I know, I know… it has been a while since I posted. I just came back from vacation with my family and then each of us took turns getting sick (too much fun on the beach I suppose). Anyway, As my first post back, I wanted to share something about our trip. First, you should know that I traveled with not only my immediate family but also my two cousins and their families. All total there were 6 children ranging in age from 3 – 13 and 5 adults. It’s been a while since we were all together so I really enjoyed it. One thing I took notice of was how much the children enjoyed themselves. I actually learned a lot from them while we were away. Here are a couple of lessons learned.
The word “No” means “later”. I usually have no problem saying “no” to my kids. I am not a strong disciplinarian but I do say “no” a lot more than I say “yes”. But on vacation, I felt myself having a hard time saying “no”. My usual “no’s” became “not right now’s” or “maybe later’s”. I assumed that was because I was on vacation so anything goes. But what I soon realized was that it was the children themselves that affected my ability to say no. They somehow had an expectation that anything they asked was possible and that whatever they wanted they would receive. Their attitudes were just different while we were away. I believe that their expectation affected how they asked for things and also affected how we responded. What would happen if we did that everyday in our own lives? What if we changed our expectations? How would it impact our work, our businesses, and general opportunities in life? I am not saying that we should always receive everything we ask for – we have all had experiences where that was the wrong thing for us! What I am saying is that sometimes, our expectations and attitudes make us miss out on things before we even ask.
There is no designated time for “later”. Another thing I noticed was that there seemed to be no rationale behind how much time “later” meant – it could be 5 minutes or 10 seconds! Each of them (remember there were 5 children) could make the same request over and over again (and not in a disrespectful way) until one of two things happened: the adults gave into their request or we gave them a specific time for “later”. I understood quickly that I should make a decision and be very specific in my response. It was like they trained me on how to respond to them! Brilliant, don’t you think? We should all train people on how to respond to us. When people who we have regular contact with respond to us consistently in a manner we don’t like, we have to think about what we have done to train them to take that approach with us. I am not saying that there aren’t any crazy pots but I do wonder what would happen if we made concerted efforts to train people on how to respond to us? Interesting thought isn’t it?
Well, that’s it for now. There were two other lessons I learned but I think I will save that for another post! 🙂 Thanks for reading and be sure to share your comments below.