notes to self
Letting dogs be dogs
Sometimes you have to love the male mind.
“I need to treat my children more like my dogs.”
This was the subject line of an email I got last week from Nick, a father in a group for parents of young children. I confess to some anxiety before I read further.
On the other hand, Nick has two impeccably behaved Wheaten terriers, Luigi and Vlad. We have Sophie, our impossible bulldog (Note to Self: next time, if there ever is one, consider all the implications of the word BULLdog), an unrepentant criminal. If I treated my children more like I treat my dogs, there’d be a whole lotta shouting going on. But maybe Nick is on to something. It is worth listening further, if only for some advice about dogs.
“Today after group I had a realization. I am able to understand the feelings of my dogs. Without judging their feelings. Without trying to replace their feelings with my own. I don’t counsel the dogs with how I feel or how I think they might more profitably approach a situation. Admittedly, they may be simpler creatures than my kids, but it does seem like a fair lesson to remind myself: I should actually start treating my kids slightly more like I treat my dogs.”
Ahhh.. Nick, how I underestimated you! This is so brilliant I wish I’d said it myself. If we could think of our children more like we think of our dogs, we could stop expecting so much of them. We would still have some expectations, to be sure. We’d like them to develop a deep and loving relationship with us. We would expect that they play well with other dogs. We would hope that they grow out of puppy behavior like.. err.. biting, and learn more mature and appropriate ways of expressing their feelings (maybe Nick can offer some pointers here?).
But we wouldn’t expect that they feel differently than they do. We wouldn’t expect that they could change their feelings to feel more like a cat. We wouldn’t expect them to change their feelings to feel more like us. And as Nick says, we certainly wouldn’t expect them to change their thinking to accommodate our beliefs about the best way to approach a situation.
We could let dogs be dogs.
Of course to do this, we would not only have to give up our expectations of what our children should think and feel, but also our expectations of what we should think and feel. This may actually be the tougher task. We all have fantasies about what it means to be a parent. These are usually formed, at least in part, by our experience of being parented. Often we haven’t thought much about them- they are more likely to be half conscious beliefs developed from childhood experience, and as a result, not entirely reliable. Yet they form our default response to parenting situations, especially the highly charged ones.
They are worth thinking about, these “shoulds” that fuel our parenting. You may discover that some of your expectations of yourself as a parent have little to do with your relationship with your child, and a lot more to do with your relationship with your parents. I am thinking of a story that Nick told in group a few weeks ago. He brought his six-year old son, Oliver, out to dinner with this parents, sisters, nephews and nieces for a big family dinner. Oliver is the youngest grandchild, he was tired, and was the fourth such dinner in a row. In fact, unbeknownst to Nick, he begged not to go.
Nick believes that parenting is a teaching opportunity. This view was formed by his experience as the youngest in an intellectual family of three highly intelligent and articulate children. Nick spent a lot of time sitting quietly at family dinners and listening to conversation that was never adjusted to allow for his participation. As a result, he invites, encourages, and on some level, expects his own children to participate in conversation, which he consciously tries to direct to areas they are interested in.
You can imagine what happened at the family dinner. Oliver was furious that for the fourth night in a row, conversation was not adjusted to allow for his participation. Nick was furious that Oliver couldn’t at least sit quietly, even if he couldn’t speak, as Nick had done for all those years growing up in own family.
However, that’s not what Oliver had been “trained” to do (forgive me for this word Oliver, but I am sticking to the dog metaphor). He expected to participate, not behave. And as Nick reflected on the differences between his son’s experience and his own, he now wonders if his own expectations about parenting, however well intentioned, have put a lot of pressure on Oliver, even at home. After all, as the youngest at the table, there is a big difference between listening to a conversation and being expected to be fully engaged in one.
Believe me, I am still guilty of excessive expectation. From my children, myself, and the limits of job description as a parent. Other than on the athletic field, my husband is far more likely than I to let dogs be dogs; that is, be open to what everybody will be happy actually doing, as opposed to what I imagine we should be doing. And as far as Nick goes, as you can tell, he’s evolving into a highly reflective parent. In fact, I am thinking that next fall, Nick and I could work out an arrangement. He could come to the next group for free, and in return he could take.. oops.. I mean train, Sophie.