The Captain has been having a hard time speaking kindly lately. (I promise this has a point, I'm not just tattling!) Anyways, it became enough of an issue that we sat down together to talk about it.
I read a wonderful book a couple years ago called "Don't Make Me Count to Three" by Ginger Plowman. (Thanks Aunt Tambra!) In her book, Plowman explains how Christian parents can speak scripture into the lives of their children. It is light and funny and an easy read; it is also very encouraging.
While I havn't even come close to remotly perfecting her technique, I have found it useful at times. So the Captain and I sat down and read Collosians 4:6, "Let your speach always be seasoned with grace." I thought the whole thing was going pretty well, especially since the only alternative I could think of was to yell at him for yelling at his brothers.
And then he looks at me and says, "But mommy, sometimes you speak mean to us."
I felt sick. Ginger defenantly did not discuse that in her book. After silently resolving to not start crying until after he was alseep, I apologized, and we agreed to encourage eachother.
Fastforward to this morning, when he had managed to loose his shoes again (it seems like they only get lost on school days), you would have seen me grouchily telling him to get his act together.
He turns around and says, "mommy, you arn't speaking with grace."
What I wanted to say was, "Darn it, I know I'm not! And you're not finding your shoes with grace either. How hard is it to put two shoes by the front door?!?!" Instead I swollowed hard and said, "You're right. I'm sorry." And then walked away as quickly as I could, because it stinks to get corrected. Especially when you know you are wrong.
As parents it is our job to corect and encourage our children. But being corrected myself reminded me how difficult it can be to hear corection, even when it is presented in a kind way. It gave me special insite into the minds of my little boys, who's worlds still revolve so much around mommy and daddy. How difficult for them to have a grouchy mommy, barking orders, and forgetting to demonstrate grace. No wonder the Captain was grouchy with his brothers.
thanks a lot for convicting me. ;) seriously, thank you for sharing this. i have actually been thinking about this so much lately, especially the part about yelling at my kids for yelling at each other. now what does that solve? absolutely nothing.
ReplyDeleteso glad we are friends.
I am a friend of Kristi's and she connected me with your blog. This post was convicting and encouraging to me. I am learning that it's OK to apologize to my child. That was never practiced by my parents, so it's been a very new thing to learn. Thanks for your honesty.
ReplyDeleteI love reading your blog because you are funny and honest all at the same time.