Remember what is was like to be a child? Each day we woke up with a sense of what's possible, anything can happen, what will I do when I don't have to go school??
As 2020 rolled in I reflected on 2019 and what it was or who I was being that I wanted to tweak and adjust, and the first thing that came to mind was saying YES more often, especially to our children. Perhaps I am alone in this, although I doubt I am, since children are always asking for our attention (at least it feels that way sometimes). In those moments, myself included, we default to saying "No I am busy" or "Daddy has work to do"or worse..... "We can do that later.".... and later never comes! The truth is, I am not all that "busy" all the time, I have just decided that whatever they want to do is not of interest to me and boring. Sounds kind of selfish when we look at things objectively. This was certainly my way of being more often than not, but I became aware of this behaviour as my children got older and once we become aware of a behaviour, we can begin to create lasting change.
My kids have had a few extra days off school these days and as I returned home Wednesday morning, literally 2 minutes after I got my coat off.... our oldest child, Carter says: "Daddy, we should have a movie day today!!!! We can take the bus to Bulk Barn, get some candy and watch movies this afternoon, it'll be fun!"
Now I grew up in Toronto, taking the bus and subway was a way of life for 20+ years, but I have never been on a bus in Bradford, I have no idea what the schedule is, what bus to take to get to Bulk Barn, not to mention it was -20 outside! So as you can imagine, my instinct was to say NO! But to our children this was an adventure, and I caught myself and said "Okay lets do it!"
As the journey got going, Carter started to have some doubts, and anxiety, he was like, "What if we get on the wrong bus? What if the bus doesn't come and we get cold?" The truth is, I had the EXACT SAME ANXIETY! Can you imagine? I am 41 years old, I have access to UBER if we get on the wrong bus or if we get cold! But I was exeperiencing the same anxiety as my 8 year old son, AND I know I am just looking for a reason to back out and stay on my nice warm couch.
I told Carter I felt the exact same way as he did...... but we would bundle up, ask lots of questions to our bus driver, and as we got going our journey would get easier. The bus came, our driver's name was Dave, and he was super helpful. We took our seats (I took a selfie), enjoyed someone else doing the driving, my kids joy and the gorgeous sunshine and scenery which we can't always take in when we do the driving.
As the first half of our LONG journey ended, a WHOLE 22 minutes and two different bus rides later, and we reached our intended destination, Lincoln and Carter were ecstatic! High fiving, "We did it!". It was a special moment for me. I was SO grateful for saying yes to our journey, and not only that, I had the opportunity to spend some time with Carter in his anxiety and tell him it's okay, let's do this together:-) .
Say yes more often to your children, you are the one who gets the reward:-)
Chris
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