What's Wrong With This Picture

It was one of those moments.

I sat reading Life at the Bottom (a fascinating book) while Destry finished his violin lesson when the 'ping' of the elevator announced the arrival of the next two violin students with their mother.  The older brother, approximately 8-9 years old, immediately began chanting at the top of his lungs "NOISY, NOISY, NOISY, nung, nung, nung."  I kept my head down but raised my eyebrows and looked out of the top of my eyes to see what was going on.

(By the way, when I recited the sing-songy "NOISY" to Destry and asked how I could describe it, he told me it was an inverted sixth.  Because you all know exactly what it sounds like now, right?  chuckle  Or if the "do-ti" going down the scale is familiar to you, that might help.  Now go ahead, sing the word "noisy" like this, really loudly and obnoxiously, so you can better understand what was going on in the hallway of this school of performing arts.)

The mother took a deep breath then *yelled* "You need to be quiet!"

"NOISY, NOISY, NOISY, nung, nung, nung," the chant continued unabated.

The mother's response?

"You need to stop. . .or. . .or. . .the director will come up and talk to you!"

Seriously?!  My eyebrows were now reaching my hairline.  There was no longer any pretense of reading my book.  I'm sure you can just guess what I was thinking.  =D  (This will be fun--venture a guess in the comments and we'll see who comes the closest! giggle)

Meanwhile, little brother (about 6) was attempting to do backward somersaults down the hallway.  Mama said "You need to stop doing that."

"Why?" asked the child belligerently as he rolled backwards.

"Oh. . .well. . .I guess there's no reason why," she answered.  "Go ahead and get some exercise."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (That was for you, Kristy! ha)

Now, don't get me wrong here.  My kiddos are far from perfect and I have my fair share of moments when I'm at my wit's end, wondering what to do with them.  On the one hand, I felt compassion for this overwhelmed fellow mother.  But on the other hand, I wanted to give her a good shake.  Alas, too many people today make these same mistakes.

I wanted to tell her "You are the mother.  That means YOU are the authority."

My guess is that she had cautioned the boys not to be noisy as the elevator reached the floor.  With willful disobedience, that little boy deliberately started his strange "noisy" chant.  The first problem, of course, is that the history between the two had taught the little boy that he could stage this rebellion.  If she had properly established her authority in the past, he would have known better than to even try.  But I digress.

One thing that stood out to me was her empty threat.  Don't do that.  Kids (my kids, anyway) aren't dummies and they will push those empty threats.  Secondly, why involve the director?  Does he somehow have more authority than the mother?  The fact is, he DOES NOT.  Aside from how embarrassing it would be to go get the director (ummm, excuse me, my kid is being a brat and won't obey me, could you please come and take care of it--shudder), what is the director supposed to *do*?  Oh yes, TALK to him.  (eye roll)  But I hear people doing this all the time.  Why don't we parents understand that if we don't teach children to respect *us* as the authority, then our children will not respect other authority figures--teachers, bosses, policemen?

This brings us to the somersaults.  Agreed, there may be no reason he can't do somersaults down the hallway.  But if you told him not to do it, THAT is the reason.  And if he argues (for that's what the belligerent why was doing) and continues doing it, there is another reason.  Why should he respect her authority if his arguing results in getting what he wants?  Understanding dawns as to why the older brother staged his "noisy" rebellion.

I had visited with this mother on a previous day as I waited for Destry.  She shared her frustration at getting her sons to practice and asked me how we got Destry to practice.  While he now is self-motivated and responsible for his own practice, he has been playing since he was six, so we have experienced several years when it was our responsibility to, ahem, "encourage" practice.  I didn't tell her "we are the parents and we told him to practice, so he practiced", but after seeing this week's display, I rather wish I would have introduced this idea to her.  Instead, I shared how we made charts and put stickers when he practiced and after he had practiced the time the teacher requested every week for a month, he turned the sheet in for a reward.  Sometimes he invited a friend over to play for a couple hours, other times he and daddy went to the student union building to play video games together for an hour or so, sometimes he had a specific (small) toy he wanted that we allowed him to 'earn' with practice.  These ideas worked wonderfully for us so I was glad to share them. 

She wasn't impressed.  "That wouldn't work for us," she said.  "They have video game systems and play them a lot already.  And we've tried rewarding them with toys--you know, a big toy, like $30 toy for a recital."

So, in summary, these boys have every indulgence handed to them so there is no incentive for them to work hard or persevere instead of being lazy.  They have no respect for authority and instead respond with whining, arguing, and rebellion.

It sounds alarmingly similar to attitudes toward entitlements and the worldview summarized in the book I was reading, Life at the Bottom.