It’s the kind of music class that meets once a week for forty five minutes and costs exorbitant amounts of money. It must be a real money-maker Ryan and I often comment because the overhead of maracas and a CD player, and the rental of a small gym-supplies closet for forty five minutes, cannot be much.
But Twila and Jada love it. Often those forty five minutes are the best forty five minutes of our whole week. So we are on our third session of this music class and Twila might be getting close to aging out. Often now, she is more interested in whispering to the other children who are boarder-line too old and occasionally sits out a song, crossing her arms over her chest or rolling onto her back, refusing to clap, sing or otherwise look engaged or like she is having fun.
Jada on the other hand is fascinated with the proceedings of adults singing, dancing and making silly noises with their mouths, and sits with rapped attention in my lap, not sure how to participate but clearly interested.
It might have bothered me that for the cost of the music class, which Twila begged me to sign her up for, she is choosing to lay on the floor instead of participate. Actually it does bother me. But I might have chosen to lecture Twila or make threats about dropping out of the class unless she sits up and shows some interest. The new parenting strategies I’m learning, however, forbid lecturing and threatening and instead encourage letting go of control whenever appropriate and letting natural consequences do the teaching.
And since the strategies have been working in so many areas of our life lately, I have decided to let Twila miss out on the fun whenever she is feeling too morose to get up and shake it with me. Now I just have extra fun, dancing and laughing until she decides it’s boring to mope and wants to be twirled and hugged.
It amazes me, the decisions Twila makes, when given the freedom and space to think through her choices. Nine times out of ten she makes exactly the decision I was hoping she would, and very often she chooses something even better and more helpful than I would have hoped for.
Instead of lecturing, I’ve been experimenting with “charging” Twila for misbehavior, for being rude or for making us late. A few days ago Twila had a major melt down about the outfit I picked for her after refusing to choose her own outfit five minutes before she had to be at school. With no clothes on (having rebelliously removed even her underwear and socks) she shouted back at me that she wasn’t going to get dressed.
Love and Logic suggested picking up your child and putting her in the car with clothes in a bag to put on at school. Somehow taking a bare naked four year old girl to school to get dressed in front of her peers didn’t seem loving, or logical, or even safe on a five degree morning in Minnesota.
So instead I used another L&L technique after we had wrestled our way into something of a half-compromise, half, threat-based agreement and were driving (fully clothed) to school ten minutes after the door had opened.
“Gosh,” I started, piquing Twila’s attention, “it looks like we’re going to be about fifteen minutes late.”
Her eyes were glued to me, wondering where I was going with this.
“That makes fifteen minutes of time I can’t spend getting work done. How are you going to pay me back for that time?”
“I don’t know, how?” She asked, genuinely curious.
“I don’t know,” I said, tossing the ball back in her court, “what do you think?”
“Well, I’ve got money in my Eagle Doctor Pork Chop.”
“Actually, I don’t think you do since you spent it all on Beauty and the Beast last week. Remember?”
She thought about this for a while and then asked, “Well how can I then?”
“Well, you could do some chores around the house, or pay me with some of your toys,” I suggested.
Suddenly, she was very excited. “Oh, okay, sure mom. I’ve got lots of toys you can have—wait! I have an idea. Let’s set up a store in my room after school and you can choose what toys you want!”
I wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be having quite so much fun with this “consequence” but I agreed. She hugged me and dashed into class more happily than usual.
That evening, after dinner, Ryan and Twila and Jada and I sat on the floor of Twila’s room while Twila offered me a wide assortment of Magic Tree House books she’d finished and stuffed animals she doesn’t play with anymore, crafts she’s made at school and art on her walls, while enthusiastically explaining to Ryan about how she’d made us late to school but it’s okay now because she’s paying mom for the time she lost. She was so proud of being able to put things right, I thought for the first time Maybe this is exactly the point.
After a while I insisted she had more than paid me back, taking my treasures into my room to try and find space for them. When I came back, Ryan was letting Twila take pictures with our Nikon.
Suddenly, a light flashed on in Twila’s eye that wasn’t from the camera. “Hey mom, how much of my stuff do you want for this camera to be mine?”
Ryan and I began to hedge, explaining that we needed the camera to be ours. But undeterred, Twila began making wild offers like a seasoned flee marketer.
“I’ll give you ten Jack and Annie books, and this stuffed animal.”
“I’m going to need something bigger than that,” I laughed getting thoroughly pulled in by her enthusiasm, “how about your couch and this bear?”
“You can’t have that bear and not my couch but…you can have my bed! And this bear.”
“I can have your bed?” I laughed, “I need more stuffed animals too, I think.”
“Okay, okay, okay, mom, here’s the deal,” she insisted after twenty minutes of hard negotiations, “you can have these books, those bears, my bed and this flower pot,” she said rushing towards me with her pink flower pot, which held her new wedding flowers she had gotten for Christmas.
“Do I get the flowers too?” I asked.
“You can put real flowers in it,” she suggested pulling her silk bouquet and hiding it behind her back.
I was so totally charmed by her tenacity that at some point in the dickering, (I’m slightly embarrassed to say) I gave away our camera. And Apparently I am now the proud owner of some pre-read Magic Tree House books, an empty flower pot, a single bed and some stuffed animals that used to be mine.
We negotiated that the camera still lives on an up-high shelf (so Jada can’t get it) and that mom and Dad still get use of the camera when we need it.
But, just last night as Ryan was preparing to go out with Twila to skate; Twila unearthed a small, kids-camera that had been a gift to her when Jada was born. She hadn’t seen the camera in several months so she was obviously, ecstatic.
“Mom, she yelled, running in to show me her find, “I found my own camera! Now I don’t need yours, so you can buy it back!”
“Oh, wow!” I said.
Then, as she ran from the room, she shouted over her shoulder, “You just need five dollars!”
*Photos courtesy of Twila (the week she owned my camera).
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