If there's anything that we can all agree on, it's the fact that kids are naturally funny. They're also brutally honest. I remember the first time I was ever told that if I ever wanted an honest opinion or the brutal truth to anything, to either ask a kid or a drunk person. Personally, I prefer asking kids.
I started working in child care when my oldest was about 3 years old, she's now 8. In the past 5-6 years I have had the fortune of learning to see the world through the eyes of children. It started with 2 kids, and any day now it'll be 9 kids. Watching my kids grow has given me the opportunity to grow along their side all over again. Emotionally and mentally, 23 year old me is years ahead of her time than 18 year old me ever was. Let me explain why.
At 18, just like everybody else, I had a minimal God complex. I genuinely couldn't care less about other peoples feelings and opinions towards me. To an extent, that is a good thing. However, at 23 I'm quite possibly one of the biggest empathetic people I know. My kids have taught me the value of understanding other perspectives and emotional standings. Whenever I have to sit down and have a talk with one of my kids I find that I also take something away from whatever situation I'm dealing with. So much so that I have started asking myself the questions I ask my kids , when they are having any sort of conflict or meltdown, when I find myself in a difficult and overwhelming situation.
How am I feeling and why am I feeling this way?
Did I do anything to escalate the situation to where it's at right now?
Did I say anything based on how I'm currently feeling? If so, did any part of me actually feel that way?
How would I feel if somebody said to me what I had said to them?
What can I do to fix my current emotional state?
Believe it or not, kids are the best communicators on this planet. They very rarely do anything with harmful intentions. They tell you how they feel and, even though it may be tedious to get to that point, why they feel that way. Even if it's the most irrational reason ever.
Learning to be patient with many situations, and reason with others are also two wonderful virtues that I have acquired as a nanny. For example, one time my two oldest kids were in the living room having some calm down time while I was cleaning up in the kitchen. For the sake of their privacy I won't name the children, we'll just go based off of their middle name initials. L was on his iPad watching a Netflix show while R was watching a show on the TV. Everything was completely fine until R decided that she wanted to use the iPad as well. She asked L if she could use it and he immediately said "No, I want to watch my show, use yours." Fair answer in my opinion, he provided an alternative and obviously R didn't like it, so she kept pushing for him to give her his iPad. At this point I decided to intervene and reason with her, stating "look R, your iPad is fully charged and has all your favorite games, why don't you just use yours?" At this point she's in full tantrum mode and it doesn't matter how reasonable her options are, shes set on using L's iPad. She then turns to L and says "Is this what you like to do? Do you like to make me cry? You're making me cry and very upset, does this make your heart happy?" to which L, without even glancing up from his iPad, replied "R, be quiet, your voice makes my head hurt."
The hardest thing about this situation was me trying not to laugh, because L's comment was funny okay. However, I can't laugh at it and egg him on to make more comments like that, which obviously hurt his sisters feelings. My main priority at the moment was being able to calm R enough to have a conversation with her about picking her battles and most importantly, not guilt tripping people into giving her what she wants when she wants it, because that's just not how life works.
These are the tricky moments because wording is so important when it comes to having important conversations with children about their behaviors and how they react to situations that aren't in their favor. So I did was what best for the current situation, I removed them both from the situation and let them cool off. Once R was calm I pulled her aside and had a talk about how she was feeling and why she was feeling that way. Her exact words were "well L is my brother so he HAS to share when I ask him too." Long story short I talked her into deciding that using her own things is the easiest route for future situations and that just because L is her brother, that doesn't mean he has to do anything he doesn't want to do just to make her happy in the moment. How did that apply to future me? Well, what I took from that situation was that when situations are tough, it's best to completely remove ourselves from the scenario and once we're calm and cool, go back to the situation and think about our options with a clear head. Also, and most importantly, not to expect anything from anybody at all times. It's better to figure things out for ourselves than to expect people to act and feel a specific way just because of our relationship with them. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the how well we know people that we forget that we aren't entitled to them behaving a specific way for our benefit.
Do I think about these things immediately? Of course not, it normally hits me after a few days when I think on the scenarios that happened. Yet, it never ceases to amaze me how I always manage to learn literal life lessons just by being around children. They always say that what we do, as adults, is what children learn to incorporate in their daily lives. But they never tell us that unknowingly we are also always learning from them as well.
My father always tell me that life is a never ending school where we never stop learning. In a sense I sort of understood what he meant, but I thought he meant by the tough situations we got ourselves into every now and then. I never really thought it also applied to being around kids on a daily basis and learning to see life through there eyes. I'm not going to lie though, that method of learning is by far my favorite way to learn how to adapt to life. I think everyone should try it at-least once.
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