Welcome to Parenthood, Hope You're Humble
Parenting provides lots of moments to check your ability to be humble. There's nothing quite like the innocence of a child to ask the questions as they see the facts in front of them. Part of getting older means we sugar coat or justify things and sometimes it can be to the detriment of reality. We are such an instant gratification society & sometimes it's moments that we don't even realize. Yes, there are the obvious: drive through fast food, ATM - gimme money, no need to balance the checkbook, and put everything on debit card so as not to realize how much we're spending. Do we even need to hit on the issues with electronics: video games, cell phones, and text messaging? We know the repercussions of the previously mentioned equal unhealthy eating, poor money management, and electronic overload, but have we thought about the impact of this instant gratification on communication with our little ones? If you want your child to instantly play 20 questions, take a phone call or better yet, try going to the bathroom in peace. These will almost instantly set off their I need something radar. How do we respond when they start begging for our attention at the most inopportune moment? We ask them to wait. But let's look at our interactions with children. How often are they entranced in something else when we realize they didn't accomplish the previously requested task before they self indulged (TV, or lately for my little one, it's been playing Littlest Pet Shop). When we request they do something, don't we end up expecting the same drive through response. We expect them to instantly drop everything they're doing and do what we ask. This was a humbling moment for me today when I realized that we have in fact driven this behavior. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying kids should always be able to do what they want when they want. It's our job to teach them to wait for certain things. It's also our job as parents to teach them responsibility and that the need to do tasks and tasks that contribute to our homes functioning better (jobs) are priority over the stuff we just want in life. We must eat regular nutritious food first & consider dessert as a treat. We must not overspend teaching them that the bank is an endless supply of money people just give us. We have to earn money and save it up for the fun stuff. We also have to figure out how to model the same behavior we expect of them. I'm not saying I have all the answers, but I am saying that I had my gut checked today that these little people we are raising are learning habits that we model. If we expect to teach them to not interrupt and to prioritize needs over wants, we have to model it for them. Set a visual timer and tell them, when this timer is up, you can have my attention. Right now, this person has my attention (unless of course we're talking real emergency, but that is a whole other subject). If they're older & worried they will lose their train of thought, teach them to write down the question to ask later. This skill will come in handy as they learn things in class or even at work, as they have to wait for the presenter to finish before asking questions. Parenting is a work in progress and we won't get everything right every day, but we do have the opportunity each day to learn from mistakes and figure out how to do a better job tomorrow. Welcome to parenting. We aren't perfect. Let's all learn together.
(originally written 8/13/13)
