"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard

Monday, April 6, 2009

Life lessons can be tough

So last week we got a letter home from Ryan's teacher saying he was misbehaving at recess. Apparently he got pulled into a pushing/hitting game with some other boys and despite being told to stop and even being put in a time out, he continued to play the game. He got talked to by his teacher and told she was sending a note home. I picked him up and he welled up with tears and told me he had had a bad day and that there was a note for me in his backpack. He was SO upset. The note said he would lose two outside recesses and that his teacher hoped next time he would make better decisions about his behavior. We had a big talk about how to handle this next time and that if we make a bad choice, there are consequences for our actions. This was tough. Tough on Ry and tough on momma. I wanted so bad to just give him a big hug and make it all go away. My baby boy is growing up! How do you teach them not to cave to peer pressure? Right now it's innocent enough games but someday it could be smoking or drinking or drugs. I can't even think about any of my kids getting caught up in these things but know they are all lurking out there. I can only hope I do a good job of instilling good values and give them the tools to be strong and confident, able to say no when they know something is wrong. Yeah this parenting gig is harder than I thought. My mom always said, "Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems." I think I want to go back to when they were all babies.

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