Jeff and I attended our first Grandparent's event this morning at Hudson's pre-school! He was so precious wearing his 2nd Presbyterian Preschool T-shirt along with his blue eyes and and great smile! Hamilton wanted to be part of the excitement so he carried Hudson's lunchbox and knew just how to " sign in " for the day. Another piece of preciousness! This is the same preschool Anna Grace attended which started a whole line of Chandler kid attendees. ( 10 to be exact with more to come! ) After taking in all the sweetness we could stand, Rebekah, Hamilton, and I traveled to Harding University an hour away from LR to visit Anna Grace and take her to lunch. The return for making the trip was a guarantee that she would make us laugh and we were not disappointed! When we were coming back, I remembered something funny Anna Grace had said to her teacher, Ms. Libby, when she was an excited preschooler in the art center one day.
The class was coloring and Ms. Libby noticed Anna Grace's work to be more outside the lines of the object on the page than inside. She said, " Anna Grace, you can color inside the lines and then you will see the picture better." Anna Grace replied, " oh my mom loves scribble scrabble!" The truth is I don't like scribble scrabble! I mean you always act like your child has colored a work of art but never would I prefer scribble scrabble to coloring in the lines for a neatly colored picture! I would rewrite a paper before turning one in with a crossed out word when I was in school! ( Of course with every child I bore I released some of those high expectations in several areas of my life. I always thought that was why God blessed me with a big family! ). Sometimes we assume our children know or understand what we think about all kinds of topics. I mean they do live with us, hear our conversations, and should just by osmosis take on all the characteristics we deem worthy and important, right? Wrong! Just because they are part of us doesnt mean they will " get anything " without being told, coached, explained to, and told again! That is why they have us, their parents, to continually communicate to them without questions or reservations what we want them to know. In our family we believed in the theory that over communication was better than under communication, never hoping or assuming they know what our expectations are, but making certain they fully understand why we do or don't do whatever. Does this mean they will follow our every teaching 100%.? Not at all, our children do have their own mind and style and should be allowed to carry out those ways appropriately. This is not a petition for turning our children into mini me's, just an encouragement to be totally involved in communicating so there are less misunderstood assumptions.
As always, your parenting advice is so practical and so wise. I need every bit you're willing to share! Love you!
ReplyDeleteLoved this - thx!
ReplyDeleteMade me remember when Mr. Jeff was taking me and Rebekah to youth group one night and we were listening to a song we really like on the radio, and all of a sudden, Mr. Jeff turned off the radio and said he wanted to talk! Rebekah and I moaned and groaned and begged him to turn the radio back on, but he emphatically said "nope, we're going to talk!"...and talk we did. I gained a lot of respect from him that day...although he probably has NO memory of that happening - lol! I thought it was really neat that a parent would want to communicate that badly with his child, that he'd shut off the music and FORCE her to talk. ha! I can't remember what our conversation wound up being about...just that Mr. Jeff cared enough to make us converse.
You have such great thoughts and advice - I'm lovin' reading your blog. Keep it comin'!
You're an inspiration, Nancy. Glad I discovered your blog.
ReplyDelete