Don't Perform For Everyone Else

It's a Slippery Slope

As I walked to the door of the 1^st grade classroom, panning the room for my granddaughter, I noticed a few children encircling her and egging her on as she contorted into a back bend, head hanging upside down, dangerously close to the tile floor.

My shackles rose at this scene, and when my 6-year-old righted herself and caught my eye, I could tell with one look that she was not joyously performing this activity for her own sense of accomplishment. My intuition told me the kids coerced her.

And I was not happy.

But many years in education has taught me to be careful with little ones’ spirits. I know my mom would have barreled right into that classroom and given the teacher a piece of her mind for letting this activity go on in the chaos of dismissal and pickup, assuredly embarrassing the children and the teacher.

I strive to be gentler than my mother, so I knelt to eye level, took my little girl’s hands and asked:

“Did you want to do that backbend?”

Mind you, she is not in gymnastics or anything so has never trained in such stunts before.

This was an accident waiting to happen.

Immediately, the tears spilled over and trickled down her cheeks. She clammed up and wouldn’t answer me.

“You’re not in trouble, Sweetheart. I just need to know why you were doing this. It’s not safe to do a backbend like that without a spotter. No one was supporting you, so what if you fell on your head?”

I hear myself all too often saying, “Be careful” about one thing or another.

I did not mean to fall into the total overprotectiveness I am prone to, but I wanted to reason with my granddaughter.

Still no answer.

Seems she did not want to get the other girls in trouble, and she was afraid I might go in and have a strict talking-to with all those involved. I later learned that she also thought I would tell her mom and she might get in trouble at home.

I’ve heard that an overprotective parent might have been a neglected child. Hmm, was that me? Or was my intuition guiding me with wisdom? I wanted to emphasize prudence, not overprotectiveness or fear.

I did not use the old, “If your friend asked you to jump off a bridge,” question, but maybe I was moving a little close to that old adage, so I moved on and before dropping her off at home, we were laughing about funny stories I pulled out of the past. I wanted her to know that she did not do something bad.

“Kids just do silly things sometimes, but you have to have the confidence to say no when someone suggests one of these dangerous activities,” I told her.

“Don’t perform for someone else.”

---

I told my granddaughter a story of her own mother when she was about the same age.

She and her friend decided to climb out of the upstairs window onto the sloped roof in the middle of the winter to gather some snow for an indoor snowball fight. Not only could she have slipped off that roof with the ice, but her 3-and-a-half-year-old sister was playing with them as well. When I heard the noises upstairs and ran up to investigate, the little one was watching from a safe distance, thank God.

After dragging the girls back in through the window and yelling and hugging at the same time, I finally asked my youngest how she managed to stay inside. I was so grateful she did, but why a 3-and-a half-year-old made such a wise decision, I couldn’t fathom.

“Because I didn’t want to fall off the roof,” she reasoned.

Her little brain worked this out.

This is what I wanted my granddaughter to land on. A little logic for a growing 6-year-old. Not fear. Not a response to an overprotective grandmother.

Just the confidence to say No to a dangerous request to do gymnastics for someone else’s entertainment.

If you find yourself in sticky situations you don’t remember choosing, you can stand up straight and turn around.

[I was keeping a secret for 20+ years, all for everyone else’s benefit, as if it were up to me to protect everyone’s constructed reality. I continued to perform the mental gymnastics of being who everyone thought I should be. Now that I have written my story, I am standing upright. Taller. A little more confidence shining through.]

This story is available on Amazon and makes for a great discussion of identity, family secrets & redemption.

Would love to hear from you in the comments section. ♥️