Michael’s Parenting Tips

Monday night’s swimming lesson did not go well. Michael spent most of his time goofing off with his classmates and making some very bad choices, his antics ultimately escalating into downright bad behavior.

I chided him after he toweled off and dressed.

“Michael, I am very disappointed in your behavior. You did not show kindness to your friends, and chose to misbehave. So when we get home, it’s going to be jammies and off to bed.”

Michael was contrite, and understandably glum on the trip home.

Eventually he broke his silence with one of his typical statements, which is a question that is couched in the form of a negative answer:

“Man. Now I can’t go through the ‘secret passage’.” (Editor’s note: the ‘secret passage’ is a route to our home that winds through an older section of the neighborhood, rather than taking the main roads. It seems mysterious and untraveled, thus he has labeled it as a secret passage.) Michael has this idea that if he states something negatively, his parents will see his plight and will swoop in and make things right. In this case, by saying that he can’t, he figures either his mom or I might say “Why, of course you can!” Thus avoiding the pain of actually making supplication to the higher authority and risking disappointment.

This was confirmed when I pointed out that I was wise to what he was doing.

“Michael, you don’t know unless you ask,” I said.

“Yeah…”

“So, are you going to ask me if we can go that way?”

“But you’ll say ‘no’.”

“How can you be sure if you don’t ask?”

“I’m worried…”

“What’s the worst thing he could say? You ask and you may get a ‘yes’ and you may get a ‘no’. The worst he can possibly say is ‘no’, right?” His mom said, jumping in to encourage him.

“Uh…”

“Michael, just ask,” I said.

“Could we go through the ‘secret passage?’” he asked, tentatively.

“Why, yes, we can!” I said, happily, and turned down the street into the seldom-used entrance to our neighborhood.

“See, Michael?” his mom asked.

“Yes!” he said.

“Any good parent is only going to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a question like that. That’s the worst they would do,” his mom continued.

He thought about that for a long time.

Then he provided this observation:

“You know what a really bad parent would do?”

“No, what?” we asked.

“If the kid asked to go through the ‘secret passage’, and the parent was mad, and he had a gun, then he’d turn around and shoot the kid. That would be a really bad parent,” he said.

“Yeah, that would be a bad parent, for sure,” I said.

He knows how to set the bar low. I must be an excellent parent.