Don’t Drive it Underground—Ask

“You’re in deep doo-doo.  Now start talking, and I will do my best not to judge.”

•      At three years old, Daniel was playing with a bracelet at a gift shop during a vacation trip.  Maybe my supervising him was sloppy, but out he went with bracelet in hand.  The owner panicked, dropping words like stealing and police.  As a result, the bracelet got hidden.  More accusations. 
  
  Instead of scaring him, I bent down and asked if he would like a shiny quarter just for showing me where it was.  After he showed me the bracelet, he got the quarter.  The shopkeeper shifted her lecture to criticizing bribery as a parenting technique.  Offering a reward for a good deed is like a bribe for dishonesty?  Generally a bribe has to be paid up front, but a reward is paid as thanks when the job is done.  Anyway, a preschooler is supposed to play—a bracelet or coin will do. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Walking around with a toy is not stealing, and 25 cents is a cheap price to pay to avoid doing hard time in a foreign jail, even at three.   

•      I once asked Daniel at 11 what he usually did when he went over to Joey’s house.  Since he told me they watched TV and played video games (against house rules), I told him that was not allowed.  He shot back with, “You asked.”  In two words, he rearranged my parenting. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  You want the truth?  Don’t whine when you get it. 
  
  Stay in the loop if you want to have any sort of influence.  And if you want in, don’t judge.  Judge and you get lies.   

•      Using the buddy system
  The younger the kids are, the stronger the schoolteachers impress on them the safety of the buddy system—pairing up, counting off, etc. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  While you have little control over whom your kids will choose as friends, the buddy system will keep them safer than flying solo. 
  
  I encouraged Daniel heavily to build the habit of the buddy system outside of school, outside the home and away from parental supervision.  I always imagined that he, the biggest risk taker of the three, got many benefits from the buddy system, because a buddy can…
  ●   Protect you and vice versa.
  ●   Help you when you are in trouble.
  ●   Call for help if you get hurt.
  ●   Tell you when you have a dangerous plan.
  ●   Tell you to go first when you have a dangerous plan.
  
  Guerilla Tip:  A word in defense of friskiness—Often a worry to the parent, the risk taker is a much easier travel mate, because of the readiness to try new things, compared with the risk-averse.
   

•      I got a nasty call about Alex when he was 15.  A mother said she found her daughter’s bedroom door locked and pressured the girl into admitting to a private activity with my son.  Mom wouldn’t allow the two to see each other anymore. 
  
  I thanked her and said I was sorry there was an issue.  Certainly I was not ready to point any fingers without checking the facts myself.  No reason for me to apologize for her judgment that my son used her daughter as “target practice.” 
  
  I knew my son to be an angel, but promised to discuss it with him.  I added, though, that experimentation takes two.  If my son is off-limits, I said, the girl may find others. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  We should have learned from Prohibition that banning a craving forces it into hiding. 
  
  Driving it underground, when the activity is not going away, just produces deception.  Is that what we seek?  The mom was able to see that I might have had a point. 
  
  It gets better.  When I talked to Alex, he had some stipulations before talking.  I said, “You’re the one in deep doo-doo, now start talking.  I will listen and do my best not to judge.”  That is when I learned the teens had proceeded to another level, while the mom who cornered her daughter had guaranteed she would not get the full truth.  As promised, I just listened and did not say Bad-boy or Atta-boy.  That ship had sailed, and it felt like the wrong moment to give out rules.  My main focus remained to gather all the information I could, which required nerves of steel and zipped lips that did not judge.
  
  Since the two were both under 16 and agreeable to the moment, Alex did not think he had to hide or that he owed anyone an apology.  He read me right but I was very concerned.  I agreed but suggested, for the future, that sex belongs as part of a bigger relationship, not an end in itself.  He disagreed, so I offered for him to put it on the back burner and reconsider the usefulness of that idea at a later time.  We shook on it and it was over. 
  
  A last point.  Double standards may have been at play in how the two teens were treated.  Nonetheless, I stand by my position that if you come on too strong, you actively drive it underground.  You don’t get what you’re after, and not what you deserve as a parent.  You get less. 

•      With my upbringing, I was careful to accept the answers my kids gave me to questions I asked them.  I often got cross-examined by my mother, “Did you wash your hands for supper?  With soap?  Let me smell them.”  For years, that line of questioning kept me very busy making sounds of hand washing and soap sudsing without actually washing my hands.  You had to be there—it was a performing art. 
  
  “Did you touch the trashcan?  You probably did, and you’re showering again at home.”  After reading Berne’s Games People Play when I was 15, I would respond with, “I did not touch it, I caressed it.” 
  
  If you find it hard to pinpoint the problem with those series of questions, remember that if the parent asks a question, there has to be some trust in the answer.  If not, why ask? 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  You cannot ask for an answer and then check up to see if it is really true. 
  
