Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Sweeping

As I was sweeping the dining room tonight there were a few crumbs that weren't budging.  So I brushed harder and harder, almost to the point of scrubbing, and they either become fixed to that spot or fly off in a different direction than I wanted.  Finally, I just brushed them lightly and for some reason they responded to the broom.  I've noticed days where my kids are like those crumbs, and sometimes they won't budge when I ask them to do something.  And when I push harder, they literally fix themselves to that spot arching their backs or dead-weighting.  Or they bolt.  Although it's hard to do sometimes when I get home from work, when I provide gentle guidance they respond.  An example that shouldn't have taken me so long to figure out is having our four-year old clean his room before bed.  He is a very clean little boy, but he gets out his books, games, and toys during "quiet time" (which is our non-napping son's version of nap time), and we usually don't have him clean it up when it's over.  I forget that for a four-year old the task seems daunting.  I know how hard it is to get started on a big task, so I eventually offered to help him get started instead of employing my usual exasperated approaches of, "Hurry! We're running out of time" or "Come on!" or "Hurry!"  It worked.  I was able to "sweep" him into cleaning his room.

No comments: