Lessons My Children Taught Me (1) Posted on 7 Sep 2011

Lessons My Children Taught Me (1) Posted on 7 Sep 2011

It happened on Monday 5 Sep. Prior to the meltdown, it was part of the ground rules for work before play, yaba, yaba, yaba, striking a healthy balance, or so it seemed in theory. 

Except that when it comes to D, things are not that clear- cut. He is one of those characters who would sit for 5 minutes to do work, and gets up for the next 15 minutes, looking for a snack or two, stopping by along the way to his bedroom, to fiddle with his nerf-gun, sneak in a chapter of his reading material, before remembering to detour back to his work station, and so it continues...

After spending a couple of hours on this routine, he walks up to me in the evening and asks for the pass-word to his virtual world of fantasy on the computer, in anticipation of reward for work done. I asked what seemed like an innocent question to me - how much work have you done so far? Answer - a whole chapter of Chemistry. 

My response - it seemed like 5 minutes of work to me! D exploded in incredulous protest, except that his form of protest was persistent silence and withdrawal. It took G and I the next two to three hours to ween it out of D. 

At the onset, after the second hour of silence, I was all too ready to press the delete button for D's games, chat-rooms and Face Book entries. Of course I had good reasons to do so and I righteously deliberated that if D does not communicate the normal way, vis-a-vis face to face, he does not communicate the techno way. 

Then, before nuclear war broke out, good sense prevailed and I stopped. What is normal these days anyway? It boils down to looking at things from a different perspective. From whose perspective? 

D felt he was deeply wronged for being deprived of his dues after putting in hours of requisite work. I was looking at it from my perspective, and summed up his productive work efforts to 5 minutes, which is unreasonable by any standards. And so we have a stand-off, with Daddy as mediator. But even G could not coax many words out of an outraged D.

I started again - explaining to D that I would be doing the opposite. From now on, all restrictions are lifted. I will be handing over the computer in complete trust to D, and that he will have full reign over it, keeping in mind a balance between work done and play time. 

There was a moment of discernable surprise on D's face upon this revelation, but he said nothing. I reminded D that he should be aware of striking the right balance so that it is clear to A that we are being fair to all and sundry.

The next day, D was back at the computer, but I noticed he was not as distractible, and actually pulled in a decent amount of work. Then, without any need to be reminded, he claimed his dues. All this while, A was watching him like a hawk, mentally chalking up his play-time. I resisted the urge to ask how long. 

After all, I had relinquished this area to D and had to keep my word. It's hard to let go of control, but something that has to be done, and now is as good a time as any. D is 15 and will have to learn to work within boundaries and the sphere of freedom entrusted to him. For me, it is learning to parent with grace. This is the start of a new chapter and I believe we are stepping out in the right direction...