Exploring his feminine side.
September 29, 2009
As watermark suggests, image courtesy of gettyimages.
Today I had a bit of an uncomfortable moment when I had turned my back to keep Thing 2 out of something hazardous and turned around to find Thing 1 covered in lipstick. Oh, how unprepared I was. I asked him where he got it, and he said it was in his “suitcase.” (A crayon box.)
I assumed that he had taken the lipstick from his mom and was playing with it in that way that kids do. I also assumed that his mom probably wasn’t a fan of this. So, I took the lipstick and told him that we don’t play with it in the same way that we don’t play with mommy’s toothbrush – because it’s personal.
Little did I know that when I talked to DadBoss this afternoon, the lipstick actually does belong to Thing 1! I was suggesting that the parents maybe get him his own “lipstick” (read: tinted chapstick) but they went right ahead and started him on the heavy stuff! I apologized profusely that I had taken his lipstick and returned it to his “suitcase.”
Way to go, Thing 1! Even I do not yet own M.A.C. lipstick, you’re a step ahead of me!
Also: can we say great parents or GREATEST parents that Thing 1 has his own lipstick?
The Apathy Method.
September 18, 2009
Subversive Cross Stitch, FTW!
Kat saw this post on kottke (about this article on Slate) and asked me about my thoughts. Well! We all know I have thoughts! Clearly, being as I have thoughts and a blog, I am practically an expert! Honestly though, I do know about about children and their behavior and how to manipulate it for good (or at least, not evil).
They direct the parents to temporarily back off almost entirely: to stop asking their child to do the desired behavior and say it’s OK not to do it at all, stop offering praise or other rewards for doing it, and mask their attitude of engaged enthusiasm or frustrated rage with an appearance of bland disinterest in whether the child does it or not. What happens next, frequently, is that within a day or two the child starts doing the behavior with no prompting from parents or anyone else.
The general idea here is that instead of getting hepped up about what parents what they want their children to do, a more relaxed, shall we say… “whatever” attitude will help cut back on defiance and parents will find that the kids will just do stuff for the sake of doing it, if we as adults would just shut up. Of course, the idea is that this is a temporary strategy for when the tried and true “adult modeling of desired behavior followed by positive reinforcement of child’s behavior” method fails. I’ve seen apathy parenting in action folks, and it’s not pretty.
I agree with the rationale given by Slate (though I do kind of wonder why it had to bring the health care debate into this – I mean, yeah, we all know that various factions are acting like children, but srsly wtf?) that heightened parental attention does invite defiance for the sake of defiance. “Oh yeah? You’ll give me three stickers if I eat my beans? EFF YOU AND THE BEANS YOU RODE IN ON!”
Reactance refers to a reaction that is directly opposite to some rule or request. It occurs when someone feels he is being pressured and there is some added limit being placed on his freedom or choice. This kind of opposition is not unique to children; in fact, most of the research on it has been done with adults. Reactance explains why people are eager to reject what they think is forced on them and seek out something they cannot or should not have. When you crank up the pressure on a child, you’re more likely to see the cognitive component of reactance (“No! I won’t do it!”) intensified by its emotional component (folded arms, raised voice, increased stubbornness: “Leave me alone!”). The pressure on the child does not have to be as direct as “Do it, or else”; it can take the form of a cloud of eager expectation in the household.
The thing is here that this must be used carefully. Pick your battles. You can only resort to the apathy method if you are truly willing to accept the possibility that the beans will not get eaten in this lifetime. You absolutely can NOT, CAN NOT, bluff. If you set it up that you don’t care what goes down with regards to those beans, they may or may not get eaten. If they don’t, that’s it, end of story. If they do – you can then choose whether or not you want to go the positive reinforcement route or just leave it be.
I find that a modified version of this technique works really well – “Yeah, well, I don’t care whether or not you eat your beans, and I don’t care whether or not you get dessert either.” There’s no negative re-inforcement for not following the adult-set guidelines, but rather, the adult-directed behavior is a precondition for something that the child wants. Brush your teeth or not, no skin off my nose, but you gotta floss if you want to watch Mr. Bouncety-Bounce. (Bonus! Spot that literary reference!)
The first step, when you’ve hit the kind of wall we’re describing here, is to try to eliminate the cloud of desperation hovering around the behavior. At the clinic, the therapists encourage parents to tell the child it is OK if she does not do the desired behavior, or, if it’s essential (bathing, for instance), if she does it superficially and minimally. Parents also practice nonchalance in talking about the behavior—a shoulder-shrugging, laissez-faire attitude of staged indifference. In addition, the therapists ask the parents to find opportunities to explicitly tell their child something like, “Don’t worry about this now; you will be able to do this when you get older,” a pressure-reducing antecedent that can actually speed up compliance.
(Or yeah, what they said.)
It’s good to see that stuff I do anyway being advocated by the Yale clinic. Makes me feel like a professional professional. So, yeah, in general I totally agree that the apathy method can work, but only in measured doses. Leave everything up to the kid and pretty soon you end up with a kid who doesn’t sleep at night or wear underpants and barfs at the dinner table because he ate too many pixi stix fifteen minutes earlier. Not that I know anyone like that… So, yeah. A little bit of apathy can go a long way.
Potty Talk.
