Wendy E

OK, I have a specific, NON-hypothetical question for you all. It is
regarding my very energetic, spirited, persistent and bright little 5
yo boy, Lucas. He is very curious and when we go someplace (like a
store or someone else's house) he finds it very hard to keep his
hands off other people's things. Specific example...yesterday we
walked across the street to my neighbors house(because he wanted to
go say hi to them). He immediately picks up a plastic baseball bat
in the yard and starts pounding on the ground...not a problem for me
(or my neighbor really) but he is getting close to her flowers, and
all her little yard chachkis (sp? you know, those things that people
put in their yard to decorate them?) and I'm getting a little
concerned that he will bust something up. Then he starts to walk
into the house without being asked (I don't know these people really
well...), we follow him in because my neighbor wants to show me some
work they are doing on the house...he starts picking things up from
the table, he turns light switches on and off....we go back outside,
back to the chachkis...knocks a little garden gnome over, takes them
out fo the ground, picks stones out of a little decorative fountain,
he just touches everything! This is a common thing for him...he is
so curious about his world and just wants to experience it by
touching everything. All the while this is happening my neighbor and
I are saying stuff like "oh, that has to stay there", "please put
that back", "look with your eyes" etc... He's such an amazing little
guy...so interested in the world around him...but when we are in a
social situation like that I find it very hard to get him to curb his
impulses. Then I end up getting frustrated because I find the answer
is just avoiding those situations altogether (I want to be able to
stop and talk to my neighbor for 10 minutes or visit a friend
etc....)...I should point out that her kids were playing on the patio
too and Ethan (my 2yo) was with us so it wasn't like he didn't have
other people to do things with or even that I wasn't paying attention
to him. OH, another example of this was the other day when we were
at our neighborhood pool club and we were leaving and apparently
Lucas walked by a chair and saw a hat on it. He just reached over
and picked it up and threw it on the ground and walked on....I didn't
see this myself. The woman who's hat it was, again a neighbor I
don't know well, ran up to me and (very rudely IMO) told me what had
happened...also pointing out that there was an $80 pair of sunglasses
in the hat that she didn't wish to replace! I think he just does
things like this because he is not aware. There is no malicious
intent...he just saw the hat and it looked like something fun to flip
on the floor, KWIM? We have talks about not touching things that are
not ours....it just seems like the process of understanding this is
coming really slow for him. It is pretty much the same scenerio when
we go to stores or even when we are at the park, he might just go up
to someone else's blanket and help himself to their snacks...So...I
guess the issue here is imparting on him the concept of other
people's belongings and personal space....any suggestions? I really
want to honor his curiousity and who he is....but when I go out with
him I have to watch him closer than I watch my 2yo....OK, this is a
rambling email...just sort of wanted to cover the realm of things he
does...I do find myself loosing my patience in these situations
sometimes and I would love to find some other ways of dealing with
it. OH, forgot to mention that at the neighbors yesterday he also
picked up a tennis ball and threw it inside their open door....Eye-
yeye-yeye!

Wendy

Joan Labbe & Salvatore Genovese

Hi, Wendy,

Since he's 5, how about going at it from the point of view of explaining
that you love his curiosity but asking him calmly how he would feel if it
were his hat and sunglasses that someone else tossed on the ground, or his
special flowers that got smushed or whatever the situation? I find with my
5 yo daughter she can go along with doing unto others what she would like to
have done unto her ... respecting the feelings in others she would like
respected in herself.

Joan


-----Original Message-----
From: Wendy E [mailto:mommytoluc@...]
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 12:03 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Touchy kid.....


OK, I have a specific, NON-hypothetical question for you all. It is
regarding my very energetic, spirited, persistent and bright little 5
yo boy, Lucas. He is very curious and when we go someplace (like a
store or someone else's house) he finds it very hard to keep his
hands off other people's things. Specific example...yesterday we
walked across the street to my neighbors house(because he wanted to
go say hi to them). He immediately picks up a plastic baseball bat
in the yard and starts pounding on the ground...not a problem for me
(or my neighbor really) but he is getting close to her flowers, and
all her little yard chachkis (sp? you know, those things that people
put in their yard to decorate them?) and I'm getting a little
concerned that he will bust something up.

