Tiny People and the Theory of Relativity

It is 7:45am. Your tiny person is dressed and at the table, happily eating their Cheerios. You say to them, "Eat up, we have to leave in 10 minutes." They appear to have heard you. You go and finish up your preparations to leave.

Time passes. You return to gather up your tiny person.

He or she has not finished their Cheerios. In fact, they have spilled the Cheerios and its accompanying milk all over something that you needed for your job, or the cat. Your tiny person is no longer dressed to leave. They have removed both their shoes and socks (which have mysteriously disappeared), and replaced the matching outfit that they were wearing with a costume of their own design...and some kind of face paint. Your tiny person is smiling at you expectantly, awaiting the applause they believe will be forthcoming from you. And you would clap, really you would, if you weren't now going to be HORRIBLY LATE FOR WORK! Part of you (granted, the irrational part) suspects that your tiny person does this sort of thing to you every morning in an ongoing plot to drive you insane.

This lack of a shared sense of time, I truly believe, is one of the greatest sources of friction between tiny people and their un-tiny caregivers. The relationship of Tiny People Time (TPT) to Grown People Time (GPT), is a complex one - best expressed in intricate mathematical symbology. Whereas:

TPT(Infinity) : GPT(Urgency)*

As you can see,  the tiny person's sense of time as infinite is directly related to the grown person's sense of temporal urgency. What this means (for those of you not as adept at math as I), is that when you are trying to get somewhere at nearly the speed of sound, your tiny person is actually going backwards in time. This is really the only logical explanation for why they seem less ready to go as time goes on.*

*Squirrel: Einstein showed that gravity makes time run more slowly. Thus airplane passengers, flying where Earth’s pull is weaker, age a few extra nano­seconds each flight. It only follows that tiny people, who exist closer to the center of gravity, actually march to a slower drumbeat.

Interestingly, it is possible to create a sense of urgency in tiny people, as anyone who has ever strapped one into a car seat can attest. In fact, by simply restricting the free movement of a tiny person, their sense of time actually far surpasses that of the grown people around them. Minutes become hours, and their need for time to speed up is often expressed in a high pitched, frantic whining tone. In the car, it sounds something like this:

ARE WE THERE? ARE WE THERE?

HOW MUCH LOOOOOONGER?

It seems that, just when you want your tiny person to be all zen and in the moment, they suddenly develop a need for speed. You've barely picked up the first item on your grocery list and your tiny person is finished with the whole shopping experience. "Here Comes the Bride," has just begun to play at your niece's wedding when your tiny person begins to express an urgent need to be elsewhere. Unfortunately, despite years of research and effort, no one has found a way to calibrate Tiny People Time and Grown People Time. It simply cannot be done.

So, I hear you muttering impatiently, "What can we do?" Well, as a parent, sometimes what I do is get impatient and irritable. I'm not proud of it, but it is reality. There are times when you simply can't be late, and when you realize that you are going to be (while your tiny person sings happily on the toilet), it is maddening.

OK, so apart from letting yourself off the hook for occasional moments of imperfection, there are a few strategies that I have found helpful. They are as follows:

1. Whenever possible, allow for extra time - particularly in the mornings. Contrary to popular belief (and possibly to what I just said), tiny people are not acting in direct opposition to your need to hurry. Often, they are reacting to the fact that, in your hurry to get ready to go, you are not paying attention to them. Think about it. Once you get them dressed and fed, you are often off getting other things done in preparation to leave. It only makes sense that, if your tiny person wants to get back on your morning radar, all they have to do is not eat and get undressed. So, if you can, get your stuff done first and their stuff done last, and do it with them. A few minutes less sleep and a relaxed breakfast with your tiny person beats a little more sleep and a tearful power struggle.


2. Break time and activities into tiny people increments. Remember, tiny people live mostly in the moment or, sometimes, a moment from now. Stuff that's going to happen in an hour, or even a half hour is just not relevant, and certainly not motivating. So, for example, if you say, "Come on, you have to be at school in a half hour!", they do not care. They may love school, they just don't love a half hour. So, try this: "Hurry! We must get out to the driveway before the dolphins swim by!" or "Oh my goodness, the car has turned into a rocket ship, and it's going to take off in 10-9-8....!!!" I have found that the more ridiculously exciting the hurry-up proclamation, the more giggley-speedily-happily the tiny person will get on board. Or, you can tell them that, no matter what, they are NOT to follow you to the car (I find reverse psychology an underutilized resource). Or race them. The point is, make the place/time that is the goal something understandably and nearly immediately, and hopefully pleasantly attainable. You don't have to be silly about it, but why not?


3. Offer choices. You can make these choices about things that have to happen: "After we get your shoes and socks on, do you want to help me pour the cereal or get the spoons out?" Mostly, tiny people like to be helpful, especially if they get to do it with you. Choices can also be about fun things to do once they get somewhere: "When we get in the car, do you want to listen to music or play a game?" (If you don't know any car games, you're missing out. Make some up or find some resources like, http://www.momsminivan.com/toddlers.html ).


4. Remember what it was like to be a tiny person. This is just a good thing to do for many reasons, but especially when you're asking a tiny person to do something that takes FOREVER (like a long car ride or sitting through your cousins Bar Mitzvah ceremony). Take breaks. Take fun things to do. Take a minute to explain what's going to happen next ("Look, they're going to get the big scroll out from the secret hiding place." or "Alright, now we are looking for a giant green bridge.")

These are just a few ideas. You probably have some of your own. You could share them...if you don't think sharing is stupid...and if you have the time...or can make the time...or take the time...or block off some time...or take time in a bottle....or if you have time on your hands...or...what are we talking about?  Oh yeah, Time. It's all relative. So take the time to be silly. Laugh, at yourself and with the tiny people*. 

*Squirrel #2: Try this. Say any random word, like it's the punchline of
a joke, to a tiny person (most any word works, although words containing "k's" and "z's" seem to be particularly effective for some reason), and then start to laugh hysterically. Nine times out of 10, the tiny person will start laughing, too. They can't help it. And, if you keep doing it, you can induce fall down, rolling on the floor, can-hardly-breath, hysterical laughter. But don't do it when you have to be somewhere, or you'll be horribly late.

The fact of the matter is that there are times when we all have to hurry and we have to be thinking ahead - its an unfortunate side-effect of grown-uppedness. I also know that, when you can, you should set your watch to Tiny People Time. Sometimes this very moment is just where you need to be.