[Lisheo]

Traveller, on 05 September 2017 - 10:36 AM, said:

Stress is a transferable state though - if she starts stressing at this stage it's going to increase their anxiety about school starting (my daughter is already a bit worried about new class etc) and imo we should be the stable part of their lives, helping to deal with events and change, not adding unnecessary turmoil.

But I see your point, I'm probably not helping to improve her opinion on this.

Well, don't take anything I say as necessarily great advice. I don't know either of you, and I don't know the situation, not really. All I can really give is very general advice on what I would try and do, and even that's an opinion, really, right? And like I said, I don't think there's really any wrong or right way to go about relationships or parenting.

That said, I do see what you mean about her stressing out and it being transferable, but by the sounds of it, she's already starting to get stressed. However, getting stressed sometimes doesn't preclude you guys from being the stable part of anyone's lives. Anecdotal evidence, I know, but my parents were a ball of stress when I was a kid (no doubt my fault, little terror that I was), and they've always been a supportive, stable rock in my life. People get stressed over things, different people stress in different ways, and that's a totally natural thing. Again, this is only my opinion, best thing you could do is give her a call and try and work out what's up, hear her out and validate her worries, and maybe sit down with your son and spend a little time together when you get back.

EDIT: For the record, sounds like your son has done a load of work, and as you say, it's the last day of holidays, so I get where you're coming from, too. But I'm sure you can find a way to make hanging out with his dad doing a bit of reading together on his last free day great fun for him, it doesn't have to feel like work.

This post has been edited by Lisheo: 05 September 2017 - 11:00 AM

[Silencer]

Traveller, on 05 September 2017 - 10:02 AM, said:

My boy came home from his first year at school with a folder of books to read, and a scrapbook/diary to fill in.

Well, he's been keeping up with his reading every few days (around the day trips, camping, Birthdays etc) he's now pretty much filled his book up, and we've done some library trips where he's chosen his own books to read at home.

It's their last day of summer holiday today, I'm at work, and my wife has decided to text me a load of flack about him 'Not doing enough' and always being the one to get him to do anything.

My opinion - he's only five. He's done well. Don't worry about making him do more, go out and enjoy their last day off.

I haven't had a reply to that yet. Am I wrong?

My two cents - I'd try to figure out what she means. What measure is she using here to claim he hasn't done enough? (I sure as hell don't remember having a stack of homework over the holidays - but then reading was never a chore for me and five us pretty young so I might just not be remembering.) has he not done everything set? Did she want to engage him in more 'exploratory learning'? Or maybe she's just stressing in general and worried that he "hasn't done enough" in the same way I "never clean my room" (lol). Text really isn't a great medium for that conversation or to convey state of mind so it could just be aimless worry.

I'd say it probably would have been best to get some clarity before dismissing the concerns out of hand, though. Like I said, text ain't great for this stuff.
Given I don't think there's a lot to be done on literally the last day of the holidays I'm inclined to agree with you in general anyway, that they might as well enjoy it and do something fun but without full context of what was expected and what's caused the concern it's pretty hard to say for sure. Like I said though, I really don't remember having homework over school holidays, let alone between years - kinda defeats the purpose of holidays imo (which provide a great opportunity for learning that isn't obviously being marked or measured and lets the kids find out what they like a bit more than the guided learning in school).

But yeah, mainly I think your issue is with communication rather than any great philosophical debate about how much your five year old should have done and what to do with his last day.

[Mezla PigDog]

My womanly take on this - Traveller's missus is spending today running round getting stuff ready for the kids to go back to school and is feeling grumpy about doing it all. Whatever the split in domestic duties is in your family she's fed up about it right now.

We have a relatively even split in our house for practical stuff but I carry the load with preempting things and finding out how to solve problems. Admittedly a lot of those problems aren't even noticed by Mr PigDog so he doesn't understand when I occasionally I go batshit insane about it and ruin a bank holiday weekend for everyone.... Anyway, she's probably just stressed. It does sound like more than enough work for a 5 year old. Has she spoken to a friend who has been bragging about their kid doing more by any chance?

My groove is messed by a loudly knocking postman who just woke up my sick child. Goddamn it.

[Loki]

Mez is probably right on this.

That said, when did five year olds start getting homework? And during holidays? Unless the homework is 'Have fun and play' I would've vetoed it from the get go.

