Unteaching the Teachable

Parenting involves a lot of instruction, especially while our kids are little and learning. By the time they are twelve or thirteen they have most everything figured out, and by the time the graduate high school they have figured out the rest. A parent has a hard time instructing after that, and can merely "suggest" (which all too often is honorably ignored). And I might add that good parenting involves a lot of instruction, because our public school system is offering classes on topics such as hygiene, manners and morals, which I really think should be learned at home - for more than tax-payer rantings. (Though better learned somewhere than not at all!)

Kids are good at learning too. Maybe they cannot help it, because they know so little as babies, and they pick up on things very quickly. Ages six months to three and half years are amazing times! Once the eldest child starts to talk, watch out! Spoken words better be filtered or the echoes heard will be surprising . . . especially at inopportune times! Though sometimes kids are so teachable that something must be untaught. Like the other week Hugh had a runny nose while we were away from the house. I was out of tissues, and I showed him, just this one time, in this one particular situation, how to wipe his nose on his sleeve. When mommy asks, "What are you doing?" while sitting at the dinner table, "Daddy showed me" does not get me nominated for teacher-parent-of-the-year : )

And sometimes the unteaching is because our instructions are downright confusing. We found this out at soccer practice a few weeks ago. You see, little kids need to learn to share. Sharing is a good social skill, it is nice, and helps keep mommy sane while siblings play throughout the day. However, it turns out that sharing does not apply to organized team sports. All our lessons were thrown out the window as this group of three and four year olds put their practice on the field. With wild encouragements of "it's everyone's turn" or "it's ok, just take the ball from them", poor Hugh was pretty confused how his fun soccer practice transformed into moral depravity by not sharing! : ) He'll get the hang of it soon, runny nose and all.