Today, my 6-year old, usually excited about spelling, burst into tears at the thought of her spelling test tomorrow.
Usually, her enthusiasm caught me by surprise, “Mama! Teach me, let’s do it!”
Today, she instead cried, “I don’t want to do spelling anymore. I rather watch something on my iPad.”
“And do badly tomorrow?”
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she said, “Yes I rather that.”
I prayed for wisdom.
It was then that I said,
“SF, I’m sorry this is so hard for you. Your spelling this week is truly hard! But in Team Tam, we do hard things.
I know you don’t want to do this anymore because you’re afraid of making mistakes. But we are here to help you, we are here to make it fun!
Do you remember you telling Mama to try hard, even though I’m scared to do the long triathlon? That’s why I’m trying!
In Team Tam, we help one another do hard things. My job is not to make you happy, so I understand if you cry. Tonight, we won’t be watching cartoons because there won’t be enough time.
My job is to help you be resilient and believe you can overcome setbacks.”
SHE BAWLED.
I sat there, watching her bawl, reminding myself that two things can be true at the same time- “My child is upset, but I am a good parent. My job is not to fix her emotions. My job is to hold space for her discomfort and guide her towards the right choices. My job is to encourage her that she can do hard things, and I’m with her.”
Moments later, as my words sank in, I blinked back tears when she, sobered, said through red eyes, “Mama, I will never ever give up. You must never ever give up too.”
Then she sat down and wrote all the hardest words we’d learnt. It wasn’t perfect, but she developed confidence and pride in doing her best.
For our board activity, no prizes for guessing what we did.
We went over what we found hard.
I learned, that as parents, there might be no rule book to tell us what to do in every situation. Every parent might react differently. (It’s ok if you’d have done otherwise! Maybe some of you even disagree that I maintained that we go through the spelling anyway!)
But the most important thing i learnt was to prize the values of CONNECTION, EMPATHY, and ENCOURAGEMENT we so cherish as part of our family ethos.
Each of us shared what we found hard and felt determined to overcome.
I was shocked to hear what my 4-yr old EP had to say!
It amazes me how my 4-yr old, once filled with deep phobias about spiders, ants, dogs etc, has become obsessed with her dream of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro (the tallest mountain in Africa) ever since we left Tanzania.
She keeps drawing Mt Kilimanjaro in her free time, with no probing whatsoever!
