A Story

Once there was a boy whose teacher was giving away a pair of zebra finches.

"Please, could we take them home?" he asked. "Please? I know how to take care of them and it's not hard and I'll do it faithfully, I promise." So the finches came to live at the boy's house.

At first he was meticulous about the care schedule the teacher had given him. When he went away to Grandma's house he extracted a solemn promise from his mother that she would stick to that selfsame schedule. "If you don't," he said earnestly, "they could die, Mom." [<-foreshadowing]

Gradually the luster of pet ownership faded and the boy and his mother had some heated exchanges about finch care. When was their water last changed? When was their cage last cleaned? Can you be responsible for those birds or do they need a new home?

And then things settled down. Whenever the mother peeked in there seemed to be fresh water in the cage and not too much birdseed on the floor around it. What the mother didn't know was that when the cage was moved to another part of the little room, the food was not. Instead of going to get the food, the boy fed the birds spray millet snacks. And more spray millet snacks, and more spray millet snacks.

In case you wondered, finches can survive for about ten days on a diet of spray millet snacks.

***

He is so sad, so sad. Last night I just rubbed his head and let him cry on one side of me while his brother cried on the other. I am sad too -- ashamed that these little things died in my house while I assumed they were getting what they needed. (I can't be certain that they died because of their diet, but it seems the most plausible explanation under the circumstances.)

Lately we have been wrestling with the question of how to teach the kids about responsibility. I hope they will grow into men who lead well-ordered lives, men who see that something needs doing and then DO IT rather than waiting for someone else to take care of it. Men who can claim their mistakes and resolve to do better, instead of making excuses.

It might be easier to teach them to be philosophers, or sword-swallowers, or sword-swallowing philosophizing blindfolded flaming-torch-juggling high-wire walkers. We've been a little frustrated, Elwood and I.

I would no sooner say "It was probably your fault, you know," to a child who was still crying over the death of his pets than I would pour salt in a cut sustained by a child playing with a knife. You clean the wound, you bandage it, you comfort and soothe and later you talk about knife safety. But eventually you do have that talk about knife safety, and eventually I will need to say something about the habit of walking past out-of-place items instead of putting them in their places, and taking shortcuts when doing the thing properly isn't really very hard.

I have an unfortunate tendency, which I honestly try to keep in check, to be heavy-handed about things like this. Heavy-handedness isn't just something that causes long-term trouble (child in therapy twenty years from now: "...and every time I forgot something for the next year, my mother intoned, 'Remember the finches!'"). I think that in the short term, an overly dramatic response from a parent can impede both a child's recognition of a problem and his resolve to do better. If my reaction triggers defensiveness and not thoughtfulness, I've lowered the odds that anything good can come from this.

So I need some discernment here, to figure out how to balance a gentle response to a heartbroken boy with an effective (and appropriately timed) reminder that choices can have irreparable consequences.

Wish me luck.

Comments

[bearing]

child in therapy twenty years from now: "...and every time I forgot something for the next year, my mother intoned, 'Remember the finches!'"

This happened when I was 10. Only it was my brother's dog, which overdosed on medicine I'd left out. And my family is still bringing it up, generally at holidays, now that I'm 34. They seem to think it's a reflection on my general life competence.

I say, have the conversation once and never mention it ever again, unless entering negotiations about getting another pet. It would seem relevant in those circumstances, but not in any other.

[Maria Wood]

Another heavy-handed-tending parent here. But in theory I am in agreement that a light touch is what's called for. Given the extent of their grief, and the intelligence of your boy, it's probably safe to assume he knows it's his fault. In general, when we know something is our fault, other people pointing it out makes us (as you say) defensive – so much more comfortable to feel self-righteous than remorseful!

Not that I have a clue how to actually do it, but I imagine a conversation (after the wound has been properly bandaged) that involves not much more from you than leading questions and empathetic noises would help him find his own path of 'what I did wrong, how it felt, what I could do differently next time' – and finding it himself will make it more likely that he can extrapolate from this experience to others.

You know, I think.

[Tracy]

Oh, CJ. That is sad.

Hang in there. I believe that they are going to be great men someday - but it's so hard to get through these days first.

and I am just so sorry for the loss of the pets. It's a hard thing to deal with under any circumstances.

[mary]

Poor boys. Poor birds. What a sad story. I have few ideas for how to get through this, but I like Maria's plan.

[Summer]

We had a similar tragedy, but in our case, it happened when our son was just three. We'd had to bring in the goldfish from our pond so we could do some work on it. There were only two fish in the pond, so we put them in a 5 gallon bucket with an air bubbler. We warned our son not to feed them, that giving them too much food could kill them. The next morning we found them floating amid a sea of fish food.

When our son saw that the fish had died, he admitted to giving them a lot of food, and asked if he'd killed them. We told the truth: yes, he'd fed them too much, and they'd died from overeating. We weren't mad, we tried not to be overbearing about it, but we weren't going to sugarcoat the truth. It was an important lesson for him to learn.

[Lilian]

oh dear... I'm sorry! I don't really know what to say -- I was just pretty heavy handed last night, but for a good reason (I hope). My son and his friend trapped the poor cat under the futon, then piled books, DVDs and boxes all around the back so he couldn't escape. The poor thing got so scared that he pooped right there, and then wouldn't move. He then scratched Kelvin when he was retrieving books from under/around the cat. I, who was quite upset first with the mess and then with the cruelty (particularly when I pulled the cat out and discovered the poop), was not very considerate of his pain.

Sure, I sprayed medicine on the scratch, but I said that he deserved what happened and didn't console him too much, just urged him to continue cleaning up. He keeps on reminding him that I said "I didn't care" that he had gotten hurt... and I really didn't at the time because I thought that it was a good punishment (and he didn't get any other punishment other than stern admonishments on the cat being part of our family, and how they were bullying him, and how they would have felt if someone had done this to them...

I think that given the heartbreak that they're going through, the whole situation might be punishment enough and you don't need to sermonize much, perhaps. I don't intend to keep bringing up the subject (I did mention it at school today to the classmates who wanted to know about his scratch, and to the other teacher, and I won't really talk to anyone else about it) and I'm pretty sure he's learned his lesson.

[Linda]

Oh so sad. So hard to watch your kid go through something like that. I tend to be heavy-handed as well . . . I just want so desperately for them to learn that their choices can affect other people (animals) in addition to themselves. CHOICES HAVE CONSEQUENCES. I should have it tattooed on my forehead and then I wouldn't have to have the internal debate of light touch vs heavy hand.