Say what you mean

Okay, I am almost completely positive that I am not the only parent out there who deals with this. Lately it's driving me nuts that my kids go through phases where what they say is pretty much the complete opposite of what they mean.

Here's an example: T is putting on his pants. He sometimes has trouble getting them snapped or buttoned, which understandably frustrates him. He will inevitably say, "they're too big" and I will say, "do you mean you think they are too small?" and he will say, "yes, they are too big". Okay - so does he mean too small and is just saying too big, or does he really think they are too big? I don't know, and asking him just adds to his frustrations about not getting the pants closed. And then I get frustrated because if you give him a spoonful of ice cream and ask 'is this too big or too small?' He always says too small. So he knows the difference. The question I have is whether or not he gets what big and small mean across the board or just situationally. Has he learned that for more ice cream he HAS to say the serving is too small if asked? If so, why wouldn't he make the same association with pants. Or! Somewhere down the line did he use big/small incorrectly and I didn't understand what he was trying to say, so I just uh-huh'd him, reinforcing the incorrect meaning of big/small in that context? Would he say that the serving of ice cream is too small even if we gave him three huge scoops? (I will not be testing that theory, btw.)

Arrgghhhh! This is why I need to keep busy because this is the sort of thing I tend to obsess about. I call this focusing on the details. Okay, okay, it's obsessing about the details. My focus should be less on which of the millions of possibilities of things I've done wrong to contribute to his frustrations or misunderstandings and more on how to help him solve and work through these things. I know that intellectually, but gosh, it's easy to waste hours wondering how, in five short years, I've managed to raise a walking contradiction. This poor kid.

Since I'm already obsessing, does this go hand in hand with the changing of the minds? Today at lunch, I offered to make the kids a sandwich or heat up leftovers. T wanted ice cream. Uhhh - no. We go through this conversation at least twice a week at a mealtime, so I'm assuming he's testing me for consistency. He didn't want a sandwich, he didn't want leftovers, but he was still starving. Not a lot I can do to help in this situation. I learned by observation a looooooong time ago that you offer a meal (and an alternative if you so desire) and then everyone who is present can either eat or not. This should develop a sound appreciation for variety on the rare occasion we go out to eat. I'm just sayin'... However, since I am not a personal chef (or a maid, but that's another story) your chance of my fixing everyone something different is pretty much non existent unless it's leftovers or a sandwich. That's just the way it is.

Sure enough, after refusing the menu for today, T comes up to me about 20 minutes later as I'm in the middle of something else and moans and groans about being hungry. Yeah, yeah. I point out I offered him lunch more once and he said no. Oh my goodness! He moans and groans, huffs and puffs, whines and stomps about being hungry. ARRRGH! FINE! I finish what I'm doing while the complaining about starving never stops and make him a sandwich. And as soon as I do it, I think that I'm probably making a big mistake. We set a dinner policy that unless you get up to go to the bathroom or get something meal related that leaving the table equals done with eating for the meal. It took T a while to accept it (and S is still struggling with it a bit) but being firm on this has worked well for all of us. R is a stickler about meals. He was not allowed to play in his food (like, ever) and he has very little tolerance for it. I think he's missing out on a tremendous amount of fun, but whatevs. He's trying to relax and not strangle me when I do it, which I truly appreciate :) Love you R! Smooches!

But now that I'm thinking (read: obsessing) about this topic, I wonder if I need to do the same thing at lunch. Set a time window, present the options, and when the time is up or the choices are refused then oh well. That's it until dinner. I already know the answer to this. Sigh...sometimes it stinks being the grown up.