How to handle after school tantrums

My daughter loved nursery school and couldn't wait to start "big school". But getting her ready in the morning and spending time with her after school has become so fraught. She cries, she complains that her tights or her shirt or her shoes are "bothering" her. She screams and makes that angry face with her hands like claws. I feel like doing the same thing back to her.

I was relieved, upon reading Asha Phillips's book Saying No, that apparently I'm not the only who experiences this. She gives advice on how to handle bad behaviour but also gives insight into what's making my little monster tick.

(excerpt removed)

Comments

[Gipsy]

Whimsey that's irony right? Wyndham as a gateway to horror video game addiction...

I loved horror as a child, and mystery books, and would devour them voraciously (almost as much as I loved science fiction). Did anyone else ever read the Misty comic? I loved that!

[LM]

OK, I just looked at the link Asilon posted. How is this proposal different from the age range that used to be in small print on the back of books? And does anyone else remember that? I never felt stigma about it & thoroughly enjoyed reading much "younger" books that were favourites as much as "older" books as a child.

[LM]

Actually Asilon, I disapprove of formal age-banding, but do think that it can be useful to have a guide to age ranges, which the Penguin & Puffin & Ladybird books all had when I was a child in the 70s. I don't consider that insidious. But locking children into stereotypes/age ranges is a very bad idea & I speak from personal experience. As a child whose reading age was always several years ahead of my actual age, I had a really tough time in primary school when the school didn't have sophisticated enough books for me to read and I was bored sick, causing problems for me & teachers alike.

Having said all that, there are a couple of things that, based on my own experience, I wouldn't give to a younger child of my acquaintance - though of course that would depend on the child, like the ones I mentioned before (though now I think of it, Harry Potter gets really gruesome in the later books, with soul-splitting too; somehow it wasn't so awful for me to read as the children without souls in Pullman's books though).

I always had an overly vivid imagination as a child and got scared easily, and as my daughter is the same way, I'd imagine I won't be pushing these books on her until I think she's emotionally ready.

(I'm the person who had nightmares every night for 6 months after watching The Exorcist as a 13 year old, though all my friends thought it was great).

[asilon]

I'm really not into censorship, and I'm honestly quite shocked that so many people want to put random age limits on books, regardless of whether they know the children or adults who might be reading them.

I guess you lot won't have signed up for http://www.notoagebanding.org/ then. Probably pushing to make the age suggestions legally enforceable.

I've also never had nightmares, or been 'disturbed' by anything I've seen or read, so perhaps I'm just profoundly insensitive.

[Whimsey]

I think some children (not to say parents) are more sensitive than others. That said, if parents fill their children's head full of horror stuff they'll soon desensitise them all right.

Then before you know it they'll beon to Xrated video-horror games.

Overall, I'd be in favour of holding back on the 'dark' books until they are at secondary school at the least.

As for the freaky cult of vampire and horror books around....just ban them.

[LM]

Well Asilon, obviously not the Daily Mail, but I was really thinking of Dark Materials (as I think you know). I just don't think many pre-adolescents are ready for that level of horror yet (the souls being separated was truly disturbing to me). And I read the Wyndham books at ~14 & had nightmares for months. Maybe I'm just a sensitive soul but I don't think Midwich Cuckoos is for anyone pre-teen (I actually think it's far scarier than Triffids, though I confess a deep love of all those books).

[Gipsy]

Ooooh Asilon, Day of the Triffids! I was so terrified by that one. Even now there are some plants that scare the living daylights out of me (those flax plants that 'flower' with a big black stalk). Brilliant stuff! I hope my son likes it (neither step kids are into books, although they both did give them a really good try and do occasionally read now something they credit me for *shines stepmother halo*, but overall, they weren't the book worm I was).

[Gipsy]

LOL Nicky, what Sho said!

"I've never read Swallows and Amazons, Treasure Island,Watership Down, Lord of the Rings (managed the Hobbit as an adult though not as a child, but it was hard going), Catch 22 or pretty much anything else that's considered good quality children's literature."

Actually, I've never read S&A either. I don't know if I've read TI, or just seen the movie! Watership Down - I bawled my eyes out. Didn't like the Hobbit but loved the LoTR.

