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A Child's Prerogative

Mar 28, 2008

It's funny how we, as parents, tend to not only try to control our own lives, but also the lives of our children. Usually, this common mistake becomes apparent in the later stages of your child's life. Yes, we know those stages well..."The Teenage Years."

We tend to forget that our children have an agenda of their own. Even at the age of, lets say three, our children tend to voice their likes and dislikes.

But nothing could have prepared me for what my four year old and three year old daughters had in store for me.

One day, upon looking out the window and seeing that it was such a beautiful and cloudless day, I thought to myself, what a relief from all that rain we'd been getting these past few weeks. So, having the best intentions in mind, I decided to "order" my children to play outside and have fun. "Hey, you two! It's sunny outside. Do you want to go play outside? Go play outside!"

Well, suffice it to say that when I didn't get the assumed reaction that I had in my mind, I became confused and repeated myself, ordering them once again to play outside, it would be fun.

When my children remained where they were standing, I found myself becoming really upset and opened my mouth to commence sentencing the death penalty, but stopped because curiosity got the better of me.

I took a steadying breath.

"Okay. Mommy wants to know why you two aren't listening when I told you to go play outside. It's nice and sunny, you two should go outside and enjoy the nice weather we're having. So tell mommy why you're not playing outside?"

Both of my daughters looked at me, then at each other, then quickly back at me again.

Finally, what felt like eons later (when you are feeling your blood pressure skyrocket, father time seems to warp the clock up for you), my five year old answered, her eyes tearing up and her voice shaking, four words that just went straight to my heart.

"We don't want to."

Yeah... talk about retardation at the mercy of a five year old.

With those four words, my daughters succeeded in teaching me a very important lesson.

No matter the age or the situation...

a child has prerogatives. Respecting them is ours.

~Mercy~