Talk Feeleez

Mine!

Straight from my email inbox:

"We were at a friend's yesterday and Bailey was totally into this yellow chair and pink necklace. Awesome, no big deal. Until another kid sits in the chair. Or we are leaving and the necklace is staying. It brings out this sad, aggressive behavior in her. All of the sudden she pushes or screams, cries. I can see she is seriously upset about the thought of sharing or parting with these new prizes but at the same time it is her pal's stuff and other people's cool stuff is everywhere. I try to chill out and not personalize it and chat with her, come up with solutions together, explain that it is Simon's chair and that we are playing with it and it seems like other kids want to play with it too, ask what she needs...sometimes this works but often she is still just bummed and I feel helpless...As with all of the millions of situations like this, sometimes her sweet friend will give it back and sometimes she finds interest elsewhere but I don't feel like that deals with it, you know? It's when it isn't given back and when another interest doesn't happen that I feel stuck. How do I help her move through it and feel good and validated and understanding and understood?"

My response:

 

1. Like you said, sometimes solutions arise that help Bailey either keep the object or borrow the object but other times, many times, sooooo many times to yet come, there isn't a solution and never will be. At times like these empathy is the best response. In the moment it might feel like the least helpful, most futile thing in the world, because there isn't much doing involved. You know this already, but in this situation empathy looks like this (and doesn't involve any talk of solutions): 

    

Oh gosh, you seem so mad/sad about that yellow chair... You love that chair so much... You love it so much that you don't want ANYBODY to sit in it... I'm going to keep holding you while we talk about it because I want Simon to be safe, and you were feeling so mad about it that he was getting hit (if this is the case)... were you thinking that chair could maybe be yours? You want it for yourself, you love it that much... That chair lives here. It's for all the kids to play with while they are here... You're really sad about that huh? Mad too, it seems... You want things to be different... Yeah... You do... You're so sad. 

    

There is holding and huge gaping silences that are difficult to not fill up with condolences. This process also may take an enormously long time. You follow her feelings as they shift, just mirroring them back and reminding her, even though it's upsetting to her, what the situation is. From this Bailey learns that her feelings are real and okay. She learns that you notice this and are on her side. She also learns that the situation won't always go her way, that she will be sad, but she'll also see the support she receives through it and that the feelings will/do change. And then later in life when a difficult situation comes up again, perhaps a boyfriend(or girlfriend) breaks up with her, she won't be looking to feel better by getting back together with him but just by feeling her feelings fully all the way through.

    

2. That being said, there are changes you can make in your language elsewhere that will help. Primarily shifting away from using the terms, "yours", "mine", "theirs". These words, might make Bailey want to own the objects, feel pain when she does not, and also want to hoard things that are "hers" or that she wants to be hers, even if she isn't using them. 

    

It's confusing for kids because we say, these are your toys, but then when others want to use them we demand that the child share. Or when we are visiting another house we call the chair the kid is sitting in your chair (as in: That's Oscar's chair, your chair is over here with your crackers and your milk.)  and then ask that they leave it behind when we leave. I know you aren't doing this with the yellow chair in particular, but we all tend to do this with objects we are even only temporarily using, parking spaces, library books, etc. And kids are literal so they start to see the world as mine and theirs, making it more difficult for them to let objects flow through their lives, passing from one friend to the next. Or making them want all desirable objects to be theirs so that they never have to leave them behind.

 

Using the more awkward language of: the chair I am using, the book you are reading, the baby doll you are playing with, even when these objects may have been technically purchased for Bailey's explicit use, will loosen up her understanding of the temporal nature of objects. If we do this with all of "our" stuff as well ( the purse I use, the car I drive ), we send the message that everything is just being used by people and when we are done with those things we will pass them on to friends, we will give them to Goodwill, or we will set them down so that they are available to the next person that wants to use them.

    

Taking this further, at our house we emphasize that everything we have is for everyone to use. And if it is not currently in use then it is available for all who may wish to use it. That way when friends come to play there is no frantic desire to protect all of the stuff.

    

This change in language works even better when your community of girlfriends/mamas employ the same language. In this way the necklace or the yellow chair becomes not "Simon's", an object to be coveted and owned, but simply the chair that lives at Simon's house. Or the necklace that Simon is using and isn't ready to pass on yet.  

    

This restructuring would mean a conversation in which you explain to Bailey your shift in thinking and your hopes that this will help her with some of her hard feelings.

