In a Mother's Diary: The Lever to Lift the Child

He's two! How can a bite of scrambled eggs on a spoon cause an entire morning of anguish? 
Oh, but it can. I know you know what I'm talking about. The thing is, he usually loves eggs.

A while back I read this and loved it. To let hunger be the natural "leverageable asset" in this scenario, the tool, the lever, it's not my place to force it. Anyhow, we tried that. It doesn't work. 

So I showed my husband what I had read and we agreed- new plan.

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So the story goes...
2 yo says, "No eggs mommy." And I say pleasantly, "Ok, you don't have to," and I return to our breakfast reading.
Then the 2yo says, "I want pancakes!" To which I reply, "Ok! This pancake is yours," and I set his just out of his reach, "and you can have it as soon as you try a bite of eggs."
Of course we know his answer, which I ignore and keep on with the reading. 

Now my patience has to kick in. He begins to cry. I ask is he done with breakfast? Yes? Ok. And we clean him up and he goes off to play. 

I know he's hungry, yet I clean off the table except for his spot and go on with the morning. Later he comes up to me, "I'm still hungryyyy. I want pancakes." Employing that pleasant voice, I say, "Ok!" and he trots into the kitchen where I add, "Remember? One bite." To which we know his answer and I again say nicely, "Ok. You can go play." He does.
I keep on with my morning and he keeps asking for food with my response being the same each time. 

 The window of visibility a 2yo gives to the inner struggle of his own will is fascinating to me- in a loving mothering sort of way. It's something that becomes more private as children grow. But at 2 their personalities are shining new.

He's playing happily one second and peeking at his food in the kitchen the next. Nope, it hasn't magically disappeared. Sorry, bud. Next, he's on the floor crying, at which point, I treat him like a person in pain and offer a hug instead of the whole, "I told you..." attitude that can come so easy but does absolutely no good. Plus, I read somewhere that the way we speak to our children becomes their inner voice, and that is not what I want mine to hear someday when they're grown and gone.

This is my hardest point. One morning I had to sit down and stop trying to get any housework done because it was so exhausting to watch that tiny little will struggle so hard and for me to respond the way I wanted to.  

It's been almost a month now since he made that first step of strengthening his weak will and making the right choice. Meals are not perfect, but there have been so many triumphs over which I get joyful fireworks in my heart while he's just like, "Mmmm... happy stomach." 


I tell him I'm proud of him and what hard work it is to make a good choice.  Then I stop and remember to be quiet. A few words will do, Mom.  I sit there and relax my tense shoulders and smile watching him eat. I marvel and wonder at what kind of man he will become with such a sturdy determination behind that adorable face and dynamite personality. 

The next morning in the shower the memory comes of when I read about Mrs. so and so training in a new habit as if unfalteringly tending a sick child in bed with measles, and I tell myself it's ok that there's still a big pile of yesterday's work waiting for me to wake up to because there are so many other intangible successes worthy of remembering, and marveling at. It makes me thankful I get to be a mom. 

And then I wonder how I am going to do all this when school starts again.
...should be fun!

"But let us beware of words; let us use our eyes and our imagination in dealing with the young; let us see what they are feeling and help them by the flow of our responsive feeling. But words, even words of praise and tenderness, touch this delicate bloom of nature as with a hot finger, and behold! it is gone. 
Let us consider carefully what feelings we wish to stimulate, and what feelings we wish to repress in our children, and then, having made up our minds, let us say nothing. We all know the shrinking, 
as of a sore place, with which children receive some well-meant word from a tactless friend." 
-Charlotte Mason  2/200