A Great Day
There has been a slow shift in our household, and the child that was once a nearly uncontrollable tornado of impulses has become a rangy kid. A kid who is almost at the end of his kindergarten year, who still clings to me when given the chance but also runs around freely with the dog in the backyard. A kid who’s already been referred to an orthodontist for his crowded teeth (yikes). A kid who’s finally more fun than difficult, whose interests are branching out into different parts of both the online and offline worlds. Even compared to a month ago, he’s now more likely to reason with my husband and me instead of reflexively saying “No” to our requests. He stuns us by being proactive around bedtime, putting on jammies and brushing his teeth before we have to remind him. Same thing on school mornings. He either decided to stop fighting us, or got tired of getting tardy slips from the door monitor at school, and is very prompt about getting his clothes on every day.
He is still terrible about cleaning his room, but sometimes when he sees Dad and me doing chores, he’ll scan the house for opportunities to help us do “grown-up” things like clearing forgotten dinner dishes off the table. When I thank him, he says, “Of course—that’s what six-years-olds [sic] do!”
In the past couple years he’s shown some impressive little displays of maturity. I’ve heard him theorize that classmates who act like bullies are being mean because they are unhappy or haven’t been taught well. He has helped defuse my anger during some of our tussles at home, telling me straight up that I shouldn’t get so mad or shouldn’t use that word. I like to think I’m better at being the bigger person, but honestly, we learn from each other. Coping mechanisms still take practice, no matter how well formed our brains are. These days, my son and I are much quicker to de-escalate and apologize to each other.
My husband and I actively remind each other that our son is only six. I’m not sure how precocious he is compared to baseline, but to our family, he seems to have had a great vocabulary from toddlerhood. He also has a keen memory and can recite back to us some anecdote that Dad told him a year ago. This can fool us, in small ways, into thinking he’s emotionally advanced as well as intellectually advanced. While he has a good emotional IQ for his age, there’s only so much maturity we can expect from a brain the size of his. His reality is still extremely permeable to fantasy, and he still desperately needs parental guidance. We have to be ready to explain that the guns seen throughout Star Wars are different from real-world guns, and in fact, guns are super duper uncool in real life. When we watch a cartoon movie where some character’s mommy dies, I need to be there to comfort him and remind him that I’ll be around for a long time. Not just during the movie, either; I need to be there when he’s trying to go to sleep later that night and feeling sad because he can’t stop thinking about the mom who died.
I read somewhere that when kids become teenagers, parents have a misguided tendency to become more hands-off because teenagers are fairly self-sufficient. Truly, however, the teen years are so hard that those kids actually need guidance more than ever. As parents, we can’t let up on our vigilance and care. I don’t mean being a helicopter, but being a rock and a sounding board and a role model and an advocate. I’m thrilled that my son is reaching an age where he’s cracking jokes with us and doing more independent activities. (More time for me to read!) However, I still need to make efforts to engage him at his level. I can’t just jump into watching standup comedy specials with him, then send him off to bed fully by himself. For one thing, we have to make sure he brushes his teeth thoroughly, because he’s all about fun and brushing teeth is an unfun chore prone to half-assing. For another, he still wants to be tucked in before falling asleep.
Frankly, I hope he never gets tired of being tucked in. I love watching his eyes get heavy when he hits the pillow, and softly wishing him sweet dreams. I also love waking him up in the morning, rubbing his back until the tiniest smile comes across his sheet-wrinkled face. His dad always tells him, “It’s going to be another great day.” I’m starting to believe that too.