This week was the start of a big change for our daughter at the daycare, as we made the decision to move to a lactose- and gluten- free meal plan for her. This would give her a much wider selection of foods and perhaps more importantly for her, is that most of what she will get is the same as others. She has been really excited about this change.
Today, the first mistake was made, as she was accidentally given a piece of normal dark rye bread and luckily she only ate a little of it before it was noticed. Normally she would have mentioned unfamiliar food to the teachers, but because this was the first week and there has been a lot of new items, she just thought it was another. When the teachers realized, they made a bit of a deal of it which upset our daughter a bit, because she felt she had done something wrong.
They called to inform us and check what to do and we assured them it isn't the end of the world and if affected, she might get an upset stomach or a skin rash. It might take a couple days to react if it does, but since she only had a bit, it should be okay.
What was interesting was that when she was eating her evening snack tonight, she asked us what her responsibility is as a child and what is an adult's. She didn't know the word in English, but she did know it in Finnish, so it must have come up somewhere along the line. I found this quite an interesting question to come from an almost five year old and I guess it was inspired by the events of the day.
We talked about it at a pretty basic level and from the perspective of the things she knows. We said that it wasn't her responsibility to make sure the bread was gluten-free, but if she did notice, it is her responsibility to let someone know. We also talked about things like keeping her room neat and tidy, but generally, just enjoy life. She then added other responsibilities like going to daycare and for us, making sure we get to work on time in the morning.
I then added that as her parents, it is our responsibility to help her be healthy and happy and how at times, that might mean that she isn't happy in the moment, but may be happy afterward. For example, we make sure that she eats food that keeps her healthy so she has the energy to grow, play and have fun. She got the idea fast and said that if for example she eats ice cream all the time, she wouldn't be able to go to the park and play, as she will be ill in bed. Close enough. We also spoke about some examples like brushing her teeth, making sure she has suitable clothing and is clean.
A lot of older kids these days don't seem to think much about their role in this world, their place. They seem to think that they have no responsibilities and as such, can do what they want, when they want without obligation or consequence. It seems that a lot of parents don't mind them ruling the roost in this manner either, choosing to be friends with their children instead, or at least, not upset them and give them happiness as often as possible, even if it is going to cost them happiness later.
As I was explaining to my daughter, while her mother and I make many decisions for her now, she has the freedom and responsibility to make some of the decisions herself. And as she grows, she will have more and more decisions to make to the point that all will be hers and whatever she decides, it will be our responsibility to support her the best we can.
I told her that our hope is that she will learn to make good decisions, but just like at the daycare today, everyone makes mistakes. There is nothing wrong with making mistakes, we just need to learn from them so that we can make better decisions next time and understand that we have to learn how to accept the mistakes of others also, not just our own.
It was quite an advanced conversation, but over the last couple of months she seems to be going through a phase with these kinds of things and we are trying our best to empower her curiosity. We have done this from the start and are lucky that her language skills have been so high that we can discuss with a fair amount of breadth and have her understand, considering her age. We are able to adjust what we are speaking about and how based on the questions she asks and have gotten pretty good at it.
The last thing we left her with was what is always her responsibility.
If she has something on her mind and wants to talk about it, it is her responsibility to speak with us and no matter what it is, it is our responsibility to listen.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Originally posted here: https://hive.blog/hive-174578/@tarazkp/wrong-food-for-thought
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