Birthday Wishes

On Sunday we celebrated our son John's 8th birthday, and the Sunday before that we celebrated Henry's 11th. And for the first time ever, each boy had their own party and made their own decisions about what to do and how to do it. I've heard other parents say that their kids like to have the say-so on such things and since they are not me, I listened to them.

I don't really believe that John is eight years old, because he still sounds like he's only three. He says "guhls" instead of girls, "wobbahs" instead of robbers. Perhaps foolishly, and certainly selfishly, I've let that one go because I don't want to see it gone. As long as he sounds like he's three, then he is still three. Still my beautiful little Johnny the Wonder Bee.

And Henry...ah, Henry.

In comparison to my 11 year old self, Henry feels like a newborn. Is he smoking yet? No. Has he heavy petted? I should say not. Does he still walk on tip-toes and play imaginary games with his siblings? Of course he does. His childhood is very much intact. How can he be freaking 11 years old when he's so innocent?

Both boys made their own guest lists for their parties. John checked his over once and then he checked it over twice, just like Santa weighing who'd been naughty and who'd been nice. It was hard for him to put a limit on the number, and so the list grew from just five boys to all the boys in his class plus boys from his class last year.

And like his brother, it was hard for Henry to create the guest list for his own party. And his, also, grew to be double in size. Surprisingly (and sweetly), he took a risk and invited a few boys outside his little band of geek brothers, each of whom nonetheless march to their own tune as well.

As the hour grew nearer to each boy's party, each boy grew more and more anxious. John's anxiety manifested in his prowling the house, drifting from one activity to the next in an endless search for someplace to hold his restlessness. Totally exasperating and totally exhausting, but also easy to help him manage. Henry's anxiety is more painful for me to watch. He collapses into himself, gets broody, becomes clingy, acts oddly.

We sat each boy down in turn to chat about what was troubling them. John's concerns tumbled out one after the other: Would everybody have fun? Who would he play with first? How would he make everybody happy, make everybody feel welcomed, make time to be with everybody. Henry's worry was different; his greatest concern was what his friends would think of him, of his house, of his family, of the party itself. Not whether they would have fun but whether they would make fun.

I, too, worry about what people will think of him. He's been rejected so many times and I am sensitive to it. I don't know what to do about my anxiousness for Henry. I flip back and forth from acting as his champion to sadly being his critic. There are weeks where I think everything is fine, and then weeks where I feel discouraged and even hopeless. The good weeks convince me to let it be, and the bad weeks prove that I need to step it up. For as long as I can remember, I have tried to help Henry understand his anxieties and create strategies to manage them, but I don't know that I've helped.

I freaking wish I knew. I hate not knowing.

Dishonesty

Henry, my beloved, beautiful boy, lies. A lot, I think. And what I'm supposed to do about this has left me totally baffled. So I'm thinking, and writing, researching and talking. I've got to find my way here. I've got to blend what they say with what I know. So much is counting on me.

Of course the experts' advice about how to handle this with kids is contradictory but one thing emerged crystal clear: Do not call it a lie. If you call it a lie, the kid will get defensive and you'll go nowhere fast. Which is perhaps why I'm nowhere fast.

I am, by nature, more inclined to call things as I see them. But I'll never be too old to learn a few new tricks, and so I'm willing to entertain my options. Therefore, I looked up synonyms for the words "lie" and "truth." What I found is this: there are 43 synonyms for the word "truth," but double that amount to disguise the word "lie." Isn't that curious? Are we being cagey with the truth here, telling a little white lie about lying itself?

Lying strikes a deep chord within me; nothing ruins a relationship faster than distrust. My brother compulsively misleads me and my parents, and for as long as I can remember. Some of his misrepresentations are whoppers, but countless more are about insignificant things like what he had for lunch. We can't believe anything - and I do mean anything - he says. When he called to say that his house had burned down, my mom sent her brother to confirm the story; it was a real surprise - a treat, actually - to discover he had told us the truth.

Our middle child, John, is a teller of tall tales but it's easy to see them coming. Everything about him suddenly changes.

The enemies of the truth are always awfully nice.--Christopher Morley

His words tumble out, one after the other, almost in a sing-song way; his voice pitches higher, his body gets twitchy, his eyes widen. They are tell-tale signs of an impending dishonesty - and I welcome them. I can spot the fiction that's coming and steer it back to reality. "Is the teacher's assistant really going to return to the sea and catch more salmon?" "Have you really traveled 'far and wide' and 'always remembered your pillow'?"

