In my early 20s I was under the illusion that parenting would be easy. You feed them, change them and put them to bed. Game over. I was ready to start a family about 6 weeks after my wedding. Thankfully my wife being far more sensible, convinced me to wait for a few years. Parenting, as it turns out has been astronomically difficult. No other role in my life has so dramatically attacked my inherent selfishness. I learn new things about myself and what it means to be human nearly every day. For example, I recently learned that my kids are vastly different from each other. I was sort of under the impression that parenting one kid would be remarkably like parenting another. How wrong I was. For the sake of illustration, let’s talk about how each of my kids handles pain.
My oldest son is easiest for me to understand because he’s like me. He cares immensely about what people think of him. When he gets hurt he’s going to play tough because he’s concerned about your impression of his ability to handle pain. Just the other day he was doing an impersonation of El Macho’s salsa dancing from Despicable Me 2 (a scene worthy of another blog post) when he bashed his shoulder into the kitchen counter. He hesitated but carried out his salsa maneuvers like a champ. When it comes to pain, my oldest is going to play tough. In responding to his pain it’s best to tell him how tough he is and sort of move on.
My oldest daughter could not be more opposite. For her, there is no way to tell the difference between a stubbed toe and a severed leg. The screaming will be the same in each situation. She is dramatic and emotional to degrees I’ve never ever heard of. The best way I’ve found to respond to her is to simply hold her for a very long time and then we’ll still probably have to talk about what happened for hours…girls.
My youngest son is very peculiar in his approach to pain. The kids and I will be wrestling in the living room and I’ll look around for him and he’ll be gone. Somehow, in the midst of pillow projectiles and children being catapulted onto various couches, Jack got “bonked” on the head and disappeared behind the couch. Though he’s hiding, he isn’t crying and if you try to pick him up for a hug him he will yell and squirm. When hurt he doesn’t want to be noticed or coddled. He wants space. He’s rather like me at my birthday dinner. If a waitress so much as sings a note of “Happy Birthday” she will get a french fry to the eye.
My youngest daughter is a fireball. Although only 1 she has her own way of handling pain. Just yesterday she tried to kiss her baby doll and the plastic face was a little too hard on the lips so she screamed and launched the baby across the room. When hurt, my daughter is likely to punch you, bite you or throw something at you. It doesn’t matter if it was your fault or not. She’s like a hornet’s nest. The closest person is gonna get it!
So there you have it. 4 kids with 4 entirely different approaches to handling pain. And this is just one issue. As it turns out parenting one kid is rather unlike parenting another. It’s not easy and it takes far more strategy than I originally supposed. I’m learning that I must customize my approach to each of my kids. And yet, I love it. Each one of them is a unique mystery full of possibility, challenge and promise. I can’t wait to see how each of their individualism emerges to tackle the world.
image credited to whatumean
