The Day of the Jackal
I’ve written before about Marshall Rosenberg’s non-violent communication (NVC) and how I struggle with it.
One of the big themes of this work is the jackal/giraffe dichotomy. The jackal represents the violent, non-compassionate side of us that attempts to control and dominate others to get what we want. The giraffe is the “nice” side of us that attempts to understand other people and help meet their needs. (The giraffe was chosen by Rosenberg because it has the biggest heart of any animal.)
Our continuing education for foster care has encouraged us to try to be giraffes when we interact with our children. This sounds like a good idea, but it is hard not to become the jackal when faced with defiant toddlers.
Today I decided to take the girls to the library for their weekly story time and to pick up some new books and videos. We rode our family bike there, rather than walk, because story time was over at noon and I didn’t want to try walking home with the girls when it was lunch time. Story time was cancelled for today, but that was no big deal. The girls really like going to the library, but it is hard to keep them in the same part of the library at once, and to make sure they don’t do anything they shouldn’t. For example, one of their favorite things are the tiny pencils all over the place so people can write down a call number of a book. The girls main focus when we first get into the library is to get a handful of those tiny pencils and a scrap of paper to draw on. They also like to go into the kids’ video room and look at the video boxes. If they are both in the video room at the same time, they get into a fight about who gets to climb on the stool in the room, and if they aren’t in the room at the same time, I have to zip back and forth between the book area and the video area so that neither of them do bad things, like switch from drawing on a scrap of paper to drawing in a library book or, like I found V doing today, dropping DVDs behind the DVD shelf.
Then I noticed that V needed a diaper change, which somehow I’d never had happen in the library before. I gathered both girls up and got into the bathroom in the kids’ area, only to discover that it isn’t a family-type bathroom, only a bathroom for kids who can use the bathroom on their own. Sigh. The other bathroom was in the lobby of the library, so I’d have to check out our library materials and gather up all our stuff just to get the diaper changed. Also, the main library bathroom tends to be frequently occupied by violently ill homeless people, or at least smell and look like it has been frequently occupied by violently ill homeless people.
It’s also a little crazy going to the library because I have extra stuff to deal with. I always have my backpack with diapers and snacks and spare clothes and so on, but when we bike to the library, I also have to carry our (3) bike helmets in with us. And then when it is time to go, I have to carry our stack of books and videos to check out, along with the backpack, bike helmets, and sometimes (like today) I have to also carry 2 crying toddlers who wouldn’t be persuaded to leave on their own feet.
On the short ride home at lunch time, they were both hungry, so I scrounged up a few pretzel goldfish crackers (their current obsession) for each of them and pedaled furiously home. A few blocks from the library, S decided she needed more crackers and tried to steal them from V. V wasn’t eating hers, but screamed bloodly murder when S tried to pry her crackers from her hand. That’s when the jackal came out and yelled at the girls to make them stop crying. (That doesn’t actually often work; the jackal tends to be scary and make crying more intense.)
When we got home, things just continued in the same vein. S refused to go upstairs when we got home, so I had to carry her up kicking and screaming. I’d held off changing V’s diaper until we got home because of the craziness, and then when we got home she tried to refuse to let me change her diaper. MORE JACKAL.
Lunch went reasonably well given the circumstances, and then we watched a bit of a video before naptime. When I got the girls up to their room for naps, they didn’t want to sit on their potties. JACKAL. After reading a couple books while they sat on the potty with no results, I gave up and put their diapers back on and put them in bed and read a book. A perfect time for V to poop! I didn’t catch her in time, and while rushing to try to get her on the potty, some poop feel out of the diaper onto the bathroom floor next to the toilet. I somehow didn’t notice when I STEPPED ON IT WITH MY BARE FOOT and then tracked it onto their bedroom carpet! Happily, I was a strong enough parent at that moment not to blame the girls or let the jackal out of its cage. Still, inside I was all JACKAL.
Now the darling angels are napping and I’m venting to you, dear readers.
So this is the real challenge of trying to be a NVC parent. I want and need to be an authority and to get my children to do things when they need to be done. I don’t expect them to do everything I ask at every moment, but I wish I could make them understand when there is room to wiggle and delay and when they need to just do what I’m asking them to do. I haven’t figured out how to be a giraffe and sweetly persuade them to hold my hands and come out of the library with them. The giraffe seems unable to get anything done on any sort of time table. But the giraffe knows that it has to get the girls home before they get too hungry and too tired because once we cross those thresholds, the normal defiant toddlers turn into unpleasable monsters. So when something has to get done NOW, I end up becoming the jackal to get it done.
I don’t want my kids to be scared of me or fear that I’m going to hurt them. While we were eating lunch, we talked about what had happened that morning and how I got angry because they weren’t doing what I wanted. I told them that I loved them even when I was angry at them. I told them I love them no matter what. I love them when they are quiet and I love them when they are loud. I love them when I’m yelling at them, and I love them when I am kissing them.
I know I need to keep working on learning to do things done the giraffe way and when that fails, to try not to be angry with the girls even when I am making them do what I need them to do. I can’t keep the jackal totally out of the picture, but I hope they can understand that even my jackal has a heart as big as a giraffe. Hopefully I can eventually push the jackal away and replace him with a stern giraffe.
