I was in my Library this morning, and thanks to the Sunday paper being late, I needed something to read, so I grabbed an old Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes “Tenth Anniversary Book” to keep me occupied. There must have been a reason for me reading and laughing and enjoying the magic of Calvin and Hobbes. Can life really be stressful and chaotic when you view it through the eyes of a six year old? I was getting into seeing the stress of selling my house and moving in a completely different (Calvin succeeding from the Family and moving to the Yukon) way. When all of a sudden BAM..I read the following story.
It seems Calvin accidentally broke his Dad’s binoculars. He was being very careful with them. Somehow they broke when he was running down the driveway tossing them in the air trying to catch them. Awesome story, and completely believable because I think I’ve been there done that a few times. Anyway, finally Calvin cracks under the pressure and spills the beans to his Dad. I am assuming Mr. Watterson’s bug eyed, open mouth, ALL CAPS AND BOLD PRINT, depicted Dad as a wee bit upset over the incident. Seriously guys, does this sound the least bit familiar to you?
How many times have you lost it over something your Ex or friend or child has done. For some reason our natural tendency is to get louder and louder and more animated in explaining to whom ever is pretending to listen, exactly where they went wrong. It almost seems to be hard wired into our Dad DNA. Now yelling goes by many names. In my house it was “yelling” and “military voice”, growing up it was “Dad’s having a conniption” (my kids at their worse made my little brother and I seem like we were behaving in church), my neighbors kids always say their Dad is “calling livestock” (that’ll teach ya to marry a farmer’s daughter), so what do your kids call your explosions? You know they make fun of you all the time. Just like you made fun of your Dad or Coach when they blew their lid. Heck that is how we get “blew his lid”.
I was loud and animated and scared myself a couple of times. I constantly apologize to my kids for teaching them that misbehavior is dealt with through yelling. You see even though I stopped yelling in 2002, it was too late. If you read yesterday’s blog you will know what my actions did..teach my kids to be very loud at times. Those of you who are Dad’s or Mom’s of youngsters, please step back and rethink the yelling part of raising your children.
I love the way this story ends. Calvin with tears running down his face says to his Dad “I have an idea, let’s pretend I already feel terrible about it, and you don’t need to rub it in anymore”. What a brilliant point Mr. Watterson. If your child has done something wrong and you are at the reactionary stage of uncovering the truth. Step back and think how you would like to be told the obvious, “You messed up and I am pissed about it”. Then structure your talk in that matter. After all as the story ends, Calvin’s Dad is sitting on the bed apologizing for yelling at him for breaking the binoculars because in the big scheme of things it really isn’t so bad. Heck in another 10 years Calvin will be wrecking the car”.
Now go do what you have to do to….
Make it a super day,
Kevin
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