Silly Dad

Yesterday I took the day off to spend at home with my daughters (ages 3 and 4) while my wife attended Women’s Conference at BYU (and had a great time). Sometime in the morning, Lizzy (age 4) declared, “Daddy, you’re sillier than Mommy.” I smiled inwardly at the compliment—knowing that silly dads are usually considered great dads—but my revelry was cut short by her next statement: “But Mommy’s smarter than you.”

That’s not the first time Lizzy has declared my wife’s superior intelligence, but it is the first time she’s combined the two observations. In that context, I’m not sure how I feel about being the silly one. It’s fun to be silly. But is it fun to be silly and dumb? Hmmm . . .

A moment later, by the way, Lizzy declared that she is also smarter than me. And she’s probably right (brilliant little squirt).

Speaking of Lizzy, I’ve been pondering the potential lessons of the Forsythia Dragon. Do pruning guidelines apply to children as well as to shrubs? For instance . . .

1. Our forsythia became a dragon because of insufficient and inappropriate pruning. With insufficient and inappropriate discipline, will children also become dragons?

2. The inappropriate pruning of the forsythia amounted to pruning near the ends of the branches—like you would do when pruning a hedge. With a forsythia, at least, cutting a branch promotes new growth at the place of the cut. Our forsythia, then, had a lot of branches shooting off from limbs in the middle of the bush. This created (and still does create—the taming is not yet complete, you may recall) a terrible tangle of branches, with shoots going off in all directions and intertwining themselves with shoots from other similarly cut branches.

To prune a forsythia appropriately, you cut off a few of the older main branches near the ground, thus taking out a portion of the bush with one cut. New shoots then come up from the ground to replenish the bush.

With children, does something similar apply? Is it better to discipline with a few big rules, for instance, instead of a bunch of little ones? If you have 100 small rules, does that give children more opportunities to disobey and thus become wild? Are fewer more significant rules (that govern large swaths of behavior) more effective in long-term character development?

A hedge-pruning strategy conforms a bush to your whim and preconceived notions. But pruning it at the base allows the shrub to grow more naturally and develop its own beauty—within broad parameters.

This idea reminds me a little of the Law of Moses vs. the higher law introduced by the Savior. When I recently reread Deuteronomy, Leviticus, etc., I was amazed at the huge volume of law governing every behavior and giving the appropriate penance for each misdeed. Contrast that with the more simple, but farther reaching, laws given by Jesus Christ. Or you can compare and contrast the tax code and the law of tithing . . .

3. The time to prune a forsythia is in the spring, just after it has blossomed. Is there a comparison for children? Allow them to have successes before you correct them? Not sure that analogy works so well . . . but there is something to be said for enjoying children’s triumphs with them and praising them for their beautiful blossoms even while you prune them back.

Just a few random thoughts for a Friday morning. With my oldest child approaching age 5, I’m hardly the child-discipline expert. And I’m not sure I practice what I preach here very well. I worry sometimes that I have too many picky rules.