Hiatus April 19, 2007
Posted by Erin in : General Lessons , trackbackJoe,
As we discussed, since I felt like I had one of those “ah-ha” parenting moments this morning, I am going to take a short break from our series on family worship.
Abby has started going to school here in Spain, so 5 days a week, we walk the 20 minutes to school with her and Elijah in the stroller, drop her off and then walk back. Elijah and I then walk back to pick her up after her three hours there and we all walk home. It is getting to be really nice weather here in Spain, so the other day I noticed the sun hitting Elijah’s little fair-haired head. I figured it was time to put a hat on him to protect him from sun burn.
So last night, I got him a hat and put it on his head and he immediately took it off. Again, I put it on and he took it right off. This happened a few times, until I finally thought “He won’t wear a hat.” As soon as I had processed the thought it hit me how wrong that thought was! It wasn’t that he WOULDN’T wear it, it was that I had not trained him to wear it yet. Yes, maybe he did not like, but that did not mean I had to throw my hands up in desperation as if it could never happen.
I realized how often we can come to these false conclusions as parents. We let our children determine what they want to do and then phrase it with “He/she won’t….” as if to say there is nothing we can do about it.
So when I realized the error of my thinking, I decided he was going to need a bit of training. So this morning before leaving to take Abby to school, I put Elijah in the stroller early. I put the hat on his head and immediately he reached up to take it off. I gave him a firm “no” and put it back on his head. He gave me one of his big, goofy smiles and reached up and snatched it off again. This time he got a “no” delivered with a firm smack on the hand. He looked very insulted, but decided it was worth it to give it another try. So once again the hat came off and he received a “no” and a smack. This time the little lip came out and started to quiver. So he waited a few minutes and felt sorry for himself and then decided to try it again. He met the same result. Then it looked as if he had gotten the message, so we headed out the door. But as kids usually do, he needed to test the waters again once in the elevator and saw that Mommy was going to stay consistent on this one. So we enjoyed a 40 minute ride in the stroller with his hat on the entire time!
Now, this is not to say when we went to pick Abby up that he did not make an attempt again. Kids will always test to see if you are going to remain consistent. And I am sure tomorrow morning he will try again. But it was a wonderful lesson to me that we can train our children to do the things we want them to do. Now this was not just something that was for my convenience or fancy, but to protect his little head from sunburn. Are there other things in our children’s lives that we say they “won’t” do that we could possibly train them to do that would bring great benefit into their lives? Say for instance, only eating junk food. Or not reading books but watching television. Or waking up at early hours or going to bed late. It was a great lesson to me that I am the parent and it is our job to train our children in areas where we feel they need to obey in order to reap the benefits of what will be best for them.
Training with you for the glory of God,
Erin
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