Unplanned Blessings of Taking Risks With Your Child

Has this happened to you: You have things you must do, and no option but to bring along your child?

Sharing with our kids our grown-up adventures can be great unplanned interventions.

We parents sometimes forget that these passing minutes are our lives also.

We may struggle with balancing time and attention for individual kids, ourselves, and Family Movie Night.

Less than easy, and yet our time with our kids is going by at the speed of light.

(For this conversation, let’s assume our kids make the jump to independence.)

Here’s an example of an unplanned risk:

We were parked in the far corner of the Taco Bell parking lot, under the only shade tree.

With our drive-through sitting on our laps.

Fancy fundraiser event. He was the only kid “hanging out” with Mom.

He asked to go to the bathroom by himself.

So I let him make a run for it, with a “watch for cars!” in his ears.

Risky, right?

After eating, he wanted to do it again.

So he went solo on a trash run.

On another occasion, we went to a local Saturday afternoon festival.

It wasn’t my original intention to take him because it was:

Hot. Loud.

He was

Hot. Complaining.

Dabbing in the Rain

These were going to be neural pathways the Hard Way.

(I was actually very happy he was sweating, for there was a time John didn’t sweat,

back when his body wasn’t methylating……another story, another time.)

We survived it, fine and dandy.

On a third “opportunity”, he also got stuck helping me at a local Chamber of Commerce fundraiser.

It was posh.

He was a great sport hanging out on the couch while I worked.

At the end, we walked out in the dark.

Great weather. Stormy.

Lovely negative ions.

We took our shoes off and walked to the car in the drizzle.

So may I encourage us to take our kids wherever we go.

It’s the ultimate intervention of neuro-typical inclusion.

There is only one world, the one we live in.

How else will they learn?

Peace be with us,

Gayle

If We Learn Differently