Parenting : A Lesson In Parenting

Written By Jen

Once they apologize sincerely, STOP.  On the first day we scrunched our toes on our new carpet my daughter and I had a discussion, upstairs, on our new carpet, about why it was a bad idea to bring her Frappuccino upstairs.  She was being defiant explaining how careful she could be.  (I also had my latte upstairs, not a good example.)  I gave a long lecture on how accidents are not planned; therefore, regardless of her care there is still a risk.  My mom was there and I decided now was not the time to start a war.  My mom and I moseyed downstairs and were chatting at the base of the newly carped steps.  Thirty minutes later my daughter heads down the stairs to join us.  She is wearing socks and slips on the second stair.  At this point it turns into a slow motion movie in my mind.  She is thudding down the stairs and the chocolaty chip Frappuccino is flying through the air.  The cup is firmly in her hand as the wall of brown milky sweetness soars through the air with gravity demanding it soaks the carpet.  The stairs are soaked, my mom and I have it on our shirts and in our hair and she has it all over herself as well.  The irony has me in stiches.

By the grace of GOD, literally, my mom was there.  The three of us cleaned the stairs for an hour.  They may still smell like chocolate.  I was proud of my carpet choice because you can’t tell she spilled a thing.  Of course I was furious.  Her defiance earlier fueled my raging insides.  My mom’s presence made me keep a steady voice.  Between my long lecture earlier and her perfect enactment of slipping down the stairs she now has a clear definition of the word accident.  She was humiliated and mortified.  Of course I laid into her a bit and once she stopped arguing and said she was sorry, I wanted to continue talking about it.  Making absolutely sure she got every possible angle of what just happened to prove my point.  I just wanted to keep on laying it on her.  My mom saw her sincere apology (so did I, I was just mad), but she calmly said, “Jen, she knows she did wrong.  You need to stop.”  (She didn’t need to give me a long lecture on why.  I heard her in one small statement and I knew she was right.  As my daughter would have heard me in one small statement as well .)

She was right.  I did need to stop.  She sincerely apologized and when I stopped it allowed her to learn a lesson with dignity.  I didn’t need to rub her face into the ground over it.  Even though I really wanted to and I really didn’t want to spend the next few hours scrubbing the stairs.

It was a good lesson for my daughter.  The next time she had a drink, with no reminder, she thought it was a good idea to leave it in the kitchen.

It was an excellent lesson for me.  I needed to know when to quit.  I really needed to learn that lesson that day.  I hope I can remember it in the heat of the moment.

My mom was sweet.  She was ready to go before the spill, but she stayed an extra hour and the three of us had a good talk as we scrubbed away.