quality time
moments that matter
As mentioned in previous posts, I try to spend a few minutes each day thinking about activities I'll do with my kids in the evenings after work and school. This helps me be a bit more mindful about the actions I'm taking (or not taking) in the limited hours that I have with them during the week. Sometimes my ideas are really successful (see last week's post on the Spring Scavenger Hunt). Sometimes the evening is too busy or chaotic, and we never get a chance to do the thing I've planned to do. But sometimes my idea is a flop.
In previous posts I've talked about lessons learned regarding not trying too hard to construct "memorable" moments with kids. Investing in a certain plan for an evening or afternoon or day can be a recipe for frustration and disappointment. It's a lesson I keep learning.
The other night, my daughter was happily engaged in pretending she was a queen. I was the princess, being directed by my tiny tyrant. At one point, I suggested that we make paper crowns (we were royalty after all). Both my kids enjoy coloring and practicing using scissors, so I thought this would be a winning idea. At the time, I thought I was doing a good job of playing along and joining the game (and patting myself on the back; I'm far more likely to claim that the princess is under an enchantment and can't leave her throne). Instead: I had a meltdown on my hands: First, there was a cutting issue that frustrated my daughter tremendously (can't imagine where she gets those perfectionist tendencies), then little brother started "helping" which "ruined" the crown...the whole thing devolved into snot and tears.
With a little distance, I got two things from this experience:
1) There's a fine line between joining the play and directing the play. I thought I was joining, but really, I was directing. In this case, I redirected my daughter to something that was too difficult and, ultimately, frustrating.
2) The important corollary: Let your child lead. When the child leads, the activity is bound to be entertaining and at the appropriate level. Why do we intervene? Well, if I'm honest, I thought up a way to play in the theme she'd suggested but doing an activity that was more fun for me. My daughter was pretty content to run from room to room in the house (like she and her brother could sit on our bed and turn our bedside lamps on and off for four hours without getting bored). I was the one who needed something a bit more engaging
Young children don't get many opportunities to lead, control or make decisions for themselves. Just this morning I overheard a mom talking to her son at a coffee shop. She told him that he could look at a board game and all its piece but that they weren't going to play it (even i felt disappointed), warned him not to lose the pieces, and asked him to eat more, all in one breath.
I was inwardly horrified: She sounded a lot like...me.
Leadership, like everything, takes trial and error and lots of practice to learn. There is the more personal issue of trying to make sure that the precious moments we have with our kids are good ones. But there's the larger issue of providing learning opportunities: What does leadership look like and feel like? How does it feel when you are respected enough to be given decision-making power? What is home life like when, sometimes, the kids get to tell the grown-ups what to do?
These are the lessons that matter: How princesses become queens (or presidents).