Simplicity Parenting (34 page)

My daughter made a simple observation. She pointed out something that struck her in some way, something she wanted to share. I did not need to take that moment and “make it into something” of my own design. I didn’t need to enrich her observation, to repackage it with a lot of information or praise or verbiage, and hand it back to her, with my stamp on it, or ribbons attached. As her father, I don’t have to make every moment a “teaching moment,” or even a “special moment.” I can often just notice.

When we talk over and under and around a child—when we talk too much—there’s less space for their thoughts, for what they have to say. A child’s curiosity and creativity are stifled when they believe that something is not “real” unless, or until, you talk about it. It’s hard for a child to go down deeply into their play when someone is telecasting their every move. Processed information is like processed food: quick and easy. We often fly into soliloquies, overexplaining, and predigesting every experience for our kids.

Must we all emulate Pa, then, a hard-bitten, rugged man of the plains, who worked endlessly and said almost nothing? I don’t think so. But when we’re overinvolved, when we’re hyperparenting, we’re usually talking too much. We’re usually jumping into most experiences, and almost any silence, with a verbal offering. Our intention may be to acknowledge something, but very often we describe, praise, instruct, and embellish it as well. Like a dancer who is leading too much, we lose the chance to see how the other person was going to move. After a while, he or she may simply let us carry them along, their little feet never touching the floor.

Imagine that your five-year-old runs over to show you the drawing he has just made of you. Can you acknowledge it, without talking? Can
you take it in—really look at it—and give it back? Or, if you must talk, can you make an observation, without judgment or praise? “Hmmm, yes, you used a lot of red.” Or can you ask a simple question? “How did you get Daddy’s foot like that?” Off they’ll go, telling you about the red, or the foot, or the way that they love how they made your head look just like a melon, or how they want to try again, this time drawing with their left hand. They are in the midst of a creative process, their attention is fully engaged, and what they need from you is usually just a quick connection, rather than a critique or complement.

As we multitask, this might be one of our most difficult tasks: to just notice, to quietly bear witness. To be a parent is to have one’s attention split several ways in any given situation, and we often try to bridge our fractured focus with words. As a result, it is very powerful when we are able to acknowledge something quietly, to not fill the space with words; to not bend, bolster, or embellish. To turn away from the email, the phone, or the next important thing, and to offer—even briefly—our full and silent attention.

Should we do this every time? That would be unrealistic and unnecessary. I am not suggesting that parents stop talking to their children. I am suggesting that parents talk less. In a noisy world, quiet attentiveness speaks louder than words, and it gives a child more space for their own thoughts and feelings to develop. Talking less is a fundamental way to simplify our involvement with our children. Here are some conversational filters you can use to help you limit verbal clutter.

Adult Topics

In his book and monologues about Lake Wobegon, Garrison Keillor mentions the Lutheran suppers and church gatherings he attended as a child. His recollections capture the sense of two separate social worlds existing in one room: the adult world with the drone of their conversations on top, and the kids’ world swirling and circulating below, ever poised for escape and play. In that setting what the kids noticed most about the adults, according to Keillor, was how big their feet were. The children weren’t looking up, trying to be involved in their parents’ conversations (that would only prolong their “displacement” in the adult world). They much preferred their own world of doing over the dull adult world of talking.

One of the ways to “talk less,” is to be more conscious of the sanctity of these two worlds—the adult world and the world of kids—in
conversation. That doesn’t mean that the two worlds never intersect, but it does mean that there are, and should be, conversations and topics that are for adults only. There are several points here. The most obvious form of “adult topic” is a subject that isn’t suitable for young or immature ears. Mom and Dad don’t discuss their sex lives with their kids, and Mom’s conversations with her sister, detailing the ins and outs of her sister’s divorce, is one that Mom has in private. These are straightforward examples of clear conversational boundaries.

Those lines can get very fuzzy, though, often disappearing entirely. Many parents “flashbulb” their children with too much of their own adult concerns, their own unprocessed thoughts and feelings. I worry sometimes that we’ve let our guards down as a society, talking to children too openly about too much. When we let children in on too much information—adult verbal and emotional clutter—it rushes them along, pushing them ahead without a foundation. “With any luck, little buddy, I’ll be able to make this trip without Jasper, the sales manager, coming along!” “We’re going to switch car pools, love, because I just can’t take any more of Lizzie’s mom being late all of the time.” “A trampoline? Sweetie, we are barely making ends meet unless Mommy gets her promotion.” “Oh, I wish we didn’t have to always go to your grandparents for the holidays … but don’t repeat that to Nana!”

