Most of us do this parenting gig by trial and error.\u00a0 We can read books, or take advice from older generation, but for the most part I personally fly by the seat of my pants.\u00a0 When my older boys were little I researched every topic out there- I read books called Raising sugar-free toddlers (Ha!), Siblings without Rivalry, every book ever written by Dr. Sears.\u00a0 But sometimes life throws things at you and the solution can’t be found at your local library.\u00a0 Like what to say to your kids when you learn that your neighbors teenage boy died last night.<\/p>\n
My policy with my kids is honesty.\u00a0 I believe that kids know when they are not being told, they figure it out anyway, and then don’t trust you to tell them the truth.\u00a0 So I usually put it out there, with as much information as I feel is appropriate for their ages.\u00a0 They will talk to each other, they will talk to their friends.<\/p>\n
I was shaking when I told them, I couldn’t look at their faces.\u00a0 I walked into the room and just threw it out there and then waited.\u00a0 Waited for them to process it, to think it over, to ask questions.\u00a0 I sat down, and waited some more.\u00a0 Blake just looked at me, then said, “he died??”\u00a0 I said yes, and that was it for him.\u00a0 Austin’s eyes got teary, he asked how.\u00a0 Waterskiing.\u00a0 He asked about his two younger brothers (one that is the same age as him).\u00a0 I told him they were fine.\u00a0 He was quiet, said he was ok.\u00a0 Throughout the day he came to me with questions and I told him what I knew.\u00a0 I could see the wheels turning in his head.\u00a0 He mentioned that this is the first person that he has known that has died.<\/p>\n
It shouldn’t take tragedy to remind me to squeeze my kids a little more, but of course it always does.\u00a0 I made a point of turning off the machine at 5pm today.\u00a0 To lay on the hammock and count the different colors of green in the many trees in our backyard with my oldest son.\u00a0 To kiss his head and remind him how very special he is.\u00a0 To not get frustrated when he misplaced his shoes for the millionth time.\u00a0 It’s easy to expect so much of the older ones, to forget how much they still need from me.<\/p>\n
My heart is breaking for the mom down the street that is mourning her oldest son tonight.\u00a0 Life is so very fragile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Most of us do this parenting gig by trial and error.\u00a0 We can read books, or take advice from older generation, but for the most part I personally fly by the seat of my pants.\u00a0 When my older boys were little I researched every topic out there- I read books called Raising sugar-free toddlers (Ha!), Siblings without Rivalry, every book ever written by Dr. Sears.\u00a0 But sometimes life throws things at you and the solution can’t be found at your local library.\u00a0 Like what to say to your kids when you learn that your neighbors teenage boy died last night. My policy with my kids is honesty.\u00a0 I believe that kids know when they are not being told, they figure it out anyway, and then don’t trust you to tell them the truth.\u00a0 So I usually put it out there, with as much information as I feel is appropriate for their ages.\u00a0 They will talk to each other, they will talk to their friends. I was shaking when I told them, I couldn’t look at their faces.\u00a0 I walked into the room and just threw it out there and then waited.\u00a0 Waited for them to process it, to think it over, to ask questions.\u00a0 I sat down, and waited some more.\u00a0 Blake just looked at me, then said, “he died??”\u00a0 I said yes, and that was it for him.\u00a0 Austin’s eyes got teary, he asked how.\u00a0 Waterskiing.\u00a0 He asked about his two younger brothers (one that is the same age as him).\u00a0 I told him they were fine.\u00a0 He was quiet, said he was ok.\u00a0 Throughout the day he came to me with questions and I told him what I knew.\u00a0 I could see the wheels turning in his head.\u00a0 He mentioned that this is the first person that he has known that has died. It shouldn’t take tragedy to remind me to squeeze my kids a little more, but of course it always does.\u00a0 I made a point of turning off the machine at 5pm today.\u00a0 To lay on the hammock and count the different colors of green in the many trees in our backyard with my oldest son.\u00a0 To kiss his head and remind him how very special he is.\u00a0 To not get frustrated when he misplaced his shoes for the millionth time.\u00a0 It’s easy to expect so much of the older ones, to forget how much they still need from me. My heart is breaking for the mom down the street that is mourning her oldest son tonight.\u00a0 Life is so very fragile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elisalou"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elisalou.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elisalou.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elisalou.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elisalou.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elisalou.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.elisalou.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20972,"href":"https:\/\/www.elisalou.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions\/20972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elisalou.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elisalou.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elisalou.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}