mayalassiter

I have been thinking a lot about the example Sandra gave a while back
to a mom whose kid was hiding behind the door, waiting to scare the
younger brother--the suggestion was, what if the mom were to say, loud
enough for everyone to hear, "your brother is behind the door, act
scared."

This is so easy a solution, one little sentence that makes the whole
thing a non-problem, and rather, turns it into a game that connects
all the participants. I have been thinking and thinking about where
that response could come from in me--who would I have to be to have
that response. I've been facing how the current me would be a lot
more likely (at least until I read that post) to have some half-formed
thought in my head that the scaring kid should not be acting that way,
and then thinking I had to do something to make the scaring kid see
the wrong of it, so he would not do it again.

So, I started thinking, (and this is just what I imagine I would be
doing if I had said that, not trying to analyze what Sandra may have
been thinking at that moment) that maybe that easy, fun response was
about making that one moment a good one. It wasn't in the future
about keeping the kid from scaring again. It wasn't coming from a
picture of how the kid ought to be different than he was at that
moment. It was just about making that one moment more fun and safe
for everyone.

How much easier to just tryto make one moment more fun and safe,
rather than trying to manage all these future (imagined) moments by
trying to get the kids to change into (my idea of) fun & safe people.
That makes *me* NOT fun, and NOT (emotionally) safe for my kids. Ha!
Turns the whole thing on its head.

I'm also struck by how just a little comment like that, relaying the
idea of saying, "you're brother is behind the door, act scared," has
set off such a chain of thinking and changing in me. Sometimes it is
the tiniest thing that is able to get through the years of
enculturated prejudice against children.

I wanted to write this to thank Sandra and other poster who share the
small moments of their lives here. Also, I'd welcome any further
thoughts on this if I am out in left field somewhere.

Maya

Pam Tellew

<<<<
How much easier to just tryto make one moment more fun and safe,
rather than trying to manage all these future (imagined) moments by
trying to get the kids to change into (my idea of) fun & safe people.
That makes *me* NOT fun, and NOT (emotionally) safe for my kids. Ha!
Turns the whole thing on its head.>>>>>
Aha! I do all that "futurizing" too. And I think this is such a
great way to look at it.
Pam


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

-=-How much easier to just try to make one moment more fun and safe,
rather than trying to manage all these future (imagined) moments by
trying to get the kids to change into (my idea of) fun & safe people.
That makes *me* NOT fun, and NOT (emotionally) safe for my kids. Ha!
Turns the whole thing on its head.-=-

Thank you, Maya, for writing all of that. I want to save it here for the future, but it's not there
yet. The whole post was quietly inspiring. You said it as well as I've ever seen it, and I hope
lots of people read it for years to come.

Sandra