Lesson Learned on the Playground

Today was filled with fun. The Kid is out of school and his cousins are here from Texas for the week. He has introduced the four year old boy cousin to internet computer games (Webkinz and National Geographic for Kids are his current faves) and pushed the buggy filled with twin baby dolls and a cute purse for his soon-to-be-two-year-old girl cousin. There was lots more fun, too…popping long sheets of bubble wrap (my personal favorite), dancing to Crocodile Rock, making very large spider webs with scotch tape (each boy used a whole roll!) and then a fun trip to the park.

By the time we went to the park, the boys were getting a little tired of each other. The Kid said from the back seat to his cousin who was in the way back seat (strategic placement was my idea), “Hey why don’t you run one way in the park and I will run another way. Then we don’t even have to see each other.” The boy cousin was agreeable and totally oblivious to the motives of The Kid. (It was fun to see that when the cousin was feeling bullied by another kid on the playground, he ran straight to Austin, who searched out the offender and talked to him.)

Now for the real point of this whole story…..
Not long before we left the park, The Kid ran over to me and said, “Quick, I need one of those ABC things. I am talking to that kid over there about Jesus.” (He was referring to a tract we use at church to tell kids about how to be saved.) Not 15 minutes later, we were traveling home and The Kid, quite irritated by the boy cousin who was singing a Christmas song very loudly, lashed out very rudely at the cousin. Among the really smart “mommy stuff” I had to say was this: “You were just telling a stranger about Jesus and here is your cousin, a part of your family, getting nothing that sounds like Jesus from you.”

Even as the words came out of my mouth, I realized that (in the words of a wise teacher I worked with a long time ago) I had one finger pointing in accusation at The Kid and four others pointing back at me! How often do I speak “Jesus” in public and moments later I am speaking harshly and rudely with my family? It’s way more than I care to admit, but you can be sure that the short lecture that followed – the one about what a gift family is and how we need to treasure our family and speak words of loving kindness that build them up – well, those words were mostly for me.