Special Characters & Child Psychology:

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have two questions:[list=1][li]If I press <alt> 162, I get the “¢” symbol. So what numerical combination do I press to get the superscripted “TM”?[/li]
[li]I’ve noticed that whenever my son needs a nap, there is a distinct increase in motion and noise, accompanied by a marked decrease in physical coordination and attention focused on the frenetic activity he is engaging in. Have all you other parents of small children noticed this? What other things ought I be aware of?[/list=1][/li]
I asked that second because I just hate questions that can be answered by a single response. OTOH, I only just realized I was using the motion/noise/coordination/attention of my child to (accurately) guage when he’s overdue for a nap. What other neat stuff have you noticed about children’s behavior that I might not be keyed into yet?

~~Baloo

2

  1. ALT 0153 for “Times New Roman” Font on a Windows Operating system = ™

    If you look in your system tools folder if you are a windows user, you will notice an application called “Character Map”. It will give you a list of all characters for a given font.

2.I don’t have any children. Yet.

Hope I’ve helped. :slight_smile:

3

Hi guy! Please check this thread.

4

As to the second part of your OP, the same behaviour will occur later in life, should you be late with dinner.

I’ve noticed the same behaviour in kids that are “starvin’ 'most to DEAF!” It usually corrects itself as soon as dinner is over. I’ve always assumed it had to do with blood sugar crashes. Unfortunately, sugar aggravates this condition, you have to feed them properly before it goes away. The cookie bribe until dinner is done just doesn’t cut it…

Mine don’t get snacks in this situation[sub]anymore[/sub], they have to convince me that they are near-skeletal before I let them ruin their dinner. I have been known to make them go outside until it’s ready, though.

I imagine that you already know that steady noise replaced by dead silence means investigate immediately. If there is an “Uh-oh” involved anywhere, run.

And carefully note the placement of all reflective objects in the house. They are supplementary sets of eyes. You may need to adjust them slightly…with a little fudging you can even see around corners. :smiley:

Ooo, one I almost forgot. This one is so good, I HAVE to share it. Have you been dealing with the “why?” stage of a toddler yet? Here’s how you get yourself out of the tough ones.

“Whassat?”
“It’s an apple.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not celery.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s an apple.”
“Oh.”

All the ones I’ve used this on have been happy with that. Once the kid knows enough to call you on it, she/he is old enough to have a better explanation.

Fortunately, I don’t seem to have philosopher children who would like to revisit the topic[sub]so far[/sub]. I’m not sure I’m up to the task, even if they do have one helluva vocabulary. So far the why’s haven’t been too, too metaphysical. Except for trying to explain why there is death :frowning: . I won’t be sure I covered that adequately enough for a while.
Tisiphone

5

#2: Yup, I have noticed this. The good news is that after 3-4 years of parenting the small child, one gets pretty good at determining their sleep needs and habits. The key is the find the precise time to put them to bed, not too early lest they whine for hours (once they get on a good whining roll it takes forever for them to stop) yet not too late that they become hyper and bounce around the bed for hours and hours. Get them to bed at the optimum time and they’re out in ten minutes, tops. YMMV, of course.

Another hint, for parents of small children with night terrors and/or sleepwalking (lucky me, TT does both) is that it gets much worse if they are overtired.

A last thing about kids and sleeping is that they, like adults are either early birds or night owls. It’s much easier to take the time their bodies wake up, subtract 11 (or however many hours of sleep they need) and make that their bedtime than to try and make them go to bed earlier or later based on when you want them to wake up. Of course, this only works if you have no place to be in the morning. TT happens to be an early bird. He goes to bed at seven; people look at me like I’m crazy when I tell them this but otherwise he’d still be waking up at 6 every morning, but cranky as hell.

Okay, I have a question for you parents: I don’t know if this has come up for most of you, but how do you explain the difference between speaking English and being English to an extremely stubborn five year old? It never occured to me to tell TT that we were Americans, and I found out the other day that he thinks we’re English. No amount of explanation on my part will convince him that we are not English. He says Americans would speak American. He doesn’t believe me when I say there is not such language. He refuses to speak German because he is not German, he is English. He says that I am German when I speak German to him in a futile attempt to get him to speak it (he understands it pretty well). He also refuses to believe he is part Korean, again because he doesn’t speak Korean. This is driving me batshit! HELP!

6

Guess what? In my experience, the overtired=cranky thing persists until at least age 11 (actually, till age 44 if I count Mr. Legend). I’ve also recently noticed definite cyclical PMS-style behavior in my 11-year-old. If both my daughters turn out like their mother (and grandmother), it’s going to be a VERY long decade.

tatertot, you may not want to hear it, but if TT were my kid, I’d let him go on ahead and insist that you are what you speak for now. Little kids get some pretty fixed ideas when they’re learning how categories work, and it’s easier (like it is with the bedtimes) to just go with the flow until their cognitive processes develop enough to grasp the subtleties. You don’t have to agree with him, but arguing with him is likely to just end in frustration.

