Parenting is probably the toughest job on earth. It requires modeling, not simply educating.
As it was raining cats and dogs, J requested for his little Thomas umbrella. Granted... but we forgot to bring along his Paw Patrol water bottle. Usually, we'll prepare his bottle the night before and insert it at the side pocket of his bag. However, as he had recently requested his Mama to buy the big Paw Patrol bottle, we had to put it on the table each time after we have prepared.
J was exhilarated that he would bring the Thomas umbrella that he forgot about his bottle.
Cut the long story short... We arrived at his nursery. As his sandals were wet from the rain, I requested him to leave them outside the shoe cabinet. He insisted not. Despite much explanations, he preferred to put them in the shoe cabinet. Well, his teacher was waiting for him to do the routine checks and registration. After much reasoning, he finally relented and allowed me to leave the shoes outside.
As his teacher was doing the routine checks, he suddenly realised that the Paw Patrol bottle wasn't in his bag. Man... he was pretty disappointed and upset. He didn't want to go in to his class. He insisted on going home to take. I had to ask the teacher to go in for her class, while I took time to talk to him.
Tried different ways of communicating but to no avail. He wanted his bottle. He asked if I could go home and bring back for him. I said, "No." I wanted him to learn how to let go when things don't turn out the way he expected. I wanted him to learn about taking responsibility for his own thing. I wanted him to know that he can't expect people to bring him what he has forgotten to bring. That would lead to complacency and taking others for granted.
His teacher came out thrice to see if he was ready. She tried encouraging him to go in but failed. So I politely requested to have more time with him to talk through.
Then a thought came into my mind. So I asked, "J, did you do your laundry last evening when you reached home?"
(We taught him to take out his used towel, blanket and school uniform from the school bag and place them into the laundry bag.)
J: No.
Me: Are you supposed to do your laundry each time when you reach home?
J: Yes.
Me: So did you forget to do it yesterday?
J: Yes.
Me: Did Papa get upset and insist that you do it?
J: No.
Me: So now that we have forgotten to bring the bottle... are you going to insist that Papa goes back and brings it to you?
J: No.
That settled it.
This is parenting by reminding him of grace.
Freely we have received God's grace, freely we will release grace to others. Each time when we are reminded of how gracious and merciful God is, we will be gracious and merciful towards others.
He had received grace regarding the laundry. By reminding him of what he had received, it became easy for him to overlook the bottle thingy. Jesus!
And now... I'm getting ready to bring him the Paw Patrol bottle. It will be a surprise for him, because he would not have expected me to bring, when I already said "No".
Now that he has learnt the proper value through the teaching moment, I am ready to give him a surprise attack.
Because Grace is a surprised attack.
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