That's the problem with e mail! If the minister's wife is SO concerned about your active 4 year old, then she could come and talk to you in person, not send you an e mail. It's somewhat rude of her to approach such a delicate topic electronically.

Any mother would be offended by such a message, Shelly. I'm offended FOR you. She might be a minister's wife, but she needs a lot of sensitivity training. I'd ignore her e mail for now.

I would be highly insulted if I received this kind of email from my minister's wife!

I agree with KaeEll. You should either ignore it altogether or send her back a brief email that simply says "thank you for the information". If she approaches you at church, be prepared with an answer so you aren't caught off guard. Again, I would simply thank her for the link, and tell her that you haven't had a chance to check it out yet.

The nerve!!

Jolene is precious. She's a very smart, sweet, and friendly little girl, who has enormous curiosity. These are all positive things, and should absolutely be nurtured. She wasn't whining or complaining or being a brat when we were at dinner, and I've been in restaurants when children nearby were pitching fits. Not fun...

What I've found, over the years, is that different ages obviously have different needs, and how you structure the direction of a child's creativity will morph. What works when they're two won't work when they're six, and vice versa. You'll probably find, once you have the twins, that you'll need more structure for ALL of them because having three children is very different from having just one. Very different!

I was actually rather strict with our three when it came to what I allowed them to do when we were "out" together, even grocery shopping. NO running up and down the aisles because I wanted them to be aware of other people's needs around them. You might be able to round up one child, but three scattered throughout the store is another matter. Also, I had to think of safety issues because there are creepy people in grocery stores too, as I found out when AD was about eight. She was just the next aisle over, and not all that far from where I was on the other side, when some creepy man approached her to ask her for the time. He got very close to her, and down to her level, and that's when I rounded the corner. I asked him what he wanted, and he said, "I'm not asking you, I'm asking her!" I told him to get lost, grabbed AD's hand, and moved on... So unfortunately, you have to be mindful of that stuff too.

My kids still remember when I took all three of them to get tickets to see a performance of Peter Pan, and for some reason that day, my two older ones refused to pay any attention to my many reprimands about their inability to behave while we waited in a long line. I had FINALLY made it almost up to the ticket window, when they misbehaved one time too many. Even though I'd waited all that time in line, I took their little hands, and hauled all three of them out of there. To this day, they've never seen the stage performance of Peter Pan!! LOL...

At home, however, they were allowed to be free spirits. They could get as dirty as they wanted to outside, they could play with Jim's paints, build forts out of lawn furniture, whatever came into their little minds, as long as it wasn't dangerous. I'm all for exploration and curiosity!

I completely agree that children shouldn't be expected to sit quietly in a corner with their hands folded in their laps. Some of my children's playmates were afraid to get so much as a speck of dirt on themselves, and I think that's sad. Children and clothes are washable. Anyway, where's the fun in playing if you're afraid to get a little dirty?? Twenty years later, who's going to remember the grass stain on the shorts? I think that may be one reason why the neighborhood kids liked to play at our house because we'd let them do stuff. We had a tacky tire swing in our front yard for YEARS, with no grass able to grow underneath, and the kids would take turns playing on it. We had LINES of kids waiting to swing. We also had the requisite backyard swing set, sand box, and fort, so all parts of the yard had play areas. As long as they didn't stomp through the flower beds, nothing was off limits!

I think that you'll find yourself setting some limits with Jolene as she continues to get older, and as your own needs change with the arrival of the twins. Otherwise you'll be exhausted!! Even more than you will be anyway. LOL... One thing you can do, because Jolene's the "big sister" is to tell her that she has to set the example for her little sisters. She'll be proud to show how grown up she is, and you'll be teaching her grown-up behaviour without even needing to criticize her to any degree. Just give her little reminders to "show your baby sisters what a big girl would do..."

That's my advice!

It's very difficult for young children to sit through church services, so if the church doesn't have a day care room or Sunday school classes available, they should expect some wiggling and talking from the really young ones. Of course, obviously, Jolene is reaching an age soon when she'll have to sit still, but I know ADULTS who can barely make it through a church service, if there's a boring sermon, so you can't expect more from a child! LOL...

Children also have growth spurts and energy cycles, and you have to be creative as a parent to wear them out a little bit. With three boys, I'll bet that KaeEll has some stories to tell (and some creative ideas of her own), but I remember once being so fed up with the levels of energy being expended inside the house that I sent the wretched children outside and made them run laps around the yard, just to burn off a little of the craziness. A poor helpless parent can only take so much!!

If you know you're going to be taking Jolene someplace where she needs to be a bit powered down, maybe you can challenge her to see how many jumping jacks she can do before hand, just to burn off a little of that energy. Count them out loud for her, and tell her "wow". Then ask her if she can do more than that (or jump higher), and have her start from the beginning again. Etc.... Be impressed, and she'll keep trying to outdo herself. After a few cycles, she ought to be a bit worn out. At least for a little while!

But she's also at a very good age to begin teaching her that different places and different situations require different behaviors. It's much easier to nail this stuff down now than to battle it out later on, with an older child. When kids don't listen (as you said she's not been doing lately), you just need to figure out another way to outwit them by approaching the problem differently yourself. Fooling them into thinking that they're doing something fun, or something grown up, or using reverse psychology on them ("You're not big enough to like that vegetable. It's for big girls." Or "I don't think you're a big enough girl to sit there for that long.") will frequently do the trick. It becomes a matter of pride!!

Just a few more suggestions from (and for) a weary mom.

Jolene is a very good little girl, Shelly. She just has a lot of energy which simply means that you have to be creative about helping her burn it off.

Maybe the minister's wife would like to take Jolene to a playground while the sermon is being delivered, if she's so concerned... That would be the Christian thing to do for a tired mother who's pregnant with twins, if she thinks that the mother's little girl has some extra energy to burn.





-- Edited by Moore ideas at 15:04, 2009-02-20

Moore - Your tire swing story reminded me of a neighbor we had. They had a soccer net on their yard. Well, the snooty woman across the street made some derogatory comment about it. The neighbor with the soccer net said, I'm raising kids, not grass!"
The boy that played soccer went on to win an "All-State" award for soccer! I remember on the high school markee the message congratulating him.