West London chat into Spring

[sfxmum]

thought I would start a new one

sfx - At work now so quick post: I never had any special friend in school, always prefered to be on my own, never did after-school anything, but was very happy. Never suffered the nonsense of feeling you had to conform to any group. (And grew up to be well-adjusted, high achieving , anti-social independent individual .) So may not always be a bad thing.

I struggle with the building a strong independent minded self reliant girl and wanting her to conform and be popular

now I am looking at academic papers on only children instead of revising

I would value self-reliance and independence over popularity. But obviously you don't want to go all out to be unpopular ...

no I seem to do that effortlessly

I don;t know if its any consolation sfx but I htink most people would consider DS to be very sociable - School are certianly very happy with his socialisation and he does get on pretty much with everyone in the class and yet somehow he just isn;t part of any of the "gangs" and I think he does notice that. I think he will be better when he finds a "best" friend but I can;t see that being any of the boys in his class and I am worried that as the girls and boys sparate out more he will be a bit norman no-mates. I'm considering sending him to Beavers in Sept as that kind of thing is right up his street and maybe he'll make some friends there. On the whole I think you need to leave them to it (barrig bullying and the like) because they are going to be the person they are and they need to work out how to socialise in their own way.

Hard to stand back and watch though isn;t it.

KewC it is a similar situation I just fret a lot about this only business, sometimes more than others

Told off a child for hurting DS1. Parent was there though. Is that bad?

Sfx - sorry to hear your worried about DD at school What about friendship with neighbour, is that still going well?

I think this has been the hardest part of going to school for DS1 too, it is heartbreaking watching them go through trying figure out friendships when he's not naturally social and is very sensitive. When I talked to his teacher he said he played well with all the other kids and is happy playing by himself too and this is generally what I see outside of school. Again he's not part of any gangs and doesn't seem to have a best friend either. It's taken almost 2 terms for him to find people he likes to play with but he is happier. I notice it's when he's tired towards the end of term then he gets upset about not having friends and being sad etc. It's hard not to worry. my mum said heven though I had lots of friends at school my brother didn't really have any close friends until he started secondary school, I can see DS1 being like that.

copper I have had to do something like it because the parent just stood there and said nothing repeatedly

vbus I think this is in a way sort of comforting to know, they are well balanced and happy children but it's not all perfect, I imagine it is fine to build resilience
The neighbour, they are still good friends but dd, I think, feels more for her, she will play with others in a group and dd will get jealous which i suppose is part of the lot
recently it happened that dd has another school friend who she plays with regularly, the neighbour and this girl started playing together and had a play date whihc did not include her, dd was heart broken, it all seems pretty normal but I don't like watching

ultimately I do like the school and I am fine with what she is achieving but sometimes I wish she felt more 'in' iyswim

on another subject
Cameron went to visit the hospital where my sister works, they were gathering staff to attend, she could not go, was too busy, but just after he left she has a meeting where they discussed possibly cutting her post

sfx - I said something before anyone else could. I like to think I'd do the same if it was DS1 being the monkey. In fact I'd probably go even more OTT...

Sorry to hear about your sister. Hope it won't happen.

copper regarding sister job, her post is deputy ward sister, but she is currently acting up, ward sister to cover maternity leave, they want to do away with the deputy, she says she will be leaving before that becomes official, it appears the acting up will become more permanent and she does not want to do it like that

it means they are possibly having to fill in posts for very experienced staff in a specialist ward, she keeps telling me that the staffing levels are absurd and it is only a matter of time before something happens which will end up in the papers
then a nurse gets the sack and it is back to business as usual, this is crazy

still not able to watch that panorama programme, some friends in the business told me they ended up in tears watching it

sfx, its hard isn't it? I found it hard to make friends at school, didn't quite get the whole 'I'm your friend, oh no I'm not now, because such and such doesn't want me to be' which seemed to go on a lot in my school!

I watched some of the Panorama programme but had to turn it off, am so grateful my uncle has lots of family who can help him. Haven't watched Case Histories yet but have it taped, will probably have splurge at some point!

hi all

Tilly so parenting is hard, who knew? I expect she will be fine but I will be having a chat at school too, I also think she did not click with this teacher although she says she likes her

Today I will mostly be desperately revising and to be truthful going over likely material for a question for the first time I had skipped it earlier

Tilly dd is very similar with the bafflement at girly behaviour

This girly behaviour still baffles me

Sfx - good luck for revision, nothing like a bit of cramming

Copper - I don't like telling other poeple's kids off but I feel I must if parent doesn't react

Kora - enjoy your hols I just read One Day which is great holiday reading

Day 3 of potty training, it's not going too badly but Ds1 seems to be having almost as many accidents as successes. The night time nappies are off, hooray. I'm finding it hard going because we're out and about so much, it is much more a hybrid of pants we we can and nappies when we're out. I think it's confusing but don't have much option as he's not ready for pants all day yet and largely the week still revolves round DS1.

Have some school mums coming over tonight, should be fun, in need of wine and a sanity check

BTW Tilly hurry up and start night out thread please!

night out must include Harry Potter coming up soon

DS1 has a best friend and I worry that he's not making a wider circle of friends. You see, there is always something to worry about...

Does one need a special tin to make chocolate brownies? Never made them before but might do it for a party. Would a cake tin roughly the same size do? In fact what is a brownie tin!?

copper I use a tray bake tin

I use a square cake tin a bit like Sfx's. If you use round cake tin cooking time might alter

Agreed, there is always something to worry about when it comes to kids.

DS1 showed me this morning that his nail came off in bed last night, must hunt that out at some point, yuk

vbus which festival are you going to?
can scarcely wait for ours

I think it is true, always something it is the nature of the job

copper which recipe are you using? best results for me without question were from the Nigel Slater recipe

Don't have traybake tin. What is a tray bake anyway?

Going to try Hugh F-W's recipe from last week's magazine. Says 22cmx22cmx5cm tin. I have something with similar dimension but round.

Copper - use round tin but you'll have to keep an eye on it as cooking time will be for a square tin. I love Nigella's brownie recipe

Sfx - off to Camp bestival seeing as you raved about it so much

oh fabulous, somehow I seemed to have been invited for breakfast at a mumnsnetters house for breakfast post festival she is apparently local