Saturday, January 26, 2013

Teaching Moments

For the last few months, we've had issues with Daughter eating lunch at school. Well...she just has eating issues. She is a snacker, and never wants a meal. And by snacker, I mean any unhealthy candy-like snack available. It's really a hassle, and, honestly, it's getting old. But I digress...
So lunch at school. Very often, Daughter comes home with a barely eaten sandwich. The other day, her sandwich was untouched. Husband asked her why she didn't eat her sandwich, and Daughter answered that today there was no time to eat lunch. It was recess right away. Obviously, the school is not going to start recess without allowing time for lunch, but Husband chose to let it go. A little while after, Daughter said she was hungry, so Husband sat her down with the sandwich and told her to eat it.
That night, as I was tucking Daughter into bed, I said to her, Маня, я слышала что сегодня не было времени в школе обевать, и что сразу был recess? (I heard that today there wasn't time to eat lunch and it was recess right away?) She looked at me with her big, blue eyes, and she slowly answered, "Да.......я наврала" (Yes.....I lied.)
I took this moment as a great opportunity for explaining how to apologize. I looked at Daughter very seriously, and it wasn't hard to make my voice sound sad. I told her how sad I was to hear that she lied to her father. I told her how upsetting it was to me to know that she would do such a thing. And then I said, I know this is a very hard thing to do, but you have to get out of bed right now and you have go tell Papa you are sorry that you lied to him. I said that I was sure that if she apologized, Papa would kiss her and hug her. As I was talking, Manya opened her mouth wide, stuck her little thumb in, and started to suck. (I should have taken that as my warning sign, but I missed it.) All the while, she watched me with her big, blue eyes and listened. I opened her blanket and I took her by the hand. I really thought it was going well! Then it started. "Я не хочу сказать прости!" To make a long story short, I ended up dragging her into the room where Husband was, and forcing her to stand in front of him. She kept crying that she didn't want to say anything, but finally, and I have no idea how I got her to do it, she wailed - Прости что я тебе наврала (I'm sorry I lied to you).  Over her wails and behind her, I'm signaling and mouthing to Husband - {Hug her and Kiss her} - because obviously with that kind of delivery, who would think that a hug and kiss is warranted? I decided to stick with my teaching moment, as I walked her back to bed, though, and I said - Saying sorry is one of the hardest things to do, but it's one of the nicest and best things that we can do, especially when we know that we've done something wrong. I walked out of the room, and caught eyes with Husband, who said - looks like I'm not the only one who has trouble with saying sorry. I guess it runs in the family! ....Perhaps my teaching moment wasn't a total failure with at least one audience....

1 comment:

  1. As I was reading I was standing behind you all the way ready for the great teaching moment :) I guess things don't always work out as planned. Well, now you know that the next time you have such a moment you get to be more creative and think of a completely different way of trying to get to the end result...

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