This charming little boy, my lovely little boy, recently admitted that he hates his lying but that he just can't stop himself. Tender as the scene was, heartbroken as I felt, there was at least a little hope, too. All addicts need to admit they have a problem, and so must John. Maybe it's never too early to enter into recovery.

But Henry is a different story. Henry has no obvious tells, which is why I haven't learned to spot his "economy with the truth." Maybe he's been baffling us with bullshit because he doesn't believe he can dazzle us with brilliance? That's what I think. His lies are about painting a picture of himself as someone very different than he is. And I can understand that; who can't? But it's that motivation for his fabrications - to appear to be something he is not - that has got me so scared.

I don't know what to do but if anybody has any comments or suggestions, all I ask is this: Please, just be upfront with me, okay?

Lego for Christmas? Oh no!

Three years ago, my children sat me down to have a serious talk about Christmas. The holiday, they said, was a bust. The annual orgy of ripping into all those pretty packages and then tossing the gifts aside in search of the next big thing left them feeling disappointed. "The next big thing never comes because, in the end, it's all over and there is no next big thing," said my eldest. Our daughter, the youngest of the trio, nodded. "Yeah, Christmas is no fun." Never one to turn down a request for less rather than more, dear Santa now gives the kids just one present.

Like in years past, our middle child (the younger of two brothers) asked for a set of Star Wars Lego. I've heard that Legos provide hours of fun for children; that kids love to master the instructions and build a masterpiece they can be proud of. But those kids - the calm, focused, patient ones - are not my kids. For my kids, Lego building is not about hours of entertainment and satisfaction; they are about one hour of intense frustration followed by hours of even more upset. It's very sad and very discouraging to watch and yet they continue to ask for them. "Maybe this year, it will be different," we hope.

When our boys encounter an instruction that they can't follow, they make do with whatever creative solution pops into their pretty little heads. But Lego masterpieces are exceptionally precise; one missing piece spells disaster. Following the instructions is a key part of the process; skipping over instructions which are inconvenient to you is not. So every Christmas, our youngest son half-builds his masterpiece until it becomes unstable, then he walks away and wails about his fate: "I hate Christmas! I hate Legos!"

My husband and I sigh deeply. Another joyless holiday, another ruined Christmas. Everything feels scattered and ugly, everybody is poised to explode. In the name of peace (selfishly, ours), my husband and I allow our son to walk away, and we encourage him to use the pieces however it suits him. "He can literally think outside the box," I say. "Let's finish our coffee, please?" Those 5,000 pieces will end up scattered on the floor over the year, painful to step on and a pleasure to discard.

What we've come to believe is that we're teaching our son a terrible lesson: if something is frustrating, then give up. It's easy! Try it! We do not teach him about the beauty of completion, the perfection of persistence, the reward of effort. Instead of saying, "You can do it," we say instead, "You don't have to."

Forget a ruined Christmas - we're ruining our boy!

This year we'd had enough. If he was going to walk away from the building set, then we were going to disassemble the pieces he'd so far built and return them only when he was ready to finish the project. Period. No drama, no defending our position, no tender-hearted appeals. Fast, firm, simple. My husband would help, but there would be no abandonment.

Did you see that picture at the top? John built that. We built John.

Three little owls

My husband and I have admittedly made a lot of mistakes as parents, but always with the best of intentions. And the single biggest mistake we've made? We have tried to make our children happy.

In the name of making them happy, we have pretended that their scribbles were art. They're still scribbling. Lego instructions got you down? Sure, one day when you're broke and you buy everything at Ikea, yes, you will need to follow instructions. But today? Today you're a free-spirited kid who is learning to follow his own instructions. Don't like broccoli, eh? Well, we didn't either as kids, so do what we did: don't eat it.

Every bad behavior had a good excuse: "You're just tired, sweetie. You need a snack, honey. You forgot your words, darling - you'll remember next time." We believed that good manners would come in time, that their squabbling would fade away, their interests would emerge, certain responsibilities would be assumed. We just had to wait for them to grow older; we just had to model loving behavior. All would be well.

Now, with our eldest only weeks away from his 11th birthday and our youngest already in Kindergarten, we're seeing the fruits of our labors: a bunch of sour grapes.

This isn't how it was supposed to turn out.