In general Art is happy to eat a diversity of food, and always discovers special local dishes that are very tasty. In this case however he developed a habit of compensating the dishes with simple fresh vegetables, lots of brilliant olive oil and loads of salt. He would some evenings just love to take some bread and simply use it as a sponge to suck up a mix of oil and salt, and frequently adding garlic.
Now, being back home for some time, he somehow still kept some of the vacation habits. A breakfast with Greek yogurt (but not from Greece as it seems when you read the small letters on the wrapper) with a generous topping of tooth-aching sweet honey. And always some oil and salt to go with lunch and dinner.
Art knows that basically salt is one of the worst things to eat, and also that the honey is a pretty good sugar-booster. But when this evening during dinner, his daughter states "Dad, salt is really bad for your health" he frowns and looks her into her eyes.
Normally Art would be willing to recognise his own failure to control this addiction.
But when his daughter brings it up with a tone like 'I-got-it-all-figured-out-and-know-whats-best-for-you' it triggers some goose bumps and allergy rash in his neck. So, the last thing he feels like is confessing his guilt, and he thinks of how to tackle this 'attack' in an adequate way.
He thought of different ways of replying:
a) counter attack : pointing out to his daughter that she herself has some very unhealthy patterns, and that one should first look at ones own issues before interfering with other peoples habits. But that would sound a bit sour and ruin the atmosphere at the table.
b) plea guilty, and admit she is right; indeed salt is bad. But this would automatically raise the question: "why don't you stop it, if you know it is bad for you". This would easily create issues, as Art is supposed to be some sort of a role model for his children (like any dad I suppose) and they could use this later as an excuse-why-they-do-not-have-to-follow-his-rules. Pretty dangerous therefore, and maybe a discussion Art should avoid.
c) solve it with a bit of humour, enlarging the issue to huge proportions and to its extreme. This would not invite for further discussion and would sort of push the topic away. Sure, it might be coming back later as a boomerang; his kids are pretty clever, and will raise the topic at a later point in time. But for now maybe the best thing to do.
In general Art had discovered that his children are getting more confident; things go well at school, they have nice friends and are pretty popular. And although Art Always wanted his children to be confident, he now sometimes observes that they go the other way; they get a sort of winners' behaviour, they lose connection with the ground and go flying. They feel they have got life all figured out, and they are happy to tell other people again-and-again how they should live their lives.
Art has seen winners' behaviour many times, also with artists and at businesses. Some of the symptoms are:
- not really listening, mainly waiting for the next moment to share some good advice and insights
- providing you advice when you are not asking for it
- relying on a few simple tools or rules to explain all that is wrong in the world
- seeing every success as a confirmation of their great and unique approach
- a talent to mis-interpret other peoples experiences into what they consider be the wrong approach.
And, not without shame, Art needs to admit that he has had some winners' behaviour at some point in his life too. Probably later than his children, because he came out of his youth with some serious self-confidence-issues, and as such it took him quite some years to come to a point where he could manipulate himself to feel confident based on some successes.
So, in the end it is good if kids feel confident enough to show some winners' behaviour, and probably better not to 'crash' their confidence by heavily attacking their premature ideas and their way of expressing those. At the same time keep asking questions and hoping their experience will provide them with gentle corrections that bring them back with both feet on the ground.
Our Art Burshy sincerely wonders if he is the only one facing this type of issues, and mental struggles, and experimental influencing of children. Well, in the end he just feels that doing his best is the maximum he can do. And he decides to ignore the saying he uses himself so often:
'the way to hell is paved with good intentions', also when raising kids.
