I’m an inexperienced parent. So for any veteran reading this please bear with me.
Just the other day Joel bugged me over dinosaurs as I fretted over a coming presentation. I loathed the fact that I’ve got to work beyond the usual hours and figured if I’d have to it had better be worth the while.
That was before dinner. I told him I’d play with him after dinner and I meant it. After dinner I got right back to work hoping I’d pack away a few more slides before I start bungling over some kiddy role-play.
It wasn’t long before Joel started hovering around my desk and badgering me over the promise I made him. Joel quickly turned whiny and I held him off with a bit of temper and justified it by his lack of patience and that I would play if he’d wait a little longer. I meant it then and I meant it now.
Though I didn’t say when after dinner.
Work was sapping all the juice I had in me and a full hour passed before I finally dawdled over to the toybox. Work wasn’t finished. It was a reluctant break and I left my mind at the laptop.
I asked Joel what he wanted to play and he didn’t answer. At first I thought it was my disinterest that affected him. So I dived into the mood of it and started playing with his toys on my own. That usually got him going, but this time he kept mum.
I made up some tacky adventure scene and got Joel to choose a character from a bunch of rubber dinos. He picked one and became so taciturn that I had to play out the role for him.
And just ten minutes later it was Joel’s bedtime and my job was done.
I washed and changed him in a whirring blur and was ever ready to hustle him off to bed. I wanted to get back to my work as quickly as I could but there was one thing left: our nightly family prayer.
So we got the kids, sat around; and Sandra thought up this wonderful idea of getting Joel to list his prayer requests as a way of getting to know what’s bothering him.
Joel pondered. And as we waited my mind was elsewhere…
Joel, in his usual pre-bedtime self, buried his face in cushions and squirmed like a worm beside us. We prompted and encouraged him to make a prayer request and tell us what he’d like God to help him with. A moment later, Joel replied in a sheepish little murmur:
“Papa can (will) have time to play with me.”
Guilt fell like a sledgehammer.
My promise to play with him after dinner was a deception and he knew it.
There was no getting out; I kept the promise I made only to deviously manoeuvre my way out of it. It was a lowly move.
Sounds familiar?
If it does then we’re probably underestimating kids much more than we think. It’s not about cognition or intelligence. It’s about a total misjudgement of their ability to sniff out the pretence in grown-ups. They know when you’re not enjoying their company and they know when you find them a bore.
I thought I knew this for a fact. But what I didn’t know was how early such intuit develop in children.
Now I do.
The next day I made time for Joel. I got down to his level and played with him as a child would, and immediately he popped back to his usual bubbly self.
Sometimes things happen to make you feel like you’ve learnt a lesson the hard way but not as hard as it could’ve been. This was one of them. It left a way out and I knew I was being reprimanded, not condemned.
And I thank God for it.
Photo credit: Thomas Hawk via Foter.com