How to get punctual without being rushed?
The children are the mirror in which parents see themselves reflected: in the good and in the bad. That's what happened to me when, a while ago, my daughters played dolls and exercised as imaginary moms. I was listening to them from a distance and they kept repeating: "Come on, come on, come on, come on late!" I apologize for the repetition of exclamation marks but I want to emphasize the hysterical, almost squeaky tone with which my daughters blurted out their dolls that arrived late at the imaginary school.
Since little girls do not usually know too much about punctuality, I gathered that this was nothing more than a perfect copy of what, morning after morning, they heard their screaming mother. I did a deep examination of conscience that helped me to realize what #Bad mother I am, improve a couple of days and fall back into the error of "Come on, come on!" But we must not despair, every day we can start again and some, I do not know when, we will get out of the house clean, punctual and without shouting at each other.
What of Punctuality is a challenge because it is one of those rules of conduct that are constantly repeated throughout the day and every day of the year. You have to arrive on time to thousands of sites after having completed thousands of tasks on time and it does not seem like a simple thing. As we live stressed to nausea, we walk short of foresight. The most logical response to avoid shouting at the lack of punctuality is "do it with more time." Come now! Really? With more time? But if it is miraculous that I achieve it with the available time I have!
Because our problems with the "Come, let's go" morning are not usually because of lack of will or excess of laziness, but rather by a host of circumstances that go, from the setbacks that occurred - that cup of milk that flew at breakfast - even the nocturnal imprevisions - that backpack that was half prepared, the 'ghost shoes' that walk without feet inside "because I left them there, I swear, mom" - but it was never our will to be late.
In fact, the most obvious proof that we have tried to be punctual is that we do not usually arrive one hour late, but a few minutes late. When it is an hour late, we almost do not care because we can wield without any blush an obviously justified cause: a pipe was broken and the kitchen was flooded or the wheel of the car has been punctured. Those days "cool" because even if we arrive late we do not feel bad.
The bad ones are the others, the ones that we know would have had a solution. And the problem is that we do not realize the educational effect who has this process in our children. In the first place, the example is working regularly, pulling badly, because if parents systematically exclaim "Why do we never get punctual? Why are we always late?", Is that "always" we do the same wrong and "never" we managed to correct it.
To top, We are generating a very negative link between being punctual and being happy. Because it seems that punctuality is only composed of screams and bad faces. So anyone is encouraged to be punctual ...
For our children to want to strive to be punctual, punctuality should be something pleasant with soundtrack of singing birds and a dialogue as improbable as possible: "What a joy that today you have also washed your teeth and styled like a child Senior with enough time to put on your coat and not forget the backpack! " OK, it sounds a little unreal, but if three or four days in a row we win the ten minutes to the clock that we lack, we will have managed to be punctual without hurry and transmit a virtue that will remain for life, not to wait for the the rest.
