6-8 year old parenting club birthday partys, homework and extracurricular decisions

[2in2022twoyearson]

Hi,
Anyone want to join me navigating this age of parenting? Children could be outside this age bracket.

There's lots of baby toddler advice groups and some teen groups but this age I feel a bit in the dark.

I have a soon to be 7 year old girl. She's amazing, loves school, but I often feel like I'm doing or saying the wrong thing to and with her. She's going through a stroppy stage, finds school tiring.

Me and her dad work a lot and we haven't signed her up to many extra curriculum clubs, some of her peers have done loads since reception.

We're planning her birthday party and she has lots of opinions about it, I'm feeling the pressure!

Aww that's cute that he still likes to watch tv upside down

Hi, how are you all doing? My DD has settled well into the school year and they have a museum trip coming up in a few months. Next Tuesday it's open classrooms so I'm going to look at her work. This morning she was telling me things sometimes look blurry, like her work book or bushes and tress out the window. She had an eyesight test a while back and her eyesight was perfect. She might be having me on because she wants glasses, a couple more of her friends have just got them. But I should probably book her in for one.

Best to get checked, eyesight can deteriorate at any time, my DD has always had good eyesight but now suddenly needs glasses (not that she wears them). Nice that you can go look at her work, the only insight into DS's work I get is his homework.
He's got his maths test tomorrow, he should do just fine in it, I've seen how easily he does the homework. He had his first session of the multisport club yesterday and really enjoyed learning volleyball skills.
I'm starting to get a bit concerned with his forgetfulness though, he just cannot keep track of his belongings. I have to buy more gloves for him today because he's lost all of his. Also wondering about his hearing, so often he doesn't hear things. He failed a hearing test when he was smaller but passed a retest.

Hearing is hard, because children don't often pay attention so it could be missed. It's another thing to book for me. I also have to decide if I want to book some leave from work for a school trip. Could be fun or very stressful and I'd like to get more involved in the school generally. DD I think would like it as her best friends mum came on the last trip.

Book some leave and go on the trip, your DD will love it.

DS had his maths test today, he got a 10! Said it was very easy and fun.

DD fractured her wrist last night, falling while jogging along the pavement with DH! So that's another day annual leave I use for that today. We do now have emergency leave but I used all that allowance as DS childminder kept being off. I did ask her about the trip and she wasn't bothered either way. But she's conscientious and I said I'd need to book it off work....I'll look into it.

Oh no! Is she alright? Hope she's not in too much pain, poor girl.

She's not in too much pain, slept fine last night but feels a bit self conscious about people seeing her cast and the attention. The cast is below the elbow and her fingers can move. She can do most things, like use a games controller but not push together Lego, as that pushes on her injury. Hopefully will heal quickly as she's young and eats healthy.

I think it is good to enjoy school and learn, its daunting, but productive. There are so many good things we learn at school. I wish you all the best with her.

How's everyone doing? DD got her new cast on. I played a couple of new bored games with recently and she is much better now at losing gracefully than a year or so ago.

We're doing ok, DS was feeling sick this morning so stayed home but was soon calling me asking if he could game so I don't think he actually was ill. That's good that your DD is getting better at losing gracefully, that's an important skill.
I started my new job today, then had my evening class so have barely seen DS and now OH is putting him to bed because I am exhausted but I'll go read to him after I've showered. We're currently reading Superfudge and he's enjoying it a lot, though I skipped the Christmas chapter as it talks about Santa not being real!

My toddler was winding everyone up yesterday. It's the first time I just shut him in his room and closed the door for 10 minutes because I was so angry, he's ripped a few pages out of DD special book and told me smiling. Then I put him in the buggy to sleep. He'd asked nicely to play trains instead of napping before ripping the book, we took trains away.

But this is about 7yo DD, she screemed at him and stormed up to her room cried in bed for a bit while I was starting dinner because she was trying to build him a nice train track and he was breaking it. Then when she came down I put on TV and he was trying to wrestle her. So, I put him in his room for another 10 minutes and after that he was well behaved....

I didn't tell her not to shout at DS, because she removed herself from the room to calm down which I think was quite mature.

I've got almost-9yo b/g twins and I feel you.

Honestly, we found clubs worked really well. They both do gymnastics and love it. DD has ADHD and loves the energy and "big movements" of it. She's completely fearless. DS is the more self-contained, rule-follower. He likes the structure and the perfectionism of it.

DS did rock climbing between the ages of 6-8, but lost interest after it became too hard for him to progress. When you've sort of exhausted the local climbing walls that work for his size, there's not much else to do. We thought he was too young to make the commitment to get serious about it and travel further afield (and we didn't want to take him!). It'll be there again when he's older/bigger perhaps.

He now does football, but I think it's more to fit in with his friends. He's got no interest in watching the sport on tv, and gets frustrated playing it casually in the playground at school because he thinks his friends don't follow the rules. He loves cycling and has expressed an interest in athletics, so we might look into that for the Spring. He did a short basketball course over the summer holidays, which he enjoyed.