Some parents want to be an open book to their children; they equate honesty with full disclosure. By its very nature, though, respect requires some distance and separation. We all slip and slide into boundary bending occasionally. This can be a real difficulty for single parents, especially those who don’t have many outlets for the kind of verbal processing that is a necessary part of daily life. Very often when we’re tired, when our physical or emotional reserves are low, we can mistake our child for a sort of sounding board or sympathetic ear for whatever issue or quandary is on our mind.

Yet despite their questions and curiosity, children need boundaries to feel secure and free. They need to know, and to be reminded, that some things are for adults to discuss; they are not for kids to hear, or to comment on. Children need to see your self-restraint, your confidence in meeting your own world. With security and freedom they can begin to find their own inner voice. They can begin to develop their own ability to self-direct, to work things out internally. This is the genesis of self and morality: the development of an inner voice. And in order to develop—to strengthen and be heard—a child’s inner voice cannot be drowned out by unprocessed adult thoughts, feelings, and concerns.

Do you have any childhood memories of being in the backseat of the car at night, perhaps dozing, while your parents drove through rain or snow, talking quietly in the front seat? Maybe you were on vacation, maybe just driving home from a late dinner, but the feeling was one of safety, of being cocooned and watched over in the darkness. There were distant concerns in the darkness and the weather, concerns perhaps even in whatever they were talking about, but all was well. How wonderful that they knew where to go and how to get there. How comforting that they would deliver you through the dark night, whatever it might bring. And when you got home (if they thought you were asleep) they might even carry you all the way to bed.

It’s a misnomer to think that we are “sharing” with our children when we include them in adult conversations about adult concerns. Sharing suggests an equal and mutual exchange, one that is impossible for a child to offer and unfair for an adult to expect. The child in the backseat feels a great sense of security partly because they know their mom or dad is not going to turn around and ask them to drive. By accepting the responsibilities, and respecting the boundaries of your adult world, you give your children the gift of freedom in their own world. And there is “sharing” involved: Both worlds thrive in the shared atmosphere of family, and of love.

There is one more point. When there are topics that you don’t address with your child, they carry an image of you, and of adulthood, that retains an element of mystery. When you have an inner life, your children have a model of self that is both loving and unique, an individual. They’ll come to realize that there are things about you they don’t know, things that they may learn over time.

Do You Love the Times You Live In?

As adults our answer to this question would be complicated, and could easily depend on the day we were asked. We might have a thing or two to say about the current administration, and the state of the economy. Like Annmarie, we may feel that raising children is harder (or at least
different) today than it was for earlier generations. But just as our answer might be complex and nuanced, so too are our powers of analysis. We’ve seen issues evolve and resolve; we’ve seen how history reshapes the social and political landscape. As adults we have ways of prioritizing our concerns, of seeing “the times we live in” in various lights, and through various contexts.

Children don’t have the mental faculties to process a lot of information that way, especially information about issues and things far beyond their scope of reference. Too much information does not “prepare” a child for a complicated world; it paralyzes them. Remember the earliest developmental stage that Erik Erikson termed the struggle of “trust versus mistrust”? When trust “wins,” when a baby’s needs are consistently met by a loving caregiver, a foundation of safety is established that makes further exploration possible. In a fundamental sense, this continues to be the case—trust should win—throughout childhood.

This doesn’t mean we should fit our children with rose-colored glasses. I am not saying we should avoid any discussion of the challenges of our time. Nor does it mean that children can’t recover, and grow in strength and resiliency, from hardships they experience in their early years. But our adult anxieties and concerns should not be the atmosphere, a haze of too much information, that they breathe. Children need to know that theirs is a good world. They need to feel that, sheltered by those they love, they are where they should be. They have a place, in a time and a world of hope and promise.

Kids as young as kindergarten age are hearing, over juice and crackers, about shrinking rainforests and oil reserves. In their concern, and remarkable ability to drink in information, many very young kids hold a precocious awareness of huge issues. But is that helpful, to them or the environment? This kind of information needs to be balanced with doing. A child is preparing for world issues in their own ways, in vigorous interaction with their immediate sensory environment, their childhood world. Through play, with its engineering and problem solving,
they are gathering the mental flexibility they’ll need to make a difference in the larger world.

I’m reminded of the road sign:
CAUTION: BRIDGE FREEZES BEFORE ROAD
. The bridge is more vulnerable to frost because it lacks a foundation. The earth below the road provides grounding and warmth. In the same way, too much information can freeze a child. Not only do they lack context for the information, they lack the foundation that childhood slowly provides: the foundation of years of relatively safe observation, interaction, and exploration.