The lass made a strange request of the Wife tonight. The lass asked her to help her brush her teeth. She was afraid of missing some spots, I heard her explain.
If her regular visits for cleaning are any indication, the lass has done splendidly in maintaining her teeth. She has no cavities and no warning signs resulting from neglect.
The question was one of a variety I’ve noticed the kids ask every now and again. They will ask for help with some personal thing or a chore that we all know full well they are competent at. Almost like they want to temporarily revert to an earlier age when we had to help them.
As to motivation, I can imagine any one of a number of possibilities including hoping to get away with a freebie, too tired to want to bother, or some form of reassurance. Though, typically, the question is stated with just the right combination of earnestness and innocence that I get the very strong impression that it’s about reassurance.
The Wife didn’t help her, and gently told her that she was perfectly capable. That’s how we typically deal with the sort of question when it comes around. The lass, for her part, didn’t argue the point and finished brushing her teeth on her own.
I don’t have any real insights regarding the behavior. More than anything, I’ve noticed it enough times now that I thought it worth jotting down. Perhaps it’s an act we all do throughout our lives, hoping someone else will take care of something for us despite our own capacity for handling it. Perhaps that’s a difference between adults and children- one knows the answer without having to be told. The other one just wants to make sure.