Welcome back to Minor Dilemmas, where a member of Defector's Parents Council will answer your questions on surviving family life. Have a question? Email us at minordilemmas@defector.com.
This week, Ray answers a question on how to deal with your child's tantrums over trying new activities.
Geoff:
We signed up our 5-year-old son for flag football because he said he would participate. Well, I’m writing this from the parking lot as he refuses to even get out of the car and at least watch. This is the second week of flag football; the first week he went and did it for five minutes before melting down and now he thinks he doesn’t like it. His excuses are the flag is too hot or that he just doesn’t want to.
He does this with any new activity we sign him up for but usually after the first week he gets more comfortable and starts participating. He’s on his third season of soccer, but I’m dreading when he starts basketball later this year. He gives me and my wife the hardest time if we’re the ones that take him. He’s better with the grandparents or if he goes to a new activity directly after school. He’s also an only child, nephew, and grandchild, so pretty spoiled, but we try not to coddle him.
He’s always asking to play these sports at home after school. Perhaps it’s a group thing but everything we’ve heard from his teachers and coaches is that he participates and gets along well with his classmates. I took away TV and Legos after this latest flag football incident, more for the yelling and hitting than not participating, but I’m already regretting that. I’m really not sure how to approach this.
Thanks for any advice!
These are difficult times for children and their development, what with the volatile nature of the resale market and all, but while this is an irksome problem you bring to us, it is not insoluble. At least not if you can out-think a 5-year-old, and we cannot make a case either way knowing what little we know. We may have to speak privately with your spouse.
Until that meeting is scheduled, though, let us at least acknowledge that you are probably right that Goat Boy likes things until he doesn't like them, and then pitches a 10-bell fit. That is well in keeping with a 5-year-old's general brief, and is exactly the level of problem solving acumen you should have come to expect from the sprightly little ingrate.
About flag football specifically, though, we're with him. Anything Roger Goodell thinks is a good idea is by definition a Jenga tower of misery. The fact that the kid didn't recognize this immediately can be written off with two citations: One, peer pressure is a pernicious but fleeting concept, and two, you really should have warned him that flag football is a gateway drug to far worse things, most notably tackle football.
So he doesn't like flag football? Fine. Seems like a smart choice by someone who will surely cost you $350,000 in college tuition in a dozen years. But if it's the precedent-setting tantrum or the quitting you're trying to address here, well, outflank the strategy-minded little chipmunk. Take him to the back yard, the local park, or gravel quarry and just play some flag with him. Don't suggest anything about teaching him to like it, and don't get adamant; they can smell petulance from 600 yards with the wind at their backs, and he's already shown an advanced gift in this area. Just tell him it's for snicks and giggles, with no pressure or future commitment implied. If he takes you up on it, don't bring up playing on the team. Just do it. If he's intrigued, then you can suggest giving the football thing another try. If he doesn't, let it go. You have many more ways of making him sad that he hasn't even considered yet, so you'll eventually get yours back.
As to the quitting thing, that takes a bit more misdirection. Your humble author's son, Boris The Spider, tried a year of kid-pitch Little League and, after three games in which he'd been hit six times, asked if he could quit. Being the doting guidance officer we are, we told him to pipe down and keep crowding the plate. The talented kids need baserunners. Or, at least, we thought about saying it much later. At the time, we made him a deal—finish the season and he will never have to play again, with the added bonus that we will consider him both brave and purposeful and more worthy of buying him that skateboard at the end of the season that he never stopped whingeing about. He agreed. His reward: five more hit-by-pitches. He took 11 for the team, and if that isn't worth a dangerous toy, what is?
Of course, he was significantly older than 5 (he was 27, but that's just between you and us, Geoffie m'lad). We gave him an incentive to stay in and keep getting hit in the small of the back for our amusement, and in the end he got his payoff. Yes, it's bribery. How else does anything get done in our postmodern kleptocracy?
But we digress. A 5-year-old needs a bit more greasing than mere tradeouts and appeals to their sense of honor, the treacherous little miscreants. And we haven't even gotten to the tantrum problem yet. But there's a solution here too. Let the grandparents take away the toys and the TV, if he likes them so much better. At the very least, let them back your play quietly and calmly: "Look, Montmorency, it makes us sad when you throw the cat at the dog because you don't like playing football. We love you, at least more than that underemployed lout who calls himself your daddy, and we want you to be happy and make us happy too. So stop holding your breath until we turn blue; hypoxia doesn't work that way."
The point is, don't try to reason with little Vlad The Impaler like he's an intern at work. Let him know tantrums aren't cool, but sit with him until it blows over. Better yet, get your spouse to do it while you sit in the back yard and think calming thoughts about the pre-fertility days. If worse comes to worse, both of you tag-team the obstinate little axolotl, calmly and kindly but firmly. Wait until he blows over and then let him know you're on his side if he is willing to be on yours, and tell him about the mean old SOB who let his kid get hit with 11 Little League fastballs.
Is this perfect advice? Of course not. You know more about little McAfee than we do, and also, we're not pot-committed to your satisfaction. If you're asking us for help, you've clearly run out of worthwhile ideas on your own. But know this: however you decide to solve the problem, remember that 5-year-olds are just learning how to make adults cross their own eyes. That's why society underpays kindergarten teachers, if they had better options they wouldn't be working with two dozen 5-year-olds in one room.
The point? Work with them, not against them. How, you ask? Try a bunch of different things until one sticks without making you feel like you're from HR, and that includes playing the grandma card. The kids are very likely to outlive you all, if nothing else, and eventually will learn the marvels of having power of attorney. Show them the benefits of being trustworthy and kind to lessen the chances that they'll turn on you when you hit your eighties. And shove that flag football thing. If it was such a good idea, they'd already be playing it in the NFL. Let us know if any of this works. Until then, go away.
