Without kids of our own (yet) it is quite an eye opening experience spending time with them. This New Year, we had the opportunity to spend time with my nephews, nieces, and cousins. Every year I enjoy spending time with the family. Family parties are pure chaos. Screaming, laughing, crying, tattle-tailing, and tons of tons of eating (e.g. for desert for one meal, I had a Ghirardelli chocolate brownie, a chocolate revel bar, and a blondie– talk about indulgence and lack of self control, but mmmmm so delish).
This year I brought my new, “not yet kid battle tested” Nintendo Wii for the kids (and adults) to enjoy. Boy, I had no idea what I was getting into. The kids loved it, hated it, laughed, cried, got exhausted, screamed. I never would have thought it could bring all that into play (again I blame it on my lack of experience). Im sure those of you that are parents, are already well versed at dealing with these situations. But for me it was quite an eye opener.
1) You need to set ground rules early. No fighting, no crying, share, take turns, and compromise.
2) Don’t set up a Nintendo Wii in front of a new 42” flat screen television, unless you don’t mind watching TV with a Wii remote smashed through the screen! (No it didn’t happen, but my mother in law almost had a heart attack watching the kids come close to it.)
3) Teaching kids concepts like sharing, not fighting, and being nice to each other are pretty straight forward. (I know not necessarily easy, but more straightforward) But what about things like good sportsmanship, compromise, disappointment, seeing things through. This was quite a challenge for me.
4) On “disappointment”. Winning is important to kids. When you are 5 – 7 your friends have already taught you the concept of “loser”. I was surprised. So my nephew really wanted to win. When playing with me, he already had apprehension playing me (me being a “big” kid) But he agreed to play anyway. I was fully intent on letting him win, but I didn’t want to do it in a way that was obvious. I was doing good, letting him lead the whole way. Until the end when I accidentally unleashed a special move, that ultimately led to my last minute win. Little did I know that this would unleash a sea of tears and disappointment. I felt so bad. But it wasn’t my fault. I really wanted him to win. So that was a quick tough lesson for the both of us.
5) On “good sportsmanship”. The brothers were playing. And the younger brother was also intent on winning. He would have sold the sister he didn’t have just to win. Being younger, Im sure he was used to not being on the wining end most of the time. Then, I was so impressed with his older brother when he agreed to let his younger brother win. And I completely thought(me thinking like an adult) that the younger brother wouldn’t want that, if his older brother was “letting” him win. But to my surprise the younger brother was completely fine with it. As long as he won (didn’t care a bit how he won), he was on top of the world.
What’s important to kids is much different than what is important to adults. What I realized is that its important as an adult/parent to truly understand what is “important” to their kids so that you can make better decisions on how to better prepare for lifes challenges ahead. Im sure I made lots of mistakes and sent some wrong messages, but I guess making mistakes and learning on both sides is part of the process.
No comments:
Post a Comment