Remembering that in the end – kids are still just kids

Do you remember my daughter’s recent attempt at self hair styling? There is a part two to the story – the punishment. What really got my goat in the end was the fact that she would not own the event – you would not believe how long it took before she actually admitted she cut her own hair. I asked a simple question: “what happened to your hair?” The answers went like this: “I don’t know. I can’t remember. It wasn’t me. The scissors did it”. At that point, I had to smile despite myself – “Of course the scissors did it – but who was holding the scissors?” Finally, with much angst, she confessed. She actually seemed surprised that I had already figured out she was the worker of the scissors in question – kids are funny that way. It never occurs to them that we already know what happened!

To make this into some sort of teachable moment, I suddenly thought of the crème de la crème of punishments for this mess – to have to confess again. After all, her Dad still did not know – he was not yet home from work. And, once he saw her, he’d figure out pretty quickly what happened.

Needless to say, my daughter was not a big fan of this idea. “You tell Daddy. It’s too hard!” With that statement I knew I found her Achilles heel at last. So, I dialed my husband’s cell, told him his little angle had a confession to make and handed her the phone. Through a waterfall of tears she finally blurted out: “I gave myself a haircut and didn’t tell Mommy!” To her surprise, while shocked (“I thought we were beyond this with her” was his comment later on), he was not mad and actually told her he was proud of her for being brave enough to tell him. Then he added that “scissor privileges were revoked until further notice – and maybe forever”. Gotta have that parental melodrama in there somewhere! Plus, to a 6 year old, a day is forever….

There are two issues – recognizing that kids are kids and will do dumb things at times; and, not overreacting to the small things so that kids won’t be scarred to come to us for the big things. I can’t tell you how often I see kids terrified for turning to their parents. One little nine year old was frantic a few weeks back at an after school ski program because she lost $3.00. “My mom will kill me!” was her comment.

I’m looking at these younger years as the minor leagues for the teenage and young adult times when the ante is up’d big time on what our kids will get into. And, we need the practice as parents now, when they are young and the issues are much simpler, so when our kids do come to us with something major we keep our cool and help them turn the situation around.

This is a trust road that is not only a two way street but includes many speed bumps and pot holes. For our kids to trust us enough to come to us, we have to let them off the hook a bit when they do.

© 2005 Pediatrics Now.
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