Aimée is my four-year-old daughter. She is very self-disciplined most of the time, and has rarely demanded the kind of parental “surveillance” that I often see going on in families. I don’t think she ever deliberately threw food on the floor, for example. (I consider myself mainly lucky for this, but perhaps clever enough to recognize when I can leave her alone.) Tonight she was with me for dinner at a friend’s house and for some reason decided she needed to scoop spaghetti up with her hands and stuff it into her mouth like a banana.
I objected as soon as I saw it, and told her she needed to keep it in the bowl. She didn’t cooperate, so I moved the bowl away from her and said she could have the spaghetti if she ate it properly. She just burst into tears and wailed about wanting to eat it that way. (Here’s what I didn’t do: argue, raise my voice, repeat myself, or appeal to reason. All of those reactions are more likely to escalate her feelings.) I reached over and rubbed her back a little, thinking that she must be so tired after such an active day with friends. I may even have said that out loud. A few moments later she stopped crying and seemed ready to try again, so I gave her the bowl.
Children usually have pretty compelling reasons for doing what they do. As it turned out, Aimée thought she could avoid spilling spaghetti everywhere by holding it with both hands. I showed her that biting it and letting the rest fall in the bowl would accomplish the same purpose. Could we have reached that understanding without her little crying episode? I don’t know. Sometimes I need to be very uncompromising before she even wants to negotiate. A four-year-old child knows what power is and wants as much as possible. If she doesn’t get it, how can she grow up? That little moment of crying is a plea for the distant time when I will no longer interfere with her eating habits!
09 August 2007
aimée’s little cry
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2 responses:
Could you explain the convo you had with her that got to your understanding of why she scooped spaghetti with her hands?
So is the point that she needed to calm down first (which is why you waited and rubbed her back), before you could talk to her about why she was doing that? Is part of the problem that we are often 'rushing to reason', rather than waiting, then reasoning? Is it really that simple?
Aimée is not an especially verbal child, and most children are much less verbal than adults, because they have so little practice. Yes, children don't really need many reasons; they tend to accept the world as it is presented. So as soon as her feelings got calmer, I let her continue eating.
Then I remarked on how well she was eating, and she explained that she was trying to keep it off her clothes. I told her this was a good idea. I think she wanted some recognition for her motives, even if I disagreed with her tactic.
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