Tap into unique moments
Dec 05, 2007
An opportunity is as golden in parenting as it is in the business world.
An opportunity is as golden in parenting as it is in the business world.
Just like Austria’s premiere woman author, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, once wrote, ‘nothing is so often irretrievably missed as a daily opportunity.’
Parenting is built around daily opportunities that can either be seized and utilised or simply let to pass by. Golden opportunities flood your gate everyday with precious moments that you could use to teach your child a lesson or two.
Perhaps these opportunities are dressed in a different garb, making it difficult for you to discern and utilise them.
Some of them come in the form of curious questions, while others might be a child’s intolerable behaviour.
Three-year-old Rachael loves helping her mum in the kitchen. Recently, she got clean plates from the cupboard and dipped them in a basin of dirty water that had been used for mopping.
She then displayed the plates on the verandah before calling her mother to see how ‘neatly washed’ her utensils were. Anger choked her mother as she looked at her white dinner plates drip muddy water.
Meanwhile, Rachael was visibly confused. She was expecting a congratulatory hug from mummy, only to be rebuked instead. Rachael kept wondering which mistake she had made merely by ‘cleaning the utensils’.
Frustrating as they seem, moments like this can be turned into learning opportunities. Look at the intention behind the child’s activity, not just the results.
A child who dips clean plates in dirty water does so with a noble intention of ‘helping mummy with housework’. The results are not pleasant but the intention is laudable.
Focusing on the results only provokes criticism but focusing on the intention enables you to use the moment for the child’s benefit.
This is called a ‘teachable moment’; those rare, brief opportunities you get to dispense a lifetime’s wealth of wisdom to your children.
Such moments present themselves while you are shopping, when stuck in a traffic jam, when you are escorting a visitor to the gate, when you are watching news or even while you are waiting for the doctor at the clinic. Sometimes the teachable moment is veiled in your child’s innocent question.
Whichever way it present itself, seize the opportunity by looking out for the best even in the worst of situations.
Washing utensils using dirty water presents an opportunity to teach your child the right way to wash utensils; hitting a sibling presents an opportunity to teach your child about peaceful conflict resolution and the list of opportunities goes on and on.
Always begin your lesson on a positive note. In conflict resolution, for example, you could say: ‘I appreciate your frustration, but your anger doesn’t entitle you to hit your brother. There are peaceful ways of dealing with the problem.â€
One of the secrets of successful parenting is to turn even the worst of times into teachable moments. Looking at a child’s mistakes as ‘misbehaviour’ kills their exploration instinct.
The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing, a British film score composer, John Powell, once wrote.
WAGWAU JAMESA
Parenting
Just like Austria’s premiere woman author, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, once wrote, ‘nothing is so often irretrievably missed as a daily opportunity.’
Parenting is built around daily opportunities that can either be seized and utilised or simply let to pass by. Golden opportunities flood your gate everyday with precious moments that you could use to teach your child a lesson or two.
Perhaps these opportunities are dressed in a different garb, making it difficult for you to discern and utilise them.
Some of them come in the form of curious questions, while others might be a child’s intolerable behaviour.
Three-year-old Rachael loves helping her mum in the kitchen. Recently, she got clean plates from the cupboard and dipped them in a basin of dirty water that had been used for mopping.
She then displayed the plates on the verandah before calling her mother to see how ‘neatly washed’ her utensils were. Anger choked her mother as she looked at her white dinner plates drip muddy water.
Meanwhile, Rachael was visibly confused. She was expecting a congratulatory hug from mummy, only to be rebuked instead. Rachael kept wondering which mistake she had made merely by ‘cleaning the utensils’.
Frustrating as they seem, moments like this can be turned into learning opportunities. Look at the intention behind the child’s activity, not just the results.
A child who dips clean plates in dirty water does so with a noble intention of ‘helping mummy with housework’. The results are not pleasant but the intention is laudable.
Focusing on the results only provokes criticism but focusing on the intention enables you to use the moment for the child’s benefit.
This is called a ‘teachable moment’; those rare, brief opportunities you get to dispense a lifetime’s wealth of wisdom to your children.
Such moments present themselves while you are shopping, when stuck in a traffic jam, when you are escorting a visitor to the gate, when you are watching news or even while you are waiting for the doctor at the clinic. Sometimes the teachable moment is veiled in your child’s innocent question.
Whichever way it present itself, seize the opportunity by looking out for the best even in the worst of situations.
Washing utensils using dirty water presents an opportunity to teach your child the right way to wash utensils; hitting a sibling presents an opportunity to teach your child about peaceful conflict resolution and the list of opportunities goes on and on.
Always begin your lesson on a positive note. In conflict resolution, for example, you could say: ‘I appreciate your frustration, but your anger doesn’t entitle you to hit your brother. There are peaceful ways of dealing with the problem.â€
One of the secrets of successful parenting is to turn even the worst of times into teachable moments. Looking at a child’s mistakes as ‘misbehaviour’ kills their exploration instinct.
The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing, a British film score composer, John Powell, once wrote.
WAGWAU JAMESA
Parenting