On my parenting soap box....

Here is finally a picture of Dain swimming in the pool! He's been having so much fun there! He loves to lounge around in his floatie, as you can see.

While we were at the pool on Saturday, Jeremy and I let Dain walk around the kiddie pool. He can keep his balance in there pretty well. Then this little kid (I'm guessing he was around 3 or 4) walked right up to him and pushed him down before I could stop him! Of course, I grabbed Dain out of the water right away. He was sputtering and surprised, but thankfully he didn't cry. The little boy's dad was sitting right there but didn't see the incident. I felt that it was appropriate to tell him what happened, which I did. The dad told his son that he shouldn't do that because it was "dangerous" and because Dain was "too little." I never once heard him say that it was wrong. Then he made his son sit out of the water for maybe 3 minutes, with a threat of going home if he did something like that again.

I'm thinking... WHAT?!?

If it were my son (at that same age), he would have been out of the water for the rest of the day, and he would have been told that it was WRONG to push other kids and why it is wrong.

I've been reading an amazing parenting book lately that advocates dealing with the heart of the child, not just the behavior. The author points out that regrettably, most parents these days think that parenting is about caring for the child, i.e. providing food, clothing, and shelter, and maybe some quality time. This incident seemed to back that up... the child was not corrected for what he did, just slightly punished to the convenience of the father.

OK - enough on my soap box! Of course, I am still (and always will be) a parent-in-training also! :)

Totally different topic - here is a fun picture of my cat Butters. He managed to get under this blanket by himself. I thought it was cute. :)