G has been in quite an emotional stage of his development lately. Small things can really set him off. And the "big" things...well, they can seem pretty traumatic judging by his reactions. It's all part of growing up, learning to understand, label, and deal with budding emotions. I can only hope I'm doing the right things to help him through this period so that he can come out confident on the other side.
On the other hand, once in a while he amazes me with his maturity when there are times where I get overly-emotional about something...He's right there to comfort me and tell me it will be okay, in just the same way I am there for him when he's having a hard time. It's very sweet and quite gratifying to see him modeling that behavior; he does it with his little brother, too.
I am often surprised, also, by the depth of his thoughts. He blindsides me constantly with real-world questions that sometimes I am at a loss to answer adequately. Nick says-- and his mother concurs-- that he was like this as a child, too. Mom? Was I like that?
Haha, I'm remembering now the home video clip where my brothers and I are doing puzzles on the ottoman and my puzzle has a yellow pig in it and I'm asking over and over with increasing intensity until I finally get an answer, "Mom! Some pigs are yellow and some pigs are pink, huh?!" Finally, in the video, my mom says something exasperatedly like, "Yes, Sylvia, some pigs are yellow and some pigs are pink." And then life resumes. What my mom probably didn't realize then, was that that question was really important to me. Of course, I don't remember what was going through my head at the time, but after witnessing/dealing with my son, I imagine it was something like, "Hey, this pig is yellow. But I thought pigs were pink! Hey wait! This doesn't make any sense. *world as I know it comes crashing down momentarily* Unless...*lightbulb* Maybe some pigs are yellow and some pigs are pink! I'd better ask Mom..." Now my question, after telling that story, is, Who in their right mind would make a puzzle for preschoolers with a yellow pig in it?!
So yeah. Take a question like mine above, and multiply its import by ten and those are the kinds of questions I often get from my preschooler. Questions about life, death, crime, justice, God, humanity...How do you explain some of these things to a preschooler?! Before I was actually faced with this situation, I firmly believed that I-- as a parent-- should always do my best to truthfullyand thoroughly answer any question my kid might ask me. For instance, with the pig question above, I would have first tried to understand why my kid was asking the question and then would have answered honestly, "Well, it's true that pigs come in different colors-- pink, brown, white, black... However, I've never seen a pig in quite that shade of yellow before; I think the people making this puzzle just thought it would be fun to make a yellow pig." But then of course, that would have inspired a whole new stream of questions from a kid like mine: "What's a "shade"? being probably first and foremost; my son is a nut for vocabulary. But now I understand why my own mom answered the way she did: it was just so much simpler! And less time-consuming to boot. And time was at a premium for her, with four small children under the age of five.
But back to my son. Like I said, he can get very emotional, and sometimes with good reason. Just this past week, he was playing at school and he and a couple other boys broke one of the class rules of not running around in the bathroom. They all got time-outs from the teacher; and after school, the teacher prompted G to tell me what had happened. He immediately broke down and his teacher had to tell me herself what had happened. Of course, it wasn't nearly as bad as G seemed to think it was. It's not like he'd been fighting, after all. He just got swept up in the moment with his friends and went somewhere he shouldn't have. I wasn't upset with him, but apparently he had been quite concerned about how I would react as he seemed pretty devastated. Well I comforted him and reassured him and we went home. He seemed to be fine by the time we got home.
But the next morning at breakfast, I mentioned that he had school again that day, and he told me and Nick that he didn't think he should go to school because he felt a little sick and didn't want to get the other kids sick. (He did have a bit of a cough, but nothing serious) Well at first, Nick and I were impressed that he would be that considerate of his classmates. But later, it became clear to me that the real reason G didn't want to go to school was that he was afraid after yesterday's incident. He allowed me to take him to school, but verbally objecting the entire way.
When we got to the door of the classroom, he melted down again. He wanted me to stay with him; he was afraid to knock on the door; he didn't want to be here. I continued to coax him, even as other kids trickled in past him (usually he's quite eager to go in all by himself while I wait by the car). Finally, he knocked loudly enough to be heard, but immediately cowered behind his hands before the teacher opened the door. Just as I had assured him would be the case, his teacher greeted him with a smile; I explained his behavior to her and that I had tried to tell him that she wouldn't be mad at him, that today was a new day, that he had a "clean slate" and all that. She was reassuring to him as well as she ushered him inside. When I came back later to pick him up, he was all smiles again.
We as adults often seem to remember our childhood as "blissfully ignorant," simpler times, carefree. But to the mind and heart of a child, it's really not that simple. Yet my hope as a parent is that, by the time my children are adults, they will also remember their childhood as happy, simple, and carefree-- at least in comparison to adulthood.
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