Today my Dad and I took the little guy to a park that is known to be the home of several rabbits. I thought he would simply enjoy seeing the rabbits and getting a chance to run around, but as I watched my little rabbit chaser I saw a unique life lesson. See, no matter how close this little bundle of energy got to the rabbits, they always stayed one hop ahead of him, constantly staying out of his grasp. But for about 2 hours he kept trying, laughing and having a ball the entire time. He never got frustrated that they wouldn’t hop into his arms. In fact, he thought the challenge to be an interesting game,
My son simply enjoys the process of learning and living life to its fullest. Yes he has goals in mind and he tries hard to reach those goals, but more importantly, he values the process. While he really wanted to catch a rabbit, he enjoyed feeding the rabbits, watching them hop away, chasing them, and finding new rabbits around the corner. While trying to catch a rabbit, he learned that they live in holes in the ground, they eat carrots, they poop little balls (somehow everything in my life revolves around poop), and they are faster than he is.
You may think I am looking too far into a simple outing with rabbits, but my son is quite studious. He spends hours a day with his nose in books, reading to his stuffed animals, reading to me, and having me read to him. When he saw me writing something on paper, he spent 45 minutes (an eternity for a toddler) trying to copy what I wrote. He even got angry when I stopped helping him write the letters of the alphabet. He is overjoyed when he can show that he recognizes letters or words. But more importantly, he enjoys the process of learning to read. He is having so much fun learning how to read that it doesn’t matter to him that reading by himself is consistently just out of his reach. With an attitude like that, he is bound to succeed in life.
I am constantly amazed by how much I learn from my son. Today I have learned to stop worrying so much about “catching” my goals because the true measure of success is in how much fun you have getting there.
Dad here. I am so happy that my daughter is teaching her son one of the most important things in life...to love learning. I have no doubt that my grandson will be a life-long learner and will have an insatiable appetite for learning just for the sheer joy of learning.
Keep up the great work daughter; you're really doing a fantastic job!! And keep encouraging him to pursue those rabbits! But don't get discouraged if things don't seem to go the way you want as he grows older (especially during the teen years). Remember that the Word says "Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it". Even if you run into rough spots over the years, when he reaches adulthood he will make decisions in life based on what you taught him while he was young.
Posted by: Dad | May 29, 2009 at 11:04 PM