Here’s a holiday lesson for kids on doing things you don’t want to do – and aren’t good at doing.
A couple of days into a long, long weekend it’s hard to want to do much more than relax a bit more. We all know that Monday will be tough but why think about that until we have to?
That was the premise under which I was relaxing until we drove back from a movie on Saturday evening and there on my front stoop was a package I’d been dreading: a giant, motorized car that we’d bought for our youngest daughter’s birthday. By the looks of the package – way too flat to contain a giant, motorized car – I was going to be cursing and swearing away my Sunday as I assembled it.
Inside my wife asked what was wrong. I wear everything on my face. The joy of my daughter was great, so I tried to mumble it off.
If there’s one stereotype of fathers and men that I don’t fit, it’s being handy. I can fix nothing – at least not on the first, second, maybe even fifth try. I’ve assembled, disassembled, tried to reassemble scores and scores of toys over the years. In the end, they usually don’t look like the photo on the box.
I can remember how to do things around my house the next time – after paying someone to come out the first time.
I can also remember what has failed, and the last time we had a motorized car – the Dune Buggy Racer, in all of its pink splendor – a personal trainer I knew came over to force the tire onto the axel.
None of this is a secret to anyone in my family. I never put on airs about being some Mr. Fix-It Dad.
So, on Sunday morning I sliced open the over-taped box and began to grumble. Not surprisingly my wife and daughters were nowhere to be found. Who wants to see their father fail – and curse, swear and shout in the process?
As I flipped, snapped, and tightened the car into being, I thought of the lessons I hoped my daughters would learn from doing things you don’t like to do and aren’t good at.
This is nothing new for working parents. But to me, the only one way to teach our kids this is to let them to see us soldier on, complaints and all. (My oldest daughter had a math teacher who yelled, “Grit” at the kids who asked too many questions. She was trying to motivate them; they made fun of her.)
Here are some lessons that came to mind.
1) You have to do unpleasant things when people are depending on you. My youngest daughter was excited to drive around our yard – and paying some high school kid to do it would have set exactly the wrong example.
2) I got frustrated at times. But frustration is a part of life. And you had better find a way to push through it.
3) Most of all, life isn’t just doing the things you want to do.
What are some lessons that you’ve taught your kids around doing unpleasant things?