7

Sorry Baloo, not a clue

That’s an interesting one, Taters.

Well, he isn’t ‘Korean’ in the sense that he understands that to mean. Might have Korean ancestry but that’s something else. At the moment it seems like he’s trying to work out the language / nationality thing. Wouldn’t the whole ancestry issue just confuse the issue even more (at this stage) ? Why not throw religion into the pot, as well ?

Seriously though, how about showing him by example and with visual aids ? Kids are great with visual stuff – makes more sense to them than anything else, IMHO.

A map “This is America, this is England and all these other countries also speak English…Australia, etc …”
“Why do they” ?
Because English people went to those countries first (leave the Aboriginals for lesson two-tot) but then the people that went theere wanted their own country”….”And we live here at the moment because of Daddy’s work”……Could be a long one !

Or TV: “That’s the President and he speaks English”

Having said that, I’m sure his categoties are prety fixed at the moment but it might be worth, at least, trying to plant the seed.

Anyway, it must be nice to know he has high aspirations, even at this early stage :wink: ?

BTW, I don’t have any but I like talking to my friend’s kids.

Uncle Andy.

8

Okay, what I really want to know is how this child can be learning HTML, know how to set up his own profile on Windows, yet doesn’t know what country he is from?!?!

Sorry, sometimes dealing with kiddies is enough to make you slam your head against the wall.

Somehow I feel I’ve failed as a parent. :wink:

We’ll not even talk about TT and religion. My mom the Korean is quite religious (Christian) and he’s gotten the idea that only Koreans pray, as we’re a bunch of heathens in our house. Sigh. He also told a little girl that he hates Jesus because his prayer for a Playstation was not heeded. Her parents still won’t speak to us.

And he does know where the USA, Germany, England, ect. are, as he’s fascinated by maps and Globes. AFAIK, his theory is that you are what you speak, not where you live/hold citizenship.

In brighter news, he’s almost suceeded in teaching all of the children at his German Kindergarten English…although the point of sending him there was for him to learn German.

Another question, since Baloo seems to go for the mulit-question posts. :wink: How do you convince a child that he is not going to grow up and marry his mother, or failing that his cousin? Do they just grow out of it? Should I be concerned?

Also: He is of the opinion that boys don’t kiss boys and it’s gross. Should I give him the talk about homosexuality now, or wait?

Also: Who wants to join me in a massive attack against the Nintendo Corporation? I am still not over paying almost $80 for Hey You, Pikachu. I know my hatred for Nintendo is not logical, because I did have the choice of buying it or not, but still…

Also: Any non-parents, do not let my troubles with TT disuade you from having little ones of your own. Love TT as I do, there is just something not quite normal about that child. He wouldn’t talk for 3 years! Then, the next week he starts reading. I’m thinking he does this on purpose just to make me crazy so that by the time he’s a teenager I’m be a raving lunatic and unable to stop him from hacking into the Pentagon or whatever mischief kids will be doing in 2010.

9

I wonder where he gets it from?

10

My stepdaughter recently said she was going to marry her brother, and he hasn’t even been conceived yet! My wife just told her that was gross, and that you can’t marry your brother. She accepted that pretty well, but now she says it just to annoy my wife (she likes being gross sometimes).

11

Forgive the colloquialism’s but I agree with you Damhna, Taters is a bonkers bird – although, thankfully, not a Bunny Boiler……yet !

I think for the rest of it, you just let him work it out in due course. Give him a little space ?

Hope you’re putting a little away each week for his therapy.

Woof.
Poor Baloo, hope you get more answers !

12

I am not a bonkers bird! And if I am, as I said it was having children that did this to me.

And Baloo did ask what neat stuff we’d noticed about children’s behavoir…I guess what I’ve noticed is that they have an odd sense of the way the world works and that they do not like to listen to their incredibly wise and wonderful parents.

I think that’s what I’ll have to do. I just feel as if I’m not doing my job if he doesn’t understand these things. Of course, he’s the only child I’ve got so I have no idea what kids are supposed to know and when.

That is why I came to y’all for answers. Sniff, and got called a bonkers bird for my trouble. Sniff. :wink:

13

Bonkers Bird ? I can hear the accent.:slight_smile:

Frankly I’m a little surprised that the kid has turned out so well balanced :slight_smile:

Seriously though addressing misconception issues with kids is a tricky one , they really are so impressionable. I still remember many throw away comments my parents made when I was in my “why” phase. It does bear some thinking about.

