My first theory of parenting was that all children are evil and must be broken as quickly as possible. This was based on my empirical study of one child in which I noticed that every decision he made was designed to either a) do the thing that I just told him not to do, or b) say something that he knows will make me angry. At one point I was sure that if he found a fork lying on the floor of the kitchen, he would immediately grab it and stick it in my leg. I lived in a perpetual state of fear and I was actually incredulous about a child’s decision-making; I wondered why it was that my child was so wicked. Surely, I have a mischievous side to me, but certainly it wasn’t so bad that my child would end up as the spawn of Satan, would it?
Then I realized the thing that has allowed me to love my son again. He isn’t evil. He is testing me. Kids know right from wrong, they just want to see how we are going to respond. Like a velociraptor running into the electric fence to see if it has any weaknesses, Malcolm tests my
I'm from Jurassic Park!
mettle by misbehaving. Most of the time when his acts up he looks right at me, as if to tell me with his eyes, “Look what I’m about to do!” That sets up a game of chicken, with both he and I wondering whether the other will blink first. (This isn’t one of those harmless games of gay chicken you play in college either, where you end up making out with a buddy of yours just to prove how not-gay you are.)
This game of chicken is serious. Parents who give in first are doomed to micromanage their kid’s lives and the result is a kid who turns out like George W Bush. I don’t want to be the high strung parent who is always haranguing their kid. Most of the time, I dispassionately dispense the penalty for whatever transgression has been committed, and then tell him about the bad decision he has made. When he looks at me when grabbing that proverbial fork, I either look away or shrug meekly like, “Who needs a puncture-free leg, anyways?” In short, I let him totally make out with me. It has helped me to relax, and know that he is testing limits and not plotting how it is he is going to destroy the world. At least, that’s my hope anyways…
Tags: Malcolm misbehaves, parenting
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Love this one. So from the failed parent, still obviously traumatised after 20 years, this is my worst memory:
I was organising a Christmas party for work, ( you try amusing the kids of 40 geeks and nerds), an the child starts playing up. I as the stressed parent shouts ‘if you don’t behave you can stay at home’ , guess what!
? I loose the game of chicken and got the ‘fork in the leg’ treatment. But her father simply lifts her up, places her in her bedroom and sends me out to be the ‘coolest’ mum in town to everyone elses child feeling like shit as
mine is left at home.
Keep the blog coming Iove this
Um… yeah. My kids are just evil.