My tidbit of parenting wisdom today comes from an atypical source: a memoir by a stand-up comedian musing about rigid adherence to the tenants of alcoholics anonymous.* He spends a few (really quite funny) pages describing his zealotry (“I'd pontificate from the podium, fire and brimstone”) then a few more on his successful (sometimes painful) efforts to move from a stance of reflexive judgment to one of curiosity. The line I keep coming back to is: “I moved from ‘Isn't that awful?!’ to ‘Isn't that interesting?’ ”
I resolved to spend yesterday attuned to my own “Isn’t that awful?!” reactions and see if I can give them a “Isn’t that interesting?” makeover. This could go on, so I’ll sum up: I had lots of opportunities to practice. My judgmental reactions bubble-up frequently, and it takes effort to reframe from criticism to curiosity. I’ll keep my own kids’ “interesting…” moments out of this post. Suffice it to say, they had (and have) them, and I don’t always navigate the switch from critical to curious gracefully.
Here are some old favorites, though: Your two-year-old has an epic tantrum because the strawberry ice cream is too pink. Your four-year-old looks you right in the eye, then proceeds to scribble all over his sister’s new drawing. Your ten-year-old drags her feet persistently and misses the school bus daily… These can all feel awful. But when you can step back from your reaction, you can reframe: Something is going on here. It’s driving me batty, but I’ll come back to that later (maybe with a glass of wine). For now, what is my child actually telling me? She’s exhausted, he’s jealous, there are mean girls on the bus… or maybe it’s something entirely different. We can explore, we can ask. We can save the exasperation for later and talk with our kid: “Wow. It seems like something big is going on. Can you tell me about it?”
Our kids are communicating with their behaviors as least as much as they do with their words. Be curious, be interested. See what you can learn.
*Moshe Kasher, Subculture Vulture
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