The Smallest Teachers
If everyone we meet is both student and teacher — a provocative tenet taught in the iPEC life-coaching program — then our instructors include our kids and their kids.
But can that be true? It can.
Think of the questions these little humans ask, like, “Where do dreams come from?” One of the first things kids teach parents is humility. We learn that we don’t have all the answers. And that it’s okay to admit we don’t know something.
Watch a three-year-old play with stuffed animals, blocks, or with friends at the playground. So creative, right? We had it once. Where did it go? Kids remind parents to try new stuff, to look at the old ways with a new eye, to dust off our imaginations.
And how much fun it is to act silly now and then.
When it’s time to leave the playground or put away the toys, the parental message doesn’t always get through the first time. The delaying tactics are extraordinary. Now we’re learning (more) patience, as well as improved communication and negotiating skills.
Ask any exhausted adult about his kid’s talent in this area. Mom might report on a bedtime exchange like this:
Jimmy: “Ten more minutes.”
Mom (wearily): “Five.”
Jimmy: “Five, another ice pop, and three bedtime stories.”
Mom (slumping): “Okay.”
Built into that last one is the value of a nap. One way or another, kids teach parents to take a nap. We think it’s the other way around until 8 p.m. rolls around and it feels like 3 a.m. Why didn’t I sleep when Maria took her nap?
Which takes us to schedules. Scheduling is a thing we learn as we get older, but scheduling requires predictability, and little kids are nothing if not unpredictable. Before a certain age, they don’t care about timing or schedules. They will happily unwind your plans and teach you the skill you really need to know — how to be flexible.
This is a pretty good list so far. The kids have taught us humility, creativity, flexibility, improved communication and negotiating skills, and the value of naptime.
There’s plenty more we could add about empathy, selflessness, responsibility, and of course joy. There’s a lot of joy in all this new self-discovery.
We got into a fun discussion on what kids teach parents the other day on a Big Blend video podcast, hosted, coincidentally, by a mother-daughter team. Head here to watch the action.
And by all means, drop a line in the comments about something your kids or grandkids have taught you.
Steve Piacente is the owner of Next Phase Life Coaching, Director of Training at The Communication Center in Washington, D.C., and the author of three novels and a self-help book: “Your New Fighting Stance: Good Enough Isn’t, and You Know It.”
