Puddles of Water

Today, I had to weigh consequences for my children who decided to fill and dump water cups all over my kitchen which then dripped down each surface and made huge slippery puddles on my floors. While they were doing this, I had been upstairs less than 10 minutes getting dressed. This is totally unusual behavior for them, as they’re clear on the rules of dispensing water at the refrigerator and they’re usually rule followers. I heard them running and shrieking and didn’t think much of it… because they’re always running, laughing, and shrieking. I stood there amidst all the dripping puddles and had to quickly decide how I was going to proceed. The hard part wasn’t mopping up the sea of water, that of course had soggy pretzels mixed inside from a rogue snack cup, complete with a puddle on an iPad and a beloved bunny stuffy. The difficulty came in deciding how to convey to my children that their behavior wasn’t acceptable and how disappointed I was, while at the same time trying to hide my rage and immense displeasure.

Pretty soon, my daughter was a sobbing puddle of tears herself, as she sat in time out with me mopping away at the indoor pool they created. My son however…just sat, kicking his legs… slightly smirking every time I passed him by (such a difference in personalities)! Oh, the struggles of parenting! The reality is, I had a quick few seconds to decide how I was going to react. I’m not raising tiny soldiers, I’m raising loving, feeling, emotional human beings. Little human beings that will one day (God willing) be functional adults. Their emotional well-being matters to me. That means that it’s on me to teach them how to learn to better handle their emotions (you know among everything else in life). I have to continually decide to set an example of how to treat others appropriately, even when I’m frustrated myself. I also have to accept when my children make bad choices and mistakes. They have to learn to accept consequences of their actions, and sometimes those lessons are tough!

We have a rule in our house about emotions and feelings. I encourage my children to learn to both identify and express their feelings, but they are not allowed to act out of those emotions. That takes practice for them to understand. Think along the lines of…”It’s okay to be angry, it’s not okay to hit my sister because I’m angry”. That type of rationalization is even hard for adults to do, and requires conscious decisions each time.

This got me thinking about all the times we expect our children to just know and act accordingly. I’m often reminding myself and my husband that our children are 3 and 5-years-old, and they can’t rationalize things that seem easy for us. Even as adults, we encounter frequent situations that test our emotions and patience, and we’ve had years of practice with that. Our job as parents is to equip our children with the best tools possible to capable of anything. Empowering them, forgiving them, protecting them, listening to them, and teaching them are just some of the ways we do that. It’s not just in the large moments that we teach our children monumental lessons, it’s also in the small moments. Actually, it’s mainly in the small moments. The moment when water is dripping from every surface of our kitchens, when we’re driving in our cars, when we’re around the dinner table, giving baths, and getting ready for bed time. It’s in our body language and reactions to them, and not just the words spoken from our mouth or the tone of our voice (although that’s important also!). They’re always watching, and these little ones pick up on more than we realize about body language, emotions, and attention.

So today, I taught my children about forgiveness, about making better choices, and a bit about consequences. Yet, I protected their hearts and feelings, because that’s what matters most to me.

“Kids don’t remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.” -Jim Henson