Youthful, heady inflation

From the Frontline of Fatherhood....September 8, 2006

One of my sons has recently done what most young children do at some point in their careers as children: he began his formal education. This one has indeed begun and when he finishes, regardless of rank, honor, and prestige, I’ll show him this story to remind him that he has always been one of the smartest in his class since ever I could remember, or if I can’t remember at that point in my life, I’ll read this story and be amazed at how such a young child could be so resourceful in getting whatever he sets his mind upon.

We moved to a new neighborhood shortly before this son, Michael, began kindergarten. It is a splendid middle class neighborhood, where there is genuine friendliness and a village like ambience that comforts its inhabitants. Being a friendly energetic boy, my son was quickly welcomed into a rambunctious group of buddies who seemingly challenged the resourcefulness and patience of the well loved, endearing, and gentle kindergarten teacher. But, she was up to the task.

After two months of unbridled chaos, behavior logs came home with clear instructions how parents might respond to a three tier grading system for little Johnny’s behavior on any given day. One star would be issued for excellent, a smiley face for good and a frowny face for ‘maybe next time.’ The flyer was thorough, extensive, and, well laborious. I am guessing that teach stayed up pretty late the night prior trying to channel her frustration constructively into a plan of action. One of the recommended rewards for a ‘star’ mark, the highest, is to make play-dough with a parent and then play with play-dough with a parent. Being a parent who doesn’t play with, let alone make play-dough, I quickly halted further reading of said detailed informational behavior modifying notice and told my boy, that if he got a star for being a good listener in class, then I’d reward him with a piece of candy. The boy likes food.

Well, shape up he did. But, he was born for greater things. After a week, each drive to school was spotted with questions like, “If I get a star, dad, can I go to the toy store and get a toy?” “Sure,” I said, assuring myself that bribery masquerading as parenting could be a transferable skill in certain parts of the world. Well, as his behavior improved and he fell in line, we, his now even less-creative-in-rewarding-our-child-when-he-behaves-parents, did the obvious, we raised prices. Now it was a full week’s worth of stars for a toy and for the exceedingly desirous and more expensive rewards, we set the price at ten stars or two full weeks of behavioral perfection! The drive to school was now quieter.

Then one day, upon picking up the little kindergartner, the young boy bubbled with accomplishment. He clearly stated that he had received 5 stars that day. Intrigued and suspicious, I sought clarifying details. How could this be? "You know dad, I came up with a really great idea and Mrs. Walgreen, my teacher, agreed. I said that maybe if I was really good the whole time with zero reminders, then we could all get five stars for that day,” said son who must have studied monetary policy at MIT. I smirked, perhaps it was a sneer.

It was mostly a sneer that belied a bit of resentment at being gleefully outwitted, not confronted, by an incredibly resourceful boy who also happened to be my son. I did not know whether to embrace him with exuberant pride for his insight, resourcefulness, and persuasive oratory or to start into him about how I might just take this price war to a whole new level. I can just see it now, little Mrs. Walgreen’s class all nodding their heads approvingly and with dignity at Michael’s deliberate and well delivered proposal. Mrs. Walgreen, impressed by their earnestness, and flattered by their docility toward her new star system of behavior modification, gladly obliged, and with her innocent nod of consent, she effected an inflationary moment in at least two dozen households in my new, peace loving, friendly, middleclass neighborhood. I just hope that when my son’s classmates talk to their parents about their significant accomplishment of multiple stars on only one day, they take credit for the bright idea.

I’ve seen pictures of wheelbarrows of money being traded for a few potatoes in economic textbooks illustrating chaos and desperation; when Kmart starts jacking up its toy prices, I’d rather the finger not be put on my household.

My Happy Place, Da-ism

According to standard pediatric lore and common observation, my one and something year old ‘should’ be talking by now…at least a few words anyhow. By all stretches of the imagination, one would think that life even for a very little human creature would be greatly enhanced by utilizing the verbal skills of his mother tongue. But, though not a dull creature, this kid seems to prefer a speechless world, but he is nonetheless not a silent force to be reckoned with.