 

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

I think it's time for a town meeting. We've been going to the park a lot lately because our neighborhood one has gotten a recent makeover. It wasn't poplar before, a basic slide, some swings, but now there are things that spin, climbers shaped like animals, a towering spider's web contraption, and the crowd has grown. At any given hour there are tons of kids, from toddlers to teens, and of course parents.

The people watcher in me loves it. My kids nearly plunge to their death several times a day because my eyes are riveted to the various outfits and social exchanges. My nose loves it too. As the fall sun warms the afternoon the wood chips, four feet deep under our feet, let out a sweet hamstery scent.

But the part I want to talk about is park etiquette and how it results in torture for us all. Yesterday we brought our metal water bottle, and a lunch box. We've fashioned a long ribbon to the water bottle to make it over-the-arm slingable and for some reason it's become the main attraction for the twelve months and under set. They are like crows, drawn to shiny treasure, and they want nothing more than to haul that thing around, like a baby doll or a puppy. But park manners dictate that any time a grubby hand reaches for the water bottle or the also irresistible polka-dot lunch box, a mother follows closely behind to say: Ah, ah, ah. That's not yours. Put that back.

And the toddler returns, again and again. Moms become frustrated, kids become inconsolable. It is sad.

Twice I went over yesterday to say that it was perfectly fine with us if the water bottle became a play thing and that we would just locate it anew each time we wanted a drink. But the thing is, in that situation, I was the weird one, the one acting out of turn, breaking the rules of park etiquette.

But the rules are ridiculous! I hate them.

Parents spend their entire time at the park saying: Nooo! That's not yours. That's hers. Yours is over here. Here's yours. And the kid spends their entire time at the park being shunted away from their primary interest for no apparently logical reason. And the galling part is that when they do finally clutch the toy or sippy cup that is supposedly theirs, if another child approaches and reaches for that item, parents have the unbelievable nerve to say: Let him have it. You have to share! SHARE.

This kind of thing drives me bonkers.

Are you kidding me? Do we really want to emphasize "yours" and "mine" that strongly? I don't mean to get too metaphysical or anything , but if you think about it nothing is really "ours", "yours" or "mine". We say: my chair, when we happen to sit down for a minute. We say: my parking spot, even though we know very well that it isn't. We say it all the time when really everything is so transient, so temporary, and so quickly passed on when it isn't of use anymore. And maybe as adults we can all understand that when we say "mine" we are really indicating that we are using it for the moment, that we don't really own that parking spot or that chair, but kids are literal. When we tell them something is theirs, they believe us. At least until we yank it away from them and give it to someone else in the name of sharing. Then they just think we are mean, or confusing, or both.

(Later we wonder why our society is so greedy. Why everyone seems to only care about themselves. Why everyone hoards more than they need. Why they eat more than their bodies want. Why the more everyone gets, the more they want, and the less they share.)

So hear ye, hear ye.

My official proposals for the revision of park etiquette are:

1. Let's switch to a different style of language. That's the swing that little girl is using right now, do you want to swing on this one? The snacks we brought are over here, those are the snacks that little boy is eating. No more "yours", "his", "not yours" etc.

2. Bring to the park only the objects you are willing to share communally. Explain to your children that if they bring something, others may want to pick it up, play with it, and everyone has decided that that's alright.

3. Do not punish your children on behalf of others. I know this sounds weird but I hate it when a child picks up something that we brought and the mother asks the child to put it back and the child doesn't and then the mother yanks his arm and makes him put it back and makes him cry and then makes him apologize to me, and the kid looks at me like I did this to him. Let's first find out if picking up an object is okay with the owner, or not. If not, let's take our time explaining the situation to our child, perhaps in private, always gently and informatively. And then if we feel an apology is necessary let's make that apology ourselves.

4. Tell the truth and believe each other.

If I say: It's fine if your daughter drags the water bottle we brought around the park, believe me. If it isn't okay with me then the responsibility lies in my hands to say so: Well we keep losing track of those dang bottles and forgetting them so I would really prefer to leave it in the stroller.

5. Let's stop worrying about politeness. We all know that we are all good people. We all know that nobody is purposely intending to offend. Let's just let the kids play, pick stuff up, put it back, smile at each other in a Don't they always love other kids' sippy cups more than their own? kind of way, and relax.

Relax.

In any case, I won't think you are rude, even if your child picks up "my" sweater and leaves it on the slide. But I will think you're an asshole if you mistreat her for playing with it.

More on "mine", manners, social awkwardness.

Nathan's take on sharing, here.