When did structure become a bad thing?
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| Fri, 07-30-2004 - 8:19am |
We used to live next door to a "no structure" family. The kids ran wild in the neighborhood, the mom never planned dinner so lord only knows if and when the kids ate. Sorry, I don't think that's a good way to live. My kids know we eat dinner at 6:30, so they have to be home.
I can see taht you wouldn't demand that an infant go to bed and wake up at precisely the same time, but is there ever a time to impose structure on a child? So lets say you are the freewheeling type and have always doen things whenever. What happens when you send your child to school where the bell rings at the same time every day?
As far as activities, I realize all kids are different, but when my kids were little, if we just did whatever, whenever, my kids woudl end up grumpy and overtired. My experience is that if say, we were at the beach and I say, oh heck, let's just stay later, the kids woudl be happy at first, but by the days end I would end up with whiny, overtired kids.
Maybe I'm just misinterpreting what I am reading, but I personally think structure is a good thing. When children are small, the structure includes naptimes, mealtimes, etc. As they get older it evolves into boundaries like "be home at 6 for dinner" or "you can't go into soemones house without telling me first". I couldn't imagine living without structure or boundaries for my kids.
Susan

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You certainly are active after dinner. We are tapped out by dinner and if lucky, I'll get my children outside one more time. Usually we stay in after dinner, I hope it's the first time they're playing with the toys and books in one of the rooms in the house, otherwise, the tv goes on, hopefully more as background noise for about 2 hrs. Then bath or just bed.
I'm not going to keep telling her the same thing over & over.
She is wasting her time asking again when I've answered more than once already.
Paige
We are tapped out by dinner. That is why we shower & put our pjs on early.
Dd doesn't need any more running, playing ball, going to the playground, biking kind of activities.
It is time to eat & then play quietly with her dolls and barbies.
Paige
I think your big mistake was posting somewhere that you and DD are really skinny despite eating whatever you really enjoy. We never do really leave high school, do we?!!
Because of our ped, DS had to go see a nutritionist for six months in order to get his weight down. I learned a great deal in those six months. One, I let the TV creep on and stay on. It's *easy* to keep it on. It's much harder to actually sit down and play Monopoly for an hour with a seven year old. Or chess. Or any game. DH has been building models with him. We try to do things that don't involve TV.
And I totally changed his diet, and mine, which DH thanked me for. He said, "I don't want my child growing up fat the way I did. NO ONE taught me good nutrition and no one in my family is disciplined the way you are."
All of this was very hard work -- and it's a constant process. And it wouldn't have happened without our pediatrician. If mine didn't keep us on track like this, I would find a new one.
outside_the_box_mom
I love our ped, BTW. And I love that he asks all these questions.
outside_the_box_mom
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