We have had a lot of conversations at our house lately about teamwork and everyone pitching in to help out around the house with cleaning and chores. One morning last week, I attempted to clarify expectations with my three youngest that they should each pick an area to clean up after school. The assignments went as follows: Andrew – kitchen, Jacob – dining room and Maleigha – living room. Well, when I got home that evening the only one done was the dining room. Nice job and gold star for Jacob. I “assisted” Andrew with the kitchen in showing him how to load the dishwasher and clean off the counters. Miss Maleigha had an elaborate story of how she had tried to vacuum but the thing wouldn’t work right and she forgot to dust. This sounded suspicious so I asked if her brothers could corroborate her story. She huffed a bit and replied “Well not Andrew because he is just against me today!” I then asked if she had even plugged the vacuum cleaner in and turned it on. Nope, she hadn’t. She then proceeded to attempt to distract me with something Andrew had done that in her mind was worse than not doing her chores and lying. This one may very well be the death of me.
My take away from this “lesson” with my children is that they are highly creative and master distractors. I will continue to work on teaching them to take responsibility for their actions or lack of action as the case may be and being honest. These are on-going lessons for my children. I certainly could have reacted in a harsh way and yelled and screamed or I can continue to try to shape my children into what I hope they someday become.
I share my stories as I know we are all attempting to impact the lives of others. Whether it is someone in our immediate family or one of our patients, we are shaping the lives around us daily. At the end of the day hopefully we are leaving the world a better place for the impact we made. Remember you are the only one that controls your attitude. You never get to control what happens around you but you definitely get to control how you react to it. If you are not happy, figure out what you need to change for yourself because happiness starts with you. My challenge to you this week is to make sure that you are impacting those around you in a positive way. Go spread positivity.