I do not think Catch 22 is a children's book though. Or am I wrong on that one?

My big love affair as a child was with Jules Verne and HG Wells.

I have never even bought or borrowed a Truman Capote book. Good for you!

[asilon]

"Though I wouldn't recommend certain things to someone too young. Like DM or John Wyndham."

Well it's certainly true that I won't let any of mine read the Daily Mail.

John Wyndham though??? I loved him when I was young, and my 11 year old just read Day of the Triffids.

[mumoftwo]

Yes, C, I read Wind in the Moon lots of times, it had quite a mystical feel. For some reason I always remember the bit where they tried to help their daddy by rolling all his clothes up into sausage shapes and got into terrible trouble, which was quite a normal bit compared with the rest of the fantasy! I could never work out why this was such a crime as a child. For some lovely nostalgia, see some of the recent lists of children's books on Alphamummy, they are like a treasure trove of memories!

http://timesonline.typepad.com/alphamummy/2008/07/90-old-school-c.html

[Whimsey]

Yes, I agree - it's the 'habit of reading' that is so vital.

It's quite interesting what is happenign to boy's fiction at the moment. I don't know if it's the same for fiction targtted primarily at girls. But with boy's fiction it is very clear that the adult male fiction writers, like James Patterson and Andy McNab, are now writing books for teenage boys, and with huge success, clearly as a way of capturing a new generation to read their adult novels.

It's a very clever move by the publishers and authors concerned. Is it going on in women's authors as well?

BTW, I do wish that someone could start writing some more Narnia books! I'm sure there are lots of 'untold stories' that could be mined out of what has been written already. What happened to King Frank and Queen Helen's children and grandchildren, for example, not to mention Shasta and Aravis's children! And what about the 'missing baby prince' - Prince Caspian's baby cousin born to dreadful Queen Pruniprisma (I think that was her name!).

[LM]

Whimsey - absolutely, 100% correct. The Narnia books were about twice as long when I read them as a child. What happened to them over the years? (And why weren't other books like the Swallows & Amazons series longer then?)

I also read The Hobbit at school quite early, age 9, as a class book but I got inspired and read the whole of LOTR that summer, along with a friend in my class. I loved it, obviously didn't understand it all and found Book 2 tedious, an impression I still have to this day, though whenever I re-read it, I get immersed & wonder why I find it so daunting.

I do think, though, in general, that as long as a child reads, it doesn't matter what they read (well, not porn obviously). But far better for them to read "rubbish" than nothing. Though I wouldn't recommend certain things to someone too young. Like DM or John Wyndham.

[asilon]

Nicky - jealous - missed Robert Muchamore at Bath as we went to see War Horse that day, but we've seen him before (well, I've seen him once, my daughters have seen him 3 times I think and acquired lots of souvenirs - lol, my eldest has just walked in wearing her Cherub beanie hat and waving her Cherub keyring, as if to prove a point!).

[whimsey]

Sho - don't think much of your teacher! She either didn't have a clue you were racing ahead, or utterly stupid not to rejoice that you were such a fluent reader!

It's nice to hear that children still like the old classics, because I have to say I find them in comparison with modern children's books, very slow going (to my own disapointment!), with the honourable exception of the Narnia books, which read as fast and fluently as ever. I find, to my own amusement, however, they are surprisingly 'short' - I'm sure they were MUCH longer when I read them myself as a chid!!!!

As for PP on CSL - well, clearly for PP, CSL was giving the 'wrong' message!

That said, Sho, I have to agree with you - I might well be tempted to the Dark Side by DC's Lord Asriel....dangerously yummy! :)

[Sho]

I read the hobbit in 1st year juniors too. First we read it as a class and then I read it alone. But then, I have always been a voracious (and precocious) reader and couldn't stand to do the reading as a class thing. Mostly because I was generally at the end of the book as we were still stumbling round chapter 2 - when it was my turn to read I never knew where we were.

I remember my teacher complaining to my parents about it - who recommended that I read with half an eye on when the others turned a page. That helped a lot

As for the DM books - I just think it's a bit much for PP to have criticised CS Lewis for the allegory in Narnia, only to be so anti-christian in DM. There is room for us all to have our literature and the books should be allowed to speak for themselves. For me, I'll probably read them all one more time - if only to have Daniel Craig wandering through my head as Lord Asriel.

