We had a Halloween themed Pack meeting for our Cubbies today. It was a very active meeting. After the opening flags, we got right into a series of games consisting of bobbing for apples, pumpkin bowling and a candy corn relay race. The numbers and timing were such that when the relay race completed, we rotated the kids around to the next activity. From there, I handed out awards to the boys and then we finished the meeting with pumpkin carving. The meeting ran late and, for all the activity and stimulation, all the kids hung in well and behaved. They even helped clean up when it was over.
During the meeting, one of the Mom’s was given some grief by her daughter. To me, it was a familiar act since I’ve watched the lass run the same game on the Wife and I many a time. The daughter was trying to lay a guilt trip on her Mother for spending more time with brother, who’s a Bear Scout, during the meeting. The Mom was, in fact, there with 3 kids and did an admirable job of managing all three through the evening. It was during the pumpkin carving that the little tiff presented itself. At one point, the Mom looked up at me with an expression like “You see what I have to put up with?”
Later, during the cleanup, this Mom was stating that she was embarrassed by the way her daughter behaved. She thought she was the only one with those problems. Clearly, she doesn’t read this blog enough. I told her there was nothing her kids were doing that any other parent hadn’t had their kid do to them. Another Mom piped in with her own horror story of embarrassing child misbehavior. The original Mom seemed to be genuinely surprised that other people had these issues.
Of all the things I’ve learned during my time as a parent, this was easily the most surprising and also the biggest help: we are not the only ones. Any given parent is not the only one who has had their child throw temper tantrums in public. That parent is not the only one that has experienced their child answering back to them. That parent is not the only one that has had a meal ruined by their kids bickering and arguing. Even parents of children with special needs aren’t alone, I’d wager. Within that community I’m sure that there are many common parenting experiences and frustrations as well.
I’d say an overwhelming majority of parents try to do right by their kids. We don’t want to have to yell and scream at them. We don’t want to fight with them. We don’t want to be treated as the enemy. We’re trying to help them grow up. I think the natural tendency is to blame ourselves when our kids misbehave or “embarrass” us.
But kids have their own minds and keep their own counsel. They are immature and selfish. They want what they want, when they want in a way of their choosing. That they exhibit these traits doesn’t make us bad parents. It doesn’t even make them bad kids- it just make them normal kids and it’s up to the parents to push back, to deny, to fight, and even to scream to teach them and guide them as to what is appropriate behavior.
Realizing this removes a huge burden from parents because, suddenly, it’s not something that we are doing to our kids. It’s something- a phase, a part of growing up, whatever- that every kids has to go through. Viewed in this way, the problem to worry about isn’t “what we did,” it’s “what we do.” Parenting with the realization that you have not screwed your child up is a lot less stressful.