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.
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