Instant Karma in “I am….”

Notice how roadsigns never say, “Don’t run over pedestrians?”

Say What You WANT to Happen

Maybe it’s because they are so pure and so close to being just born from the source, but it seems like kids have instant karma.

Tell a kid “no” when they are in the middle of something and if they know they are wrong, they will likely sabotage themselves so that they stop doing it.

Scream, “Don’t run in the house” and sure enough, they will soon trip and fall down. Would they have fallen if you hadn’t said anything?

A lot of times we tell our kids what we are afraid will happen and just by speaking it, we make it happen.  I became aware of this several years ago and since then, I make it a practice not to vocalize my fears if I can help it.

I try to avoid statements like: “Don’t run, you’re going to fall”, “Don’t put your drink down there, it’s going to spill” and “Don’t play with fire, you’re going to get burned”.

Something about the kids and the universe, the “don’t” doesn’t get heard and instead the kids just hear, “you’re going to fall”, “you’re going to spill” and “you’re going to get burned”; and then they do.

The more I pay attention, the more I realize how important it is that we choose our words with care. We are anointed with the responsibility to develop our spirit along with developing the spirit of our children.

The clearest way to do that is to change the “I am…” If you say to your child, “You are clumsy,” their self-speak will play in their brain, “I am clumsy” and then they will be clumsy and have lots of accidents. And you can see it almost instantly play out with kids and their behavior.

Instead, let positivity be paramount in your own self-speak and in the words that you choose to use with your child.

So switch around those words to focus on what you WANT to happen: “Walk so you’ll stay safe”, “Be careful and focus so that your drink stays in its cup”, “Always use caution around fire and you won’t get burned.”

Call into your life and speak the name of what you want to happen. Model for your children this positive self-speak: “I am safe, I am prosperous, I am free.” Fill in the blank with a positive and positivity will take the place of negativity instantly.

Toddler Wisdom

As I woke up this morning, my eyes peeled open to see Adam laying down facing me, poking my boobs. He smiled and said, “There’s a bounce house in there.”

Having just turned 3 years old he is at that glorious stage where his beautiful imagination and limited vocabulary combine to create wonderful metaphors and poetry out of his everyday observations of life.

“How did you get so smart?” I ask him.

He puts his fingers on top of his head and swirls them around. “There’s birds in my brain going swoop, swoop, swoop.”

A snow plow (which we haven’t gotten to see much this year due to the uncharacteristically warm winter) is a “snow cloud” and a pan lid is a “shield” to “fight bad guys”.

All this cuteness is great to keep in mind when he does things that I find less cute. When he pulls out a booger and wipes it on me, laughs and asks innocently, “that a funny joke?” I’m more conducive to think, yeah, it is, than to get angry. When I’m sitting around bored, he can pop me out of it by tilting his head, fluttering his eyelids and asking, “Mom, get a party started?”

These little gems of toddler wisdom should not be ignored, but cherished, and I am thankful for each one.

 

 

Sometimes We Just Need to Shut-Up

We can’t wait for our tiny babies to start talking and then once they do, the words that come out are never what we imagined them to be. They are cuter, said without any shades of secret meaning and paired with facial expressions so pure that the greatest artist would be challenged to recreate them.

Then it comes…”Mom, shut up. Shut up your mouth, mom.”

And then I realized that shutting up my mouth was suddenly the last thing I seemed to be able to do. It hung open so wide a steam-roller could’ve fit in there and had extra room to turn around. It was the first time anything like this had happened and I was awestruck.

I scolded my boy for being rude.

The second time he said it, just a few days later, I realized he was right. I needed to shut up.

I was angry and yelling for no good reason.

It took a two-year old to show me that. It humbled me.

As adults, the reasons we tell people to “shut-up” are long and varied. We could not like what they have to say, or we may just not be in the mood to hear it. We could be playfully joking, hiding within it that 25% percent of truth that every joke or sarcasm seems to contain.

But with my two-year old, there was none of this. His eyes were clear and unblinking and as I searched his face for meaning that day, I found it. I needed to shut-up.