The other day at the swimming pool I overheard a conversation that made my heart break. A dad, who seemed well intentioned enough, was trying–at all costs –to get his five-year old son into the water. Now, I understand where this father was coming from. As I wrote about in a recent post [link to swim camp post?], I’ve had my own challenges this summer getting Lucien comfortable with swimming pools. I’ve tried everything from talking to him about his fears, using music and games, and, I have to admit, even the inducement of a trip to Whole Foods with promise of a wheat free muffin after a swim excursion. But this dad, after offering his own food related reward lost what little patience he had left, and told his son, “Just get in the water! Don’t be a baby!” Needless to say, it didn’t work. I saw something similar at bike camp last week. (Bike camp = three and almost three-year-olds practice on their tricycles or balance bikes for an hour a day for one week, taking lots of breaks for coloring and playing helmut hide-and-seek.) Lucien’s camp mate did not want to get on her bike. The first day she was with her nanny, an older woman who seemed nonplussed by the situation and let the girl be. The next day, Mommy came. And Mommy was bound and determined to have her daughter get on that pink tricycle and take it for a spin. She began with positive inducements (how proud Mommy would be) but quickly went downhill, so to speak, from there. “If you don’t ride your bike,” she said, “Mommy is going to have to leave you here all by yourself.” The bike camp counselor and I (she happened to be a young yogi and massage therapist) bit our tongues. I felt awful for both children and was reminded of a yoga class I took in a foreign city that shall remain nameless. Fresh off the plane on my first day in said city I hightailed it to a yoga center in the style I study. Instead of finding a home away from home and relief from tight shoulders post flight, I found an instructor who cajoled, prodded, intimidated, and even occasionally raised his voice at his students. I remember in particular one exercise at the rope wall where I couldn’t quite figure out how to arrange myself. (I’ve never been good at math or driving or spatial relations and my big yoga challenge is arranging my props!) This “teacher” made fun of me to the class–I was shamed, horrified, and though I should have left right then and there, I stayed for the two hour session, feeling worse and worse every minute. That evening, I came down with the flu. Enlightened Motherhood Lesson of the Day: Intimidation and name calling never ever ever work. Should I have said something to that father at the pool or the mother at the bike camp? Would there have been a gentle, yogic, way to offer alternatives to threats and name-calling? Jessica Berger Gross is the author of enLIGHTened: How I Lost 40 Pounds with a Yoga Mat, Fresh Pineapples, and a Beagle Pointer (Skyhorse), she lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with her husband and two-year-old son.
More:
Don’t Be a Baby: And Other Things Not to Say to Your Child (Or to Your Yoga Students)
