Advancing Off the Beachhead
DISCLAIMER: Never leave your kid alone in the bathroom. They could drown, or injure themselves in a myriad of ways. Make sure you are carefully monitoring them in the bathroom at all times.
As you may recall from my last post about bathtime, my kid crawled into the shower with me on his own accord. I’ll discuss how that happened so that some of you may have an easy transition and be able to get them to transition to the shower.
First and foremost, he was willing to go into the shower, because he trusted me enough in the water of the bathtub, in not dropping him when I carry him, and when I feed him food he likes, to trust me in the shower. Another reason he wanted in there is that he could tell I enjoyed being in the water. This combined with the fact that the shower doesn’t have a lot of standing water, which is what spooks him in the first place worked to our advantage getting him in there.
Once he started to crawl in the shower, I helped him in so he couldn’t get hurt, and my wife rushed to get his bath toys. He was surprised at the shallow water, but decided he liked it, and started playing with his bath toys. We played with the bath toys, just like a normal bath, and he got comfortable in there. That is when he crawled into the shower stream. Initially he was surprised but kept going and got through it. I was quick to reassure him that everything was ok, and that he didn’t need to be upset, and he was back to playing with his toys. Eventually, he crawled through again, and was surprised, but didn’t freak out like he did before. We played, then I washed him, and rinsed him off. The key to avoiding disaster with the rising, was I sat him on my leg and hugged him, and the water first hit. From there it was about keeping it out of his eyes, and then he was done, and he crawled off to mommy and the waiting towel.
I won’t lie to you and say it was this easy always. Its not, some days he rinses himself off, or gets wet and thinks its hilarious, other days it starts a screaming fit. With that its hit or miss or how tired he is. With all that said, its not necessary to rush them into the shower or necessarily beneficial. He wanted in so we let him in and encouraged him. If he didn’t like it, we wouldn’t have forced it on him. Since he liked it, I have no doubts that he’ll be taking showers on his own when he is a year or so older. Every so often, however, we make him take a bath. He has to get used to the idea of a pool so he can learn to swim eventually after all.
Easter Special, a couple days late…
Don’t coddle your kids. Make them work and do things themselves from a young age, is a common theme that I espouse here. It teaches them responsibility, that there are consequences for their actions, and independence, because you shouldn’t want your kid living in your basement at 25. Many parents are afraid to let their kids fail, “It will hurt their self-esteem.” is the common wail. Good news! Babies, don’t really have self-esteem that is based on success or failure. Their self-esteem is based on the love and attention they get from mom and dad, plus they are too young to know what winning and losing are. Because of this, its ok to let them not do as well as they would have otherwise, because it doesn’t matter. A good recent example is an Easter Egg Hunt.
I took my kid to one of these, because a one year old of course needs candy, and more importantly Grandma wanted pictures of his first Easter. The eggs littered the ground like sand in a desert, and tons of 1-2 year olds were placed to accomplish the herculean task of “finding” the eggs. I noticed a lot of parents giving their kids the eggs, really loading up their baskets. Most of these kids were walking or crawling around on their own, and grabbing at the brightly colored eggs. Given time these kids would have gotten their own eggs, and figured out that they go in the basket. Instead what happened was the parents would grab handfuls of eggs, dump them in their kid’s lap, and then load them up into the basket. The kids didn’t do squat!
I took a different approach because I didn’t want to raise a dependent child, and besides, he didn’t need the candy, he wouldn’t feel bad if he got one or a hundred less eggs than some other toddler, and he didn’t get a prize for getting the most, and it was an opportunity to teach him to do something on his own. I put him down in the middle of the grass, got his attention, picked up an egg, showed it to him, and threw it in the basket. Then I looked at him and said, “You get them now.” and he did. He went around grabbing eggs and throwing them in his basket, with occasional pauses to look to me for reassurance that he was doing it right and praise. With plenty of “Good Jobs!” and “Good throws!” he got himself a nice haul of about 15 eggs or so, which is all he needed and probably more than he needed.
He wasn’t upset about the kid who got more eggs than him, and he wasn’t gloating about getting more than another kid, because he didn’t care, it wasn’t a competition. He just wanted some eggs to play with and he got them for himself. He learned a valuable lesson about doing things on his own, and I was there to support him through it like any parent should be. The thing I was most proud of him for and praised him the most though, was that there was a 9 month old sitting on the ground chewing on an egg while his mom tried to get him to put eggs in the basket. My son walked over with egg held out and said, “Here.” then put it in the kids basket. Raising kids is all about teaching them to socialize, share, and take responsibility young. If they learn how to play nice and do things on their own and be responsible on their own from a young age, then they don’t even think about it when they are older.
Surviving the Beachhead
A lot of the recent posts have been more abstract about general principles to keep your kids behaving and feeling loved, the next few posts I thought I would share some practical tips to survive some of the common things you’ll encounter as a parent. Today we discuss bathtime.
