So my daughter has a strong will. I'm talking about Big Sugar here. She's smart, she's sassy and in her own mind, she's fully capable of making her own decisions.
"Hey Sugar, get down from that slide!"
[shakes head no, keeps climbing]
"Sugar! Let's watch Fresh Beat! We'll have fun dancing!"
"No. I want to watch the DoodleBops. DoodleBops are SOfun!" [grabs and inserts the DVD]
And then there are the more covert operations...
"No, Sugar, you can't have that licorice right now. You have to eat your dinner!"
"OK." [puts candy back]
3 hours pass, dinner is over.
As I clean the kitchen, I discover, in the trash, the licorice wrapper. Licorice, of course, is nowhere to be found.
So it's cases like that last one that have me wringing my fingers. It's the disobedience, and furthermore, as we experienced today*, the lying, that have got me wondering.
*Spent time at preschool in a mini-conference with teacher following Big Sugar's admission that she told Mommy something different than what happened: "I was tricking her."
Some folks will tell us that it's perfectly normal for kids to tell "fibs," to bend the truth to what they want it to be, often in an effort to avoid getting in trouble. And yes, as with most difficult behavior, this can be construed or maybe even more aptly, conformed, into some sort of strength. In this case, that strength would be creativity. While we of course will teach her why it's not okay to lie, turned another way, we could argue that the best leaders are able to see what isn't seen, to make things appear, to in fact change their realities to be what they want them to be. And that's the beauty buried within this behavior.
But at the same time, it can certainly become a problem--especially for little girls who look like mine.
What if a teacher, a coach, an adult somewhere down the line doesn't look at my brown baby girl and see her strength, doesn't "have time" to redirect her creative energy towards a positive outcome? What if they see her do something different than what was asked of her, and instead of creativity they see only "defiance," "disobedience," and "disrespect"--any one of which will get you sent straight to detention? What if instead of "you are strong, but you have to be aware of other people's feelings," they use words like "mean," "bully," and "troublemaker" to label her?
Maybe it's my years of working in continuation education that have me thinking along this path, or what I see daily in our communities. I watch as kids whose innocence was so prominent just a couple years back now have their faces plastered on the 6 o'clock news as Suspects. I see those not-too-long-ago babyfaces screen-printed onto their friends' RIP shirts--the urban tribute to another life lost.
And it hurts to realize that the paths may start like this--a yearning to explore, to be creative. A desire to avoid disappointing someone, an unannounced need to be celebrated and guided. It hurts to know that, without the proper supports, the path may not turn out too well, the light cast upon them quickly, subtly, changing from a glimmer of hope and joy to a glare of scrutiny and shame.
"Hey Sugar, get down from that slide!"
[shakes head no, keeps climbing]
"Sugar! Let's watch Fresh Beat! We'll have fun dancing!"
"No. I want to watch the DoodleBops. DoodleBops are SOfun!" [grabs and inserts the DVD]
And then there are the more covert operations...
"No, Sugar, you can't have that licorice right now. You have to eat your dinner!"
"OK." [puts candy back]
3 hours pass, dinner is over.
As I clean the kitchen, I discover, in the trash, the licorice wrapper. Licorice, of course, is nowhere to be found.
So it's cases like that last one that have me wringing my fingers. It's the disobedience, and furthermore, as we experienced today*, the lying, that have got me wondering.
*Spent time at preschool in a mini-conference with teacher following Big Sugar's admission that she told Mommy something different than what happened: "I was tricking her."
Some folks will tell us that it's perfectly normal for kids to tell "fibs," to bend the truth to what they want it to be, often in an effort to avoid getting in trouble. And yes, as with most difficult behavior, this can be construed or maybe even more aptly, conformed, into some sort of strength. In this case, that strength would be creativity. While we of course will teach her why it's not okay to lie, turned another way, we could argue that the best leaders are able to see what isn't seen, to make things appear, to in fact change their realities to be what they want them to be. And that's the beauty buried within this behavior.
But at the same time, it can certainly become a problem--especially for little girls who look like mine.
What if a teacher, a coach, an adult somewhere down the line doesn't look at my brown baby girl and see her strength, doesn't "have time" to redirect her creative energy towards a positive outcome? What if they see her do something different than what was asked of her, and instead of creativity they see only "defiance," "disobedience," and "disrespect"--any one of which will get you sent straight to detention? What if instead of "you are strong, but you have to be aware of other people's feelings," they use words like "mean," "bully," and "troublemaker" to label her?
Maybe it's my years of working in continuation education that have me thinking along this path, or what I see daily in our communities. I watch as kids whose innocence was so prominent just a couple years back now have their faces plastered on the 6 o'clock news as Suspects. I see those not-too-long-ago babyfaces screen-printed onto their friends' RIP shirts--the urban tribute to another life lost.
And it hurts to realize that the paths may start like this--a yearning to explore, to be creative. A desire to avoid disappointing someone, an unannounced need to be celebrated and guided. It hurts to know that, without the proper supports, the path may not turn out too well, the light cast upon them quickly, subtly, changing from a glimmer of hope and joy to a glare of scrutiny and shame.
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