Episode 32 - The New Zealand tea room

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Well folks, here we are, beside the hot springs of New Zealand.

The tea room (with the customary distressed chintz sofa) overlooks the steaming, bubbling lake. For the bold and sporty, hiking, biking and sky-diving are on offer. Personally, I'm not planning to leave the spa.

Please come and join us for a celebratory drink and conversation ranging from the profound to the profoundly silly. The cardinal rule remains: no fisticuffs.

Maud, this is lovely.

Are there any penguins?

Welcome, Bean.

Penguins? Do you want there to be penguins (wildlife or variety)? As this is the tea room of requirement, I guess there will be penguins if you want them.

Definitely birds not biscuits. For some reason I associate NZ with penguins so if I can sit in the hot spa and see them pottering about that would be lovely.

(Although I suspect they smell a bit so maybe not too close?)

They do smell, but in the background are very pretty. I do like a bit of geothermal activity

Yup, geothermal activity was one of the things that drew me here.

Cake crumbs were a lovely idea, much better than bread crumbs.

Ahhhhh... I'm not leaving any time soon.
Bliss.

Err... what time is it here? Isn't NZ a day ahead of us Canucks? Will I have to go to bed soon so I can get up again at stupid o'clock on Monday?

HOW am I going to get through this next week??? WHY did I think this course was a good idea????

Is there ?

Not this early in the morning there isn't. Hold on, this is NZ, therefore it's 9pm and is available after all! Jolly good. You'll get through it somehow, JM.

Nice place! I see the Bishops have settled in already with the other local leaders .

Good morning!

Do any of you wise tea-roomers have any advice on how to handing 'tattling' or telling tales on other children? I noticed it a lot yesterday when we were with a group of friends, Small Bean seemed to always be the one to come running back with "Fred just pushed me", "Boris has just pushed Donald" etc. He also went up to, for example, Boris' mum to let her know what Boris had done .

I don't want to make a big thing of it, and maybe I've encouraged it because I have always said to tell an adult if something happens rather than retaliating, but I would like him to get a bit more resilient and not come running for every little push or shove.

I have a lovely hour to myself, would anyone like ?

would be lovely, thanks bean!

nice hot springs - probably fairy penguins that you can see running around :)

bean - miniThumb is a bit of a 'dobber' (get me with my Aussie slang!) - I think it's normal at that age, isn't it? I usually ask him if he's hurt, if he's not I tell him not to worry about it and go back and play - and mostly he only comes to tell me now if he IS hurt, in which case I want to know who did what to him anyway! So I would say (but only because it worked for me) that you do the equivalent of "that's nice dear, run along and play" when it's nothing serious - he should get bored and stop coming unless he's hurt.

JM - eyes on the prize, all the time. Once you have the certificate, you're FREE! :) Have some even if it is too early.

An hour of you time? How lovely! As it's nearly lunchtime, I'll have a .

I think the tattling is an age-related thing. At about age 3-4, children work out that some things are good and some things are not and look to adults to enforce the 'rules' of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. As you say, it's quite tricky because one wants the child to report back if someone has been badly hurt or is at risk of being badly hurt, but not for all the minor bits of stuff about Tallulah not sharing the crayons or whatever it may be. When we were at this stage, I used to listen attentively and then either act (if a child was about to jump off the top of the wardrobe, say) or say something like "Oh dear, why don't you use the crayon that Tallulah isn't using and then swap?", ie interested and offering a suggestion but not leaping to intervene. Eventually, the message got home that I was only going to intervene on the big stuff. Coaching the child on what to say to the other child also helps - as The Girl became more articulate, she would argue with the other child without expecting me to take up the cudgels on her behalf.

Hello ladies, bit of a twirl for a new name!

Oooh, lovely new name! Welcome!

I take no credit for it! On a cat thread someone suggested it for me, I am RUBBUSH at thinking up names!

I used to hate all the telling tales stuff as well. Very hard balance, at primary school our daughter was getting a bit of teasing and bullying, so we would tell her to tell us, tell the staff, and then the teacher said something like the other kids in the class thought she was attention seeking, so quite often she wouldn't tell staff when anything happened. It was a viscious circle, as it would then come to a head and the teacher saying that she should have spoke up sooner! Gah!!

Depends. Me, I'm rule-based and sensory-based. So if the rule is 'don't push' and a child pushes, I was shocked and confused about why they'd broken the rule. Why? Because if someone pushes me, it hurts worse than being punched, because of the sensory differences. So watching a child being pushed is the same as you watching a child being punched, and feels as frightening for that reason. A lot of children have sensory processing differences even if they're not on the autism spectrum, and so may have very good reason to fear a playground where pushing is sort of ok. Just one possible explanation. There will be plenty of children to whom that doesn't apply, of course.

