It’s entirely normal, and not a failure of morals or parenting, for young children to lie and steal. She’s learning how to be a person in a brain that’s been conditioned to survive above all else. All morality is built on empathy, and all empathy is learned.

Damn, you said it so much better than I.

Also the rest of your comment.

It’s not a biggie at that age; unless it becomes habitual.

I think you acted well.

If I had to guess I’d say stealing from a shop is different (for her and everybody involved) than stealing from a classmate. Worse, somehow. More official. With a classmate, there’s probably a narrative that helps her justify the act.

And just one relapse so far seems OK; just keep up what you’ve been doing so far, stressing empathy (“what if this happened to you?”). Sometimes it takes more than one try to get things right.

One more thing: kids do a lot to get attention. Ask yourself if she’s getting enough from you, and if these incidents get her more attention from you.

We have kindergarten precursors for smaller kids here.

Also, dads do any of that (almost) as much as mums.

Starting off you WILL distract them from their feelings and that is not the best way to learn how to deal with your emotions all the time.

I resent that. We do very well help kids to deal with their feelings. Teach emotions, empathy. And also have empathy for them. Words of consolation, a lap to sit in.

[redacted]

Give kids more credit. They are social creatures and ideally they do relate to many differen people right from the start.

Usually the institutions will try to have the different kids with their parents at different timetables of the day and start on different days.

Huh, so it’s a whole thing in Germany.

Usually after a few days the parents will be sent out

Sane.

My thoughts on this will differ a lot depending on how old the kids are, and a few other factors.

My pov: working in a kindergarten in Finland.

It’s really up to the parents but very few took advantage of the option to stay with their kids the whole time for weeks on end.

Anyhow, most of the time, however clingy and teary the kid is, they come around a few minutes after the parent left and start having a good time.
Parents need to be told this, encouraged to let go just like the kids.
And then it depends how the parents react when they pick their kid up: do they fuss, do they have a bad conscience, do they even ask the kid if it was sad, in other words, do they enforce and even reward the clinging, or do they encourage them to take their first steps into independence?

I’m not saying it isn’t hard for kids, going to kindergarten for the first time. Social pressure, stress. But it’s harder if parents are very protective and/or the kid had very little contact with other kids until then.

No idea what the situation is like where you live, but I’d go mad if I had 10 kids + 10 parents during the whole day for a whole week.

edit: hmm, this is also age dependent. I was working with kids 3 and up.

Now she’s almost an adult … She doesn’t have to spend this time with me, but she wants to.

That’s amazing. And I daresay there must have been an amazing achievement on your part, too. It’s all too easy to lose touch with one’s kids growing up.

Thanks, that’s good to know. Maybe it’s still on public broadcasting in Australia.

The things people write about Bluey… but I understand, I was very touched, too.

comparing Bluey and Cocomelon

ugh, that’s not even a comparison.

Fun fact btw: Bluey started off as an Australian public broadcasting production. Bought by Disney now, but I suspect they made a deal that gives them artistic freedom. Still sad that money wins.

Children’s entertainment has been doing that for a century. But the tactics are getting more elaborate, planned, strategic.

It’s been a constant development, and it’s getting worse.

Pretty horrifying, that video you linked. 4.5 billion views? 7 Billion?

You always, always limit how much they watch. Never ever let YT autoplay take over.

Tablets aren’t a baby sitter.

Goodness, don’t even get me started… 😡

I had to take weeks to teach myself that, while having my phone is nice, I still need to pay attention in class.

That tells me that the previous school’s ban made sense & bore fruit.

As someone who worked with kids that age I’d say not under 6. Not that it will destroy them, but imho there’s simply no need. Kids that age are busy with learning socio-emotional skills, motor skills and such. Of course, if they watch a short cartoon every now and then, what difference does it make what device they watch it on. Still, not without supervision, unless you’re 100% sure you know how it impacts them (most kids do like to have their favorite stories repeated though, one could make a playlist for those times when one really needs to stay in bed a little longer).

After that I believe kids should have one, simply because society demands they get savvy with it, but not unsupervised/unrestricted. It is shocking to see how many parents give their kids unrestricted 24/7 access to the internet as soon as they start going to school.

When or how you start lifting restrictions of time & content? Highly individual, depends both on kids and parents.

I wouldn’t worry too much about retaining ties with both countries. The kids can’t grow up in both countries equally - I mean they could but that wouldn’t be good for development imho - and you as a parent will simply have to accept that only one country will be the kid’s home.

I mean, by all means take them there and let them see their family etc. but don’t make it a task, don’t have expectations that you can somehow balance things out.

As you said: let them have a passive nationality in their back pocket.

Greetings,
somebody whose parents had that same notion, but tried to force it.

PS: about learning the language, the current consensus amongst child development professionals is that each parent should speak their own language with the kid.

TBF that goes for so many things for kids; it’s better when they voluntarily internalize them.