Building Fences
The article you are about to read was originally written a few years ago. I wrote it up specifically to share with a parenting list I was on, and I had no idea that it would spread beyond that. I am very glad to hear that my little analogy has helped other parents. However, I do feel the need to add a few things that I left out in my haste to put my thoughts down.
First and most importantly: This analogy isn't actually mine. I feel horrible that I did not originally make this clear. I first had the concept of "fences" planted firmly into my brain after I read a short story published in a magazine called Fantasy & Science Fiction. Unfortunately, that issue of the magazine is long gone, and I have no idea who wrote that story or what it was called. It was a wonderful little tale about a woman, her daughter, their mysterious neighbor, and what parents wish for their children and what they actually need. This concept of fences as boundaries for our children grew in my head as I learned more about parenting and had new experiences. While the story from the magazine wasn't quite as complex as what I eventually wrote here, it was definitely a concept that stood on its own and plainly made the correlation between building fences and creating boundaries as parents.
I am going to add the rest of my updates to the end of the article, so that you can get on with reading the original before I try to confuse things even further.
(I like analogies. They help me understand things better. I tend to write up the more complicated ones to help me figure them out. This one is about setting limits.)
All kids have a need to know that they will be kept safe, from the world and from themselves. They need to know that their parents will build and maintain a fence (of limits and rules) around their family that will keep them from mistakenly wandering into a busy street, or to keep anything dangerous from getting to them. Not too big a fence, that blocks the lovely view and makes it hard for people to come visit or to go visit others, and not too small a fence, that looks pretty but doesn't provide any real security, but a just-right fence, that keeps us all safe while allowing us some freedom.
Tommy and Sam seem to have faith in my ability to build fences. Ricky seems more skeptical. Tommy and Sam are content to see the fence, maybe ask a few questions about it, occasionally lean on a fencepost or two, and feel secure that my fence will protect them. Ricky needs more. Ricky needs to examine every piece of the fence, kick every fencepost, count how many nails, climb on the fence and shake it, run at it full speed and hit it as hard as he can before he feels secure that my fence is strong enough to protect him.
It's taken me a while to figure this out. The hard part is realizing the difference between when he's testing the fence and when he's actually found something wrong with the fence.
Tonight I put up a new piece of fence (a bedtime). I tell the boys "In ten minutes we are going to bed." Tommy and Sam immediately run over to check out the new fence. Tommy says "You put it in the wrong place! (I'm hungry!)" Sam says "It's too tall! (I need a bedtime story!)" So I take their advice and make a few adjustments (get Tommy a bowl of cereal, have Sam pick out a bedtime story.) Ricky looks over at the new section but has no opinion (he just shouts "No!") I ask Ricky's opinion but he refuss to offer one (he's not hungry, he doesn't want a bedtime story, doesn't want anything to do with this new limit).
When it's time for bed, I hammer in the last few nails on this new section of fence. (Put the boys to bed.) Now Ricky suddenly starts complaining. It's way too short, it's in entirely the wrong place, it seems to be leaning, it will never, ever do! (he's hungry, he wants a bedtime story, he's not sleepy, "NO NO NO!!!") Now is when it gets hard for me to have faith in my workmanship. Ricky does his 3-year old best to pick my new fence to pieces. He counts the nails, he kicks the fenceposts, he runs headlong into it several times. (Over the next twenty minutes as we lay in bed, Ricky cries and screams, insists he's hungry, wants a story, isn't sleepy, is too hot, is too cold, doesn't want to snuggle, hates Macha, hates me, all at least twice.)
I'm getting better at telling the difference between the fence testing and there being an actual fault with the fence, though. Tonight I simply lay quietly and hold him when he'll let me (which is most of the time), and assure him that the fence is perfectly sound ("It's time to lay down in bed," I say, over and over.) When he tries to actually climb over the fence (get out of bed), I calmly and gently lay him back down.
Other times I would have taken down parts of the new fence section, or even the whole thing (got him some cereal, read him a story, put in a video), but I've learned from experience that this would only result in more testing of other fence sections (screaming and crying because I used the white bowl instead of the green one, or because the book he picked had a crayon mark in one corner, or constantly changing his mind about which video to watch.) After all, if I messed up this section of fence, which may seem small and insignifant out back here where there's no road and no way for any dragons to reach us, how can he be sure I didn't mess up other sections of fence as well? How can he rest knowing that the most important front gate of this fence could also be seriously flawed?
After all that vigorous testing, Ricky is finally satisfied that the new section is sound. Satisfied enough to sleep, at least. Tomorrow, or the next day, he may be concerned how it weathered that rainstorm (me changing my mind and serving ice cream for breakfast after all) and have to test it again, and tiring as it is, that's probably a good thing. I am new to fence-making, after all, and I do use the feedback. Maybe in time, after several strong, sound sections of fence have withstood Ricky's repeated and varied and unrelenting tests, Ricky will begin to trust my fence-making abilities and will feel comfortable with the same kind of simple once-overs his brothers give.
Or maybe not. But either way, I am beginning to see the value, or at least the importance to him, of having a strong, sound, well-built, and most of all well-tested fence to protect us.
So, secondly, I want to be clear that this is not an article that advocates a "crying-it-out" technique to get children to sleep. We are very much an attachment-based family, having been burned by crying-it-out techniques (and advocates) when our oldest was a baby. The situation described here had come about after months of having severe struggles with Ricky at bedtime. Ricky was never left to cry alone during this "fence-building" period. Crying (and screaming, and kicking, and hitting...) was something that happened every night at bedtime, no matter what we did. The only real difference was that we quit trying to cater to the crying, quit trying to stop it, quit trying to make everything better for him, and we just focused on helping him do what he really needed: in this case, get to sleep.
Lastly, I want to say that Ricky (now known as Fighter) has actually gained some confidence in my fence-building skills. Whew! It's been at least 3 years since I originally wrote this, and I know at the time that I was skeptical that he would ever quit testing everything so strenuously! I am so thankful to him, though, because I am now much more confident in not just my fence-building skills, but in my ability to develop a relationship with practically anyone, and my ability to cope with adversity, stress, and just about anything life throws at me. This article is really about having confidence in yourself as a parent. Your child wants you, and needs you, to above all trust yourself as a leader, as a guide, as a parent.
Home