Parenting and Reality

Jack is energetic.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in how he manages his body. He never quietly puts himself somewhere when he could crash down there. He takes a very pure, simplistic delight in just feeling his body fly through the air in different directions, and then feeling the splash of impact when he lands (which he knows how to do safely).

This trait, which usually causes a smile, drew a frown when he crashed into his mother for about the forty-billionth time over the course of a weekend. You could tell Monica was about to jump him for it, but I decided it was time for the patented 10,000 lbs. hammer of truth.

"Jack, have a seat and look at me."

He did so. He's developed a keen ear for when I'm not screwing around, and behavior to match.

"You need to learn how to control your body. If you crash into a stranger like that, he will assume you did it on purpose. Then he will respond by beating you until you are bruised and bloody. Depending on who your crash into, the injuries might be so bad that they are permanent. This will happen because you don't know how to fight and protect yourself. I'm not asking you to learn body control because it makes me happy. I'm asking you to learn it so you don't get severely injured."

That's a lot to drop on a six year-old. Some might say too much. I disagree.

As a parent, I am first and foremost my child's feedback monitor. He grows and experiments with various behaviors as his knowledge and capabilities grow. Part of my job is to give him very realistic pictures of the outcomes of those behaviors.

The hard reality of him throwing himself into someone is exactly what I said it was. If he goes out and "field tests" that one on the wrong kid, my prediction will have a high degree of accuracy.

I take a similar tack when he acts disrespectful or nasty to me. If I was in the process of helping him or getting him something when it happens, I stop immediately. Not because of some moral reason or because of my hurt feelings: I do it because if he disrespects anyone else on this planet, they will not be inclined to help him out. He needs to learn the direct correlation between disrespect and isolation. I would be selling him a terrible fantasy if I convinced him that there were a lot of people out there who would put up with a lot of bad behavior and just love him anyway and still do him favors.

I am the first and foremost avatar of the real world to my child. Many of the things he will need to understand in order to survive in reality he will first experience through me. I would be doing a piss-poor job if my parenting did not reflect reality.

It would be like training in martial arts and providing a student with a fake and unrealistic attack, then telling that student that he can really "defend himself" because he can deal with the fantasy problem I've been giving him. Search the internet and you'll find many instances of such students (who are the victims of the bad teacher) learning about reality the hard way.

I'd much rather my child never come to the conclusion that what I'm teaching him is a lie designed to make us feel comfortable.

Now, let me qualify my statement here. I did not and would not have used this kind of correction on a toddler. They aren't physically or cognitively in the place where they could accept such a correction. Between fear and trauma, it would do more harm than good. For a toddler, the lesson would have been (equally important) that such collisions hurt bodies and feelings, since toddlers don't necessarily understand that very well.

But my son is an exceptionally bright six year-old. He has a natural curiosity for how things work, including relationships between people. He can take losing a bit of innocence in order to obtain some much needed wisdom.

I could see the disquiet in his eyes after I laid this on him. This was a truth he'd much rather not have to dwell on. To be honest, I felt really bad laying something that heavy on him.

But then, parenting is not (and never will be) about being comfortable. It's about doing what is necessary to equip your child with the knowledge and skills needed to interact with the real world outside the presence of its benevolent avatar.