Nontrivial Exercises

A Priceless Compliment from My Son

Children can communicate some of the most profound, poignant and provocative thoughts and ideas with just a few of their short words and phrases placed in just the right context.

Yesterday, a Friday afternoon, I came home early from work so I could be home when my oldest two children got home from school. My youngest, age 4, was already there since he’s not yet in kindergarten.

I just wanted to spend some quantity time with them, and they were fairly tired after school. They didn’t have any homework and we decided just to watch a tv show – Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends on Noggin, a very nice commercial-free tv channel aimed at pre-schoolers, available on digital cable and satellite.

We were about 15 minutes into the show and I was asking some questions to my kids to try to stimulate their minds a bit while watching (what do you think about this show, what is that animal’s name, etc.).

All of a sudden, Kevin, my six year old son, said “Something’s wrong – their daddy is never with them. He just stays home.”

Me: “Is that strange?”

Kevin: “Yeah”

Wow. I didn’t say anything else to Kevin, but just took a minute to reflect on this short but profound conversation. The fact that a dad would just stay home and not be integrated into his children’s activities didn’t make sense to his six year old experience-driven world-view. With that simple observation, in the context of me asking some simple factual questions about an animated story of a spider and her family, Kevin let me know the place I have in his life – basically that I’m significantly involved with his life.

As I thought more, I was reminded that there are so many choices that I have with regard to how I interact with my children. I don’t always make the best choice, but each choice that I make builds one more little piece into the structure of my children’s lives. I am so thankful that Kevin knows I am a significant part of his, and even more thankful and humbled that he told me so.