Do as I Say, Not as I Do

They say you can learn by example.  Just sitting back and watching how someone does the thing you're trying to learn is a completely acceptable form of education.

I like to treat parenting the same way.

Now, don't get me wrong, I know the basics.  

Don't touch a hot stove.  Don't run with scissors.  Don't go swimming unless you've waited at least half an hour since you last ate (that one never seemed very intuitive to me.  What constitutes eating?  Does a snack count?  And what about fluids?  Surely a cold fizzy Coke or beer sitting in your gut spells disaster too?)

So, I have a modicum of common sense.  But when it comes to situational redirections, I tend to get flustered.  It never used to matter since I always had my kids in daycare.  But now that Joey is getting older and more interested in making friends, I get to see how he interacts with other people's kids.  And what I'm finding is that I'm probably way too overbearing in some areas and way too lax in others.

Take a day at the playground.  You'll see parents and caretakers at all levels of the attention spectrum; some are practically playing sidesaddle to their kids while others haven't looked up from their phones for ten minutes.  So, I try to play it somewhere in the middle.  I stay close by so Joey always sees me but I try to back off so he can figure things out for himself (and so, yes, I can steal a glance at Facebook or play a move in Spider Solitaire).  But the tricky bit comes when he sees someone he wants to play with.  Then, I suddenly go from passive bench coach to umpire.  I shout reminders to Joey to "play nice", "let the other kid go first", "share the swing", etc.  As if he's never been around kids before.  He has, but I haven't been around him when he's been around kids.  I trust him (he's mostly a well-behaved kid) but I worry about him too.  He wears his heart on his sleeve, always asking any kids if they want to "be his friend".  Sometimes he asks kids who are bigger than him and who frankly don't want to play with him, which absolutely breaks my heart.  But then it gets sewn right back up when he gets asked to be a friend by someone else.  It's amazing how kids can make you feel things so intensely, be they good or bad.

But those are moments where I can rely on some level of instinct on what to do.  The parts that kill me are those grey areas.  Those moments where you can see both sides of the coin, and not be sure how to react.  For example, Joey wants to climb up the slide instead of sliding down it.  

Do you...

A.)  Stop him - he could hurt himself.

B.)  Leave him alone - didn't we all used to like to climb up the slippery slide when we were kids?

or

C.)  Encourage him to see how fast he can make it up there - every bit of energy spent is laziness earned later.

Or how about this one?

He's filling the spinning bowl toy with mulch and then spinning it to see the mulch fly out.  Do you...

A.)  Stop him - he could fling mulch in his or someone else's eye and get hurt.

B.)  Leave him alone - he's just experimenting with velocity and trajectory...(my God, he's a genius!)

or

C.)  Tell him to share with the kid nearby to see how fast they can both fill up the bowl.

Or finally...

He's spinning and running around the big open field.  Do you...

A.)  Stop him and make him come closer.  It doesn't matter that you're here alone, someone could pop out from behind a bush and kidnap him and hurt him.

B.)  Leave him alone - he's expressing himself through the art of movement.

C.)  Race him to one side of the field and back.  Again, energy spent = guilt-free screen time for us both later.

And the correct answers are...

All of them.  Every single response.

And yet, all of them could be wrong too.  What is tolerable for one parent is intolerable for another.  What I've learned from watching other parents is that everyone's threshold may be different.  I've been at the playground where I watched one parent telling their child to stop climbing up the slide and then on another day a parent goaded their kid to get to the top as fast as they could.  In both instances, I clam up and say nothing.  Both have valid reasons to feel how they feel and to parent how they choose.  And there's no reason that one day I won't care if Joey is pouring sand onto the edge of a stair and other days I won't let him swing on his belly.  Different days mean different emotions and different mindsets.   All we really want is our kids to be happy and safe and well-adjusted, to think they can really do whatever they dream about, to be creative and expressive while being respectful and dutiful.  

And if they can expel some energy so I don't have to feel guilty about parking them in front of Netflix for two hours, well, that makes ME happy, safe, and well-adjusted.