two years ago today

(and in case there is any doubt, my friends and the lovely Laura are amazing parents.  I respect them tremendously and feel they are raising amazing children.  Let me repeat.  I do not think it makes someone a bad parent if they give their kid a sticker or a loonie or a reward for a school year well done.)

I’ve never been down with Reward-for-Good-Behaviour gig.  Even before kids I wasn’t down with it.  Even when I was a kid I wasn’t down with it.  It is something I have never been able to reconcile in my brain.  What does a reward have to do with getting an A in math?  I’m good at math.  I like math.  I want to learn math.  A sticker, a dollar, or even an “I’m so PROUD of you!” doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it.  It was about me, I wanted to be good in math.

And a sticker (or insert coveted item for appropriate age group) was never motivation enough for me to try harder in English to get an A.  I just didn’t give a shit.  I never cared if that was the proper formation of a sentence.  If what I was trying to say was clear enough that the teacher understood, then woot! Good enough.  That is all I wanted.  I was pleased with the Bs.

I feel like when I use reward-base techniques to teach my children how to behave in a situation what I am saying  to them is that the reward is the end result of all the things we do.  But what I want the end result to be is to have my children look around and do what is best for the situation, not what is best for them or what will get them some “thing”.

This is pretty high in sky, I know it.  Teaching that isn’t going to be easy.  It’s hard.  It’s tiring.  It’s irritating.  Sometimes I just want them to put their damn shoes on and get in the car ALREADY.  WHY IS THAT SO DAMN HARD?

I totally get why people want to give out a sticker or a dime.  I really, really, really get it.  And I’m no saint,  I have given out my own share of things to get them motivated.  I’ve bribed.  I’ve begged.

The big picture for me, though, is that we don’t get a “thing” for being adults that give back to our society.  If we work together and look big at what our community, our province, our country needs collectively, we get a nice place to live.  A safe place to live and work and raise our children.  We don’t get an iPad.  I don’t understand why we teach our children to want an iPad instead of that safe, secure community.  And while that may seem like a ridiculous comparison, that is what is going on in my head when I try to come to terms with the reward-based teaching idea.

That isn’t to say I don’t think that a sticker chart or a reward has a place.  I believe it to be a valuable tool to say,  track a goal – a goal that the child makes and tracks.  If that goal is to read 100 books this year, then go to town and make a poster and buy a stack of stickers.  That makes complete sense to me.  But if it is my goal to force my kid to read 100 books, well then that sticker chart loses merit in my mind.

Although  my kids could totally read a 100 books. heh.

Right now my children are young and I believe that my role in these early days is to train.  Perhaps I should say “to teach” as that sounds much lovelier, but really it is just training.  Training them to understand the real consequence of their actions.  Training to see the world beyond their own wants and desires.  In every situation the consequence of not behaving a certain way differs, but there is always a consequence.

For example: if you don’t eat your breakfast right now, you will not be eating breakfast because in 10 minutes we are going to be getting into the car.  The logical consequence to not eating breakfast is you’re hungry and pissy all day.  Tomorrow, the kid will probably eat breakfast (I have pretty easy-going kids, so it is a guarantee that tomorrow they will eat breakfast.  well, except for maybe Claire).  Do I care if my kids eat breakfast?  OF COURSE I DO.  But they will not die if they don’t eat breakfast, I am not punishing them by taking breakfast away because everyone was given the opportunity to eat and then if they chose not to, well in the long run the lesson of realizing that they are responsible for their own well-being (or will be in time as they get older) is more important than what someone else thinks when they find out my dawdling 5 year didn’t get around to eating and that is why he is lying in a puddle of tears at my feet at the end of the day.

I don’t always have a reasonable consequence at my disposable, though, and sometimes (often) am flailing around like a crazy person, but hey!  Welcome to parenting!  I am getting better at this all the time and there are certainly non-negotiable points in every situation.  It comes down to three things – Is it safe for my child?  Is it safe to me and others?  Is it safe to the environment?  The consequences fall out of that.  Usually.  I still have a really hard time diffusing the crazies.  You know the crazies?  When the kids are having a blast but they are being annoying and insane and over the top?  And running away from you laughing like complete lunatics?

No?  Your kids don’t do that?

huh.

