carrot and stick

As Frances explained to every adult whose path she crossed on this brilliant Thursday (every adult who showed a shred of interest in her, that is), today was Rosh Hashanah Day, so there was no school. Instead we spent the breezy morning at Quiet Waters Park. As time wore on the playground filled with more and more children, until suddenly it was packed with chaotic toddlers and crashing too-bigs and Gabriel ran up to me with serious alarm in his eyes, grabbing my pants and explaining: there are too many children here, we have to go NOW!

So we did. Post office, grocery store, baking with Frances during Gabriel's nap, visiting with a neighbor friend, a bit of reading, a bit of drawing, dinner, bath, and there you have it. Sounds like a satisfying day, right? I thought so too. But for my new kindergartener, something was lacking. Where are the organized activities, and what are the rules? Good lord, where is the structure in all this having-a-pleasant-day-at-home business?

The poor girl was driven to such lengths as creating cards with numbers on them directing us to our proper chairs at the dining room table, suggesting new rules for our family (among them today were "no fake laughing allowed" and "no hitting people with chopsticks"), and devising ways she might be helpful and thus earn whatever our equivalent of respect tickets might be. Of course we have no school store in which she could spend her respect tickets. And we have no tickets. But if only we did...!

The kid has never been interested in being 'a good helper' for its own sake (that line of motivation occasionally works beautifully with her brother). But the idea of earning something - of moving ahead on the board game, collecting rewards - suddenly helping is where it's at. Frances has asked if we could have a "system" like the one at school. Think stickers, color-coded, perhaps a chart displayed publicly in the kitchen. The consequences and rewards would be clear and well-defined (time out vs. candy). Tonight she asked if she could do the dishes every night "for the next sixteen years." (Just think of the respect tickets she'll be swimming in by 2026!)

Geez, what have I been missing out on? In a way it seems so concrete, oppressively so, but I suppose a five year old is concrete! This is where I always trip up with Frances; I fall into the mistake of treating her as if she understood things the way I do. As if she had some sophisticated perspective on her own rocky emotions. But she's a kid, one with a wild imagination and a tendency to get stressed out by the unpredictable nature of this world and the people inhabiting it. Adults giveth and taketh away, and sometimes it feels cruelly arbitrary.

No, you cannot watch a video today. Because. Because I said so.

What if I could point to some garish chart on the refrigerator covered in gold stars and sad faces the next time she asked WHY? WHY CAN'T I??? Maybe such overt documentation would help Frances feel more in control and thus more relaxed.

Or maybe spending half an hour drawing pictures like the one above after school serves the same purpose. I hope so, because the truth is I'm too lazy to create and enforce a "system." And frankly, I'm too attached to the power I wield, even though it may feel cruel and arbitrary at times. I want to reserve the freedom to do things simply because they seem like a good idea at the time. 

And how about that picture Frances drew? It is of an imaginary school, not hers, but you can see how powerful these first days have been. The headings in each box are Ball, Music, Homework, Jim (Gym), School Bus, Recess, Line, Rules, and Sharing.

I am fascinated by the ways Frances talks about and illustrates racial differences. Her teacher is black and many of her classmates are too, but she doesn't understand them as belonging to one group. Frances has always understood people as falling somewhere on the lighter brown to darker brown continuum (she herself is "light brown"). She always describes new people in great detail, and has recently talked a lot about one of her new friends who wears her hair in corn rows with beads (how she admires them!). The detail below shows a little girl with blue beads on the ends of her braids, dancing in music class with her teacher.