With toilet training on solid tracks right now, it's time for Dave and I to decide what else we want to work on with Alex. For the last decade, toileting has been the primary focus and anything that might disrupt or detract from that has been put on the shelf. Also, the sheer amount of mental effort meant we didn't have much extra. (That's always one of my big pieces of advice for parents: don't take on too many programs at once because you'll get exhausted and then they'll all slip.)
So what do we want to work on?
Alex is fairly good at getting himself dressed and is doing well with eating regular food. We could work on table manners and independent personal hygiene (ie washing himself, brushing his own teeth and hair). Both of those will affect how people interact with him long term.
He likes being with people, so maybe we should work on appropriate social interactions (ie, only saying hello once and not demanding endless streams of French-English translations).
Or maybe we should work on getting him involved in some kind of organized sport (swimming or track and field would be my top picks). He's an active boy and will likely need that kind of activity throughout his life to stay on an even keel.
Here's the thing. We likely will only be able to tackle one of these. So which one is the priority? There's no right or wrong answer. It's a matter of deciding where to put our effort.
Luckily, we have some time to think about it since I won't be starting anything before the new dog arrives in October.
No comments:
Post a Comment