Still Learning

This is really cheesy, but the other night I was watching super-nanny and I think I learned something important. I pictured the cartoon lighbulb going on above my head. She was working with this family who had a NIGHTMARE of a 4 year old boy. He was horrible, screaming, biting, cussing, a holy terror. She followed the kid to school and learned that he didn't play well with the other kids (surprise surprise) and after a little bit of work, she convinced the mom to set up a play-date for the kid. When his friends got there, he started to play by himself with a motorcycle while the other kids played with a train set. The mom had the kids invite the naughty child to play with the trains and he started to play with the other kids without ANY problems. He shared, he wasn't mean, and he was a great host - even serving the other kids cookies that he made earlier. :) So, it occurred to me that the only problem with this child's social skills was simply that he hadn't been taught to play with other kids yet. He just needed his mom to show him how and that was it. He was done. He was completely fine.

Now, here's my cool aha moment. How many things have I just not been taught to do yet? I'm sure that kid could've grown up to be a grumpy mean old man just because he wasn't ever taught anything different. His parents weren't bad, they were scared to let him play with other kids cuz he was horrible. But the bottom line is, he never learned that skill. I think I decided that people aren't necessarily bad at things, they just haven't been taught how yet.

Josh was talking to me about something he thinks he's bad at, and it's something he should've learned like when he was 2 years old. Only when he was 2 years old, his life at home was a little stressful (his parents were getting divorced), and he was learning how to keep the peace between his parents, and how to show his mom love like she so desperately needed, he learned how to take care of himself, he learned how to do a lot of other things, and this basic function was kindof skipped. I felt like I had the same situation in dealing with confrontation and problems. In my house all we ever did was ignore it until you didn't care anymore, and then you move on with your life. Josh however, learned that you talk about stuff, hurt feelings, mistakes, problems, and then you feel resolved a lot sooner. So, now I'm learning how to do that, and for him it was a basic skill that he learned when he was like 2 years old, but it's still new to me. I always thought I was just bad at it, but in reality, I just hadn't been taught that skill yet.

Thank goodness that I have a lifetime to learn all I can. And thank goodness I'm surrounded by people who are willing to teach me the things I just haven't learned yet. Who knows, maybe someday, I'll even learn to like roller coasters!