Child Development, Jumping Frogs, and Evading Dinosaurs

Child Development, Jumping Frogs, and Evading Dinosaurs July 21, 2015

We went camping earlier this year. You know, the lovely peaceful sort of camping at an out-of-the way campsite, with hikes, ‘smores, and afternoon naps in the tent. Well. Sort of. One afternoon as we all lay down in the tent for a nap, three-year-old Bobby decided he was a frog. He had walked quite a bit on our hike that morning and ought to have been tired out, but kids are nothing if not unpredictable. Six-year-old Sally decided she would take a nap, but Bobby? Nothing doing!

Sean and I wanted this nap very very badly. We were both tired and the weather was lovely and the campsite was quiet. And yet there was Bobby, hopping around the inside of the tent jumping on us and yelling “RIBBIT!” Sean told him to stop. I told him to stop. He wouldn’t stop. Sean pulled him aside and they had a face-to-face chat about how much mommy and daddy want to go to sleep and how Bobby could play frog later, but to no avail. Still the jumping, still the loud cries of “RIBBIT.”

For one moment, one split second, I understood the compulsion to spank. It seemed, in that instant, like it might make things easier. But then I asked myself why Bobby was continuing his play even though he’d been asked not to, and my mind turned to child development. It was fairly obvious Bobby wasn’t trying to be mean. He wasn’t pretending to be a frog out of spite. He was all full of energy for some reason, and he was having fun, and for whatever reason he wasn’t able to weigh Sean and my discomfort against his own enjoyment.

Sally had initially not wanted a nap either, but when we talked to her about how we wanted a nap and she realized she really was tired after all, she laid down of her own volition and without a fuss. If Bobby were three years older, he would almost certainly have done the same. It’s interesting how much of the behavior parents punish children for is simply developmental, and something they will grow out of naturally. Parents often think that if they don’t nip a behavior in the bud it’ll turn into a bigger problem later, but while that is definitely the case in some instances it isn’t always. Sometimes a problem behavior, however annoying we may find it, is simply a stage, and something they will grow out of.

With these thoughts in my mind, I called Bobby over and laid him down beside me. I had tried this before and it hadn’t worked, but this time I tried something different. “Bobby,” I said, “let’s pretend there are dinosaurs coming and we have to be very very quiet so they don’t hear us. Shhh.” And it worked. Bobby laid down beside me with a smile on his face, interested in the game and with a sparkle in his eye, and then relaxed in my arms and fell asleep. As a frog, Bobby had been playing a game. I offered him another game—one that encouraged him to be quiet and allowed him to relax—and that was all it took.

Redirection is so key for small children, and in a great many cases that is all that is needed. I do very little in the way of punishment. It’s not just that I don’t spank, I also don’t do time-outs. Just about the only thing that could actually be termed punishment that I do is cut outings short when the kids are being difficult and I’m overwhelmed and tired, but even that is more about not pushing myself beyond my limits than it is about punishing them.

When I’m exhausted and stressed, my interactions with the children suffer. I’m not as nice, I’m not as patient, and I’m not as kind. I’m slower to diffuse situations and faster to escalate them. I’m not as quick to think of cooperative solutions as I should be. My solution, of course, is to try not to put myself in situations where I end up exhausted and stressed, and to catch myself before I spiral and take a deep breath, step back, and start over. In the tent that day, my momentary desire to spank Bobby was all I needed to snap me out of my focus on my needs and my desire to sleep. Horrified at my thoughts, however momentary, I was able to take a step back and reassess.

When I was a very young parent, I read an article on the internet, an article I wish I could find again but can’t, in which the author argued that raising children forces her to realize her own self-centeredness and rough edges. That article, with its stark focus on parental misbehavior, was extremely formative for me. Many parents misbehave just as often as their children do, though they may not realize it. I realized that parenting is, in some ways, as much about policing my own actions as it is about policing my children’s. And that is as it should be—how can I ask my children to be kind, and caring, and compassionate, if I am not those things as well?

If I had spanked Bobby in the tent that day, we would both have ended up going to sleep disgruntled and annoyed. As it was, we fell asleep together happy, content, and downright conspiratorial. We were evading dinosaurs, after all.


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