Recording with Chrissy 677

The transcription is about an interview with Chrissy, a parent of a child in middle childhood. Chrissy discusses enjoying her child's independence, supporting their interests, managing peer interactions, guiding technology use, building confidence, involvement in education, teaching health and safety topics, and learning to adapt parenting strategies for each child. She emphasizes the importance of patience, flexibility, and self-compassion in parenting. Hey guys, I'm going to be interviewing Chrissy, who is currently parenting a child in middle childhood. So my first question for you, Chrissy, is what do you enjoy most about parenting a child at this stage? What I enjoy most is that they're starting to find out who they are as individuals, becoming more independent. But they still need mom. It's the watch me phase, and like watch this mom, watch that, and as much as I can drive the baby up the wall, I cherish it because it goes so fast. Right. All right. My second question for you is, are there particular hobbies or activities your child is taking interest in? How do you encourage that? Well, my daughter, when she was about five, all the way through middle school, she probably tried every activity you can think of. Like she went through soccer, volleyball, gymnastics, violin in the orchestra, Girl Scouts. She loved each one. But she finally found her true passion in dance and is actually now the captain of our high school dance team. Oh, that's awesome. I let her decide what she wanted to try and supported her the best way I could. I was her soccer coach for a few years as well, her Girl Scout troop leader. I wouldn't let her quit any activity once she started, as I wanted to teach her accountability and commitment. But once the season ended, I never made her stay in something when she decided she didn't want to be there. Right. Okay. My third question for you is, how does your child interact with peers? Are friendships a big part of their life right now? For my son, this has been difficult. He's nine now, but he sits on the spectrum, so he doesn't always pick up on social cues. But we've been working on it. He has friends in his life, but they are a huge part of his life at the moment. Right. Awesome. All right. My fourth question for you is, how do you navigate and support your child in managing peer conflicts or social challenges? With my daughter, there were incidents, especially middle school, like sixth grade, around there where she had a lot of bullying to deal with. I leveled with her that most bullying isn't because of anything she did or who she was as a person. It was a reaction to that child's own problems or hardships. Okay. Being honest with her, I think, enabled her to kind of shift her understanding of the situation from a personal one to an objective one. So she ended up using her experiences to help others and actually is currently the president of her best buddy's chapters at her high school. Oh, that's awesome. All right. My next question here for you is, what role does technology or social media play in your child's life? If any, how do you monitor or guide its use? Okay. For my son, I will let him – none of my kids could have public social media until they're old. My daughter, she's only one because she's older now. I let my son play his VR, his Oculus, and because it's connected to other children around the country, it's helped him pick up social cues as well as how to work together with other children to solve problems. So I'm happy for it in that sense. For safety, I monitor his play constantly through either live casting or actually just looking on the app myself. But he's not allowed to friend or follow anyone on his games unless they've been vetted by me, and he's not allowed to download any of the chat rooms. So there's benefits for him specifically, but there's also the drawbacks. He has to be careful because of other people. Yeah, of course. All right. Thank you for sharing that. My next question for you is, what strategies do you use to build your child's confidence and resilience? For confidence, I always have given them positive reinforcement. Anytime they did something well, I'd acknowledge it. When they're younger, you make a huge deal about it. You do something good, it's like, oh, I got a great job, and it's amazing, and they light up. Yeah. Being there for them, being there, showing up is very important. For sales, they were never sales but opportunities to learn how to not do something, like fall down seven, get up eight. Yeah, I definitely agree. Okay. My next question for you is, what role do you play in your child's education, maybe like homework, communication with teachers? For homework, I'll let them try and work out the problems on their own. If they need help from me, I will nudge them in the right direction. As my daughter got older, I would opt to give her, like, sources to solve it on her own. I've always been in touch with their teachers for every step, every year. My son, more so, because he has a little more problems socially. But for his homework, I always thought it was more important to develop critical thinking skills as opposed to just giving them the answer and showing them where it is, you know? Yeah, I definitely agree. Okay. The next question for you is, what are some health or safety topics you've introduced at this stage, maybe like internet safety, nutrition, personal hygiene? For my daughter, I've told my kids that for hygiene, we're taking showers on their own. My son is now, he's nine. She's older, so he's been doing it for a while. Brushing their own teeth, applying their own deodorant. My daughter has had no problems with this, but it's been a struggle with my son. What was the second part of that question? Sorry. Internet safety, nutrition. Just any health or safety topics, really. Social media, like we talked a little bit before about was, you know, she was, again, they weren't allowed to have any public accounts. But my daughter recently, because she's doing college recruitment for dance, I let her have public accounts on TikTok and on Instagram. But same thing, like I monitor who's following her and the interactions she has. And my son pretty much only has his gaming, so I'm up to that. Right. Okay. Here's my last question for you. So looking back overall, what do you think is one of the most important lessons you've learned as a parent during this stage? I've learned that what works with one kid definitely will not work with the other one. And once you think you've figured it all out, they grow into a new stage of development, and it's all brand new again. I've learned to give myself grace, because everybody makes mistakes. And, yeah, I think patience is one of the biggest ones, you know. Yeah. They will try it. Yeah. Well, thank you, Chrissy, for sharing all that with me. I really appreciate it. No problem. Bye. No problem. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.