Kid Amnesiac

Last week I was marveling at how young and idiotic I sounded as a teenager to my grown self. This week I’m marveling at how my son’s idiotic decisions remind me so much of my own at the same age, at how idiocy repeats itself.

When my brothers were in their late elementary years, I remember a game we played. They would take a long, flat board and cruise on it down the basement steps like an indoor sled. Worse, they let me do the same. When my mom caught wind of it, she was flabbergasted and irate. Their defense was that they didn’t let their significantly younger sister go down alone; one of them was always with me.

And really, with two kids speeding down steep basement steps on a long hunk of plywood, what could possibly go wrong? I somehow doubt my mom was reassured by their reassurances. Incidents like this are proof that children lack executive function.

For the most part, Simon is more cautious than I am. But even he has his moments, and I got a gander at one last night when Simon went over to his friend Leah’s house for a play-date. Leah had some new toys to play with, including a light-up remote control car and stilts. And really, what could be a better idea than to turn down the lights and have one of them teeter around on stilts while the other tried to crash the car into them? What could possibly go wrong?

On the other hand, I was also reminded of how much smarter kids can be these days. Simon and Leah played a chase game that involved them quizzing each other about the Chinese words for colors along the way. And in her role as hostess, Leah made place-cards for each of us with our name neatly written on it and a picture depicting our interests. Simon got a train, Matt a guitar, me a cup of tea. Her handwriting is better than mine. (Not saying much, true, but she’s only in first grade.)

So there they were—two really bright kids coming up with a ridiculous game nearly certain to end in injury. No executive function at all. Then again, it wasn’t likely to be a head injury, and as only children they have few opportunities to get into trouble like this at home. So their parents, all four of us, laughed and let them carry on.

Perhaps our executive function isn’t so hot, either.

*A necessary footnote. The board in question was used to create a flat, bed-like surface in the back seat of the family car so we could lie down to sleep on road trips. Safety first! When it came to road safety in the 70s, the entire nation lacked executive function.

Between Simon’s soccer game and drum practice on Saturday, picking up a file cabinet from a friend, clearing out my attic in preparation of making it into a play-room, piles of laundry, grocery shopping, and dealing with the annual leaf deluge in our yard (So pretty in full color! Sooooo much work once they all drop.), Monday promised a welcome bit of relief from a non-stop weekend.

Simon does NOT agree. We had more tears this morning, as we have most days since THE INCIDENT. He’s doing better with making mistakes at home, we’re getting him to bed earlier, and I’ve been getting up earlier to cook him breakfast. So I know he’s better rested and fed. But science note-booking and giving up a dollar looms large, and Simon is running anxious these days.

I have more information about the incident, fyi. He didn’t understand something in his notebook, didn’t raise his hand to ask for help, and when the teacher wanted to talk to him about the unfinished or incorrect part, he broke down in tears. Mr. Sowder then asked him to use his words and suggested this was a little thing and not a big thing, and Simon still wouldn’t/couldn’t talk.  So Mr. Sowder took a dollar, and that’s when kindergarten took a wrong turn for Simon.

And here’s the thing. I get that Simon is different for Mr. Sowder than he is for us. I get that he might just want that dollar so badly that he’ll stop crying and start talking, or maybe even hold it together and not cry in the first place. I get that in kindergarten the message is that we can cry over big things but not little things. I get that next year he needs to have better coping skills. I respect what Mr. Sowder is trying to do.

But I think the whole thing might well blow up in his face. And ours. I’m not interfering—yet—but I know my kid. If being less than perfect leads to his crying, and if crying potentially leads to giving up a dollar and therefore tangible proof of lack of perfection, Simon is going to be anxious. And when Simon is anxious, his coping skills circle the drain, making him more likely to cry than ever. It’s a vicious cycle. Positive and negative reinforcement work well with Simon; punishment does not. He would do much better with some small reward (maybe a sticker in his chart?) for holding it together than he would being punished for not.

And typing that just now is the first time I’ve been able to articulate it quite that way. I wonder how long I have to let Mr. Sowder try it his way before I can start being pushy? Or more to the point, I wonder how long I’ll be able to let Mr. Sowder try it his way before I can’t stop myself from being pushy?

True story. When I was in second grade, my mom thought I should be tested for our school system’s accelerated academic program. My teacher, Ms. Harmon, did not. She thought I was bright enough, but that I got too upset when I did not understand something perfectly right away. (Like borrowing in subtraction. Thirty-three years after the fact, I can still remember the fear and tears when I didn’t get it right the first day.) She thought I needed time to mature and develop a thicker skin and more patience. I think my mom was pretty miffed at the time, and I know she is/was in hindsight, especially given my future academic performance.

I, on the other hand, would like to reach back across the decades and kiss Ms. Harmon. I think she recognized a toxic blend of perfectionism and anxiety when she saw it and decided that tougher academics could wait a year or more for the sake of an 8-year-old’s mental well being. I never totally got over this destructive tendency. Until very recently, I avoided things I didn’t think I’d be good at and damn near killed myself to be the best at the things for which I had natural talent. Only since I have hit 40 have I managed to reverse this trend. Not caring if I’m bad at something or look ridiculous has been the single most liberating feeling I’ve ever had, and it has opened new doors to me.

My new challenge is to see if I can get Simon to this point in a shorter period of time. Like me, he is ruthless with himself when he makes a mistake or gets reprimanded. The punishment I or anyone else metes out to him pales compared to what he unleashes on himself, and seeing this destructive tendency manifest in my son is a terrible, terrible sight to behold. It pains me, all the more so because I know he inherited it from me.

