B is for Belligerent

Last year I asked you for A-Z suggestions and then I wrote about your topics. I doing this again, except this time I’m picking my own A-Z subjects. 

There are so many writers doing excellent work addressing the important issues in front of us here and now. I’ll be your writer over at the side talking about random stuff that isn’t important until maybe it is. 

FYI, you can read previous A-Z topics by tapping on A-Z in the word cloud at the bottom of my website page. 

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B is for Belligerent A week ago Len and I watched our Chicago 5- and 7-year old grandkids while their parents were out of town for a (hugely deserved) weekend away. Yesterday we watched the grandkid who will have her 6th birthday party this very weekend. Tomorrow we are going to an event that’s all about the 8-year old. 

So I guess this is how, this very morning at breakfast, B is for Belligerent became the topic of conversation. Awed grandparents asking each other, “What was that all about?” 

Two of our grandkids have been raised from the get-go by their parents whose educations and careers are in human psychology. The other two kids are adopted from complicated stories. You might think you know who’d be the belligerent ones of these four youngsters - but you’d be wrong. They are ALL belligerent pup-meisters. 

Ask them to eat something a bit healthy or put on their socks or go to the bathroom before we all leave the house - and they become recalcitrant, stubborn, glaring (no one can glare better than a soon-to-be second grader except for maybe Kamala), and boneless (when asked to put socks on yesterday, that kid slid off the sofa and under the coffee table like a cartoon blob). I can’t tell you how many times Len and I rolled our eyes at each other and laughed helplessly. I mean, really? 

Are they catered to and spoiled with ease and privilege? Nope. These are awesome kids who love their people and color pictures for all of us all the time. Sometimes they even pick up their toys and put their dirty clothes in the hamper and they can set a table and snuggle a grandparent. They all say they love to help and sometimes they mean it. They say they despise their siblings but if anything reminds them of their sib’s favorite activity or color or whatever, they run over to share immediately. 

You know these kinds of beloved kids and quite likely you have some in your life, too. 

So what’s with the belligerence? “Belligerence - A hostile or warlike attitude or inclination. The state of being engaged in a warlike conflict.” 

All four of our kiddos seem to have a built-in response that being asked to do something needful is an act of war. Especially later in the day when they’re tired. It’s funny, exhausting, and requires tanker cars of patience. It also requires the hope and faith that this stubbornness is, in fact, part of human development and they are on track. 

But what’s going on? 

They are recently out of babyhood, toddlerdom, and preschool. They are new to elementary school and are absorbing that life demands more of them now. At school they have to do what the teacher says. They can’t take a nap under their desk. They have to eat their Lunchables at lunch time. They have to buckle their seatbelts even though they can’t sit in the front seat. But also they get to go on field trips to do cool stuff. They get to laugh at underpants jokes with other kids. Sometimes the world revolves around them but pretty often they have to slide into wherever their adults need them to be in. Daycare. School. Staying with the grandmas and grandpas. They are learning the joy and exhaustion of belonging to community. 

Then they come home from school and daycare or from adventures outside. 

They come out of an hour making a cake with grandma or a rabbit trap with grandpa (from a box and string, baited with bunny pictures the kid drew). And suddenly these bright and social kids are slow, impolite, lazy, and belligerent. How many of us grew up in systems where this was called naughtiness and was immediately punished? Where we learned early on to be “well behaved” and we have spent our lives ever since trying to uncover our authentic selves? 

Right? 

These past few weeks (and there are more interactions coming up) are sometimes intense. I’m remembering how hard it was to tamp down my own wants and curiosity in order to be “an obedient kid.” I was not harassed or abused; I don’t mean that. But it’s powerful to watch small humans learning how to be their own selves while also learning how to cooperate towards the good of the group. 

I think when we protect their right to be belligerent, we also protect our own. I’m going to pull my socks off, throw them across the living room, then slide under the coffee table to think about this.