Category Archives: Playgroups and Play Dates
Braggarts
My daughter taught herself to ride a bike sans training wheels yesterday and I couldn’t wait to yell it from the roof tops. I posted it on Facebook. I worked it into conversations, not just with good friends but random strangers. In short, I had become one of those mothers I despise – the one [...]
Also posted in Competition 2 Comments
Schadenfreude
Do you ever derive pleasure from the misfortunes of others? Like when your neighbor is not accepted to the private school that rejected you as well? Or when you discover that your friend’s kid melts down easier than yours? It’s awful to admit, but as parents, many of us take pleasure in other people’s pain. [...]
Also posted in Competition 1 Comment
Playdate Ettiquette
You’re on a play date at a park and your child picks up a stick and starts swinging it around. You are about to remind him that if he’s going to play with sticks, he needs to make sure that he is far away from other children so no one gets hurt, when the other [...]
Also posted in Bad Play Date Etiquette 2 Comments
How Dare You Hurt My Child!
I never fully appreciated the “mama bear” instinct until the first time another kid pummeled my child in a Mommy and Me class. I recoiled in horror, immediately labeling the other child a terror and spending the rest of the class trying to keep a sizable physical space between him and my daughter. Other parents [...]
Also posted in Your Child Hurt My Child 4 Comments
Stood up for a play date?
It’s holiday time and scheduling play dates can prove a sanity saver. So long as the other parent doesn’t flake on you. Our friend Carol had organized a play date with one of her daughter’s favorite preschool classmates. She thought she did everything right. She and the other mother exchanged emails a week in advance [...]
When did sledding become a competitive sport?
We all think our kids are great, but we don’t necessarily need to announce it to the world at every given opportunity. Walking through the snow in Central Park, I stopped to watch some children sledding down a hill, when I heard one parent announce, “That was fabulous Jack. You are the best sledder ever!” [...]
Does Overparenting = Bad Parenting
Time Magazine ran a cover story last week on The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting. The article implies that in our efforts to do the best job possible for our children, we have gone too far, soliciting macrobiotic cupcakes, hypoallergenic socks, and tutors to correct a 5-year-old’s “pencil-holding deficiency”. The article also discusses the whole competitive [...]
Leaving a child alone in the car
At a play date in a local park, one mother left her younger child to sleep in the car while her older child played and she chatted with the other moms. She could see the car at all times and checked on her sleeping child regularly, but her choice made some of the other moms [...]
Have I told you lately how great my kid is?
As parents we take enormous pride in our children. Occasionally that pride swells over into a competitive edge. We are pleased if our child rolls over, crawls or talks before his peers. We worry if they hit developmental milestones late. We occasionally view it as reinforcement of our good parenting skills when they thrive. [...]
Competition Starts Early