Wendy E

As I said in my post...we do have these converstations...and I think
he understands, he just seems to have a hard time remembering when he
is in those situations....even from minute to minute...ie: he just
knocked over the garden gnome...."opps, we need to pick that back
up...that's a decoration they would like to stay there and not get
broken".....and two minutes later the tennis ball is thrown into the
house. The conversations don't seem to stick in the thick of it.

--- In [email protected], "Joan Labbe & Salvatore
Genovese" <salgenovese@w...> wrote:
> Hi, Wendy,
>
> Since he's 5, how about going at it from the point of view of
explaining
> that you love his curiosity but asking him calmly how he would feel
if it
> were his hat and sunglasses that someone else tossed on the ground,
or his
> special flowers that got smushed or whatever the situation? I find
with my
> 5 yo daughter she can go along with doing unto others what she
would like to
> have done unto her ... respecting the feelings in others she would
like
> respected in herself.
>
> Joan
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wendy E [mailto:mommytoluc@y...]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 12:03 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Touchy kid.....
>
>
> OK, I have a specific, NON-hypothetical question for you all. It is
> regarding my very energetic, spirited, persistent and bright little
5
> yo boy, Lucas. He is very curious and when we go someplace (like a
> store or someone else's house) he finds it very hard to keep his
> hands off other people's things. Specific example...yesterday we
> walked across the street to my neighbors house(because he wanted to
> go say hi to them). He immediately picks up a plastic baseball bat
> in the yard and starts pounding on the ground...not a problem for me
> (or my neighbor really) but he is getting close to her flowers, and
> all her little yard chachkis (sp? you know, those things that
people
> put in their yard to decorate them?) and I'm getting a little
> concerned that he will bust something up.

pam sorooshian

On Jun 16, 2004, at 9:47 AM, Joan Labbe & Salvatore Genovese wrote:

> Since he's 5, how about going at it from the point of view of
> explaining
> that you love his curiosity but asking him calmly how he would feel if
> it
> were his hat and sunglasses that someone else tossed on the ground, or
> his
> special flowers that got smushed or whatever the situation?

Also - you have a "touchy" kid and he will probably ALWAYS be like that
- expect him to gravitate toward careers that involve the sense of
touch. I have one of my three like that too - she was JUST like him
when she was five - I could have written just what you did - and she's
now a ceramicist, knitter, crocheter, and painter.

You'll have to have a "bag of tricks" to keep him from doing things
like flipping that hat over - you do want him to understand that
handling other people's things without permission is a bad idea, in
general. So - you'll want to say it - "Luc, don't handle other people's
things without permission." I mean, that is just a general principal
of getting along with other family members, friends, and neighbors and
he deserves to really know that - or people will not like to have him
around - now or in the future.

But - back to the bag of tricks. I used to literally carry a big bag
with me - not a little purse, but a BIG one - and the reason was that I
carried so many cool things in it - things to keep a kids hands happily
busy for 10 minutes or so. I still carry some things and I've helped
out other young moms quite a few times - pulled out a little handheld
game for example for their child to fool with for a few minutes while
we had a conversation.

This is one of those kinds of things that people will say, "Talk to him
about it, explain this or that....." - but if he's like my oldest
daughter, his touching impulse is too quick and strong - he isn't
capable of thinking first.

So - you can't get discouraged, he'll eventually learn to keep his
hands off and take more care of other people's property - but you'll
probably have to keep a far closer eye on him than other people do with
their kids his age and you'll need to find a way to do that without
being resentful of him being like he is (I know, you're not, I LOVE
your descriptions of him - you always are so careful to see and point
out the positive side of his traits).

It really wasn't okay for him to flip that person's hat over as he
walked by it - and if I had my sunglasses in there (they are $300
prescription sunglasses), I'd have been annoyed, too. You have a
dilemma there - because you really can't watch him and anticipate his
every move - sometimes you're just going to have to apologize sweetly
and move on. But, I would also want to make sure my child knew that the
person was really annoyed by it and that they had a right to be annoyed
- I wouldn't hold out on that information - he needs to know that
people won't like it if he fools with their things. STILL - no big
lecture - just , "Hey, she was mad at you for doing that with her hat -
let's not touch other people's things without their permission."

