What parts of parenting push your comfort zone, and how far? - Page 2

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by newmamalizzy 

I'm right there with the social anxiety.  I avoid interacting with other moms at the park, but even worse (and much harder to avoid) is having to interact with all the other kids.  I love MY kid, but am definitely not a "kid person." I have a lot of other weird phobia-type things, too - stupid things, like detached hair, or pen/marker marks on skin.  DD at 19 months already says "Yucky!" and makes a grossed out face whenever she finds a hair.  Whoops.  So much for not pushing my issues onto my child...

Your issues might be sensory based, and your dd may have the same ones, for the same reasons, not because they were pushed on her.

[meemee]

Originally Posted by kitchensqueen 

Oh, me too. My son is almost two months old and I have yet to go to a single story hour, mommy group, or the park... Sigh. 

wait what?! you start THAT early. i didnt join any group or anything till dd was 6 months old. and then it all took off. but until then i was just too overwhelmed taking care of baby and house stuff. i did take a walk at the park and go to the grocery store, but did not seek out any groups or nothing. 
 

[tracymom1]

Originally Posted by newmamalizzy 

I'm right there with the social anxiety.  I avoid interacting with other moms at the park, but even worse (and much harder to avoid) is having to interact with all the other kids.  I love MY kid, but am definitely not a "kid person."

This was me, too. Exactly. I have, however, gotten much better at making Mommy friends, albeit on a very small scale. I can also find a lot of joy in other little ones, but it took years of practice! I was terrified of kids until I had one (or three).

[kitchensqueen]

Originally Posted by meemee 

wait what?! you start THAT early. i didnt join any group or anything till dd was 6 months old. and then it all took off. but until then i was just too overwhelmed taking care of baby and house stuff. i did take a walk at the park and go to the grocery store, but did not seek out any groups or nothing. 

Hahaha, that's why I haven't done it yet! And I just have a hard time meeting new people and getting into new social situations. 

[meemee]

MOI am the bug person. i was your child happily joining the guys with bugs and bug collections scaring my mom half to death. and here comes my child totally freaked out by any bug?!!! what an afront?!!! now a tarantula <shivers> is a whole nother thing. but any other spiders, cockroaches (how can you not have respect for these guys who've been around since dinosaur times) or anything else. amazing little creatures. 

dd has gotten better watching caterpillars and beetles run up my hand, rolly pollies curl up... she is much better today than she was at 3. and she now loves feeding the garden geckos. and actually wants to bring a tadpole home.

but honestly i cant think of anything that dd pushes the button on.

i mean the first few months were horrendous. i was this ball of profoundness and yet absolutely totally shocked how little time i had to myself. the first year that was the hard part. just to write an email. just 10 mins to gather my thoughts and write one. i remember screaming out loud when dd was 6 months old and had woken up AGAIN in the middle of me writing an email to my family that i had been trying to write for the last couple of hours.

even today sometimes i am overwhelmed. our joke 'your mom is dead'  is a cue to leave mom alone for 5 mins. the sad part is my need to just have space and breathe comes right when dd WANTS me terribly. but me i've been on the go go go and i just need 5 mins and my sweet child sometimes just knows it and gives it to me without even asking. 

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by meemee 

even today sometimes i am overwhelmed. our joke 'your mom is dead'  is a cue to leave mom alone for 5 mins.

I need something like that. I haven't found anything that gets that message into my kids, especially ds2. He just doesn't get it.

[meemee]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride 

I need something like that. I haven't found anything that gets that message into my kids, especially ds2. He just doesn't get it.

HAH!!!! at 6 it was reverse psychology. oh mama so loves u please stay with me. please dont leave me alone. do not ABSOLUTELY DO NOT go to the living room and read a book <or whatever he likes to do> if you do that i will eat up all your icecream. 

worked like a charm (unless she really wanted me). 

till dd could listen it was always reverse psychology that worked for her. because of that i never said no to anyone. always yes. 

[Storm Bride]

Reverse psychology doesn't work on ds2, either. He's...different. Very sweet kid, but definitely a bit draining. (I suspect he's got Asperger's Syndrome, or high - very - functioning autism, or something like that. The ped I saw said ADD and ODD, and I don't think ADD fits very well, and ODD doesn't fit at all. Honestly...Asperger's/autism don't fit 100%, either, but his brain is definitely wired differently than most people's.)

