Tyrant Training

Little Squirt, my 5-year-old, is extremely strong-willed. He is also very intelligent. This combination of qualities will make for a pretty good leader of a country some day, assuming that we can guide his powers to be used for good and not for evil. More like Abraham Lincoln than Saddam Hussein, I’m hoping.

I am not strong-willed by nature. I am far too lazy. Given a conflict, I will usually roll over on my back and say, “I surrender.” (Kind of like my submissive dog, Rudy, but without the peeing-on-himself part.)

As a parent, I learn to pick my battles. And today I was choosing to put my foot down on computer time. Little Squirt had been playing far more than the amount per day recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. He needed to broaden his horizons beyond the internet; explore, dream, create! We had decided to limit his time to 30 minutes daily.

So I gave him fair warning and set the timer. He had 5 minutes left to play his webkins game. And that was that! I was proud of my stick-to-it-ive-ness, and went back to washing fruit in the kitchen.

Then I heard him run up the stairs……race into his bedroom…….and then pound back down the stairs again and into the computer room. Curious, I took a peek. Little Squirt glared at me as I entered; smug defiance written all over his face. “Now you can’t make me get off!” he said. My little Future Dictator had found some plastic handcuffs in his toy box, and manacled himself to the chair.

I admit I was secretly proud of his ingenuity. (But made him get off anyway, even though I needed bolt-cutters.)