Do you harp on your kids much? Yep, me too. I tell them to pick up their mess, brush their teeth, do their homework—and then I wonder why they dawdle and drag.
Or at least I used to, until one evening my husband gave me a taste of my own medicine. He took charge of cooking dinner because I had projects hanging low on my desk, and just as I was typing furiously, mid-sentence and mid-thought, he called from the kitchen.
“Dinner’s ready!”
Huh? It took me a few seconds to shift brain modes. “Okay, I’ll be there in a minute,” I called back. “I’m just wrapping something up in here.”
“Better come now before it gets cold!”
“I said I need a minute! I was in the middle of something!”
“Well, that’s fine, but dinner is ready. I can’t turn back the clock now.”
And that was when I finally realized—I do the same thing to my kids. And it’s really annoying.
So sorry, girls. Mom gets it now.
Are you starting to get it, too? Join me on For the Family today where I’m talking about the power of a five-minute warning. It’s sort of like turning back the clock—only better. I’ll see you there!
Blessings,
Becky
Crystal says
November 2, 2015 at 11:06 amI have gone to exact random times with my older kids. Usually 7 and I say, “You need to be in the car in __ minutes.” rather than, I am leaving. When my oldest was little and it was time to leave somewhere was when I first started doing this and it was a disaster but it works well now for the rest of the kids. I took more of a kidnapper approach with him. Just grab him suddenly and run to the car. Otherwise, he spent those 5 minutes preparing to evade me!