Tuesday, May 23, 2017

No - not as many

Life with B, actually life with kids in general, can be a long series of saying no.

"No, buddy, you can't wear that."
"No, not right now."
"No, don't say that."
"No, not everyone is interested in hearing about that."

At times it seems like all you're doing as a parent is crushing little dreams.  B has such amazing thoughts and I find myself trying reigning his in a lot.   Why?  Sometimes for his own good but lots of times because I don't want to be embarrassed.  I don't want people to feel bothered by him or think he's weird.  I'm not proud of it, but it's true.

Monday morning B was up and dressed before I came to the kitchen for my coffee.  He didn't match.  He does this a lot.  He thinks that if his shirt is orange and his shorts are orange, he's good to go.  He doesn't care that they aren't the right shades of orange.  He and I have been arguing about his choice in outfits most of week.  Sometimes I can tell him he doesn't match and it handles it very well.  Other times it really sets him off.

Monday morning he's wearing a green shirt and teal-ish colored shorts.  I made a conscious decision to not care.  We didn't even discuss it.  And guess what happened?  Not one darn thing.  No one told him he didn't match.  No one called me to bring him something else to wear.  The world kept turning.
We did argue about a big box Monday morning.  He's been creating "toys" lately.  Which means he draws characters and then cuts them out.  Apparently, he's made a bunch of these paper toys for his friends they needed to be transported to school in a large box.

We went round and round.  I tried to find reasons to stall him. I tried to compromise on with something else.  I was getting no where.  I finally decided it wasn't worth it.  I let him take the dang box to school.

And guess what happened? Not a darn thing (that I know of ;). No one called from school to tell me what an idiot I am for letting him bring this giant box.  I do know that his teacher told him he couldn't leave it at school so he brought it home.  That's totally reasonable.  It's kinda what I did.  Make him take care of the box.  This may not be the whole story but, it's the story he was able to tell me so we're rolling with it.

This is why I love the summer.  I don't have to tell B no as much.  I kinda let him roam free. During June, we take a break from schedules and I let him lead.  By July he starts getting antsy so we'll start back on a schedule.  But for the month of June, I'm going to try not to tell him no as much on things that don't matter!

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