Just Listen

Sometimes I forget to listen to my kids.  I'm so busy most of the time telling them what to do, or reminding them of what they need to do, or correcting them, that sometimes I forget to just listen to them.  I had a great experience tonight in which I was able to do just that.

We had gone to dinner at my parents' house.  My sister is in town with her little girls and so my kids were having a great time playing with their cousins they don't get to see very often.  Finally everything had settled down and it was time to eat.  We had prayed, and I had even fixed plates for two of my three kids.  Wondering where my third child was, I wondered to the back of the house looking for him.

Greg was hiding in my parents' TV room, with the lights off, a lantern in hand, and was crying.  I thought my husband had recently had some words with him, so I knew there was something going on, and I didn't want to undermine what he had done, so I gently tried talking with my son.  I asked him if he wanted to come out and have some dinner.  He refused at first, and I asked him what was going on.  He didn't want to tell me, so I obviously knew he was up to something.

Finally after promising that I wouldn't be angry or mad he told me what he had done.  I asked him if he was hungry, which he answered affirmatively.  I advised him that maybe WE could go and apologize to his sister and his cousin, and then we could have some dinner.  He agreed and we finished the evening without any further events.

My thought process tonight is really on the fact that I just happened to listen.  Sometimes I'm so impatient, and I just want my kids to hurry and take care of things, that I miss the big picture.  My sweet son was in a room crying by himself because he felt bad about something he had done.  I don't think the girls had even given it a second thought.  Because I chose to listen to him, we were able to resolve the matter calmly and quickly.  Had I not chosen to listen to him, there were a lot of things that could have turned out differently, particularly how he viewed himself.

Sometimes, most of the time, we just need to sit down and listen to our children so that they understand how much we value them.  If we don't listen when they are little, why would we start when they are older?  Now is the time.  Now is the time to spend time with them, to do fun things, things they think are fun, that we may not necessarily think are fun.  We all need to be a little bit better at listening and spending time with out children.