It started off innocently enough. She would sit with a crayon and peel the paper off. It made a mess. The naked crayons and their generic shades of "dark blue" and "darker blue" started to bother me. So I told her she couldn't peel the paper off the crayons anymore.
I'd find her hiding under the dining room table, thinking she was protected by the tablecloth that hung over the sides. She'd be sitting in a pile of shredded paper, and when I'd approach her and ask her what she was doing, she would throw the crayon, push the paper away and tell me, "Not anything." I'd take all her crayons and hide them, only to bring them back out when she could be supervised, when she could use her crayons "right" for making art.
She would hide crayons, or they would simply roll off on their own to be found later once the rest of the pack had been put away, and I'd find her hunching in a corner peeling the paper off the crayons despite my irrational hatred of the act and my attempts to dissuade the behavior.
She was holding a naked crayon in her hand once when I approached her. "What is that?" I asked, knowing full well the answer. "I don't know," she said with conviction. "Maybe Gus did it," she added, blaming her little brother. Her simple pleasure was now a thing of shame, and seeking that shameful joy was now a matter of being deceptive.
What lesson am I teaching by prohibiting this harmless behavior? That my word, no matter how irrational or unreasonable, is a law begging to be circumvented. Yield to my absolute authority. There is only one right way to use a toy. You can't find joy in this, and if you do, you are wrong. Hide from me. Lie to me. Are these lessons not reprehensible?
She was holding a naked crayon in her hand once when I approached her. "What is that?" I asked, knowing full well the answer. "I don't know," she said with conviction. "Maybe Gus did it," she added, blaming her little brother. Her simple pleasure was now a thing of shame, and seeking that shameful joy was now a matter of being deceptive.
What lesson am I teaching by prohibiting this harmless behavior? That my word, no matter how irrational or unreasonable, is a law begging to be circumvented. Yield to my absolute authority. There is only one right way to use a toy. You can't find joy in this, and if you do, you are wrong. Hide from me. Lie to me. Are these lessons not reprehensible?
Peeling the paper off of crayons is a simple joy. Her fingers work nimbly, her mind wanders. Isn't this wandering, this yielding to whatever thoughts come to us while we sit in silent stillness, the seeds of meditation, and isn't it in this wandering that we start to find ourselves?
