliflowers?  Broccoli? Beets? Spinach?"
"No, no, no and big very big no to spinach."   ..............



Carrots.
"I like peppers too.  But only the yellow peppers.  I don't like the green peppers."
"Well, this is fine," said my wife, "but technically peppers are fruits too. "

We were stumped.

Carrots.

"Well carrots are very very good for you.  And you can get them year round as they are root vegetables.  So, lets have a carrot party every day," I offered.
My daughter looked, sad, dejected and skeptical.

"OK,  lets throw in the peppers as vegetables too."

Well, technicalities aside, my daughter IS eating healthier.  We have vitamin bedtime snack where she eats a grapefruit or, a carrot.  My other daughter eats a banana or apple.  She too has become a bit, a little bit more of a healthier eater.  But I really wanted my older daughter to get more veggies as typically the fruits have more of the natural sugars and vegetables are pure wholesome goodness (unless you boil them which zaps their nutrients out), but I guess until her taste buds open up a bit more and accept cabbage, broccoli and ugh.. spinach, we have a lopsided fruit and vegetable menu with more fruits and um, carrots for the vegetable.

Well, as long as she  doesn't start turning orange, I guess we are heading in the right direction.  I don't know why I still feel dejected myself.  I guess I thought vegetables were the holy grail of healthy eating and my daughter still is not eating so many of them.

But only technically.  Lets just call pickles, peppers and olives vegetables for argument and good health`s sake. That is at least four vegetables she can eat during the day.  

Thank you.
(a good simple article on what is a fruit and what is a vegetable.  But peas and olives are often put in another group, although they are called fruits in this article)