Prompted by some less-than-pleasant interactions with Zoe, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the age of seven. To be honest, it’s not my favorite.<\/p>\n
I don’t have much experience with kids, so I was taken aback when Zoe – shortly after turning seven – started exhibiting behavior that in my mind is more closely associated with pre-teens or teenagers. Door shutting, heavy sighing, declarations of “I want to be alone right now” and “You just don’t understand, Mom!” – those sorts of things. I wasn’t initially sure how to respond to this behavior (which seemed so out of character for her), and\u00c2\u00a0– as I mentioned here a few weeks ago -\u00c2\u00a0I quickly found out that the disciplinary tactics that once used to work with Zoe no longer do. I also started taking Zoe’s actions personally – thinking they meant that she no longer liked me or needed me that much.<\/p>\n
During one of several talks about her, Q suggested that much of Zoe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s outbursts involve her need for independence \u00e2\u20ac\u201c she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s older now and doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to be told what to do. He wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t making excuses for her \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not right for her to be disrespectful or mean regardless of the reason \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but he was saying that if we gave her a little more space and freedom in certain areas, we would probably see a difference in her mood and attitude. And, so, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been trying to give her some space, let her do more things on her own, without my hovering or interfering \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and I have seen a bit of a difference.<\/p>\n
Backing off from Zoe doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come naturally to me. I want to still pick out her clothes every morning, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to be told she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too busy to talk because she wants to read a book in her room. (I miss her!) But when I see how happy it makes her to, for example, make her bed in the morning without my asking, I know that letting go a bit is what I need to do. And maybe after I get used to it, I’ll really like seven!<\/p>\n
-M<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prompted by some less-than-pleasant interactions with Zoe, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the age of seven. To be honest, it’s not my favorite. I don’t have much experience with kids, so I was taken aback when Zoe – shortly after turning seven – started exhibiting behavior that in my mind is more closely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-83-two-kids-january-14"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18949"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18959,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18949\/revisions\/18959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zoe.browdy.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}