Jen's Mental Scribblings

Raising our children, raising ourselves: transforming parent-child relationships from reaction and struggle to freedom, power, and joy. by Naomi Aldort.

mollygm  would give this book a thumbs down.

There are some good points and techniques made. Somethings I called bullshit on, somethings made me laugh out loud.

Her S.A.L.V.E. is I think a good selling point. It stands for:
S-Separate yourself from your childs behavior and emotions with Silent Self Talk". Basically, don't react to what's going on. Say what you would normally say in anger silently to yourself, try to figure out what's causing your emotions,  take a deep breath and then ...
A-Attention on your child. Pay attention to what's actually happening inside your kid
L-Listen to what your kid is saying
V-Validate your kids emotions and feelings
E-Empower your kid to resolve the emotion/problem on their own with your help.

Sounds very touchy feely. I like it because it reminds me to think before I blow my top. And gives me a thought process to work through.

I called bullshit on her opinions on children doing chores or any other cleaning up (i.e. cleaning up after themselves). To sum up, you ask your child for help and accept a no if that's their choice because to allow them to do so allows them to act "authentically" And to remember that "Everything becomes a joy when it is a free choice" and "Coercing children into doing housework against their will may be the reason why so many adults detest chores." Sorry! BS! We detest doing chores 'cause its not fun. Personally, I'd rather read or stitch. But I like a clean house and a clean spoon when I open the drawer. We share a house, everyone enjoys the clean house, everyone needs to pitch in to help keep it clean. And we learn that how? By doing chores as kids.

Two things made me laugh.
1. This great quote from L.S Vygotsky: "People with great passions, people who accomplish great deeds, people who possess strong feelings, people with great minds and strong personalities rarely come out of good little boys and girls."  Too true! Its something to remember.
2. The old scenario comparing a new sibling to a spouse bringing home another mate with the added expectation of compersion, joy and willingness to share your spouse. That argument doesn't work too well with someone who's poly. Joe brings home another husband? Works for me, more income and some help! Another wife? Cool. More help! =)

Overall it was okay. It had its good points, but it just struck me as Attachment Parenting taken to an extreme. Its going back to the Library.

So I'm poking around the SJPL catalog trying to find some resources for my latest research project (homeschooling, I'll write about it later.) And stumbled across this book.

One big happy family : 18 writers talk about polyamory, open adoption, mixed marriage, househusbandry, single motherhood, and other realities of truly modern love / edited and with an introduction by Rebecca Walker.


This sounds like my kind of book!

Needless to say, I put a hold on it. =)

I haven't gotten much stitching done in the last week. A couple of months back I stumbled across a short story on the Baen web site that I thought was very good. Come to figure out...its a story in a series. An entire, completed series! I got my hands on the last 4 books (for some dumb ass reason, the first two aren't owned by San Jose Public) on wednesday and have been reveling in the joy of being able to read an entire story without having to wait a year or more between books! Woot!

So, if you like SciFi, I totally recommend the Belisarius series by Drake and Flint (or Flint and Drake...take your pick!). Its an alternate earth story...Early Byzantium get ahold of a being from future...changing histroy as we know it. I throughly enjoyed it...now to go pick up a needle.