Oh yes, some children will undoubtedly be more troubled by (say) pushing than others, but the very interesting question for me in Bean's post is how children decide the boundaries between stuff-they-sort-out-for-themselves and stuff-they-tell-an-adult-about and whether, as a parent, one wants to shift those boundaries (or help the child in shifting them for themselves). As I said before, children of about 3 or 4 seem very rule-based and are upset by any infringement of the rules (except their own, mostly) but they then (within some constraints, such as age and understanding) make choices about how to respond to that infringement.

Thank you for all your thoughts. Wise words, as always, about children of that age being rule-based. Small Bean definitely is and has a very clear idea of what (in his own mind) is right or wrong. (It's no fun being in the car with him at the moment as you are constantly reminded about the speed limit, warning signs and the fact that the driver must concentrate At All Times).

I think I am going to have to perfect my reply of 'that's nice dear, run along and play'. I do try not to interfere and to encourage him to sort out his own battles but I find it hard especially in public when you sometimes feel as if your parenting is being judged.

It is however that time and I'm ready for a nice NZ .

IS that a penguin or is it a Timtam? We are in the antipodes so Timtam seems likley. Of course it could be little blue.

Boy has been in a grumbly grumpy mood this weekend,, except when he hasn't been, and then hes been lovely. Hes tired- which bodes badly for going on an acton packed family holiday in a few weeks time.

Ok- Query for the Tea room med pro quartete now. Yesterday I bashed teh knuckle of one finger VERY hard, nice bruise came up, good purple and blue colours. , swollen knuckle. This evening swelling is down, colour has spread to most of finger and a numb patch has developed, from very tip of finger ( about an hour ago) to teh first knuckle. Making typing and writing a bit weird as I'm getting no feedback from that finger. My guess is the swelling is pressing on a nerve and it will sort self out in time. I'm planning on a wait n see approach. Sound reasonable?

How did you bash it, UniS? Can you bend it at all? I think if you have neurological involvement, I'd take it to be seen, tbh. Have you put anything on it, like Ibuprofen gel, to bring the swelling down? Do that first and see if it makes any difference and if not, take it to be seen by a doc.

I had a friend who played football, kicked the ball awkwardly (end on to his big toe) and broke and dislocated his big toe. The joint bled in a nice blackish purple ring but he refused to go and see anyone about it. He'd have been fine except for the dislocation so by the time he did eventually go and see someone his joint was in a right mess and needed an operation, which shortened his toe by about half an inch and left him with reduced movement. So that's now left me a little wary of 'waiting and seeing' for too long!

finger is working fully normally. Not going to anything tonight, will see what its like in the morning. COULD pop into minor injuries unit tomorrow.

Thank you for the cake crumbs, Maud!

How was your trip, Scout?

Good, thanks. Fruitful.

Maud -- Incoming re: Guides.

hello dear tea roomers, sorry to be more absent than present...
all well in Oxtowers, Oxbloke is around at the moment which is great
Bean I second in particular Maud's wise comments - I always preferred Oxboy to bring problems to me since personal resolution amongst friends tended to involve tear, possibly biting, almost certainly hitting at that age...but now, aged 5, the "yes, I can see that is upsetting/ annoying/ not what you want to do but can you think of a way to work it out between you" almost always works - but without the learning how to adapt rules "take the pen that Tallulah isn't using" would not now be possible - if that makes sense?

Social interaction is difficult to learn and difficult to practise so its not surprising they need guidance!

UniS your description of Boy sounds like OxBoy - he is lovely except when he is being horrid! he's very tired back at school but also going through a stage of pushing my buttons, and I seem to lack the coping skills - I need to find a kinder way to talk to him I think....

ibuprofen gel and nights sleep and bashed finger appears back to normal, bar the interesting purple colour. HURRAH.

Hurrah for oxbloke being about for bit, Hurrah for oxboy getting better at dispute resolution, BOOHISS for oxboy learning how to wind you up.

We had a fun lazy afternoon yesterday trying on all teh ski gear and getting boy to work out how to get himself dressed and undressed from it all . He did work out that he can't do a wee with salopettes on, he had a go, but managed to get "bitten" by the zip. OUCH. still better found out at home when not desperate than in the middle of a ski school session.

Mid morning ( UK time) in the tea room, would you care to join me for a danish pastry and a coffee? Or perhaps if you on NZ time you would prefer a .

to you all just because your fab,