Tattle Prattle

TODAY'S ACTIVITIES:

• Hardware Busy Board
• Dusting
• Bead Stringing
• Transferring
• Sweeping

My son and I skipped school yesterday and participated in an impromptu playgroup instead. (This served as a sort of raincheck for last Friday's cancelled playgroup.) Both Parker and I had a pleasant time, he sharing his friends' trucks, me gabbing with the other moms. At the end of the morning, though, I found myself thinking about tattling, pretty much for the first time ever. An extreme prejudice against tattletales exists in our culture. I grew up indoctrinated to believe tattling to be the worst crime you could commit as a school kid. Name-calling? Not nice. Spitting? Gross. Kicking? Mean. Hitting? Hurtful (literally). But tattling? Man oh man, if you were unfortunate enough to get caught tattling, the best you could do was just pick up stakes and transfer to another school. Known tattletales faced a certain destiny of cold shoulders and even colder disdain. And that from the other kids. The teachers seemed to possess even less tolerance for tattling than their charges, turning a deaf ear to any child who so much as hinted at telling on another. Having started school at an extremely early age, I cottoned on to this quick and never let hurt feelings or bodily injury entice me into tattling. As an adult, I've often experienced a gut reaction of disgust upon encountering tattletales, both young and old. It suddenly occurs to me--and it kind of scares me--that I've never really examined this prejudice I instinctually possess. I'm normally not one to go along with an accepted ideology just because it's, well, accepted. So, about this terror of tattling...

The subject comes up because my son approached me a couple of times yesterday morning to say that his friend did this or his friend did that. My initial (unexpressed) reaction was one of irritation; having no desire to abide his tattling, I wanted to tell Parker to deal with the situation himself. When interacting with my son, though, I have started to use a time-delay system, sort of like the FCC's broadcast delay that's meant to catch celebrities' curse words. I don't curse, but my initial response to my son can sometimes be reactionary and self-centered. A ten-second delay is usually enough of a pause for me to remember to take myself out of the equation, so that I can actually listen to my son without a "but how is this going to affect ME?!" bias. Once I could hear Parker objectively, I realized that he wasn't so much tattling as asking me, his parent/teacher, for guidance. If he could have been more eloquent, he would have said, "My friend did such and such. Is this OK? If it's not OK, how should I respond?" I'm 33, and I still at times have social interactions that cause me to ask those questions. Existing within a society can be tricky, especially since we're not always on our best behavior. Preschoolers have notoriously little impulse control, possess a tenuous (at best) grasp of morality and have only just begun to figure out the codes of civility. We should expect them to have a hard time playing nice with their friends, and we should also expect to have to exert some energy ourselves when certain situations arise. One of our most important jobs as parents and educators is to provide young children with a moral framework that will serve them for the rest of their lives. When our kids come up to us and say, "So-and-so did this," they aren't tattling; they're providing us with teaching opportunities. I'm not saying that we should stand up and intervene; angrily shouting, "Hey, Johnny! Stop throwing sand at my kid!" won't teach anybody anything. We should sit down and explain, instead, giving our children the guidance they're seeking. When a child tattles, he's looking for confirmation that something that happened is or isn't OK, and he's asking for help formulating an appropriate response. It's not as easy as waving a dismissing hand and saying, "Work it out between yourselves," but I think it's the more considered course of action.

TGIF

TODAY'S ACTIVITIES

• Washing Dishes
• Playgroup
• Sweeping

OK, so the Caribbean is gorgeous, yes, and I am very thankful that I can take my child to the beach whenever I want to, and the iguanas and donkeys are awesome, too, but does it have to get so freakin' hot? I was dripping with sweat before 7 AM this morning, and I have to say that a hot and sticky mommy is not always a patient, kind and affectionate mommy. I've no idea how mothers in Iraq make it through the summer; can you imagine chasing and cleaning up after your small child in temperatures topping 130°? I cannot.

On Friday mornings, we have playgroup. I thought about trying to fit in a school session either before or after, and maybe I will further on in this adventure, but Fridays for now will be set aside for socializing,

which is unequivocally valuable for both preschoolers and their mothers. So the school shelves stayed in the closet today, though my son and I did practice a couple practical life activities outside of "school." Parker assisted me in the kitchen this morning, getting out his breakfast dish and the items I'd need to make his meal. After eating, he washed his own dishes. He did a fine job--and loved that he got to help me and play with soapy water at the same time! Later, Parker swept up his graham cracker crumbs (as well as an embarrassing amount of "Mommy hair" that constantly litters the floor no matter how often I vacuum). He's had his own little broom and dustpan since he was a toddler, but today I actually took the time to demonstrate "proper technique" to him. He used precise and careful movements and painstakingly made sure he got every speck off the floor, walking over to the trash can to empty his dustpan every time it had more than two crumbs in it. I painstakingly made sure I remained patient while I watched him turn what's for me a 30-second task into a 10-minute exercise.

Have I told you it's hot? I'm off to sew more button holes...

No Kid Is an Island

I am not at all crafty. I don't "scrapbook," I don't knit, I have a hard time drawing anything that looks like, well, anything and I never learned how to use a sewing machine. So the knowledge that I will soon be needing to create Montessori teaching materials daunts me. But it is a challenge for which I am ready. What I find more daunting about my decision to homeschool my son is the fact that I will not only need to develop his intellect but also his social skills. Socialization is integral to the learning process; a child never ceases in his quest to figure out the nuances of social interaction as well as his own identity within his social framework. I feel confident that I will be a skilled guide in my son's quest for knowledge; I am fraught with insecurity about whether he will grow into a socially well-adjusted human being in the absence of classmates (and siblings).

This is where living on a small island is both helpful and a hindrance. It's helpful because the community is strong; we've lived here for over a year and by now it is difficult to run an errand without bumping into a friend or acquaintance (and thus having some sort of social interaction). Parker is almost always involved in these run-ins. Though he still at times likes to "play shy," islanders never fail to say hello to him, ask him how he is, what toy he's holding onto--whether he's in the mood to answer or not. And he cannot fail to notice while I conduct neighborly conversations with the people we encounter throughout the course of each day (e.g., neighbors, store clerks, friends). Another beneficial aspect of living in a small community is that a trip to the playground is pretty much an instant playdate. St. John has a total of two playgrounds and my son nearly always sees a friend of his when we go to one or the other, which we do at least three times a week. Plus, I quickly met some other mothers when we first moved here, with whom we now have a weekly playgroup. The downside of living on a small island is the limited population. There aren't a ton of kids Parker's age on St. John, and all of them (except for Parker, of course) attend school outside the home. In a larger community, we could conceivably get to know other young kids whose moms have decided to homeschool, and even do school activities together with them. Here, it's getting more and more difficult to arrange playdates due to Parker's friends' school schedules.

So, running into people around town, playground excursions, a weekly playgroup and occasional playdates: is it enough? Our weekly playgroup consists of Parker and two of his little friends. This morning we had it at our house because the aforementioned rains made the playground where we normally meet up nonviable. Playgroup on his "turf" definitely stresses my son's social skills. The last thing I want to do is overanalyze his every interaction with his playmates but, as I said earlier, I am fraught with insecurity about this whole socialization and homeschooling thing. My son yelled at his friends this morning; is this a certain sign that he's doomed to be antisocial for the rest of his life? Should I derive confidence from the fact that he apologizes readily and seemingly sincerely? He generously shared his toys with his friends but he also had a potty accident; did he pee his pants because socializing causes him anxiety? I know. He's 3. I'm overanalyzing. But what about when he's 6, or 16? Will this decision to keep him home with me prove positive?