More analysis

This morning when Toby was leaving for school, Hazel said, "I kiss you, Toby? I kiss you?" Awwwwwwwww! He ignored her, but then she blew a few at him before he could escape.

Yesterday I walked in on Toby eating a candy bar in the afternoon, which he clearly knows violates family rules about sweets. We had a brief moment of eye contact, then I turned away and went about my business without comment. After dinner, he rushed to clear his dishes to get ready for dessert. He said something about what he wanted, and I neutrally said, "You had dessert already."
"What?"
"When you ate that chocolate bar this afternoon."
"Oh, yeah."
Now I am thinking about my feelings about sweets as a privilege, agreements, honesty, and trust.

First, sweets: the rules we have about sweets are to limit the amount, I don't really care when they are eaten. Ideally, I want him to be able to make his own decisions about what, how much, and when to eat - but I also want those decisions to reflect our family values about nutrition and healthy living. This is one of the most challenging areas for me in which to let go of control, to risk seeing what happens. What are the worst things that could happen (Belief)? Overweight, chronic illness, painful and expensive dental problems - and oh my - my classism glaring out about po' white trash and their pasty, greasy complexions from a steady intake of soda and junk food. And their correlated life problems. Consequence? Rules and their enforcement which send the message that I don't trust his judgement. Disputation? Both my children like lots of healthy foods, which are readily available in our home. Both are in excellent health. I eat plenty of desserts, and I am still fit and healthy. I have seen both my kids leave some treat unfinished because they felt sated - that's a key one. Encouragement: try giving some more freedom, and watch what happens. Go from there.

Second, agreements, honesty, and trust: I want Toby to feel an obligation to comply with family rules, to honor agreements, whatever they are about. I want members of our family to be able to trust each other, to believe that each will honor our agreements without surveillance. For the default assumption to be that we all have internal motivators towards fulfilling the same values. Hmm, now how is that possible, if we're all different people? I guess the Button here is bigger than just about the sneaking - it is that I feel threatened when faced with the possibility that my kids may not live into my values (healthy living, respecting agreements, honesty, etc). I feel like in order to make sure that they are living our family values, I have to make sure that they are - by monitoring and directing.
Belief: if I don't enforce structure in our lives that ensures our values are part of everyday living, the kids will grow up eating crap, littering, being obnoxious, dropping out of school, and unable to sustain relationships.
Consequence: we shape their lives through our words and actions. I think this is necessary at younger ages, but I guess as they get older it should gradually morph into mostly modelling. The negative consequence is maintaining too much control, for too long. And maybe sending the message that if they end up with values that differ from mine, I don't approve?
Disputation: these are my kids. I do believe in them and that they hold our core values. There are many different ways to be good people and have good lives, so different values doesn't necessarily mean opposite or no values.
Encouragement: RELAX. These kids are awesome, bright, loving, expressive, funny, and Toby already displays his internalization of a lot of what I want. Keep sending messages of love and support. Begin to consider different life outcomes for them, from what I have always imagined or dreamed of, that would also be fine.

Just to clarify, I'm not so crazy that I think all those bad things would happen because the kid snuck a candy bar. It just helped push me along to unravel all the bigger feelings and beliefs about instilling values. It really is so interesting, if I just play out the exercise of ABCDE, it can really uncover stuff I never consciously thought about before.