The other thing is give him a LOT of opportunity for that kind of
physical sensory input - probably far more than you can imagine he'd
want. Give him opportunities to smash things for example. And put him
in the bathtub with a big bowl of pudding and let him paint the tub and
himself with it. He needs soft things and rough things and smooth
things and gooey things and so on - lots and lots of kinds of things to
have his hands on with every texture.

Make a habit of playing games with him where you put something in a bag
and he reaches in without looking and has to guess what it is. Put
kernels of popcorn, rice, feathers, peeled grapes, sand, marbles, and
so on.

Do you have a sandbox? Do you make playdough? Do some kinds of crafts?
Build things with lego, blocks, etc? Build with popsicle sticks and
glue - fingerpaint (again - think bathtub for really messy arts and
crafts).

Make a giant "touch" book - use strong pages of paper and glue things
onto it - you write words like "We went for a walk and found a feather
(feather on that page) and a stick (glue stick on that page) and so on.

Get him his own tools - real tools that he can handle - hammer,nails,
saw. Help him learn to use them. If he's not quite ready to hammer
nails into wood - get styrofoam and hammer golf tees into it. Kids LOVE
to do that. In fact, chunks of styrofoam and golf tees is something I
used to have in my bag of tricks - in plastic baggies - I could pull
out a chunk of styrofoam and some brightly colored golf tees and kids
would have fun sticking them into the styrofoam, making patterns, etc.

OH - get pattern blocks and geoboards - get two geoboards with colored
rubber bands so you can make a pattern and he can try to copy it.

Again, geoboards and rubber bands can be in your bag of tricks. So can
dice, cards, handheld electronic games, small colored pencil sets with
a cool pad of paper, gel pens and black paper pads, MAGIC paper -
whatever they call it these days that is black and you scrape it and it
is colored underneath,

Go to michaels and look at the little craft kits - lace up leather
pouches, etc. There are so many he could do and you could just keep
them in your purse to pull out when needed.

If you give him more and more and more hands-on physical high touch
stimulating sensory input kinds of things to do - he'll find it easier
to keep his hands from automatically touching everything else.

Think of his hands as just CRAVING that sensory input - he needs a lot
of it. Don't just think of depriving him of it when it is not
appropriate, think of satisfying it in ways that are appropriate.

And - you may NOT be able to go stand in a neighbor's house or yard
that has too many temptations for him - it is only for a few years -
you can sacrifice putting him into those situations - with his needs,
it is a sort of set-up for you to do that to him.


-pam
National Home Education Network
<www.NHEN.org>
Serving the entire homeschooling community since 1999
through information, networking and public relations.

Wendy E

Thanks for the support and for all the great suggestions...
It was nice meeting you at the park today!

Wendy-


-- In [email protected], pam sorooshian
<pamsoroosh@m...> wrote:
> > Also - you have a "touchy" kid and he will probably ALWAYS be
like that
> - expect him to gravitate toward careers that involve the sense of
> touch. I have one of my three like that too - she was JUST like him
> when she was five - I could have written just what you did - and
she's
> now a ceramicist, knitter, crocheter, and painter.
>
> You'll have to have a "bag of tricks"

pam sorooshian

To everybody who has been reading about Wendy and her "touchy" kiddo,
Lucas -- I was lucky enough to meet them in person today and they are
absolutely DELIGHTFUL. Wendy, I was very impressed with how you
responded and related to your kids - you ought to be the one GIVING the
advice here!!! You're an awesome mom!!! And your adorable little boys
are lucky to have you!

-pam

On Jun 16, 2004, at 7:53 PM, Wendy E wrote:

> Thanks for the support and for all the great suggestions...
> It was nice meeting you at the park today!
>
> Wendy-
National Home Education Network
<www.NHEN.org>
Serving the entire homeschooling community since 1999
through information, networking and public relations.

Grame family

Pam I want to thank you for a great post full of great ideas! I have a
touchy kid too! While I'm here I might introduce myself.