DD also does Brownies, which she enjoys. She likes the girls-only nature of it.
Both also did dance between about the ages of 4-7, enjoyed it at the time, but dropped without complaint it when it clashed with gymnastics.

Gymnastics is something I'd like to get DD back into when her arm has healed. Our closest one is full but they recommend one just an extra 5-10 minutes away.

How is everyone doing. DD went to a friend's house she'd not been to after school today and had a great time. I picked her up and their house is beautiful, clean and tidy. I'm not sure I can rexepricate....

Its the end of half term here so the house is a mess. I try not to worry about what people think if they're much neater and tidier than me, though mostly I wouldn't know as I don't usually go inside if I'm picking up/dropping off.

DS had a reading test before school broke up for half term, they do the test to find out who needs extra help with reading, and then re-do the test every term to make sure they're progressing as expected.

There was an indoor bouncy castle event at the weekend which I took DS to, he had a blast. The Circus School was also there so DS showed me what he's been learning - he can walk on a barrel now! He also can skip really well on the big skipping rope, and can balance momentarily on the unicycle.

DS is going on his first scout camp today. He is very excited! But he's also not happy that he can't take his watch phone with him, think he's not happy not being able to call me whenever he wants even though I told him he can ask a leader to call me if he's feeling homesick.

Aw, that's lovely. Allthough They're the simular age, my DD has not got a smart watch/ phone so hasn't called me ever independently. We are keeping her low screen, while I've talked through how to call emergency services, she's never actually made a phone/video call herself.

He is constantly calling me, during half term he would call me several times a day while I was at work. Its just a very basic one, no video calls, and he really wants one that does video calls so I said maybe in 2nd grade, or 3rd grade. Anything to delay getting an actual phone for as long as possible (most get them at around 7 years old here)

Going to drop him off at camp now - his rucksack is almost as big as him! On the list of things to bring was a knife (proper blade in a sheaf) was on the list but I haven't got him one yet, I promised to get him one when he makes his Scout promise in December (they always do it on Independence Day here and have a candlelight procession through the graveyard to place candles at the war graves afterwards, its beautiful and moving).

It makes sense to get a phone when they are walking to and from school themselves. And by a phone I mean a device that can do calls and messages. Dds school banned smart phones a couple of years ago, they used to allow it from year 5, 9 years old when they could walk to and from school alone, but have said they need a dumb phone.

Definitely better to go with a dumb phone or a watch phone at that age. They did a school health survey recently (national thing done every two years) and a worrying amount of student reported sleeping badly because they're on their phones too much. Also too many said they've experienced bullying in the school so now every teacher is talking to their class about bullying and DS's teacher is going to talk one on one with each child to try and find out if they have been having any issues with bullying. DS has had some problems with an older boy, and his whole class has had issues when its their turn to play football on the mini pitch and older children take over, so hopefully those issues will be dealt with now.

How are we all getting on? Any books or articles you've found useful for parenting. My DD is turning into quite a philosopher, in the car asking whether I believe in magic, and that she believes in science for some things but some must be magic. I said there could be a spiritual world as well as a physical world alongside it but beliefs are very personal and she is on her own spiritual journey. The liked that thought and told me she was going to draw her spiritual journey as a maze with lots of dead ends and fairies.

Getting on alright, DS brought home his handicrafts work from school, he had done some sewing work and made a wall hanging which he sewed the names of his favourite hockey teams on. He's got his first ice hockey tournament day on Sunday and he's very excited. He's also very happy today as he finally got to go play round his friend's house, who he doesn't get to see much now as he has cancer and can't go to school except for occasional outside PE lessons. Now they have each other's watch phone numbers so they can call each other and chat and arrange another time to go play.

Spiritual journey as a maze with dead ends and fairies - very philosophical!

@Natsku I hope DS friend recovers well from his cancer. We did sparklers for bonfire night and today DS was telling me she saw a green light on the photo of DS with his sparkler which was lilly her fairy friend who was staying away from her because she was waving hers around too much. fIL started fairies by secretly shining a Lazer pointer around as a fairy and it was all she talked about for a while. . I honestly feel a bit uncomfortable about creating magic for this age, including Santa because of the lying sode of it, but people IRL think magic and children is special but they create/imagine their own magic. I'm not telling her it's all made up and a Lazer pointer, but when she asks if I believe in them, I say personally not and I've never seen a fairy

I'm not so keen on the lying part either, though I go along with it with Father Christmas but not too seriously - my DD figured it out when she was 7 and because I had never been too serious about it she just thought it was amusing and was proud of herself for figuring it out. I did explain to DS yesterday that the tooth fairy is just a game that parents play on their children because he had got the idea that the tooth fairy gives 10 euros per tooth and that was not happening! We never did it anyway, I always just handed over a euro and put their teeth in a jar for them to keep, started that when DD was little and she thought the whole idea of a tooth fairy was creepy.

No fairies here but we do have the Sauna Tonttu (Sauna Elf) which will cause trouble if they misbehave in the sauna - DS is fairly convinced its not real so now its become a joke that I insist it is real.