kids playing
Life's Moments

Let The Kid In You Win Out Sometimes

January 20, 2020

As the parent, there are sometimes in life when you have to be the fun killer. Like when the kids are playing really well, but it’s time to leave, forcing them to stop their game.

It’s times like this when I, as the adult, have to take a good, hard look at the situation to see how to handle this predicament.

There are questions I must ask myself when play vs. responsibility presents itself.

Today, we had several appointments to make that have been on the calendar for weeks (months even). With it being a holiday, I wanted to fill up the day, to avoid boredom. This morning we had a dentist appointment, then swim lessons for my youngest this afternoon and volleyball practice for my oldest this evening.

The dentist appointment was mandatory since I schedule myself and all four kids to get our teeth cleaned at the same time. It’s a luxury to be able to knock us all out in one shot. I was getting ready to get lunch for my kids, telling them we had an hour till we had to leave for the pool.

Then our neighbor came over with a boy her mom babysits that the kids haven’t seen in awhile to play. That’s fine I thought, they have time. As time went on, the play got more extensive and I made the snap decision to excuse my son from his lessons.

Especially now in the winter time, there aren’t many impromptu play dates that arise when kids show up out of nowhere. For that reason, I let my inner child win this battle. All my kids needed to burn energy today and getting them all to play really hard for a couple hours usually does the trick.

It’s good once in awhile to be flexible with your plans. Sure, he will miss swim lessons but in that moment, I decided it was not the end of the world. But stopping this big game going on upstairs would be. Plus, there is always next week.

Are you able to be flexible with your plans?

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