Between a Rock and (an actual) Hard Place

And the necessity of attunement and discernment

Yesterday morning I woke up to my four year old and six year old fighting over a rock. Not a geode, gemstone or river stone, just a plain rock. The kind of rock you could find in a gravel parking lot. It’s not that I can’t entertain the idea that my children might assign great value to a rock. Certainly that kind of thing happens often in our house with rocks, sticks, potatoes (I’m not kidding), and all manner of seemingly valueless things. But this was not a rock any of my children had assigned special value to before yesterday morning at 7am, and as a result I gave no special consideration to their insistence that I play judge and jury about its rightful owner.

Just before I started writing this post I noted, with a laugh, that the rock is laying in the middle of our living room. No one seems to care about it anymore, despite the emotional energy and tears that were shed over it. I feel somewhat validated that I didn’t get roped into assigning undue value to it, or the fight that erupted over it. Sometimes a rock is just a rock.

By contrast, my youngest daughter, Penny, used to be quite attached to a little stuffed animal that was half cat, half unicorn. This stuffy was lovingly, and perhaps misleadingly, called Puppy. Soon after Penny turned two, Puppy went missing for about four days. I looked and looked for Puppy all around the house. We all did, to no avail. Bedtimes were tough for those four nights. Penny often asked about Puppy and I would admit we couldn’t find her. Then Penny and I would do the only thing we could— be sad together, missing Puppy.

On day five of Puppy’s absence, we went to play in the backyard and lo and behold, Puppy was out there in plain sight. Penny scooped Puppy up and sat herself against the fence so she could bury her face into Puppy’s fur and smell her for several uninterrupted minutes. It was one of the most beautiful and sincere reunions I have ever witnessed. The way Penny took in Puppy’s scent brought literal tears to my eyes. Funny enough, I later smelled Puppy and she smelled like a subway car no one wants to ride in. Penny certainly had a mother’s love for Puppy, which I never doubted. (Puppy got a bath soon after.)

The whole thing made me think of this Mark Twain quote, 

“Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.”

Beautiful, right? And so true. Certainly in the case of Puppy.

But here’s the point I want to make today. I wonder, just a little, if parenting experts are pushing parents to apply the eternal laws of proportion to things that haven’t earned the status of a beloved doll or Puppy. And I wonder if this push is creating some pretty unsustainable circumstances for parents and children.  

I’ll be the first to admit, there was a time when my exhaustive and well-intentioned efforts to validate all of my children’s feelings caused me to choose hyper-attunement over discernment to a degree that ran me into the ground. Not only did it run me into the ground, it kept my children in states of heightened displays of emotion.

When parents are whole-heartedly tapping into their children’s experience, without a healthy dose of rational discernment, they can miss an opportunity to offer children their own grounded perspective, which, on balance, is often needed. For instance, when my kids are fighting over a rock, my ability to discern that no one is actually that attached to the rock allows the kids to move on with ease. It also allows me to have a more sustainable existence as a parent.

Bottom line, there are things that truly grieve children, and there are things that stir up their emotions to a far lesser degree. Having a parent who knows the difference is an asset to a child who is learning how to form a relationship with their feelings. Not only that, but being a parent who can appropriately discern the laws of proportion sets a tone of sensibility and sustainability for the whole family.

Here’s to knowing the difference between a rock and a Puppy, and everything in between.

Until next time,

Christine