J is for...

Judicious: having, showing, or done with good judgment or sense.

Full disclosure – I have a bag of tricks that include incentive, encouragement, and metaphors.  These are very complicated techniques that may sometimes appear to be bribery, manipulation, and lies.  All used judiciously, and always for the purpose of achieving a positive outcome as often as possible.

For instance, it would be to no one’s benefit for Girlie to be told there is no Santa Claus.  She’s 13; I don’t know for sure what she believes in her heart, but we aren’t saying anything one way or the other.  When she called Dearest and I together the other evening and tearfully voiced her concerns that she and her brother were on the Naughty List, I did not rush to tell her there was no such thing.  Dearest and I said we didn’t think there was anything to worry about; on the contrary, she and her brother have done pretty well lately, and as long as she keeps doing her best, she’ll be fine.  I believe she felt placated, and we didn’t once mention Santa’s name.

Mealtimes are often fraught with tension.  I struggle with it, but dinner is my least favorite meal of the day, in many ways.  There is no such thing as cooking a meal and putting it on the table for all to enjoy, unless it’s half pepperoni, half Hawaiian pizza.  There either has to be separate foods (something from Girlie’s very short list) or we have to prepare ourselves for conflict.  This is where I most often use incentive and encouragement, and if my teeth are gritted behind my smile it’s better than someone stomping away from the table in a huff (and yes, it’s been me on occasion).  Since Girlie is so underweight we can’t just let her refuse to eat; unlike a neurotypical child, she won’t give in and eat when she gets hungry. 

I try, every day, to make sure there is something she likes or at least has a grudging willingness to eat if covered with enough ketchup.  Girlie has mastered the avoidance technique by engaging someone – anyone – in conversation to avoid eating foods she doesn’t like.  She’s a slow eater, too, and will often be at the table for over an hour while Boyo is waiting to watch a bit of television, which we can’t do while Girlie is at the table because she’ll sit with food on her half-raised fork and never get it to her mouth.  Yes, we have some regrets about establishing a ‘habit’ of dessert, but desperate times call for desperate measures!

Do our techniques always work?  No – in fact, something that probably started off as avoiding a conversation about the Easter Bunny almost ended in what would likely have been a 5^th grade social disaster.  I can’t remember how it morphed into a legendary tale, but it involved Jackalopes, a favorite 'symbol' of the West in my family.  Boyo was sitting at the computer one day last spring and we were discussing eggs, because he was working on his science fair project.  Somehow, past conversations had completely transformed in his head; it seems he was looking for information on whether the Jackalopes had antlers because they were guardians of Easter eggs.  Whoops…

My knitted, felted Jackalope bag - with a (Jackalope?) antler button!  :-)