I hope he gets it eventually

One of the things that my mom used to tell us was that there is no trying. You either do it or you don't. It drove me crazy when she told us this. She would demonstrate by asking us to make a fist. Either we did or we didn't. There was no in-between. I still don't totally believe in that and I think there are circumstances where something is a "try" and not a failure. I think she would agree, but sometimes you need to be black and white with kids. Even though I don't totally agree, it causes me to think and I certainly learned from her teachings.

Lately, I've been talking with Gavin about how there are times when he chooses how he feels. Or, actually, he chooses what to do with the feelings he has. When I ask him to pick up the toys and he misses part of Sesame Street because he was dilly dallying, he says that I made him angry. Well, he may be angry because of the consequence of his dilly dallying, but in his eyes it's because I asked him to pick up. In that moment, it's ok to feel the anger, but he can decide how to act. That just makes him madder. I have the feeling that this will be one of those things that he remembers as an adult. Just like I remember the trying thing with my mom.

My struggle is to model the behavior that I am preaching! I don't always demonstrate the best choice when it comes to my frustration. When I let it take over, I do take time to talk to Gavin later about how I could have acted differently and that it's normal to feel the emotion, but we need to continually work to display it in a way that won't hurt others. I hope that when he looks back and remembers the things that I told him that drove him crazy, he'll also realize that he learned something from them. He doesn't have to completely agree with what I'm trying to teach, but at least he'll have something to ponder.