Day 12: Teach Your Children, Well

When my sons were teenagers, one of them had a friend who was just such a bad influence. He'd been kicked out of school for drinking (in middle school) and was just generally not someone that a mom wants her kids to hang out with.

When I had the conversation with him about influences he said, "Mom, don't you think the bad kids' moms WISH that their kids would hang out with the good kids so the good kids could influence their bad kid?"

I'm sure they did. I just never looked at it from any point of view but my own. I find I do this often. My point of view seems to be the only one that matters.

One time one of them had been terribly hurt by someone, and they forgave them, almost instantaneously. In the midst of a deep conversation about the hurtful experience when I asked him how he could forgive so easily he said, "Well, I know I'm going to forgive them eventually, so I may as well forgive them now and save myself the anxiety of dragging it out."

Wow. Clearly a lesson that I need.

And most recently, when I picked up my two year old out of her bed, she smiled at me with the sweetest, warmest smile and said, "We play now? We play now, Mimi?"

We had nothing pressing us for time, and yet I was already in a hurry to get her downstairs and dressed and fed and ready for the day. But her sweet smile and her question, "We play now, Mimi?" made me take a breath and realize that I need to slow down and just take in life.

I need to play now.

All that to say, I know that we are supposed to teach our children well. But sometimes, well, they teach us.