Parenting :: Taking Your Kids Seriously

Photo courtesy of Flickr

I have a 4 year old boy and a 2 year old girl. They are the lights of my life, the joy to my day, and the cause of every graying hair and worry wrinkle on my face.

My son is in preschool and this is all new to us; the homework, projects, bake sales, volunteer hours, & class parties. We are just at the beginning of the schooling experience and I am overwhelmed with the adjustment of keeping a schedule, remembering where his book bag is, making sure clothes are laid out every school night.

I feel like my husband and I have done a pretty good job this year but the other day we messed up. Our son told us that he was supposed to bring 11 of his favorite vegetables to school on Wednesday morning to share with his classmates. He had been telling me this for days, I looked in his school folder and saw no letter explaining what he was talking about and forgot about it. Five minutes before he was to walk out the door with his father to go to school, I find him digging in the freezer looking for corn on the cob, “Mom, I’m supposed to take 11 pieces of corn to school today to share with my classmates!”

His father and I were so focused on the rush of getting him out the door that we dismissed what he said to us, told him we thought he was wrong, tossed some broccoli in his lunchbox as a just in case, and hurried him out the door. He asked me if there were 11 pieces of broccoli in there & I told him there were 2 but that he probably didn’t need anything anyways.

I emailed his teacher to let her know there was broccoli and that I had no idea what my son was talking about in regards to bringing vegetables to class. I got an email back a couple hours later that it had been on the school calendar to bring your favorite vegetable to share, but not to worry plenty of kids had brought stuff so he was fine. I looked for the calendar, found it haphazarhdly dangling from the side of the fridge with a Dora the Explora yogurt stain on it and sure enough “Bring your favorite vegetable to class for your classmates” was down for April 9.

Gah, I felt like a jerk.

Mostly, I felt terrible for not listening. He had tried telling me for days he was supposed to bring veggies to school, he was even specific enough to say 11 (one for each kid in his class) and I dismissed him.

Why did I brush him off do you ask? Because he’s four, because I thought there was no way that he could be correct, because I didn’t have time to worry about it, because I’m selling my house and commuting my son to school, running a business from home, trying to be healthy, working to be a good mom and wife, looking for time to myself and I could go on. Simply put, I didn’t take the time to take him seriously.

I know it might seem small or silly to dedicate an entire post on this, but to me it was really important that my son wasn’t heard. He even told me later it frustrated him to not have us believe him.

Ah parenthood, it’s a lot of lessons throughout the minutes, hours, days, years teaching us how to do it better next time, because there is always a next time.

Note to self: When my 4 year old tells me something, it’s worth listening regardless of how little I think he is!