[meemee]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride 

Reverse psychology doesn't work on ds2, either. He's...different. Very sweet kid, but definitely a bit draining. (I suspect he's got Asperger's Syndrome, or high - very - functioning autism, or something like that. The ped I saw said ADD and ODD, and I don't think ADD fits very well, and ODD doesn't fit at all. Honestly...Asperger's/autism don't fit 100%, either, but his brain is definitely wired differently than most people's.)

aaaaaaah so he can see through. maybe a v. logical approach. 
 

[newmamalizzy]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride 

Your issues might be sensory based, and your dd may have the same ones, for the same reasons, not because they were pushed on her.

Interesting suggestion.  I get almost murderous about chewing noises and strange breathing sounds, too.  I've often wondered why such simple things annoy me so much...

[kitchensqueen]

Originally Posted by newmamalizzy 

Interesting suggestion.  I get almost murderous about chewing noises and strange breathing sounds, too.  I've often wondered why such simple things annoy me so much...

Mouth breathers... I cannot abide mouth breathers. Or snoring. 

[rhianna813]

For me it's snakes. Now luckily DS (age 7) isn't hugely into them compared to bugs but there always seems to be this traveling exotic animal show that's at EVERY free family we attend. They have snakes, big, little, rattles, etc... and I feel like I am going to die if I see one. Blah. DS is very sensitive about this... most of the time. But recently at a kid birthday party he must have told his friends and they busted out of this kid's room with all his rubber snakes. I was mostly keeping my cool.

The other one that pushes my comfort zone is the loudness. DS is an only child and although he can gab nonstop he is not that loud. In the car we sometimes drive in *gasp* silence. I guess he doesn't know any other way LOL But when we have one his friends over.... OMG. The volume makes me so on edge. It feels like we invited 6 kids over. I am such a lightweight :-(

[Storm Bride]

Oh, yeah - I get the snake thing. I don't really have it (probably because of early exposure to a python belonging to one of my brother's friends), but I get it. A lot of people have the same kind of visceral reaction to snakes that I have to spiders.

The loudness...yeah, I have problems with that now, too. When I was younger, and only had ds1, I could handle all kinds of noise. I once had 16 kids, mostly age 5, in my living room, jumping and screaming in "balloon heaven", and it didn't even faze me. Just thinking about that much noise now makes me want to hide...or cry.

[Baby_Cakes]

Oooh goodness I can so relate to a bunch of these!  Bugs yes, tho I'm trying hard to over come my fears, sometimes I can't.  DD went to hand me something the other day and I put my hand out and it was a freaking damp spider!  I was like OMG OMG in my head but gently put it down before telling her he belonged outside.  She wouldn't go for it and insisted on keeping him in a jar for a little while.  

My big thing is water - I don't like bodies of water, the ocean, lakes, etc.  Irrational fear of idk, drowning?  Not really tho.  I just see events unfolding.  Kids falling in.  Me having to dive in.  I mentally plan how i'd save her if she fell in, and it just really freaks me out.  She, however, loves water.  So...I try to just ignore my senses and go for it.  By our house is a river with floating docks that I just cannot bring myself to walk on.  She really wants me to, but I can't.  I just cannot.  She begs me and tells me we won't fall in, but I can't overcome the darn fear!! But I'm working on it!

[Super~Single~Mama]

Originally Posted by Baby_Cakes 

My big thing is water - I don't like bodies of water, the ocean, lakes, etc.  Irrational fear of idk, drowning?  Not really tho.  I just see events unfolding.  Kids falling in.  Me having to dive in.  I mentally plan how i'd save her if she fell in, and it just really freaks me out.  She, however, loves water.  So...I try to just ignore my senses and go for it.  By our house is a river with floating docks that I just cannot bring myself to walk on.  She really wants me to, but I can't.  I just cannot.  She begs me and tells me we won't fall in, but I can't overcome the darn fear!! But I'm working on it!

I don't mind water, but I have this problem with escalators!!  OMG I hate them so much.  They TERRIFY me (I commute daily with DS and all the metro stations have escalators instead of stairs - if they had stairs I would use those instead!).

[crunchy_mommy]

Originally Posted by Super~Single~Mama 



I don't mind water, but I have this problem with escalators!!  OMG I hate them so much.  They TERRIFY me (I commute daily with DS and all the metro stations have escalators instead of stairs - if they had stairs I would use those instead!).

For me it's elevators. I was out somewhere with a friend and DS went up the elevator with her while I took the stairs lol. I think that was one of only maybe 5 times DS has ever been on an elevator.

[Amandamarie]

For me, it's play dates, being at the park with my kids, and interviewing potential babysitters. I'm really shy and my dd isn't. She talks to everyone when we're at the park and I don't know what to say to parents. It's so awkward. Also, I'm having to check references, and phone calls are a challenge. I get so nervous.