Letting Kids Take the Lead
Even as a kid I remember being quite type A. When we went skiing I wanted to make the most out of every single second of the day. Being on the first chair up, lunches on the lifts and skiing until the lifts shut down were just normal. It wasn’t just skiing though. I remember wanting to make cookies with my mom and our plans changed some and we didn’t have time to make cookies that day. I was so set on making cookies that the next morning I got up at 6am and made cookies before anyone else got up. It wouldn’t have really been an issue except I managed to scratch my mom’s really nice Teflon tray in every spot a cookie was baked. It was my first lesson in learning to control the Type A in me when appropriate.
As a mother I still sometimes find myself having a goal in mind. Not surprisingly, my kids are not always aligned with that goal and stress between us all increases for sure.
I once reserved a cabin near a small local ski resort with this strong hope of having all my kids learn to ski. It’s an activity I loved as a kid and I wanted to share that love with my kids. I had planned the location out well based on all of our past attemps (the word failure sometimes feels more accurate). It was a small resort so no one would get lost as we were trying to accommodate three different speeds and mind sets. We could get to the resort easily with no stress every morning, eliminating a potential tough long drive with tired kids in the morning. And as luck would have it, there was TONS of snow. Everything here screamed success to get my kids on skis and loving it.
As luck would have it there was so much snow that as soon as we arrived at the cabin my kids ran off in their snow boots exploring. I was ecstatic at the prospect of skiing in feet and feet of fresh snow. My fantasies of my kids being my sidekicks at ski resorts brought such delight.
My kids on the other hand were completely content making snow angels and snowmen. They explored all around running and jumping in snow and found a big hill of snow courtesy of the snowplows. Sitting 10 feet high on snow looking down my kids were giddy. They started building a Star Wars themed environment when I finally pulled them in for the night. The following morning we had breakfast and the kids were eager to head back to their fort. Thinking I would let them play for a few hours and get them to the lifts, I started to realize that they were in heaven. All three kids were completely into fort building. They played together without a single fight and I found myself sitting on a ship they made me fighting bad guys. Even the staff came out and provided more tools for them to build even more.
I realized while my dream was to get them skiing, they were having a blast in the snow. And maybe that was even better than having to pay for ski tickets. That trip is still a strong memory for my kids and we return to the cabin yearly. We’ve never had as much snow fall and there has never been a fort to play in. I went with their passion on this trip and they learned to love the snow. We’re sad when we don’t see the fort because there isn’t enough snow but now the joy of the ski slopes awaits them. So after breakfast we gear up and head to the lifts.
