The Art of Distraction

The child control tactic of distraction should be one of the sharpest tools that we grandfathers carry around on our tool belts. It's one of the first parenting concepts that we learn: Child A, a three-year-old, notices that her sibling, Child B, an 18-month-old, has picked up Child A's only toy on the face of the earth. So, Child A races over and body slams Child B tearing away the toy. Of course, Child B retaliates with a sharp scream and so the fight begins. We check our tool belt and "distraction" stands ready for use. We whistle our way over to the ring, pick up another flashy toy on our way, and offer that to Child B. She is quickly distracted and happy to play with this new toy. Note: you get extra points if you make Child A feel like it was her idea. And on it goes, 30 to 40 times a day until they move out of your house. That's how come we know how to do this so well. Mimi and I discovered recently though that our children learn this control tactic as well when they are quite young, even before three.

Our oldest granddaughter is quite the artist. She started with crayons when she was in her crib -- only it wasn't crayons and I will be the rich and smelly source of another blog. In preparation for our granddaughter's maturity to the point that she knew better than using the wall as a coloring book, we had stored away some crayons in a drawer that we pretty much figured a tiny fingers couldn't reach. As a seasoned grandparent, you might be able to discover the numerous mistakes which were made in the last sentence. First of all, level of maturity has nothing to do with what is chosen to be a coloring book and second of all, nothing is out of reach once they are two.

We let her mom could take a much-needed nap ( another grand parenting mistake many newbies make). We played with our granddaughter for a little while and then left her "for a quick minute" so we could go cuddle up ( oh how I wish! Voice-recognition error! Should be "huddle up") to discuss upcoming dinner plans or something on that level. Mimi was only gone a couple of minutes at the most and then returned to check on our granddaughter. I was a bit slower, and lagged behind back in the bedroom. When Mimi got to her little angel, she had climbed on this, so that she could climb on that, so that she could step on this, so that she could open the drawer with crayons. How did she know they were there? Could she smell them? At her mother blown our secret -- something she's very good at by the way? Crayons were dumped and a counter stool was scooted over by the refrigerator where she had carefully chosen Mimi's handcrafted calendar as her coloring book. The following is a narration of their conversation which I was later able to get from our liable source:

Mimi: "Taylor, what are you doing?"
Taylor, without even flinching, drops her crayon, look squarely at Mimi: "Mimi, go see Gimpa!"
Mimi: "Why, Taylor, why should I go see Gimpa?"
Taylor, without a break: "Because, he's a REALLY NICE GUY!!"

This level of advanced distraction from the mouth of the two-year-old. I didn't even learn the principle until I was in my 30s. Not accounting for how much it took her to get the crayon or the stool or the calendar, but she deftly and seamlessly applied the rule of distraction. On one level, she tried to distract her Mimi from even seeing what beautiful coloring had already occurred and, on an even deeper level, she appealed to her Mimi's love of being with Gimpa. She's fortunate that she tried it on her Mimi, because I would have fallen for it without ever seeing the underlying activity. But not her Mimi! Just as quickly her Mimi replied the following:

"Why of course he is! How would you like to color with some gummy bears instead of that yucky old crayon?"

Coloring gig over! Mimi gets points for applying the principle of distraction artistically and at a level that only Yoda could understand. Taylor gets extra points because she agreed to never use such advanced tactics on our own parents. I got left in the bedroom because it was discovered, don't ask me how, that I was the one that disclosed the secret hiding place.