Life Lessons on the Playground

OK, if you are a parent, you have probably already dealt with the playground issues, but this week has been my real introduction!

A little background... Phillip and I have been working with Taylor on some behavioral stuff and we have a chart we use now which is a picture of a gumball machine with gumballs in it. For every hour Taylor displays certain behavior (which we have lined out for her), she gets a gumball colored in. If she gets 8 in a day , she gets a privilege that night. Of course we are ultimately wanting heart change, but we are taking it step by step. Well, yesterday, I sat and watched Taylor on the playground after school. Sometimes she was playing really well with others , running around, playing chase, sliding down the slides,etc. Then I saw a kid ask her if they could get on the tire swing with her and she said "No, you can't play with me" or something along those lines. I smiled proudly and said "That's my girl!" (Just kidding!!) I walked over there and talked with Taylor about that and helped the little boy up on the swing with her.

After this playground incident, I decided last night at dinner that we would have a talk about kindness and used the playground as our base for giving lots of examples on how to be kind. We role played and wrote on a piece of paper (with Ephesians 4:32 on top) what it would mean to be kind to others. Then last night before bed we prayed that God would help us and teach us how to be kind.

Fast forward to today on the playground after school. We got an opportunity to put this to the test. I watched Taylor again today playing and was pleased with what I saw. I then gave her a five minute warning before leaving, and then a two minute warning. I turned and was talking to some other moms and about a minute later (you know, it only takes a minute for something to happen!!!), Taylor came running over to me, with leaves and dirt all over her and she was crying really hard. She said a little girl had pushed her down. Closely behind her was that girl, crying as well, and she kept saying "I said I was sorry." Well, Taylor was visibly really upset and so I turned to that little girl and I pushed her down! I thought "That will teach her!" Just kidding-I wanted to see if you were still reading and still with me!! Anyway, the little girl's mom came over and since neither one of us actually saw what happened anyway, we just had the girls apologize and then Taylor said she was ready to go home.

We got in the car and Taylor calmed down. I then asked her what really happened and she told me that girl had pushed her down. I asked Taylor what she did next and she said she pushed her a little bit back. Then Taylor said she did not want to be that girl's friend anymore. Great opportunity here...so I talked again about being kind and what it would like to be kind to this little girl. Then I talked about forgiveness and said we needed to pray for her friend and for Taylor, that they would both learn how to be kind and that they would forgive one another.

I really do believe so much of living out what Christ asks us to do happens in the everyday moments of our lives-in the grocery store, in traffic, in our relationships and on the playground.

I hope these moments change me and change my children. Taylor said before getting out of the car.. "Hey mom, maybe my friend needs to try the gumball thing too." (-: