Checking it Twice...
Gonna Find out Who's Naughty or Nice...
We're not a Santa family. I mean we don't go around saying "Bah Humbug" or anything, but we're just really clear that Santa and his paraphernalia is not the true reason for the season. So clear in fact, that when I came home from Dollar Tree with a few rolls of wrapping paper the other day Angie asked, "Why does this one have Santa on it?" Well, cause it also has little Rubys (translation: yellow lab puppies) on it, so how could I resist?
But the longer I live with a motivationally-challenged tweenager, the more respect I gain for whoever came up with the idea of using a sleigh full of toys for all the good girls and boys as a motivator to keep children in line for a few of the dreariest months.
Here is a moment we shared this afternoon:
Angie arrived home from school, shouted gleefully that she had no homework for the weekend, answered my questions about her vocab test, and chatted with me briefly. As the conversation died down I asked her to go upstairs, get dressed for conditioning, pack her clothes for tennis this evening, spending the night at the grandparents, and basketball tomorrow; to which I usually receive a multitude of groans, rebuttals, and eventually feet drug up the stairs in the most reluctant compliance possible.
But this time, because of her no homework declaration, I was able to add 7 magic words to the end of my list of requests, "and then you can watch some videos." She squealed ecstatically and ran up the stairs to return, bags packed and hair fixed, in a mere 7 minutes, a task which would usually have taken at least half an hour and much cajoling on my part.
This is a lesson I've struggled to come to grips with. At bedtime, if we ask Angie to go get ready for bed, it takes between 20-35 minutes for her to brush her teeth, put on her PJs, and use the restroom, usually because she's stopped in front of the mirror to try out 5-15 new hairstyles in passing. If, however, we put it this way, "Angie if you get ready for bed in 5 minutes, we'll have time to watch an episode of the Cosby Show," she will return in 3 minutes flat, sprinting down the steps like a track star.
The alternative is just as true. For the past almost 4 years, we've been using a behavior chart to determine her allowance, with a special treat for a "perfect" week. A few weeks ago she came home from school asking for a new sweatshirt. Good parents probably just buy their kids clothes when needed, but we make ours earn hers. So, we said, how 'bout three good weeks and we'll buy you the sweatshirt; she agreed. However, we were in the middle of a week, which had already been less than perfect, so Angie continued with a rotten attitude for the next couple days. "Don't you want that sweatshirt?" I asked hoping to pull her out of her sassy disrespectful demeanor. "Yeah, but I have to wait till a new week to start getting that." And it struck me that our child, with no tangible carrot dangling in front of her nose, is a pretty unpleasant human being. Since then, for the past three weeks, she's been nearly an angel, but for those couple days in limbo between bribes, she was awful. That's who she really is when we're not paying her to behave??
So, as much as I want her to be a nice person because it's the right thing to do, because she has character, because Jesus is, I'm willing to slump to holding anything we can think of over her head in order to keep the peace, until maybe she learns that life really is a lot more fun when everyone's getting along. And maybe if the incentive comes from without long enough, it will eventually come from within.
After all, in the third trimester of pregnancy I really don't have any room to judge. I can barely muster my own motivation to get out of bed in the morning (or afternoon), change out of my husband's sweatpants, or cook anything fancier than grilled cheese and canned soup for dinner.
As adults, we rarely work in such obvious transactional models, but are we really much more motivated from within? Some of our stimuli for good behavior are tangible like paychecks, but many are much subtler like guilt, a sense of duty, and others' opinions of us.
Ultimately, the best reason for being a "nice" person is only that God has extended us more grace, love, forgiveness, and kindness, than we could ever extend to anyone else. We've been given so much, if we allow His love to fill us, we'll be helpless to do anything but overflow into others. As one of Angie's primary examples of God's grace, I have all the more motivation to let His light shine through me, in hopes that she'll grow into her own imperfect reflection of Christ's unconditional love.
Which, of course, is the true reason for the season...
"You are blessed! You get to bless! This is happiness!"
-Unwrapping the Greatest Gift, Ann Voskamp
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