Talk less, smile more

I taught elementary school — mostly 2nd and 3rd grade — for five years. Like many teachers, what I struggled with most in the classroom wasn't curriculum but classroom management. I'd try to be strict but come off as shrill, or I'd try to be stern and come off as mean, or I'd try to be flexible and come off as wishy-washy.

Now that I'm a parent, I have the same problem. When I talk to Eli about consequences, I try to make sure I always follow through, which sometimes leads me to wish I hadn't set limits in the first place (like the time in BJ's I told him if he kicked me from the cart one more time I'd have to put the monster pillow back and he kicked me one more time and everyone in the store had to listen to his 20-minute tantrum while we checked out).

There are moments when I choose wrong, when I choose to make a point that's more about asserting my dominance as the adult than about making the best decision for my child. This is about one of those moments.

Eli has a habit of getting really intensely involved in something right before we're going to walk out the door, no matter how many times I warn him that we're going to leave soon, and as I approach to get him to go he'll start yelling about how he has to just finish one more thing.

This morning, just as we were about to leave for apple picking, Eli was deeply involved with a big stack of magnatiles, protesting that he had to finish laying them all out in a rectangle pattern. "It's going to be OVER!" he shouted. (This is a phrase he got from me; I'll say, "It would have been over already!" when he's protesting and arguing about something that would take a hot second if he just let me do it already.)

I felt us slipping into the same old power struggle. I felt that same anxiety I used to feel in the classroom when things weren't going my way. Don't let students walk all over you! Take control!

Once all the magnatiles were laid out on the floor, Eli reached out for more magnatiles and started to say, "I'm going to use these — "

I sort of snapped. "We are finished playing with magnatiles now! It is time to go!" He tried to respond, but I cut him off.

In response Eli got more and more upset, but I wasn't really listening to what he was saying. I heard snatches of phrases like "Listen to me!" but I steamrolled right over them. If we were in a cartoon, I would have been swelling bigger and bigger while Eli shrank smaller and smaller, with my fat slimy words gliding over his small squeaky ones. I don't even remember what I was saying. It was just the idea that I am the grown-up! You need to listen to me! No more playing! 

Finally Eli yelled "I'm TELLING YOU SOMETHING!"

"I'm listening!" I retorted sarcastically.

He took a quavery hiccuping breath and said shakily, with tears rolling down his cheeks, "I'm going to use these magnets when I come home from apple picking."

In the cartoon, this is where all the air would come slithering out of my balloon. This whole time — this whole argument — this whole escalation — he had been trying to tell me how you he was going to use the rest of the magnets after our trip. Just trying to share proudly how he was responsible enough to know it was time to stop playing.

I had won the power struggle, but in the end we both lost. I felt like the worst mom in the world.

If the terrible 2s are terrible because 2-year-olds finally have enough of a sense of self to understand that they have desires that don't always coexist with their parents', then 3-year-olds are tough because there are so many more shades of emotion that they seem to understand and be able to manipulate: guilt, fear, shame. Lately when Eli can tell that I'm irritated with him he'll sidle up to me and coo, "Mommy, I like you." Which is cute, but what stops me in my tracks is when he'll do it while he's crying, like he needs reassurance that I still like him too, that I won't banish him into the woods just because I'm annoyed. Once, in tears, he asked me, "Mommy, can you smile?" as if he was worried I might turn into a mean, unsmiling mommy from now on.

It's an unsettling reminder how easy it is to scar him, to hurt his feelings with unkind words or hefty sighs or an irritated voice. It's a reminder to be gentle with him as much as I can, because he's 3 and I'm his mommy and I'm supposed to be the one who acts like a grown-up.

So, like a real adult, I owned up to my mistake. I told Eli how sorry I was. I told him I should have listened to him. When Phil walked in the door, he found us both on the floor, sniffling and sending each other telepathic messages like: We both said things we didn't mean, but we still love each other. 

And in the end, we had a great day. Eli picked apples and played in a giant vat of dried corn and walked through a maze and refused to feed anything to the animals (more feed for Phil). And even though I had warned him, quite sternly, several times that he should finish his breakfast because there would be no snacks in the car, when we returned from the orchard and he whined that he was hungry, I said that we could go get a treat from the farmstand.

His eyes light up. "Oooh! A treat! Treats are my favorite! Treats are yummy! Treats are the best thing to eat!"

Maybe it was some attempt at a balance — like I had already surprised him once with my unkindness and I seized the opportunity for a happy surprise instead. But I didn't do it because I felt guilty. I did it because Phil gave me a C'mon, loosen up look. I did it because WOLO — we only live once.

When you're a new teacher, you're often told that you shouldn't smile until December. But today I was reminded that as a parent I should take the advice Aaron Burr gives in the magnificent Hamilton: Talk less. Smile more.