You may recall Gemma Hall at Mummy’s Waisted last week shared her dinosaur crafts for our Creative Kids series. I’m delighted she is back this week to share one of her trickiest parenting challenges for My Mountain…
I have two children – a boy of five and a girl who is two and a half. My son started school in September, so he’s just reached the halfway point of his Reception year (eek!).
Naively I thought I was mentally prepared for him being a school boy. We’d been through the dropping off process (having had a nightmare every single time at nursery for four years) and that clicked into place on day two, with him racing to be first into the classroom.
What I wasn’t expecting (and I suppose you can never predict everything) is a whole range of questions and concepts that I needed to explain, mostly on the hoof! These are the most memorable:
Marriage
My son likes to tell me that the only person he ever wants to marry is……his sister. No matter how many times I tell him that the policeman will put him in jail if he does, he will hear nothing of marrying anyone else. I’ve even been ‘modern’ and suggested that he can marry his best friend (a boy). And don’t even suggest that his sister might get married to his best friend!
Sleep
Why do I have to sleep in my own bed? Now this one does at least have some merit, as I co-sleep with my daughter in the double bed. My son can’t get his head around why he has to sleep by himself, despite the fact that Daddy has been relegated to the single bed in my daughter’s room.
Pieces of paper from school
This was one of those instances where I had to stifle a laugh! My son came home from school one day, reached down the front of his trousers and pulled out a piece of paper with a colouring pattern on it. I was genuinely lost for words – do I admire his gumption at being determined to get what he wanted, or give him a lecture on stealing?!
Lunch box
Now here’s a drama! My son is a very fussy eater, and we do pander to him at home, in an attempt to get him just to eat something. In his first term at school, he was doing me proud – trying new foods (enjoying most of them) and generally eating well. Since the New Year though, its been a constant battle of the foods he previously liked now being ‘yucky’. So he’s started having a lunchbox, which I made sure was filled with things he would definitely eat. Except he didn’t. Possibly as a result of not being able to sit with his friends in the ‘school meal section’. Now he doesn’t want a lunchbox…….argh!
Acceptance
After all that, I am immensely proud by what my son hasn’t asked about. His school is large, with a wide range of personalities, nationalities, abilities and sizes. He just accepts everybody as they are, whatever their differences, they are his friends.
Author Bio
Gemma is a mum to two children and has recently changed career from accountancy to internet marketing. She runs Waist Trainer UK and writes a blog as Mummy’s Waisted, which centres around her attempts to fit healthy living and fitness around family life.
Find Gemma on Twitter as @waisttrainer_uk or follow her Facebook page here.
Do you have a parenting struggle or challenge you’d like to write about? If you’re interested in contributing to the My Mountain series please email me at butterflymum83@gmail.com.
