On Sunday's we have the rule no t.v. Before Levi the rule was no regular t.v. or movies on Sunday. The kids could watch church video's or educational video's like DK video's on Sunday but that was all. Levi for the longest time wouldn't look at the t.v. screen. He couldn't watch a movie. I'm not sure when he started to watch the t.v. screen. He still has a hard time sitting through an entire movie. Well........most. He loves the movie, "Cars" but even then he bops around the room taking it in in fragments. Anyway, all of a sudden he has become obsessed with movies. Certain ones that he plays over and over and over again. Part of his autism coming out I guess. A lot of repetition. Every Sunday we go through the same thing. He runs down and turns on the t.v. and I have to tell him, "Levi, no t.v. It is Sunday" and he yells and says, "it is NOT Sunday" and then he eventually turns off the t.v. The other kids have said, "but mom he can watch DK movies". I have had to explain to them that Levi doesn't understand which movies are appropriate for Sunday and which ones are not so for him there is absolutely no t.v. on Sunday. It is too confusing for him.
I got to thinking about that this morning as Levi once again tried to turn on the t.v. and we went through the usual ritual. I think the "black and white" applies for all of our kids. So many times we make it harder for them because we allow shades of grey. Obviously some things present themselves as grey on their own and have to be taken into consideration but for the most part I think things can fall under the black or white category and we make things harder on ourselves and our kids by allowing or presenting grey.
That's a really good point--but--I think that it's good to help them to understand the shades of grey and what's acceptable and what's not in the grey. Because of course the world is unfortunately SO not black and white, so without an understanding of some grey I think it would be hard to function.
ReplyDeleteYou know?
But for Levi of course, black and white has got to be best. No question. It's way to distressing for him otherwise I'd guess.
I'm with Gin. But then, think about babies - when they are born and they use their eyes, they can't tell where one thing ends and the other begins, or what is far away and what is close. They haven't got enough experience to draw on to make those kinds of judgments, so it's all chaos to them.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of life is just like this—kids only learn to process a step at a time. If you throw too much complexity at them, all they get is chaos, and some bad choices can come out of that.
But there comes a time when you have to start feeding in the complexities and helping them learn to sift through and think analytically because life is rarely black and white for real, and grown-ups who don't learn to analyze and choose in the face of a million grays become nightmares in the home.
That's the tough part about parenting - having to be able to know when's the right time and what's the right amount for each individual child, and orchestrate a family out of that.