Building Structure
A team of experts somewhere has surely said that children need structure. My gut reaction when I hear that is to (a) assume "structure" means "rigidity" and then (b) reassure myself that in this case "structure" and "children" applies to older kids and not to an eighteen-month-old who, for all his accomplishments, is still just a squishy-brained nugget of a future person and should be allowed to run and play freely and eat and drink and nap at will, never beholden to some dumb grown-up's idea of when he should do This or That. We've never had Wombat on a nap or meal schedule, and so far it's worked out for him, and for us, especially since all along we've been telling ourselves this is part of a well-thought-out plan to raise a flexible child, one who can nap at home or on the go, one who can stay up an hour late if we're in the city visiting friends, one who can eat cold cereal out of a box in the car on the way to daycare because we let him sleep in too long to have yogurt and strawberries in his highchair like a civilized baby, spoon in hand, pinky crooked at a high-class angle.
In theory, we didn't want to be the family who has to leave in the middle of a party lest we throw off our child's strict in-his-crib, with-his-purple-blankie,12:05-on-the-nose naptime. Selfish? Or survivalist?
(Yes, that's our awesome theory, but to be truthful it's kind of a back-formation of our just being really, shamefully, unstructured people ourselves. Until Simon got his new job last month, we hadn't used an alarm clock in more than two years. Our kid wasn't on a schedule because we weren't on a schedule.)
One of the things I worried about in sending Wombat to daycare was how he'd deal with structure and having to be part of a group who all sat at the table for a snack at the same time and all took their shoes off to go inside at the same time and all went down for a nap at 12:05 p.m. on the nose. I worried about how he would handle it (would he feel stifled? imprisoned?), but even more than that I worried that his unharnessed independence would color him as the Trouble Child, the one who wants to do what he wants, when he wants to--i.e., Bratty McTantrumson. Although Wombat is the spawn of two avowed rule-followers, one of those parents (who shall remain nameless) is also an oxymoronic mix of approval-seeker and authority-bucker; she (or he!) has told countless babysitters, teachers, and piano instructors, "You're not the boss of me." Something tells me that gene is not recessive.
If you've been on Flickr lately, you've seen some of the dozens of photos Wombat's daycare puts online for us parents every day. Last week, the second and third funniest things I noticed* were that during music class Wombat would be sitting down when all of the other kids were standing up, and then he'd be standing up when they were all sprawled on their bellies. Obviously this is mostly due to his not yet knowing the patterns of the games they play, but I also couldn't help but read it as symbolic of his personality. I never had as full a picture of my son as I do now seeing him in a structured-but-flexible group, negotiating the gap between internal impulse and external suggestion, and it's fascinating to see how each of us reacts to the experience. (He's having a grand time; I'm having a grand time too, even as I'm caught between wanting him to be cooperative and obedient and well-liked and yet not a total sheep or doormat.)
(*The top funniest thing was a video of the kids singing their Japanese songs in the background of which we see Wombat pawing at the two older girls to the extent that one yelled "No!" and moved to the other side of the room and another, who was lying on her stomach, suffered Wombat climbing onto her back and laying face down on top of her until Daycare Lady told her to make him stop. Where in the world did he learn to act like that? One of his parents must be a total perv.)
Anyway, what I really wanted to say is that it turns out the experts were right: structure is good for children (and adults)...but I think it's best when it's flexible. Playtime is from 10:30 to 11:30, but within that framework, play is whatever you want it to be--biking, sliding, somersaulting, sidewalk-chalking, dog-snogging. Likewise, going to bed follows a routine (p.j.s, teeth, story, monkeys), but we don't wear the same jammies or read the same stories every night, and no one knows which monkey will be there to snuggle down with under any of a dozen blankies. Structure and predictability make children feel secure; flexibility makes them adaptable, open, creative. I want Wombat to be his wild, wacky, silly, strong-willed self at daycare, but I also want him to feel safe and comfortable and accepted there. I want him to sit at the table and eat his snack with the group, but I want him to know it's okay to hold half an apricot over his nose and yell "Elmo!"
So far:
- He sits at the table and eats his snack with the group.
- He dances around the room with his friends, waving his colored scarf to Aretha Franklin's "Respect," working out his own special moves. (The video would kill you dead.)
- When I pick him up at the end of the day, I say, "You're having so much fun! Do you just want to stay here all night?" to which Daycare Lady replies, "He can!"
- This morning when I dropped him off, he leaned out of my arms into Daycare Lady's arms and didn't so much as whimper when I said goodbye.
- Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows that I'm coming to get him later today, and that when we get in the car I'll have a cup of cold milk waiting for him, and that as we drive home we'll sing the alphabet song and I'll always pause after "V" so he can sing "dubba-dow, ix, why, zee," and that within the structure of my constant, predictable love there's the flexibility to show it in hugs or kisses or tickles or high-fives or a hundred other ways, and that also sometimes--but not always--I'll have a banana cookie tucked away in my pocket just for him, just to keep him guessing.
Uh, we kind of sound like similar moms, at least when it comes to scheduleds. Kyle has never had a nap schedule, never, except when he's at school and it's really loose there too.
Lovely!
this is so sweet! i fear i've created a very structured child so far, mostly because weissbluth put the fear of god in me with his healthy sleep habits, happy child. drew doesn't do so well napping anywhere but his own bed. and when we miss a naptime i'm all spooked, like, 'but how will he go to sleep tonight?!' and then he does. finding that sweet spot between structure and flexibility -- it seems you've found it; now i've gotta do the same!
This is such a sweet post. I love the photo of Wombat in the baby conga line. Um...you do realize that Wombat will probably grow up having an Asian lady fetish, right? :)
zay,
Yes, we know. Unless he ends up with an Asian guy fetish.
-Simon.
Why "fetish"? Why not just twoo wuv?
This was a great post.
I'm kind of a sleep Nazi so I hope we can still be friends. However! As uptight as I can be, a number of different people have said at different times that we have the most laid-back kid ever and I seriously almost statrted crying I was so happy. He sleeps anywhere without a problem and now can stay up past his bedtime without incident. But I love having that routine there for him to feel comforted.
I'm a little more flexible now but as a newborn? HELL TO THE NO.
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