Three Steps Back
I have had some questions about my last post. “Your children can’t ask for ANYTHING? What are you thinking???”
I said I was teaching them NOT to ask for things. What I should have said was that I’m teaching them HOW to ask for things and this is the first step. Persistence took a riding lesson this summer and her instructor said that it’s not enough to make the horse stop when it has been disobedient. He has to stop and take three steps backwards before he understands what he did wrong. My kids are in the “three steps backwards” stage. They have gone from begging for anything or everything they could imagine wanting, to not asking for anything. I said in my last post,
“First I explained to my children that they need to wait for something till it is offered. (There are exceptions to this of course.)”
For those of you who need a little clarification I did say there are exceptions to our new rule. Yes, there are times when my children do need to ask for what they want or need but they already do that so we are working on the other part, waiting or going without. Heaven forbid.
I can understand why this would be a problem for most people in our society that thinks it needs everything it wants, exactly when it wants it. Luckily for my kids, we’re not raising them to act like the rest of society. Anymore.
Mean or Mean?
Let’s have a little lesson in Ethics from Aristotle.
“…we often say of good works of art that it is not possible either to take away or to add anything, implying that excess and defect destroy the goodness of works of art, while the mean preserves it; and good artists, as we say, look to this in their work, and if, further, virtue is more exact and better than any art, as nature also is, then virtue must have the quality of aiming at the intermediate.
Hence it is no easy task to be good. For in everything it is no easy task to find the middle, e.g. to find the middle of a circle is not for every one but for him who knows; so, too, any one can get angry-that is easy-or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble.”
All of that just to point out that it’s not important that my children learn to ask for things. They need to learn how to ask for things.
“…You took no thought save it were to ask me.”
So what is the right time and place and way to ask? I discussed this with my friend The Barefoot Quilter (who knows she has the ugliest blog in the universe but she’s working on it) and she explained it perfectly.
She reminded me of Oliver Cowdery who wanted to translate the Book of Mormon but God said no, “Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me. But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.”
My friend said, “You think your kids just ask and demand willy nilly. You liked that one day when your son sat and thought and decided against asking BECAUSE you finally saw thought going into his request. If you saw that much thought BEFORE he started to ask, you probably would have said yes. No matter what he asked.”
That’s what I’m looking for. Thought and study and self control. Not demands spewing out of their mouths at every moment of every day. What I’m teaching them is to tell me what they want instead of demanding that I give it to them.
Instead of, “When are we going to Lagoon? We NEVER get to go there!” I would like to hear, “Oh look! There’s Lagoon! Remember how much fun we had there last year? I can’t wait till we go again!”
Instead of, “I can’t go to bed! I have to finish this project!” I would like to hear, “I wish I had a few more minutes to finish this project I’m working on. It’s frustrating to have to stop when I’m almost done.”
Like Channing said, when they talk that way it doesn’t make me want to give them things. It makes me want to give them everything.
It’s not just asking politely. It’s going one step further.
Or three steps back depending how you look at it.
One of the things I like about having my comments turned off is that if people want to communicate with me they have to go the extra mile to contact me. That gives them a little extra time to think and study out in their mind what they really want to say. I really do appreciate your thoughtful emails. If it weren’t for you I would have no idea how unclear I have been in one of my posts or when I am just plain wrong. I’m happy to be wrong because I am always looking for ways to change and improve, so thank you.
Photos
The kids wanted to paint pumpkins yesterday but we only had one pumpkin so you can imagine the difficulty. They decided to compromise and ended up with creations that were even better than plain old pumpkins.