-=> Quoting Damon A. Getsman to Nancy Backus on 10-Feb-2015 14:07 <=-

 NB>> When things can't be helped, they can't be helped... one does have to
 NB>> work with the situation one is actually in.  He at least has the
 NB>> stability of being with you, and having you care about him and his
 NB>> welfare...

 DAG> Yeah.  When I'm out and about with him I still get people
 DAG> complimenting me, at random, whenever they care about kids and are in
 DAG> the area enough to overhear me explaining things to him, and teaching
 DAG> him about new things.  I try to think of that as an offset... 

It's an indication that you /are/ doing something right, when other
people notice...  :)

 DAG> And honestly, I know that there's not a whole lot I can do about all
 DAG> of this right now other than what I'm doing, but it's hard for me not
 DAG> to fret, especially as changes come on and I don't know if they're
 DAG> strictly from age or more from the transience...  Of course it's a
 DAG> combination of both, and I'm sitting here wringing my hands kind of
 DAG> helplessly.  I do have an appointment with his school counselor coming
 DAG> up, though.  Maybe she'll have some insight to give me, too.  I'm
 DAG> always a little haunted about not being able to take good enough care
 DAG> of the people (and animals) that I care for. 

We're never able to do everything we know is needed... all we can do is
the best we can...  :)  And no need to waste energy worrying about what
we can't do, just need to look for what we can do...  :)  And, where
possible, find others to help fill in the lacks...  :)

 NB>> At least he has the friends at school... that's important, too.

 DAG> Very much so!  He's got a bestie, and that helps a lot.  I remember
 DAG> a year when I only had a friend at school, though, and it was a rough
 DAG> one.  I hope he comes out of it without it screwing up his social
 DAG> development at all. He didn't get to sit next to him at lunch
 DAG> yesterday, though.  It appears that my looseness with my lips has
 DAG> spread to him a bit.  Not sure which word it was exactly (but I think
 DAG> it was an eff-bomb) that he dropped with the range of a kid that narced
 DAG> on him, so he had to sit apart from his usual crowd.  :( 

Well, perhaps that can be a lesson for both of you... ;)  One /should/
be careful with one's language anyway, but especially around kids, who
tend to be little parrots...  You maybe could talk with him about when
it is and when it isn't appropriate to use such language... 

 NB>> It might or might not help things... some "lower class" parents buy into
 NB>> the same helicoptor parenting... part of it seems to be the way things
 NB>> tend to be nowadays...

 DAG> Yeah.  I just can't see how that, taken to such extremes, can ever
 DAG> prepare a person to be able to stand on their own feet, unless they're
 DAG> inheriting a legacy the likes of which will keep them isolated from
 DAG> anybody that they don't choose to be in contact with, and free of all
 DAG> hardship.  :P 

Fortunately it isn't often taken to the farthest extremes it might be...
and as I noted before, many of these activities are some sort of group
activity so it isn't exactly isolation...

 NB>> Woulda, shoulda, coulda... The past is what it was... you can learn from
 NB>> it, you can work with the results, but you can't change it, nor should
 NB>> you dwell on the mistakes made...  Hopefully you have learned from it...

 DAG> It's a major shortcoming of mine.  Part of the reason I'm also
 DAG> trying to take more of my own personal time to focus on some tenets of
 DAG> the Buddhist philosophy that I try to adhere to; living in the moment,
 DAG> not haunted by the past, not fretting over the future, but in the
 DAG> moment planning for the future and having learned from the past.  I
 DAG> know I've learned; it's the time when I'm in bed after everybody else
 DAG> is out that I flog myself endlessly with the ghosts of Damo past
 DAG> flogging my poor brain.  ;)  I'm getting much better at it, though. Er,
 DAG> not doing it, that is.  ;) 

Sometimes it takes a sort of discipline to keep from going there... but
it becomes easier with practice...  Not to say that there won't still be
times that the mind wanders down those paths again... but one can bring
it back instead of wallowing in the bygones..  :)

 NB>> The books will probably do the most to help wean him off the games...
 NB>> it's a better way to exercise the brain, and most engaging as well,
 NB>> since he enjoys reading... :)

 DAG> I've got a bunch coming for him, and actually, the _day_ after you
 DAG> mentioned an electronic reader, someone picked one up for him and told
 DAG> me that it was in the mail!  :)  My luck might be changing a bit.

Now that's good timing... ;) 
 
 NB>> Eventually you'll probably have that... both the space and hopefully
 NB>> some friends with more helpful parents... ;)

 DAG> I'm always on the lookout; not going to be changing that any time
 DAG> soon.  :D 

That's the spirit... ;)

 DAG> Thanks for the input and the ear; it's always appreciated.  I need
 DAG> to tell about some of the adventures we had before winter hit here so
 DAG> that I can balance things out a little bit, I think.  ;)

Yeah, tell the good things, too... ;)

ttyl       neb

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