“You usually have to wait for that which is worth waiting for.”
-Craig Bruce
For many years I have said that my first book would be titled
“Toddler to Teen: Potty Training to Pot Training”
Maybe it should be
“The Ever Changing 5-Second Rule”
Most parents of toddlers are aware of the 5-second rule: Food hits the ground and if it’s only been there for 5 seconds it’s safe to eat. Our young adult kids still sometimes say, as they pick up fallen food and pop it in their mouth “Five second rule.”
My mom once said, as one of our toddlers face planted in dirt and licked their lips, “It’s good. A child needs to eat their peck of dirt.” That was apparently her mother’s rule. According to Wikipedia a peck is equal to 8 quarts. That’s a lot of dirt! And the truth? Things change. Parental advice is like everything else, it changes constantly- through the years, or between profiles! And, things remain the same-the world is not sterile, not simple, and children still eat dirt.
I knew more than one parent when the kids were young who kept their beloved children safe and never let their children eat dirt. When a toy, binky or food hit the ground it went directly into the dirty toy bag or trash and out came a fresh clean toy or next bite of food off the plate. I admit to feeling like a bad mother, but I also readily accepted that keeping on top of that was just more than I thought I could manage. I didn’t spend a ton of time with that parent because I felt judged. The truth is that she may not have judged me. That was just my fear. She did it her way, I did it mine.
Parenting is hard. There is no right or wrong on many-many-no end of subjects!
There was no scientific evidence for the peck, or the 5-second rule as far as I know. And, things just keep changing! There is now scientific evidence that gut flora is actually super important. One might interpret that as “Dirt is good!” It feeds the gut flora and the flora needs feeding. I’m not going to get all into the science of it but I am not making this up, it’s why we’re drinking kobucha and eating yogurt and you can do the research if you like, I trust you.
While the website where I found the below is not vetted so might not be true, because things keep changing, it does represent some of the advice of this moment, which is, essentially, eat dirt.
- Play with your pet Most of us have been told that we should wash our hands after playing with our furry friends. But it looks like having a pet—and sharing their germs—could actually be great for our microbiomes, reducing the risk of allergies and obesity (Source: NCBI).
- Get dirty Studies show that growing up in microbe-rich environments—such as on a farm—can protect children from chronic disease as they get older (Source: NCBI).
The Rules Change
The updated rule is not about eating, drinking or ingesting anything from anywhere. We do know parents who tried to tell their kids that if they were going to do drugs they should stick to the natural ones-that come from the dirt not the manufactured ones. And do you know what those teens heard? “Wawaawawaa”.
The 5 second rule is about what we parents pick up, how long we let it sit there and what we do with it.
The “it” is not food. The kids feed themselves now! Once a child is in adolescence the days of parents being in control of what their children eat or otherwise ingest are SO gone. We may hate that fact, but it is true.
Unless we follow the suggestion attributed to Mark Twain: “When a child turns 13, put them in a barrel and feed them through a knot hole. When they turn 16, plug up the hole.” children leave the house, go to school, get on a bus, drive a car, lose their phone, turn tracking off…what else?
Scientifically speaking?
Pre-teens, teens and young adults are doing exactly what they are biologically and physiologically designed to do. Just like eating dirt, they are engaging in developmentally appropriate behavior. This is a critical stage of development.
Who do you want to be? You may not see them on the teen playground, because they get themselves there. They may face plant more than once. They may lick their lips, get up and keep running. They may be scared and look around to see if a parent saw them. Do you want to be the parent that they run to for comfort and then continue with their lives? Do you want to be the parent I was sometimes when they were young and when they were teens-always keeping an eye on them in case they fell so I could swoop in and save them-even if they were fine.
I learned. Our job? Enforce the new and updated 5-second rule.
The 5-Second Rule for the Teen Years
Here it is. Ready?
When your child speaks….
wait 5 seconds before you say a thing.
Five.
Full.
Seconds.
I will warn you; five seconds can feel like a very long time. I’m talking real 5 seconds, not racing “12345”, but “1 Mississippi 2 Mississippi 3 Mississippi 4 Mississippi 5 Mississippi”
I have heard people reference the 7 or 8 second rule. I did a quick search and did not turn up a lot of scientific data. And, ha, the truth for me? Using Mississippi actually takes 7-8 seconds. Iowa I can squeeze into 5. So, pick your state?
After you have left your child’s words out there for 5 seconds, don’t pick up your reaction. Find some way to acknowledge that you heard them without telling them that they are crazy and it is making you crazy. That dirt, aka your opinion, is not helpful in building a healthy trusting relationship with an adult. They are protecting themselves, they are defending their independence. Let them. While you may see them as children, they are emerging adults. They fancy themselves as adults. Much of the world sees them as adults. Once they are 18 they are legally an adult!
So, after 5 seconds repeat what they said, “So, you want to….” What happens next? I can’t tell you. Just keep going with the 5 second rule, let it wait before picking it up. No harm will be done. In fact, you may find that it is healthy for each of you and for your relationship. It takes practice to trust that it’s healthy, and it takes practice because it’s different!
The world is still not sterile, and the adolescent brain is definitely not simple! You can do this. Parenting teens, pre-teens, young adults? It’s real work. It’s worth doing the waiting work.
All that dirt made them stronger; it may have even made them healthier. Wha?! Yeah. The world keeps turning. Don’t fight change. Listen. For 5 seconds.
