As parents, it's sometimes so hard to know if we're raising our kids to be the kind of decent individuals we hope they'll turn out to be. I know I lose my patience way too often. I know I yell too much. Colin and I often find it so hard to practise "gentle discipline", which we adhere to in theory, but some days, fail miserably in practise.
We want Ethan (and Silas, too) to have an inner voice, too, their consciences/God's voice/general goodwill, to guide them. But I wonder so often how to find the balance between telling my kids what to do and allowing them to really listen to what's inside them. But the other day, I was greatly encouraged.
I took Ethan and Silas to the park, where we were meeting up with some other moms and their kids. Ethan played mainly with another boy in the group, about 3 yrs old. At one point, this boy and his mom were at the other side of the playground and Ethan was elsewhere, interacting with some other kids. I saw and heard him using a very rude voice, telling one of the other kids (not from our group) something quite forcefully. I went over and told him he was being rude and to use a kind voice. Then I walked away. Later, the mom who had been with her son on the other side of the playground, came to me and said Ethan had gone to the other children and said, "I'm sorry for yelling at you". I was amazed. So were the other moms! Go figure. To know that he felt in his own spirit that he needed to make ammends and apologize without me prompting him (which we do quite a lot), thoroughly impressed me. He makes me so proud of him.
I actually hesitated when I wrote the title of this post. Back when I was pregnant with Ethan, I heard this advice. "Don't take too much blame when your kids screw up and don't take too much credit when they do something amazing". So, this is Ethan's thing. It's his personal victory, not mine. Way to go, kid!
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