“My aunt Shelly lets me do whatever I want,” my little niece,
Abby recently shared with a friend. ---- My husband was surprised to hear her
say this because obviously that's not the case, in fact, he thinks I’m pretty
strict with her.
Abby may “think” she is getting to do whatever she wants
because as I have gotten older, I have learned a few tricks. I spent a lot of
time and energy when my kids were young micromanaging everything from their
dresser drawers to their attitudes. More than once I would hear my mom’s voice
in my head saying her famous quote, “don’t make a mountain out of a molehill”.
However, I would ignore that voice and continue building that molehill right up
into a mountain, and not just any mountain, it would be like a Mount Everest by
the time I had finished.
Twenty-five-years later clichés like, “don’t die on that
hill”, “choose your battles” and the infamous, “don’t make a mountain out of
molehill”, are slowly becoming my mantra. When she wants to do something, I give Abby
choices ---she makes her choice, and in her little, eight-year-old mind, she is
getting to do whatever she wants.
She is super helpful and will do anything I ask her to do as
far as a household chore or job. She knows that I usually repay these gestures
later with ice-cream, a trip to the dollar store, or some other fun and (cheap) activity.
And best of all, she knows if the fun reward doesn’t happen that very day, it will happen another day, and she is fairly patient with waiting because she knows it
will definitely happen. My grown kids roll their eyes and say, “we didn’t get
a reward” for helping out. True. They didn’t. But they got clothes,
shoes, toys, games, food, doctor visits, dentist visits, Sunday school and many
other privileges too numerous to name. Plus older kids always think the younger ones have it better for some reason.
My grown kids also get annoyed when I allow my niece to do
silly things that aren’t necessary like…drinking out of a sippy cup or using
the baby spoon to eat ice-cream. But in the big scheme of things…who really
cares? It’s a fleeting moment of being silly and childish and she is EIGHT-years-old!
“Picking a battle”, or “choosing a hill to die on”, has become a great talent
of mine, and at 51, I am not going to die on the hill of which spoon she can
use. I wish I had done this at 31, my life would have been much less stressful.
As a third-grade-teacher, I try to incorporate this attitude
with my students and so far it has worked well. Guess what? Kids make mistakes.
They make a lot of mistakes actually, they almost make as many mistakes as
adults make J They
also make poor choices and forget things. They respond quickly if they are
being questioned and sometimes, they respond with an inappropriate tone or attitude.
My goal is to hold them accountable, but to do so with a whole lot of grace and
love. Some behaviors call for stern and swift consequences or lectures; but
many times, we as adults continue to “beat a dead horse”, or decide to, “die on
a very small hill”. Doing this not only ruins the day for the child, but it
puts a big hole in the relationship you are trying to build.
Sometimes simply telling a child face-to-face,
eyeball-to-eyeball, “don’t let this happen again”, is more effective than a
big, public lecture in front of everyone. And sometimes a big, public lecture
to the whole class is the ticket. As a human being, there are some days I fall
short of what my goal is---sometimes I feel great driving home reflecting on
the day, and other times, not so much.
I think the key is to always reflect, always try harder and
to let the pendulum of grace always swing in favor of the kid. I believe that
is how God’s grace works with us, it always swings in our favor, thank
goodness! If God was in the habit of ‘beating dead horses’ and ‘making
mountains out of molehills’, he would be busy 24/7 with ME alone!
Abby “thinks”, Aunt Shelly lets her do whatever she
wants----In reality, Aunt Shelly guides her choices with grace and love; and
the feeling of “freedom” that comes with that makes her feel like she’s doing
whatever she wants. I am looking forward to having her in my third grade class
this year----although this scenario could actually become the LITERAL hill that
she or I dies on! Hopefully we both survive.
