week eight Tiny Master

Tiny Master

My mother never spanked my brother or me, though my brother pushed all her buttons all the time.  She would sometimes loose her patience and raise her voice, but did not raise her hand, my father, on the other hand preferred the old fashioned way.  Maybe I was heeding my mother's example when my son was very little and I quickly noticed that the well deserved swat on the seat of the pants was taking us nowhere fast.  He was generally good but the occasional childish outburst worsened, he became increasingly stubborn (wonder where he got that from) and the behaviour I wanted to eradicate became more entrenched with a 'swat.'  It also served to heighten my anger, bad sign.  Positive reinforcement for good behaviour was well and good but I also started 'talking' to him about the given behaviour I wanted to correct, explaining the dangers of running away while crossing the street-that must be an instinct for toddlers, describing my expectations-we will not eat pasta and sauce with our hands even if you are two years old, expressing compassion-I understood his frustration at having a toy taken away by a playmate, my brother and I did  that until our teens and managed to stay friends as adults-but, I insisted, 'we don't hit'. 

When we talk there is no shouting, no punishing, there are no angry words, we simply talk. Talks are not lectures, interaction is encouraged and I ask, 'What do you think?' 'What would a better way have been?' as well as the opportune pantomime of the offending behaviour and due pantomime of my stomach lurching in response to it. Years have gone by and we continue to talk.  talking is an event that can go on for a long time, depending on the gravity of the situation.  The talk about secretly taking pictures during class time and posting them went on for two days.  Now when I lift a finger straight and tense in front of my face and give a brief and piercing glance my son knows a 'talk' looms close by and prefers backing down to listening to me drone.  I walked into his small bedroom one evening when the quiet had been interrupted by an outburst (his), an unheeded request (mine) and another outburst (probably both) and, enunciating each syllable, I calmly announced that a talk  was surely necessary. He slowed to a stop, moaned and asked me to punish him rather than talk, 'I am too tired for a talk,' he said. 'No, we are  going to talk about it.' He closed his angry brown eyes, threw his little blonde-brown head back and fell on his bed in mock faint.

I sat down on the edge of the adolescent bed scattered with iphone, ipod, teddy bears and minions, looking at the crumpled form, unmoving in the effort to drive home the idea that the thought of 'talking' had the power to send him into catharsis, and I began to talk to my captive audience.