I'm just sayin'...

Same here.

Playdates too, though, when she's had enough of exploring on her own and there's nobody around. (Or whatever you want to call calling someone up and saying "hey can you come over?" but that's what kids her age still call a playdate around here.) (Not to start that whole discussion again.)

I'm not sure. I think hurt feelings, but I'd guess it came more from the parents than the kids.

I know that sozlet sees the everyone-gets-'em trophies as useless. She recently won something and was talking about how it was her first trophy. I said what about [a bunch of other trophies for this and that]. She said "yeah but they don't count, everyone got one."



Sure.

Not to start up the play date debacle again either, but I think your kiddo is past the play date stage, too babyish.

She's ready for "hanging out"

I'm glad to hear she finds the trophies for all useless. I think that great.

Smart kids know that everyone getting the same thing doesn't mean a thing.

In adult terms, it's giving someone a mercy ****.

She hangs out sometimes. Sometimes she has a playdate. I'm a bit surprised that they still use that term too but they do, and I don't feel strongly enough about it to outlaw it.

I think manners and child behavior are largely cultural - cultural within a family and larger family history (including rebellion against prior family mores) and cultural re the world at large. There may be some age relationship (kids now....) but I'm chary of saying that, as elders have seemed to gripe forever about 'today's youth'.

In the late seventies, I invited people from some different labs I was associated with for a get together at our house. I'm guessing it was during December holidays. Children were welcome but in that crew, only one couple had children in those years.

The couple had emigrated to the US and had lived here for some long time. They were, as a couple, rather "old country" with prescribed roles for husband and wife. Many in the US were also old-country, but some of those roles were changing fairly swiftly then. Anyway, I was pretty shocked. The wife couldn't control the kids, as they simply paid no attention to her. The husband sat oblivious. I think I managed to find something for the kids to do, but forget the details. After everyone left, it seemed like every counter and table was sticky, and I was frazzled. Looking back, I think my husband wasn't home, or we would have figured out together how to handle things better.

I was raised to send thank you notes, never sass my parents, and remember myself as little miss quiet goody goody. Some of that is not good either. I didn't learn how to argue a subject at all, and I no longer think of being shy as somehow nice as a lifelong trait.. more a kind of self absorption. Getting a job at sixteen helped me get out of some of that.

So, what am I sayin' - that behavior and manners vary markedly and that sometimes makes life fairly interesting.

I've avoided that whole discussion for just this reason. I'm not going to go look it up now, but i have posted before at this site a quote from Hesiod from more than 2500 years ago complaining that "kids these days" have no respect and no manners.

When I was about 10ish, there was a family who owned a boat, which they kept at our families marina.
They lived in North Jersey, about an hour or so away.
After spending the day on their (small) boat, their car wouldn't start, and they were stranded.

My folks said they could stay in our house. The mom and dad said they would sleep out in the car, but they were happy to let the kids stay. There were 4 of them. The oldest was a girl, about 13, the youngest was 5ish. The 13 year old was put in charge.

The kids were all going to sleep either on our couch or on the floor in the living room. They said they didn't want to put us out by sharing our beds.

In the morning I woke up early, excited at the prospect of finding kids in our living room, having breakfast, etc. I remember it was barely light out.

I went into the living room, and all the sheets and blankets were carefully folded up and in a neat stack, they'd even tidied up the living room for us. Their parents had never come in the house at all. I went outside, and the car was gone.
The next weekend when they came down, they explained they had managed to fix it during the night, and didn't want to disturb us by waking us up to say goodbye.

I once worked in a shoe store while looking for a better job, and one day i had the most extraordinary experience. A boy, about 12 or 13 came rushing up to the door, and held it open for a woman who was about five feet nothing, if she was that tall. She had four boys with her, and only the youngest was smaller than her. They were all dressed in pressed white shirts, black slacks and highly polished black shoes. She lined them up by the door, and took the youngest back into the boys' shoe section. He came back with a pair of dress shoes, and a pair of runners, which he put on the counter, before taking his place in the line. Then the next boy went into the boys' shoe aisle with Mom, and repeated the procedure. None of the other boys said a word, or moved out of line (the youngest fidgeted a little, but the oldest boy gave him a look, and he straightened up). When the procedure had been completed for all the boys, they waited in line until Mom had selected the shoes she wanted.

She paid for everything, and insisted on bagging the shoes for the boys, one bag per boy. Then the oldest boy held the door and they all followed her out. I have always wondered what became of those boys.

In Special Olympics gold, silver, and bronze medals are awarded.

The athlete oath of Special Olympics is: "Let me win. But if I cannot win,
let me be brave in the attempt."

I'll defer to you superior knowledge, George . . . you're so special ! ! !

I'm also on special.
This week only.

And cheap at twice the price . . .

I'll take two!

Snore.

Move on, dude.