We have to persist in loving and teaching our children and persistently nudge them forward. And as a result, they learn something about responsibility and confidence that otherwise would not have occurred.
#RidiculouslyEffectiveParentingTraining #Persistence #LovingAndTeaching
Website: https://www.realloveparents.com/
Timestamps:
00:00 Father and mother came from unloving families but mother determined to learn how to love.
01:02 Son given the task of cutting down a tree in the yard and quits at the first problem.
01:56 Not caring to learn is a huge problem.
02:56 Mother encourages son to use the internet to fix the problem.
05:19 Mother follows up 2 days later, encourages him to find the solution to a new problem.
07:44 Dad predictably gives up when helping him find the screw he needs.
10:36 Mom doesn't rescue the child and encourages him to continue.
11:38 Parents need to love a child enough to teach him how to learn what he needs to know.
Partial Transcript:
I know a father who is minimally involved in the lives of his children.
This father’s wife hadn’t been loved either, but somehow she made a commitment to learning how to love and teach her children.
Their 12 y.o. son, Brett, was given a job to cut down a tree in the yard and cut it up into limbs that could be hauled away by the county. He went to his dad and said the saw wasn’t working. Dad said he had no idea what to do. Why? Because Dad didn’t CARE to learn how to help his son become a responsible and confident child.
So Brett gave up. But Mom noticed that the tree was still there, so she asked Brett why the tree job wasn’t done.
“The saw doesn’t work,” Brett said.
“Really?” Mom asked. “Does the engine work? Does it make the usual engine noises?”
“Yes.”
“Show me,” Mom said
The engine fired up, the chain moved, but it didn’t cut wood at all. In fact, the faster the chain moved, the more smoke came from the wood. Not a good sign.
Mom said, “You use the Internet to learn all kinds of things. What could you look up that might give you an idea of what’s happening here?”
“Chainsaw not working?” Brett said tentatively.
“Sure,” Mom said. “Try that.”
Brett tried some searches and found a list titled, “Most common reasons that a chain saw isn’t cutting.” He showed her the list and pointed out that one reason that stood out was that the chain of the saw might be dull. It turns out that a chain is like a knife. It has to be sharpened from time to time, and as far as the boy knew, it had never been sharpened.
Brett rode his bike to the hardware store and asked for a round file, just like the Internet article described.
Brett biked back to the hardware store, got the right file, used YouTube to learn how to sharpen the chain, and did what the video instructed. The chainsaw suddenly and miraculously cut the tree like butter.
Then a new problem occurred. The bar that holds the chain would not stay on the engine due to a missing screw. After five minutes of looking for the screw, Dad predictably gave up and took Brett home.
Brett again had a saw that didn’t work, an assignment to complete, and a father who didn’t care enough about his own son to either find the screw or learn anything else that might help. Brett learned from his father that if a task is difficult, you just give up.
This project was not complicated.
The store was five mins away from home by car. Mom told Brett to take the screw in a plastic bag in his pants pocket, so it wouldn’t get lost, and to show the hardware guy what he needed, along with all the specifications he had found in the manual on the Internet.
When they got to the hardware store, Mom just followed Brett around. At one point he just didn’t know what to do next, so he plopped on the floor, apparently giving up again. He looked at Mom and asked, with some attitude: “Are you just going to stand there?”
Mom didn’t react to the attitude, and instead, she said, “Yes, I suppose so. I got you here. I had you look up the screw in the manual you found on the Internet. And I told you to bring the other screw, to make sure you got the right one. Seems like I’ve done a lot already. The rest is up to you.”
Bless this mother. She didn’t drop the ball when Brett tried to blame the saw for not doing the tree job. She didn’t rescue him in the store. She helped him a lot, but then she knew that he had to go over the finish line under his own power.
Brett kept looking, and he found the right screw. When he got home, he put the screw where it belonged, the chainsaw worked properly, and now the job is done.
We have to persist like this mother did. She loved Brett, and taught him, and persistently nudged him forward. And as a result, he learned something about responsibility and confidence that otherwise would not have occurred. Finding a screw might seem like a small thing, but it becomes part of establishing a pattern that allows for a lifetime of happiness.
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