Kid Interrogation

Art Eddy
March 1, 2012

Art Eddy

Lives in: Stanhope, NJ
From: Hampton, NH
Birthday: May 6, 1979
Occupation: Stay at Home Dad, Podcast, Writer
Web: http://www.mastersofnone.com
Twitter: @DadatworkNJ

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I sometimes forget how young my daughters are especially when it comes to getting a logical answer from them.  This week I found myself trying to get some information out of my four year old. We were at the breakfast table.  I was cleaning up from breakfast. Then I heard my oldest, Lily, say something.

This is what I heard, “Blah, blah, blah…..stupid.” All of a sudden the parent alarm in my head went off.  Many things were racing through my head. What was stupid? Who was stupid? Where did she learn that word? My wife and I try to make sure we watch what we say around our kids. We want to create a healthy and positive vocabulary for them. So I thought did I recently say something was stupid, did my wife?

So after I collected my thoughts, I asked Lily the old parent stand by, “What did you say?” She replied, “The butter is stupid.” Now I am a margarine guy so I could agree with that statement. Plus kids say some random things from time to time, heck I still do. For me I still wanted to know where she heard that word.

I asked her, “Lily where did you hear that word? Did you hear me or mommy say it? Did you hear it from a friend at school? Did you hear it from a movie?” Those were the options that I thought she might have heard that word. She replied, “I heard it from the Earth.” Two things here, one Lily is on a huge planet kick right now. Two she is technically right, we live on the Earth so she did hear it on the Earth.

I could have left it at that and said ok, but no I wanted more information. Plus I wanted to know where she heard that word. I asked again with a bit more conviction and Lily looked away and said “I dunno.” UGH! I was not a fan of that answer. So I sat down right next to her and said, “Lily, it is okay to tell me where you heard that word. I am not mad at you but that is a word we should not use.” She said “Why?”

I told her that it is not a great word and we should not use it. So then I asked her again where she heard the word and she just gave me the “I dunno shrug.”  At this point I knew she might have forgotten where she heard it or she was embarrassed to tell me where she heard it. I still wanted to know and I asked a few more times, but I did not receive the answer I wanted from her.

I paused took a deep breath and a thought came to me. I was interrogating my kid, when I should just say to her that we should not use that word. She agreed and we moved on. It is funny that as a parent your patience level goes up and down. It looked like on that particular morning my level was very low. I have to remind myself sometimes that talking to your kids is not like a police interrogation, but a conversation to show them how positive a normal discussion can be and it will get you the best results. I was just happy I wasn’t using the Christian Bale Batman voice while I was asking her where she heard the word stupid.

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