All the Small Things

Last week, we drove about an hour to the TCS football game. Got there toward the middle of the 1st quarter. The game was nothing special. Horrible officiating. We got beat. It was something that happened about 5 minutes after we got there. I didn't see anyone we knew when we first got up in the stands. Walked our family up to an open spot in the stands and found  seat. A couple minutes later a couple Jr High age girls showed up and looked at Scout (my very introvert daughter) and invited her to sit with them. She looked at us. We nodded go. We were able to watch as she sat and talked and laughed for most of the game. Made Marge and I feel wonderful. We knew sending her to a small Christian school would be good for her. She can't get lost in the crowd. "Our plan was working." It was a small thing but big in our eyes. 

I think as a parent and a leader, you have to find wins in the small things. (insert appropriate short joke here.) Small things turn into Big Things.  It wasn't that Scout didn't have friends when we lived in SanAntonio. She had great friends that will probably remain her friends throughout her life. She is a kid who makes good grades but when we would ask about a bad grade her teachers would say she is fine it is just one bad grade. Well, what caused that one bad grade? I am concerned about the small things. Because small things turn into big things. When I asked her who she hung out with at school, it was usually one or two kids that I never met. When we asked her if she wanted to have kids over she would say no. She just always blended in. We saw kids reaching out to her as a win. She is doing great at her new school. I still don't see her as a socialite but she is making friends. We can celebrate that. 

The other thing is we need to stick to the plan. In our first couple of weeks at school Coop was testing us and out teachers trying to figure out this new school thing. Let's just say, he lost some privileges. I will be honest, I thought maybe this Christian School thing is not the best idea. I am just saying, I was reminded by this little thing, "Stick to the Plan". As a parent or a leader, you will go through rough stretches but if you make a plan and it makes sense, don't let small bumps get you off of what you know is the right thing to do. I talked with his teacher this week, and she said he has gotten his act together. Scout is making friends and Coop is doing well. We just have to stick to the plan. 

Celebrate the small things and stick to the plan. When you do those things in your life you will find success in leadership and parenting. It is not going to always be easy but you can get it done. 

Stories about Parents Number 1: A Tree for Lunch?

Being a kid's pastor, I get to see parents in all kinds of situations. Bad times: when a child brings home bad grade. Fun times: at a football game when their son scores a winning touchdown. Scary times: sitting with them in the hospital as a surgery is done. All sorts of different moments in kid's lives that I get to share with a family. With this being said, I get to see some pretty glaring moments of both good and bad parenting. Just because a parent has a bad parenting moment doesn't mean they are bad parents. It just means they made a choice that wasn't necessarily wise in the raising of their children. It is okay. We all have bone headed moments in parenting. I promise not to use any names in these stories, so don't worry no one will know except you and me and Margaret and your kids...and anyone else that was there that day. Well here goes the first installment of Stories about parents.

One time, I decided to host a family day at the Zoo with my preschool department at the church we were at. It was early spring. I thought we would have a great time. We got to the church to meet up and I remember being very disappointed at the turn out because only two families arrived to go with us. I didn't mind it just meant I got to go spend some quality time with those two families. This was before Marge and I had kids, so we were still establishing our own thoughts about parenting and how to raise our kids. Well little did we know when we showed up at this zoo day we were going to receive a huge lesson on parenting.

The two families we quickly find out are polar opposites of one another. We walk into the zoo to find family number one walking together, the parents pointing out different things in the welcome plaza like the fountain, and generally laid back. The other family was running, nearly jumping into the fountain and throwing temper tantrums about wanting to go into the gift shop. I was just trying to keep us moving.

We went to the chimp habitat. It was a beautiful. I asked the kids from family one some questions and they would answer me. The dad would look at his son and say, "shouldn't there be a sir on the end of that?" The 4 year old boy would look up at me and say, "sir". I thought, hey I am just a kid myself he doesn't need to call me sir. Now I understand that, his dad wanted him to understand at an early age that he need to show his pastor respect. The other set of kids would hug us and give me 5 but never was calling anyone sir a priority. When it came to their parents, I think they even called them by their first name a few times. Teaching respect was not a priority.

The glaring difference of respect not just for your pastor but for people in general became evident even more when it came lunch time. I remember sitting down outside at a table along a walk way with all the kids and parents starting to eat our sandwiches. Just behind the table was a line of trees that were used as shade. I was blown away, as I sat and talked with kids about their favorite animals we saw that morning. We were laughing and I didn't notice the Dad of the second family was no longer at the table with us. (That was my first mistake in all this, because I never should have let him out of my sight.) This grown man proceeds to climb up in a tree behind where we are eating. My back was to him so I didn't see him. I don't know if the kids were to preoccupied with eating or talking or both to notice that he was doing this. The next thing I know, We have tree branches in the middle of our table with him just cackling up a storm. I turned and really wanted to yell, "Idiot!" I didn't. I just took a deep breath and watched as their son sprinted right up to the tree and tried to do the same thing. He just lost all ability to tell him no he can't do that. He treated all of us and his kids with little respect as we were eating. Was it funny? Maybe to him. It was still pretty annoying to pull leaves out of my cheetohs. This was a true bone headed moment.

This is what I took away from that day. If I treat people my kids need to see in authority without respect then they will not respect their authority. And if you climb in a tree and drop branches into peoples table you look like a... well I'm sure you can insert a word there. Do we have to be like the first family and be so strict that any time someone asks you a question you have to say sir or keep your kids in a single file line from shortest to tallest as you walk? No. Do we need to find a balance of hey if I treat other people with respect myself then maybe my kids will too? That is more like a plan that I like. Parenting, like life, is about balance.