Last Thursday, in science, Simon had to give up a dollar. His teacher monitors and tracks behavior using a class-dollar system. Every child begins every day with four dollars. You can give up one and still stay on green, which means your behavior for the day is good. If you give up two, you go on yellow, which is a warning status. If you give up three or four dollars, you go on red and the teacher and parent discuss the behavior and how to best correct it.

Until last week, Simon had never once given up a dollar. A quick look at the class behavior chart showed that he and one other girl were far, far ahead of everyone else in class. We’re talking Secretariat margins here. But last Thursday, something happened. I can’t get the whole story from Simon because he breaks down in messy tears when I ask about it. In fact, I only know about it at all because I overheard his friend James C. tease him about it on the playground. All I know is that he got confused in science, didn’t raise his hand to ask for help with something, was possibly also upset by another child’s crying, and had to give up a dollar. I’m guessing he didn’t do part of his notebook work. However it happened, Mr. Sowder used a serious voice with him, Simon forfeited the dollar, and now the world has come to an end. He has cried every morning before school, he tells me he hates science, and he is clearly terrified of something like this happening again. I’m pretty sure my kindergartener is engaging in catastrophic thinking.

I wrote his teacher, and Mr. Sowder assured me he’d have a chat with Simon about THE INCIDENT. Alas, Simon was so unnerved by Mr. Sowder wanting to talk about it, that he couldn’t tell me what Mr. Sowder actually said. Sigh. Based on prior experience, I can tell you that by the time Simon regains his equilibrium and can discuss this calmly, no one will remember the details any longer! This is the exact same reason I have deeply regretted it the very few times I have yelled at Simon. He falls apart so completely that the teachable moment is lost.

We saw the same behavior when he had McEnroe-esque meltdowns on the tennis court this summer. And we saw it this weekend when he made a mistake in his drumming practice. I was able to talk him down from that particular ledge by telling the (true) story of my trying a new, advanced move in pilates and literally launching myself off the equipment. It was a spectacular fall, and instead of being embarrassed, I thought it was hilarious and decided that I had a new goal to strive for. Matt tells me that when Simon made a mistake in his drum lesson, he nearly cried but regained his composure, carried on, and had a fun time of it. Later Simon told Matt that it was picturing Mommy falling off the pilates equipment that helped him. I’ve also talked myself blue about the importance of mistakes, the instructive value of failure, and how you can get better at almost everything if you give yourself enough time.

I’ve also told him about my B+ grade average in conduct, to assure him that well liked and well behaved children are not perfect. I was graded down for chatting too much, of course. I even stepped out of bounds to tell him that his smart, successful, and well liked cousin Ben has been on yellow before. (A lot, actually, but Simon didn’t need to know that part.)

Maybe some of this will fade in a week or so. It will surely get somewhat better. I will continue to haul out every non-perfectionist talking point I can. But my gut tells me that Simon has to come to this conclusion on his own. Please, please, please, can he get there sooner than I did? For both our sakes?

A few months ago, Matt introduced Simon to the Rebecca Black song cum Internet viral video sensation “Friday“. I knew about it, but had never actually heard it. Lucky me! It is nails on chalk-board bad. For those blissfully unaware, Rebecca Black is the daughter of wealthy parents who shelled out some serious cash to buy a song for their daughter to sing and to let her record a professional video.  It features stunningly deep lyrics such as “Kickin’ in the front seat; kickin’ in the back seat; gotta make my mind up; which seat should I take?”

Matt thinks it’s the best worst song ever written, or at least sits high on the good bad song short-list. I’m missing the charm and have yet to make it through a complete viewing or hearing. Simon thinks the whole thing is hilarious with a capital “H”, and took to singing the song whenever he wanted to get a rise out of me.

Then I started teaching preschool Spanish twice a week. (Have I mentioned that yet? KIP needed someone on very short notice, asked if I could help out, and I said yes. I missed the place and interacting with the little ones. My Spanish was excellent 25 years and about 6 languages ago, so why not?) So yeah, I now spend two days a week trying to drum some Español into the heads of 2-5-year-olds, ideally without sounding like Peggy Hill while I’m at it. (Actually, Peggy Hill might be a welcome change. I learned Castillano, or the Spanish of Spain in school, meaning I lisp at every c or z. Thapatos, Thinco, and Justithia, oh my!)

Anyway, I learned in week one that the secret to getting little kids to remember anything is to sing it. So I largely scrapped my predecessor’s work-sheets and have spent some quality time using the Google to hunt down Spanish songs. Some are English-Spanish Frankensongs that insert Spanish words into otherwise English songs, some are little Spanish ditties set to familiar American songs or nursery rhymes, and some are authentic Spanish children’s songs.  As a result, I am singing all the time. I’m singing “Red is rojo” to “Frere Jacques”; I’m singing “Calabaza, Una Calabaza” to the tune of “Alouette”; I’m singing “Hojas, Hojas” and “Los Esqueletos”.

Many of these songs irritate Simon. All of them annoy him when I sing them too often for his liking. Which means his powers of annoyance are no longer one-sided. Whereas once Simon waged asymmetric singing warfare at me by sneering… oops, I mean singing “Friday, Friday” at every turn, I now sing right back at him. “Hojas, hojas, hojas se caen del arbol” or “Quando el reloj, marca las doce; doce esqueletos descansan por la noche. Tumba, tumba, tumba-ba.”

It’s awesomely absurd and a new part of our daily ritual. We’ve engaged in singing warfare in our car, on the way to the car, in the Brandeis gym when I collect him in the afternoons, at Panera last week, etc. The good news is that Simon knows he’s sometimes getting weird looks and doesn’t care; he’s fine with our sharing a goofy inside joke. The better news? We both have much better Spanish than we did a month ago!

And to atone for siccing “Friday” on you, let me also direct you to the charming Costa Rican song “Los Esqueletos“.

Happy Dia de los Muertos!