What I'm finding with the reading is that my daughters are developing a very nice vocabulary. Because we've read The Hobbit, Wind in the Willows and other older books, they are hearing language used in a different way (different, not better) than, say, the language used by JK Rowling or Jacqueline Wilson.

As for who is a bad mother and who is not - I can scarcely believe that anyone who seeks out and posts in a blog called Alpha Mummy can be a bad mother. Surely?

(Oh and while we're at it: I can highly recommend The Good Master but I can't remember who it is by)

[C]

Did anyone ever read 'The Wind on the Moon' as a child? It was my all time favourite, and I can't wait until my children are old enough for me to read it to them. It was first published in 1944 and has recently been republished in paperback.

Here's the first line as an appetite whetter:

"When there is wind on the moon, you must be very careful how you behave. Because if it is an ill wind and you behave badly, it will blow straight into your heart, and then you will behave badly for a long time to come."

[whimsey]

LM, yes precisely! It's a question of 'I've started so I'll finish'. Anyway, how can I possibly pull the books to pieces if I haven't read them? (Though I do bear in mind the quote from, I think, Sydney Smith, who said famously 'I never read a book before reviewing it - it prejudices the mind so'!!)

But with DM, I definitely think that PP is a fantastic writer - very powerful, very page-turning, and a quite extraordinary imagination. The trilogy is a real tour de force, no doubt about that, and an amazing achievement.

BUT, I utterly totally think it the most bonkers books I've read. For a start, there is just far, far too MUCH in them - the complications and 'stuff' just gets far, far too much, and it is desperately overloaded. But, of course, for me, and I would suspect anyone who regards themselves as a Christian, it's just, well, how can I put it, incomprehensibly wrong. I cannot for the life of me fathom what PP is getting at? Does he really think that God is an old sick man ruled by a bunch of sadistic cardinals (or whatever the 'Authority' is supposed to be?!).

The whole book is just extradorinarly awful in its theology. I just do not see how PP, clearly an intelligent man, can't realise how stupid he's being.

What makes it even more inexplicable is that his father was, so I read, a C of E vicar. Now, if PP had been brought up by socialist atheists, then I could understand his ludicrous diatribe against Christianity. But for goodness sake, he KNOWS what Christianity is actually about! So how on earth does he think he can get away with writing such claptrap about it? He does what so many people do when they are attacking something they have a gut hatred for - he sets up a straw figure (this pathetic old dying God on his litter), and then knocks it down! Sorry, not good enough.

Of course his real sin (and I do use that term deliberately) is what he does about Satan. It's the same sin (again I use the word deliberately) that Milton commits - utterly fooled by what the 'real' Satan is on about. Satan is not about some pathetic teenage rebellion against your father (PP, are you listening, as I can only assume that is what the entire trilogy is about!), it's about evil. Yes, yes, idiotic Milton saw 'the Church' as some sort of 'malign authority' and erected a heroic opposition in his Satan, but that is not, actually, what Satan does with his existence. He doesn't 'rebel nobly' against an autocratic God. He HURTS people, he KILLS them, he TORTURES them, he CORRUPTS them - he does all the these things by seducing human beings into committing evil.

And, to me, for anyone raised as a Christian, as I assume PP was, to fail to understand this truth about Satan, is, to my mind, playing RIGHT into the Devil's hands.

(PS - please note, I use the terms 'Satan' and 'the Devil' metaphorically only - they are the predisposition of humans to do evil to each other. And whilst no one need believe in the Devil, or, indeed, God, we all have to believe in the existence of good and evil, as we are the recipients of both, and often the perpetrators of both)

So, that is why I think that the DM trilogy is one of the most morally corruptive works I've ever read. In a way, I can be glad it's published, as it does, as Gypsy says, provide a huge, huge theatre for debate, and gives a parent the opportunity to discuss theology and morality with their children. But one thing I know for sure, I wouldn't let PP near children for all the tea in China. I think the Devil has his soul. And he doesn't even realise he's doing the Devil's work for him. A very dangerous man.

