The bell curve is everywhere. Intelligence, body mass index, income, age for getting married, my belly after the holidays. The general idea behind the bell curve is that with any given measure, the majority of the population will fall somewhere in the middle. People who fall either way below or way above the average on any measure are few and far between. Of course, don’t tell this to parents with children in elementary school. They all seem to think that anything less than straight A’s represents a complete failure of the American educational system. “I know my child can’t read, but do you have any idea what a B is going to do to her self-esteem?” In this case, the bell curve looks more like a snow drift.

The idea behind the bell curve is fascinating to me. I mean, who came up with the idea of plotting tons of data on a graph and observing its shape? As if we all needed a visual representation of how average we all are. See, there you are, right there where the bell is about to crest. Yep, you’re average. The bell curve takes phenomena from the human experience and makes it, well, predictable. It’s hard to dream big when you have this big, bell-shaped graph reminding you that, despite your best efforts, you are still less than one standard deviation above the mean, and you might actually be below it.

This got me to thinking, what if I graphed typical events in my child’s life? Would the results be as predictable? Will the trajectory end up the shape of a bell? As you have discovered by now, there is only one way to find out: rigorous research. The results of my research, as seen in the graphs below, are quite surprising.

So, maybe parenting isn’t so predictable after all, and there are times when the bell curve looks more like a smile. And that is what you have to keep on doing if you are going to make it. Smiling is one thing you can do that makes you feel above average, at least in the 65th %tile, slightly more than 1 standard deviation above the mean.

Parents love routines. Don’t believe me? Try this simple experiment: Identify a family in your neighborhood who has one or two children under the age of three. Get to know this family and stealthily find out when their children go down for a nap each day. Then go over to this family’s house and try to ring the doorbell during naptime. Assuming you can even get past the protective layer of index cards taped over the doorbell and actually make contact with it, see what happens after you have rung the doorbell. Or, as I call it “Doorbell-zebub.” You may have used a perfectly healthy, flexible finger to press that doorbell, but you will be taking a bloody nub home. Why is this? Because you took the one portion of that parent’s day he or she thought was totally under control and turned it into a spiral of chaos.

And this is why parents love routines, because they they hate spirals of chaos. Truth is, any given moment during the day can turn into a spiral of chaos. Playing with toys, meals, sitting for a family portrait, riding in the car, going to a movie. These all seem like perfectly normal daily activities until you hand the ingredients to your little alchemist. Toys become the Gaza Strip; meals become abstract art; family portraits become a Jim Carrey movie marathon; riding in the car makes the bladder shrink exponentially with every foot you drive; going to the movie becomes a game of cat and mouse through the rows of seats. Our reaction to this impending spiral of chaos is establishing the scientific intervention known as routines.

Parents believe that if they can be consistent and establish routines, then it will make certain times during the day more predictable. So we work to establish bedtime routines, mealtime routines, clean-up routines, car-riding routines and bath routines. The key is to stick with it long enough that eventually you won’t have to think about it so much and certain activities will become automatic. You can just tell the child it’s time for bed and he suddenly gets drowsy. Tell her it’s time for a bath, and POOF, she’s next to the tub waiting for you to show up. Parental effort directed at establishing routines will typically fall within one of three patterns:

• Victory: the child learns the routine and cooperates with it
• Regression: the child cooperates at first then loses interest over time
• Anarchy: the child develops a routine that the parent neither established nor approves of

I have collected some data on different routines and graphed the following results:

There is so much about parenting that is bittersweet. The bitter side of it is that it goes so fast. Many of the cute things our children say and do seem to fade away without us even noticing. You just realize that one day they don’t say or do that cute thing anymore. Out of nowhere, they begin to use forks and adverbs and board games correctly, and you realize they aren’t babies anymore. Routines are great – necessary even – but they have a way of lulling us into thinking that a day is just a set of predetermined steps. It’s easy to miss the small gifts along the way. But if we don’t keep our sanity from day to day, we might miss even more. Routines are helpful to that end.

Of course, the sweet part of routines is that they help us mold our children into healthy, well-adjusted human beings that will one day step through the front door and into the world. It is at this moment that you will look back on your parenting and all of the routines you implemented so diligently, and you will know you did the right thing. Then you will go take a nap. At 1:00 sharp. No exceptions.

What is it about parents and their desire to save face in public? I’m talking about other parents, of course. Not me. I don’t care what other people think about my parenting. But I’m talking about all those other parents out there. These parents want everyone to think they are in control, that their children have self-awareness, that they have been cultured in the finer ways of socially acceptable behavior. These parents never let their children play chase in and among the racks of clothes at Target. These parents strike deals with their children at the entrance of the grocery store to either stay in or out of the shopping cart, then actually use the words “breach of contract” when the children don’t comply. These parents try to reason with their children, who lie prostrate on the floor of Walmart, that just because Lightning McQueen is on that can of tuna fish, it will still taste like tuna fish. Oh bless their hearts, these parents.

What these parents need to understand is that this has nothing to do with their parenting. It doesn’t. Conscious Discipline, Love and Logic, Dr. Spock? These are all great resources, but if you want to understand what makes children tick, you must understand how their brains are organized. You see every child has a complex database filled with every possible scenario you and your child might encounter together. Each scenario then has two possible responses: Pride and Mortification. For example, say you are eating in a restaurant and when the food is delivered to your table, it is discovered that there is something on your child’s plate that he doesn’t want to eat. Say, for instance, that item is green beans. Instantly, your child’s brain recognizes this scenario and must choose which response to use in this instance. If the restaurant is relatively empty and no one is watching, your child’s brain will send the message, “Eat some green beans and finish the food on your plate you do like.” Pride. And somehow we as parents want to take credit for this. However, if the waitress happens to be at the table refilling everyone’s water and a kind old lady has stopped by to tell you she has twin grandkids who are 6 and a man sees my hat and comes over to ask me how I think Virginia will do in basketball this year, the child’s brain will key in on this context and send the message, “Scoop up green beans with your bare hand and throw them across the table while screaming, ‘I don’t like green beans!’ then proceed to not eat any of your food and run around the restaurant.” Mortification. And we guilt ourselves into thinking we have failed as parents, which isn’t the case at all. Are you still skeptical? I promise, this is all true. I’ve tested it, and here is a graph of some preliminary results.

This one's for you, Edward Tufte!

I hope this is helpful to those parents who feel the need to save face in public. Your children aren’t purposely trying to act like Veruca Salt. They have just been blessed with incredibly complex cognitive abilities, and they are learning how to harness the power. I’m sure even Batman rolled over a few curbs before he perfected his Batmobile mojo; Superman probably hit a few trees in the beginning; Spiderman definitely got caught in his own web a few times. Children are constantly learning. This will continue until your children become teenagers, when the tables get suddenly turned. Until that glorious day, just roll with it.