Many people like things to stay the way they are. Paradigm shifts, operational changes, those things cause headaches and mistakes till they become habits. But what if you're only five years old and grown-ups are trying to take the fun out of your life?
One of the things I need to change in my parenting is my habit of pointing out the bad things my son does and telling him to stop them. Pointing out the indiscretions only serves to reinforce them.
I know that I'm right, because in soccer practice this week, Jordan was tired and cranky, and he kept excusing himself by saying that he was always that way at that time of the day. That is something that his mom and I have said in his presence on more than one occasion.
He's only five, so rather than try to use grown-up logic to solve the situation, I need to remember five-year-old logic: Make things fun. If he doesn't want to do something, find a fun way to do it. Jordan likes to compete. He likes to play. He likes to race. In a game, his soccer ball got kicked 50 yards away, and he didn't want to go after it. He whined to his mom and me to go get it. We told him to go get it or we'd leave. Bad move. When Debbie started to go after the ball, Jordan at first thought it was play and started to run. Keeping it play would have been a good move. But then Jordan saw it wasn't play, that he was about to get taken out of the practice. Bad move number two.
In soccer, racing, playing, competing would seem to be part of the program, but as in so many other areas of life, when being taught how to do something, teachers are taught to teach the "elements" of the thing, not the thing. (Some people say that's why it's called "elementary" education.) But by taking out the big picture, they're also taking out the fun.
Another way to look at it is in architecture. Jordan likes to put together large intricate buildings using his Lincoln Logs or plastic blocks or whatever. But just think how quickly he would lose interest if I were to try to teach him some of the mathematics of building, along with the necessity to read and write descriptions. Bleh.
And that's what I've done in part with his social education. Not only have I not provided him time to actually learn and experiment for himself so that he can find his own place in the pecking order, I've tried to dissect much of it and tell him what happens when this is done and that is done. Double bleh.
Jordan is old enough that he's getting a picture of himself, how he is when he does certain things. He's interested in how I perceive him. He'll ask, "How was I?" after karate or soccer. Lately, he's begun to assess himself, and it's a little frightening to me because he says he feels like he's not doing too good. The things that he likes to do--talking, jumping around, playing--are usually not welcomed in a classroom situation. It's tough for him to come to grips with that, especially when he sees others doing those things and not getting in trouble. He's expected in some cases to be an example of the right way; yet those wrong things are fun to him.
It's tough being five.
Do kids kill careers? Probably. But so does everything else. As this picture shows, I could have been writing the next great American paranormal reporter novel; instead, I was at a soccer game.
