Out of the mouth of babes...

This new year, I gave our elder son a small diary to record his days. I hoped it would be an exercise in composition for him and that I would save them so that he can look back at his own writing one day and enjoy it. The novelty factor and "writing a diary like Amma" was exciting in the beginning. But then he was always assailed by every writer's doubt, "What shall I write?" At first I had him think about his day and record the highlights. His contribution for each day was two or three sentences at the most. But I didn't push him so that he would not feel that it was a forced task. Last Friday, he was bored while I was writing away, and pestered me a bit too much about what he should write. I snapped and told him brusquely that he could write anything as long as he quit pestering me. He wrote for a while and then asked me politely whether I would like to read what he had written. Contrite for having lost my temper earlier, I accepted the offer. This is what I read:

"I love my parents. When I do nauthy things they will be angry. But when they are angry just watch them like a baby." (sic)

I was intrigued and asked for an explanation. He said that whenever elders scold you, you just have to imagine that they are little babies who are shouting at you and then you won't feel bad. I asked him if that is what he did when we scolded him and he said yes. I was totally floored. Want to know why? In You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay, she describes a visualization exercise used to forgive our parents (for several reasons, even if you are the best of parents, kids will always have some resentment towards you.). The key element of the exercise is to imagine your parents becoming younger till they are each three-years old. Then it becomes easy to forgive them unconditionally. Our 7-year-old is doing this instinctively!!! Yup, out of the mouth of babes!!!!

Our younger one who started school recently is also beginning to find his home more attractive than school now that the novelty has worn off. Yesterday his bus driver called me five minutes after he picked him up from our home to tell me that he was crying a lot. I reassured him that he would probably be okay once he reached school and called the school to reassure myself. Today, I had to carry him on to the bus and even though he did not struggle, once he was on the bus, he sidled on to the farther side of the seat and refused to even look at me when I called out a cheerful Ta..ta. Oh the guilt....

And this is what he looks like once he gets back from school...