Spiky Balls, Agency, and Natural Consequences
3 Pillars Parent Newsletter #35
By: Glenn Collins and Catherine Lynch
Dear awesome parent,
Whether you celebrate Halloween or not, we think you’ll like our story this week about a little boy who didn’t want to wear shoes and his wise mom who allowed him to make his own decisions and experience his own consequences. Enjoy!
“I Told You So”
Picture this: It’s Halloween. Seven little kids ran into our yard. Make that six. The littlest one was limping.
When he finally reached us, he announced “I have spiky balls in my feet!” He immediately sat down and started pulling off sand spurs. He wasn’t wearing shoes. His mom walked up and started in on the explanation. “I hate to say ‘I told you so’ to a 5 year old, but I told him if he didn’t wear shoes he’d step on sand spurs and he’d be sorry. I told him he should wear shoes and but he wasn’t interested. He said they didn’t go with his costume.”
Predictably, he stepped on spiky balls. Predictably, it hurt. He limped and complained, and his exasperated mother said "I told you so”.
We hear you. It is a royal pain when our kids have to learn everything themselves, the hard way. But there’s another way to look at this: through the lens of experiential learning. He couldn’t just take his mom’s word for the fact that there were spiky balls in the grass. No, he had to learn that little fact for himself. The hard way. And she let him.
Every interaction a parent has with their kids can be looked at from many different perspectives. Through a variety of lenses. All of them tell a different part of the story - parts that are easy to miss when we barrel through life at the speed of get it all done and keep them from killing themselves.
Let’s look at this incident through the lens of competing priorities. He knew there were spiky balls, but his priority wasn’t keeping his feet safe. His priority was looking like Black Panther. His costume had cloth footies that were clearly part of the outfit. To cover them with shoes would obviously be wrong. He would be out of character. And no 5 year old wants to be out of character on Halloween.
His mom’s priority was that everyone have fun and enjoy Halloween while at the same time keeping all seven kids together and safe. Then they weren’t together because the little one was lagging and limping, and it was his own fault. She was stressed. We suspect it wasn’t her proudest parenting moment when she told her youngest “I told you so”. (We’ve all had those moments!)
Now we look at this incident through the lens of connection. Mom showed trust and respect when she let him make a decision about something that was important to him - not wearing shoes with his costume. He didn’t go out thinking “Mom ruined my costume by making me wear shoes.” He went out thinking something like “I have a great costume. I’m Black Panther!” Then came the pain, but the spiky balls delivered the pain, not his mom. He was upset with the spiky balls, not his mom.
Now we look at agency. He was allowed to make a decision, she didn’t force her will on him, and his decision led to natural consequences. He stepped on spiky balls and they hurt. We call that experiential learning. But without agency he wouldn’t have even had the experience.
What would have happened if mom made him wear shoes? Well, he wouldn’t have gotten spiky balls stuck in his feet. But he also would have missed out on an opportunity to learn by deciding and doing. One of a parent’s primary roles is to get their kids ready for the “real” world they’ll inhabit as adults. As adults they’ll need to make decisions, take actions, and then live with the consequences.
Decisions lead to actions.
Actions lead to consequences.
Consequences lead to life lessons.
Life lessons lead to better decisions. (Hopefully!)
Letting kids make decisions and take action while they still have their parents around as a safety net is one of the best ways to prepare them for the “real” world. When parents make all the decisions, they rob their kids of this invaluable practice for adulthood.
He also might resent his mom for ruining his costume, or his much anticipated evening. That would be bad for their relationship. Of course, not everything has to be good for the relationship. But if she insists that everything must be done “her way” and constantly overrules what he wants, that’s a recipe for resentment. And that leads to a poor relationship.
You get to choose your battles. This mom chose to not fight the Halloween shoe battle. She decided to let it go. She is a wise mom, knowing natural consequences would win in the end. She knew approximately what the natural consequences would be, and she was willing to let it happen. Sand spurs are painful, but not actually dangerous. He learned a lesson, and she didn’t have to be the bad guy/gal. We call that a win/win.
Err on the side of more agency, natural consequences, and experiential learning. Your kids will learn more, the lessons are more powerful and (Bonus!) it’s far better for your relationship - you don’t have to be the bad guy telling them “no” all them time. Embrace experience - it’s the most powerful teacher there is.
Wait! That’s not true! There is something more powerful than experience: experience plus reflection. When you add reflection, you get experience on steroids. You get more bang for your buck. When you help kids reflect on what happened, they’re more likely to internalize what they learned and apply it to the next situation. And that’s a good thing, because then they’re less likely to have to repeat that experience in order to learn the lesson. And that means they do less stupid shit. Excuse my French : )
How do we help our kids reflect? We’re empathetic and we ask open ended questions. We haven’t talked to this mom since Halloween, so we don’t know how she talked to her son about the no shoes/spiky ball incident, but here’s some questions we might ask him the next day if he was our kid, to help him reflect on what happened and possibly learn from his experience.
“How are your feet? Those spiky balls looked really painful.”
“What do you think we could have changed last night so that you didn’t get spiky balls?”
“Is there a way we could have fixed your costume so that you didn’t get spiky balls in your feet?”
Home practice:
Recall a recent or memorable experience where your kid didn’t listen to you and experienced a painful or unpleasant consequence.
Think of some open ended questions you could ask to help them reflect on their experience. Bonus parent points if you resist the urge to get them to adopt your take aways instead of discovering their own : )
Note: Be sure to use your cheerful/friendly/curious voice, not your judgmental/shaming/my mind is already made up voice.
Plumeria
On a recent walk a flash of white caught my eye. I went to investigate and found a single plumeria blossom just beginning to open. A pinwheel of white and gold.