Life Beyond The Box

My partner and I recently took our two-year-old daughter (MissMunchkin) to the playground. While there, my partner and I stepped back for a moment and really observed what was happening.

Now, ‘Tot Lot’ has the guideline of children up to four, while the ‘Big Kids’ area is 5-14. I don’t like a lot of rules; they feel boxy to me. Guidelines aren’t quite as bad, but they still seem like boxes with fuzzy lines.

Why do we need age guidelines on playgrounds? Can’t we, as parents and children, look and see that this area over here has smaller equipment and that area over there has bigger ones? Maybe the younger ones will have a little trouble, but I have my doubts there.

Can we, as parents, not tell when it’s time to give the bigger equipment a try? Do your kids know when they are ready? After observing during several playground trips, I’d bet everything I have on it.

As a mother I understand wanting to protect your child, never letting them get hurt, etc. However, there is a difference between protection and over-protection, where we may in fact be hurting emotionally and mentally. We need to be aware and careful of this difference, both as parents and, I believe, as a society.

Sometimes you find sage advice for parents in kid’s movies. If you’ve seen Finding Nemo you are sure to remember Crush the sea turtle who is “150 and still young, dude.” One of my favorite parts in the movie is when Crush’s son Squirt falls out of the ‘EAC.” Marlin, Nemo’s extremely protective father, starts to rush off to save the kid, which results in the following exchange.

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– Crush holds Marlin back from rushing to help Squirt –Crush: Whoa. Kill the motor, dude. Let us see what Squirt does flying solo.– Squirt manages just fine on his own and gets back on the EAC –Squirt: Whoa! Whoa! That was so cool! Hey dad, did you see that? Did you see me? Did you seewhat I did?Crush: You so totally rock, Squirt! So give me some fin..noggin.. Crush and Squirt: ..dude!Crush: Oh, intro. Jellyman, Offspring. Offspring, Jellyman. Squirt: Jellies? Sweet. Crush: Totally. Marlin: Well, apparently, I must’ve done something you all like. Heh, uh, dudes. Squirt: You rock, dude. – Squirt knocks noggin with Marlin – Marlin: Ow. Crush: Curl away, my son. – Squirt goes back to playing with his friends. – Crush: Aw, it’s awesome, Jellyman. Little dudes are just eggs, leave ‘em on the beach to hatch, then coo-coo-ca-choo, they find their way back to the big ‘ol blue. Marlin: All by themselves? Crush: Yeah. Marlin: But-but-but dude, how do you know when they’re ready? Crush: Well, you never really know. But when they’ll know, you’ll know, you know? Ha.

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Couple of quick comments first. Apparently sea turtles are the surfer dudes of the sea. If you haven’t seen the movie, just ignore the whole Jellyman thing. It’s irrelevant anyway.I love this scene for many reasons.

First, Crush watches the situation while giving his ‘offspring’ plenty off room to figure it out on his own.

Second, I truly appreciate Crush staving off the over-protective parent from ’saving’ a child that wasn’t even his own.

Third, when Squirt accomplishes the challenge on his own there is genuine shared celebration between him and his father. You can tell this sort of event has occurred several times. Crush is well practiced at holding back that urge to ‘protect’ his offspring long enough to give Squirt a chance to learn. You can see that despite Squirt’s initial disorientation, he is quick to get his bearings. He, then, has the confidence to try to do something himself.

Isn’t this what we want to give to our children? The ability to swim, even when we are not there?

Why, then, on the playground (and oh so many other places) when a child has obviously mastered and grown bored in ‘Tot Land’ do we not let them take on a new challenge?

I have seen it over and over, a toddler/preschooler making the same circle up the steps and down the baby slide, up the steps and down the baby slide, up the steps and down the baby slide…. Can you imagine how boring that must get? Here you are at the stage where everything is supposed to be new and exciting; a big new word to explore. That’s what everyone keeps telling you. Yet, here you are, stuck with the option of a baby swing or a small slide you mastered weeks ago. Whenever you look over at the bigger slide ‘Mommy’ quickly ushers you along your little circle. Aren’t you tired and cranky just thinking about it? I am.

Next you get the ones that keep looking, trying to watch the big kids. You just see the wheels turning. ‘How are they doing that? Oh, okay… I wish I could do that… Maybe I can… I wanna go try… Crap, Mom caught me, here comes that stupid slide again.’

Those guidelines on that sign? They are guidelines, remember? Boxes with fuzzy lines. You don’t have to wait until your child is xyz age before they get to move on.

I’m not saying to let them take off by themselves. Of course, stay close but give them a bit of space. Give your child a chance to figure it out. This might mean you want to pick a slow time so your child isn’t going to get run over before they got it down. You aren’t sent into rush hour traffic the first time behind the wheel, are you?

