When I was five or six, in Kindergarten or first grade, there was a little girl named Myrtle. The other kids called her 'Myrtle the Turtle,' as small children are wont to do.
One fall day, walking home (*), I saw Myrtle also walking home on the opposite side of the street. Now, the thought came to me that I'd like to say "hi" to Myrtle. And what do you think came out of my mouth? Why, of course, it was, "Hi, Myrtle the Turtle!"
I saw at once that that was a serions error, but, of course, there was no unsaying it. I think Myrtle ran away; I don't know if we ever did actually talk to one another.
If it's any consolation to Myrtle, I think I never made quite that mistake again.
(*) This may come as a shock to younger folk, but in those far-off days no one thought a thing about a five-year-old twice daily walking by himself for a mile, and crossing important (though not 'major thoroughfare') streets.
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Is there a point or lesson we can learn from that little story? But, of course, and doubtless several. Here is the lesson I want to extract from the story.
To parents (and really any adults who care for and interact with children):
When a child does something wrong, even something which he *knows* to be wrong, and you follow your natural instinct, asking him, "Why did you do that?" and he answers (as they almost always do), "I don't know!" the odds are that he's telling you the truth: the child really doesn't know *why* he did the thing; he likely didn't think about it, but rather just did it, and thus there is no *reason* which he can give you for why he did it.
So, typically, what does the adult do upon receiving that answer? First, he refuses to accept it; then he starts badgering the child to get at "the real" answer. The child becomes desperate for the badgering to end, and so he latches onto any "reason" which he thinks the adult will accept as plausible. And, usually, the adult is by this time offering various potential "reasons." You've done it, you know what I'm talking about: "Was it this? Was it that?"
I have a suggestion. What not spare yourself and the child this frustrating and counter-productive little dance? Why not just skip asking in the first place the generally pointless question, "Why did you do that?"
Explain that and why it was wrong; make sure you're satisfied that the child understands the reasoning; banish the child to his room to contemplate the misdeed; do all sorts of things: but spare youself, and the child, the frustration of trying to dig for what likely doesn't exist.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
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8 comments:
To me, Ilion writes: "By the way, what did you think of the 'Myrtle the Turtle' item?"(I thought it most appropriate to answer in the thread about which you're asking.)
I thought it was cute and important. I generally like your parables. It reminded me of two events in my own life---not necessarily related, only one of which I have time now to share.
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I knew a boy in High School, one year my senior, who had an exceptionally small head and quite narrow shoulders.
I was walking into the band room storage closet to put away my horn when the little-headed boy was standing in my way, moving painfully slowly for my taste. I said to him, completely innocently,
"Move [whatever his name was], you're as slow as a friggin' turtle!!"
He moved. I passed and proceeded to put away my horn, completely oblivious to the spark of rage that I had set off in him.
I'm no small man. I'm 6-foot 3-inches tall and weigh over 300 pounds. I was no small boy in high school either.
So when he jumped on my back in an effort to strangle the life out of me, I thought instead he was just good-naturedley helping himself to a piggie-back ride.
Well he began to squeeze my neck, all the while I was laughing in amusement (not to belittle, but because I thought he was just horsing around), which turned his rage into a fury and his strangling started to begin to actually hurt.
So I told him, "Hey, you're being too rough. You're starting to hurt me".
He didn't let up. I repeated my polite request for him to ease up, but he simply tried harder to strangle me right then and there. Sensing for the first time that this was no piggie-back ride, I rammed myself backward into the shelves of instruments, knocking them all out of the rack and knocking him off my back in the process.
I turned to face my would-be strangler with what I'm sure was a look of partial puzzlement, and partial fury and said:
"What the hell is the matter with you?!" and turned, unscathed and not particularly rattled honestly, leaving him there on the floor to cry out his adrenaline fueled fit of rage.
It wasn't until the next day when I was told by a quite sweet and demure clarinetist who sat third chair that he had been picked on mercilessley all through childhood and was known in her class since Kindergarten as "The Turtle".
"Oh!! THAT'S what happened?", I said. "I should apologize to him".
She advised me not to, that it was better just to let it go.
But that didn't seem right so on my next opportunity I told him I hadn't known, that I was sorry, that I hadn't meant anything, that he was just moving slowly and so I was talking about his *movement*, not about the size of his head, and blah blah blah. And the more I tried to explain myself, the more self aware he became, and the more hurt he was becoming.
In the end, he just ran away from me, screaming,
"BULL SHIT! BULL SHIT! BULL SHIT!"
I guess the third-string clarinetist was right.
Now, I realize that has little to do with your "Myrle the Turtle" story. But since you asked what I thought---that's what I thought when I read your post. True story, that.
As for the lesson. I think you couldn't be more right. And having a 5 year old daughter myself, I can tell you I've succumbed to the very temptation you point to in your message and drilled my poor baby girl like I was a detective on CSI handling a hostile witness. I've since learned from those errors. At least when it comes to my kid.
But surely you weren't really just addressing parents. And if you're referring, as I suspect, to people with whom you have discussions on message boards, I wonder if the lesson would still apply. My sense is that it wouldn't. Because how we should treat our peers is certainly different than how we should treat our subordinates and children.
Thanks for that story. It does touch on the dilemma I would have faced with Myrtle after I insulted her. Though, as I was only five or six, the dilemma may not have been quite so apparent to me then as it is to us now. At the same time, children do frequently understand far more than we adults imagine they do.
Actually, I *was* just addressing parents (adults, I should say) in respect to actual children.
I hadn't considered a wider application of the lesson I wanted to draw; I don't see all implications, even of the things I myself have said. That's one more reason one likes to have others helping one think.
Here is, perhaps, one way that one might apply the "getting at the root causes" lesson to one's internet interactions --
Recall this recent item and discussion on Victor Reppert's blog: Psychoanalyzing Strident Religious UnbelieversIt seems to me that deploying even the "soft" version of the "Examine your thinking and see if it isn't just wishful thinking" (the hard version being, "You only believe because you want to") is always to refuse to treat the other seriously and as an adult. It it to imply (or, with the "hard" version, to assert) that the other doesn't really have *reasons* for what he's saying or believing, but only causes.
Or, perhaps that application is too much a stretch.
Isn't that odd? That's the second time I've posted that last comment (I mean there to be a line-break after the link). I even previewed it the second time, yet once I actually posted it, the line-break is gone.
"Or, perhaps that application is too much a stretch."Nope...I think it relates quite well.
And my line breaks too, are missing when I publish. I wonder if the hypertext: "br" would fix it?
Well, at the same time, keep in mind what I said there but didn't say here. That being that -- "At the same time, if one (whether you or me or some 'atheist') says/demands of another "Examine your thinking and see if it isn't just wishful thinking" *without* giving a valid rationalle for the demand, is that not just a "polite" means of charging the "You only believe because you want to" accusation?"
That is, if one has reasonably removed or ruled the inference that the other has reasons for his beliefs/assertsion, it may then be permissible to ask after causes. But not before.
What I mean to get at is that I (as with most of us "simple-minded black-and-white thinking" Christians) recognize that the correct application of "moral absolutes" is relative to the situation.
Shackleman: "... It reminded me of two events in my own life ..."
*cough, cough*
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