 Welcome to Colleen's web site, version 5.0!
Colleen is an awesome kid who loves to read, do homework (and she isn't even in school yet) and play outside. She is an artist, philosopher and great mathematician. She is a very good photographer, too, who was recently introduced to a digital camera. The photo at the top of the page is a self-portrait.
Her favorite color is pink. She loves to wear dresses, play dress-up and play with dolls. She is all girl. However, she is also tough. She likes to get dirty, jump on the trampouline, rough house, pick up bugs and play soccer. Noone has ever told her not to do these things, so she loves them as well. Her girl idols are her cousins Ashley and Katelyn, who are gorgeous sports jocks. She adores all of her cousins — because she thinks the girls are beautiful and the boys are WILD! But she particularly talks about these two a lot, probably because they embody both of her favorite characteristics!
Currently, the blog below is updated by her parents. However, you should expect entries from her in the very near future.
We hope you also will take time to look at her photo album, which contains pictures that we update on rare occasions. New visitors might be interested in reading about Colleen's birth or her heart surgery, or seeing photos she took of her house.
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Colleen's Blog |
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
( 9:13 PM ) Rosie
Today we got a note from Colleen's teacher at daycare. It seems that Colleen didn't want to take a nap today at school, and then stuck her tongue out at her teacher, then "kicked at" her teacher. Rosie and I had a very stern talk with Colleen about the incident and actually read to her what her teacher had written in the note. We told her that she had done some bad things and would need to be punished, so we announced that there would be no Dora tapes tonight. Colleen was genuinely upset and contrite long before we announced a punishment. She was pretty distraught after hearing that Dora was taken away. She cried and whined until Rosie put her to bed. She fell right asleep (because she had not taken a nap today).
I have really mixed emotions about the whole thing. First, I'm glad I wasn't there because I'm pretty sure I would have laughed when she stuck her tongue out at the teacher (I guess I'm still 2-yrs-old in some ways myself.) Me laughing would have been the wrong reinforcement for the behavior, so again I'm glad I wasn't there. Second, I really did not enjoy upsetting Colleen and I feel like a giant jerk. I can justify it all I want intellectually and developmentally, but I still feel like I'm picking on a little defenseless kid. I'm so entrenched mentally to shield Colleen from pain that it is unsettling to cause her pain myself. I don't like it. Third, I am proud that we handled this "correctly." We didn't yell, we calmly explained to her what she did and why it was wrong, we calmly chose a punishment that was appropriate, we tempered the lecture with loving reassurances, etc. I think this is the right way to discipline an intelligent child about to turn 3. She seemed genuinely contrite, and that was the goal.
I really feel that this difficult episode, and my consternation regarding it, will go very far to help Colleen in the long run. I'm not so naive to believe this will be the last time she'll get into trouble, but we've set a very solid example of how things should be handled in the future.
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