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I'm watching a young child (not mine) grow up over the years, and how his parents handled situations. I'm asking parents of older kids to predict what the future might be like.
Birth - parents exhausted, financially broke, not ready for kids
Birth to age 4 - parents continue to be exhausted. Don't have their kid doing many activities, lots of tv watching and staying at home. Mom is struggling with parenthood. Since kid is dependent on mom and dad and not independent, mom is struggling with doing a good job.
Age 5 - 8 - new age of activities. Doing stuff a lot. Making up a lot of stories (i.e., lying) about what their kid is doing. Kid wants to be involved in everything and likes doing lots of stuff. Moms life is 100% revolving around kid and kid drives family to go out and do stuff. Mom and Dad feel they are thriving as parents because the kid can take care of many of own needs.
What would you expect age 9 and up will be like? Soon the family will be in the tween and teen years. Do kids of this age normally still like doing a lot of activities? I expect if the kid gets tired of doing things, or starts to want to do things on his/her own, mom will struggle and not feel role is important in life.
What I'm really wondering - how long until the kid transitions from "I want to do everything" into "I am really picky about what I do and don't want to do".
I know that I decided around 3rd or 4th grade, so I'm thinking the day is coming before too long for them.
Are you talking about family activities or extracurricular type activities. My children never really tired of family type activities like vacations or restaurant trips or whatever.
One always focused on a couple of activities. Which one depended upon the time of year. The other was into everything. At some point in her early high school years we told her she had to decide on one time intensive extracurricular. The second time intensive activity had to be dropped. She still did other things that didn't take a lot of time.
It really depends what the activity is and how competitive the child is in an activity.
Much of what tween kids do is shaped by the friends they make as well as the involvement of their parents. By involvement, I mean if the parents are supportive of specific interests and have the financial resources to pay for certain activities and will drive kids to events....
Age 5 - 8 - new age of activities. Doing stuff a lot. Making up a lot of stories (i.e., lying) about what their kid is doing. Kid wants to be involved in everything and likes doing lots of stuff. Moms life is 100% revolving around kid and kid drives family to go out and do stuff. Mom and Dad feel they are thriving as parents because the kid can take care of many of own needs.
What would you expect age 9 and up will be like? Soon the family will be in the tween and teen years. Do kids of this age normally still like doing a lot of activities? I expect if the kid gets tired of doing things, or starts to want to do things on his/her own, mom will struggle and not feel role is important in life.
Apparently theres disapproval of this moms parenting style.
How do you conclude the parent lies about the childs activities?
Much of what tween kids do is shaped by the friends they make as well as the involvement of their parents. By involvement, I mean if the parents are supportive of specific interests and have the financial resources to pay for certain activities and will drive kids to events....
I agree with your first sentence Squirl, it's right on, but I also believe parents can be very involved and supportive of specific interests, etc, without having to put out money or drive kids to events.
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