Now We Know Better

You did then what you knew how to do, and when you knew better, you did better. 

~Maya Angelou~

I said I wanted to write more about counterwill, and Boodge is giving me lots of reasons these days.  Counterwill is the basic instinct in all of us that makes us feel resistance when we sense someone is telling us what to do.  Boodge's is strong, sometimes. Dare I say, like his Daddy's.  Maybe his Mommy's too.  He's becoming more and more his own person, more complex and self-motivated, less predictable. He wants it his way, and he'll pull out all the stops to get it.

I'm so glad I read about this concept of "counterwill" and can use it as a frame through which to view Boodge's current behavior.  It's handy, because it helps me not see him (only) as an obstinate, cheeky little almost three-year-old, but just as a normal, healthy kid, becoming his own person. And it helps me remember that there are ways I can approach him that may succeed in avoiding a "shield's up, all systems NO" sort of response from him.

Sometimes, I've been able to pull some ju-jitsu on Boodge. Like, he says, "No, I don't want to go! I want to build a tower," and I can stop myself.  Instead of getting into a back and forth, escalating, "Well, we have to go!" "No, I'm NOT!" type of thing, I can say: "Oh, OK. Let's build a tower for a little while and then we'll go."  Amazingly, this can work really well, and usually within 5 minutes, he's ready to go peacefully.  I've done this when he's refused to eat the soft boiled egg I just cooked him at his request, or insisted on playing in the backyard instead of getting in the car.

I'm learning that approaching him with a "You will do it NOW because I say so," attitude is a recipe for disaster.  Knowing that helps me to stop when I see his resistance coming up, and consider another way I can approach it, where I can yield to win.  I am really gratified when I can stay calm and convince Boodge to follow along willingly, rather than have to drag him kicking and screaming, but I don't always succeed. 

The other day, at the playground, was a good example of how it can all go wrong.  Boodge had been playing alone there for a while, and when another family arrived, he was excited to see more kids. So excited, in fact, that when he spotted the little girl in the purple sparkly dance suit, he took off running at full tilt, and screamed "I'm BOODGE!" right in her face.  "NO!" she responded, no doubt alarmed at the speed he was running towards her. I managed to rein him in with my voice, he came back and the girl went to sit down and eat her yogurt.  A few minutes later, I found myself near the girl's mother and tried to initiate a friendly exchange, using little Peanut as bait. She didn't take it. She gave me a tight lipped smile.

And then, the little girl finished her yogurt and started advancing towards the playground.  Boodge took off at full tilt again.  He got behind her, arms outstretched, I could see what was coming.  "NO!" screamed the girl.  "NO, Boodge, NO!" I yelled.  But it was too late.  He tried to grab her, shoved her to the ground instead.  She crashed on the pavement, falling hard on her bare palms.  Started crying.

We moms descended, fully intense.  Other mother did not look happy, and who can blame her. Her little girl was hurt.  I could see that Boodge was already registering the situation, feeling upset that his friendly intention had gone all wrong, sensing that this was a big deal.  I exclaimed, "Oh no, you knocked this girl down. She's hurt, Boodge! You need to say you're sorry."  Boodge was silent.  I turned to the mother and apologized myself, and checked if her girl was OK.  She was.

I tried to soften Boodge a bit, "I know it was an accident. You didn't mean to hurt her.  Can you say 'Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you?'" (this is a phrase he uses a lot at home).

"Sorry!" bawled the little purple girl.  
"No honey," I said, "You're hurt, you don't need to say sorry."
"This boy is going to say sorry to you," said the other mother firmly.
"Say sorry Boodge."
"No," replied my son. Awkward pause while the other mother's eyebrows shot up, her mouth tightened.
"Boodge, say sorry, or we're going home right now.  You hurt her."
"No.  I'm not going to."
"Please say sorry. It's the right thing to do."
"I want to go home."
Another awkward pause.  "Well, you still need to say sorry, you hurt the girl. It's the right thing."  Oh, I was faltering, alright.
"No. I want to go home."
We waited a while, but it was futile. The other mother said "Well, I guess you're going home then.  Too bad for you. You could have been friends with her, but now you aren't allowed to play with her."
"Just say sorry Boodge!" I tried again. 
"No."

And so we went home.  Awkward?  Yes. Was I embarrassed? Yes, much more than I should have been, because it's totally normal.  I wish I hadn't been thinking so much about how I wanted my son to appear--obedient, polite, caring, and had thought more about what was actually going on for him.  I think Boodge's reasoning went something like this, "Oh, shit. This is bad.  I hope Mommy can sort it out.  Oh no, it looks like Mommy is on their side, too."  His big wall of NO came up, and then, a choice was offered. "You're saying I can go home and get out of this uncomfortable situation? Yes, that's what I want.  Let's go. What are you waiting for?"

All the way home I talked at him, telling him it was rude, it wasn't the way to make friends, he had hurt the girl's feelings by refusing to apologize. when someone says "no" it is important to stop.  I asked him "why" questions which I know he cannot answer.  He sat in his carseat with a sullen look that made me see a glimpse of his future teenage self.  As I talked, I realized that I probably sounded like that old "Far Side" cartoon where the man is talking to his dog, and all the dog hears is one or two words that he actually understands.  I was just talking because I didn't know what else to do. 