  “Do you know what a back-handed compliment is?  Okay, then, what is it?”  If you need to know something so serious you cannot trust a kid’s answer, what is wrong with that?  Find out for yourself—do not first ask a kid.  If you find you often ask-and-argue, it could be hard to change.  Recognizing it as stupid is a good start.   

•      At eight, I was polishing my own shoes when my mother was outraged to discover my polishing included the entire soles of the shoes.  She told me never to do that again.  I think it had something to do with the pastel wall-to-wall carpet covering our house.  So in the future, I never did that again. 
  
  No, in the future, like the good boy I was, I was careful never to be caught doing that again.  Instead, I carefully dried the polished soles first before unlocking the bathroom door. 
  
  I imagine my compulsion to do a complete job could have been released if our talk was more open.  The balling out drove it underground.  Again, I took matters in my own hands because I had long given up on including my parents in my upbringing.  At eight. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  It is bad enough that parents are often out of the loop.  Do not be the very one to push yourself out.   

•      “Tell me honestly” is often said by those who haven’t established the conditions for honesty.  Hence, they mouth the words and put the responsibility on the listener.  

•      Five years into my marriage, I tried a little pillow talk that another partner had taught me long before:  “See what you did to me?  Look what you’ve gone and done.  Now you’re gonna have to finish the job.”  Smiling, my wife would say, “Oh, good!” which ruined all the fun of the script.  I asked her for some resistance like, “No, don’t,” but the tug of war was not sweet to her, it was offensive from her vantage point. 
  
  Without her willingness to join my fantasy or meet me halfway, I was shut out of a harmless game for two.  To get along, I had to keep the dialogue unshared and underground—I played it silently to myself.  Still, I felt guilty for maintaining the game alone, because keeping her out of the loop was not my ideal for a relationship. 
  
  Later, I asked a Parisian friend about the scene I tried creating.  She thought it was not so much as darkly erotic, but sweet and romantic.  Different vantage points indeed. 
  

    

•      There is a story Swami Brahmananda Sarasvati tells of a mother who finds her nine-year-old boy smoking a cigarette.  How the mother reacts inside, we can easily imagine, but she simply asks if he smokes regularly. 
  
  “Never,” he says, “unless some alcohol is involved.”  Without commenting, she asks for more information about the drinking.  “I never drink,” he says, “unless I am ‘busy’ with one of my girlfriends.”  She continues softly to ask for more information.  He begins to sense an apology is in order, “I would have asked you to join us, but you’re busy, and it’s a long drive to the after-hours casino.” 
  
  The story ends.  However the mother would continue in this fictional story, though, it is clear that she would never have gotten as much research done without first asking about things openly and actually listening. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Ask for information without shame and actually listen to what you hear.  Never shut down the flow of honesty—or punish it—by reacting with shock, no matter how deserved.   

•      At 15, Daniel was tall and athletic.  He reported getting into movies rated R and buying tickets for friends.  What to do?  Recognizing that ship already sailed meant there was nothing for me to argue about, only understand.  “How do you pull that off?”  I wanted to learn.  Precisely because he recognized I was asking for information, not grilling him for apologies, he felt free to teach me his new ways:  “I don’t talk,” spoke volumes of self knowledge and self control, two elements of maturity that deserve great respect. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  When kids come clean, reward their bravery with appreciation.  Let your face show it.  Let your voice say it, “Wow.” 
  
  Don’t ever let yourself be caught with the empty quest of “Darling, is there anything on your mind you want to tell me?”  There can be many reasons for not needing this classic, fruitless bit of inquisition—inquiry, that is:  If you set it up better over time, they would tell you; despite your curiosity, they don’t want to share; or there is nothing to share, so stop inventing issues. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Watch your investigative procedures.  It is rude to intrude.  And therefore fruitless.  

•      When Daniel was just over 18, it became clear there was a noticeable amount of beer in his world.  In the family, we shared one bottle of wine with dinners on Sabbath and Jewish holidays, but beer on an empty stomach was for partying.  Since his allowances seemed to go quickly, my question was whether he was spending it all on beer.  Also, how did he buy it since in New Jersey, it was 21 to buy alcohol? 
  
  Tall and also headstrong, he volunteered openly that his deal with friends was that he buys, they pay.  But how?  “I walk in like I own the place.”  What could I say but “I see,” if my goal was not to corner him, but to love him for who he was and stay in the loop even a bit?  He knew what he was doing.  Not that he deserved any compliments, but beyond his artifice of faking the drinking age, he used some art, along with the adult skill of planning out what works where.  Any fatherly sermon would have fallen on deaf ears and driven my son further away.  Pick your shots. 
  
  If you think my technique was not ideal, you got me there and are free to question it.  Keep in mind that my son was not easily influenced by those in position of authority.  My only concern was how to work with the material at hand.  If he was no pushover, nether was his father.  My approach, not justifying but only reporting, was that even if you cannot fix ‘it,’ you can still work it. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  As kids get older, listen more and say less.  If you held them close, this is when you let them go.  This is the life they are now creating for themselves.