Dylan Stafford

<<above, a self-portrait by my four-year old, modeling his frustrated face>>

I miss my three-year old.

My son turned four a couple of months ago in April. He’s a “fearsome four” now and I miss last year’s model. Every month there’s another element of his personality emerging. He’s a little person, with a not-so-little personality, and it is exciting and it is exhausting.

About 18 months ago there was another child at daycare, a little girl with a big brother. She is just a waif of a child physically, much smaller than Jackson, but she is a few months older and assertive and quick. She intimidated Jack with her speed and dexterity.

I remember worrying at the time, “Oh no. My son is passive. How will he ever stand up to life? Maybe I should find some assertiveness exercises for him.” I was being a worried Daddy, focusing on imaginary problems.

Last week was different. Four-year old Jackson and one of his friends were teasing each other and it got out of hand. The teacher told me about it at the end of the day, and over the weekend Marisa and I sat with Jackson and talked with him about how it is not right to tease people–that their feelings get hurt.

Jackson nodded at us, or looked away and murmurmed, as we did our best to over-explain. Not smug, but satisfied I’d done a good-daddy-job 0n the teasing topic, I dropped off Jackson at daycare Monday and headed away secure he’d be an angel.

Monday afternoon, his teacher took me aside and said Jackson had been going all day with the teasing, and not listening when the teachers or friends had said stop.

All my confidence and security from the morning evaporated. My Texas-Childhood-Rifleman knee-jerk thoughts went racing through my head, complete with the Rifleman theme-show music in background, bah dah, dah, ta dah dah…

…He’s going to be a bully…

…We’ve failed as parents. It’s too late…

…This kid needs discipline. Maybe the time has come to leave him alone out in the canyon with the rattlesnakes and Indians, with nothing but a pocket knife and a can of sardines, to let him learn about life. If he makes it, good, but if not, maybe this wasn’t meant to be…

These are not the thoughts of a good parent. These are my thoughts, and per usual, the first thoughts to cross my mind were dire and useless and totally out of proportion.

I listened to Ms. Luz, Jackson’s teacher. She told me how the teachers talk with the children and tell them that when they can’t make good choices, the teachers will have to make good choices for them. I smiled and nodded, but inside I was befuddled as to what good choices I could make.

Jack and I got to the car and I snapped the latch on his car seat and I kissed him on the head and said Kisses on Jackson like I always do.

“Daddy, can you tell me a story?”

“No Jackson. Not right now.”

“Why not?”

“Daddy wants us to be quiet for a little while. Daddy wants to think about what Ms. Luz told me about you and the teasing today. And I want you to think about it too.”

“…Oh… Can I watch my DVD?”

“No Jackson.”

“Why not?”

“Daddy wants us to be quiet. I want you to have some quiet time.”

Really, I wanted me to have some quiet time. Part of the challenge of my four-year old is that he’s going to bed about an hour later now. He’s high-energy from the time I pick him up from school until 4 or 5 hours later when we finally get him to bed. He’s exhausting.

“Can we wrestle? Can you tell me a story? Can we make flips? Can we go to the park?”

Right at this moment, I was just wondering what to do, and I needed some space.

In my head, I modified the Serenity Prayer as I merged into the southbound carpool lane on the 405. Six lanes of Los Angeles traffic is a lot, but usually I can make it without needing to pray. But one teasing four-year old, and I’m reaching up to something bigger.

God, grant me the Serenity not to be an idiot with my son. Courage to be patient. And the Wisdom to know what to do.

We got home and Mommy was all excited, in a totally good mood, and was talking about going out to eat before I could tell her what had happened and help get her into “Serious Parenting Mode” with me. I did get my message across and she immediately started giving Jackson her point of view before I could even pull her aside for a strategy talk.

More of my not-useful thoughts flooded my mind:

…She’s starting without me. This isn’t good. Marisa and I aren’t even on the same page. Jackson’s not going to learn the lesson. Even worse, he’s going to learn to manipulate adults, to play them against each other. This will never work. I better go get the can of sardines and the pocket knife…

Again, my first ideas are rarely the best.

We walked to dinner, about a 20 minute walk. I thought the physical activity would help him hear the message as we again reiterated why teasing isn’t good.

“But it wasn’t like that,” Jackson protested. “I stopped when K. said stop. It was G. who kept going.”

“Well even so, you have to control you. Maybe it will be your job to tell G. to stop teasing next time.”

Jackson was tired and hungry. He did a few protest-sits along the walk, just plopping down on the sidewalk and looking like a dejected lump of little boy.

“Carry me Daddy.”

“Jackson come on. You’re a big boy. You can walk.”

“I don’t wanna.”

More 12-step teaching saved my bacon.

H.A.L.T. Hungry. Angry. Lonely. Tired. When any of the four are at play, the best thing is to just pause and treat the situation at hand. No big decisions until later.

We got to the restaurant. Marisa took Jackson to the restroom while I held our place in line. I got to the register but Marisa wasn’t back yet and I didn’t know what she wanted me to order. I let the first customer behind me pass forward, than the second, the third, the fourth…

…We’re adding 15 minutes to this meal. We’ll never eat. Why couldn’t she tell me her order before she raced off with him to the restroom… More of my impatient thoughts, but this time I let them go knowing that I’d be in a better place after the meal. H = Hungry = curable.

The calories did me good. We walked home. Jackson, rather than being tired by the to/from walk, was all animated and didn’t fall asleep until almost 10:00PM.

I woke up the next morning and did my meditation and wrote my gratitude list and when I latched him in the car to drive to work I still didn’t know what to do.

We told a dinosaur story in the car, a dinosaur-and-witches story with the witches being rascally, trying to make a potion that would make the dinosaurs fall asleep. Jackson is a red Ankylosaurus in our stories, and in this one he was also a race-car driver and he put all the friend dinosaurs in his race car and drove away before the witches could put their potion in the water.

About 5 minutes before school I stopped the dinosaur story.

“Jackson, I want to talk one more time about the teasing. We’re not going to tease today, right?”

Silence from the back seat. I looked in the rearview mirror to see my son staring out the window as Bel Air rolled by, the beautiful neighborhood next to UCLA.

“But Daddy, K. and G. liked that we were teasing.”

Finally, I got a spark of inspiration. Finally something made sense in my head. From Jack’s point of view, everyone was having a good time. My son’s a high-spirited kid and all seemed well to him.

“Jackson, you know how it’s fun to be silly with friends, to make funny words and games?”

“Yes.”

“Well being silly is fine. That is a good thing to do. You see Mommy and Daddy be silly together sometimes right?”

Silence, but he was listening.

“When everyone wants to be silly, that is OK. The only time being silly isn’t good is when someone wants to stop. When someone says Stop we have to stop. If we don’t stop, then it starts to be teasing. And teasing is what hurts our feelings.”

More silence, but I thought, more listening.

“Can we be silly today, but stop when the teachers say stop, or our friends say stop?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Thank you Jack. We’re going to have a great day at school today.”

The handoff at daycare went great. We sat on the carpet and talked with Ms. Luz and told her that we’d been talking about Silly vs. Teasing and that we were going to listen to our friends and teachers today.

I got in the car and felt like something remarkable had just happened. I’d actually landed something with my son. I’d gone from lecturing over his head to actually hearing what was going on for him and seeing a way to help him tell the difference between behavior that works and doesn’t work.

I left Marisa a voicemail and I had a good day at work. Jackson did fine and got good reports from the teachers at pick-up.

Little victory? Probably. But a satisfying one for sure.