In an attempt to balance the scales a little I'm writing today in defense of four year olds. (Yes, this is the part I will likely regret in a matter of days if not hours.) I'm aware that the last few posts have been, ahem, a bit skewed to negative side of parenting. Which is not completely unexpected when sixty percent of our household citizenry is made up of four and two years old. After trudging through several harrowing weeks of outright defiance and very uncivil disobedience, things for the moment have settled into an acceptable tension between discipline and independence.
One of the things we've been working on in an attempt to decrease the intensity and frequency of tantrums has been to help the kids identify what emotion they're feeling i.e. Wow, you must be boiling mad right now! and so on. I know it's sounds completely hokey but giving them, specifically Sophia, the words to pinpoint what they're feeling and later a number of acceptable actions to deal with those emotions seems to be helping limit the severity of the tantrums. Over several days of working on this I began to take note of the wide range of emotions and experiences kids this age pass through in very short time.
Imagine if over the course of the day you experienced frustration, jubilation, sorrow, anger, love, hate, jealousy, envy, pride, fear, excitement, guilt, success, failure, oppression, independence, and on and on. Besides being confused about what to do with all these strong feelings there are external pressures telling you to "act nice","stop whining", or "settle down" and unclear expectations about how to handle all the new emotions and experiences you're just beginning to grasp.
Imagine further a day in which the majority of what happens to you is dictated by someone else, everything from when you eat, to how much time you can spend on a particular activity, to how loud you are allowed to talk. You're told to sleep when you're not tired. You're told a tag is not itchy when you can clearly feel it rubbing against your skin. You're told to "have fun" and that "everything will be okay" when left alone in a new place but despite assurances you are still terrified. You're forced to give up what seems like your most beloved possession(at the moment) in the name of "sharing". You're told to wait or are given the answer "later" but because you don't yet a have concrete concept of time every wait has no predictable end.
Extrapolate even further a life in which you're still trying to decipher what things to be concerned about vs. when you are safe. You hear about the devastation created by something you've never heard of like an earthquake but later wonder why your mother can say with certainty that evil monsters don't exist. You've told to treat others like you want to be treated but then are warned that because some strangers are bad to avoid unknown people all together. You're warned against the absolute dangers of burning yourself on the stove, not crossing the street alone, always wearing your seat belt but then the first time you do something you've been told is dangerous and nothing happens you wonder whether all the other things you've been warned are really that bad at all.
Being four is hard. Parenting a four year old is hard.
Does it mean that because I have better perspective of where Sophia is coming from that I'll feel sorry for her and let some things slide? Of course not.
But it will hopefully mean that when she's pulling out the heavy artillery I'll be able to see her for the four year old she is and act with a little more understanding and grace. And with any luck all the love, discipline, time, effort, prayers and determination I've poured into her will result in an adult that doesn't need a hard life to be her ultimate teacher.
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