Silencer makes a good point about checking the measure by which your partner is determining whether the child has done enough work. Is this your first child? Maybe her expectations are different from yours or maybe she is comparing him to other peoples kids (or how other people portray their kids) or something.

[QuickTidal]

Loki, on 05 September 2017 - 01:11 PM, said:

Mez is probably right on this.

That said, when did five year olds start getting homework? And during holidays? Unless the homework is 'Have fun and play' I would've vetoed it from the get go.

Silencer makes a good point about checking the measure by which your partner is determining whether the child has done enough work. Is this your first child? Maybe her expectations are different from yours or maybe she is comparing him to other peoples kids (or how other people portray their kids) or something.

I agree.

In fact, I don't recall EVER getting work over summer break when I was a kid. Not at any point in my grade school years at any rate.

[LadyMTL]

QuickTidal, on 05 September 2017 - 01:26 PM, said:

Loki, on 05 September 2017 - 01:11 PM, said:

Mez is probably right on this.

That said, when did five year olds start getting homework? And during holidays? Unless the homework is 'Have fun and play' I would've vetoed it from the get go.

Silencer makes a good point about checking the measure by which your partner is determining whether the child has done enough work. Is this your first child? Maybe her expectations are different from yours or maybe she is comparing him to other peoples kids (or how other people portray their kids) or something.

I agree.

In fact, I don't recall EVER getting work over summer break when I was a kid. Not at any point in my grade school years at any rate.

FWIW I'm firmly in the "let kids be kids" camp, though I have no offspring of my own so I'm no expert. The way I see it the child will have enough work later on in life - both school work and other stuff like chores, and etc - that when they're five let them enjoy being five. I'm with QT in that I never got work over summer break, with one exception one summer where I was sort of forced to take some advance placement English classes for a few weeks, and that was in high school.
Summertime is funtime, otherwise.

As for my groove, it is currently all messed up because of work, again. Our office admin is on vacation, and her backup (who was informed only on Thursday that she was going to be the backup) doesn't have all of the access needed to do the admin's job...digital certificates and internal networks and so on. The boss asked IT to work it out ASAP, but for the time being we're all basically sitting here watching paint dry. I can help out a bit even when working from home, because I do have some of the access that the backup doesn't have, but it's still boring as balls. I can't imagine how long the week is going to be if they can't get this sorted.
The lack of foresight just baffles me. They knew for weeks that the admin was taking vacation, and yet still this happens.

This post has been edited by LadyMTL: 05 September 2017 - 03:16 PM

[Lisheo]

Heavy rains where I work. I'm never going to get back home on time knowing the British rail system.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 05 September 2017 - 01:26 PM, said:

Loki, on 05 September 2017 - 01:11 PM, said:

Mez is probably right on this.

That said, when did five year olds start getting homework? And during holidays? Unless the homework is 'Have fun and play' I would've vetoed it from the get go.

Silencer makes a good point about checking the measure by which your partner is determining whether the child has done enough work. Is this your first child? Maybe her expectations are different from yours or maybe she is comparing him to other peoples kids (or how other people portray their kids) or something.

I agree.

In fact, I don't recall EVER getting work over summer break when I was a kid. Not at any point in my grade school years at any rate.

We always had a reading assignment, one or more books we had to read and be ready to discuss/work with as soon as the school year started. In later years that included some sort of diary of our reactions/impressions/whatever.
I generally hated this.
Deeply.
...Hated having my summer reading dictated to me. Hated the book choices. Hated the diary thing...
...and inevitably ended up doing it at the last possible moment, in the briefest way possible, and fake backdating the diary, because i figured out early that we wouldn't be 'graded' on it and if i half-ass read the stupid books i could answer any question the teacher threw my way with something that sounded far more informed than i was.



Hey Trav, is it possible 'not doing enough' just means he hasn't written enough in the stupid diary?

[Traveller]

He's done plenty. I don't know why she thinks there should be more - maybe she thinks that I should have been sitting at the table with him more, instead of taking him out and making sure he had lots of interesting things to write about.

My groove was messed as I got a text about it when I was at work when I'm unable to do anything about it, and also makes me worry that she's been telling him that he's not done enough; which I think would be.. unhelpful.

And yes she's bound to be stressed by the whole back to school thing, but that is when support is needed the most.

