Talking It Up

One way to get our son to get ready for church is to remind him that the Primary would sing a special song to him and give him a treat. The plan came at a cost, because right before Primary he refused to go.  He no longer wanted them to sing to him.  But we eventually persuaded him to go.  Our talking up the special Primary birthday treatment stirred up so much anticipation that when the Primary began to sing our son began to scream and my wife had to take him out into the hallway.   Interestingly, he gave a talk in church a few weeks ago, really just a line as part of a Primary program.  He worked so hard to memorize it and delivered it well.  I was somewhat surprised how confident he was, knowing that he usually gets embarrassed.  I think the reason is that we talked to him about it matter-of-factly and didn't make a big deal of it.  I think because we didn't talk it up so much, he didn't get too nervous or anxious about it.  I think we're coming to realize that the expectations of a child are very fragile things. In our case, it seems to foster confidence in our son to treat big deals as small and small ones as big.