razor burn

last night, we invited two good friends over for shabbat dinner. we were halfway into the conversation, i think, and it comes up that aviyah cut herself this morning on her arm. the details of the story are pretty gruesome, and they make me look pretty awful, i guess. she had a disposable razor in her bag that she brought to school. she had two cuts on her arm that were bleeding. i mean, that's not the whole story, but like last night, the headline buries the story.

i know it's pretty important to set the context better, but i'm pretty sure that no matter what context i give, it will be pretty easy for people to say i'm wrong. in fact, i'm pretty sure that i made a mistake, too. (although, i'm also quite sure that we won't agree on what the mistake was.) the context is this: i (sometimes) shave in the morning, and aviyah loves to hang out in the bathroom with me in the morning and pretend she's doing what i'm doing. i'm brushing my teeth, she's brushing her teeth. i'm taking a show, she's taking a shower. i'm shaving my beard, she's shaving, um, her beard. i think that's all pretty normal and regular, right?

so we were recently cleaning up our bathroom before my parents came in for samantha's bat mitzvah, and so, for some reason, two cans of shaving cream are out on our little pack-away-stuff things. they started to use some shaving cream to help draw winter scenes in gan, so she started to understand how to use the bottles and she started putting shaving cream on her face every morning. on balance, it's like super cute. she makes the faces like i make when i'm shaving. (because there are like weird angles and stuff, but anyway.) and i use an electric razor most of the time so we practice when it's off an her face, and i feel like it's totally natural. she's exploring and trying things out and connecting with daddy.

anyway, she found a handheld razor the other morning and she took it out of the pack-away drawer. she was holding it to her face, and i explained to her that she could pretend she was using it, but it's actually very sharp so it's very important that she not touch the razor to her skin. if she actually used it on her face, she would cut herself, so it was okay to pretend with daddy, but she couldn't touch her own skin. and she totally understood, and she went through the whole thing, fake faces, stroking the razor like she was shaving, and she was so proud.

i mean, i'm sure that it doesn't really matter anyhow because i'm sure that already i'm in trouble. i'm sure that are a lot of people who think they know what's up (and probably even some who do know what's up) who think i'm crazy, and i'm well aware that i've got a little different perspective on parenting and well a whole lot of things than a lot of other people.

i mean, i don't think i'm way out there on most things, and i've read quite a bit, and i work with kids, so i feel like i have some insights that i've learned. and, in full disclosure, i mostly think that most parents (including me) are pretty good people who don't have a really perfect idea about what we're doing. i mean, i think we have a sense of why we're doing something (i.e. he has to learn that it's not okay to ____, or she has to know that she can't always ______ or ______), and we feel like the choices we're making are right because we know that x behavior isn't okay or isn't right. in the end, though, we don't always know for sure that what we're doing is working or is even going to work.

i mean, i do feel like i'm a pretty thoughtful and pretty reflective parent, and i do feel like i've read things and experienced things that help give me some insights in things i can do. i do feel like i work pretty well with kids, and it's really uncommon for me not to get along with a younger kid. i mean, i think i generally know what i'm doing, although for sure, there are times when i know for absolute sure that i really don't.

anyway, i just know that whatever it we choose in whatever situtation we're in, we don't always know exactly what's going to happen. we can try (and i do try) things that have the best success with different kinds of kids, but there are always some variables that are hard to control. i guess the larger thing is that we can try to do the best things we can the most consistently that we can do them, and over time we hope that we'll really have a positive impact. for sure, there's no doubt in my mind that kids come wired for some things. still, there is also no doubt in my mind that we effect who our kids are. we change them. we change what they think about themselves, what they think about us, how they see and what they think about the world.

my larger point is this: i want my girls to feel like they can explore anything in the world, and i generally feel that even when we make mistakes (including me), we can learn from the mistake and the learning from the mistake actually makes the whole mistake thing even more positive than being prevented from doing something at all. on a simple level, our children fall when the start to walk, and yet, while we might do what we can from softening their falls, we all know that we've got to encourage them and let them fall sometimes. in fact, they start to learn how to maintain there balance when they fall out of balance on things.