More than anything, though, I feel like when we start dolling out rewards to get the behaviour we want, it is really easy to slip into a situation where you stop listening.  Really listening.  At least, I believe this to be true for me.  Instead of realizing that Claire is digging her heals because she’s hungry and needs a snack, I bribe her with something to get my way (which might be for a completely valid and necessary reason) and then I have allowed for a real need of hers not to be met.  Sometimes the behaviour is a cry to be heard, or a cry for some attention, or love, or understanding but they can push that aside in the interest of getting the coveted ”thing”.  At least for a moment.  After that moment, though, the need is still there, I’m all out stickers and I’ve got three kids losing their marbles with no end in sight…

hallow's eve

I don’t know if I have mentioned this but I am Mama to The Most Stubborn Girl On Earth. And she’s three.

that would be Claire

That would be Claire.

oh, this girl. She will be the most delightful thing in one minute, then you’ll ask her to wash her hands and she WILL COMPLETELY LOSE HER MIND. Which is fine. She’s three and three year olds don’t make any sense and we all know cleaning poo off your hands is highly over-rated. I know I like to keep a little poo on my hand for its moisturizing properties. I’m experienced with all this insanity having already had a three year old. Except Claire? Well, Claire doesn’t let up. Claire will continue to lose her mind about washing her hands for an hour, then when you just give up and wash her damn hands because let’s face it, I’m bigger and can ensure the poo is removed from said hand, she will still rage about not wanting to wash her hands for another hour. BUT HER HANDS ARE ALREADY WASHED SO JUST GET OVER IT.

I was talking to my neighbour on the phone the other day, and he had happened to see Claire earlier that week and commented on how tall she was. So we got to talking about The Bear, and I mentioned that she’s a bit stubborn and can sometimes carry on. His response “oh yeah, I’ve heard her. You’re very patient.”.

My neighbour doesn’t live THAT close to me. I live on 2.5 acres, and while he certainly isn’t 2.5 acres away he’s not mere feet away either. Kid can scream. At least he knows I’m not beating her. Unless you consider my singing a form of abuse. Some might. (Singing has been known to calm her down, so I sing. A lot.).

The Most Stubborn Girl On Earth

All this is fine and dandy, but the stubbornness rears its ugly head in other ways. Like potty training. Claire is potty trained. Except when she isn’t and that would be when it suits her to not bother.  This isn’t a huge deal to me because I sort of don’t care.  She will eventually always use the toilet or she will never have a boyfriend and I’m willing to bet that the toilet will win out.  The problem is that preschool is going to care.  Unfortunately Claire doesn’t care that preschool will care so this should prove interesting.

The other awesome thing about three year olds is that they’re still little snuggle-bums.  At least Claire is, and every night I hear her slide out of bed then stomp to my room, climb into bed and wrap her little arms around me.  Sometimes she’ll even give me little love pats.  If I get up to carry her back to her own bed, she is like a leech and attaches herself to Steve in a heartbeat (and he then wrap her up in blankets and snuggles her some more).  There will come a day when she will not be wrapping her arms around me and covering me in snuggles so I plan to cherish this.  I do not care what the Parenting Experts say.

Well, I’ll listen to any suggestions on dealing with The Most Stubborn Girl Alive, though.  In that respect, I’m all ears.

She's totally cute, though

Kid has us totally wrapped.   Maybe that’s the point of this post?  Let’s call it a random Claire Update.

The Sooke Potholes are these sweet little swimming holes on the Sooke River just outside of Victoria.  The area is part of a plan to create a green belt between Victoria and the coast and the campground sits on land that The Land Conservatory (and others) have been buying up.

When we arrived it was this big ordeal to get through the heavily monitored parking lot in the regional park (where the entire city of Victoria apparently hangs out on a hot summer’s day).  As campers we got to go to the front of the line and keep driving which got us honked at even though we were GIVEN PERMISSION from the folks monitoring everything.  It’s not like we just started running over the parking patrol.  Jerky honky people annoy me.

Anyway.

When we got to the campground, which is on the other side of the regional park, I  wasn’t that impressed.  All the sites looked ridiculous in their small size, and there was a set of rules as thick as the bible (including only having  4 people in a site so I guess we really should have put Anna to sleep on a picnic table on the site next us?  We ignored that rule.  That’s what you do when you’re a family of 5 in a lot of situations).