[nicky]

MM - they made you read The Hobbit at aged 8??? I think we read it at 11 and I still didn't like it then!Never did get through LOTR, not even the films!

Actually, school did a lot to put me off reading. I kind of stopped after Enid Blyton, pony stories and Roald Dahl because I never found anything to replace them, so I hardly read for a few years until I was old enough to read Lace and Danielle Steele type books (cringe!).

The school's choice of books did nothing to entice me back! My mum tried, but kept buying me stuff like Little Women and Dickens, which just wasn't interesting to a tomboy like me. I should give Dickens another go, really. I might like it now.

[nicky]

So I shouldn't bother trying the DM series again, then? I enjoyed the first one, but the second didn't hold my interest, and the only thing I can remember from it is them being in someone else's house in a deserted village and eating baked beans. Funny what sticks.

Yes, I've read all the Cherub books. Actually went to hear Robert Muchamore at the Bath Festival of Children's Literature a few weeks ago. He was funny.

At the moment, I can't get my son to read anything other than Harry Potter or Cherub. I keep buying stuff I think he'll like, and read it myself, then it sits on the shelf!

[LM]

I'd vote for Swallows & Amazons series over Dark Materials trilogy for anyone under about 14. I found the DM books very disturbing & was most definitely an adult when I read them.

And to whoever it was asking Whimsey why she continued to read after disliking the first book, I can answer that (I hope) on her behalf. I do that too - sometimes I've heard so much about a book, or it's One Of The Greats and so I feel obliged to plough on through even though I'd rather abandon it for a Katie Fforde or a re-read of Harry Potter. I felt like that about the third book in the DM trilogy actually; hated the last half of it, thought the plot ill-conceived and the climax of Lara being kissed just anti-climactic, but I'd read so far and had so many people tell me how great it was that I forced myself through it.

(Can't say I managed to do that with Sophie's World though, or Hard Times, though I love, love, love most other Dickens I've read - we should have a thread on "Books I Couldn't Finish", just for fun).

Sho - on S&A, they were my absolute favourite books as a child, and my parents still have vivid memories of reading them to me when I was ill with various ailments. I hope your daughters love them.

[MM]

Nicky, why do you think I read funny start-and-finish things to them? I started reading longer books to them, a chapter at a time, but I was slurring my words a few sentences in, and my head was bobbing. I don't know if it's a throw back to being forced to read the Hobbit in class out loud on a Friday afternoon when I was 8 - listening to everyone's faltering reading while waiting for the axe to fall on me was as near to hell as I think I've ever been- or just that I'm as exhausted as they are, but I personally can't cope with anything too long and lingering in the evenings. Also, my daughter conks out within a minute of her head hitting the pillow so it would take about 6 years to read them a full book. So, the way I used to do it prebaby and the way I'm starting to do it again now is that they read their books, nothing too scary after dinner, and then when they're in bed, I do a few minutes of reading complete with funny voices. They (and I) work so hard and for so many hours all day that we just make it about silliness. I do have a rule though - if they're not in bed by 5 minutes before bedtime, they don't get the story. As I've said before on a different post, my GP told me that if you're questioning whether you're a bad mother, you're obviously doing a very good job.

[asilon]

Oh, and Nicky, can't speak for the others, but I only read to them because I like it :)

And if you like Alex Rider, have you read any of the Cherub series? Brilliant :)

[asilon]

Whimsey, why did you carry on reading book 2 if you didn't like the first one???

[nicky]

Oh, and all your reading to your kids has increased my guilt even more! I stopped the minute he could read himself - I used to hate it. Takes so long to read out loud.

I must be a very Bad Mother :-(

[nicky]

You lot are so intellectual! I've read 1 1/2 of the Pullman trilogy, but I've never read Swallows and Amazons, Treasure Island,Watership Down, Lord of the Rings (managed the Hobbit as an adult though not as a child, but it was hard going), Catch 22 or pretty much anything else that's considered good quality children's literature.

I'm more of an Alex Rider and Harry Potter kinda girl. Actually, the Beano just about matches with my attention span. Though I have recently purchased Truman Capote's In Cold Blood in the hope of slightly educating myself. But I haven't been able to bring myself to start it yet.

And to think I used to be intelligent when I was at school.