Schuyler

>Obviously no one here would give a 2 year old welding gear limit-free. But
>RU parents are more likely to let the small ones try welding with a LOT
>of limits >placed on the activity until they're proven to have some level
>of wisdom about the dangers involved.

I think what you are saying are limits I would perceive as help, as time, as
others involved. I wouldn't really want to start welding without some advice
about what to wear and what to do and I'm 39. I certainly wouldn't actually
even expect that a two year old could even so much as light the welder.

> but mine will do nothing but play RuneScape all day if it's allowed, (and
> sometimes it is).

I imagine Simon and Linnaea would play RuneScape all day if was
allowed/disallowed. I imagine they would do many things semi-obsessively if
there was a question of me controlling access to that thing, that item, that
experience. But with the freedom to choose between television and video
games (many, many video games) and RuneScape and World of Warcraft and Skype
and all of those things yesterday they spent most of the day creating paper
airplanes. Today they hung out together looking for videos on youtube.com,
got the cat for each other, built geo-mag sculptures, helped me find box
tape, talked about Harry Potter with me, created new characters on World of
Warcraft (Simon didn't play his but Linnaea got hers to level 4), and now
they are watching Yugioh (Simon is very excited because he's catching the
first episode of the first series).

I think it's easy to see an unnatural obsession when something is new and
exciting or limited. The funny thing is if you were to sit and watch, over a
week or two or three, maybe even a month, you'd find that the obsession
would wane, that RuneScape would be popular some days and not others. And
maybe somedays rather than play somebody else's story they'll write their
own and act it out while moving through the house, or tell you, or borrow
the video camera and put it up on youtube. It's like Simon's or Linnaea's
diet; on any given day it may look unbalanced, but if you look at it over a
week, they eat very well.

> I think RuneScape is a very valuable activity. So is dancing, and
cleaning your room, and reading a book, and climbing trees and hanging out
with your >family...all of those things are limited here, though I frankly
don't have to set too many limits on excessive room-cleaning!

I'm not sure that I understand this, you are limiting how long they can hang
out with their family? Why are you concerning yourself so much with limits.
Why can't they dance and sing and clean their rooms and read a book and
climb trees and hang out with their family to their hearts content? And on
the same level what is so scary about being focused on an amazing story
telling, immersive game like RuneScape?

>
> Thing is, we can argue all day about whether TV has any inherent worth
> (yes & no--it's a tool, depends on how you use it) and whether limiting
> use of video >games makes me a bad RU mommy, but I see my job as helping
> my children to acquire wisdom, and the way we've chosen to do so is by
> making "all things in >moderation" our mantra. You may choose to help
> your children aquire wisdom in a different way.

>I get the feeling many of you teach wisdom the "sink or swim' way in which
>you let your kids immerse themselves in whatever impulse they have at any
>given >moment.

I think you are angry here. I think you are speaking out of a sense that
what is being advocated here is so different from what you believe and what
you do that it makes you angry. Anyhow, I don't let my children sink or
swim. I am right there with them in the swimming pool, swimming along side,
holding them up, helping them with whatever they want help with, and more
often than not, being absolutely amazed at the skills or ideas the already
possess. I like swimming with them. I like helping when they play on the DS
or when they play a game on the PS2 or the Wii or the gamecube or the PC or
board games or building paper airplanes or looking up what the kangaroos
that are hopping around the cabin are while staying in Australia, or
creating a Yugioh deck to play against Simon or putting face paint on
Linnaea. I like being a part of their lives, and I want to support them and
help them in whatever impulse (which is a bit slighting, don't ya' think?)
they have at any given moment.

>I can't presume to know what's best for yours.

But if I came to this list and said my kids just can't handle choices and
freedom so I make the decisions for them, I hope that someone would help me
to see the error in my understanding of my children. I would much rather
that someone be an advocate for them than that they say "well I'm sure I
can't presume to know what is best for your children.

>
> And some adults probably--me being one of them!--could be told the same
> thing. The difference is that I've learned to deal with my impulse
> control (sort of) and >my kids haven't.

How have you done that? Honestly. I can tell you my "impulse control"
epiphany moment. I was at this lovely little boutique in Durham, UK (not
North Carolina) where I'd found a nice sweater for David and I found a very
chic button-up sweater with yarn frill cuffs. Very over the top. And I asked
David if I could have it. Which is just weird in retrospect. I can buy
clothes, but I still felt a need to ask permission from my husband to buy a
sweater. I didn't really like the sweater, but I wanted it. And I have it.
After we left the shop and for a few days later I felt kind of sick about
the sweater. It wasn't going to make me happy, it wasn't going to make me
feel better, it really wasn't even the style of sweater that I tend to find
attractive. I still have it, it was only a few years ago that it happened,
and I wear it. But it was that sweater that made me realize that I can buy
what I want and what I need and I don't need to buy everything that catches
my eye to feel loved or supported or whole.

Linnaea and Simon, they turn things down all the time. I offer to buy
Linnaea a dress or a couple of dresses and she will maybe pick out one and
that's all she wants. For her birthday she wanted to pick out a pair of
earrings. I was happy to get her a couple of pairs, whatever pair she
wanted. She picked out a very simple, very elegant, very inexpensive pair
and was happy with that. Simon will turn down many, many things. They feel
loved and supported in most of their interests, enough so that they don't
have to grab at everything that is offered. I'm not saying that they don't
like the things they like. Simon buys a lot of packs of Yugioh cards,
Linnaea buys stuffed animals. But they don't feel any need to get things
they don't really want to feel happy or fulfilled.

>They see something they want this second, and everything else falls away,
>including the bigger picture things they want (i.e that kid refusing swim
>class to stay with >cousins could be my daughter--who will sometimes claim
>not to want to go to dance class when she's immersed in something else--but
>in fact dance class is her >passion and once she's there she's very glad of
>it. You may think I'm interpreting this wrongly, but it's true--she
>sometimes doesn't know what she really wants-->she just knows her immediate
>desires.

How aren't her immediate desires what she wants? I would be very nervous
that you are giving her the message that she doesn't truly know herself or
her own desires. I would really hope that she doesn't stop trusting herself
in the face of the clear understanding that you know what is best for her.


----------

I was going to keep going, but Linnaea really wants to play Madlibs and
Simon wants to look something up on the computer. So I need to go. Maybe
I'll finish going through what you wrote later.

Schuyler
www.waynforth.blogspot.com