Once we got settled, though, it was really very pleasant.   Turns out I have a really terrible sense of space and the tent and vehicle DID fit on the site.  We got a wicked site free of dangerous cliffs or sharp, huge rocks.  We were brilliant in our decision making on this one, and showed up on a Saturday and stayed until Monday.  So Saturday we hung out at the campsite, chilled with rottens, checked out the beach that was just steps away, and thoroughly enjoyed it all.  Sunday the campsite cleared out, so we spent all day on a very quiet beach and didn’t have to deal with people.  People annoy me.  I’m happy to have nothing to do with them if they aren’t my chosen few.

Monday we packed up, then headed down to the regional park and spent the day on the river there.  It was totally awesome.  Warm and sunny, a beautiful river, fish jumping and another group joined the same beach we had chosen, but they brought guitars.  And they were good, so we had lovely guitar music while we froze our asses off in the incredibly cold, but lovely, river.  What more do you need?

chillin in the river

on the rocks

building, building, building

splashing, splashing, splashing

a rock of one's own

Well, a little less whining from the wee ones would always be welcome, but I’ve got mad skillz and can tune that out.

please never change

my monkey making music

I KNOW.

When I tease Steve about this he rolls his eyes and plants his feet firmly.  The answer is no.  Which is, in all honesty, ok.   It really is.  It makes sense NOT to further populate the already crowded and strained earth.  It makes sense to concentrate on Phase II (or III or IV depending on where you start numbering Life Phases).  It makes sense to stop and soak up the awesomeness that is Right Now with three healthy, happy, and seriously awesome little beings that I share my days with.  Besides, I’ve given away all the baby stuff.

Still want another.  Can’t help it.  Maybe we’re hardwired that way.

I could probably stamp my feet and whine and carry on and get my way but babies aren’t usually something that you throw a temper tantrum over to convince the other person (especially if it is the other person responsible for providing the food and shelter for said wee rotten).  Instead of stamping and whining I decided to be adult and take a hard look at my reasons for More!Babies!.

They’re pretty lame, to be sure.

1.  Babies allow you to check out of life.  It’s like this get-out-of-dealing-with-the-real-world pass, like a bathroom pass but better.  It’s the bathroom pass where you meet your boyfriend in the bathroom and then make out for 15 minutes.  That kind of pass.

2. I really dig this life.  I mean, my life totally rules.  Steve has prefaced many sentences with “I know you don’t want anything in your life to change but…” and he’s right.  This life, right now, this second?  AWESOME.  To be fair, that is also part of my personality.  The cup is half full, usually with wine.

3. Not working becomes me.

4. I don’t think there is anything else in life that matters more than the relationships we keep.  I really like people.  I really like kids.  I really like the idea of this big, crazy, loud, ridiculous and annoying family.  I like the idea of a community and in theory I should be able to get this from my community.  The truth is, I’ve never had a community that was - I don’t know what the right phrase here is - that fulfilling?  that true?  that comfortable?  I never fit in 100%, which I imagine no one really does because we’re all people and we’re all different and for some reason that is really hard for most people to accept so there is always this push, albeit a subtle push, to conform.  To change to be more like the group or the community.  People, as a general rule, aren’t that great at just accepting but we’re REALLY good at passing judgement.  Plus, I’m kinda weird.  Families have a way of embracing the weird.  Friends don’t have to be as tolerant, and generally aren’t.

5.  I have this romantic notion of homeschooling my kids (another blog post, I’m not talking out of my ass, I’ve done the research.  Besides, this is a great community to do that, there is a huge homeschooling population that is very supportive so socially you wouldn’t be holding back the rottens), raising and growing my own food, sitting on the front porch in the evening playing the banjo and singing to my chickens. For some reason I think you need a lot of children to do this.  At least 4.  Maybe even 6.  I mean, think about it.  AWESOME, yes?  I knew you’d think so.

6. 3 is an odd number.  4 is even.  Things should be even.

It really is a mystery why Steve doesn’t just jump on this bandwagon.  I mean seriously, right?  RIGHT?

downpour

beaches are the bestest