Wednesday, March 18, 2009

sweet boy

Amado and a friend of his take a swim class together. The other day, they got to swim class and the regular teacher was sick, so there was a substitute. Amado was surprised, but his fishiness took over and he jumped in. His friend was much more thrown, and was really reticent to get in. He wasn't up for this curveball. His mom was trying to coax him into the water, but wasn't being successful.

Jason suggested to Amado that maybe he wanted to go help out. Amado hopped out of the water, went over to him, and said, "Luca, como estas? Estas bien?" Then, totally unprompted, he said "Luca, yo tambien extrano a nuestra maestra. Pero yo puedo ir con esta maestra. Yo puedo hacerlo. Puedes hacerlo conmigo? Vamonos." It worked.

What floored me about this with that this is textbook parenting book style. He delt with the situation in exactly the way the parenting books say you should: he validated his feelings, and then tried to make him comfortable with the situation by letting him know that they were in it together.

How awesome. What a sweet, tender, mature way to interact with the situation. I so love his sweetness.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

i can't imagine where he learned his parenting style from, can you??? (FYI - that's thick sarcasm, compa).

i LOVE you guys! can't wait to hang out again after ur road trip!