Obviously many children hate taking baths, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience for us either at first. I came up with a plan to make it more fun, and try to get the boy excited for bathtime. The plan was several fold:
1. Get into the tub with him to make him feel safe.
2. Act like I’m having more fun than a politician at a strip club.
3. Have special toys that are only bathtoys.
4. Play with one of the toys a certain way EVERY time. This I was hoping would be a routine that he could ritualize and look forward to.
5. Stay in there until he had been having fun for a while, so that whatever he hated about the bath was a tiny part.
The plan worked for the most part, initially there was little improvement, but, over time it was nearly 1000 times better. We would get in, then splash and laugh for five to ten minutes, then we would play with his numbers and dinosaurs that stick to the tub, then we would have his bath hippo run up his leg making hippo noises, (Hippo, hippo, hippo) in my house. I’m not a zoologist. Then the hippo kisses him on the mouth and runs away. That for two to three minutes, is a great game, and leads him to the part where we wash him down. By the time we got to the wash, he typically, had been having enough fun to put up with the unpleasantness for the short time without too much fussing. After two months of this it got to the point where he began to crawl into the shower with me, and that’s how we moved him from baths to showers and ended the fussiness about getting his head wet. More on that later. I have to give him a bath.
Kids are like the FARC
To follow up from the Wolfpack post, Kids are like the FARC. In case you aren’t aware FARC is Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia. They are basically a Marxist group that is fighting for control of Columbia, at least they used to. They began trafficking drugs to finance their war, and they became filthy rich. At this point they are making so much money off drugs that they don’t REALLY want control of Columbia, because then they would have to fix things. It is in this sense that kids are like the FARC, they want to fight you for control, but don’t really want to be in charge. They have to much to lose by winning.
If they win and take control they have to run things. Now I know they don’t actually set up the schedules and tell you to go to work and hand you a sack lunch or your lunch money, though in some houses they do just that, they do run things by taking care of their siblings, getting their siblings ready for and to school, make sure that people have rides, make sure dinner is made and chores are done, etc. In this very real sense they run things. I have seen many homes in which children raised their siblings, and ran the household, and with this they lose the ability to become children. That is a lot to lose by winning the Alpha Wolf position.
Another thing they lose is a feeling of security. Kids need to feel like they are safe and protected, if they know someone else is in charge, they feel that sense of security. When they are in charge they don’t. This is because kids aren’t stupid, they know they don’t know what they are doing. When you let a child win, and take the Alpha position they will step up to fill the void, because the pack always needs a leader, but they will feel far more stress and anxiety than an adult will. This is because they know they aren’t ready or prepared to step up to this role that they have taken or has been thrust upon them, and the result is they lose their ability to feel secure and relax.
When kids are allowed to take leadership of the pack it has a lot of negative consequences. You see it with the kids who are raising their brothers and sisters, and who take care of themselves due to negligent parenting. These are the kids that have had to grow up to quickly. It is our job as parents to remain in the Alpha positions of the pack in order to provide our children with the sense of security they need and the ability to spend time as a child before they get thrust into adulthood.
Wolfpack
Children like to push the boundaries. Its just what they do. They do this because they are testing you to see if you are really in charge or not. As they get older this increases, but when they are little it happens as well. It is absolutely essential that you establish dominance over your child and reaffirm that you are in charge for them. This is for a couple of reasons: 1. If you don’t, God help you, you’ll have monster children and they will run roughshod over you, and 2. Children NEED to know they aren’t in charge. Today, we will focus on the first one.
Children are a lot like dogs in terms of how they think when they are young. They are part of the family “pack” and they want to find out what their role in the pack is. As with all social animals you do better the higher up in the pack you are. The Alpha wolf gets the best mate, the best part of the meal, the best sleeping spot, etc. The Alpha person tends to get their own way. They decide where everyone goes out to eat, what game gets played, in many cases they sit at the head of the table in the best seat, and almost always have the hottest girlfriend, etc. ++++++++++++ (My son apparently really agreed with that last part and wanted to express that) What does this mean for you as a parent, however?
It means that if you aren’t the Alpha, your child will push the boundaries until THEY are the Alpha, and just because you gave up the top position without a fight, doesn’t mean that they will. In most cases where the parent has no control over their child, the odds are they gave or the child took Alpha status from them. You see that when they fight with each other, and the Alpha of the family is apparent based on who got their way. When you see a teenage boy fighting with his dad about something, that is, in many cases, a challenge for status, the boy is trying to move up in status, and the Father is saying, “No, I’m in charge.”
If you let your child take charge it will cause you a lot of heartache, because they will do what they want, when they want, and may or may not tell you. As children are generally less experienced in life, this can lead to them making some very bad decisions, and can set them on the road to prison, drug abuse, or a more difficult life. Thus you need to maintain your position as the Alpha wolf, and make sure that they know you are in charge. While this doesn’t mean you should browbeat them like a tyrant, it does mean you have to put your foot down and make unpopular decisions at times. The next post will explain why you being the Alpha wolf is actually GOOD for them and makes them happy.
