Parenting is not easy. Well, it can be, but it is not without real challenges that can even seem insurmountable at times.
My son is extremely energetic. He also has been acting out emotionally recently, with the seeming smallest inconveniences or disagreements sometimes throwing him into a very upset and emotional state.
I think this emotional volatility may owe to a few different things.
1. He is four.
He is asserting his unique, individual will and challenging/testing the limits of the boundaries and perceived authorities around him. This is challenging for me as a parent, but when I remain aware of what he is doing, I am actually proud of him, and happy that he isn't quietly submitting to all the whims and momentary wishes of his mother and I.
Of course there are times I wish he would sit like a "little angel" at the restaurant and eat his food quietly. I'd like to relax, drink my beer, and talk. At the end of the day though, at this age, and at this stage of his personal development, that just isn't realistic. Four year-olds are not supposed to behave like ceramic dolls, quietly submitting to everyone and everything and not asserting their personality or will.
2. My wife and I have argued, bickered, shouted and fought many times throughout his development up to this point.
We are doing better now (just recently having started to figure a few things out about ourselves and each other) but are far from perfect.
My son has survived as an infant, baby, and toddler in an atmosphere that was not always conducive to peaceful development. In fact sometimes the atmosphere has been downright emotionally toxic. My wife and I have perhaps provided him with emotional security and safety in many ways, but have also failed miserably in others. I believe part of his "acting out" now is pent up rage, sadness, and insecurity from these arguments and the sometimes very volatile atmosphere.
I am glad he is expressing it now. That said, when he melts down, it can be extremely challenging not to become extremely angry and reactive myself sometimes, due to all the stress, worries, concerns and situations I sometimes battle.
3. He is an "only child" and really loves to play.
My wife and I cannot always provide him with the kind of energetic company he longs for.
Love is always the answer.
Before relating my restaurant experience, I want to veer off for a second here and share one other short story which I feel is pertinent to the topic. Please excuse the rabbit trail.
Yesterday my wife bought my son some chocolates at the convenience store. He brought them back to the car where I was waiting and proceeded to open them. He hadn't eaten lunch yet. My reactive, auto-pilot parent mode kicked in and I said: "You have to eat lunch first. You can only have one but then you have to eat lunch before having more." This triggered him a bit, perhaps, but he agreed.
Later, when he returned to the chocolates and I was tempted to put my hands into the situation again in an authoritative manner, I remembered my own convictions. I checked myself. I tried something radical instead of conventional.
Being that I knew what really bothers him about these situations is my commandeering of his will and taking away his power of choice and authority over his property (in this case his body and his chocolates) I said:
"You know what. Those are your chocolates. You can eat as many as you want. If you don't want to get sick, and want to be really healthy, it might be better to save some of the box for tomorrow, but ultimately it is your choice."
I was pleasantly surprised when he ate only three and let me know he was saving the rest for later.
The takeaway here is that once we are afforded the trust of self-responsibility, we begin to act more responsibly. This power of self-choice is vital to the development of a healthy self-image, self-respect, and happiness.
To the restaurant.
My wife's parents took us out to dinner last night. I was stressed from the get-go. I knew we were in for a challenge. Restaurant experiences are often akin to trying to get the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil to sit down and eat. It often involves lots of running through aisles to catch my son, squirmy legs kicking me in the booth, and playing with things that only the staff are supposed to use.
As I expected, right when we arrived and wrote our names on the waiting list, Isaiah began to "act up." This certainly owed partly to the fact that I was stressed and he sensed it, and sensed my irrational disapproval, and wished to challenge it. It also owed to the fact that he's four, and just wants to have fun!
What do I mean by "irrational disapproval?" Well, when I was a child, I had to be very quiet and "well-behaved" in restaurants or my father would become very angry and I knew I would be spanked if I "misbehaved." What was worse than being hit, though, was feeling that I had lost my father's love in those moments.
When my son begins to get that wild air about him, and his eyes do not have that familiar element of fun to them, I know something is wrong. I know he feels distressed and is hiding it under a barrage of incessant activity.
In these moments I want to control him, because my past programming from my father (don't be an inconvenience or disturbance to ANYONE, EVER) kicks in and I begin to feel scared, frustrated, and enraged.
Why can't he just fucking relax!?!
What is wrong with my child?!
Everyone is staring at us!
What is really going on here inside of me, if I am honest, is more like this:
What is wrong with me!?!
Dad is staring at me!
Because I am getting stared at I am going to be disapproved of and punished!
I then proceed to compound my son's volatile state by placing my own insecurities on him in the form of unnecessary controls and subtle shaming and threats, which further compounds and cements his resolve to "rebel" and test me, by doing things he may not even really want to do, but which he knows will push my buttons.
Insecure children often do extreme things to "test" the parents. They think they will be rejected, and not knowing when that rejection will come is torture, so they attempt to bring it about. Knowing one is rejected or loved is easier than not knowing, even if rejection is the verdict.
