You know the one thing that I wish people had told me about parenting? That the nuances and complexities of raising good kids are mind-blowing. People always want to talk about 2 am feedings and diaper blowouts and finger painting on the dining room walls.
Well, where’s the crash course on teaching self-control for a preschooler’s sense of moral outrage? Or how to balance rewarding honesty with the natural consequences of bad behavior?
Parenting is not for the faint of heart.
Since the animals are on pasture, we’re back to using our Ranger UTV nearly every day for fencing, watering, and just generally everything we do outside. On Thursday it started acting up and cutting off on me and I had to leave it out in the field until Mr. Fix-It got home. So over the weekend he limped it into the garage and started working on it.
Well, I’m inside folding clothes (and hiding from the pollen) and thinking about making lunch when my whole little family bursts into the house, crying, yelling, and all up in a fluster. Mr. Fix-It sends everyone to their room and then tells me that the Ranger was shorting out because someone had shoved washers into an open adapter outlet and it had fried the electrical system and melted the dashboard. Then he slammed back outside.
Upstairs the kids are crying and the Cowboy is howling that he didn’t do it and he shouldn’t have to go to bed, and I hear the thump, thump, thump that someone is either kicking or hitting the wall–a big no-no here.
What problem do you handle first? The angry husband? The crying kid? The angry kid? Discovering who the guilty someone is? Putting an end to the wall damage?
Parenting Issue #1
Everyone’s been up since 6 am working and playing outside.
Everyone’s hungry.
Everyone’s tired.
Everyone’s dirty.
So everyone is going to be slightly irrational. And they all know that someone’s going to be in big trouble.
Well, first things first, hitting the wall has to stop.
Nuance #1
How do you explain that being angry or hurt is ok, but hitting the wall and screaming is not? You can be angry as long as you don’t do anything when you’re angry.
Nuance #2
It’s not actually ok to be angry about everything all the time. How do you teach them that they have to learn to be calm, listen, think things through, and have self-control, not fly off the handle every time something bad happens to them? (Especially when you struggle with this yourself as a parent.)
So I reminded the melting-down Cowboy that “disrepecting the house” wasn’t tolerated here (He’s familiar with that fact. Very familiar.) and called the other two down and asked several times if either of them did it and if they were telling the truth. They both insisted that they knew better and that they didn’t do it. So I sent them back upstairs while we sorted it out and called the Cowboy down.
He was spitting mad. I mean, eyes burning, arms crossed, totally offended and outraged mad.
The kid is just like his momma.
He insisted that he didn’t even know what I was talking about and that Daddy shouldn’t “ca-cuze” him. (That’s “accuse.”)
So I took him out to the garage to show him exactly what Mr. Fix-It was saying. The Cowboy looked at the outlet in the dashboard and again insisted that he didn’t do it and didn’t know anything about it.
Parenting Issue #2
Do you believe them all and possibly someone gets off with lying? Or do you treat them as guilty and possibly the innocent suffer as well? What consequence fits this crime, anyway?
Nuance #3
What does either option teach them about the value of honesty and integrity? What about family unity and trust? Which lesson is the most important at this moment?
Mr. Fix-It and I had just about determined that the only reasonable course was to apologize for “ca-cuzing” them and agree that we believe them and that they were telling us the truth. We call the Ladybug and Speedracer down to the garage and asked everyone just one more time…and sure enough…
Speedracer confessed.
Head hanging, shoulders slumped, mumbling around his fingers in his mouth, he nodded and said “Sorry Daddy.” I questioned him a couple more times to make sure he was definitely confessing and not just confused by all the questions. But he said he did it.
We thanked him for being honest, told him that he did the right thing, and sent them all back upstairs to calm down and wait for lunch while we talked. Poor Speedracer was so dejected looking it almost hurt.
Nuance #4
How do you make sure that a 4-year-old understands how much you respect his honesty and how important it was for him to maintain his integrity by telling the truth–and then handing out a consequence for the original problem at the same time?
We tried to explain it just like that. We tried to explain that it’s good that he was honest because the consequence for lying would have been even worse…but how do we know if he really got it?
I guess time will tell. But here’s another nuance to parenting…it stretches you. It challenges you to understand what you’re trying to teach them yourself. To re-evaluate what you tend to take for granted. To see every one of your behaviors in light of your expectations for them.
Their character isn’t the only one being shaped around here.
