Today, he wanted to tie his shoes on his own. Being the precocious little boy he is, he said, "I'll do it," rather than asking for my help. After a few failed attempts I asked if I could show him, and we worked on it together.
Fast forward to after dinner when he wanted to go outside and play with the neighbors. I have been telling him he needs to wait for them to invite him, rather than running over to their yard and peeping in their windows, but he took off for their yard seconds after my speech. I stopped him and told him to wait. He complied.
I turned my back for two seconds, and he was off. I called him back and again explained he needed to wait for them to ask, etc. He got very upset. That parlayed into him chasing his younger brother around the yard, taunting him with a stick, until my youngest was shrieking and in tears. The evening quickly fell apart and I had to resort to threats of taking some favorite things away in order to get him inside.
As things deteriorated, I was amused and frustrated (I took his stick and threw it, which made him cry at the top of his lungs, and his crying triggered my youngest to get mad at me for throwing away the stick, which turned into two screaming, crying boys acting hysterical towards their mother, and all in the front yard, of course.) So when he finally did come inside, I gave him a few minutes and had another talk with him about waiting for an invitation and respecting other people's space.
I asked him if he understood, and he shook his head.
And then it hit me.
He would probably be tying his shoes on his own tomorrow, but would he wait for an invite the next time he ran outside? Or would he take off again?
I was taking his independence, and his aptitude to learn quickly, for granted.
As a parent, I just expect my kids to listen. You hear the sound of my voice, you react. Boom. But, obviously, that doesn't always happen.
What I didn't really put much thought into, was teaching my kids to listen. I teach them manners, their ABCs, how to count and myriad other pre-school activities, but I have not done any listening exercises.
Light bulb!
As an experiment, I sat down with my boys and told them to listen. Then I said, "I'm going to say the letter A, when I do, I want you to say B. Do you understand?"
Nodding all around.
"A," I said.
"A," I heard in chorus.
Sigh.
 |
| Listen? Oh man! |
I tried again. I told them I would say A, then I would point to Jacob, who would say B, and Brennan would say C. Well, then Jacob wanted to say A, so of course Brennan wanted to say B, but eventually we accomplished what I set out to do. Each of them was assigned a letter, and when I pointed, they stated their letter correctly.
Phew!
I'm thankful every day for my children, for all they teach me, remind me of, humble me to. I am a fast learner too, so when I see a glitch in the matrix, I put on my thinking cap and figure out a way to solve it.
Listening. It can be taught. Who knew?