Teamwork
There will be days as a parent, that will test you. Days that make you feel like your child is deliberately TRYING to push your buttons. Days where you sympathize and perhaps fantasize about what it would be like to be a Coelophysis. (A dinosaur from that Late Triassic that ate its young) On those days, and they will come, if they don’t then you aren’t spending enough time with your child. You need to remember this simple maxim. “Pass the buck.” Say it with me. “Pass the buck.” On those days where you are getting burned out, have your partner take the kid and take a few hours to be alone. If you AND your partner need a break, that’s what babysitters are for.
If you don’t get some you time every so often you will burn out, and get mean and grumpy towards your kids, and that’s not something you want to do. Even better is to plan ahead and proactively schedule time away from the kid, so you can catch a break. My wife and I work in shifts, I take him in the early morning, then she gets him in the middle of the day, I work with him in the evening, then we both have peace after bedtime, then she gets him at night, then we repeat.
If you take time for yourself you not only keep from burning out, but you also teach your child that its ok to take breaks. You teach them how to avoid being a workoholic or a studyholic. You teach them how to keep sharp and enjoy life. Most importantly, you minimize negative memories with them and maximize the happy ones, and at the end of the day, when they look at your nursing home bill, you want them to remember the happy times.
It’s ok for them to get hurt
Kids are resilient. They are also very exploratory, and have no fear or concept of danger. This combination combined with their lightning speed at inopportune times, will make for a very high likelihood and incidence of injury. For a fearful (weak) parent, this is a bad thing. For a Spartan parent, however, this is a good thing.
In many cases pain is a great teacher. Think back to your own childhood. I remember quite clearly the time I jumped off the top railing on our deck and almost broke my ankle. It was a ten foot drop and hurt pretty bad. I learned not to do that again. I remember I had a friend who waited till the last minute to ask a girl that he really liked to a dance, and she was already going with someone. That hurt him pretty bad, and he learned to be more proactive. Pain can assist you as a parent in teaching your child about obedience and risk. An example:
My son liked to screw around on the couch. This manifested in him rolling around all over the place and generally not paying attention to what he was doing. I would tell him to settle down and not mess around on the couch, but that meant nothing to him. Normally I’m there to catch him if he falls or my wife is. Well this time was different. He had climbed up into an egg chair thing, a flashback to my college dorm days, and decided it was a good idea to stand up and jump in it, while I was putting an empty cup in the kitchen; seconds is all it takes for those little speedsters to cross a room and get into mischief. Well, I can’t cross a room that fast, and other than my barked, “Don’t screw around in that chair!” I couldn’t get there in time. Well surprise, surprise, he fell off the chair and brought it with him. He landed on the pile of laundry that had been sorted and was awaiting its turn in the machine, surprised and let out a little “oof” when the aluminum bar on the chair bonked him on the chest. Clearly he suffered from a minor hit, but hadn’t broken anything or even bruised. Shock and that hurt a bit, were on his face, when he then ignored my “Wait!” as I hurdled the sleeping dog that had been awoken by my earlier shout. But he got his listening skills from his father unfortunately, and tried to get himself out of his predicament. This resulted in rolling off the cloths and hitting the carpet after a six-inch drop, before hitting his head on the same aluminum bar from before, which bereft of a baby support beam, fell as well. He then let out a bit of a cry, before I got there, picked him up, hugged him, and checked for injury. He was of course fine, because kids, especially boys, are designed to do stupid things, get hurt, and bounce back. I told him, that he was fine, and to stop crying, and after a couple pats on the back, he calmed down. I then looked him in the eye and said, “That happened because you were messing around on the chair after I told you to not mess around on that. Be careful next time, and listen to Daddy’s warning.”
Lo and behold, he doesn’t screw around on the chair anymore. When he tried pushing it next to the table and climbing it to get at something on the back of the table, I told him to stop messing around like that, and he looked at me, I could see the wheels turning in his little head, and he climbed down and played with a toy. Lesson learned. He also stops and waits, when I tell him to wait now. I think I can chalk this up as a success, at least until he forgets or decides to push the boundaries and test to see if he gets the same results later on.
The point of this, is him getting hurt, is what taught him a lesson about safety, warnings, and risk. I could have lectured him all day about it, but he wouldn’t have understood it, he is just a little kid, but the REAL and CONCRETE experience of getting hurt as a result of his actions taught him all of those things. As he gets bigger and grows up he will have more similar experiences and be able to build on that until he gets to be older and can tell his friends, “No, I don’t think jumping out of the car as he drives down the road is a good idea.” Plus because I was there for him when he got hurt and made him feel better, he knows that I’ll be there for him when he needs me, which will be important later when he has friends trying to talk him into trying pot or cigarettes or something like that.
Thus like the Spartans of old we must let our children get hurt and allow pain to aid us in teaching them and preparing for life which is tough.
