Being Social - ish

A year.  Why has it been practically a year since I've posted?

I'm not entirely sure.  I think perhaps there was a "busy" factor. I think there was a "not one more thing to do" factor.  I think there was a "I over-share" factor.

I put myself on some sort of "blogging blackout."  I imposed some sort of hiatus on myself for reasons I'm not entirely sure.  Or, as a writer, it seemly may boil down to "lack of inspiration" factor.

It's not that things haven't been happening in our world.  It's not that we haven't had PLENTY of new challenges to face.  It's not that there hasn't been new things learned along the way.  Again, I have no answers about the silence, it was just there.  I've learned to respect the silence, acknowledge it for what it is and keep pressing forward.

So that's what I'm doing.

We are knee deep into the world of social learning these days.  Nea is now a kindergartner and that means that we traveled a whole new world.  Staying in school all day, being in a classroom of new friends, having a new teacher, going to a new school......required a couple weeks of transition, as you can imagine.  Overall, she seems to have adjusted well (although she hates school at 7:15am and loves it at 3:30p.m) considering all these new things thrown at her.

The other thing we have discovered this year is skating.  We joined friends one weekend last February for an afternoon of skating fun.  Much to my surprise she loved every bit of it and so I enrolled her in skating lessons.  Within 2 months of figure skating lessons, she had an interest in hockey.  And so- she spends 2-3 days a week on the ice honing on skills that surprise me every time!
Her skating skills are good enough, that she keeps moving up in the program.   She now is skating with the big girls, and not the little kids.  It's been a good challenge for her and I can see even more growth as she progresses!  Skating is an interesting sport for her.  The figure skating piece is solo--learning your own skill, challenging yourself, trying new things and getting better.  Hockey incorporates the team component and working together with others.

And there's lots of social learning in both.

A couple weeks ago when this session first started, new girls to the class were a little unsteady on their feet.  Of course there were a few falls along the way.  I noticed that Nea would stand off to the side and point at the girl flat out on the ice.  When I got closer, I heard her laughing and saying loudly HA ! HA ! HA!

Ooops....um, I'm not sure there's a figure skating social story....!!

I took her aside and explained that when someone falls on the ice-it's bad play to laugh at them.  She was genuinely confused as I tried to explain this little social rule of compassion.

"Nea, when someone falls, you say....'oh no! are you okay?' "  I think she took it in, but it's so dang hard to tell!

Fast forward to this weeks skating lesson.  One of the girls fell on the ice and Nea began circling around her.

"Are you okay?"

"Hey, are you okay?"

"oh no, are you okay?"

"Girl, are you okay?"

I think she circled that poor girl 10 times repeating over and over and over..."are you okay?"

We have a little more to learn I think.

And speaking of social stories....I have to give a shout out to Inside Out (yes the kids movie) for helping me explain a social situation to her.

Nea was having a rough day at school and the teacher gave her an instruction to do something.  Nea is really big into justice...."it's not fair" "I like it more"  "that's not how you do it..." , etc.  So she was trying to -yet again-explain something to that effect to the teacher.  The teacher responded, "Nea...it's okay, let it go."

Nea turned to her and replied, "No Ms. H, YOU let it go."

*faint*

Okay, that girl doesn't talk like that to me and she certainly is NOT going to talk that way to another adult.  The teacher informed me what had happened so that I was aware.  And I assured her we would be having a discussion at home.

This is how that discussion went down......

"So I hear that you said some words to Ms. H today that were not nice"
"But Mama, "E" was not listening, and I wanted the owl!   It's my favorite" (I have no idea what any of that referred to..."
"Okay, well, that part is not what I want to talk about.  I want to talk about the choice of words that you used with Ms. H.  We do not talk to people that way.  Not your teacher, not your Mama or your Papa or your friends, or anyone."
"But "E" made me mad!  I had Anger in my head!"  (okay, so we use Inside Out references alot when trying to talk about emotions. I am grateful for that show every day!)
"Oh!  I see, so you really had Anger in your head and you gave Anger to Ms. H"
(I can see wheels turning in her head.....)
"Well, yah...but....I had Anger in my head at E, not at Ms. H."
"But you chose the wrong words.  And the wrong attitude."
"yah" (head hanging)
"So, what can you do next time you have that much Anger in  your head before you talk to anyone?"
"I don't know."
"Well sometimes, people take deep breaths to blow the Anger away...."
".....and then I can let Joy in!"   (Oh for the love of Pete it worked!)
"Yes!  so you can Let Joy in!  Anger needs to move out of the way in your head so that you can talk with Joy."
"I'm sorry Mama"
"I'm not the one you have to say that to, right?"
"I will tell Ms. H tomorrow."

And she did.  Very first thing.

"I"m sorry I was talking with Anger."

These social things are tough to navigate for any kiddo.  I continue to learn how to break it down for her piece by piece to help her learn.  I don't know if she'll understand the social component....but I think she'll learn what the "rules" are along the way.

That's the best we can have right now.