In a child's mind, the word "maybe" has all the force of "we're definitely going to do it".

So...

When one of your kids tells you, for example, there's a certain movie they'd like to see and they ask you if they can go see it, when you respond with something like "maybe we'll go see it on Saturday", guess what?

That's right...

Knowingly or unknowingly...

You just told them you're going to see it on Saturday.

And when Saturday finally rolls along and you don't follow through on your commitment to them, guess what?

You got it...

You've just given them yet another justifiable reason not to listen to a word you say.

Now, all this being said, some degree of your kids not listening to you can be written off as "kids just being kids" or their "marching to the beat of a different drummer", so to speak.

However, more often than not, to very loosely paraphrase our old friend William Shakespeare...

The fault, dear parent, is not in our kids, but in ourselves.

Well worth pondering.

As a matter of fact...

Even better...

Well worth doing something about!

Copyright (c) 2008 Tony Mase

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