When I was twelve-years-old I was very involved in my church youth group. We had planned a spaghetti dinner as a service for a family in our ward. All the girls made dinner and dressed up in italian style clothing to serve the dinner. My assignment was to bring a salad. I arrived at the dinner excited for the evening. I had spent a long time getting ready. I was enthusiastic about the clothing I was wearing, but I completely forgot to bring the salad. I can’t remember why I forgot it. I can’t remember what excuses I attempted to offer. I do remember clearly the adult leader scolding me and telling me that my excuses didn’t matter, what mattered was that there was no salad when there needed to be one. She also spoke about taking responsibility for mistakes rather than trying to excuse ourselves from them.
I have never forgotten that even. It was one of those small moments that truly shape a life. Ever since that day I have been reluctant to offer excuses for my failures. I try to accept responsibility for things-gone-wrong rather than to dodge it. Sometimes I take this too far and blame myself for things which aren’t truly my doing. I’ve also learned that the purpose of an excuse is to make people more understanding of the failure, not to deny responsibility Many times as I take responsibility I have a fleeting memory of that youth group leader and I am grateful to her. She taught me what I’d never learned from my parents although they tried to teach it often.
These last few days Kiki has been learning a hard lesson about getting work done when it is due rather than letting it pile up. I’ve had to be very firm and not allow her to play. We still have today and tomorrow to get through before it is too late. If we can emerge from these exhausting days with a lesson learned, then they will have been worth it. Perhaps today’s misery will prevent misery and bad grades in high school. I hope so, but I can never tell if the lesson that my child is learning is the one that I intended to teach. I can never tell if we are having a defining moment that the child will draw upon time and again or if it is a moment that will roll right out of memory and be forgotten.
Lessons Learned…
you know, it’s funny, I remember hearing from someone (possibly you?) that the things we remember are the little ones… and it’s true, the lessons that I remember, and the early childhood events that I remember are not the big things, but the little ones. When I was 10 ish I had the paper route, along the way I ended up ripping off some of the subscribers (not totally intentionally, just spending their money before sending it on to the paper expecting to pay it back, and not being able to pay it back later…) My mother found out about it pretty quickly, and while I don’t remember any of the punishment that she handed down (and knowing her I was probably grounded for a YEAR or something), but I do remember clearly having to go to the customers involved and apologize in person. A little enough thing, but it probably pushed me back on the right path much more than any of the punishments that I got for my various childhood infractions. I never wanted to go through that again!
I don’t remember any “BIG” events from my childhood, and I am sure there were some, but I clearly remember sceans from sledding, playing hide and seek, some of my toys, etc…
I try to keep that in mind while parenting, it’s not the big events that really matter while bringing up my kids, it’s the day to day life that they will remember. I always apologize when wrong, I try to always say please and thank you, even when it’s not needed, I try to always discuss things with them rather than dictating to them, I try to always trust their word unless proven wrong… I don’t know if any of this is really key, but hopefully, if they arent going to remember the thousand dollar birthday party (yea, we had one of those, can’t do it again, but we did it once), they will remember the daily love and trust.
(note I said “try”, I am not successfull in doing any of these things all the time, but hopefully I am at least on the better side of the curve)
Dan
Lessons Learned…
you know, it’s funny, I remember hearing from someone (possibly you?) that the things we remember are the little ones… and it’s true, the lessons that I remember, and the early childhood events that I remember are not the big things, but the little ones. When I was 10 ish I had the paper route, along the way I ended up ripping off some of the subscribers (not totally intentionally, just spending their money before sending it on to the paper expecting to pay it back, and not being able to pay it back later…) My mother found out about it pretty quickly, and while I don’t remember any of the punishment that she handed down (and knowing her I was probably grounded for a YEAR or something), but I do remember clearly having to go to the customers involved and apologize in person. A little enough thing, but it probably pushed me back on the right path much more than any of the punishments that I got for my various childhood infractions. I never wanted to go through that again!
I don’t remember any “BIG” events from my childhood, and I am sure there were some, but I clearly remember sceans from sledding, playing hide and seek, some of my toys, etc…
I try to keep that in mind while parenting, it’s not the big events that really matter while bringing up my kids, it’s the day to day life that they will remember. I always apologize when wrong, I try to always say please and thank you, even when it’s not needed, I try to always discuss things with them rather than dictating to them, I try to always trust their word unless proven wrong… I don’t know if any of this is really key, but hopefully, if they arent going to remember the thousand dollar birthday party (yea, we had one of those, can’t do it again, but we did it once), they will remember the daily love and trust.
(note I said “try”, I am not successfull in doing any of these things all the time, but hopefully I am at least on the better side of the curve)
Dan