Lessons Learned

Sometimes opportunities for us to teach our children valuable lessons come at strange moments when you least expect them.  As a parent you really have to be on your toes and be willing to run with this opportunity when given the chance.  It seems like we are having a lot of these moments lately and sometimes I hit a home run with my message and most of the time it takes several takes for the message to sink in. 

This weekend I was presented with the opportunity to show my boy the importance of sharing.  I loved getting this moment because he is starting to share his food and drink with me and he is so proud when I tell him how nice that is.  But when presented with the fact that he had to let another little boy enjoy looking at this really neat train at the store while he was enjoying it proved to be a little to hard.  My boy decided that no he didn't want to give this boy space and decided to nudge him back just a little.  He was sending a message as politely as he could that you are not welcome to look just yet.  The boy was a little stunned by the fact he was just touched and asked to move back and I quickly jumped into action.  Funny how you never have time to think about how you are going to handle these moments; they just happen leaving you wondering later could I have handled that better?  I quickly told my boy that no we don't push and that you need to tell him that you are sorry.  My boy did indeed sign sorry still leaving the boy with this confused look on his face.  So I quickly explained that the motion that he just saw meant that my boy was indeed sorry.  Even though he signed he was sorry he wasn't quite ready to share the space with this boy and the other little boy at this point decided that maybe he didn't want to share the space with him either.  We eventually did leave kicking and screaming.  Lesson learned, probably not yet.  But I am so excited that we are in fact having these moments because it means that we are interacting with others.  We have a lot of work to do in this area but we are getting the opportunity to practice. 

Lessons for my girl are more about responsibility and character.  This weekend was a weekend of soccer and fun in the big state of TEXAS.  These weekends are always so fun in the fact that you get to stay in a hotel with the soccer team, see family, and eat at different places...the hard part is coming home late and being just plain exhausted.  The trick here is school is the next day and she has to leave the house around 7:35 when in fact she just wants to lay in bed and not get up.  Her big question is why do I have to go?  Because this is a lesson to be learned.  School is her responsibility it happens every Monday-Friday just the same as a job would when she is older.  She is expected to be there regardless of all the fun and lack of sleep she might of gotten over the weekend.  We want to teach her to be dependable and to follow through with her responsibilities because this is where it starts.  This one is not coming easy to her when she is tired but I know she is a girl of character and will get this message loud and clear someday when it matters most.  Lessons taught -2, lessons learned - still working on that one.