I was reading my son a devotional for kids, and the simple lesson was that sometimes people do things they should not do, and we can't do anything about it, but what we can do is to choose to play with someone safer.
It was quite a simple lesson, and I liked it. As adults we choose the same thing, if someone is not good for us in our lives and they just get us in trouble we can choose to be with someone else who will make more positive impacts in our lives.
It is a small lesson now, but my 3 year old will be a 10 year old and my 10 year old will be a 14 and 16 year old when these choices become alot harder. It is easier for him to learn how making better choices now, than to suddenly only learn that for the first time when he is older. It is just like the lesson that what you put inside emotionally is what you will be emotionally.
My son doesn't know how to make those choices right now for himself about inputing things emotionally so that he will be a better little man, so that is my job as a parent to watch what is a positive for him and a negative. He reacts differently to different things because of his life experiences. It is sad that a three year old has already major experiences that impact him this deeply, but it does because of divorce. He is alright, but there are things that bother him that don't bother other kids just because of it. He will never watch Shrek because of it, and not entirely because of the cartoon itself but because of Shrek 3 really.
I had asked friends about the movie, but you know other kids don't go through the same thing as your own so you can't always know...but now I do...so I know better.
If I let him watch whatever and didn't care and never had any boundaries on what went into him I would end up with a whole load of behavioural problems. It would not just be a huge thing to deal with for me but it would also be a problem for my son, because he is not old enough to understand that what he is watching is what is causing him problems. My son would also have other issues at pre-school, which has happened from time to time, and I have done what I know how to do to help him through and make changes too. It is not anyone else's fault, but it is the environment that I allow and that environment that I have to correct after the fact at times that I have to work with, and lovingly do.
It is not a gift to our children to blame the world for their idiosyncracies, and teach them it is us against the world, because then it is a lesson that the they have a right to act poorly and to treat people poorly and that our children do not have a responsibility to be well themselves.
It is not a good lesson for success, so in my own small ways, I am glad for little stories that help me teach my son in a simple way that there are simple choices that we can make to make our lives better. To add to that it is up to me to help him make better choices and understand in small ways that if he is scared of something that he can say so, and not have to agree with anyone else just because and choose not to watch something too.
He will be a very understanding little man and a very sensitive one, and that is not bad, because he is my son and I understand that he gets some of the sensitivity from me so I have to help him manage that better too.
Life is a learning time, moment to moment to moment, and we are just the guides along the way, and the people responsible for helping to keep our little ones safe, the best we can...
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2 comments:
I think the fact you scrutinize as much as you do is a good thing - a lot of kids won't grow up with this kind of care and will have to figure out 'good' on their own (which is quite hard to do). I think what you are doing is noble in the sense that you want your son to have the best ways to deal with situations - and the younger they learn the better. Who knows - maybe he helps to change a lot of situations via this type of learning (in the long run).
More about helping to save my son grief in his own life, and it always reminds me of what one person I admire said, that there would be less abused and hurt children in this world if people had to have a license before they had children...I just take that to mean that it takes some commitment, accountability, and some learning to be a parent...so that is where I start with myself...
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