My child would never do that. How many times have you heard about parents that think their kids can’t be the bad one in social situations? Maybe this is you and you don’t know it yet. Well, it’s time to come to terms with the fact that maybe it is your child.
Growing up I was always the talkative disruptive kid in school and church. I knew it and so did my parents. I would get in trouble all the time because I didn’t focus in class and just wanted to be the fun talkative kid. I can’t tell you how many times I would be sitting, with my parents, at parent teacher conference and the teachers would say, “Jason is a great kid, but he just talks so much and is very disruptive.”
We would head home and my parents would say that things needed to change and that I needed to focus in class and work more on my school work. I never really changed, but I did learn that if I was the disruptive kid and my teachers told my parents that I was disruptive that I would get in trouble and not get to do the things I wanted.
Fast forward to the present day and you will see so many parents doing the complete opposite. When told at parent teach conference that their kid is the disruptive one, it is common for parents to blame the teachers. “Well, why aren’t you keeping my child’s attention?” or “Have you ever thought that maybe you (the teacher) are doing something that needs to change?”
Why do we as parents tend to think that things that are “bad” or “wrong” could never be our child? Does it have something to do with ourselves? When told that our children are disrespectful or disruptive do we take it as a personal attack on our parenting? We try so hard to make sure our kids learn to be good citizens, friends and students that when they fail, even in the smallest way, we internally feel like a failure. No teacher, coach or leader would ever bring up flaws or areas of improvement without having the truest intentions and desire for working together to help that child achieve his true potential.
I have always said, “If I ever find out that someone is bullying my child or doing rude things to one of my kids, I will go off!” Well, I was in nursery with my son one Sunday and I noticed that he was playing with a ball. Another little boy came up, just wanting to play with him, and took his ball. My son quickly got upset and wasn’t going to have that. He took his ball back and left the kid to cry. At first I thought, who taught their kid to just take things from other kids? Then I realized, my kid did that too. I didn’t want to let me son think that was okay and I sat and told him that the other boy was just trying to play with him. Then we used our words to ask for it back and play together.
I had to come to terms that my son tends to be the rude little one, and I am trying to be better at teaching him to share. But why can’t all parents realize that maybe our kids aren’t perfect? Maybe it’s time to look at your kids with a different perspective and listen to what others watching or teaching your kids are telling you. I hope that I can remember these moments as my kids get older, because as we all know our children become 10x’s worse than ourselves. So we are in for a real treat!
But I do ask, please, if you ever hear that your child isn’t being your little angel, think about it a little bit and then do something to make a change.
