We whined all day, we danced all night

Yesterday was a Tale of Two Cities kind of day: specifically, a best-of-times-worst-of-times-with-the-kids kind of day. The morning was fine – I finished one article and made significant headway on another; Holly played school; Tim began his required reading for sixth grade – but the afternoon was a little bit of a train wreck. We went swimming at the pond where we have a membership, but Holly was whiny and cranky in the way that a younger sibling gets when she’s feeling constantly left in the dust by her older sibling. Nothing Tim and I did was pleasing to her, and the two of us were treated to a litany of gripes: she stubbed her toe, Tim wasn’t being patient in teaching her to float on her back, it wasn’t fair that Tim was playing with the voice recorder on my phone and she wasn’t, and so on. Cooling off in the water was nice, but the three hours of whining were not nice at all, and I couldn’t help becoming irritable with the situation.

It would have been easy to find a reasonable punishment for Holly’s very difficult behavior. Tim and Rick had an evening baseball game but Holly and I were planning to go to an outdoor concert in Bedford with my parents; I could have taken that away as a consequence for the ceaseless whining and complaining. But I didn’t because I knew it would be fun for my parents to have us along and because if Holly and I were home by ourselves, more battles would crop up, most likely over me telling her not to watch TV and her telling me she didn’t want to take a shower. Even though at the time it didn’t seem like the best parenting move, I packed up a picnic dinner and off we headed to the concert.

And then everything turned around. On the program was a soul/pop/disco band playing Kool and the Gang, Etta James, the Black Eyed Peas and Michael Jackson. No more than three songs into the program, Holly looked at all the people dancing in front of the band and said, “Mommy, come dance with me!”

Little did I know that my seven-year-old has turned into a dancing queen. She raised her arms, she twirled, she rocked, she spun. She pressed her way to the front and boogied. And she insisted that I dance too. It felt good to see her energetic and happy and absorbed in the music, so I stuck with her rather than sitting down with my parents.

It turned out to be such a good thing for us. I haven’t spent so much time on the dance floor – or really dance grass, since we were on the Bedford Common – since college. In fact, it reminded me a little of college, before I met my husband, when I would go to parties with my friends. Rick is not fond of dancing and it’s just not something that happens in my life anymore. A couple of times a year we still go to big parties with live bands and there’s dancing, but I’m usually busy with conversation instead. So I hadn’t danced much lately. But Holly saw to that, and it was like hanging out with a close friend instead of my child.

By the end of the night I was sweaty and laughing and really well exercised. Holly glowed with pleasure. I lost any self-consciousness quickly: after all, when your seven-year-old insists you stay out on the dance floor, you have an excuse for being there. And we just had such a good time together.

So it reminded me that sometimes taking privileges away is just not the best answer to correcting negative behaviors. Sometimes you don’t need consequences as much as you need a change of venue. The beach in the afternoon with Tim was not a good scene for Holly yesterday; but just a few hours later, the park with the band brought out the best in her. We had a blast, even though I’m really hoping no photos of us show up on Facebook.

And when it ended, Holly caught wind of the fact that there will be another live concert at the same place next Thursday. “Can we come back and dance some more?” she asked me. Have that much fun again in a week? How could I say no?

On the other hand, now I have a perfect trump card if we have another whiny afternoon at the beach. Next time, my little Dancing Queen will miss out if she doesn’t show a better attitude during the day. But I had so much fun I just might have to sneak out and go dancing alone if that happens.