Life Lessons…and Netflix #StreamTeam

I have a sensitive child.

I mean an extremely sensitive child.

She’s thoughtful and smart.  She’s funny and empathetic.  She’s generous and kind.  She’s also very, very sensitive.  Oh, and she’s got a dash of feisty and a healthy serving of stubborn in the mix too.

I noticed that even the tiniest things get her stressed out and weepy, like when I ask her to get her boots on so we can head to the bus stop.  It ends up in her frantically trying to get her boots on as fast as she can and crying that she can’t get them on fast enough. Whoa! No one said to get them on as fast as possible.

We’re working on certain things.  There are so many life lessons to be learned for a parent and a kid!

I have been having issues with getting Little One to sit down and practice her writing and reading every evening.  She used to love doing the reading and writing activities with me when she was in junior kindergarten and senior kindergarten. Now that she is in grade one, it’s a completely different story.

She’s tired. She’s restless.  She’s distracted. She can’t focus on writing a few sentences.

She also tends to doodle a lot. 

Is she a creative type?  Is drawing/doodling a coping mechanism because she’s distracted and can’t focus? Is she just a different type of learner?  Is this a square peg/round hole situation?  I have no idea where she fits in and it’s stressful as a parent to not know how to help your child best when you have tried option after option after option.  Even if I make reading and writing activities FUN via learning through fun and games, she still shut down when it came to writing and reading for more than a few minutes.

Then I tried something different.

Life lessons are never ending

Instead of trying to make Little One fit into what I expect her to be, I needed to stand back and let go the reigns a bit.  Clearly, things weren’t working well anyway.

I let Little One take the reigns.

Sure, it takes longer and it’s a lot more effort to get reading and writing activities done, but they get done and Little One is happy to lead the activities.

How does this all tie in with Netflix?

Little One recently introduced me to a show on Netflix called Ever After High and it sparked some thought and inspiration in me.

I will be completely honest and I will tell you that at first, I thought, “Oh, no. Please do not let this be a show with no lessons or positive messaging.”  I’m not a fan of shows for kids that are pure fluff.

I can assure you that even I enjoy watching Ever After High with Little One and her friends.

Ever After High is a boarding school for teens destined to follow in their famous parents’ fairytale footsteps. It’s high school, so there’s a lot of drama. Remember, these are the kids of fairytale parents.  Some of the characters, like Apple White, Daring Charming and Blondie Lockes, embrace their “happily ever afters”. Others, like Raven Queen and Cedar Wood, choose to rewrite their stories. By changing their stories,  they could change the fate of every one else at school.

My six year old daughter took away the message that she can make decisions and choices and she doesn’t have to be or do what everyone else wants her to be or do. She did add that “I can be the girl I want to be, but I still have to follow rules, Mom.”

Little One is also different. It’s not just that she looks different (she’s Filipina-Chinese-Scottish-English-Canadian) and she also eats different food. She’s not a chicken nugget and French fries kind of kid. She likes Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Greek, French and Italian food. She’s also a bit quirky and very unique in that she goes against the grain.  Whatever her peers and cohorts want to do, she wants to do the opposite. She said that after watching Ever After High, she thinks it’s okay to be different and be her own person.

Life Lessons for a six year old via Netflix! Who would have thought?

Speaking of Ever After High, Little One organized an Ever After High party with her BFFs.

There were tiaras and yummy snacks, and lots of fun activities.

The girls had Every After High party favors, including glitter noteboooks for writing their own reviews of the series!

 They even got to take home a Mattel Ever After High doll.

Disclosure: I am a member of the Netflix #StreamTeam.  As a member of this program, I will be providing thoughts and recommendations about movies and shows  currently showing on Netflix. As always, all thoughts and opinions expressed on this blog are honest and my own.