I read this article the other day about the natural tendency of children to be generous and helpful. And how we as parents work diligently and subversively to squelsh this nature--without even realizing it. The next day...real life example:
My children love the pantry cabinets. Yes, they have hoards of actual TOYS, but they love to pull things out of the kitchen cabinets and leave them on the floor. Particularly when I am cooking dinner b/c they like to be in the room with me. Of course I had an unsealed bag of sunflower seeds within their reach, and yes, they ended up on the floor. Trying to keep my cool, I proceed to remove my children from the room and sweep up the seeds. Elisa, my 3 year-old, wants to help clean. She gets our mop and proceeds to shove the seeds around. I tell her to get her toy vacuum cleaner instead. Compliant, she bustles off, and I put the seeds into a nice pile that I am about to scoop into the dustpan. As I bend down, a little plastic Dirt Devil rams into the dustpan and flings the freshly collected seeds hither and yon. Now, you mommas out there, please don't judge me, but I LOST IT with her! I was so close to having my floor clean and I lost rational judgement. I screamed at her, put her in her sad chair, yanked her vacuum away. Then, of course, conviction and dawning set in. She just wanted to help. She wanted to get up close and personal with the action and I wanted to push her away from it. Help, but not too closely. "Pretend" to pick up. Do anything but do it away from me. What kind of learning is that? She knows the difference between real help and fake help. She truly just wanted to clean up in a real way. And I squelched it. Took that generous nature and bruised it. And it breaks my heart. Yes, I apologzied. We talked about it. We found something else to clean. But do I worry that she will not offer to help sweep again? Yes. Am I going to mark this episode on my heart and do my best to nuture her sweet helpful spirit? You bet. I am going to try.
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