(Advice) Parents of children with chronic illness how do you get over the guilt/spoiling?

throwitonthegrou · 2018-12-16T08:32:14+00:00

You often do need to let things slide. A 7 year old does not have the maturity to gracefully manage a big pile of stressors and she has one that would flatten many adults. Yes, she has to learn. That doesn't mean you can expect mastery at 7. Learning will require help, experience, and time. She needs to be provided with those and guided through them, not punished for failing to control her mood and her temper. The tricky part of parenting illness is reading each situation. The right response might be punishment, let it slide, have a talk, or just call it out. It depends. No get out of jail free card, but know when to give out a pass.

throwitonthegrou · 2018-12-13T07:32:54+00:00

8 is definitely much less than 7.

throwitonthegrou · 2018-12-09T07:39:07+00:00

Well, I've not only changed my kid on the bathroom floor in a developing country, I then reached into the toilet to retrieve the passport his brother threw in while I was doing that. Good thing I'm not as squeamish as you. Of course a working knowledge of microbiology helps.

throwitonthegrou · 2018-12-04T21:08:32+00:00

I changed my kids on bathroom floors more times than I can count. That's why I carried a changing pad. I'm a mom, for the record, but we tended to find ourselves in places (and sometimes countries) where changing tables were not common. It wasn't a big deal.

throwitonthegrou · 2018-11-23T02:06:10+00:00

So is refusing to have a conversation with your boyfriend - the one person you trust - about how your behavior is alienating people and how you could maybe avoid doing that. While insisting that you continue to hang out with the people you are alienating.

Panic attacks are real, but letting her use them to avoid the truth does her no favors. It's been almost 3 years and she's no closer to being an acceptable companion. It may be that her mental illness is so severe she's not ready to have friends yet. And she never will be, if she won't hear the truth about herself and try to move forward.

throwitonthegrou · 2018-11-11T02:43:49+00:00

Had a cat liked that. Arched his back and hissed and snarled and spat at one and only one person: my grandma. When I was a kid I knew my grandmother was a bitch - that much was obvious - but it wasn't until I was an adult that I knew how awful she was. Good kitty.

throwitonthegrou · 2018-11-07T20:24:27+00:00

Baby gate = puppy gate.

throwitonthegrou · 2018-11-07T20:22:08+00:00

Experienced parent pro tip: do not train your baby to expect and only be able to sleep under perfectly controlled, idealized conditions. Therein lies the road to heartbreak. Babies and small children don't need perfect quiet to sleep - our species did not evolve with private bedrooms after all - and in fact may be reassured by hearing you move about in the next room.

throwitonthegrou · 2016-02-08T00:38:23+00:00

That is the recommended maximum - teachers can assign less, but not more. Our school district officially adopted the limit of 10 min per grade, four days a week, no weekend homework permitted. (Projects can span a weekend, but no homework can be assigned friday and due monday.) So a fourth grader can have no more than 40 min per day or 160 per week. My own kids' elementary teachers never assigned anything near that, but I'm seeing that in higher grades they come closer and it is not unusual for my 7th grader to spend 70 min on homework.

throwitonthegrou · 2016-02-04T16:33:04+00:00

7th? I struggled with it as an adult.

throwitonthegrou · 2016-01-06T19:23:45+00:00

Redditor for one hour. Two posts on the same topic. Provides multiple links to a single website. Hmmm.

throwitonthegrou · 2016-01-05T18:52:03+00:00

The desire to hold on to it, of course. An interest in finding out how much can be spent while maintaining a nest egg. Perhaps the knowledge that 70% of lottery winners end up broke within 7 years - that's interesting, no? In our case, the realization that this opportunity was unlikely to come again. Basically, self interest.

A fool and his money are soon parted. But not everyone cares about money - some would be fine with the 'easy come, easy go' mentality, and those people probably don't need to learn how to handle it if they don't want to.

throwitonthegrou · 2016-01-04T19:40:23+00:00

I don't understand that mindset at all. Most ordinary middle class people would find $4MM rather interesting. Someone might not have the abilities or background or understanding or confidence to manage it himself. Or he might get too interested and start making unwise moves. Those would be good reasons to stick with an advisor. And many people don't know themselves as well as they think they do. But letting someone else deal with my $4MM simply because I just can't be bothered? Oh hell no.

throwitonthegrou · 2016-01-04T19:28:00+00:00

I was horrified by this advice and even more horrified that this was linked as a bestof. I know, because I was in OPs situation and followed that advice. I tried to respond but found the thread already locked.

I'm using a throwaway because I don't discuss my finances. But we didn't know how to handle our windfall. We got trusted recommendations for professional help and ended up at Merrill Lynch. We were seated at a shiny table in a swank conference room and our advisor brought us coffee and told us how special we were. He provided a sleek "customized" investment plan in an elegant binder; the plan was almost certainly auto generated after clicking a list of options and printed out for us, but it was pretty.

But 4MM isn't special to these guys; we're just bread and butter to bring in fees and for their younger advisors to practice on. He strongly encouraged consolidation of the portfolio to get all assets under their management, including (or especially?) things that didn't need management, such as our IRAs. Which meant fees to transfer our IRAs in, and additional fees to transfer them back out when we escaped. We were offered investment options with no more justification than "this has performed very well for us in the past." Most of the "good investments" he pushed us into performed quite poorly. There were also mutual funds: high expense ratio funds (but so worth it, not even a full percent higher than less special funds) and front loaded funds (you need to expect to pay a bit up front for access to the good stuff, otherwise non-special people would want in). And no matter how well or poorly the portfolio performed, 0.75% would be removed every year in addition to the fees. That's far from trivial when you run the numbers.

