Because I Said So.

Dad lift.

Today I decided to give my daughters a great treat and take them skiing.  We had a lazy wake up and a leisurely morning eating pancakes and putting on long underwear.  I was so proud of myself for not pushing an early departure and just being a cool mom, and you know what pride goeth before.  That's right.  A twelve-year old's tantrum.  She went from excited about the braid in her hair to throwing herself on the bed and refusing to go in about five seconds.  "I don't want to go!" she sobbed and screamed.  "Can't you understand that?  Why do I have to go?  Why can't I just stay here?!"

Somehow, I got her out of the house and into the car.  I write a lot about resilience in children, but this piece is about resilience in parents. 

A friend recently shared this depressing article on how terrible my generation is at parenting, which made me think of how much more tedious and time consuming parenting is when corporal punishment isn't acceptable.  I told my mother I hated her once and got slapped across the face. I never did it again. Like her peers, my mom used whatever was within her reach if she didn't feel like using her hand - hair brushes, wooden spoons, the flyswatter - so when I mouthed off it took my mother about 2 seconds to do her parenting thing, then I sulked or cried or got an ice pack while she got back to whatever my misbehavior interrupted.  Now parenting involves all this talk, discussion and consequences and debriefing. And because it takes a long time, I don't think we're doing it.  We get sick of the whole "life coaching" part of modern parenting and abandon it mid-effort, so we lose our authority.  I tell young teachers nothing is more important than following through when they threaten a student with a consequence.  I'm not sure my generation of parents is as consistent with following through as we could be.

This article links how we negotiate with our children over things like broccoli to our loss of authority and a child's increased anxiety and uncertainty.  I thought of it while driving east on I-90 and realized I should have simply said, "Because I said so," when my daughter asked why she had to go skiing.  I didn't have to talk about skiing as a life pleasure or important northwest skill.  I could have just made her go skiing because I'm her mother.  I can do that.  She's twelve, and I still know more about everything than she does.

By the time we got to Alpental both girls were excited and happy, but if you've been to the bunny slopes you've seen and heard angry, scared and wailing children.  Sometimes the parents lose it.  I've seen parents hit, drag, shove or yell at hysterical children, but today the parents were resilient. They set aside their own pleasure to force the joy of skiing on their children, whether the children wanted a piece of that joy or not.

"Noooooooo!"

Rest and a snack.

A little push.

It reminded me of the "forced marches" my parents made us take when we were young, long hikes on Palomar where our cabin was, with cans of Coors and Tab banging against our kidneys through our thin nylon back-sacks.

Not loving it. Yet.

We didn't hate forced marches, but we didn't love them. It didn't matter. We had to do them because my parents said so, and they knew best. Now, hiking is one of my greatest joys.

Few of the kids I saw today really wanted to learn how to ski or snowboard.  Most of them wanted to go sit in the car or just play in the snow, but their parents wouldn't let them.  Being in a beautiful place and patiently, resiliently teaching your child the skills she needs to do something valuable is easier, perhaps, than tenaciously following through on a consequence for her back talk or misbehavior, but it serves as a good example. Here's what I was reminded of today:

1) Know why I want my children to do something, but don't try to explain that in the moment.  It's okay to make them do it because I told them to.  I know more than they do, something that makes their existence more secure.

2) Set aside my own agenda.  If it's important for them to learn something, it's going to take time for me to teach it. 

3) Sometimes I have to push or carry them up the hill if I want them to come down it.

4) Rests are good, and so is food.

5) If I keep my cool and have fun, it's easier for them to keep their cool and have fun.

6) They might not have fun now.  They might hate me now, but they'll have fun later. For parents, later's everything.  It's our job to prepare them for later whether they like it or not. 

More importantly, it's our job to prepare them for later whether we like it or not.