My name is Raven and I have three kids: Ted is 6, Kat is 4 and Will is going
to be 2 in a matter of a few weeks.
Ted went to kindergarten at PS last year with a awesome patient, loving
teacher and he learned a lot about putting the lids back on markers and
cleaning up when you are finished and how to stand in line. However he did
not learn anything else really, not at her fault just that she had 20 kids
and Ted was so far ahead.

Ted is a very touchy kid, and highly sensitive. We sometimes struggle as
parents with this and we decided that since Ted taught himself to read at 2
1/2 and loves to learn that this should be the time to cut the school cord
and let him loose. We didn't want public school to try and "fix" his
sensitivity issues. He loves to hug and touch. This is one of our biggest
things, he is known to go up to school mates during a T-Ball game for
example and hug them. Luckily Dad is the coach and can gently remind Ted to
get in ready position. Also luckily for us Ted's two closest friends are
attachment parenting families and understand. He will touch other people
inappropriately, like seeing grandma's breast giggle, or diving under
strangers legs. I could see him in the hat position very easily. We also
understand that it is the touching he craves and often offer to hug him when
these situations arise. It's usually not enough because he also seems to
feed off of other people and recharges his batteries to souped up. We hope
he will outgrow it but for now try to talk to him about things that might
make other people uncomfortable. An example is that he should ask his
friends if it's okay to hug them or kiss them first. He doesn't remember
unless prompted however.

He has other sensitivities also, sound, light, food textures, seeing foods
he doesn't like, clothing, getting wet. I could go on. But to me he is his
perfect self and I know school would try to conform all the funny, loving
things he does.

I guess what I'm saying is that your not alone.

>"How do you (the collective "you" of the list) tell, or estimate, or what
>leads you to believe, that your kids "need" to socialize more?"
>Robyn L. Coburn

Boy, Ted can let you know when he hasn't socialized enough, he just gets
plain cranky! And wants to have parental play all day long! However if we
can get together with our AP group then he is good to build legos on his own
for hours afterwards. For me it's trying to figure out what is enough for
Ted and I. I don't craze socialization. I'm okay without seeing other
people for weeks. Ted will get stir crazy at the end of a week. So we
compromise. Usually we have a large group meeting at a park one day a week
and then have a small group of three families that get together another day.
If Ted is still needing to see more people we will go to the library book
club for his age group. There however we can run into that recharging of
his batteries (or soul) to such an extreme that his actions are not
appropriate for the library so we don't go on a regular basis.

I'm sure that was long winded enough. This seems like a great group.

Raven

Wendy E

I was pretty impressed with you and your girls as well. Hope to see
you again soon! (Count me out next week, I will most likely be down
and out because I'm getting my wisdom teeth out on Monday!).
Wendy, Lucas and Ethan....

--- In [email protected], pam sorooshian
<pamsoroosh@m...> wrote:
> To everybody who has been reading about Wendy and her "touchy"
kiddo,
> Lucas -- I was lucky enough to meet them in person today and they
are
> absolutely DELIGHTFUL. Wendy, I was very impressed with how you
> responded and related to your kids - you ought to be the one GIVING
the
> advice here!!! You're an awesome mom!!! And your adorable little
boys
> are lucky to have you!
>
> -pam
>
> On Jun 16, 2004, at 7:53 PM, Wendy E wrote:
>
> > Thanks for the support and for all the great suggestions...
> > It was nice meeting you at the park today!
> >
> > Wendy-
> National Home Education Network
> <www.NHEN.org>
> Serving the entire homeschooling community since 1999
> through information, networking and public relations.

Valerie

> And - you may NOT be able to go stand in a neighbor's house or
yard
> that has too many temptations for him - it is only for a few
years -
> you can sacrifice putting him into those situations - with his
needs,
> it is a sort of set-up for you to do that to him.
>
>
> -pam

******My sister has a touchy kid and when she wants to visit outside
with the neighbor for a few minutes, she asks the neighbor to come
to her yard to avoid all the crap in the neighbor's yard being
touched. After one visit from the touchy kid, the neighbor agreed. :-
)

love, Valerie