The Kid Tamer

"I guess that goes back to the fact that his mom's a little anal," Sheila acknowledges, laughing. "But that's the way I was raised. You get up; you make your bed; you do what you're supposed to do."

"Well, the biggest thing you can do is keep reinforcing your values with the kids," Lisa says.

"But does this mean the standards you had when you were little?" Sheila asks. This is something she really grapples with. She is not one of those people whose parenting is a negative reaction to the way she herself was raised; she was brought up very well, she believes, but it was a different time. She explains that her mom, an immigrant from Mauritius, an island off the coast of Madagascar, had a no-nonsense, never-question-authority, do-what-I-say attitude that didn't really take into consideration those contemporary touchstones of parenting: nurturing, flexibility and creative conflict resolution.

"For instance, with our older guy, there was a time when he wanted his hair longer, in cornrows, but Ernest said, 'No way!'" Sheila explains. The Dixons are anti-cornrows, anti-dreadlocks, anti-low-slung trousers and anti-rap because they believe those fashion and music preferences make a poor impression. (Sheila didn't even like it when Damon wrote rap during a poetry unit at school last year.) "I said, 'Ern, I understand that, because of the way we've grown up. But he's 9, and it's summer time. Can't he use this time to see if this is the right thing for him?' "

"But it was horrible," Ernest interjects. He hated the unkempt look of his son's hair as it grew out.

"Yes, but he realized it," Sheila says. "I took him to the barber at the end of the summer and said, 'How do you want it done?' and he told the barber, 'Shave it all off. That will make Dad happy.' "

Lisa tells the Dixons that they can use the power of "natural consequences" to teach their children to reconsider their choices. "Part of what he's doing is just normal, trying to push some boundaries," she explains. "And some of that is good. But the children have to learn some of these things by themselves. Have you ever heard the term 'helicopter parents?'"

They have not.

"These are parents who hover around, and any time the kids have trouble, they go and rescue them," Lisa says, invoking the parenting crime du jour. She offers up her own cautionary tale, highlighting the beauty of natural consequences for kids who step outside the norm. "When my nephew was growing up, he wanted to get his ear pierced. And my sister and her husband kept telling him, no. But being a kid, he pushed and got it done." At least, she tells the Dixons, the piercing was on the "correct" side, the one indicating he is heterosexual. "When my nephew's girlfriend saw it, she said, 'You look stupid in that.' And he took [his earring] off and never wore it again."

The Dixons nod.

"Sometimes," Lisa says, "you have to let them fail, so they can learn things." She nods sagely. "Natural consequences."

***