If you’ve got a timid or shy child, they will more than likely make sure you stay close. If you have little Mr/s Independent, good luck keeping up after they get their footing. It might make you feel better if you are on the timid side yourself to bring the other parent, a grandparent, or someone else to help tag team for a bit.

Please, for your child, make sure your team remembers your child picks up on their behavior. I’ve watched kids go down a taller slide several times just fine until they see Mommy biting her nails or hear Grandma saying it’s too tall. Instantly that slide is too big and they are afraid, even though they were running to do it again just a second ago.

What are our kids learning? That even though they are ready to move on, they cannot until a rule/guideline says they are able to? That they should be afraid to try something new? To take on a challenge?

Isn’t it wonderful how early we start training our children to live within the boxes society has predetermined for us?

Transcript thanks to IMSDB.com

Musical/Singing Version of the Scene (really quite amusing): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYoT-rdAKzY

Recently when talking or writing about my “husband” I’ve started to refer to him as my partner instead of husband. I’d like to take a moment to explain why.

(Warning: Mild ranting ahead.)Whenever the subjects of gay rights and/or gay marriage come up in politics, I tend to end up getting perturbed at the very least. I’m all for religious freedom and the right to worship whoever and however you please. In fact, I rather like having legal protection to not being burned at the stake, thank you.

It seems a large portion of our officials and those they represent have forgotten that the Founding Fathers had other odd ideas, such as the Separation of Church and State.

Frankly, I don’t care if your religion proclaims this or that is immoral or just plain bad. You can believe what you like, that’s fine. You even can be a pigheaded, hateful bigot; it’s your right to be that way. As long you aren’t actually turning it into violence against those you hate, or infringing on their rights, I’ll even defend your right to be that way. I don’t agree with your opinion, but I’ll defend your right to have it.

“America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can’t just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the “land of the free”.” ~ Andrew Shepherd, The American President

What I do care about is when you start shoving your religious beliefs into our legal system.

When it comes to the issue of legal gay marriage - to give homosexuals in a committed relationship the same legal status and rights as a heterosexual couple in a similar relationship - it’s not got anything to do with religion. Even if your religion uses the word marriage for their spiritual joining of a couple, it’s not the same. The term “marriage” being debated is a legal term not a religious one, which according to the separation of church and state can not nor should not mingle.

If you don’t believe every committed couple should have the same rights, period, then maybe we should just disband the whole legal concept all together. Then everyone will be on the same legal playing field. Let the religions worry about the joining of souls rituals/ceremonies and rules. They can call it whatever they like; marriage, handfasting, or glueing for all I care.

For this reason I’ve decided to start using the term “partner” instead of “husband”. We have preformed no religious anything relating to the subject, so we are only partners legally. If everyone had the ability to establish the legal status of being married no matter their genders, “husband and wife” would be obsolete. Partners, or something similar, would have to be used.

I know it’s only a word, but in the words of the Czech writer and dramatist, the last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel:

“I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.”

Or of the writer Orson Scott Card in Maps in a Mirror:

“At last I was able to explain that I hadn’t understood the implications of my statement in their language, that I was transliterating and certain words had different meanings and so on and so on.”

MissMunchkin (my 22mo) got a set of bath crayons this week. She’s had great fun coloring on the bathtub walls. They wipe right off, as long as you do so that night, after that they still come off, they just take a (little) bit more work.

I was taking my evening bath, looking at my now technicolor tub and the wheels started to turn. What other things could these crayons be used for?

These are some of the things I came up with:

• Erase Your Stress - Get in the tub and write out everything that stressed you out that day. Then take great pleasure in crossing it out, wiping it off, etc. This could also work for anger, fear, annoyances, bad habits…

• Affirmation Ambience - Write you daily affirmations on the wall and take a nice long soak. Every time you look, there they are! Instead of dwelling on your day, you refocus on the positive changes you are working toward.

• Bath Brain Dump - Every time I get in the tub it seems like my brain suddenly kicks into overdrive. I suddenly remember everything I didn’t get done today, the things that need done tomorrow, a new idea to write about, a new story idea, what color I want to paint the walls in the kitchen… This happens when I try to go to sleep too. Problem is when I get out (or wake up) I don’t remember a quarter of it. What if I took a bath crayon and jotted everything down? Then I could let it go, assured I would now remember it, and enjoy my nightly self-indulgence. Afterwards I could transfer the notes to the appropriate places and wipe then off the tub.

• Morning Messages - This one is more tricky as it requires a couple of qualifications. 1) You have to take a morning shower. 2) You have to be awake enough to read. Which means your eyes have to actually be open! I discarded this one for myself, but I’ll throw it out there for you morning people. On the wall you could put reminds of things to do before you leave the house, or your morning affirmations, or whatever. You could also leave messages to your partner.

It’s amazing what you do when you take what seems like a simple child’s toy out of it’s normal box?

What others ways can you think of?