Recently, I read one of those parenting articles posted on Facebook that was really quite touching, although I can't really remember what it was about anymore. But I remember the mother talking about how she would get angry with her kids. She was learning to stop herself in those angry moments for 3 seconds before responding to her children and it was helping her to relate better with her kids. At least that's what I took away from the article. So I began thinking about the potential benefit of pausing for 3 seconds in other areas. So I tried it out yesterday.
Grace asked if I could go upstairs with her to help put her pjs on. She's very capable of doing this on her own. She's not only 5 years old but she's also Grace. You know what I'm talking about if you know Grace. We had finished eating dinner and I was cleaning up the kitchen. By this time of day, I'm usually exhausted because the last 3 hours have been intense and non stop...pick up fully emotional kids from school, give starving kids snack, sit and pretend the boring homework is not boring, prepare dinner again, eat dinner while managing 3 kids, clean up. Tired. When Grace asked me the unthinkable, which was to stop what I was doing, my automatic response would have been no! I want to finish cleaning up the kitchen so I can rest my feet and plop on the couch. Magically, I remembered that Facebook article and decided to try the 3 second rule out. For 3 seconds, I tried putting myself into Grace's head. She wanted to be with her mommy and didn't want to be alone. What a sweet desire. I looked at her tender face, placed down the dirty dish on top of all the other dishes, dried my hands, and raced her upstairs. My husband is a yes man. He brought Stephen into our bed late the other night to snuggle with him (he's the closest thing to a baby we have). Stephen asked for ice cream and Mike and I looked at each other with a 'why not' expression we both understood. So we woke up the 2 other kids at 10pm and went to the McDonald's drive thru and everyone got an ice cream sundae. What a fun memory!
My kids ask me a thousand questions a day and it seems my automatic response can be no. Most of the time I say no because it's a sacrifice for me. It can be harder to say yes. I don't always want to play house, or monopoly, or paint our nails again. I'm not at all saying I should never tell my kids no. There is great benefit and necessity to saying no at times. There is also wisdom in taking care of myself and knowing my limits so I don't become scary mom. But when I say no, have I thought about why I'm saying no? Am I thinking about myself or am I thinking about the precious hearts that are entrusted in my care? In 3 seconds, I can remember that people are more important than a clean house. In 3 seconds, I can remember that I'm not the only one to consider. I would love for my kids to have memories of midnight ice cream sundaes and laying on the floor with mommy reading a book in their tent they made. I think it will take much more than 3 seconds to get me to love my kids well... but I think it may be one good place to start.
