Topic : General Advice

I need some help here. My daughter-in-law coaches her 5 year old daughter to say the "F" word the "N" word and so on. SHe calls her 10 year old son a F____ing A-- H--- and if I say any thing I am not allowed to see my grandchildren.

On Farher's day she told her 5 year old daughter(my granddaughter) to call he dad (my son) and my daughter-in-laws husband (who was out helping his brother install a pool at 7 am when all his family members were sleeping) when her dad answered his cell phone she the 5 year old said "Happy F------- Father's Day!) and hung up on her dad. This was what her mother told her to say.  

Why would a mother tell her little daughter to say that? Why would a mother curse her 10 year old son, who is considered by his teachers all his teachers as the best kid in the class. He just made the dandy dozen at his school, he aspires to be a lawyer, he is such a good kid that I cannot understand this. Also why would my son accept this behavior from his wife?  

my advice would be that should always, i mean always follow through with the punishment from his behaviour. When you punish him you dont need to smack him thats only if you do, because that would just be showing him that when your frustrated the first thing he should do is smack. and thats not the message we need to get through to kids. I recomend positive parenting, allways telling him what he does that makes you happy and when he does something wrong send him to a room with nothing interesting in it for 3 mins or maybee longer if he hasn't calmed down. When he is finished with the punishment get down on your knees and talk to him calmly about what he did. Then leave him to play, But make sure the next thing he does that is good after he gets out of the room you prais him for it. If he leaves the room during punnishment just calmly put him back until time is up. Never talk to him about what he has done wrong in front of people cause that will embarase him and he might get angry at you for doing that and that would leed to him having no respect for you. before he is sent to a room on his own make sure that he has already had one warning. I did this with my boy and he was the same age and had the same problem as ur son. After a while he ended up being able to control his temper by walking away from stressful situations and comming back when he had calmed down. Just doing that made him want to be a good boy cause he knew that he only got real attention from me when he was good otherwise he would be in his room on his own. My advice is not something that is going to work over night but if you keep it up and maybee chuck in a bedtime story or even an extra hour a day with just you and him doing what he wants to do then your relationship will become a really healthy one.

ps, well done for asking for help you obviously love your son very much, I know its hard being a single mum but when you do something that requires a lot of effort and then you see a real positive change that you have worked so hard for, its all worth it. "goodluck"  

We are Godparents to a 5, soon to be 6 year old. His parents have asked us to have him stay with us for a week. This is the first time he has been away from his parents for an extended period of time.

We are proceeding on a day-to-day basis, meaning that if he is really upset, we will bring him back home. So far, he cries at night when talking with his parents, but the tears have stopped and he's done well the next day.

Our question is: Are there any psychological issues that we should be aware of? We have thought about the concept of being abandoned or not wanted at home. Is this an issue at his age? Can it leave emotional scars at this age?

He is in pre-school and will soon make the jump to Kindergarten.

We would appreciate any guidance / experience comments on this.

I find it really hard to believe that school teachers or carers just let the students go with anyone. I saw the show on the kidnapping/taking kids with the girl who got picked up by some guy and signed out of school. Its unnerving. Though, I must admit I laughed when i heard about the grandpa that bought the wrong kid home from school. Rode a bike to their house and the wife goes "dang you got the wrong kid!".

His answer was he has lots of grandkids and doesnt know what they all look like! At least with both of those kids they were returned safely to their families.

Dont they have a procedure that if anyone besides a parent comes they call the parent to confirm?

My husband & I enrolled our son in a school that is supposed to be one of the best schools in our area. We went to the orientation & JJ (our son) was so excited as we were. My concern is that he started to have accidents going #1 in his pants during the summer before school. Now, it is required that kids are all fully potty trained when entering Kindergarten. So when we met the teacher she had all the parents sit as she explained how she runs the class. I asked her "what happens if they have accidents?" First she asked, almost condescendingly "Does he usually have accidents?" Then she explained that she doesn't make a big deal of it & she sends them over to the school secretary & she finds them something to wear. I always put an extra pair of clothes just in case, which I told her. So on the first day of school when my son got home, I asked how his day went & he said "great." Then he said he asked the teacher to go potty & she told him to wait. My husband said that JJ held his potty until he got home. His stomach was also hurting. I was so upset. I e-mailed the principal & explained what happened & asked her to please address this problem. She e-mailed me back & apologized & said she would pass this on to the teacher. After this I researched the teachers' credentials and found that she is indeed a very good teacher with only 1 complaint on her record. Which is by a parent who had a similar incident. It bothers me to know that his teacher may not be sensitive to this kind of problem and we think she is even a little arrogant. My husband told her that he knows her background and is confident she will do a good job however, to explain what happened and why she asked him to wait. She also apologized and said there wasn't adequate supervision to escort him at that time. However, after my husband said that we had in fact looked up her credentials she was very surprised and now always has a weary look on her face like we did something to offend her.

I encourage all parents to research the teachers that are teaching your children. In California you can go to Commission on Teacher Credentials then Search for teachers. Also talk to the other parents who have had this teacher in the past which is how I found out about the complaint. The website only gives you the teaching credentials but for further information you must be an investigator.

This is our children and we have the right to know. My son seems very happy after only the first week. My husband & I are still concerned but are optimistic & will definitely stay involved in his education.