Learning to share

Today the stomach bug I've been avoiding really hit me and I had trouble getting out of bed. My whole body ached and I fought against the sickness, forcing myself to get up and get out. There are certain food items I have to get at Wild Oats.. dates, nutritional yeast, and bread. (It baffles me that I can't find bread anywhere else that contains 5 ingredients of less.) I had not eaten much of anything and was feeling weak, but my legs were begging to be stretched so we bundled up and headed to the store, grabbed the few things we needed, and then took a short brisk stroll to our favorite toy store. I wanted to find the kids a new game since we play Monopoly Jr. every day and because the rest of our small game collection has been much used and is falling apart. The store is filled with educational and mostly wooden toys and has a good selection Playmobile. I quickly found several things that I wanted to add to my imaginary homeschooling collection and made a mental note in my head. The games, although they had a few unique ones to choose from, were more than we wanted to spend. I had a prescription to pick up at another store and while I waited, I searched the the clearance toy isle hoping to find a good deal, which I did! There was a game marked down to $9 from $25 called, Learning to Share.. Fun Park Game.

Now let me backtrack for a minute.. It was only recently that games were allowed to be played in our house again. Our oldest had his privileges taken away a while back because he started to ONLY care about winning. Now, I know that we all have a little bit of competitiveness in us, but the papa and I are not those type of parents.. okay, I'm going to try hard not to categorize or point fingers here, but we're just not the competitive types. We could care less about sports (with the exception of my strange tennis fascination) and we're completely laid back when it comes to well, most things. But, if he would even start to get behind for a minute he would quit, storm off, or actually physically destroy the game. It was never fun to play games with him. NEVER. So we put them away for quite a while and I started worrying that it was something we were doing wrong as parents. What had caused such aggressive tendencies? It really concerned me. But because I think that games are an excellent and fun way to learn we decided to try again. We have just recently begun slowly testing the waters and although he's still quite competitive, I think we got the point across, and playing games together now has become more enjoyable.

Anyway, now that you know the back story, I'm sure you can probably understand how happy I was to find a game that was not only marked down, but was also going to help teach my kids how to share! :)

So, as I was in the kitchen making a vegan pizza and emptying the dishwasher this evening, papa panda was in the living room with the boys trying out the new game and suddenly I hear, "Yay! Good job! You are really good at this game!" Wow, I have never heard such encouraging words come out of my older one's mouth in praise of his little brother. It gave me hope that maybe we're not doing such a bad job after all.

I was watching something on TLC the other day and saw a commercial for a new show that was going to be on about toddler beauty pageantry. I watch from the sidelines as so many parents push their small children to become smarter, faster, prettier, etc. Now, I find nothing wrong with encouraging your children to strive at doing well in life. But I think that sometimes we have to be careful not to push them too hard, or even worse, try to force them to live out our own failed dreams. I was just talking to the panda last night about how different kindergarten seems now from when we were in school. I mostly remember naps and snacks and finger painting and story reading. My oldest comes home from school and I asked if he did anything new or interesting and he sighs and replies, "No, we just worked." I know there is a reason that his school district is highly rated. It's because they push kids to excel and in turn, the kids do well. But, it worries me that my 6 year old is already feeling burnt out at school and isn't having fun learning. I am afraid that he will spend his entire school career just going through the motions and memorizing facts. I worry that he is already beginning to lose that spark. I feel that it is our job as parents to constantly nurture it and so we play fun games, sing songs, create, read, and laugh together.

Just last night I had the same dream that I have had many times during the course of my life. I'm at school, which seems like a maze of staircases, and I can't remember where my classroom is. Everyone else are inside the rooms in their seats listening and learning and I'm just wandering around lost in the hallways. I wake up in a panic and can't shake the feeling for the rest of the day. I had a lot of anxiety in school and that's pretty much all I remember about it. Oh, and the horrible peer pressure and backstabbing.. but that's a post for another day. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that most of my learning has come from other sources. People I've met, conversations I've had, books I have read, places I have visited, etc. No, I did not go on to college after H.S. and yes, I feel that I have wasted a lot of time in my life doing nothing.. but I feel that I have lived fully and completely and that I have learned more from being out in the world than I would have had I been stuck in a classroom. All of those experiences have guided me and sculpted me into the person I am today. I am not saying that I want my children to follow the same path that I did, in fact I pray that they don't. But, I hope that if they do one day make the decision to go to school that it is because they are passionate to learn about something that truly moves them and not because they feel like it's what they are expected to do.

More than anything though I pray that they will follow the path that God wants for them and that they do it with an open mind and heart.. fully trusting and believing that he has amazing adventures and learning experiences waiting ahead for them. I hope that as parents we will teach them to make good decisions with the choices they are given, and that they will enter out into the world on their own with open arms, full of wonder and awe by all that this amazing world has to offer them. I am excited to see where life takes them..