parenting – Jonathan Frei

Maternal stress relief

Jonathan Frei — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 14:41:57 +0000

My wife shared this image with me the other day, which shows how having more kids can actually give you fewer things to worry about. One or two kids more and she will be completely worry free.

Bed time protestations

Jonathan Frei — Sun, 04 Jan 2015 02:10:44 +0000

The wife is at a girls night out this evening. I put older two boys to bed shortly after she left. We had a big day, and they had short naps, so they went down without incident.

The baby girl, on the other hand, made it very clear that she was not yet ready to go down for the night. I wasn’t surprised since she had slept in the car on the way home from the children’s museum in Naples in addition to her regular nap.

I let her stay up while I worked on getting the house picked up and the kitchen cleaned. When I wasn’t looking she had gone into my room, pulled my pillow off the bed, and dragged it to the living room where I was gathering toys.

She then spent the next 15 minutes dragging the pillow to each room I worked on, and laying on it until I moved to the next room. When I finished cleaning, I laid her down in her bed, and she went right to sleep with no protest.

Update: She waited until I pressed publish on this post to resume her protestations.

Jonathan Frei — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 17:49:10 +0000

The Opposite of a Honeymoon

This is from Saga #2.

Poo-capalypse

Jonathan Frei — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 18:20:00 +0000

All I asked was, “How’s the day going?” The wife’s response:

So funny story…

You know when you were getting ready to leave, you helped Matthew get dressed? I almost told you not to, because I always get him dressed at the last minute, in case something happens to him to get dirty. Well today, something happened…

He and baby daniel were playing super cutely. Daniel was just in his diaper and Matthew in his uniform and mama was halfway thru her hair. All was going superbly well. Then Daniel had a massive blow out. His 2nd poop of the morning.

Matthew comes into the bathroom as I’m doing my hair. “Mama, the baby pooped on me”. OMG.

Poop everywhere. On his arms, on his shirt, on his legs, on his shorts, on his socks. Everywhere. Poo-capalypse!

Poo on the carpet. poo on the cars rug. Poo EVERYWHERE. It was epic.

So I had to fish Matthew’s dirty uniform from yesterday out of the hamper. It took 20 minutes to restore order.Then i somehow managed to finish my hair, get both boys dressed, and make it to school on time looking presentable. It was out of control.

Gabi, you’re an amazing mom, an amazing woman. I don’t know how you do it.

Raising Successful Children

Jonathan Frei — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 21:43:09 +0000

Raising Successful Children

Madeline Levine writes in the New York Times about the challenge parents face in determining how involved to be in their children’s lives. The problems with helicopter parenting is a suffocated kid. But a child whose parents are too permissive will face their own set of problems. Figuring out the right level of praise and feedback to give a child’s accomplishments is a difficult task. Can calling a kid smart make him dumb?

Tackling more difficult puzzles carries the risk of losing one’s status as “smart” and deprives kids of the thrill of choosing to work simply for its own sake, regardless of outcomes.

The key, it seems, it to make sure the child’s success is his own. Parents can do this by giving appropriate attention to their own success.

Parents also have to make sure their own lives are fulfilling. There is no parent more vulnerable to the excesses of overparenting than an unhappy parent. One of the most important things we do for our children is to present them with a version of adult life that is appealing and worth striving for.