Right or Wrong, Good or Bad: Shaping Their Internal Calculus

Every parent has been there. You’re staring down your toddler who is about to do something they mostly know is wrong and you have seen them do it before, except this time you sense a change. Perhaps they are beginning to hear your pleas, “don’t do that” or “no, that is wrong.” 

For my wife and I, this has played out over the transition to drinking water from a regular cup instead of a water bottle with a straw at dinner. A minor growth marker with significant, potentially lifelong ramifications. 

I sit across the table from our son and my wife beside him for meals together at home. We place a mini plastic water cup filled nearly to the brim next to his plate. To ourselves, my wife and I wonder how much water will quench his thirst and how much will end up smeared evenly across his regular-sized placemat by meals end. 

Lately, though, there has been a change in our 5-year-old’s internal calculus. He started to spill a few drops of water on purpose, asking, “that was an accident, right daddy?” But the look on his face told me he knew it wasn’t. And with the subsequent puddles he created on the placemat came “that was on purpose, right daddy?” 

Slowly, across several weeks’ worth of his dinnertime calibrations, he began to have real accidents in which the cup would slip out of his food encrusted hands or his elbow would knock it over as he carefully maneuvered his taco with both hands to prevent the shell from cracking. 

Eventually, it was clear to him if when he spilled water it was on purpose or an accident, which I’ve come to see on his face and with his actions, as well as in the tone of his questioning. He knows.

His testing of us in this nightly manner is a small-scale representation of how he is formulating his understanding of right and wrong, good and bad. He does something and immediately looks to us to gauge the severity, tone, and verbal reaction. In our telling him what not to do, he affirms and differentiates what is acceptable or not. If we don’t see what he has done, he has even begun to apologize in advance, saying sorry presumably to offset our disappointment. This is the granular level on which his impressionable mind is shaped by those with the power to shape it during its most formative period. 

Now, imagine how this dynamic could be playing out with his stuttering, of which he still has no idea that he does. 

“Slow down, take your time and repeat that word until it comes out right.” 

“Put your hand on your belly and make sure you’re taking a deep breath that moves your hand and try to say the word on the exhale.” 

“Stop, clear your mind, and say your name again.”

“No, that’s not how we do that. We’re going to read it until we get it right.” 

“We’re going to read this sentence here but this time I’m going to record it so we can play it back afterwards and see how you did and talk about it together.” 

“Did you scan for tension before [school…reading aloud in class…talking on the phone…] to make it easier for you to talk.”

These were directives I heard beginning around six years old—only months older than our son—and through which I began to internalize that the way I talked was wrong and positively responding to these requests with more fluent attempts was good. Sure, I was thoroughly showered with love and care from my parents in most of my life’s formative moments. But it is these subtle, in-between-moments that insidiously and suddenly become the lens through which young children form their understanding of what they should and should not be doing. 

This is how we talk, that is not how we talk. 

As parents, this incredible responsibility is given to us at their birth. We are the models for their development. We have the power to shape the foundations of their figuring out their morals, standards, expectations, values, and, most importantly, the ability to know right or wrong, good or bad, without hesitation. 

The way you talk is beautiful. 

When your narrative changes, the way they interpret and process the way they talk is just the way they talk, from the beginning. My son is growing accustomed to the way he talks with each interaction, many of which are insignificant yet baseline-building. We’re not badgering him to take a breath and say things over again fluently. We’re not insisting that he take his time with his words. We’re not taking him to therapy to have his every word scrutinized. 

You know why? Because there is zero margin for error with this formation of his internal calculus. Stuttering will never be right or wrong, good or bad in our interactions with him. It is just how he and I talk. We have harder days but then we have new days with a clean slate to learn about our voices anew. 

The point is he watches, listens, and internalizes our every action, tone, and word to form how he interacts with his world. His decisions and judgments come from the through-put into this developing lens, thereby forging an identity that embraces himself, stutter and all.

“This is just the way I talk, and that’s okay, right daddy?”

“It most certainly is buddy.” Until this question arises, our eyes and ears will be attuned to signs of his internal calculus trending towards self-acceptance and indifference, rather than self-rejection and obsession.