Have a seat

At what age do children actually learn to sit in chairs and on couches as nature intended?
I ask this question because it is clear that my kids – 5 and 8 – have no concept of how to actually use what seem like fairly basic devices. These are kids who can use a Wii. They can TiVo their favorite Disney shows (which is necessary because if you are not careful, you may miss one of the Hannah Montana shows that is only shown 54,000 times a day). They can somehow figure out how to construct an elaborate enough combination of sticks and ropes so as to get one of them stuck in a tree. But sitting? Well, for my kids, that’s just practically like doing the math in “Good Will Hunting.”
For example, we have an island in our kitchen. You get used to swimming around after awhile.
Ha! Get it? Island ... Oh, never mind.
Anyway, there are two high-back bar chairs that sit at the island. My wife and I often enjoy our dinner here, after children have gone to bed. “Why,” you are no doubt asking, “don’t you eat at 5:30 p.m. with your family, after walking in, putting your coat and hat on the hall tree and calling. ‘Honey, I’m home!’” And the answer is no, because I do not live in a 1950s television show.
My kids usually eat before I get home, and my wife and I enjoy a nice – albeit late – dinner together, where we can sit and chat and compare notes over who had the longer day.
When my wife and I eat, we have the whole chair thing down pat – we sit. And that is all. My kids, however, see these chairs as the most awesome, spinning, merry-go-rounds right there in the kitchen. I am fairly sure that, when my kids reflect on their childhood, one recurring memory will be of their father bellowing, “FOUR ON THE FLOOR!!!”
Of course, when they are in the chairs, even balanced on one leg, that is at least a step in the right direction. I am still working to keep them from sitting on the counter. We have a small TV in the kitchen because we cannot risk going from the den to the playroom and missing some Hannah Montana. On occasion, I will find the kids sitting on the counter right by the TV, often having helped themselves to a snack. So I get to offer up such gems as:
— “I make your lunch there. You seriously want to sit there?”
— “Five seconds. See if you can go just that long without staring at a TV.”
— “Where did you find a bag of potato chips that big? You’re sitting in it for crying out loud!”
But the worst infractions occur on the couch. We have two big comfy couches in the den. These couches are perfect for sitting on and even occasionally kicking off your shoes and relaxing for a baseball nap. (A baseball nap, for what it’s worth, is a nap that take about two to three innings. They are best done on a summer Saturday afternoon, between the third and fifth innings. Baseball is a great sport because you can nap during it and not really miss anything. That said, you do not have to actually have a baseball game on to take this kind of nap. It’s just that Hockey Nap sounds odd.)
But my kids do not treat the couches as couches. For starters, it’s like a pillow fire sale – every pillow must go! Some are stacked as new, makeshift chairs. Some are used as fort walls. Some are merely flung, discus style, in an attempt to knock over a big sister.
Second, there is not actual sitting on the couch part. The arm? Sure. The back? You bet. Halfway on, halfway on the floor? Why not? Underneath? As far as they can fit. When I tell them not to sit on the couch in that manner, they act as though I have just asked them to lift a Subaru and commence the most labored grunting and groaning as they move toward the normal, human sitting mode.
Like most everything else with kids, I guess this will just take time. At some point in time, they will learn how to sit in a chair. Or on a couch. Or not on a counter. Until then, I think I’ll make the lunches somewhere else.