At dinner yesterday, for example, this speechless, though not soundless, child was clearly articulating his every desire quite effectively. The only bothersome thing for us speaking types is that he differentiates his wordless desires by his volume and pitch whereas we differentiate the world verbally through different sounds as well as volume, pitch, timbre, etc. If we are tuned in with the boy and his desired ‘da’, his multipurpose ‘word’ for pretty much everything, then his and subsequently our nearby little world is at peace. However, things can get quite unexpectedly violent if, for instance, we thought his ‘da’ meant bread where for him it actually meant butter. Then, he turns up the volume a notch and repeats ‘da’, so we scramble before he reaches glass shattering levels of ‘da’ to locate the ‘da’ he is actually intending, which to decipher in the midst of a public restaurant with four other little ones needing their own little things for comfort and happiness is no small task.

Though well intentioned, we miss again, so this time he declares boldly ‘DA! DA!’ which, as far as I can tell means: ‘You fools! Will somebody around please listen to me!’ It also means that our neighboring diners are now on standby for immediate evacuation if volume levels continue to increase. Perhaps, my wife and I are a bit ambitious to take a family with five kids out to eat, but we do so rarely. We’ll occasionally splurge and go out on holiday weekends when most of our kids’ friends with either fewer or older kids have gone to Paris, Disneyland, or Hawaii. Given that we can hardly travel more than a few miles from home without some serious and disturbing incident which requires our immediate attention (like a crayon dropped between the seats, for instance), we’ve decided that on our holidays we tend to stay closer to home, but celebrate by dining out once or twice to change things up a bit. I admit, that at times, we are a bit bound up in a vacation-less environment because even when doing something fun and different with small children often doesn’t equate with rest and relaxation.

Now that the volume level had drawn the attention of the local authorities and the international media, I was shuffling pretty swiftly while trying to stay calm and search out the latest DAism of my son. I was failing miserably; I could tell by his repeated angry jesters and louder and louder ‘DAs’. I looked to my wife to let her know that I was going to implement operation ‘Get This Kid Out of the Public Space ASAP!’ I figured the relaxing benefits of dining out had now been heartily outweighed by my very loud, but speechless twenty pound boy. He was attracting the attention of nearly the whole place at this point. I figured that I would find my inner peace and harmony much more readily at this point by hustling this kid out of the restaurant, strapping him into his car seat, and waiting with him their until the rest of my family finished their meal in relative quiet as he shouted his crescendo-like ‘DA’ behind me in the minivan.

My quest for an eastern form of inner recollection was over: my da-ism had found me. It was yet again in the form of a child; this time he was a needy, demanding, and in his own way an adorable little child, who, in spite of the great desire of his dearest associates, has yet to find his voice in noisy world.

Closing the Sale

Stories from the Frontline of Fatherhood: February 12, 2006

My four year old is quickly learning the tough art of persuasive communication. He’s is a ‘strong-willed’ child, but then again pretty much all of my kids are. This one, along with the others, has many enjoyable characteristics, but at the ripe old age of four his verbal ability to get what he wants seems, at present, to lag significantly his great desires. This manifests itself in many ways throughout any given day, but when he is inclined to converse with you, just to socialize and make small talk, it seems to shine all the brighter.

For better or for worse, we’ve introduced this child and his older siblings to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy as directed by Peter Jackson. The older kids had been exposed to Tolkien’s great books a few years ago, but since they have seen censored snippets of the recent movie series, our four year old has been captivated by the main characters. He cuts out Aragorn’s sword from construction paper, Gimli’s axe from some scraps, and Legolas’ (in his case, pronounced Lego-lows) bow and arrows with the little bits leftover.

We are all mildly entertained by his focus and attention to detail until he begins what seems to begin as a low-key chat session about his day, general interest, and life in general. He is a direct child, so if he starts a conversation he gets right to the point: “So, dad who is favorite character in Lord of the Rings, but it has to be King Aragon!?” (I am not sure whether to put a question mark after that previous statement/question, but that is indeed just how he quizzes me.) To have fun with him, I respond, “Well, I guess I’d have to think about it.” This usually isn’t the response he is looking for, so he follows-up quickly and somewhat differently with: “Who is favorite character in Lord of the Rings, but it has to be Gimli.” “I guess it is King Aragorn,” I say, but having seen me break his most recent bind, he quickly replies, “It has to be Gimli.” “Okay, okay, it is Gimli,” I say with a smile. Apparently I was to easy of a sell on this, so he changes again, but now he is rooting for Gandalf, or Legolas, or whomever. But the formulated question/statement remains the same.

