By Satu Tunkelo
A familiar morning disaster; you’ve been there haven’t you…?
You wake up way too late as you hit the alarm clock, for the third time. Feeling shell-shocked, you crack open your gunky eyes, right smack in the middle of a perfectly good nightmare. Which is no surprise after working so late into the night yesterday…
So you just get up, dart around for a minute and quickly drag your kid out of the bed.
You desperately urge our kid to put some clothes on in a world record time, and grab some breakfast to have on the train. You’re nervous, super anxious about not messing things up, and don’t tolerate ANY contradictory words from your kid…
Suddenly… you realize it’s NOT your kid’s fault that you’re late. You should make him a favor, as you are just about to make their morning into a disaster. And instead of allowing it to descend into disaster, there is an equally huge possibility for adventure! So this morning, my son, we’ll have an exciting surprise breakfast in the train instead of the usual sulky sit-in at home.
You force yourself to calm down and start telling him a story about your childhood; how you once had a similar adventure. He immediately follows your lead as he just loves to hear those weird stories from your early days…
Now while collecting the “takeaway breakfast tray” – healthy breakfast stuff, mind you – you keep telling the story using an imaginative voice and both of you are now immersed in the story. You barely even notice clothes being slipped on as you head off towards the train station.
Sitting down, now you need to think about the tram connection. It’s going far too slow. Dammit. You’re definitely going to miss the first morning class, which is a very big deal for the 1st class boy. You decide to take a bus instead and announce to your adventurous schoolboy that this morning we’ll take the bus and race the tram to see which one’s the fastest!
“Oh yeah, we’ll pass the tram. And another tram. Now mom, drive the bus like I do.”
And we “drive” the bus with the driver using imaginary steering wheels and pass trams and have fun all the way through the fifteen minute ride!
Finally, your kid leaps out and runs from the bus stop to the school as he’s so excited about his morning adventure. AND he is not late after all!
It all ends in a very happy end as you found a new, faster route to the school as you decided to switch to a more playful, adventurous mood. Instead of pushing and pushing yourself and your kid endlessly, probably ending up with predictably unpleasant results.
The following morning your kid wants to use the fast bus connection again, which he always resisted earlier.
“Let’s see if the bus is faster this morning too…”
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I know only too well this scenario. It’s hard not to get frustrated and sometimes the more you seem to hurry the kids along, the slower they seem to take to get ready, but as you say, it’s not their fault.
What a great way to look at it.