Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Parenting

For free parenting resources please check out the Early Years Alliance's Family Corner.

How much do you 'ignore' your children?

1500 replies

Gameboy · 10/09/2005 17:02

Have just been out with two families - friends of ours- who have kids about the same age, and I have to confess, I am amzed by the extent to which they actively 'ignore' their children trhoughout the whole afternoon.

By this I mean they seem to 'zone out' from all the various requests/ questions/ constant 'to-ing and fro-ing' that seems typical of under- 6s??

As a result they actively seem to enjoy themselves more, manage to have 'adult' conversations (which I gave up years ago )and it seems that their kids eventually give up and go and sort out themselves whatever it is they want....( which seems like a good thing I suppose)

I can't decide whether I'm just a mug with my kids and let them dominate my life too much... but I simply CAN'T ignore them - it seems really rude and uncaring somehow??

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Vaunda · 11/09/2005 12:15

Laligo,
all my cousin knew when he came to london was buses. he had never watched a kids programme, played, been to a park, museum, school. he had only ever been to the shops on a bus.
I, dh and ds taught him a lot then his mother (the whore) took him and ran away with him. She is totally incapable of bringing him up and only found out he was because i told her he had a lot of the traits. Turned out he was autistic and thats when she ran with him. she couldn't cope with it. But as for santa, I helped he believe he was real by putting all santa decorations up for him and ds.

colditz · 11/09/2005 12:16

My parents actively liedf to me about Santa until I was 12!

I went along with them because I thought if they caught on I didn't believe, I wouldn't get any presents.

I wasn't horrified at all when I found out the truth. I was just disappointed in a way, that the Santa days were over.

Vaunda · 11/09/2005 12:17

Zippi and mine too, last year i bought him a special key which i left on the front door.... it is a santa key and opens all the doors on our estate.
We have a fun time at xmas and hubby loves it having never celebrated (he is a muslim) until he met us.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

jampots · 11/09/2005 12:20

wow! at this thread.

Vaunda, can I just ask, when karl asks for something he really wants and you dont want him to have it, and say no. what is his reaction? Is he (and always been) accepting of this or does he nag like other children? or worse, do you NEVER say no?

jampots · 11/09/2005 12:21

just going back to your last comment there Vaunda as well, if I bought a key and said it opened all the doors on the estate, my children (one exceptionally bright, the other good average) both would have taken it and at least tried it on next door! They both have an enquiring nature and so this would have been too much to bear

Vaunda · 11/09/2005 12:31

Jampots, i did that for my 5 yr old cousin not for karl.
As for karl asking for things well he rarely asks for things he knows he wouldn't be allowed. He has everything he wants/needs yes he is thoroughly spoilt but with 3 parents and extra family, (step dads family, fathers family and mine) he never wants for anything. I do say no and he accepts the reason i give him. I explain why he can't have it and he accepts this. He does go on if it is something he really wants but again i will then re explain. For instance he saw a tv he wanted for his b'day and as he had all the toys he could possibly want or need we bought it. I regretted it last week when it fell on his head because it is quite a big tv.

jampots · 11/09/2005 12:35

ah I see. So Karl knows it doesnt open the doors etc? so surely if he heard you lying about that to your cousin's ds then he would have/should have questioned the whole santa concept?

and how in the hell did he manage to let a tv fall on his head? poor thing - hope he's ok

spidermama · 11/09/2005 12:36

Vaunda I think your boy sounds absolutely great and hats off to you because it sounds to me like you're doing a great job.

So what if he doesn't pursue all the exact same mainstream interests as the majority of people? So what?
He's had a fascinating and unusual set of circumstances in his life so far, and they'll give him a rich and unique variety experiences to draw from which he will, no doubtm bring to bear during his stay on this earth because YOU are allowing him to.

I'm sorry you've had to deal with such animosity on this thread and I applaud you for remaining measured in the face of it. Some posts have been so rude and needlessly nasty.

Some people seem to think the most important thing to give your child is the ability to fit in ... or never to stick out. Rubbish! Why should all our lovely little boys be shoe-horned into the mainstream. They're all different, they'll all be brought up differently in a variety of circumstances, and society will be the richer for it.

If kids are bullied because they're different, that's more of a reflection of how school, as an institution, is failing them. It's not about them. Personally I'd take my child out of school and educate them otherwise, rather than try to squeeze them into a mainstream mould they don't fit.

I'm refreshed to read posts from people like you who are able to think outside the box. Your kid sounds fantastic.

All power to you and your boy.

zippitippitoes · 11/09/2005 12:38

Fell on his head..not a good day that..

Here is some info on Father Christmas

THERE A SANTA CLAUS?

As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research help from that renowned scientific journal SPY magazine (January, 1990) - I am pleased to present the annual scientific inquiry into Santa Claus. [Spy Magazine no longer exists. So how did versions of this story wind up on the Internet? Actually, this story first originated by an email from Rod Morgan , Systems and Integration Office IRM/OPS/SIO , U. S. Department of State , who sent an email out in 1987. Though computers at the Department of Stare were networked, they were not yet connected to the Intenet. The U.S. Navy, on the otherhand. was conncected to the internet. As it turned out, one of Rod's friends had a son in the Navy who liked the story. So out into the intenet the story went! From there, this tale has grown almost as fast as the net! We decided to give the story some of our own modifications and add some graphics. Thanks to Rod Morgan for getting this out to the world!]

