Lessons in Obedience

I’m afraid my quest for “Mother of the Year” came to a screeching halt when I made one simple request of my children.

Instead of an afternoon of this:

I insisted on 30 minutes of this:

In all fairness, Lego-Man knows the drill. He understands:

1.) In order to keep Mom happy, he must follow instructions with no questions asked.

2.) There will be no Wii time unless he puts in his 30 minutes of reading time.

This is my son, the firstborn-- very structure oriented and strongly desires pleasing mom and dad. He who rarely puts up a fight, unless it involves red meat. Not to say he is perfect, he just knows what to do to keep peace.

However, the Princess must put on some sort of dramatical presentation in opposition to Mom’s seemingly simple request. (insert crying while face down on bed here) “I don’t want to read” “waaaaaaaa”. Now, in all fairness I can’t blame the child, I despise extracurricular reading. But this is not about me.

Meet the second born. She came into this world very laid back, always dramatic and complete with her own agenda (which does not include reading time).

It is SO amazing to me that two children from the same parents, raised in the same house, in the same environment can have two totally different responses to one simple request. No, I am not just figuring this out after 9 years of motherhood. But it just wows me every time something like this comes up.

So, I’ve tried to curb responses like this in the future with an obedience intervention. Beginning with a little phrase I heard my entire childhood from my mother.

“Obedience is doing what you are told to do, when you are told to do it, with the right heart attitude”

(Insert brief lecture on explaining exactly what this means, for the bazillionth time.)

My intervention concluded with a review of our favorite parenting Bible verse:

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.” Ephesians 6:1

Words to live by people and children!