This Week, My Son Taught Me the Reward of Choosing Calm
We can learn a lot from our kids if we listen to them intently.
For the past month or so, I’ve been helping my younger son polish up on his reading skills. We started with the usual simple words – monosyllabic, disyllabic, etc. – and progressed to reading stories. I wanted to move to actual stories because I feel that they’re more enjoyable and provide more context than reading words. For me, we were hitting two birds with one stone – learning how to read and picking up the meaning of the words.
That’s the fun and ideal part of this whole exercise. However, I know other parents would agree with me that teaching lessons, no matter how we cherish the moment with our kids, is such a messy, chaotic, and often headache-inducing exercise. The same goes for us; we have numerous moments of negotiation and crying episodes. At the end of it all, I acknowledge my son for his effort and for doing well.
Lately, though, I was deliberately being strict with him. I thought he was just memorizing the lines of the stories we read, ready to recite the words robotically without really understanding their meaning.
At one point, he was enthusiastically reading the first few lines of Puss in Boots. However, when we got to the next pages, he couldn’t read some of the words that he’d previously learned. My patience quickly ebbed, and it became evident in my tone and the way I spoke to him. I noticed that my son gradually lost his confidence, to the point where he couldn’t even read simple prepositions. He was crushed and was on the brink of tears.
I didn’t give in because I thought he was only making excuses. We finished the fourth page of the book after much struggle and heightened emotions. I kissed and hugged him afterward (this is our routine), and then he ran to his mom. While in the safe arms of his mom, he let his guard down and cried. I knew I was too hard on him, and I said sorry for it.
The following day, as we were about to begin our reading lesson, he said he didn’t want Puss in Boots because it was hard. I explained that it’s hard when you are just starting, but it will eventually become easy once he masters reading.
He then said, “Ikaw kasi lagi ka nagagalit, takot tuloy ako.” That hit me hard. There were just a few instances in which I lost my cool, but that’s all he remembered. Instead of creating an enjoyable learning environment for him, I was eroding his confidence.
So, I answered, “Okay anak, iibahin na ni Daddy. Story lang tayo, and hindi na ako magagalit.” That reassured him, and when we began reading, he was more confident and seemed to be genuinely enjoying the story. He was happy when we were done.
I spoke to his mom and told her about the conversation between my son and me. I admitted that I was initially a little hard on him because I wanted to instill discipline and ensure he remembered the reading techniques I taught him. Just the same, he was still a little boy, wanting to feel cared for, seeking guidance and validation of his actions, and generally just beginning to learn new things.
Having said that, I realized I should be more intentionally calm when I’m teaching my son because I instantly saw the advantages: I observed he was more focused, more excited to learn, more determined to ace our reading exercise, and prouder of his daily progress.
This experience humbled me as a dad. At the same time, I appreciated my son’s honesty with me. I was happy because I realized that he still trusted me despite his initial dread of our learning sessions.
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By the way, I’m selling a Filipino e-storybook entitled “Ang Batang Nakipagkaibigan sa mga Alitaptap.” I think this is a good book to add to your reading exercises or nightly bedtime stories.