Does daddy really love me? Let's see.
To illustrate, if I feel my son's voice is a little too loud for the restaurant, and say something not based on reality or from a place of peace, he will often raise his voice to extremely high levels just to challenge me.
This time, a new perspective.
This time, after being "pushed" to the place where I would usually snap and take him out of the restaurant or retreat into a horrible mood, no longer able to converse or feel confident around the rest of the group (in this case my wife's parents) I simply let the extreme discomfort flow through me. In short, I received it. It did not feel nice, or pleasant, but it did feel much more real than pretending it wasn't there, or trying to fight it.
(To be clear, I don't think there is anything wrong with removing one's child from a restaurant or other such establishment if the child is distractingly inconsolable, breaking property, or disturbing others. What I think is unhealthy is being reactive and removing the child in a spirit of fear, anger, or moralizing punishment, instead of one of understanding, love, and rational, purposeful action.)
My son was climbing up the walls in the waiting area, yelling "poop sandwich!" and bumping into old men on the other side of the room, etc., etc.
Now, I am in no way saying that these things are appropriate restaurant behavior. Restaurants are private establishments where the owner reserves the right to maintain a certain atmosphere for the comfort of customers.
I picked Isaiah up forcefully, sat him on my lap, and tried to explain. He squirmed away and ignored me. I explained that other customers were waiting, and that there are rules for restaurants. It wasn't the first time we had had this conversation.
The battle at the table.
After waiting for what seemed like 14 million years in the small, cramped waiting area, we were seated. My face was beginning to tingle a bit from the fried nerves, and I could feel the tension in my body. At least we are seated, I thought. Now we can eat.
My son, however, had other ideas. When he found out we were not at a ramen joint, but at a katsu place, he began to cry and wail. I felt humiliated and embarrassed by this as there were two other large parties seated in the same room.
I want raaaaaaaamen! yelled Isaiah.
I did not want ramen. I wanted to smoke a cigarette and drink 40,000 beers. Isaiah then proceeded to whine that he wanted to breastfeed. My wife said no, we can't because the room was too full of people. This made him cry all the more.
Okay, I thought. What should I do to defuse this situation? "Just take him to the bathroom" I said to my wife. She was pissed, too.
While they were gone, it hit me:
He is four. You are raising him as a free child. A.S. Neill and all of your heroes have said this is just part of raising a free child. They will not always be the most "well-behaved" by other people's standards, but they will develop into the most happy, independent, and self-respecting/self-responsible adults.
Your son is four. He lives in his own world. He doesn't fully understand restaurant etiquette. Why should I expect him to? Why shouldn't he want to play? He is smart. He understands so many things. In a couple years he will get this, too. This is just how it is if you want to go to restaurants and not use brute authoritarive force to shape his behavior. You must be a strategist. You must be rational. You must receive your own demons and discomfort, because fighting or ignoring them will only make them worse. If you don't want to deal with these things, it is okay to just not go out, and explain to him that if we can't "keep the rules," we cannot go out.
You don't have to moralize anything. Just put it out there how it is.
A peaceful moment in the sun.
The resolve.
When they came back to the table, my son's spirits were lifted from his booby break. I had also calmed a bit after my revelation. This calm translated to him feeling more calm as well. He ate his food with fervor, and was in better spirits.
We had a good dinner and I talked to my wife's parents about my dad's strict and volatile nature at restaurants when I was a child. It felt good to share, and as I spoke from my child's heartc I cold feel the burden of those emotions and confused feelings leaving me.
We all laughed at a story I related about squeezing a mayonnaise packet and it exploding, and then the mayo shooting into the air and landing on my dad. He was livid. My aunt and uncle had laughed. I must have been four or five.
The palette of extremely confusing emotional displays in that situation must have been pretty weird for a kid to be in the middle of. If I remember right, my dad didn't really talk to me much that day, and was in a bad mood. These are early memories. The experience must have impacted me greatly.
I explained to my wife's parents that my dad's dad was even worse in regard to patience, understanding and peaceful parenting. The reason? Self-loathing, and an insatiable desire to be accepted and loved. This desire was insatiable because both my dad and his father refused to accept themselves. This is a horrible, viscous cycle. Awareness is the catalyst and bomb that causes these cycles to detonate. We cannot give what we do not have. Awareness can show us how to get it.
The takeaway.
What I was really worried about was not so much my son's behavior, or the comfort of the other customers in the restaurant, but about what all these people would think of ME.
This fear of being judged and not accepted causes me suffering, because I was judging and not accepting myself. Our children feel uncomfortable often. When mommy and daddy are also extremely insecure, it is my firm conviction that our children feel this as well, and that their discomfort is hereby exacerbated.
Look, so this is what I say to myself:
Like yourself. Receive the discomfort. Acknowledge your scars. Don't attempt to change what simply is. JUST BE fully and openly aware and appropriate action automatically WILL follow. You don't need to make an "effort."
Everything starts with me (you).
~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as Facebook and Twitter. Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!