Ah well I'm off in an hour, I'll guess I'll find out soon enough.

I'm still pissed that I have to work tomorrow on their first day back - I've not missed a first day yet. Might sound dumb but it's going to be hard leaving for work tomorrow.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 05 September 2017 - 04:43 PM

[JPK]

The Eagle Creek fire Just keeps spreading.

The worst part is that this started because some stupid fucking kid decided to shoot off fireworks in the forest while the area was under a no fires warning.

I'm unbelievably pissed right now.

Edit: Fire is still burning out of control and has spread over 10000 acres through the Oregon Gorge. They've issued lvl 1 evac warnings through the city of Troutdale, which is a suburb of Portland proper. They still are claiming 0% containment on the fire.

This post has been edited by JPK: 05 September 2017 - 10:06 PM

[Macros]

Hangover

[Andorion]

After today I am entirely convinced that large staff meetings were invented in an attempt to cure insomnia.

In the last three days I have attended two meetings.

In the first one 90% of the content was utterly irrelevant to my department (and probably the entire organization) and the rest 10% was so marginally relevant it could have been included in a 4 sentence email.

In todays meeting I heard everything I know repeated. Several times. Also one guy stopped talking and started making weird gestures and grinning. I am losing my mind.

[Lisheo]

It's been messing with my groove for a while, but actual Nazis are actually back. I mean, not that they ever went away in the first place, but now they've essentially formed a symbiotic relationship with "men's rights advocates" and the rest of that sorry bunch.
I miss being young, when I thought that we might eventually solve all the problems of the world.

[Lady Bliss]

Andorion, on 06 September 2017 - 04:58 PM, said:

After today I am entirely convinced that large staff meetings were invented in an attempt to cure insomnia.

In the last three days I have attended two meetings.

In the first one 90% of the content was utterly irrelevant to my department (and probably the entire organization) and the rest 10% was so marginally relevant it could have been included in a 4 sentence email.

In todays meeting I heard everything I know repeated. Several times. Also one guy stopped talking and started making weird gestures and grinning. I am losing my mind.

You need to start staging emergencies so you can get called away.

[Malankazooie]

Damn, CNN's reporting on Hurricane Irma is scary af. I don't know if they are being overly hyperbolic, but descriptions like "one of the strongest storms ever recorded" and "thirty straight hours with winds at 185 miles per hour" is a major groove messer with.

[worry]

It's being reported -- and it's an estimate granted, but this comes from its prime minister -- that 90% of the structures on Barbuda were destroyed. PM Browne called the island "uninhabitable".

http://abcnews.go.co...ory?id=49665358

[Malankazooie]

Holy shit, the hurricane news keeps piling on. I read that behind Irma there are two more storms that have reached hurricane status: Jose and Katia.

pic.twitter.com/JnePDWiHee

[Silencer]

Malankazooie, on 07 September 2017 - 03:24 AM, said:

Holy shit, the hurricane news keeps piling on. I read that behind Irma there are two more storms that have reached hurricane status: Jose and Katia.

pic.twitter.com/JnePDWiHee

Almost like there's some sort of climate change going on.
So much for all those people smugly pointing out that these used to be more common, huh?

[Silencer]

Lisheo, on 06 September 2017 - 05:27 PM, said:

It's been messing with my groove for a while, but actual Nazis are actually back. I mean, not that they ever went away in the first place, but now they've essentially formed a symbiotic relationship with "men's rights advocates" and the rest of that sorry bunch.
I miss being young, when I thought that we might eventually solve all the problems of the world.

Yeah, sadly they have much more of a platform and are getting bolder again. One can hold out hope that this time is really a "last gasps" kind of thing but it's a sad reminder that this shit doesn't just go away.

It's also made me a lot more cynical about the Internet - much as I love it, and want it to stay free (so to speak), there is no doubt in my mind that between the forums, 24 hour news cycle, ease of gathering like minded individuals together, and the fucking trolls who think they're all just being funny, the Internet has played a large part in this resurgence of hate, bigotry, and ignorance. Maybe that's for the best. Maybe it's better if the problem is out in the open. But it still sucks.

[Gust Hubb]

My dad booked next weeks vacation into irmas path. Scrambling to find other options and reorg the complicated pickup for the boys. No renigging or postponing either thanks to my ex having a locked down schedule.... fml