Bedtime Snack / Kindness Hardliners

In raising our five-year-old son, Ax, we have been kindness hardliners, well, kindness and safety hardliners. Everything else has been somewhat up for grabs. You want to be naked in the house? Fine. You want to read this book not that book? Okay. You don’t want to sit at the table now? Whatever. It’s eighty degrees out but only the heavy blue sweatpants will do? Go for it. No bath tonight? No problem. But as easy-going as we’ve been or tried to be on that stuff, we’ve aggressively looked for opportunities to point out and reinforce his kindnesses to others, and used stern voice and words to nip unkind impulses. So potty training, reading, mastering the zipper and the button, we’ve been pretty chill, that happens when it happens kind of folk. Sharing, befriending the weaker child, expressing gratitude, we’re on it.

We got this kids book, “How Full is Your Bucket?” about how when we do kind things for other people our own bucket of happiness gets filled, along with theirs, but when we are mean it drains everyone’s bucket. It’s been pretty helpful for short-handing. Like, “Hey Ax, look at that kid – did you fill his bucket or empty it? How could you fill it?”

And we’ve gotten a lot of feedback that Ax seems particularly empathetic and kind, and a joy to be around. Of course my mother assures me we simply, “lucked out,” and Ax was born that way. She may be right, but he was also born a natural drummer and if I have my way that particular aptitude may wither on the vine rather than be cultivated with the same fervor and consistency with which we’ve fostered his natural kindness. It’s a nature/nurture thang.

And then there’s me, my own kindness-o-meter. I let ideas about how things are supposed to be and fears about how things might become get in the way of my main Plan A with respect to our son. Last night he wanted a bedtime snack, and it was late, we’d been out all day, and I was tired, and I wanted help from Mike but wasn’t making space for him to help, and I told Ax he could have apple slices or banana. When he said he didn’t want either of those things I said, “Fine, then no snack.” And he burst into tears.

And instead of apologizing right then and there and giving him other options, along with a hug, which would be my normal impulse, I let him sit in sadness for an uncomfortable bit. My mind was a jumble of other people’s bullshit parenting crap about how he didn’t eat much dinner so he shouldn’t have snack, according to his school teacher. How I gave him two acceptable options and if I go beyond that I’ll raise a grit-free psychopath who thinks the world is always going to bend to his will, how if we don’t get to bed this very instant his brain will shrink and his life chances will be radically diminished.

I lost my way. My authenticity. I totally emptied his bucket and in the process I emptied mine low, way low. I’ve heard the argument in many forms, from many moms and education experts, that if I’m too nice to my child then he will never be able to withstand the “realities” of this harsh life. That to be a better parent I have to be withholding, to set and keep boundaries however artificial, to prepare him for a world that does not cater to him. I’m not into that, I don’t buy it. I don’t see how diminishing someone makes them stronger. I’d think that a foundation of experiencing love and abundance and care would provide greater buoyancy, not less.

I mean, we’re not spoiling him with stuff or letting him get tyrannical. He doesn’t get to have every toy car he wants, or watch TV all night long, but he gets a lot of cars, and a decent amount of commercial-free TV too. He gets to wear his new bird costume to school if he wants to. And I’m going to try to do better about being kind, even when he needs a third, fourth, and fifth option for snack, even when I’m tired.

Soon he’ll be able to make snack for himself, he’ll go to bed on his own, he won’t need help with flossing, or want bedtime stories, or snuggling, or any of that. The inputs I want to give him, that will fill my bucket to give him, are inputs of patience, tolerance, kindness, and love, not this other stuff, this stuff of theories and fear. So I apologized to him this morning, for being mean last night, and he gave me a hug and a kiss like it was nothing. We did luck out. And so did he.