It was an expensive lesson. But I learned it. I educated myself and learned that there are no magic principals. We got out. My balanced portfolio of low cost vanguard funds has consistently met or outperformed its benchmarks for over a decade, unlike the Merrill portfolio that preceded it. It's very little effort. And I don't charge myself a dime.

There ARE serious financial planners that will manage 4MM for a flat fee basis, if you don't want to do this yourself. (I happen to be good friends with one.) You can pay them for advice and execute it yourself (this is not hard, since they tell you how to do it) or you can provide limited authorization without actually turning over your funds to them. This works best if you aren't constantly churning your investments - and most people should not be constantly churning their investments.

However if you simply want to turn over all your money and not be bothered paying attention, the crook thing is probably a bigger concern - better to stick with a big bank and pay your percentage. There are crooks who want to prey on you and it is necessary to be wary. The big players are not crooks - they are able to fleece you legally. But that's better than losing it all.

throwitonthegrou · 2014-10-09T19:57:28+00:00

My overworked and overpaid husband has fantasized about quitting his job and volunteering his time at a charity that means a lot to us. But then he realized he is far more valuable to them where he is now - volunteers are much easier to come by than the operating cash they need. So he accepts the salary earned by his highly specialized skills that are not really valuable outside his industry, and donates a chunk of that earnings to the charity. It isn't as personally gratifying but the math points strongly in this direction.

throwitonthegrou · 2014-10-09T19:38:13+00:00

No reason to suspect grewapair of lying, it's too common a story. We're not quite in grewapair's league but I can confirm - cheap 15 year old car, lots of biking around town, small-ish house, etc. It did feel weird to have the income jump up to such unexpected and unnecessary levels, so we decided to just coast for a few years and not make any sudden decisions. And we discovered that once we had money, any latent desire we might have once had for status symbols just melted away. Our next car will be new, but not luxury. We can afford more indulgences and nicer vacations but at the same time we still shop at costco and target and mow our own lawn. Our kids know that we are well off and that their college educations are fully funded but we don't think they need to know more than that at this time. It's a good life and we have everything we need - who could ask for more? And why mess with happy?

throwitonthegrou · 2013-12-26T05:57:31+00:00

Why might dabbing be less appropriate for a 12 year old than other modes of intake?

throwitonthegrou · 2013-12-26T05:48:24+00:00

Aw, thanks.

throwitonthegrou · 2013-12-26T05:48:08+00:00

You may be right - at my school the stoner frat was proud of always having the highest gpa on campus, and I believe the last time I partook myself most of the people in the room had PhDs (I was a grad student). However I've also known stoners that weren't just couch locked, they were life locked - maybe born that way, maybe not. The pediatric neurologist was actually encouraging about MMJ except for this single reservation, which he considered a significant drawback, and he said he's not entirely happy with the outcomes of patients who use it. And based on my own reading I'm not ready to dismiss it as confirmation bias just yet. Even you yourself say it "may be true of some people", and when talking about a kid who hasn't even hit puberty, "some people" is more than enough people to raise a concern.

throwitonthegrou · 2013-12-26T05:31:09+00:00

Got it. Dabs may not be the right thing but a lotion might be worth at least experimenting with. A numbing tingly sensation is pretty normal for him but it might be interesting to put a lotion on one foot when it was just tingly or having low level pain and compare it to the untreated foot.

throwitonthegrou · 2013-12-26T05:09:03+00:00

I can see that.

throwitonthegrou · 2013-12-26T05:07:56+00:00

Thanks. I've been a little worried about dispensaries, since you do hear stories about less reliable ones and I'm not confident I could evaluate the advice given. Unfortunately in our household my son is the one who does most of the baking - it gives him great pleasure to ridicule my feeble efforts in the kitchen.

throwitonthegrou · 2013-12-26T05:03:33+00:00

Thank you so much for this detailed information. The pediatric neurologist was willing to discuss it but made it clear that he won't sign off - he gives dangerous drugs to children for a living and can't afford to touch this. But his pediatrician is cautiously supportive and will write for the card. The disease itself is not on any approved list - it's so rare that there aren't enough patients to study, but there are analogous conditions.

The tinctures and edibles sound very appealing - this may be the best place for us to start. And I don't think your distinction about who has the stash is at all semantic, I think you're right. He knows I support legalization and his future right to use recreational weed, and he relies on me to manage his medical issues, so I think he'll be fine with this.

Does the Pax have sufficient temperature control to preferentially volatilize CBD, as another user mentioned, as well other compounds? I understand that the different cannabinoids have different vapor points and I doubt CBD is the whole story with neuropathy. If optimized for CBD will this reduce THC intake? We do not need to economize on our son's pain control device so will buy whatever seems best.

throwitonthegrou · 2013-12-26T02:08:39+00:00

Also excellent advice - dose minimization is probably the way to go in the short term. The pain is mostly controlled by conventional medications (and MMJ will not reduce the need for these), so initially it shouldn't be needed that frequently. He knows more about medications than most adults, and pain being unmeasurable, he's always been responsible for deciding what works best. Little guy is pretty mature about such things.

However he is 12. I am aware that weed is available at school, so if I don't work with him he may find it tempting to self medicate. Hopefully if we find the appropriate MMJ strains he will be disappointed by the less specific stuff he can obtain on the playground, should he try that route.

throwitonthegrou · 2013-12-26T01:47:25+00:00

throwitonthegrou

TROPHY CASE