This summer, working at the daycare, I had to deal with lots of tattling. Maybe some of it was legit, but it was hard to tell, especially when the issue at hand seemed life-altering to the little kid who's telling me about it. So to save myself the effort of sorting through he-said, she-said (though I started doing this on purpose to teach them a lesson as the summer went on), I focused on what they could do about the problem. Did they have to listen? Did they have to keep playing with that person? No. Did they think they were stupid, like John Bob said? No? Then John Bob must be wrong, so ignore him.
After I established this habit I found myself connecting it to Elder Bednar's talk from a previous conference about choosing to act instead of be choosing to be acted upon by others. His talk does not diminish the fact that people really say and do mean things, sometimes on purpose to be hurtful to us. He did, however, give us the responsibility to chose to view those actions.
Those kids will probably not remember that one moment when I told them to choose for themselves how to react, but that pattern of response has really taught me how to deal with those situations myself.
2 comments:
When I was a kid my Dad, your grandpa, taught me the same thing. He said it a little different, "Dallas, act don't react" was how he would say it. I learned from that to choose who I was and how I would be rather than wait until a moment of aggitation or crises to decide. I'm glad you have learned it too.
you mean like if someone was telling you that you were dom? hahahaha ;) love you hilary!
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