Just What I Wanted!

 

Last week my eight year old daughter, Amanda, announced I could no longer use her CD player and headset when I go jogging. I had been using it after she left for school and she decided she wanted to bring it to school to use on the bus now. I tried some negotiation first: I could use it one day, she could take it the next. This lasted only through one day of my turn, then she wanted to end the deal. “Get your own, Mom!” I was told as she stuffed it in her pink Princess backpack, flipped her thick blonde hair and skipped out the door to the bus. She had drawn the line, and now I was left with no choice but to comply.

This may sound like no big deal to you, just go get my own, right? The problem was that since we had recently bought Amanda her CD player, I knew from the search that the new ones only came with those headphones that look like little hearing aids and stick in your ears. I hate those things. They hurt! Maybe my ears are too small, maybe I’m just old, but I was not looking forward to getting a pair of marbles to stick in my ear while I run. Granted, Amanda had the irritating marble things too, but I just didn’t want MINE to be like that, for some reason it was okay for Amanda (she liked them), but if I was going to have one of my own, I wanted something I actually liked!

So, I headed for the electronic section at Walmart, praying I’d find a nice, soft, cushy pair of headphones with the CD players. No luck. Marbles again. Then I searched for the headphones you can buy alone, I managed to find a pair of very cheap looking plastic ones, with ear muffs the size of my Siberian Husky. Yeah, that’ll be cool. And they were eight bucks. The CD player was $25. The math made me queezy, why couldn’t she just share! I didn’t want to spend that kind of money on something I didn’t even like. I refused to accept the facts – there had to be another solution.

Then I remembered a commercial for a toddler CD player that was indestructible – and headed for the toy section. After some searching, I found it – a Disney Princess CD player, heart shaped with a purse strap and “jewels” for buttons… and a pink headset with soft, but small, pads on the ear pieces. Perfect! I checked the price – $24. It was cheaper to buy this one than to get the CD player and headset separately in the electronic department, and I’d get what I needed. Perfect! I put it proudly in the cart and headed for the checkout.

That afternoon, when Amanda got home from school, I showed her my new CD player. Her mouth fell open in disbelief – “Mom! That’s a Princess CD Player, you can’t use that – it’s for kids!”

But I saw the green in her eyes and made my pitch: “I’ll make you a deal, I’ll trade you if you let me keep these headphones and you keep yours.”

She more than happily complied, but still giggled when I put my pink headphones on with the cursive “P” very visible on each ear piece. “Mom, you can’t wear those, they say Princess on them!” she teased.

I calmly replied, “It’s P for Pat.” More giggles, a roll of the eyes and a mumbled, “You are so crazy,” as she walked away.

Today I took my first run proudly wearing my custom headset monogrammed with P for Pat. As I was running, I thought about the experience and realized that it was similar to working with parents. Often, we find ourselves in a position where we don’t feel we are getting what we want. We try to negotiate, and sometimes that fails. And when it does, it’s time to get creative. Start thinking of different ways to get what you want, you might discover it in surprising places. Don’t worry about what others will think of it, as long as it meets your needs, that’s what counts. And always try to do it so that, in the end, everyone is happy.

One thing I know that we often feel we are not getting from parents is appreciation. We think we have to sit back and wait for it, or do without. The direct route seems to be to ask for it, but we don’t want to do that. This is when we need to get creative and look for it in other places. Stop waiting for the “thank you” to come from their mouths, and look for it to come in different ways.

The biggest one is when they walk through your door. No parent walks through a door to a place they do not feel their child should be and leaves them. The simple act of opening your door and placing their child in your care is a sign of appreciation. So every time you hear the creak of the door – listen closely – because there is a “thank you” in that sound as well. Or when they fill out paperwork to register their child’s new sibling – look, it’s there, a “thank you” in between all the words they wrote on the form. Or when they hand you their check – where they sign their name is another hidden “thank you.” Or when they bring in cookies for the school holiday party, there’s another “thank you” hidden in the icing. Or even when they take off their muddy shoes at the door after you wrote in a newsletter that it would be nice if they do so the babies don’t crawl on a dirty floor – there’s a “I respect you” under that mud. And when a new client calls to ask about openings and mentions that a current parent recommended you – hold the phone far away from your ears because there is a “THANK YOU, I APPRECIATE YOU, YOU ARE SO AMAZING!” screaming out of that phone!

We can always find what we’re looking for, the trick is in knowing where to look. The people driving by me on my jog may get a laugh out of my pink headphones, but underneath them all I hear is: “I got what I wanted!”


Patricia Dischler is Author of , “From Babysitter To Business Owner: Getting The Most Out Of Your Home Child Care Business” and “Because I Loved You: A Birthmother’s View Of Open Adoption.” For more tips,  read “Kid Biz Newsletter,” an ezine featuring tips, tricks, and information for the child care professional. Subscribe at http://www.patriciadischler.com.

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