But after he was napping, I was nursing and thinking about counterwill, and saw how I could have approached things differently so that Boodge may have come along.  I believe he learned his lesson immediately through the intensity of everyone's reactions, just like when he tried to pick up his sister. At his age, he doesn't get manners and politeness in a genuine way, and neither did purple dress girl who was trying to apologize herself.  They just do those things because we tell them to, and they are willing to follow our lead.

I could probably have had a lot more success in that situation if I hadn't been so worried about what the other mother was thinking, and had focused on connecting with Boodge, who needed me to help him negotiate his mistake.  Doing something like putting my hand on him, or even pulling him to me, and then focusing on whether the girl was OK and apologizing myself first.  Then to Boodge, I could have said, "Oh, how sad, she's hurt her hands. You didn't mean to hurt her, did you?  Are you feeling bad that you hurt her?" Which, I'm pretty sure he would have said yes too.  Then, perhaps if I'd have encouraged him to apologize to make it better, and he would have wanted to.  And if not, then...not make it a big thing, just take him home. The point has been made.

I'm pretty sure that the way I hammered at it will ensure that counterwill is strong about forced apologies for a while to come. So I'm hoping next time, I can remember to take this approach.  One thing Neufeld emphasizes in "Hold on to Your Kids" is the idea of "collecting" your children. It's well explained in the article I linked to last time, "Why Children Say No."  In this case, I forgot to collect Boodge when he was feeling very lost indeed.  Instead, I pushed him away, and that roused his counterwill.

Hey, we all make mistakes! But if we can learn from them and plan to do differently next time, then we're on the right track. Which, really, is all I wanted to teach my son in that situation.  And look at that, he taught it to me--again.  Isn't parenting awesome?

Where is the Tao Now?

Sometimes on this blog I've referred to "The Great Mother".  One day, I'll write a blog post about her--she's my own version of a deity, and I have come to know her since getting pregnant and having kids.  She is both incredibly loving and protective, and a trickster.  And I feel the trickster at work right now.  It seems, just to have fun with the whole "Don't talk about the war" thing, she may be going through my blog and checking me for other things I was so smug and confident about.  Like, potty training.  Remember my post about the Tao of Potty Training?  Nowadays, it's more like Western religions--about shame and guilt and body parts.  

They say there can be a regression in this area when a new sibling enters the scene.  Sean and I were so confident that this would not happen in our case, we're a bit blindsided.  Silly, silly parents.  But I think what's happening is only partly about Peanut's arrival and also partly about a new developmental phase Boodge is getting to, which has to do with wanting to do his own thing and figure out what happens, regardless of what Sean or I think.  Part of me is intrigued, like, oh, look how his mind is working. He's figured out that I'm not omnipotent (who knew this post would be so religious!) and he can do these things when I'm not looking, and hope I don't find out.  And I don't blame him, either. Who among us wouldn't sometimes like to just pee on the couch while watching a video instead of getting up? Or, see what happens if I pee in this open umbrella.

There have been other examples of him trying things when I'm not looking. At the grocery store, he managed to get a hand into the bulk bin and shove two candy whales into his mouth before I could stop him.  And one time, I put the baby on the couch and ran out to get something from the freezer. When I came back, she was on the floor, screaming.  "Oh my god, what happened!!? Did she fall?"  "Uh huh." said Boodge, who was playing with his lego.  "She fell on me."  I focused on calming the screaming baby but I thought about it, and really didn't think she was mobile enough to have moved from the corner of the couch to the floor, and land on her back the way she was positioned.  So later that day, I teased it out of Boodge that he had tried to pick her up, and she was heavier and squirmier than he expected.  I'm sure he was alarmed by my strong reaction when I came in, and didn't want to admit he had been involved.  Totally normal.

I've been reading Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate's book, "Hold on to Your Kids."  Yes, the day after my rant about how sick I am of all the parenting advice and admonitions out there, I went and got some parenting books from the library.  But this book is one I'd been hearing about for a long time, and wanted to read, and I've gotten a lot out of the chapter on "counterwill". There is a good article about it here, and I'm hoping to write more about it some other time. 

Basically, counterwill is the instinct in all of us that gets resistant when we feel somebody is trying to push us to do something.  Neufeld explains that it comes out very strongly in 2-5 year olds and adolescents.  It protects that part of kids that wants to become their own person and figure things out on their own, Neufeld says "they put up a wall of no's" so that behind it, they can be free to explore.  It also protects our kids from taking orders from people they don't trust or aren't close to.  The thing about it is that the more the kid feels they are being pushed to do one thing (especially by someone they may not know or like at that moment), the more their counterwill is activated, so you can actually push them to do what you don't want by pushing them too hard.  Parenting is such a fine art.

It all makes a lot of sense to me, because I feel that instinct in myself and see it in friends and family.  But it's so hard to find the balance between, I'm SERIOUS! Stop doing this! and pushing it over the edge that will escalate the problem.  And the balance between, "I love you, but STOP DOING THIS!!"  And even the balance between, "I'm SERIOUS! But this is hilarious, and I can't help but laugh!"  It just feels better to laugh about it, a lot of the time. 

So, Great Mother Trickster, I see what you're doing.  I get it. Potty training is not as simple as it seemed.  And the Wu Wei is much easier when you're not thinking we just got that couch, dude, and now there's pee in it, and I KNOW you know better.  But more importantly, I'm kind of fascinated to see my son getting to this new point, where he is starting to become his own person in a different way.  A way, I'm sure, that will bring many laughs and tears and destroyed furniture in years to come.