Never having had any kids myself I cant offer too much in the way of constructive advice here.

I would imagine Tater that TT might also believe that boys kissing girls is just as “gross”.

The Oedipus thing…maybe you can use that to your advantage. Okay you’ll give him major laterlife trauma by telling him that you wont marry him if he doesnt eat his greens but it’ll make life a hell of a lot easier in the short term :slight_smile:

14

Nah, that’s normal. I used to think I would be REQUIRED to marry my little brother when I grew up. When my parents told me that wasn’t allowed, I decided I’d have to marry my cousin Raymond so I wouldn’t need to decide whether or not to change my name.

And I turned out OK … Um? Didn’t I? Why’s everybody giving me funny looks?

15

No. When you’re 5 years old, the thought of being huggy/kissy with any female except mom (and sometimes even grandma) is just plain, old, icky. By age 6, TT will start having crushes on his teacher, as long as she isn’t one of those “living fossils” I recall from my own childhood. By age 7 (if I was a typical example, anyhow – not a certainty) he will begin having secret crushes on girls his age – not that he’ll want anyone to know. After all, between the ages of 6 and 10 (usually) girls have cooties (adults are immune – stop worrying ;)).

Short answer: He’ll outgrow it.

What? He’s five years old fer crissakes! Just let him know it’s not okay for him to be the enforcer for this worldview, and that it’s okay for him to object when someone forces unwelcome attentions upon him. He’s too young to have a clear idea what sexuality is yet, anyway. Don’t worry about it.

Sorry – while the exercise might do me some good, I am a stubborn father who doesn’t care if I’m my son’s “best buddy” as long as I’m his best father. He can weep and moan if he wants something, but he’s already beginning to understand the futility of appealing to dad for something dad is dead set against.

That’s a good metaphor for life itself, don’t you think?

~~Baloo

16

Thanks for the advice Baloo. As you can tell, I have no idea what I’m doing with TT and need all the help I can get. I tell ya, that colic was a piece of cake compared to this.

Re: Nintendo Corp. I am weak, I know it. ::hangs head in shame:: I did sucessfully veto WWF, though. I get points for that, right? Right?? I really don’t mind him playing a few video games, I’m just outraged at the price.

And I hearby nominate myself for Most Neurotic Parent on the SDMB. It’s fortunate that TT was born with self-esteem in excess and is not too likely to be warped by my hovering ways.

Okay, one more quick question: It is normal for little boys to like guns, even if they’ve never had a toy gun, isn’t it? He’s not headed towards a bad end in a jr. high somewhere, is he? Is it okay to let him pretend to shoot things with his fingers or a stick, since he gets the message that guns aren’t for children from his parents?

17

I’ll emphatically support Baloo regarding TT’s attitudes toward the other sex, the same sex, and ::: basso profundo ::: Mom. These are normal phases that every kid goes through.

You might consider picking up the various books by T. Berry Brazleton, Benjamin Spock, or Fitzhugh Dodson that describe child development. I’m not touting their “How to parent” books. People can wrangle over those, endlessly. However, each of them has written books that describe the weird and wonderful strangeness of the child’s mind, noting the ages when kids most frequently ask particular kinds of questions or develop certain attitudes (the old “phases” that are the sources of so much humor, but that do have an aspect of reality behind them)–and it can be comforting to realize that you are not raising either a twit or an axe murderer.

My guess would be that guns generally go with the territory. I know several sets of parents who adamantly refused to allow toy guns near their kids–and the kids generally used sticks or fingers (out of earshot of their parents). I also know that the kids who messed around with “cowboy” or “army” or “police” games the longest when I was a kid turned out (usually) to be the least violent when they grew up. This is an observation, not a clinical study. However, the most violent kids I knew in high school were the ones who had stopped “playing” with guns the earliest to do more “manly” things such as sports. I could wax eloquent on the inherent violence of the mad fascination of competition when contrasted against the rather peacable kingdom of fantasy and imagination (despite its bloody battles), but I have no actual studies I could cite to defend my own warped views on the subjects.

Our rule has been that son can wipe out as many imaginary enemies as he desires, but that he is not allowed to point a “weapon” at any live person. (I’m pretty sure that he violates this rule when he’s out with his buddies, but we wanted one touchstone that conveyed to him the idea that guns can reallyu hurt/kill people.)

18

I knew of a GI stationed long-term in Germany who married a German and proceeded to have a child. Both parents understood the other’s language well enough to have fallen in love, but each was more comfortable speaking their own language. The child was raised with Dad speaking English and Mom speaking German. Some time around the kid’s second birthday, he pointed to the radio where a local announcer was reading the news and announced “That man is speaking woman language.”