It’s lunchtime as I write this, and I’m sitting in a family-friendly restaurant. Near me is a table with two mothers and a bunch of children. The two oldest, about 7 and about 5, in identical tie-dyed shirts, seem to be brothers. About a minute ago their mom took them to the rest room, where they are now screaming. They had been whining more and more loudly for the prior fifteen minutes–complaints about wanting juice and somebody not sharing. But sometimes the whines had no words; the boys sounded like babies. When I first heard them I kept looking at their table, expecting to find two distressed infants.
I’m now trying to figure out why these boys think it’s a good idea to whine like babies. Before their mom removed them from the able, she was conversing with the other mom, responding to the boys only when they got really annoying. Maybe by letting herself be interrupted only when they whined and screamed, she was training them to whine and scream. And since they were making the same noise they would have as babies, perhaps they learned this behavior very young. But I ought to stop myself: I shouldn’t make judgments about this family. Maybe the boys are under some stress I can’t see, and eating at a restaurant is more than they can manage today.
So I’ll think about what bad behaviors Peter and I are reinforcing in our own kids. They’re 4 and 5 years old; we adopted them at nearly 3 and nearly 4. At the time, they were so eager to behave well that we said our parenting mantra was, “Don’t wreck them!” We’ve extinguished some inappropriate behaviors they developed in the orphanage–for instance spitting in anger and eating from each other’s plates. And we’ve taught them to say “Please” and “Thank you” and to try to talk instead of fighting. So sometimes I feel we’re doing a good job.
But other times I don’t. When I hear recreational burping at the table, see K cross her arms and stomp out of a room, or hear M faking an “I’m hurt!” cry, I remember that our kids didn’t come with these behaviors,” we must be responsible. Perhaps M dawdles shutting off his light at bedtime because Peter and I model working late, past when we ought to go to bed. Perhaps K lets herself sniffle awhile before blowing her nose because I do.
What disturbs me most is that Peter and I might be reinforcing undesirable behaviors that we can’t imagine and won’t see for years.
Photo graciously provided by Erik Kolstad, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved.
2 responses so far ↓
InTheFastLane // Apr 30, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Although kids do not come with negative behaviors, they are born to feel that the world revolves around them and for a while it does. Kids, are by their nature self centered and we do have to model good behaviors to them. But, we are also not to blame for every bad behavior they display.
Megin Hatch // May 1, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Yeah, you are- or at least you might be.
Show me a perfect person.
We are flawed. We have strengths, we have annoying habits, we feel joy and anger and depression and sadness and frustration. Sometimes we say the wrong thing, sometimes the right, sometimes we do something right and sometimes we screw it all up. Sometimes we tell inappropriate jokes and sometimes we swear (no? oh, well, I wasn’t talking about me…) Sometimes we forget to thank people and sometimes we aren’t helpful when we should be.
Modeling is obviously important- imperative- but we don’t have to model perfection for our children- in fact, we shouldn’t. How will they learn to work through issues, to change behaviors, to set goals, to learn to function outside of our homes? It’s important for kids to hear- hey- I goofed. I shouldn’t have (said or thought or done) that. How can I make it better?
We need to stop blaming ourselves and recognize that we can only do and be our best, and mistakes are natural teachable moments.
Sorry- let me step down from this very wobbly soapbox.
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