Daddy's Desk - Oct, 2007 "Raging Temper Tantrum"

I’ve been with my 3 kids for 11, 10, and 3 years now. I’m starting to think I’m beginning to get close to kind of figuring them out a little bit. For instance, I now know the best technique to get my 10 year old, Adam, to perform some sort of household chore. It’s a complicated process, usually requiring different tones in my voice and carefully calculated looks with my eyes, but if I begin early enough on a Saturday morning, and all the conditions are just right, I can usually get him to complete a chore by the following Tuesday. My success rate in this area is steadily improving. Then there’s my 11 year old son, Alex. To get Alex to do something he might not want to do requires a completely different game plan. With Alex I need to start laying the groundwork weeks or sometimes months in advance. I first organize task forces to study all the possible ramifications. Then my wife and I begin by mentioning the possibility of an upcoming task or change in routine. This seems to require a 2-3 week advance notice. After this it’s a matter of “his people” getting with “our people” and hashing out the fine print details.
Our 3 year old, Christopher, is of course a challenge unto himself. Having studied his older siblings in the fine art of negotiations, he already has many proven tricks up his sleeve at his tender age, and he’s not afraid to try all of them in rapid succession. We know the key to get Christopher to do something is to first get him in the proper mood to accept change. But unfortunately, he typically sees through our feeble attempts to change his mood, so we’re usually thwarted before we’ve even begun. A simple task such as getting him dressed in the morning sometimes requires serious prayer. Most dangerous of all, Christopher possesses the one technique Alex and Adam no longer have access to…the dreaded raging temper tantrum. If 3 year olds could comprehend the power of the raging temper tantrum, somehow channel it in unison, they could rule the world. Splitting the atom? Nothing compared to the power of a raging temper tantrum.
The point is, as parents, we have all learned tricks to getting optimum performance out of our kids. And each kid is different. The instruction manuals that came with each kid are, like all instruction manuals, vague and unclear, written in some foreign language. In fact, on a couple of my kids I don’t even remember getting an instruction manual…some sort of problem in shipping I was told. So without the manual, parents are left to their own devices. It’s all they can do in this epic struggle with the fate of mankind hanging in the balance.
Every now and then I try to imagine a wild scenario in which dozens of 3 year olds are brought into a small room simultaneously and left for a complete stranger to figure out.
And that complete stranger has the task of getting all those 3 year olds to work together, in harmony. And most cruel of all, the complete stranger is forbidden to use the parent’s most prized weapon of defense: bribery. Hard to fathom, isn’t it? Yet it happens every day at Prince of Peace Preschool. I’ve seen it in action. 3 year olds walking the halls like angels in straight, orderly lines with imaginary bubbles in their mouths, heading off to learn a second language. The sight of it will bring a tear to your eyes. Next time you see a teacher, give a hug.