Author Topic: Honorary Flower Girl - Sorta?  (Read 4868 times)

Aleko

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Re: Honorary Flower Girl - Sorta?
« Reply #45 on: August 02, 2020, 02:47:49 am »
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you are inciting your otherwise sweet child, to talk about someone and bully someone when they aren't there is to me, frankly a bit horrifying. It is reinforcing to your daughter that she is all important, only her emotions matter,  and not the emotions of the people you make fun of. You are treating the performers like objects and not as human beings with thoughts feelings and emotions.

I agree with everything Nikko-chan said there, and in addition -

It's not only a horrid ploy: it's also flatly self-defeating. By talking in this way you are 100% validating your daughter's belief that her own special princessness entitles her to be the recipient of any attention or applause that may be available anywhere she goes even if she doesn't do a thing to earn it - and actually making things worse, by suggesting that any other children who do get attention and applause by showcasing a difficult skill are in effect stealing her rightful acclaim from her, and deserve to be punished in imagination by fantasising them fouling up their performance and suffering public humiliation: "Snigger, snigger! That'll teach that nasty kid not to practise her music for hours every day for years so she can steal Brielle's thunder!" It really makes no difference whether she knows the other girl or not: that's no way to teach her to think about other people.

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in the midst of a meltdown, we can't have that "lets practice being a good audience for violin girl" talk as the talent would be over when we would be back at our seats.

Nobody is suggesting that you have to do that on the spot; it's quite OK to keep that for later*. As PVZFan said, you need to establish a get-a-grip-on-myself formula that she and you know, so that when she starts going off on one you routinely whisk her into the restroom, splash water on her and make her do her counting to 50 / reciting the rhyme / whatever, and stand over her till she does and is calm again. Then ask if she's prepared to go back into the auditorium now and listen to the rest of the event or if you're going to have to take her straight home.

(The mother of one of my friends at primary school regularly carried a brown paper bag around with her, and if any child in her charge burst into tears she would make them put their face into it. It always worked like a charm: even the most hysterical sobs rapidly faded sheepishly into nothingness. Years later I read this comment on that ploy by Joan Didion: "As it happens, there is a sound physiological reason, something to do with oxygen, for doing exactly that, but the psychological effect alone is incalculable: it is difficult in the extreme to continue fancying oneself Cathy in Wuthering Heights with one’s head in a Food Fair bag.” Very true.)

*Edited to add: But be aware that no amount of uplifting moral talk about 'let's be nice to people, accept that they too are entitled to their chance to shine, let's learn to be happy for them when they do well instead of being jealous' is going to have any effect if what you are teaching her in practice is 'when I want to cry because people are clapping another kid and not me, what makes me feel better is imagining her fouling up embarrassingly in front of everyone so I can laugh about that'.  It isn't easy to make words stick, but the learned skill of actually using aggression to adjust her brain chemicals to make her feel better is not something she will easily forget.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2020, 05:20:30 am by Aleko »
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