September 14, 2009
Photo by Flickr user SteveRhode
As with many four year olds, the potty is a topic of endless conversation with Thing 1. I know that most of the stories I’ve relayed from Boyland thus far have been poop-related, but these are both too priceless to keep to myself.
#1: Setting. We are in the bathroom, Thing 1 has just finished going poop.
“I’m done!”
“Good job! Put your pants back on and wash your hands.”
“You need to wipe my bum!”
“Well, I’ll help you, but you need to wipe your own bum.”
“No, if I do it, my hands will get poopy!”
“Well, Thing, what do you think will happen to my hands if I wipe your bum?”
“Your hands will get all poopy!”
“So, perhaps you can see why I don’t want to wipe your bum. I don’t want your poopy on my hands.”
“But you can wash them!”
#2: Talking about his recent introduction to the urinal. He is asking me many, many questions about the wall-toilet, and I am trying to explain to him that his father is a better source of information on that one being as girls don’t use the wall-toilet.
“Mommy’s never seen a wall-toilet.”
“That’s right. Mommies don’t have wall-toilets in their bathrooms because mommies are girls.”
“My mommy’s not a girl!”
“Really? I thought your mommy was a girl.”
“No, she used to be a girl.”
“Well, what is she now?”
“She used to be a girl, and now she’s a big boy!”
(No, I didn’t correct him as such. I’m too much of a hippie. I simply said “Wow, I really thought your mommy was a girl.”)
Sugar & Spice & Snips & Snails.
August 12, 2009
(fuzzy photo of Playmobil gender warriors from my iPhone)
It’s pretty interesting going from taking care of two girls to working in Boyland. As much as this opinion has been challenged, there is a huge inherent difference from little boys to little girls. Of course, depending on the boy and the girl, the “gendered behavior” will vary and blah blah blah – but I’m just saying. I knew up front that two boys is a different ballgame from two girls – the fact that these girls liked Barbie Princesses and my hunch is that the boys probably have not watched Dora & The Snow Princess more than once is not the point.
In the first three days in Boyland, the differences have been quite noticeable. The boys’ parents are much more fluid about gender expression than the girls’ parents were, but that’s not really all that hard. The girls genuinely liked pink and purple and dresses and sparkles, which is fine, and their parents totally indulged that – also fine. But certainly, it’s not hard at all to find households with less stereotyped gender models. I was pretty psyched when I offered Thing 1 a toy from my car (my mom compulsively saves Happy Meal toys for me – the weird part is probably that my mom buys the Happy Meals in the first place) and he chose a sparkly bracelet with Belle on it instead of the plush dog. I’m also really psyched when he wears the bracelet.
Still, the Things are 100% boy, and it’s just their nature. When I sat down to draw with Thing 1, I asked him what he wanted me to draw. His first response: “A spider!” Oh boy. It’s been so long since I drew a spider, I could have almost forgotten how many legs they have! A few hours later, he got out some Play-Doh and made me a snake. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I really, really hate snakes.
The BIG differences though are in energy levels and where the energy gets directed. Boys get distracted easily and aren’t terribly emotional… but man, do they ever run circles around you all day long. If you could bottle the energy of a four year old boy, you could solve peak oil. Girls on the other hand, are much more person-focused. Schmoopelina and Thing 1 are both great artists and draw all day long. One of them draws monsters and train tracks. The other draws pictures of her family, specifically to give TO her family. Thing 1 has oodles and oodles of sketchbooks, but the drawings don’t hold meaning past his creating them – they’re not sentimental to him the way that the object of the drawing was as an object of Schmoopelina’s affection.
Anyhow, these are just some initial observations. I see that my Hampshire education is leading me down the path of Subject v. Object, so I’m going to go and try and rot a few brain cells with some quality programming. (The Wire really is pretty high quality, I must say.)
Off to a Poopy Start.
August 11, 2009
When I say “poopy,” I mean that literally. I don’t mean “crappy,” as the past two days have, in fact, been awesome. I mean “poopy.” As in, dealing with poop. Or the lack thereof. The power of bowels is a mighty, mighty power indeed, and it has been exerting itself all over my workplace.
First, Thing 2 had explosive diarrhea yesterday instead of a nap. Because yes, it is better to poo all over one’s self and one’s couch than it is to lie down and sleep. I always thought so. Poor thing though, he obviously couldn’t have been feeling well as he’d already dropped a gigantic load an hour earlier. And he really didn’t like having his butt held under the faucet any more than I liked the inevitable poop on my hands, so I guess we were even. Still, a pretty memorable first-day “hazing” experience. I’m becoming jaded. My own children are going to have to crap tsunamis to faze me. And I’m sure they will.
Today, Thing 1 had the opposite experience. That is to say, extreme constipation. He was howling, HOWLING in pain. Poor little guy. Life is hard, and apparently, so are his bowels. I’m glad that this happened when DadBoss was also in the house so that he could take charge of assisting in the PoopScapades while I distracted Thing 2 from his attempts at providing an audience for the howling. Any tips for constipated kids, I’d be happy to add them to my repetoire. The diarrhea is almost easier since it really is just a MESS and there’s not much I can *do* about it – other than feed the guy bananas and withhold all other fruits.
Yes, this is what working with children means. Talking about poop. And cleaning up poop. And thinking about poop. Poop poop poop. I’ll take it over working in a cubicle any day of the week. Poop or no poop, I love my job.
Red Sonika. 