Because, very simply, I am becoming more like her.
Her standards -- which are higher than mine --
are becoming my standards. Which makes me her disciple.
That sounds a little magical, wouldn't you say?
There's a few cute mechanisms to it ~ a few real shifts of the gear ~ that got us to this sweet spot.
Would you like to know how?
There's a certain enchantment I've been working on...for transforming those gritty little irritations and gnats that come with our kids...and it's working like a charm!
Here's the story.
Madelyn is a neat freak. I am not. She is also a true blue melancholic, while I am a light-hearted, buttercup sanguine and perpetual optimist.
So our home runs a lot like the inside of the little girl's head in Inside Out.
It's doom vs. possibility, every day, in every way.
Madelyn takes one look at the house when she gets home from school and breaks into tears because it is not immaculate.
When I ask Madelyn what she wants to do next, she says "clean!" She is probably the only kid in history who has asked permission to polish the vacuum cleaner and wash the soap dispensers.
While I appreciate her unusual passion for cleanliness and order, it comes with a lot of nagging and emotion. She rags her younger brothers to tidy up in the middle of their playing.
Her relentless tidying is a mixed blessing (I know, I know - I'm complaining about this?)....but yes. Because it is so loaded for her there's been a big knot of distress in it for all of us.
I'm prone to prioritize - even idolize - play over cleanup. I value 9000 other things more highly than a clean toilet.
And the whole thing was feeling dangerously OCD. I was more than a tad concerned for her future husband.
So what to do?
Well, luckily I have a whole arsenal of Magic to lean into, and a handy little methodology I call...
The Investigative Parent has something different going on between their ears.
There's a certain mindset that makes a good detective tick.
A good detective doesn't react with knee-jerk horror at the crime scene.
He is calm, centered, alert.
She is watchful, expectant, and emotionally neutral.
A sleuthing spirit. An openness to hidden information. An ability to hold the big picture and the magnifier ~ the macro and the micro. These are some of the parents' keys to cracking the kids' case-of-the-day.
With practise, a mom or dad can get downright Sherlock at understanding their child's inner world, but today we will just skim the surface.
First thing. When a troublesome pattern appears to be getting entrenched, the parental investigator gets low to the ground.
That's where the first clues are.
Down on your knees is one good place.
Down at their height is another.
Going low means asking for magical help and learning the ways of inspired empathy. It means gathering clues and tracing patterns and expecting that brilliant flash of "by jove I've got it!" to come. In this particular artform, humility is pre-requisite.
To become the master
you must become the child.
Forget what you know,
and let the scene
speak to you directly.
Second thing. In sweet, harmonious juxtaposition to this mindset of innocence, you will need facts.
If Holmes hadn't steeped his mind in the knowledge of how things really work, he'd be only as sharp as a soothsayer, lacking the contextual knowledge to piece things together.
And so we build up touchstones of solid principle that we can lean on in an instant.
We ground our investigative craft in ongoing study and the accumulation of helpful truth.
We build up our personal mulch and fodder of parenting wisdom, best practises, key insights into child development....all of which percolate in the back of the mind until whizah! -- when we need it, the right stuff combusts into revelation.
We light our lanterns as we go, so the back alley-ways will be illuminated when we need them. The knowledge will be there in the dim of night.
But back to the plot...
As Maddy's rampage of criminal cleanliness spiralled out of control, I went low.
I asked for wisdom.
I invited the Magic.
I flipped through my inner and outer libraries.
And by jove, as I fell asleep one night I leant over, half-asleep, and jotted a few words on a sticky note.
That may sound cryptic unless you're versed in the language of Waldorf and Anthroposophy, but for me it was a lightening bolt.
For me, it was the revelation that I could help lighten the weight of her Nine Year Change and soften her woe by carrying my part --
I needed to be bigger than her in this area. I needed to grow up and demonstrate some higher quality adulthood -- to be worthy of her respect. I needed to overcome my "inner Lazy" and sacrifice some of those indulgent, get-away-with-it Adult habits.
So, for her sake, I stoked up my Will
because her impulse
for perfection and order
was worthy to be matched
by my honour and effort.
She is worthy.
That is the sweet spot
for the parent-heart to arrive at --
The spot where we wrestle out our weakness
for their sake.
In practical terms,
1. I started doing the daily chores that would make a difference.
2. I started noticing the kinds of things that she notices -- clutter, dust, marks on walls, jumbled drawers (stuff I honestly did not see before!)
3. We started writing up little checklists of jobs to tackle together. For her, knowing that after she played for a while I would join her for a deep-down, nitty gritty work bee gave her joy to embrace her day (weird, right?!)
4. I put off my own personal pleasure. Backwards, but true -- if I did my chores then I was allowed to move on to the things that I wanted to do!
(It is a strange experience to be down on the bathroom floor scrubbing and saying to your child, "now can I go play?!" What I said about going low -- definitely applies in this example!)
5. The boys get a 'no cleaning / no nagging' zone around their play. In return they cooperate easily when I enforce the real, official clean up, at a reasonable point.
6. I am genuinely thankful. When I tuck my daughter in at night I tell her how much I admire and appreciate her for teaching me to keep house.
7. Just yesterday my husband Tom spent the whole afternoon cleaning with Madelyn as a bonding experience.
Our home has never, ever been cleaner :)
I share all this for 2 reasons.
a) To provoke you with hope -- because I firmly believe that every irritant between us and our children is an opportunity to crack open something new and positive.
b) To give you some clues you might try out, if you've got your own case to crack.....which is all but a tiny molecule of what we do in Investigative Parenting!
Every single child and situation is so unique, which is why I value principles over prescriptions.
There is a catch though, when you do this kind of work. You have to be brave and willing to grow. Because parenting truths, unlike gimmicks and quick-fixes, require us to dig down into the substance of ourselves and become better.
That's what I've found. And that's why I love it.
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