I got that idea from watching Super Nanny. She always recommended getting on the child's level and speaking in a lower voice. I know her methods are not in vogue right now, but that one bit was useful.

Not to derail, but does anyone have any curly hair product recommendations?

It might be overkill but all I can say is Take.My.Money. If someone could actually *teach* me how to deal with this mop and the answer not just be to straighten it or “use a round brush” I’d pay that.

From your description the screaming didn’t start until the babysitter tried to get the child to stand with her arms up like she was in a POW camp. The sitter caused the screaming . Full stop. The sitter escalated the child into a tantrum. Learning how not to do that would solve most of the screaming issues.

I wish I had found them sooner. It would have saved me so much. I *was* that young mom with only poor modeling and no skills. Working and being away from the kids let me outsource it and not deal with it. Becoming a stay at home mom, these boards and some other blogs really helped.

Such a hard situation. I hope she’ll take your mentoring and put in some effort to read some books and learn about children.

Seriously! It’s not realistic to essentially torture this poor child as a punishment and expect them to be quiet during it.

Has she ever read a book about child development? You might recommend some to her, or Ross Greene’s you tube videos on kids doing well if they can.

My advice is your friend needs to quit babysitting. She isn’t good with children and she’s causing damage. I would 💯 fire a babysitter for that behavior. Subway is probably hiring and would be a better fit. The lying about a happy meal toy shows that the sitter has no clue about young children. You don’t ask questions about things you already know the answer to, and you don’t escalate the child. Of course the child lied, look at the punishment they got! “Susan, I told you not to open your toy, give it here. You can have it back once your done eating” would have been fine. You mention the sitters rules several times, what are the parents rules? Because I always give my child her happy meal toy while she eats. She gets confused when I change that when we are with other people who do it differently. Because at 5 the way I do things is her normal. I’m not hearing anything on your description about the parents rules, or parents thoughts on consequences from a non-family member.

I can attest that this works. Bursting out in tears when the doctor asks a question gets all sorts of a response, and decent meds. It wasn’t done in purpose, but man did it work.

Have you tried math? I once read that doing math will cure an ear worm because of the different neural patterns or some such? Maybe Sudoko would work. Or maybe try to find a different ear worm? Anything Taylor Swift usually works.

If a person qualifies. They have to spend down assets first, usually by paying out of pocket for however long one is able first. There’s some sort of provision that protects some money for the spouse, but my understanding is that it is not very much protection.

I’ve never had success telling my kids that such and such won’t work in the real world. Maybe my kids are extra stubborn but it’s never once helped.

I dug up my letter! I didn’t toss it, I put it in a different pile. You are correct, she is being treated as 6, because I’ll be getting $500. I’m guessing because she will be 6 before Dec 31.

Does the child feel comfortable saying “no thank you” to breakfast? Is there any chance they feel they are required to say they want something, even if you haven’t tried to give them that impression? Kids pick up weird things. I would start with explicitly telling them that “nothing” is a perfectly fine answer.

We’ll all be surprised on the 15th! It’ll be a National Day of Surprise.

I can see where there is some figuring if you earn over the $150k for families. It’s reduced by $50 for each increment of some amount over that, so some people will get a reduced amount, the same people who got a reduced stimulus amount in the last round it looks like.

I probably should have actually, you know, read the letter. I tossed it because it was in a huge stack of end of vacation mail. I’ll be surprised on the 15th! I’m not sure if my 5 year old counts as under 6 since she’ll be 6 this calendar year.

Are you in one of the phase out categories? That might be why you’re only getting $500. For incomes under $150k it went from $2000 to $3000($3600 for under 6). IRS.gov describes it like this… Q D2. How much will I receive in advance Child Tax Credit payments? (added June 14, 2021) A2. Your total advance Child Tax Credit payment amounts will equal half of the amount of your estimated 2021 Child Tax Credit. This amount is then divided into monthly advance payments to you. As a result: For each of your qualifying children age 5 or younger, generally you will receive $300. That is determined by dividing $3,600 in half, which is $1,800. Six monthly payments of $300 will provide you with $1,800. For each of your qualifying children ages 6 to 17, generally you will receive $250. That is determined by dividing $3,000 in half, which is $1,500. Six monthly payments of $250 will provide you with $1,500.

I was going to opt out, but since it’s only half of the new amount I’m just going to get them monthly. They go to a different account than our main checking so they won’t be frittered away. We’ll use them to get ahead on some balances we’ve had hanging around on credit cards.

Cobra is an option too. So is making him pay for it.

She can ask him to pay her premiums on her own plan, but he can’t carry her on his employer sponsored plan. Many plans ask for documentation of marriage status, including marriage license and current tax documents to show that you are still married. Men have been fired for fraudulently carrying the ex-spouse as a current spouse.

He can cover her during the separation but not after the divorce. Divorce is a qualifing event so she’d be eligible to get on an ACA plan. He can cover the kids as usual because they still count as dependents for that. She can and probably should get it in the court papers for custody that he is required to cover them, along with child support.

Had this discussion with 2 friends this past week. They will not be vaccinating or masking from here on out. They told the children they were “pretending to be vaccinated”. So yeah that is 💯 a thing people are doing.

Until they tell me not to. My older kids stayed the night with grandparents regularly so they didn’t need the tuck in if they were away from home. They could adjust and be fine. My current little still needs her bedtime routine. I think somewhere between 7-10 kids really need to be transitioning away from *needing* the tuck in, by which I mean that not having the tuck in for whatever reason shouldn’t lead to tears and anxiety. I’ve seen that and it really starts to infringe on the child’s ability to do things that they want. I need to figure that how to do that myself for my youngest.