'Ask in a pleasant manner, practice patience.'

Two boys wade through a dangerous raging creek in the deep wilderness

Our children will have plenty to grumble, reminisce, and ideally laugh about someday. I’m preparing myself to continue being a lightning rod for directed humor and eye-rolling over my way of doing things. Their future memoirs will not lack a rich and bottomless pit of vivid memories of their father and his eccentricities.

In my best dreams, I’m this choreographer, this orchestra conductor, this circus ringmaster, inventing-exploring-creating maestro who music-mans his family gently and always with good humor through the swirls and currents and waterfalls of existence.

In my worst realities, I’m more like Josef Stalin sometimes. Or I feel that way. More akin to the ruthless Soviet dictator than the inspiring and beloved Vaclev Havel.

When our children engage in words or actions out of sync with our principles, this is the horrible, horrific punishment they are forced to endure. This gets brutal. Heads up.

They get me.

They get…my attention. My full, absolute attention, as we talk through. When I say “talk through,” it might bring up visions of kindly, back-and-forth dialogue dripping with patience and affection. I’d like to think that. But more likely and accurately, it’s me saying something along the lines of:

I’m your dad. We are here because of your words or actions. You are not in trouble. But you are not going anywhere or doing anything else until we have gone through this together. Until we have talked through this.

I am enormously stubborn. I’d prefer to say patient, but I can’t see our children agreeing with that descriptor of me currently.

I am enormously stubborn when it comes to being manipulated, or hearing weak defenses for why one child hit another child. That’s a no-go zone.

So when that line is crossed, there are repercussions. The repercussion is me. A talk, possibly short but probably long, and possibly very long, with me. It’s really sad that they might consider it punishment. I strongly dislike that word. But I’m afraid they do.

We talk. We go over what happens. They articulate to me what happened. I call them out on the specifics. If there’s more than one party involved, than they take turns giving their Rashomon interpretation of events. There’s no further retribution or Damocles’ sword or potential discipline hanging over. It is the moment of truth, the come to Jesus moments of truth being bared amidst the surge of facts and interpretation of happenings.

Is this effective? Is this the best way? I don’t know. But it’s what I know, and I believe in principles and the power of repetition. So we keep coming back to the root of things. Roots like The Golden Rule. That is almost always a thing that we can come back to: were your words or actions in alignment with The Golden Rule?

Sometimes old school and old fashioned are the best. But what works better than that as a guiding umbrella principle?

A lot of our discussions have to do with A) one person wanting something and B) that person getting frustrated when they don’t get what they want, or don’t get a response on the timeline they want. So this is what I’ve come up with as a nifty heuristic:

The Two Ps

The Two Ps are Pleasant and Patient.

When you want something…ask in a pleasant way.

Then…be patient and give the person you’re asking the chance to respond.

Be pleasant. Be patient.

That covers a lot of ground.

They know it doesn’t mean they’ll get what they want. But they know it will increase their chances of success, and it will increase the likelihood of positive interactions and outcomes.

There are few things that drag down a parents’ soul like the sound of whining, grumbling, pleading, or the infinite combinations possible with all three. It sucks the energy, the hope, the positive spirit, the goodness out of the surrounding space.

That’s why I think the double-whammy of Pleasance and Patience in a baseline for asking for something, in any interaction, covers a great deal of ground without having to constantly revert to ‘don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t say that, stop whining!!! Etc’

It is an ongoing process. I am reconciled to frequently being an anti-hero to the most important people in my life right now. So be it. It is the gift I stubbornly give. Again and again.

My dictatorial presence, ever ready to out-stubborn, out-patience, and out-wait. So it goes.

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