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Raising Nate Part 4 - Independence [1]
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Date: 2025-04-25
It’s a fine balancing act, teaching a child to be himself while at the same time building a familial bond.
It’s a challenge in this era to teach a child to be yourself, to withstand peer pressure… I explained to Nate that sometimes you do things you don’t like because your friends like them and sometimes your friends will do things they don’t like with you because you like them. So long as what you are doing is not against your sense of right and wrong it’s okay. But, if you find you’re only doing the things you like, or doing only the things someone else likes… that’s a problem.
So, Nate devised a schedule with his friends, it’s like school mom, we have 3 hours to play with each other, each hour someone gets to decide what we play… isn’t that a good plan mom? I thought it was a splendid plan! They even set a timer in the beginning! Lol then they decided to do it daily instead, because sometimes the timer rang in the heat of whatever game they were playing.
One thing that made Nate distraught, is when I told him, he did not have to like the same things I did… but Mom I want to be like you!
I told him, I wanted him to be him. So, we made a list, it has 3 columns, these are the things you have in common with mommy, with daddy and these are the things that are just uniquely you! Now it’s become a bit of a game lol and Nate’s rooting for his column to be longer!
I’ve let Nate develop his own sense of self, pick his own clothes from an early age and dress himself. I didn’t care if his clothes didn’t match. I let him try on anything he wanted, since his father wasn’t much around Nate tried on my clothing. He’s always like to dress up and we didn’t wait around for Halloween or carnival for him to do so.
Food was another area that was tricky though, I didn’t want to force him to “eat everything on your plate” don’t even understand how that came to be a thing, when as adults we all have foods we like and dislike, so why are we ignoring kids taste? Anyways, so the rule as stated before was you trying everything at least once… so Nate has a good relationship with food, he use to open the fridge take tomatoes and just eat them like apples. Some of his favorite foods are artichokes and Broccoli, I hate broccoli lol.
Same things when it came to picking out his gifts for either birthdays or Christmas, most times parents tend to gravitate towards what they would like their child to play with. Nate started picking his own around 3 and I’ve never had a complaint. I also taught him about money, when we go to the store, Nate has his money to buy things he likes or wants to try. Sometimes he saves up his money if there’s something he wants that’s a bit expensive.
That’s also how Nate got into cooking, cause if he didn’t like something I cooked, the other rule was, make something for yourself, it at first tended to be cereal, sandwiches… than he started to learn to make eggs, ramen, spaghetti and now is doing steaks, fried rice, chicken, salads and whatever strikes his fancy, he watches a lot of food channels. (he’s 12).
Movies though are really where, we found our grove! There also we did the rotation system, once a genre/movie I like, and the other Nate’s choice. Thus Nate has grown to love, musicals, old movies, he will even watch black and white films and I’ve gotten to know a lot about Anime, lots of educational information slipped into those by the way.
Coming soon Part V.
#TheAmericanHaitianPoet
October 31st, 2023
#Woke #SocialPoetry
paypal.me/murielvieux to help Haitians families 10$ x donors can go a long way.
#ThePoet - Muriel Vieux – April 24th, 2025, ©All rights reserved
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