Independent Initiative
Yesterday was James' fourth birthday. That's a pretty big milestone because now's about the age when he starts really thinking about other people as people and not just sources of stuff. It's tough sometimes to remember that kids go through a (fairly long) period where they simply can't understand concepts like "that makes me sad" and why they wouldn't want to make someone else sad. It's normal brain development, but once you have empathy, it's really, really difficult to understand that these little people who don't have it yet aren't being mean, they're just being themselves and almost every one of them will grow out of it.
For James, there was a bit of a gradual development of empathy, he would periodically announce some fact that he understood — I shouldn't hit Brazen-cat because she will be sad. — but mostly it still seemed to be a collection of facts, not something he understood implicitly. Then, over the holidays, it was like a switch went on in his head and all of a sudden he was developing empathy and sympathy every day. The best part of this is getting almost daily spontaneous hugs and being told he loves us. That's awesome.
Anyway, today was his birthday party. As I said to a friend this evening, it was absolute pandemonium, but it was great on a lot of levels and the boys had an incredible amount of fun. In retrospect, it was at A Gym Tale and I think it would've been better if they boys had been there once or twice before so everything wasn't new and exciting for them, James at least would've been better able to focus on the games part of the event, but both boys loved it all anyway, so there's no real down side here.
Christine had an awesome idea last night, though, while re-packing the loot bags. The ones she initially bought were too small and most of them exploded in one way or another, so she bought larger ones. The larger ones still wouldn't accommodate the Hot Wheels cars we packaged, so she suggested we tie them to the ribbons on the balloons and send a balloon and car home with each of the kids that came to the party. That worked out perfectly as the cars were just the right weight to keep the balloons from flying away and it made each balloon choice more complex for the kids.
On the ~10m drive home from the party, though, Daniel nearly fell asleep. I had to keep chattering away at him the whole time, playing with his feet (yes, I'm that driver too, sigh...) and having James chant "wake up Daniel" most of the way. We got home, I handed him off to Christine, who was home first, and off he went to bed.
James then sat down on the floor of the kitchen and chose which of the two cars remaining would be his and which would be Daniel's. When he had made his choice I told him, "Okay, you can open your car and play with it and when Daniel wakes up we'll let him open his and he can play with it." I got an "okay" in response and we were done with it.
Fast-forward a half-hour or so and James asked me if we could go downstairs and play "race cars" (his name for Mario Kart Wii. I said sure, as soon as I was done extracting his dinosaurs from the packaging they came in. He, of course, wasn't interested in waiting while I undid twist-ties and extracted plastic bases, so he went off and did his own thing. Which, Christine found out too late, included opening Daniel's car.
When we found out about it we told him how disappointed we were that he had opened Daniel's car and didn't wait for Daniel to wake up. We also told him that Daniel probably would've liked opening his car but probably would've let James help, too. What we didn't do, thought, was specify any response. We didn't say anything about having to apologize to Daniel, I didn't say we weren't going to go play race cars now as punishment, nothing like that. We just told him we were disappointed and Daniel would've been happier if he'd waited and left it at that. Christine did tell him he needed to leave the car in the kitchen floor for Daniel to find and that James couldn't play with it until Daniel woke up, but that was the extent of it.
A few minutes after that Christine was in the kitchen again and the car was gone. She asked him where it was and he ran into the hall and said "Up there!" and pointed somewhere, I didn't see where. She said the car needed to stay in the kitchen an he needed to put it back, but he was firm, no, it was "up there" and he wouldn't, or couldn't, move it. I went to find out what was going on and that's when the full picture became clear.
He had taken the car upstairs and put it just outside Daniel's door, so he would find it as soon as he woke up. No prompting, no guidance at all, this was his solution to a problem that needed fixing.
And by the time we knew Daniel had woken up from his nap he was standing at the gate at the top of the stairs holding the car. So James' plan worked out better than ours in the end.
For James, there was a bit of a gradual development of empathy, he would periodically announce some fact that he understood — I shouldn't hit Brazen-cat because she will be sad. — but mostly it still seemed to be a collection of facts, not something he understood implicitly. Then, over the holidays, it was like a switch went on in his head and all of a sudden he was developing empathy and sympathy every day. The best part of this is getting almost daily spontaneous hugs and being told he loves us. That's awesome.
Anyway, today was his birthday party. As I said to a friend this evening, it was absolute pandemonium, but it was great on a lot of levels and the boys had an incredible amount of fun. In retrospect, it was at A Gym Tale and I think it would've been better if they boys had been there once or twice before so everything wasn't new and exciting for them, James at least would've been better able to focus on the games part of the event, but both boys loved it all anyway, so there's no real down side here.
Christine had an awesome idea last night, though, while re-packing the loot bags. The ones she initially bought were too small and most of them exploded in one way or another, so she bought larger ones. The larger ones still wouldn't accommodate the Hot Wheels cars we packaged, so she suggested we tie them to the ribbons on the balloons and send a balloon and car home with each of the kids that came to the party. That worked out perfectly as the cars were just the right weight to keep the balloons from flying away and it made each balloon choice more complex for the kids.
On the ~10m drive home from the party, though, Daniel nearly fell asleep. I had to keep chattering away at him the whole time, playing with his feet (yes, I'm that driver too, sigh...) and having James chant "wake up Daniel" most of the way. We got home, I handed him off to Christine, who was home first, and off he went to bed.
James then sat down on the floor of the kitchen and chose which of the two cars remaining would be his and which would be Daniel's. When he had made his choice I told him, "Okay, you can open your car and play with it and when Daniel wakes up we'll let him open his and he can play with it." I got an "okay" in response and we were done with it.
Fast-forward a half-hour or so and James asked me if we could go downstairs and play "race cars" (his name for Mario Kart Wii. I said sure, as soon as I was done extracting his dinosaurs from the packaging they came in. He, of course, wasn't interested in waiting while I undid twist-ties and extracted plastic bases, so he went off and did his own thing. Which, Christine found out too late, included opening Daniel's car.
When we found out about it we told him how disappointed we were that he had opened Daniel's car and didn't wait for Daniel to wake up. We also told him that Daniel probably would've liked opening his car but probably would've let James help, too. What we didn't do, thought, was specify any response. We didn't say anything about having to apologize to Daniel, I didn't say we weren't going to go play race cars now as punishment, nothing like that. We just told him we were disappointed and Daniel would've been happier if he'd waited and left it at that. Christine did tell him he needed to leave the car in the kitchen floor for Daniel to find and that James couldn't play with it until Daniel woke up, but that was the extent of it.
A few minutes after that Christine was in the kitchen again and the car was gone. She asked him where it was and he ran into the hall and said "Up there!" and pointed somewhere, I didn't see where. She said the car needed to stay in the kitchen an he needed to put it back, but he was firm, no, it was "up there" and he wouldn't, or couldn't, move it. I went to find out what was going on and that's when the full picture became clear.
He had taken the car upstairs and put it just outside Daniel's door, so he would find it as soon as he woke up. No prompting, no guidance at all, this was his solution to a problem that needed fixing.
And by the time we knew Daniel had woken up from his nap he was standing at the gate at the top of the stairs holding the car. So James' plan worked out better than ours in the end.
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| The car in question. I know it's a truck. |
What a sweet story! Congratulations on having a boy that has reached a big milestone! Tell him Auntie Ack is proud of him!
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