18 Jun, 2008
When a small thing is also a very very big thing
Posted by andrea tomkins in: parenting
It took me a long time – dare I say – YEARS before I discovered a little something that has decreased my stress levels by whole bunch.
Here’s the back story.
I pick the girls up from school every day. And every day we walk home. And every day I used to remind the girls to do the same three things.
1) “Don’t forget to wash your hands!”
2) “Unpack your lunch bag!”
3) “Hang up your backpack!”
I said these things, plus a couple of others, every.single.day.
If you were a thinking kind of person you could safely ASSUME that if I said these things five days a week, sometimes three or four times each afternoon, for an entire school year, they’d REMEMBER that they had to wash their hands as soon as they got home from school.
Nay. That is not so.
If I didn’t remind them – multiple times – we’d be sitting down to dinner three hours later and I’d ask, offhandedly, you washed your hands, right? I could tell by their faces they had not, and so they’d rush off to the powder room, leaving a clouds of cold germs in their wake, for a symbolic rinsing of their sticky, dusty paws.Â
Anyway, yes. I hate repeating myself. I hate repeating myself. What I hate, even more, is the progression that happens when I repeat the same things too many times within a very short span of time.
“Don’t forget to wash your hands,” I say, calmly, casually, as we walk in the door.
“Wash your hands girls,” I’d say, calmly, wondering if they heard me the first time.
“Have you washed your hands?” I’d ask while I’m in the kitchen, after having washed my own hands.
By this time my voice will take on a slight tone, and it will escalate from there.
*sigh*
It finally occurred to me that I could just write down my three things and display them somewhere they can easily see them. We have a white board on the interior side of the front door and now it does all the talking for me. All I have to do is say “WHAT DOES THE SIGN SAY” and they know exactly what do to. And for some reason, they do it. No nagging required.
This little thing has gone a long way to saving my sanity. Hallelujah.
