Being that my children are home with me all day every day, I sometimes have these romanticized notions that I’ll have them learning all these wonderful life skills and working alongside me, baking bread from scratch, helping to prepare family meals, and renovating with me.
Then reality kicks in and I realize I actually only bake bread in a bread maker, and that teaching kids to cook requires actually letting them cook and make a mess in my kitchen.
It means not so precise (or over precise) measuring, hovering over them to make sure they don’t mix up ingredients, biting my tongue when more cocoa ends up on the counter than in the mixing bowl and trying not to generally suck all the fun out of the activity.
This week I spent three days in the basement rec room painting over dark grey walls with white. I paint my house frequently and I think it’s a pretty handy skill to have. It’s a skill I want my kids to have and just think about how that could revolutionize my future.
Rooms painted in a third of the time with my skilled helpers working alongside me. About halfway through the job my son asked for the 11th time if he could help paint. It didn’t escape me that I constantly want them to offer to help more, and yet here I was turning him down again and again. I wanted to rush through the job and just get it done and get it done right.
Finally, though, I conceded, put an encouraging smile on my face and said, “Sure. Let me show you what I need you to do.”
He was thrilled. He took on the task with purpose. He mostly listened to instruction. I even let him paint unsupervised while I went and did something else for a bit. Not super wise. I found the paint drips a bit too late and had to sand them off. My light switch now has paint on it. But overall I need to remind myself to let go a bit and let them help.
