Pearls of Wisdom

My maternal grandmother has lung cancer. How a non-smoker gets lung cancer, I dont know. She was diagnosed about Thanksgiving time and did about a month of radiation and chemotherapy. Since then, she's hardly been able to eat at all and has been in the hospital a bunch. My uncle had the brilliance to fly in from Ohio to video tape her life story before we miss that chance. I've been transcribing the videos so we have a written account. She's really very wise as well as witty. Here's a little pearl on parenting I transcribed last night:

"Besides my husband's advice about treating kids with respect, like each was Sister Kimball in my home, I made up my own advice later on. That is that if kids do something like stumble on a rock, they didn’t mean to do it. They’re the ones that got hurt and they’ll remember to watch for the rock the next time. You don’t have to say a word except just to hug them and comfort them. I think that would be true in nearly every case. Even if they’re doing something naughty, you just love them and tell them you’re sorry and want to help. Don’t give them a lecture; it doesn’t do a bit of good. They don’t want to hear a lecture. They want comfort.

We had an old table out here on the back porch and it haunts me that when our oldest grandson was about 12, he went out to saw something and when he sawed the board, he also sawed the table. I went out and got mad at him. What a stupid thing for me to do. I hope I never did that again. My daughter now has the table and she thinks it’s wonderful because it’s old. It’s her dining room table, even with the sawed off edge. I hope my grandson has forgiven me."

Undoubtedly, it takes a lot of practice to hold our tongues and not lecture but it's so true that we dont need to point out every mistake and shortcoming. Brad is a big advocate of teaching our kids principles and then letting them make their own choices and experience the consequences. I, on the other hand, would presume to take away everyone's agency if they can't use it "correctly". Mistakes are an important part of the learning process and what people need is a soft place to land during those hard times. If we, as parents, can be that soft place, our kids will trust us and come to us in their dark hours when it's most necessary. Their mistakes and bad choices will truly be learning experiences not just downward spirals into low self esteem and negativity.

Now let me practice what I've preached...