Ellie's got some new sleep-resistant behaviours. When I'm rocking/bouncing/reading to her, she'll push away and try to get back to the floor. I let her get away with it the first few times, now I just hold her, and, sure enough, she goes to sleep. The other one is that, as soon as we put her down, she pops back up again, and wants to be picked up. We've usually thought that we had to pick her up, rock her some more, and try again-- but it hasn't been working. She's like a weeble. Today, she popped up and I just pushed her right back down and closed the door. Usually she cries for 10 minutes then sleeps-- this makes me sad, but oh well. Today though, not a peep. I had to check-- sure enough, she was sleeping. So she's not even really awake when she pops back up! How bizarre.

She gets very funny when she's tired; easily frustrated, but also quite loving and cuddly. She gives me these wonderful, sloppy smiles.

I find it hard to resist doing what she wants. I don't like forcing her to do what I want. On the one hand, I arguably know best what's good for her. On the other hand, I don't think she'll turn into a curious, independent, adventurous little girl if we quash independent exploration now. It just makes sense to me. But that just makes me one of the millions of parents who're winging child rearing, hoping it will turn out for the best. There's so much myth floating around, some of it passing for research. The sort of research that could actually tell us something isn't ethical. Besides, we rear our children in society as it is, not as it should be. Fabulous wonderfulness in the future lovely society would probably just be weird in this one.

Today at her play group, one of the teachers said that she's not very persevering. I disagreed (of course she's everything good), but she was right; Ellie does get frustrated easily. She usually throws things then. But she also throws things for fun, and because she's exuberant. She can focus on an activity for quite a while-- but she does give up quickly when frustrated. I'm not surprised really, I think perseverance is a learned behaviour. But it would be good for her to learn it. If she's going to have trouble learning things, she's going to need to stick at them despite being frustrated. But how do I teach it? The teacher set her a limit, and made her put all the pieces back in the jigsaw. Then, when she emptied it out again. the teacher did it again. Sort of a action-consequences thing. I guess this could be perseverance, if the notions of the internalised super-ego are correct. But it seems somewhat lacking in agency, in "I want". I think it's not so much about doing in spite of frustration, it's about not getting frustrated. I should talk, of course-- I haven't learned this myself. I get frustrated really quickly, and act up, swearing and throwing things. It's usually a computer thing.

So, do we nurture good people in our little children by making them do what we want them to? Or do we just encourage the good, and ignore the bad?

My partner and I play very differently with her. She tends to be much more directive than I do.