Welcome to the Parenting Roundabout podcast for the week of June nineteen, twenty twenty three. I'm Nicole Erdic's time here in Catherine Heleco Hello, and Terry Morrow Hello. Every week we chat about what parents are talking, complaining, and obsessing about right now. This week we're complaining about anti dopamine parenting and obsessing about what happens when kids want to quit an activity. We also take a
couple of breaks for an entertainment discussion and a recommendation roundup. Today we are talking about things that make us proud. So I'm gonna just send that over to you, Terry, because you had a big weekend a while. Yeah. Yeah, my family went to the Special Olympics in New Jersey, which I believe I talked about earlier on this podcast. We had a very successful and fun weekend and we ate a lot of candy. There was, for some reason, a lot of candy at the Special Olympics here. I don't
know why. Shopwright I think, which is a supermarket chain here, donates all the food, and this stuff was totally remaindered Easter candy, and so there were like lots of eggs shaped things and It's like, you're not fooling me shop right, you didn't just buy these for the athletes. You're trying to unload big truckloads of sugar. Yes, I will take some, thank
you. So. But another really sweet part of the weekend was not so much what my kids did in their athletic endeavors, which they did great and I'm so proud of them. And yeah, but my sons they were staying in the doors dorms and on Saturday night they were all going to go out for an activity. I think they were gonna go see a movie, and my son's roommate wasn't feeling well. He had a stomachache, probably from all the candy, and my son stayed with him. You know, he just
didn't go out with everybody. He stay with his roommate and kept him company, which, ah, yeah, more to me than coming in first in a race. That's a good dude right there. And you know, the coaches always tell me how he's always the first one to help. If they need stuff carried, or they need stuff put away, or whatever they need to do, he's there to do it. And I love that. And then there was a time where my daughter was in a race and watching it,
we thought she had come in second. But when they were giving the medals, they have them walk out in order so that when they stand on these platforms, the person who won gold will be on the highest one, and then second and third next to them. And when they put them placed them on the podium, she was on the top like she had won the gold, and I thought, well, we didn't think that, but yeah,
that's nice. And then when they came to give the second place medal, they said her name, and everybode who's a little confused for a minute and they realized what they had done. And then she just walked down to the second place one and the other girl went up to the first place. One of my daughter immediately put her hands over her head and cheered, and
I'm like, good sportsmanship, bab sportsmanship. I just loved it because some kids would have been understandably upset by that, or at least not super psyched, but she just was the best sport about it. And that's the stuff that makes you proud as an apparent. The other stuff is great and you're excited, but you know, to see your kid being a good human, yeah, that's what really it doesn't have to be something big. I mean, the big things are great, the graduations and the driver's licenses and all
those things are great. But just the small gestures of kindness, the small acceptance of imperfect circumstances, is just maybe I did something right somewhere along the line. Yeah, maybe that's the thank you part. The few one comes later. But you know, not everything was wrong. So I just want to ask you, guys, have you had anything lately the just some small thing that made you stop and go, that's my kid, and feel good about yourself and feel good about them and feel proud. Catherine, I know
you've had some big things. Yes, well you mentioned the driver's license and the graduation, but also on the same on the same day as the driver's license, I had to send my computer away to the computer hospital, and I went to my son had just gotten, you know, with his graduation money, he got a brand new map book, and I said, you know, can I borrow the old one because I'm going to be without a laptop for like a few weeks, and you know, I can't function with
I can only do so much on my phone. You know, I can't work. I can't there's a lot of things like yeah, yeah, so um, so I was like, okay, you know, no problem. I we have this old mac book. You know, it had actually been my daughter's and then she sold it to my son and when she got her new one and so and then he got his new one and it just came I mean he'd had it for a few days, and so I was like, can I borrow the old one? He said, well, no,
it doesn't work at all, like, it won't turn on. It's it's just completely it's completely dead, it's deceased, it's it's yeah, it's a brick. And he said, but you can use the new one, and you just let me use his brand new one. So it's very lovely. I mean I also let him use my car. So no, it's not a new car at all. It's an eight year old car. Yeah that not coincidentally, just came back from the body shop where it had to have
some work done thanks to somebody who was learning how to drive. So so yeah, I mean there were some trade offs probably involved, but still he was super nice of him to offer his You would have totally understood if he hadn't. Yes, so lovely that he did, Yes, and then my other kid was just telling me how a few weeks ago she went to stay. She has this new guy that she's seeing and she went to stay at his family's house, and so was you know, the first time she was
meeting them. But she was also kind. She was sick the whole time she was there, so she did not feel great about the whole thing because, you know, she didn't feel like she was very good company because she was sick and um. But she said to me, I think I should send them a thank you note? And I said, yeah, I think that would be that would be a good idea, you know, because she
stayed at her house. Um, so she did. And I just talked to her today and apparently the boy's mom was very impressed and that she had said a thank you note. She thought of it herself. Yeah, rather do you having to say? Do you think you should write and thank you? Yes? And she did say to me like, well, they're going away, what do I do? And and I said, just send it and then it will be there when they get back. Don't don't wait on it. So nice. Now I need to get the thank you note.