After a while, I finally figured out that he wasn’t selling me anything about who should be my personal favorite, nor, clearly, was he interested in who my favorite was. As he was talking it over and over in really limited terms he was attempting time and time and yes time and time again to see if he could settle which character was ultimately his own favorite, which to this day I am pretty sure is Gimli, no it has to be Aragorn, no it has to be Legolas…

It has been said that kids are the greatest salespeople around: they know what motivates their clientele to action perhaps better than their clients, they have great persistence, and they have great persistence which wears this client down expediently in order to ‘close the sale.’ In this case, I am not sure who is more worn down for it though, but he seems to enjoy the chase nonetheless.

School Project

Well, fatherly responsibilities took me back to the trenches of elementary school work this past week. Having thought I had successfully passed and completed the arduous and at times tedious tasks of written assignments, extensive research reports, well established bibliographies and captivating visual presentations, I was wrong. Unbeknownst to me I was steadily lured into assisting my son in his recent energy conservation project for school. I am not one to readily assist in my children’s homework in an overly active manner. I figure I paid my dues and so can they, but the complexity and vision of his project somehow captured my imagination. In addition, the intricacies of the media required some adult guidance. So as a supportive father, I offered a few simplifying directives in terms of materials and let the boy at it. The only thing was that I got the job which required a certain amount of precision and time: cutting the poster board into assembly size pieces.

Day one went smoothly enough; we negotiated between the nearly NASA sophistication my son originally dreamed up for three stage rocket presentation to something more within our capabilities: the simpler, less refined aeronautical models made from poster board and packing tape. Once settled, the work began in earnest. I figured I was in it for an hour or so cutting up the poster board while studious son would work on the text, layout, and assembly.

If only life’s projects were so easy. Three days later and more hours than I’d wish to count, his original project description more or less came into being as he has envisioned it without the use of exotic materials and a welding kit. (I took a certain pride in this part of the project’s material ingenuity in that I really didn’t want my homeowner’s insurance premiums to jump any higher than they recently had. Nor did I want to rent any heavy equipment from the local hardware store.)

Well, he got the project in on time and in good order, perhaps he’ll even place well in the contest: yes it was a competitive event which further spurred the boy’s imaginative grandeur. But, that is another matter. Either way, he saw that even with well orchestrated and friendly colleagues, group projects create a fair amount of tension and negotiation before they are completed. Perhaps his teacher wanted him to experience firsthand the inherent challenges of collaborative work. I am proud of his accomplishment, but if on the off chance he wins or even places in the contest, I was wondering if I could get an honorable mention.

Early Riser

Stories from the Frontline of Fatherhood: January 21, 2006

I know it has been a couple weeks since I submitted a report from the Frontlines, and, surprisingly enough, I know this even without looking at a calendar. I’ve been holed up and then in recovery from the week’s prior holiday weekend (Martin Luther King, Jr.) with all the kids home; it was non-stop pure excitement with all the little ones reunited from their various schools and activities from the first minutes on Friday afternoon to the exciting Monday evening family movie capping off the long weekend.

I can tell yet another week has past because my daughter has gone through her weekly sleep cycle which has cued me into the fact that we are, once again, at a weekend. With her around, I can always tell when the weekend has arrived because on these beautiful, rejuvenating opportunities set aside for rest from the business of the weekdays, she is always up and at it before dawn. From what I can tell, she holds these days so precious and rare that she wants to get the most out of them, which for her is getting up before the sun rises and starts counting the passing time. The weekends are so full of promise for her: it is her time to play with her friends, brothers, toys, and do other interesting things on her schedule not her school’s, parents’ or other people’s.

Unfortunately for those of us hoping to catch up on a little sleep in the unreasonably late predawn hours of the weekend, we often are up nearly simultaneous with the little weekend rooster after she’s ever so carefully shut a door or gone to check if her brother is awake. It is nearly miraculous that in process of checking to see if he is awake, he seems to always get up just before she pops her head in his room.

Needless to say, the festivity starts early around here, celebrating the opportunities of self empowered weekend scheduling and family time. It is great that every Saturday morning is little bit like Christmas Day for her: she is so excited to see what the morning holds that she jumps out of bed incredibly alert and excited to unwrap the presents of her day. I just wish she would consider getting a pot of coffee ready for the rest of us, who albeit pleased, impressed, and humored with her joy for life, wish that we couldn’t necessarily set a watch to her.