April 23, 2008 - With Young Children, Flexibility is the Name of the Game

A couple of weeks ago, while walking next to our neighborhood stream and noticing the trash that was tossed about, my 8 year old son said, "Hey, in a couple of weeks it's Earth Day - let's come back and clean up this stream."
"Great idea!" I said, and we planned on it. We invited friends and looked forward to a day of fun and good service.

When we woke up that day, however, it was clear that my 4 year old needed a day of "no schedule/ no plans" - just extra love from mom and go with the flow. I called our friends to let them no that we needed to readjust things. It is my belief that a person's needs are more important than a person's schedule. Now there are times when sticking to a schedule is necessary, but when we can be flexible, I am, and I put the emotional needs of my children first. This was one of those times.

My older kids decided that afternoon that they would clean up the trash along the busy street next to our house. They got their trash bags and off they went on an adventure to make our street beautiful again. My 4 year, who was already in her footsie jammies, refused to go, when they asked her. "I just want to stay home!" she said….and so she did. She stayed inside watching them from the window. And pretty soon, this watching turned into great curiosity and this great curiosity turned into a desire to do.
So off my 4 year old went - garbage bag in hand and footise jammies on - hunting the street for trash.

We walked along the busy road at 3pm while other families looked onward as they picked their kids up from the nearby school…and my kids were having a blast. My 4 year old delighted as she saw a Coke can or a Big Mac wrapper - "I found more trash, Mommy!" she said as she proudly added them to her bag that was growing to be as big as her. My eight and six year old of course were off in their own worlds climbing under bushes and trees reaching for Burger King bags and Jack Daniels bottles. "Why do people do this Mom? Why would anyone do this?" my son asked.
"Because some people don't know how to love the world and the earth well," I said. "But we do and WE CAN and that's what we're doing this right now." My son nodded his head. He understood and he kept on his hunt, with a smile on his face.

We were flexible that day with our plans - and that flexibility brought us lots of joy and unexpected happenings. Perhaps if we had gone to the park, my 4 year old would have been yelling the whole time that she wanted to go home and it wouldn't have been fun for any of us. Yet because she felt that her needs were honored, she chose to jump in on the fun - in her jammies- and had a great time. Perhaps if we had friends with us there, my son and I wouldn't have had the one on one meaningful conversation that we did. And perhaps if we went to the park, the traffic onlookers would not have been blessed by the sight of my children. Perhaps in some of them who were rushing by to pick up their children from school, a seed was planted…a thought about kids running around freely, making a difference, or an idea of something to do with their own children. Whatever it was, being flexible is good. With young children, we are called to this flexibility and to be open to the fruits that come because of it.