War. What Is It Good For?

Image credit: Photo by LuluP on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

I'm pretty certain that everyone who passed my daughter Janie's elementary school at dismissal time a few weeks ago now knows me by sight. Yep, I'm that woman whose daughter threw a tantrum so gigantic and so spectacular that it took us over a quarter of an hour just to move to the front of the school and strangers felt moved to ask if she needed medical attention. I'm the woman who stood there for more than a half an hour next to a six-year-old girl who was sprawled on the sidewalk, as people passed by with nervous glances asking if everything was ok.

Yes, everything is ok. First grade is just hard, and tiring, and this has caused our mother/daughter relationship to devolve into a hostage situation. The hostage being me. Her demands are: 1) a juice box right now, 2) that I carry her backpack, 3) that I carry her, 4) ice cream upon arrival home. Otherwise she is not moving, nuh-uh, no way; she's going to sit here and cry until it gets dark and then sleep on the sidewalk. (This is her actual plan.) My position is that I do not negotiate with terrorists, I do not have a juice box anyway, I have neither the desire nor the ability to carry a six-year-old anymore, and I'm not rewarding a hissy fit with ice cream. As you can imagine, this produced a standoff.

Now I know that some of you are thinking, "Well, make her move! You're the mom! You're the boss! Demand it!" And believe me, that's what I was telling myself. I'm the mom! I'm the boss! She ought to do what I say! She ought to be enticed with the (non-ice cream) snack that awaits her at home, and she ought to be mortally fearful of the consequences of her behavior. Yet she didn't care at all. Have you ever seen a donkey just refuse to move? You can yell at it and beat it and push it and drag it and still it stands there stubbornly. I had a little donkey and had neither a stick big enough nor a carrot tasty enough to induce movement.

So there we stood, until we were each able to bend just enough to reach a mutually agreeable settlement: I would not carry her but would let her lean on me, and I would carry her backpack, but in return she would have to downgrade for a week to her preschool backpack which was smaller, lighter and much less cool looking. So, an hour later than usual, we staggered through the front door looking precisely as if we'd just fought a war: me, sweaty and disheveled and Janie with debris clinging to her hair and her grimy face streaked with tears.

As expected, a snack and a rest on the sofa greatly improved the matters, but the ceasefire ended at bedtime, when Janie refused to get into bed.

"Time for bed."

"No."

"Janie, get in bed now."

"Or else what?"

Or else what? Who did she think she was talking to? Or else this!

Now, we must pause for a moment to allow you to imagine "this." I find that whenever I divulge my specific parenting methods, it distracts from the story I am trying to tell. People get caught up in the details. So at this point, don't think about what I did, imagine what a good parent (whatever your definition of that is) would do. Imagine what you would have done. If you would have spanked her, spank her in your mind. If you would have told her "no story tonight," then no story. If you would have made a sticker chart for nice talk, go make a sticker chart. If you would have lifted her firmly into bed and left the room, go do it.

I did what you would do. I did what I thought was going to have the effect I wanted.  I called on the examples of parents I knew and admired and did what I thought a "good" parent (whose children do what they are supposed to do) would do. Furthermore, I did it calmly and firmly. I even used what Janie calls my "stun voice" (which I think is a variation on "stern voice").

But here's what you have to imagine now (and this is the hard part): imagine it didn't work. You spanked, she cried louder and refused harder. You told her no story, and she screamed, "I don't care! I'm not going to bed!" You offered ice cream or stickers, and she told you she wanted that plus fifty thousand dollars right now. You put her in bed and and she jumped back out and tried to run out of the room. Whatever you did, the situation escalated, she got more adamant and more upset and still was not in bed.  And if you tried again, she escalated the situation still further.

That was where I was.  We were getting nowhere, and I was in despair.  Here I am doing what everyone I admire says a good parent is supposed to do and my child is acting like a complete nightmare, thus proving that I am a bad parent.  I don't get it.  Why am I so bad at this?  What the hell am I supposed to do?  What have I done already to make things this bad?  I can't even ask anyone for help, because then I'd have to admit to how much I've clearly somehow screwed up already.

That's when the answer came.  Beyond the point where Janie was kicking and screaming on the floor, a book on her bookshelf caught my eye. Actually, a single word in the title caught my eye: God.  Cheesy, huh?  The old me would want to punch me for something like this, but I thought "No, wait.  That's it!  God's will, not my will!" I knew what my will was: I wanted to be a good parent by bossing Janie into bed. (She's tired! She needs to be in bed!) But what was God's will?

So I took a deep breath and said, "Janie, this isn't working.  I'm going to try something different.  Right now I'm worried because we're fighting over bedtime.  Bedtime isn't something I'm trying to make you do to be mean.  We all need enough sleep so our bodies can be healthy, and it's my job as your mama to protect you and help take care of you and help you learn to take care of yourself.  I don't want to fight about this, but I don't know what else to do right now.  I'm stuck.  So, do you know what I believe?  I believe there is a God part inside each one of us and if we are quiet and still we can hear that part of us tell us the right thing to do.  So I'm going to be quiet and still now and see if that God part can help me figure out what I need to do now.  And maybe you can be quiet and still and think — not about what you want me to do — but what you should do for you right now."

Janie stopped crying.  She turned away from me and scooched across the floor to where her beloved stuffed animal Gigi lay, and she sat there for a bit, hugging her knees.  Then she turned to me and said, "Mama, I think I can go to bed if I show you something."  So I joined her, and she showed me a bead she'd found on the floor: "It's pretty, isn't it?"

"Yes," I said.

"Can I make something with it in the morning?"

"Yes."

"Ok.  I'm ready for bed now."

"Sweetie, can I give you a hug?  I think we've both had a rough day."

"Yes."

So, I gave Janie a hug that felt like melting, like walls dissolving, like peace.  Then she climbed into bed.  I smoothed her hair, and she smoothed mine, and she was asleep in minutes, holding my hand.