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.
