Loving Firmness or What Mergers and Acquisitions Taught Me About Parenting

Ax wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it and how he wants to do it. I do not begrudge him that. He’s human. He has human desires for autonomy and cinnamon Puffins with show and shooting foam rockets or jumping on a trampoline whenever the mood strikes. Sometimes though, sometimes, even frequently, he wants to do those things when I want to do something seemingly conflicting with him doing what he wants to do, when he wants to do it. Such as, for example, going to school, going to bed, getting ready for those events, making good on prior commitments that are no longer desired in the particular moment they’re scheduled.

I could throw my weight around. I am still bigger, louder, and I have some parental authority I could shove down his throat. But I’ve found that life is smoother when I allow him to save face.

If I want something from him, I’ve gotta give something. Something meaningful to him, valuable to him, that doesn’t cost me more than I deem appropriate to the trade. Like, if it’s time to go to school and he doesn’t want to go because he’s in the building zone surrounded by tiny pieces of plastic I’ll give him a lot of warnings, earlier than is necessary, so that at the final warning when he objects I can say, “Ok fine, how many bonus minutes do you want?”

And he’ll say, “Two” or once he said, “Eleven,” with a glint in his eye (he doesn’t totally understand time but he knows eleven is a big number). And then we’re negotiating about how many bonus minutes before we leave instead of whether we’re leaving at all or not.

I have some stuff I need to parent myself about getting on – getting more organized about certain things, getting more consistent about certain things I know will benefit from consistency, making room for that stuff that I don’t necessarily want to do at any given moment but the results of which are something I want – exercise, financial planning, housework, pursuing life goals, that kind of stuff. I wonder how I could work the loving firmness thing on myself. What would incentivize me to get on that stuff in an appropriate way? I’m gonna get on that.