Sun Sprite
November 17th, 2007, 07:04 PM
As most of you know, I have no kids of my own.
However, my neighbor's seven year old daughter loves to visit for hours at a time. In fact, she has even asked to move in!? Yikes!
Anywy, she has been begging me to take her somewhere, anywhere in my car. So we went to the local dollar store today, since she was being good, and helping me rake leaves. She finds one of those horsehead on a stick toys, and starts riding it through the narrow aisle. I hollered at her (not anrgy or too loud, just loud enough for her to hear) to be careful. A woman at the end of the aisle who she had gone almost up to said "It's okay, I saw her." I unthinking responded "I just want her to be careful and no bump into anyone coming out of an aisle." Of course a few minutes later we did (not literally) bump into our elderly next door neighbor.
That is the first time I have ever taken my neighbor's daughter anywhere without her mom being there. Knowing her as I do, she behaved very good, just not quite as well as I would have liked.
I wonder how that poor woman felt about my reply. It was nice of her to not be angry at the girl, as she is just a rambunctious child who needs a bit of reining in.
Another though, if we do take her to this one event in a couple of weeks: How do you best correct someone else's child in a public place? Since it is obvious, looking at her and me, that we are not likely relae, people do tend to stare a bit. Plus, when we correct her at home, we sometimes ask her what her mother would think is she was doing whatever not nice thing she was doing. It sounds funny in public to say "If your not good, we can tak you straight home to your mother." Okay, what can I say to te same affect without feeling embaressed, of feeling like everyone is stareing at me? When you have someone else's child out, and they aren't behaveing, you can get looks like "Do you have the right to have th child out?"
This thought proces may become even more important if we do get processed to adopt and are takeing a foster child out on visits to determine if they would be happy in our family.
With all the other things, the top question is: If you take your friend, neighbor, etc's child out somewhere, how do you gently correct them without makeing a scene? Do you find kids behave better or worse for the parent, or the friend?
However, my neighbor's seven year old daughter loves to visit for hours at a time. In fact, she has even asked to move in!? Yikes!
Anywy, she has been begging me to take her somewhere, anywhere in my car. So we went to the local dollar store today, since she was being good, and helping me rake leaves. She finds one of those horsehead on a stick toys, and starts riding it through the narrow aisle. I hollered at her (not anrgy or too loud, just loud enough for her to hear) to be careful. A woman at the end of the aisle who she had gone almost up to said "It's okay, I saw her." I unthinking responded "I just want her to be careful and no bump into anyone coming out of an aisle." Of course a few minutes later we did (not literally) bump into our elderly next door neighbor.
That is the first time I have ever taken my neighbor's daughter anywhere without her mom being there. Knowing her as I do, she behaved very good, just not quite as well as I would have liked.
I wonder how that poor woman felt about my reply. It was nice of her to not be angry at the girl, as she is just a rambunctious child who needs a bit of reining in.
Another though, if we do take her to this one event in a couple of weeks: How do you best correct someone else's child in a public place? Since it is obvious, looking at her and me, that we are not likely relae, people do tend to stare a bit. Plus, when we correct her at home, we sometimes ask her what her mother would think is she was doing whatever not nice thing she was doing. It sounds funny in public to say "If your not good, we can tak you straight home to your mother." Okay, what can I say to te same affect without feeling embaressed, of feeling like everyone is stareing at me? When you have someone else's child out, and they aren't behaveing, you can get looks like "Do you have the right to have th child out?"
This thought proces may become even more important if we do get processed to adopt and are takeing a foster child out on visits to determine if they would be happy in our family.
With all the other things, the top question is: If you take your friend, neighbor, etc's child out somewhere, how do you gently correct them without makeing a scene? Do you find kids behave better or worse for the parent, or the friend?