There is only one species of reindeer and it definitely can NOT fly! BUT there are perhaps several hunderd thousand species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and microorganisms, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Shinto, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish , Animist, and atheist children, not to mention the bah-humbug non-Santa believers. That reduces his workload to to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seemes logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children,...well good enough.., Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc. Whew!
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

Now consider the huge load in the sleigh! Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (almost 1 kg or 2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, non-flying reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal anount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enourmous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

magnolia1 · 11/09/2005 12:39

{grin}

I love Xmas

Vaunda · 11/09/2005 12:46

Jampots, tbh i think last year he realised santa is not real (HE IS!!!!) but he didn't say anything because of lukey. He has asked me for xmas pressies this yr rather than say anything about writing santas letter.
As for the tv he has a 24" tv and climbed on the bottom drawer of his chest of drawers to reach his fav t-shirt and the whole thing toppled over.
But yeah he was ok, he had a lump and hurt his back because he held the chest off him but hosp checked him over and he was a'ok

Vaunda · 11/09/2005 12:49

Spidermama, thankyou. Thankfully the bullying stopped and as i said previously it only started because he is the only white in his class. This one child who bullied him has been brought up to believe he is an african prince and that white children smell. Well i spoke to the mother and straightened a few things out like.... here he is not a prince and before she tells him whites smells she should learn to use deodrant and wash herself as she stuck....... OK childish i know but the bullying stopped and now she is a friend of mine lol

jampots · 11/09/2005 12:51

my ds did that once and hte the whole wardrobe came down. luckily his room was narrower than the wardrobe was tall so it just lodged itself in the wall and ds managed to get into the triangular space created by the falling wardrobe and was completely unhurt - but i felt sick for months thinking about it

Vaunda · 11/09/2005 12:55

Jampots, i sat in the hospital moaning at dh and ex that the chest had to go. So when i came back and found a note on the lift door offering an ikea chest to anyone who could collect i called straight away. lol now ds has a chest shorter than him so no more toppling over.

zippitippitoes · 11/09/2005 12:56

We used to play in wardrobes a lot mainly hunting for Narnia and I do remember one falling over with me inside and my brother went off and played something else so as not to get into trouble and I had to wait ages for my Mum (who was very good at ignoring us)to find me and let me out...

Vaunda · 11/09/2005 12:58

zippi, we used to play that too nut our wardrobes were built in

weesaidie · 11/09/2005 13:02

Wow, full sentences at 10 months! I feel awful, my dd is 17 months and says, hi, mum and dad! And I am not even sure she means the latter too!!

I talk to her all the time but does the little minx reply??

On the ignoring thing I do agree balance is what is important, as a SAHM (for another 2 weeks) I am just sometimes too exhausted to be actively involved. Plus dd is happy to play on her own.

Vaunda · 11/09/2005 13:06

weesaide, my 2 nephews are the complete opposite of my ds and yet they are treated the same, well not quite the don;t go out with adults as much. But we all know every child is different. My ds is advanced in many ways but not in others for instance... my 5 yr old nephew loves football where as my ds's love for football is as long as it is on the screen. My nephew has no fear of water and my ds is only just learning to swim.

weesaidie · 11/09/2005 13:13

I am not too worried about it (until I read threads where everyone elses child is far further forward!!) as she is obviously bright and does everything she is 'supposed' to.

MarsLady · 11/09/2005 13:13

vaunda... I'm not saying this for arguments sake, but it's bugging me.

How do you know that that child isn't an African prince? Do you know how it all works in African villages? He had no right to bully your child, but your attitude towards his mother stinks far more than you say that she does. I know that you say you are friends now, but your comments sound nasty.

Vaunda · 11/09/2005 13:17

Marslady,
i should have explained properly when i explained to her what her son had said her attitude was "I am bringing up the way I was brought up in africa. I tried to reason with her and at first i left it until her son and her were standing in front of me and ds and she told her son he was a good boy for telling my ds he stunk. well that got my goat as it wouls any parent and i reacted.

Vaunda · 11/09/2005 13:18

and by the way here he is not recognised as a prince. there are many in the school with the same attitude.

marthamoo · 11/09/2005 13:22

This thread is getting more and more bizarre.

MarsLady · 11/09/2005 13:23

it doesn't matter how he is recognised here.

If as you say they both stood in front of you both and continued to tell your son that, then I'm sure you could've found other ways to stop it, but confess that I would also have stooped low.

However, I notice you say that she had the attitude that that was the way she was brought up and how she does things..... it is the same argument that you have used about yourself and your son in this thread. So, pots and kettles come to mind!

Vaunda · 11/09/2005 13:23

Martha,
soz only explaining what happened when ds was bullied.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is not accepting new messages.