Teaching Perspective

Picture this... 
It's a beautiful day.  The whole family has spent a fabulous day together.  You've taken the kids on a surprise adventure to the zoo where you've spent the bulk of the day running from one exhibit to the next.  The kids laughed and grinned their way from one end of the place to the other.  You even went crazy and bought them cookies & ice cream as a treat because, well, why not?  Then it's time to leave and you offer to take the kids to their favorite fast food restaurant on the way home.  Everyone is in amazing spirits.  Then it happens.  One of your children spies the gift shop.  Or the vending machines.  Or the popcorn cart.  And you tell them 'no honey, not now'.  And it's as if the whole world ends.  And your child looks at you with big, angry tears in their eyes and tells you in all seriousness, "This is the worst day ever.  I am so mad at you."
And you.  Want To.  Leave  Them.  In The.  Parking Lot.

Pretty sure this is a universal picture.  Not just one that happens to ME on a regular basis.  Well, recently I've decided that I am tired of it.  I'm tired of the whining and crying in general.  But I'm super extra tired of it when it happens as I've described above.  I, as a parent, have gone out of my way to create a special experience for my children. I have given of my time, my energy, my money.  They have a wonderful time.  And then they want more.  I'm over it.  So I've been testing out an experiment with my 4 1/2 year old, B.  And here's how it goes.

This weekend we took the girls to the Mall of America specifically to ride the rides.  And ride them they did.  And Grandma promised the girls to buy them cookies on the way out of the mall from the Nestle Tollhouse store because we had all had such a wonderful day, the girls had been so patient when they had to wait in line, etc., etc.  I honestly don't even remember what it was that set her off, but B was overstimulated, overtired, over IT and pitched a holy fit on the way to the cookie store.  She was weeping and carrying on and telling me how this was the worst day.  That she didn't have ANY fun.  That she was so angry with me.  I stopped right there in the mall, waved my Mom on with my 2 year old and got down on my knees at B's level.  With a million people swirling around us, I said "B, I'm pretty sure you don't even remember why you're crying right now.  Can you tell me?"  She just stared at me.  "I want you to tell me 3 reasons that you should be really happy right now."  A smile tickled the edges of her lips and she said, "I rode rides" that's #1 "Grandma's here playing with us" there's #2 "and she's going to buy us cookies"...ding-ding-ding...there's 3!  And then I said, "Can you tell me 3 reasons that you should be crying, angry and unhappy right now?"  All she could do was smile.

I'm trying out this new tactic for several reasons.  First of all, I think that all too often we discount what our kids are feeling.  We just shut them down and tell them "no - you are not feeling that way".  We also tell them what to feel and what to think instead of explaining to them why they should feel and think that way.  I don't think that this teaches them how to think and feel for themselves.  What I'm trying to do here is to try to teach my children to deal with disappointment, deal with frustration, deal with anger by putting things into perspective.  If B had been able to list off 3 legitimate reasons for being angry.  I think I would've let her cry. She would've earned the right.  Instead, I did not put words in her mouth, she honestly came up with those reasons all on her own.  Pretty quickly too.  It really happened, just the way I described.

The disclaimer is that this won't always work of course.  And it isn't always the tactic that I'll take.  Sometimes the whining just must end.  Now.  And I DO just shut it down.  Sometimes I ignore it because acknowledging it feeds it.  But sometimes, I am able to turn it into a teaching moment.  I don't want to create children who stuff their feelings.  But I DO want to create children who can put things into perspective and consciously decide if something is worth being upset about or not.

I'll let you know how this experiment pans out in the long run.  For now, about a week into it, it seems to be working.