The lass was chugging along fine this morning. Despite getting up a little after 6 (on a Saturday!) to start getting ready for hockey practice, she was basically cheerful and agreeable. She’d eaten her breakfast without much drama and even managed to put most of her hockey gear on herself. It actually seemed like the stars had aligned for an uneventful morning.
Which is really the point where we should have realized such was not the case. Because sure enough, after getting through all the “hard” stuff, she hit her stumbling block at being unable to find her sneakers.
She looked. In that characteristic way any kid “looks” for a missing something. Namely, she rushed around swinging her head back and forth fast enough to give an observer whiplash, screaming in a highly irritated (and irritating) whine “I can’t FIIIIIIIND IIIIIT!” She blew by me at mach one, then up the stairs to further search.
Eventually, she did find them. But that wasn’t the end of it. Her antics grew ridiculous enough that I decided to mosey over to further assess the situation.
Basically, she didn’t want to put her shoes on. She wanted it done for her.
It was at that point that, simultaneously, the Wife declared “I’m going to wait in the car” and I simply turned around and walked away. Thus, depriving her of the one thing she wanted at the moment- an audience.
As I headed back down to my computer in the basement, I heard a growl of frustration, the door open and close and then quiet. After a couple of minutes, I wandered back upstairs and she was gone. She was off to hockey.
As hard and unnatural as it may seem at any given moment in the heat of battle, doing nothing really can be an effective counter measure to a kid’s tantrum. I’ve been sucked into many a drama, arguing with the irrational mindset that kid’s frequent. Thinking back on them, it’s remarkable the number of times where I’ve finally thrown in the towel and walked away, only to have the kid finally acquiesce to reality and finish whatever simple task we’d asked of them. Once I’d recognized the pattern, I began skipping to the conclusion. Lo and behold, I’d got the same result. Though every now and again, the boy or the lass will reciprocate and just sit there, waiting for me to re-engage. It’d be too easy if “doing nothing” was a one-size fits all solution.
I can only assume that on some level, there’s a need for some kind of emotional gratification. Perhaps it’s as simple as “misery loves company.” Since we, as parents, ask them to do things that they don’t necessarily want to they choose to kvetch to make us pay for our impertinence. Perhaps it’s just a game.
Luckily, as parents, it’s one we can simply choose not to play.