Summer successes

Our summer has been a bit drab or boring if you will.  We have not had a lot of activity mostly for financial reasons, of course there are things to do for free, but not everyday and even if they dont have an entrance fee, there is a cost to get there or expenses needed on the day!  So it has been a pretty quiet summer for us. We have the pool here in our complex, which luckily has not been too busy and the beach a few minutes drive away.  Also with everything going on we havent really had the mind to enjoy summer if you know what I mean.

But we have had some nice times, unfortunately not with so many photos this year as my camera is broken :-( which is a big shame as it looks to be our last here in Portugal.

We have had family visit and spent some time with them, we have had our local facarte which offers a few days of entertainment, visits with friends, days on the beach etc.

But we have had two significant successes this summer with both my children.  Sophie who is 6 and a half years old, despite having lived with a pool accessible every day has always been a bit scared of the water and not confident at all.  When we first arrived and she was 2 and a half, no matter how hot it got, she would not get in the pool for more than 10 minutes!  She has gotten a little better over time, having taken to a ring and quite happily splashing about, occasionally putting her face into the water, but wouldnt put her head back, no jumping, lifting nothing, she hated it and would cry.  But in the last month or so, a BIG change has occurred  as if overnight, she got confident.  Suddenly she wanted to jump and start to learn to swim so holding her, we helped but that only lasts so long.  So we bought her some armbands (she would never wear them before, I think because of feeling of lack of all round support) and off she went.  Now she goes underwater, jumps into the pool and all, its amazing and if over night and she loves the water.

Our second big success is my younger daughter, who has turned 3 at the beginning of the month. With both my children I have purposely left potty training to the nearer side of three, giving them as much time before training them.  So when Grace was about 2 and 8 months or so, (about the same time as Sophie) I decided to start trying.  I had tried a few months before but she clearly was not ready.  So we started and tried for a few days, she was excited to wear knickers, and mess about with the toilet but nothing happened.  On and off we tried but were clearly getting nowhere.  She would sit on the toilet do nothing and then within minutes pee on the floor or hold it for hours, until I put a nappy back on and then fill it within 30 minutes, very frustrating!  We put here in pull up pants and at nursery she would follow her friends who were also training, eventually after a few weeks she started going in nursery but still nothing at home.  Then last week, it suddenly clicked.  We put her in knickers for some time every day, in the hope of success but also due to the heat but suddenly she said she needed to make pee pee, so we put her on the toilet like I had done a hundred times before but this time it worked, I was so happy!  And as I cheered her on, she laughed, a good sign.  Not wanting to get too cocky and hail success, I cautiously waited, but she did it again and again.  Now we have had about 5 days and all seems to have fallen into place, as if overnight.  I knew she would get it but had no idea how long it would take and worried with her starting pre-school where she would need to be potty trained within a month!

So despite a quiet and little bored summer for the kids (if not the parents, too stressed to relax) we have had two big successes!

The difficulty of teaching life lessons

As a conscientious parent, you work hard to instill good values in your children and bring them up to be good people.  I think everyone has slightly different values and so you bring your children up along the lines that you believe are correct.  Some things of course always remain, hopefully we all want our children to become kind, hard-working, honest people to name a few.  It is not always easy to know exactly how to teach these values to our children, especially when they are young and things can be misunderstood or misinterpreted by a young child.

Values I think is important for me to teach my children is humility, empathy and to know the value of things.  I dont think I am hugely materialistic, (or maybe I am) but I have a habit which drives my husband to annoyance is that when my oldest ask me, for instance, about a large number on a calculator or about an item, I refer to it in a monetary sense.  Now, I know this is probably wrong and teaching her to be materialistic to a degree but it is something that I just do without thinking, and it wasnt until he pointed it out to me that I realised I did it.  I was brought up to save money, to value items.  My parents financially were well but I didnt not get big, expensive presents on my birthdays and christmas, as some of my other friends did.  So somehow it seems the message got a bit messed up in my brain and I now look at things with a monetary view, except I truly appreciate the value of money, nowadays more than ever!  So in this way, as I am trying to teach my daughter the value of things, I am not doing it in a healthy way.

Also in this way, as I want my children to appreciate the value of things, I want them to appreciate what they have and understand how lucky they are, that there are people who dont have all that we do.  To teach them humility.  One of my pet hates in life is spoilt people, especially children, I feel sorry for these children, whose parents have too much money and too little interest that they throw money and gifts and gadgets at their children.  Of course, every parent want to give their children what they want, but there has to be limits, right?  My daughter is always asking for things, as probably a lot of children do, and it drives me crazy.  We dont have a lot of money and she has so much stuff already, that it annoys me that she is not happy and always wants more.  So I try to explain to her how fortunate she is to have all that she has and that she should be happy with what she has.  And then I was thinking about this lesson, I was trying to teach, probably unsuccessfully as we have had this conversation many a time.  And it occurred to me, am I teaching her the right way, or am I teaching her to 'settle', to be happy with her lot and not to strive for more?  Are not the two lessons quite similar and could potentially get mixed up?  What do you think?