Learning Together

My daughter received a Kindle Fire for Christmas. Today, she’s been recording short vlogs about her family. In her final video of the night, she asked me to talk about myself. I said that I was 40, had one daughter, and loved my family very much.

She proceeded to talk about me while I sat off-camera. She called me kind, mentioned how much I love books, and said she couldn’t think of a better father.

I don’t know if she would have had that same reaction when I chastised her earlier today.

Still, it was nice to hear her compliment me.

I will return to this entry when I feel down about my parenting efforts.

Since receiving it for Christmas, my daughter has played the game Pick-up Sticks each evening.

Until now, the game has elicited the worst in my daughter. She’s whined about losing, threatened to cheat, and quit because she’s not doing well.

Today, however, I saw something I hadn’t seen before: she was practicing.

While my father-in-law visited us, my daughter sprinkled the sticks on the floor and played with just herself. She wants to get better.

It’s Christmas Day. I’m very thankful for Christ’s birth, and I’m grateful for my daughter. My wife does a great job of making the day special for her while emphasizing “the reason for the season.” We’ve spent the day with family and had time to count our blessings.

However, as the day ends, I admit I am reflecting more on what’s gone wrong today. My daughter and I have fallen into a cycle.

My daughter has a perfectionist streak. Let me correct that. She wants things to go her way all the time. Sometimes, this desire appears as perfectionism. Other times, this seems like overt selfishness. She complains a lot and is perpetually on the edge of a fit.

Her fits cause me to have a parent it. I showed very little patience with her today. The more I showed displeasure, the more she amped up her aggression. We fed off each other.

I have to find a way to let her know her behavior is unacceptable without replicating her act-first, think-later approach. I have to be the one to break the cycle.

Today reminded me I need God’s help. Jesus came to earth to redeem sinners like me.

Tonight, my daughter worked hard to make us soup. Her dish consisted of wild onions, salt, and water. She shopped, stirred, and tasted.

Frankly, she was a nuisance. My wife was trying to put together our actual meal, and our daughter was attached to her hip, providing a second-by-second report on her own culinary creation.

I was worried. My daughter can get upset quickly. Would she mess up her soup before it was complete? Would she inadvertently ruin my wife’s meal? What would happen when someone had to taste what she had made?

My wife was a champ. After shepherding my daughter’s dish to completion, she braved my daughter’s concoction. My daughter had a good time, and my wife didn’t keel over after tasting the wild onion water.

Whew.

This morning, I checked out a new DVD from our local library: Hello Kitty. The DVD featured four cartoons, each of which featured the title character teaching an essential lesson like being polite or eating your vegetables.

My daughter watched the DVD at noon and 5 pm, her appointed cartoon times. At dinner tonight, she was remarkably polite. She was also remarkably child-like, talking like a six-year-old impersonating a three-year-old.

Inquiries revealed the source of my daughter’s politeness and toddler tone: Hello Kitty.

The result was a net positive. The experience reinforced just how impressionable my daughter can be.

Today was the last day of school before winter break.

Tonight, my daughter joined a small group from our church and sang carols at five community homes. My daughter played various percussion instruments like jingle bells, a triangle, and a tambourine. She also sang with gusto.

Our tiny crew sang the same songs at each stop.

• Jingle Bells
• Joy to the World
• Silent Night
• Away in a Manger
• We Wish You a Marry Christmas

My daughter loved it, as did the people we visited. My daughter’s only regret? Our caroling session was too short.

My daughter brought home a book from school that the teacher read to the class. It’s called The Chocolate Touch and retells the Midas myth through a boy named John Midas who gets the chance to change his entire world to chocolate.

My daughter loves chocolate, so the book appeals to her in that way. It appears she gets the moral: John is ultimately selfish and gets destroyed by his own gift.

I wondered if these modern adaptations exist for Bible stories. I’m sure they do. I just have to find them. If she can learn about the Midas myth from modern retellings, she can learn about biblical stories too.

Each week, my daughter has one piece of optional homework. It involves identifying letters and reading words and sentences. We record her times in each category. Ideally, she would repeat the exercise on multiple days to improve her times. She can master it in one day. An example? The sentence that gives this blog entry its title.

On Fridays, she gets a prize in exchange for a completed sheet. Her prizes have been various knick-knacks, and she’s been motivated each week to complete the short exercise.

Question: where is this kind of drilling for math?

Answer: it’s worth trying to do it on my own. We’ll see if it works.

My daughter constantly talks about one of her school friends. She sat at a table with her early in the year, and their friendship was cemented through an exchange of coloring sheets and other small gifts. However, she has yet to meet this friend outside school. Consequently, we have never met her either.

Yesterday, my daughter wanted my wife and me to attend her school’s Festival of Trees event. Not only would there be hot chocolate and s’mores, but her friend would also be there. My daughter can have a fit at the drop of a hat, so we told her we had no way of coordinating our visit with the friend’s parents. If we saw her, great. If we didn’t see her, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

Within five minutes of our arrival, the two found each other. They hugged it out and jumped up and down for three minutes. My wife and I introduced ourselves to the young girl’s father. Unprompted, he shared that his daughter talked about our daughter all the time. I got to see my daughter spend thirty minutes with her friend. They made jokes, sang Christmas songs, sipped hot cocoa, and enjoyed each other’s company while my wife and I talked with the friend’s father.

As we went home, I realized that this was the first time I had seen my daughter play with a friend outside of school. Her daycare was fifty minutes from our house, so she never got together with friends outside school hours. I loved seeing her share time with a friend. It was clear their affection was reciprocal. The friend’s dad was pleasant.

I look forward to seeing my daughter make more friends.