Connecting science and parenting
For years now, Fleur has loved certain Disney movies. One common characteristic is this breaking out into song.
The song serves a purpose: explanation of the situation to carry the story. The protagonists have a need and express it through song.
The other day, Fleur started singing. Not one of the songs from a movie. Something made up about what she was doing.
So better than the movie.
Fleur hates heavy clothing. She tends to want to wear short sleeve dresses and shorts. Which is great in the spring to fall, but a challenge in the winter.
“If is an enormous word” was about giving her the freedom to make the choice. In part because it was border-line cold. I was telling her I trusted her to make the decision.
Today, she put on shorts. I didn’t question it despite it being pretty cool. She recognized it and asked me, “Will it be warm today?” Which brings us to the Miss Congeniality scene…
Fatherly has a good post on scaffold parenting. I am by trade a fixer, so hanging back and letting something else do it takes all of my patience. At work, I am in a new role, so I have my replacements doing the work and advising when they need help. Basically, using my parenting at the office.
Scaffolding is a process where an adult helps a child manage a task that they couldn’t otherwise manage on their own. It requires situational wisdom about when to provide children with temporary support, when to allow them to make mistakes by doing things on their own, and helping them through the reflection process when things don’t work out how they would like.
What Is Scaffold Parenting, and Should I Do It?
Only if you’re willing to grow alongside your child. Fatherly.com April 22, 2022
Fleur craved physical independence, so I had to learn to let her do things. Right now she is also into social development. She loves her dolls, gave each a personality, and workshops her friendships. The challenge will be school and whether she approaches it like Ada or me. Hopefully Ada.
The other day, Fleur gave me her doll so she could better play on the playground. Any doll that fits, I tend to either put in a pocket or the hammer loop.
The latter usually gets a quizzical look from other parents.
Look, my job as a solo parent is to ensure the child playing on equipment rated for children older than her both does it herself and doesn’t end up in the ER. She gets to feel independent. I get to feel needed. Holding a doll in my hands and catching a child interfere with each other.
Previously: cargo shorts and cargo shorts II
So, this girl committed home invasion on three bears, uses their stuff, tastes their prepared meal, and sleeps in their beds. Invariably, one was too extreme in one direction, another in an opposite direction, and the last just right. Too hot, too cold, just right.
The Universe seems similar.
So many things are just right for our existence.
We also have one star instead of two or three like most star systems. We also have water in the Goldilocks Zone when it should be more common out near Uranus and beyond.
So much had to go right in the Universe and locally for us to exist.
A friend described my home as rural. We have a barrier of trees obscuring the subdivision behind us. On the other side of them is another just being built and the other side of them a major shopping center. Across the street, behind them is a farm with horses. Another farm with cows is close enough, I can hear them moo.
On the drive to school, we pass a puppy daycare which always elicits excitement when they are in the pens outside. There is also a pasture with goats.
The troubling one is we pass an auction house. Sometimes they auction cars. This week, they have cows. Fleur has not asked where they go yet. And, honestly, I am not sure. I think they probably will go slaughter.
In that context, I found this article interesting:
Many adult consumers are averse to harm against living entities yet accept food production systems involving harm to maintain their eating practices. To solve this inner moral conflict, adults have been shown to objectify food animals (Bastian & Loughnan, 2017; Bratanova et al., 2011)—attributing less intelligence, sentience, and ability to suffer. Our data shows, in late childhood, children evaluate eating animals and animal products as less morally acceptable. Children may be less likely to objectify farm animals as demonstrated by their reduced likelihood of classifying animals as food. Hence, we can speculate that adults learn effective strategies to solve inner moral conflicts regarding animal treatment. This, however, does not warrant the conclusion that children simply see all animals as equal. To assess that possibility, we asked participants about animals that we could argue have particular moral standing in society, namely, humans great ape cousins on the one hand (chimpanzees) and pests (rats) on the other (see Supplemental Information for results). We found that children think that chimpanzees ought to be treated better than pigs, and pigs better than rats. An important step in the research will be to establish at what age, and why, children start to form moral hierarchies.
McGuire, Luke; Palmer, Sally; Faber, Nadira. The development of speciesism: Age-related differences in the moral view of animals. Social Psychological and Personality Science.
My reluctance to offer up what will happen to these cows is related to that. I am not sure how I will respond when she asks.
Fleur prefers short sleeves and shorts. In the winter, the challenge has been to keep her warm enough. She probably sees me wear short-sleeves and a coat so she argues to do that as well. Acknowledging it, I do often let her wear short sleeves with a coat plus pants.
The spring adds another complication. It is cold in the morning, so she needs pants then. It warms up in the afternoon, so I send shorts to school she can change into after nap.
One morning, it was border-line. I did allow her to go to daycare in shorts but I sent along pants. I think she thought she was going to have to wear them. In an exasperated tone after taking much complaining, I said, “If… If… IF you want to wear pants because you are cold, you have them in your bag. It is your choice.”
At the end of the day, she didn’t wear them. That’s okay. As long as she made the choice. And didn’t avoid them because I offered.
Setup: The dolls are the students. I am the current teacher. Fleur is the parent or school administrator.
Action: I am to perform the things Fleur’s teacher does: read, talk about things, supervise naptime, etc.
The real tricks are the interruptions. Fleur as parent drops off the kid. Fleur as the school administrator takes the kid potty, to the gym. My personal favorite: she relieved me to go get lunch at naptime.
Small talk with strangers can be difficult. I didn’t realize being a father opened huge amounts of conversation opportunities with other men in the same situation.
I took the car to get something looked at. I also know the service advisor from the pool. He explained a medium walk winded him. Having a sedentary computer job, I strongly related. And gave some advice about how I use Fleur to get me exercise. He picked up on how this it makes her use up energy so she sleeps better.
The other service advisors are friendly, but I do not find it so simple to latch onto something to talk about for more than a throwaway remark.
Other dads I meet at the playground are easy to talk to about how they approach dealing with their kids. Same at daycare, grocery stores, and anywhere I run into other parents.
Apparently I am that point of being a girl dad where Ads asks about the pink pants. Fleur is mystified. I am mystified.
Then I notice the coral pants and, “you mean these?”
Polymath Parent 