Being a father is relatively easy. By the time your child is born you already are. However, being a committed father capable of moving through the most conflictive situations is difficult. When I say conflicting situations, I mean those moments when a child does not attend to reasons, does not accept a decision from us or wants to do things differently (without being able to be that way).
At that time, crying and the urgent need to give in to their needs usually appear. Sometimes we will give in, and that's fine, because that way we teach them that sometimes people decide to give in to the wishes of others and therefore that sometimes they will have to give they, and in others we cannot do it. For these second occasions there may be some useful tricks, or perhaps not so much, because not everything works with all children, that experience and "trial / error" make you learn.
Today I will explain how I resolved a conflict just a week ago with my 5 year old son Jon, when he refused to wear sneakers because they had the soles full of pebbles to the point of crying lying on the floor shouting "those noooo, take away the stones !!!". And about to leave, I had to wear those, yes or yes.
I put you in the background: it was Friday. On Fridays, the subject of “Psychomotor” is played at school, which is the technical name they have given to what was called gymnastics in our time and then changed to physical education because it sounded better. This is the only day of the week that wears velcro shoes, because there they change them for non-slip socks and they themselves have to put them on and take off. The rest of the week he uses some with laces, which we tie with five sailor knots (not true, but almost), basically because the bigger his foot, the harder it is to find sneakers with velcro (and that we like).
The fact is that I took the shoes about to leave (I say, only use them on Fridays), and I was funny to see that I had the whole sole full of pebbles. This is so for two reasons: the schoolyard is riddled with pebbles and the sole has very thin grooves in which the tiniest ones are trapped. As I was funny I told him: “Ala, look! They are full of pebbles! ” Why did I say anything ...
Jon is the typical boy who goes to school, to the park and wherever, despite playing like the others, he comes home (almost) unpolluted. When he was younger we said he looked like a prince, because where other children appeared to put them in the shower dressed, he came out clean, like a detergent ad with classical music and in slow motion.
I explain it to you so that you understand why it was not too funny to have the soles of the shoes full of stones. He told me that he did not want them, that he put the others (impossible, they are cords), telling him that he did not start crying until he ended up lying on the floor asking me to remove the pebbles (the dream factor, logical first thing of the tomorrow, it usually helps little, because it favors the appearance of conflicts). At that moment an image of myself popping out pebbles appeared in my mind and I found it so ridiculous, especially considering that in fifteen minutes I would step on the schoolyard and they would be filled with stones again, which I said no.
We had to leave or we would be late and the boy was lying on the floor refusing to put on shoes with pebbles on the soles. Then in my mind it opened a range of possibilities that I will tell you next:
- Well, you wear them and period: I tell him that he has to wear them and period, that today he plays psychomotor skills and he has to wear these shoes and not others because they are the only ones that have velcro, so if he refuses I put them on as I can, I grab the child and "to the car that we are leaving, that we do not arrive".
- Ok, I remove the stones from the soles: I accept your request to remove the pebbles from the soles, wasting a wonderful time doing a thorough work with little sense, because in minutes you will step on the ground causing the accumulation.
- I throw imagination and turn the tortilla around: for him the stones in the sole is something negative and he lets me know. In the first two options I am accepting his argument that these stones should not be there (in the first I tell him that it is true, but that it is what there is and in the second I tell him that it is true, and I apply a solution). Well, in this third option I turn its argument around and I do not accept that the pebbles in the soles are something negative, but quite the opposite: “But why do you want me to take them off? You don't know that with these stones you run much more? Then I go for my shoes and choose the model that has more stones embedded in the soles, I show them, I put them on and I say: "Look at me, I have stones and see how I run." I stand still for a few seconds in a position to run and start making an upward sound with my mouth (airplane turbine type that starts to pick up speed) until an explosion appears that makes me start running like a possessed man in my house.
I guess you can imagine that I chose the third option. Mano de santo, as he saw me shot out, ran his own and began to load engines. "Let's see if you catch me, Dad!" "Impossible Jon, you have many more stones than me!" And I chase him down the floor leaving him a clear advantage. “Come, run, we're going to school. FuuuUUUUUUUU PJJJJJJJJ ”and started running towards the door.
On Friday he played psychomotor skills again, he put on the slippers so happy and we did some speed tests. Luckily, before running, we did a routine check: "Uff, Jon, thankfully, you can keep running a lot because the stones are still here."