obviously, the limitation to this strategy is when the accident could be so serious or so dramatic that it really wouldn't make sense to even learn from the mistake. my challenge is finding exactly where that place is, right? because i know i'm way farther out than other people. it's just i beleive so strongly that a lot of parents just straight up antagonize and limit their children in what they think are the children's best interests. of course the paretns love their children, but they don't understand that saying no to all these things large and small have unintended consequences. beyond even feeling safe to explore their interests and passions, they also start to feel like they can't even be independent. this means they either rebel (to take back their independence) or they submit (and lose parts of their independence).

in contrast, i feel like they've got to learn to negotiate their independence. it's like, okay, i can argue with aviyah for 20 minutes to put on her coat if she doesn't want to, and of course i'm right because it is freezing outside and she's gonna like it even worse than she doesn't like wearing her coat. but it doens't mater that i'm right. i feel like the bigger thing at work is she's trying to exercise her independence and i want to encourage her to make her own choices. so, then, yes, we go outside and she decides to put her coat on, but there's no power struggle, no i told you so's, no stubborness. it takes one extra minute outside, probably 10 minutes less inside, and i feel like it also builds up a whole bunch of trust.

so, what all happened with the razor? i think she went to get her bag when i was still in the bathroom, and i lost attention of her and she somewhere gave herself a small cut on her arm from the razor. i'm lucky in the sense it was a surface cut and it's no big deal. and for sure i made a mistake by losing my attention for a minute and not noticing that she walked out of the bathroom with the razor in her hand. and, already, i'm sure i don't have any possiblity of convincing anyone i did the right thing by letting her paly with the razor. but that's the thing. i'm convinced there's a larger point her, and i don't know how all this is going to play out, and no i'm not raising the world's savior, and no i'm not inventing answers that people have never thought of before, and yes all of this stuff, the posting on blogs, the writing poems or stories, the having an account on facebook (and posting 25 things about myself), is inherently self centered. it's saying, i'm important. i have ideas, why don't you pay attention to me?

see, it's not really that i think in comparison to others all the time. it's not necessarily that i'm saying, when i'm trying to design my classroom lessons to be challenging and engaging an rigorous and fun and meaningful that i'm necessarily saying i'm better than eveyrone else. i think what i'm really saying, though, is that i do take my life seriously, and i do want to do the best that i possibly can. no, i'm not saying a better parent than others. in fact, i feel like i try really hard to open some of this stuff up here in the blog: parenting isn't easy. marriage isn't easy. teaching isn't easy. i make mistakes all the time. and i feel like aviyah is a long way from being a perfectionist because she knows we all make mistakes and the important thing isn't making the mistake. it's learning from the mistake. it's not learning from the mistake that makes us have problems. it's learning from the mistake that makes up do better.

so, i'm pretty sure i believe that i still believe it's important to let her explore all sorts of things that i know at least everybody else probably thinks is completely insane and crazy. i'm not convinced she should have been told no at the beginning, although yes i do believe that there are real things to say no to right away, beginning with no not ever never hurt somebody else. no not ever yell or punch or push and pull on somebody else. it's never ever okay to hurt somebody else like that. bu there's still a whole bunch of things that i just feel like we need to say yes to.

so, what did i learn? i'm pretty sure that i just learned i've gotta make sure i'm paying attention whenever i'm making those decisions. i'm pretty sure that if i decided it was okay for her to hold the razor, then i just should have decided i was going to stay with her and watching the whole time she was holding it. because if i'm not able to do that, then i probably shouldn't have decided it was okay to play with. (by the way, what did aviyah learn from the whole situation? a) daddy makes mistakes. . . which by the way, she isn't really just learning, and b) playing with a razor isn't something she really wants to do. what's the gain? she learned it from her own choices.

what else has she learned like that?

• don't tilt your head backwards when you're learning to sit up.
• don't make sudden turns when you're learning to walk.
• don't stick the fork all the way in your mouth when you're learning to feed yourself.
• don't jump off the toilet seat.
• don't jump off a moving swing.
• don't run full speed into the wall.
• don't touch the side of a really really hot pan. (or really, even the things inside it.)
• don't rock jump on the rocking chair when you're also trying to rock it.
• don't close a dresser drawer when you still have one hand inside it.
• not everything you stand on is strong and stable.
• it really is cold outside. (still in process. . . )