It’s hard to think about later when your child is screaming for cookies in the market. When the baby wakes again in the night and you’ve just fallen back asleep, so tired your skin aches. When you absolutely must get out the door and your four year old can’t remember where he put his shoes– for the twelfth time this week. Later seems distant. Now demands action.
So you buy cookies for the screaming toddler, feed the baby who just ate to quiet her, or yell at your four year old and find the shoes yourself. Have you really solved your problem?
One of my deepest principles as a parent is aiming for later. Even when the present chafes me so badly I want scream and run for the hills—or just make the problem go away—I try to ask myself, what am I teaching my child for later?
Sometimes a child needs to cry for a while– maybe intensely– because he cannot have those cookies he wants. I must say, I really feel for kids in this way. Who doesn’t want things deeply and ardently at times—new shoes, a better car, a kitchen redo—where we ‘must’ have it or the world will crumble? But we don’t get it, and nothing happens, and the world goes on. And we go on too. We might even be happier.
Not getting what you want is an important and often, if only in retrospect, positive experience. Yet as a parent, the circumstances of ‘now’ threaten to cloud that truth—tempting you to trade a good lesson for later for a cheap solution now.
But we can do it. Glaring looks from passersby, drooping eyelids, or a ticking clock—these I can withstand. None of them is, in the end, as important to me as my child. My son — wail though he may about cookies or a toy—is in need. He needs me to guide him, to be a better person, later.
An interesting thing happens when I’m aiming for later. It frees me to be mindful Now. Rather than worry what people around me are thinking, I focus on my child—which is what I wish to do anyway. Rather than get swallowed by the urge to act, I am mindful of the wonderful but fleeting opportunities of childhood. Who is this little person with me, and what do they need now? The answer is: that which will help them be developed people later.
I comfort my son– understanding that it’s hard not to get what you want. Still I am firm and clear about no cookies, even if he’s furious at me personally– and we will both be better for it, later. (Experiencing that the world doesn’t stop when he can’t have what he wants– and that that is ok– is something of a gift I can give. Not that my kids see it that way now—but they might, later.)
I can help the baby get through discomfort in warm and loving arms without eating every time, so she can handle discomfort, later. I can have my son look for his shoes too and assist his putting them away right every day for a while—experience is a good teacher, for later.
Lately my five year old daughter is putting me to the test. She wants me precisely at the moment I get on the phone. I think she may have a radar of some sort. She begins to talk loudly, and over me– not when I’m dialing and could still hang up, but right after the person I’ve called says “hello?” I have been told more than once that the person can’t hear me over my daughter. Unfortunately, there’s no place in my house where I can close the door and the person on the phone can’t hear her screaming.
It gets even more embarrassing when she starts to whine—which she has been, because my initial mindless tactic had been (I’m blushing to admit), to wave her off with my hand and ignore her.
I caught myself wanting to toss her candy, walk out, and close the door behind me while the candy kept her quiet.
A sugar bribe probably would allow me to finish my call. But what would I be teaching my daughter for later? At the very peak of my frustration, she was revealing that she had a giant problem: she had no idea how to reconcile her desire for my exclusive attention with the reality that sometimes I have to attend to other things.
She needed me to teach her how to handle this—to know what is appropriate next time this comes up. Not now, but for later.
So, I after hang up, I focus on my daughter. We speak– about what she can say when she wants me but sees I’m on the phone, about what responses she can expect from me, and about the consequences that what will happen if she starts yelling over me again. If she throws a fit during that conversation, she may need some time out until she’s more receptive.
It doesn’t work like magic. It may be that she’ll cry sometime soon when I’m on the phone, because she tried her old method and it didn’t work. That’s OK. The point is that kids are not finished people. I can’t expect them to know what to do, how to handle things, on the first go around. They need me to guide them though the very situations in which their behaviors threaten to drive me crazy.
I do hope that now that my daughter knows what to do, she’ll do it. She knows what will happen if she does resort to screaming for attention. But also—very importantly—I am making sure to give her loving attention when she’s not screaming for it too. Here again, I’m aiming for later. Though that preemptive shower of attention often goes against how I feel– I may not feel like inviting over, with a loving smile and open arms, a child who was recently furious with me—I’m aiming to fill her with a good sense of love that will sustain her, later.
And as soon as she climbs in my lap, I know it’s right. She needs me. She needs me to love her, and to teach her. As I settle in, nuzzling her hair, I reflect on the poignant difference between aiming for later and worrying about later. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had feared the screaming child before me foreshadowed a screaming, spoiled adult. But aiming for later means being mindful that kids aren’t finished yet. Yes, she was screaming now, but what did that mean she needed to learn for later? So that she can handle herself when she is an adult?
We parents must remember: we are not stuck. Every challenge is an opportunity to prepare for later. Don’t think about now only. It never pays to just stop the screaming. Kids aren’t finished growing. They need guidance to steer them through unpleasant situations now—so they can deal with it, later.
The time will come when your son doesn’t scream for the cookies after you say no. He will understand and accept. He’ll be a well-adjusted kid. ‘Later’ will finally be now.
Written by Estee L.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
What a good point! It’s often as hard for a parent as it is for a child to delay gratification, whether the gratification is getting mommy’s attention or having a quiet, grown-up phone call. When parents can see opportunities to teach valuable life-lessons even in the face of difficult, sometimes embarrassing childhood behaviors, the children definitely end up the winners!
thanks for writing this! I love your comment about focusing on later actually helps you be present in the moment and focused on your child (where you really want your attention to be) and not the eye rollers at Target. Great points!