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From: jkr@gitpyr.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: Re: How do I get my kid off the bottle?!
Message-ID: <1318@gitpyr.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Feb-86 07:53:58 EST
Article-I.D.: gitpyr.1318
Posted: Mon Feb  3 07:53:58 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Feb-86 04:33:37 EST
References: <845@hou2d.UUCP> <771@hou2g.UUCP> <1013@terak.UUCP> <1315@gitpyr.UUCP> <561@talcott.UUCP>
Reply-To: jkr@gitpyr.UUCP (J. Kenneth Riviere)
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Lines: 62


I, Jean McSpadden, am a guest on this a co-workers account,
my opnions are not those of K. Riviere, so please do not
send him mail.
In article <561@talcott.UUCP> lotto@talcott.UUCP (Jerry Lotto) writes:
>In article <1315@gitpyr.UUCP>, jkr@gitpyr.UUCP (Jean McSpadden writes:
>> In article <2904@randvax.UUCP> jeanette@rand-unix.UUCP (Jeanette Haritan) writes:
>> >
>> >A child HAS to give up the bottle at a certain time.  You don't want him
>> >to start his first day in kindergarten with his bottle simply because HE
>> >still wants it at that age.  
>>  Why not. How does it hurt you? How does it hurt the child? 
>>  O, you would be embarrassed because other people believe a child
>>  should be off the bottle by then. Well, if you care more about others
>>  reactions then your childs feelings, thats your, or should I say your
>>  childs, problem.
>>                                Jean McSpadden
>
>	Resisting the impulse to flame all over...
>
>I do NOT want my daughter to feel that anything goes if it feels good.
>Her feelings are most important to me, but I don't want to teach her
>that they should ALWAYS be most important to HER. She may be a parent
>someday. Compassion, 'acceptable' behavior and consideration for others
>must be learned too.
>
>How would you feel if your parents had left you to learn that everyone
>out there doesn't agree with you by setting you up for public ridicule
>unawares? Or don't you realize how cruel kids can be to each other?
>-- 
>
>Gerald Lotto - Harvard Chemistry Dept.
>
I am sorry about the tone of my last note, it was unnesessary flamish.
But, what does a five year olds taking a bottle have to do with compassion
and consideration for others, except maybe not embabarrassing Daddy.
And I do not see where I was advocating letting children go out in the
world unawares of the social norms. However, I do believe that forcing 
a child to go off the bottle before he is ready to give it up  
is cruel.  If I had a five year old who was still dependent on a 
bottle, and he was starting school for the first time, I would talk
to him telling him that other children might make fun of him if he
took the bottle to school and he would be happer if he left it at home.
I hope that we would also be going to  family therapy by that time,
for I do believe that a five year old who is still clinging to the
bottle is probally having some emotional problems.
The only five year old in my kindergarden who was still on the bottle,
at least the only one who brought her bottle to class, lost her mother
two years before. None of the rest of us kids made fun of her, we
all felt great compassion, kids can feel compassionate too, you know.
And we all felt her father was a mean rotten monster when he did
finally take it away from her in the first grade.

                                     Jean McSpadden

-- 
J. Kenneth Riviere   (JoKeR)
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!jkr
"I'd rather be conservative than bigoted,
 but I'd rather be *dead* than conservative!"
         -Kate from _Kate_and_Allie_