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I've been doing a lot of thinking about non-cohersive parenting, and kept
saying to myself, "I don't THINK we coherse Julian into much."

I DO remind, but I don't know if we just have a mellow kid. Julian has no
deep objections to doing things like brush his teeth, but most of the time it
doesn't occur to him. If I say, "Why don't you go brush your teeth during the
commercial?" when we're watching tv, he'll generally just do it. He usually
goes to bed when we do, because he likes Beth to read to him before bed and
if he stays up too late she'll be asleep. Sometimes he'll read for a while
after, or he'll just turn out the light. We don't really have assigned
"chores," but he usually does all the laundry.

He watches a lot of tv at night with us, but usually plays at the same time.
He plays computer games for many hours at a time sometimes.

He'll ask me to nudge him about writing, because the idea of writing isn't
fun for him, but he loves having written. (Once he's started, he likes to do
it.)

Julian is twelve, and he's already six inches taller than me, and sweet and
quite lovely. He still likes to cuddle a lot, an initiates holding my hand in
public, often. We've been asked not to call him "Puff" or "sweetie" or other
lovie names in front of friends, but definitely in private. He's VERY
smart-- amazes me sometimes. He just read 1984 and had some brilliant
insights that I never would have thought of.

Kathryn


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