With the lass in the final stages of recovering from her cold, I took the boy into school this morning by his lonesome. Well, other than me that is. It’s not like he can drive himself. Shudder.
He was quiet for the first half of the 5 minute ride in, then he piped up with “Will my sister get to see the Rise of the Guardians movie when I go, even though she didn’t read the book?”
This circumstance is one of those headaches of our own making. We try to give the kids incentives to read and one of the better ones we’ve found is to make a deal with them for reading a book and then seeing the movie. Then we can talk about the differences between the two and see which he liked better and why. All that fun parenting stuff.
The catch to this little piece of ingenuity is the difference between 3rd grade reading and 1st grade reading abilities. In a nutshell, it’s tough to expect the lass to read an 80 or 90 page kids book right now. Actually, “tough” is incorrect. She’s just not there yet.
Thus, we have a sort of free-rider problem: the boy does the work and then his sister reaps the benefits along with him.
His comment sounds a lot like feeling sorry for himself, of which I have never, and never will, approved. Rather than push back against his viewpoint; however, I opted for empathy: “Yeah, I can understand your frustration. You did the work and read the book, but in all likelihood your sister will see the movie even though she hasn’t read the book. Of course, she can’t read the book yet, but still I see what you’re saying.”
He thought for a second and then asked “When she can read better, will she have to read books before she can see the movie?”
“Of course,” I replied. “You know, as you get older, you’ll get to read much more interesting stories. Reading is actually a lot of fun- you can learn things while being entertained. It exercises your imagination and gives you something constructive to do. Wait ’til you can read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings stories. You’ll really like those, but you’re still too young to be able to get through them.”
“Yeah,” he replied, seemingly unimpressed. But regarding his original topic, the approach mollified him. Normally, he would get more and more wound up about the “injustice” of the situation with his sister, but not this time. Perhaps it was enough to explain I understood his objections, even though it wouldn’t change the situation. Rather than attacking him for feeling sorry for himself and putting himself on the defensive, the different tact served to defuse his frustrations.
I’m not sure if this represents maturity on his part, or mine.