When we decide when we talk about what to decide.
Abstract watercolor painting by 3-year old. It may morph into something else.
I vowed, long before having children, that I would never hit our children.
And I use ‘hit’ in the widest sense of the word, including all the classic euphemisms to make hitting a child sound different than what it actually is.
I have kept that vow to myself, and it is a good thing I made that vow long before having children, because there have been plenty of situations where I would have resorted to that as the easiest possible option, if I had made that any sort of option.
3-year old lad riding a Lowly the Worm wheeled vehicle down the slope of a mole farm.
Some things you just leave off the table as options, period. I am so grateful. I say that not to toot my own horn or ride on a high horse, but to say: it’s not easy to decide some courses of action as a parent.
It’s especially not easy to decide some things in the moment.
Which is why you have to think beforehand of how you’re going to respond when you’re at the end of a rope with a child, and you’re both beyond frustration.
Ten-year old lad with hood waiting for his mum to get home on a crisp late Autumn afternoon.
If our children ever write books about their childhoods some day, they will not be able to write beautiful things I wish they could like “my dad never yelled at us or raised his voice.” That simply wouldn’t be true. But I will tell you this:
committing to hugs and listening over hitting and yelling is a choice and commitment that will turn out to be one of the greatest and best investments you can ever make in your child and their future.
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