Discipline

Even before Sweet Potato was born I was anxious about how I might handle our clashes.  I imagined that, in a pinch, I would, from the lower part of my brain, adopt the repertoire from my own childhood, which seemed mostly to have been made up of yelling, “spanking,” slamming doors. 

I e-mailed my sister-in-law.  I’d always admired the way Tomoe, a schoolteacher, talked with her students and her own children.  She has a genius for saying the right thing at the right time, and gets a click of understanding from kids.  When I told her that I was looking for some different disciplinary tools in my repertoire, she sent a bunch of books, including something from the Positive Discipline franchise, and something called How to Talk So Kids Will Listen.  In general, the books try to offer alternatives to the impulsive direct-suppression method, and talk about things like fostering autonomy and judgment.* 

I love the idea that child discipline is not merely correction, but a system of giving a child a certain form and guidance for dealing with life, with others, with disappointment, with success, with herself.  So “discipline” is part of a system of support, a structure to grow up in; something a kid can rely on, and feel secure with, and trust.

Another great buzzwordy idea I got from Tomoe’s books was “age appropriate” behavior. 

Anyway, at this point, this is how I actually sound throughout the day:

• Hey man! Wash ‘em! (Hands). Dry ‘em! (tossing towel)
• I’m going to go downstairs now. You put on your underpants and pants and socks, then come down and meet me.
• Come on: red shoes or pretty shoes? Are you going to put them on yourself, or am I going to put them on for you? I’ll count to three.
• Stop that whining, please. Take a rest, and use your words please.
• Uhhhhhh … I sure don’t hear anyone asking nicely!
• You wanna cry? Great. It’s OK to cry, but I want you to sit there and take it easy until you’re ready to say you’re sorry for throwing and hitting.
• All right, look. You put away all your guys, and come downstairs, and we can have a cookie and maybe some candy for snack. All right, then maybe I’m going to have ice cream, all by myself, so ... See Ya!

Sweet Potato likes to ask me and Beeb the Mom to pretend-cry or fuss.  At first, she just laughed.  These days she likes to scold us.  The other day she gave me a time-out, and I felt really cheated!  Now when she’s done crying and pouting, I like to give her a little hug before we move on with our day.  I try to think, is she doing the best she can?  That is, is she processing at capacity?

As an older parent, I think a lot about how Sweet Potato’s going to get along by herself.  Especially, I want her to have what I didn’t have as a child:  social awareness, good judgment, pragmatism, a certain core of shrewdness or savvy.  (I also want to her to have what I do have, but, you know, it’s hard to assess what assets you’re really passing on to your kids, or even whether the shit you’re passing on should be classified as assets or liabilities.) 

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*  One of the funny things, though, is that the examples in these books are so self-serving that they seem insane (even Ayn Randish) -- nothing more than fictional illustrations of their own principles working perfectly.  Even the most informative parenting books tend to establish parenting “rules” based on their personal anecdotes.  Now that I think about it for one second, though, that’s how parenting really is:  you were playing with the toaster oven and you stopped when I explained the basics of electricity? -- OK, chalk it up to my parenting genius:  Rule:  electrical hazards can be deflected by pseudo-technical explanation.  Is that rational?  Who cares, because now I see I’ve forgotten to put on a naptime diaper and now my kid is walking into the kitchen with a poop wiggling around in her pantleg, and I’ll think about the god damn toaster oven again when I have to, which, I hope, is going to be never, because I already moved it to a different part of the kitchen.