Your Body Told Me

There are lots of things about parenting that aren't in the handbook. I mean, if there were a handbook. And even if there were, some things just wouldn't be in it.

I learned one of those things from my son's violin teacher. Miss Keiko has no children of her own, but has raised a lot of violin students. Some have been with her for more than a decade. When they go off to college, they still talk to her. She loves that.

Enter Joshua. He started taking lessons with her when he was four years old.

Joshua, age 4, at violin with Miss Keiko

When he was four, her biggest challenge with him was keeping him vertical. He would roll around on the floor, interrupt her constantly, and participate in this stream-of-consciousness conversation that he can really carry on entirely by himself. I don't know where he gets it...Oh, look! There's a birdie!



He's now 10 years old. He still takes violin, and not a lot has changed. Well, he doesn't roll around on the floor as much. But other than that, not a lot has changed.

And Miss Keiko has patiently taught him to be a wonderful violinist and student of music.

And she's taught me some very important things about being a parent. But particularly, about being Joshua's parent.

You see, she has a timer to remind her when a lesson is over. Many times, she has been in the middle of something with Joshua when the timer started to chirp. But she would just turn it off and keep on going.

But at the lesson in question, I never heard the chirp. A few minutes before it was to go off, she did her usual "end of lesson routine."

"Ok. Rest position. Put your feet together."

"But the lesson's not over. The timer didn't go off."

"I know. But the lesson is over. Rest position." She said this very sweetly, but firmly.

"How do you know the lesson is over?"

"Your body told me the lesson was over."

Joshua looked confused. But I understood.

He was done. Stick a fork in him, done. His body had stopped listening to her, which meant his mind probably had several minutes earlier. She had the wisdom to know that had she continued, the lesson would have ended poorly. But by stopping now, before it got ugly, everyone was still in a good mood, and violin was still a good thing.

I wish I did that more often. I'm not as good a student of my children as I should be. I don't listen to their bodies (or even their voices) as much as I listen to my own wants and needs. Far too often, I press on with a task or activity long past the point where it is productive. (As I write this, I am sitting in the hallway while the two minions are doing a complete room dump and organization. We'll see how this goes.)

Joshua, age 10, "cleaning" his room

But sometimes — like today, I'm sure —I just need to quiet myself and listen to their bodies. Sometimes they have a lot to say.

Ciao!

DDD