Mojo going for the other kid with those days he's done some let's just say it's done. I had two graduations with kids who are not capable of doing that task themselves. It had to me write this. Yeah, yeah, really sort of in the back of your mind, makes you want to just have a party and say no gifts, no gifts please. It is worth worth me to get whatever you would have given him. I will pay him that money not to have to do things to do. Yeah, well this
this kid will be doing them himself. Take a minute, I think you will be nagging gently. But you have his computer now, so m hmm. Yeah, well he has to hand right handwriting them. Yes, do you have like preprinted graduation thank you notes? No, we just have little thank you cards, and he's done several. But he he quickly, you know, stuffs them in velo before. So I don't know what they said or whether they were even legible at all. So I'll have to ask my
mom when she gets her, like, could you read it? I don't know. Maybe it's better not to know just it. So he did it, you know, Oh I didn't see it. Yes, he's taking care of it himself. I'm so proud of him. So but yeah, he's doing well. How about you, Nicole. Well, actually, my daughter, so she acquired a new roommate a couple of days ago, and her other one has since left for the Amazon Jungle. Oh yes, she's graduated with a science degree and she's off to go study in the Amazon Jungle.
Wow wow, so yeah, so um, so my daughter he had to find herself a new roommate, and so roommate moved in. But prior to that, just you know, in the days prior to the new roommate moving in, my daughter has been working full time and commuting, and so she's away from her place for you know, several hours, more than several hours a day. But I face timed her one night beforehand, and I thought,
what are you doing? How are things going? And she's good, I'm just cleaning up for the roommate, and I'm like, well, that's nice. Well, I mean, she cleaned that apartment spick and span, She cleaned out cupboards, she wiped out the fridge. She like just really went above and beyond more than when I ever had any of my roommates do
more than she ever did at home, right right exactly. And then she even left a little gift for her because she wasn't going to be there the day that or that when the room was moving in because she's gonna at work, right, So she left a little gift and then she put notes on all the cupboards like where there's space that this new roommate could put her food
in. And I was just like, wow, that's nice. Yeah, like you know, the fact that you a went to the effort to clean and then you know, kind of help her find her way around the apartment with messages and yeah, it was very I thought that was really thoughtful. I was like, oh, that's really nice. So yeah, I was very proud of her for that. M Yeah, and I just have not really seen or talk to my son at all because he's in the midst of
studying for some major final medical school exam. So I know he's alive about it. I check in for proof of life every couple of days, right, the poor guy. He is in a world a hurt right now, I imagine, So I am staying away. Yeah, well, we're proud of him for going through all that. Anyway, we're proud of his perseverance. It's a macro pride and not a micropride, so true. Yeah, but well, good we have raised some good humans apparently, so we're cutting
ourselves on the back just a little bit. But we'll stop there before we tempt fate any fre and say that's it for today's round one. Tune in tomorrow for our entertainment themed Round two and later in the week to find out what we're complaining about, obsessing about, and recommending. Right now where I was interested in what you have to say, so drop us a comment on our website, our Facebook page or Twitter. We'll find us a round about chat the bar