See You Later

Buddy loves to go to Grandma’s house. Sometimes I think he would live there if we would let him. His Grandma lives three miles away from us down gravel roads. And like most gravel roads, these aren’t real busy roads just the locals going to and from home.

Last Saturday Buddy was hanging out with his Dad and Uncle (a normal Saturday afternoon around our house.) He kept asking them if he could go to Grandma’s and the answer continually was “No.” Until finally, Buddy got to them enough and he was told:

“Well you’re not taking the Rhino over there, so if you want to go you’ll just have to walk.”

So he said, “Fine, see you later,” and walked out of the shop. Normally Buddy isn’t interested or adventurous enough to take them at their word and do it, but this time he was. So instead of doing his normal (going out and playing with the dog) he proceeded to take himself down the road toward Grandma’s.

About 10 minutes went by and Dad and Buddy’s Uncle noticed it was awfully quiet around them so they started to look for Buddy. He wasn’t in any of his normal places, so they took off in the Rhino across the field to see if maybe Buddy had taken the short route. He wasn’t there so they went a little ways down the road to see if he was there. Still no Buddy. They went back to the house, again no Buddy. They thought to themselves, “There is no way he made it very far, where could he be?”

So on a whim, Buddy’s Uncle got in the truck and proceeded to drive the normal route to Grandma’s house. He got about 1.75 miles down the road and there was Buddy still clipping along. He was one sweaty boy from all the running (keep in mind he is six years old and had made it that far in only 10-15 minutes), but he was determined to keep going. He was a bit surprised and confused that his uncle was picking him up since in his words: “I was just doing what I was told.”

And he was right. For once he actually followed directions. So there was no way we could punish him for it. We now have new parameters on what he is allowed to do and he has a better understanding of when someone says something sarcastically. But those are just the lessons he learned.

Lessons the parents learned: 1)Never give a directive to a child unless you are absolutely sure they can safely do it. 2)Kids will actually do what they are told, no matter how hard the task as long as the incentive is good enough and 3)Kids are a lot faster than you think.

I also came away with a note for later: Be sure to enter Buddy in track when he gets older. Apparently running is a dominant trait in our family. He may even push me on some runs sometime soon.

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~ by blacktoprhoades on April 26, 2011.