[blparent] sassy children

[Amy Murillo-Hicks]

Just to add some additional thoughts to the sassy children  subject.


1.  This is so particularly hurtful coming from our own children.  We give them everything including our whole hearts souls and all of our dreams.  So much of our own ego is wrapped up in everything they do.  We deal with the blindness ignorance crap every day from everyone else and to get it thrown back at us from our own must be so much more of a slap in the face to us as parents.  
2.  If blindness is a non issue in the home, then it should in turn be a non issue to the child.  The question then becomes where is it coming in.  Kids pick up everything and internalize it, spit it back out and see how it plays with their most important audience,  us as parents.  

I am really really fortunate in not having to deal with this with my kids because I think I made a conscious effort to be sure my kids when they were little have no contact with anyone who would demean my ability to parent.  Some would say that I was being unrealistic and that it will come up later and then be a problem.  What I can tell you is when my oldest was in Sunday school at age 4 and the subject of Jesus healing the blind came up, my child got in an argument with  his teacher and said that the blind people had nothing wrong with them and neither did his mom.   This pattern continues in other situations to this day.  When we encountered people on the street who would make unthinking comments, we would talk about it right away.  

I saw this is being the same for my oldest child who is bi-racial with his father absent.  I needed to work extra hard in instilling in him a sense of pride in who he is.

Teaching about pride and surrounding ourselves with good role models so far has been really key for us.  

Also catching them when they do bad stuff when you are in another room doesn't hurt either.l..

Just more comments from the peanut gallery.

Amy M-H