I have this mental rule… I’ll only make one trip from the car to the kitchen with groceries. This gets me in trouble sometimes.
I carried at least 6 bags of groceries on each arm. My then, 4 and 2 year olds carried a few things. We plop the bags down on the kitchen floor and BOOM- the Dr Pepper takes off like a rocket! It flies up in the air, spraying the ceiling, the walls and then it lands on the ground and shoots across the kitchen floor spilling every last drop all over the baseboards and floor. I’m sure our eyes were like full moons. I remember looking at Trinity and her eyes meeting mine and we just burst out laughing.
After a few minutes my laughter became tears. I began to cry because the cleanup seemed so overwhelming. Be honest, 2 and 4 year old kids are not the best at cleaning Dr Pepper. It had streaked the walls, splattered the ceiling and coated the baseboards. Everything within sight was sticky! Who knew there was so much Dr Pepper in one bottle! We cleaned and cleaned, but it was so difficult to find all the places the Dr Pepper had infiltrated. In fact, I’m pretty sure there were a few splatters still on those walls when we sold the house.
Opportunity in Chaos
Looking back, I see so many opportunities that God allows our kids to see the how we handle chaos. It’s in these moments of chaos that we have an opportunity to teach our kids how to respond. To a child these moments make us seem a bit more real, a bit like them and we can share a moment of connection. Being honest about how you feel in a moment will give them the tools to know how to be honest about their emotions too. We have to in these moments teach them by example how to have all the emotions, but not to let the emotions run us.
It’s okay to laugh… it’s okay to cry…
It’s not okay to scream and blame people,
It’s not okay to give up and just run away.
We need to find ways to show them that it’s okay to laugh at mistakes. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed. They need to see that adults make mistakes too and we have to clean up messes. We are creating a relationship of honesty and trust that will carry them into middle and high school.
Looking Ahead
In the tween/teen years we want them to share their emotions and experiences with us. They need to have seen the example of us sharing with them so that it’s just normal that we talk and share because that is what we have always done. It’s not something you can suddenly build when they are 13. Trust takes time.
Our kids also need to know that we aren’t so “perfect” that we can’t relate to what they are going through or thinking. We need to have shared dozens of reality moments- from the hilarious to the heartbreaking with them. Letting them see us vulnerable, real and coping with things. Then they will have this deep rooted sense of security and relationship with us that allows them to be vulnerable, real and cope with things WITH US!
Application for Preschool and Elementary
Look for opportunity in your chaos. When there is a huge mess, take time to show your child how to break the work down, laugh about it, make it fun and stick in until it’s finished. If your feelings get hurt about an invitation to an event you can say, “I’m sad because I thought I’d be invited to this event and I wasn’t”. Maybe you go through a loss, and while you are grieving you can walk through some of those big emotions with your child. Share your life with them (at age appropriate levels of course) so that they see by example the tools that you use to manage chaos.
They need to have laughed, cried and cleaned Dr Pepper off the ceiling with you… so when their “Dr Pepper chaos” happens they are ready!
